Napping in the Eye of the Hurricane

My apologies for any perceived neglect on my part. Really, I had no intention of blogslacking. But you see, between the primary job (where there's been a lot of work to do, which inhibits blogging), the second job (where I'm on my feet behind a computer-less counter, or weaving through a crowd with a bag of trifles, hence unavailable for blogging) or rehearsal (where I'm leaping about naked--sometimes, anyway--squawking, hissing and padding around the room in imitation of the cygnus buccinator, and as such am hell-and-gone from any blog-friendly environment), I just haven't been where I need to be when I need to be there to reach out to you, my friends, my other community.

So The Swan seems to be going well . . . I think. Actually, I'm pretty sure. I think. No, I'm definitely pretty sure . . . about everyone else's work. This is, of course, what every show looks like to me a week-and-a-day before opening, and I can't have sucked in ALL of those plays, or no one would cast me anymore. Right? Right?

In any case, what I fear ranges from the ludicrous (feeling too fat to pass credibly as a symbol of unbound eroticism) to the intangible (fearing that my stage listening, which felt so on a couple of days ago, but hopelessly off now; wondering if I'm finding the most useful balance between avian and human qualities) to the downright--for actors, anyway--mundane (Is this script going to be as interesting to the audience as it is to us? Am I good enough? Do I suck? Are there decent actors not doing a show right now because this bald, fat mediocrity snatched this role?).

All in all, though, the show as a whole is looking pretty good. We'll see come next Friday . . . I sorta wish this press release didn't make for such a set up. Referring to my "remarkable physical" performance is gonna make for some serious sting if or when my performance turns out to be less than remarkable. That said, the press release is lovely and should generate interest.

I've been chanting a good deal recently. There are many reasons I'm still hesitant to fully adopt Buddhism--true ambinalence about the appropriation of eastern ideas for western purposes, profound misgivings about any assertion that essence precedes existence, a fairly nihilistic position of the character of essential nature--but the mindfulness I see emerging in myself is undeniable. I think I'll need to study further to reconcile these matters, which means that I'll probably just have to keep chanting without fully accepting until such time as study of anything--martial arts, philosophy, etc.--is actually possible. More details on that as time permits.

In the meantime, forward on all matters . . .

Funny Thing, That . . .

I've started rehearsals for The Swan. Boy, oh, boy, this is gonna be an interesting one. This may be one of those scripts that's more interesting to actors than to audience, but then again . . . Well, all I can say is, it fuses pathos, violence, humor, eroticism and surreal fantasy more pointedly and unabashedly into beauty and poetry than anything in which I've performed recently. So I'm pretty damn excited.

Other than that, all I've got are some little observations:

When you try to cut down on the number of weekdays on which you drink coffee, the weekdays on which you do drink coffee find you experiencing more pointedly the drug-like effects of the beverage.

Losing weight because I wanted to appear helpless (as in Edmond) seemed to happen a lot more easily than losing weight because I'm going to be naked onstage and don't want love handles (as with The Swan). You'd think the powers that be could throw my vain-insecurity/insecure-vanity a little bone. Geez.

My ankles hurt for how "on-our-toes" our finances, a patchwork of my many hours of low pay and 'Stine's many hours of indefinitely delayed pay applied to mountains of debt so outstanding I frequently forget who all needs to get paid, keep us.

Talking to Mormon visiting teachers after drinking a pitcher of stout with a friend at Six Arms is pretty amusing. Trying to execute a handstand as they're walking out the door, then attempting to fall gracefully into a backbend without properly gauging the proximity of the coffee table and smashing up your shin on the descent may be equally amusing to an observer, but considerably less so to the participant.

Having a heart to heart talk with a friend who has a different perspective--or at least a receptive ear--on a painful rift with another friend who left for another city without telling you he was moving away can do wonders for a still-troubled soul.

Having a surprising and compelling heart to heart with someone you barely know via email, and having hard-won but nebulously defined insights vindicated in the process, works similar wonders.

LOST seems to dole new episodes out at a rate of one every, like, 3 weeks, and it's starting to piss me off. Someone needs to write those cats and say, "Look, dudes, your show's cool; but you've got to look at 24 if you wanna see how a season should be run."

OK, that's all. I just mocked some people last week for blogslacking, and didn't want to be a hypocrite. I'm sure I'll have something more interesting to say once the show opens. Oh, and that's April 7th, for those in the area and/or those who want to get to the area. Stine's show opens a couple weeks after that, so a late month visit could equal a weekend of much theatrical goings on (and any and all attendant misbehaviour!!).