Asterisk and Octothorpe

Never Swim Alone/The Dumb Waiter = Success!

2011-02-07T01:51:00.000-07:00

And a notable mention in the UVU review!

A period-piece for the dot-com generation:

2010-11-08T08:50:00.000-07:00

She Stoops to Conquer! at UVU opens in three weeks.
Get your tickets now. Seriously. We've got a short run and you don't want to miss this show.

trying to say more with less

2010-09-17T04:16:00.001-06:00

1-Our fictions are only as interesting as the possible truths behind them.

2-"The strength of the character's wants equals the strength of the play." (Frank Hauser)

3-First, there's the loss of naivete. Of realizing that so many hopes and and perceptions were so different from reality. Realizing your parents are flawed human beings too. That the person you'll marry won't be everything and more, but also human and imperfect. That no matter how hard you try, you'll never be able to always be happy and have everything you want all the time.
And then you move on. And realize that you don't really need those things. That life is glorious even with all it's imperfections and disappointments amidst the occasional triumph.
Things become even better then.
This is gratitude: realizing the true value of things without comparing them endlessly to the mint-condition gold standard ideal. Loving in spite of imperfection

4-There's never enough time. And that's ok.

Helen's Harp

2010-09-05T02:56:00.001-06:00

'Ten o'clock at night?' she exclaimed.
It had long since gotten dark.
'I see lights over there, and a darkness over there. And when you stand between me and the light, I can almost see your shadow'
Her eyes were silver and unseeing, catching the glint of the chandelier above. She sat in her silk white night gown and a whiter terry robe untied loosely round her waist. Her frizzy hair was a grey halo flaming off her scalp, and when she looked at me, she looked both far beyond and yet no farther than the insides of her eyes.
I handed her the autoharp, and she became the vision of a perfect fiery seraphim waiting on the edges of this world.
Her blind fingers touched the air gingerly, looking for the keys as she softly strummed away. The notes were distant and tinny.
'It has such a gentle sound'
and sometimes when she closed her eyes, I couldn't tell if she was sleeping or not.
'I keep them closed so much now' she said. 'I can't see with them open anyway, and it helps with the dryness'. She had lived her entire life in a desert.
But as she told us stories of travels and family, childhood and motherhood, her eyes would dart back and forth, scan the horizon--visions of a distant life sprang up on the canvas of her inner eye.
She was strumming so softly we could barely hear, but the notes were perfect until we put the harp away.

Offerings

2010-09-04T02:35:00.002-06:00

Every night, after everyone has gone to sleep, I am still awake. I am a hunter and I hunt alone.
I slip quietly out the back door and the night is dark and cool and filled with the throbbing sounds of chanting crickets.
I slink out into the shadows and keep my head low.
It's there in the blackest blackness that I wait and listen.
Cars off in the distance.
Neighbors watching tv next door.
And then...a faint rustling in the leaves. A scampering through the grass and a brief flash of beady eyes.
My gently curving spring-loaded spine uncoils as I fly forward, grasping palms extended as I leave the ground.
Contact. Claws sink silently.
I've got it in my hands, then by the neck in my teeth. It stops twitching after a few shakes, and I saunter back to the porch.
I'll leave it, fully intact, on the doormat.
A thank you.
A "you feed me, I'll feed you" gesture.
But I know it still will be there in the morning. My gifts are never good enough.
A bigger one will come out in the morning, I'll slink inside the door, pretending not to watch for her reaction. But really, I'll be spying through the corner of my pale slit eyes as the long-maned one twists and stretches her mouth and closes the door in a huff.
It still will be there in the morning and I'll pretend to be aloof.
So now I'll sulk off into the night again to wait and watch and pounce and prey until I get a second for myself.
My gifts are always good enough for me.

Look and Listen

2010-09-03T18:00:00.001-06:00

'Audience' comes from the latin verb 'audiere' meaning 'to hear'.
Also from latin is 'spectat', meaning 'to look', which gave rise to 'spectators'.

Re-Emergence

2010-09-02T18:00:00.001-06:00

It's high time things started being said around here. Again.
De-Hiatus commencing.

--Hiatus--

2010-07-17T04:15:00.000-06:00

The author is gone to the UK for a month.
And no, he probably won't be telling you anything about it here, because he'll be out there living it.

Recounts may appear at a later date. No guarantees.

no one got the mail today

2010-07-10T13:10:00.000-06:00

During the show rumbles overhead.
coming out of the blackbox
purple shifting skies catch yellow distant lights and
flash quiet far-off thunder.

Walking in the front door
coming home that's only sometimes home
wondering if I'll ever come back to myself
My brother plays softly stroking strumming guitar.
Parents' bedroom door open across the hall--no one to wake up inside
The room is empty.

I open the front door, then the back, to let more sky inside my house.
It's brighter at night. Cleaner, the sky.
and walk out onto the driveway picking up the mail.
Two-thirty am and there's a cricket in the garden, just one. Doing his own thing.
Singing louder than the others--soloist performance. Midnight arias wistful and alone.
Reach inside the dark mail box my fingers find nothing.
Walk back beneath the fruiting trees and smash purple berries underfoot, grinding seeds and juice into
purple stained pavement.

The mail never came today, that's just the kind of day it was.
But the night air after the rain was sweet cedar and rose dew drops, summer honey and sleeping breeze.
(I used to run to the mailbox everyday, heart pounding in my throat, hoping against hope.)

This morning
woke up early to find the front door still wide open
and no one had come home.

Never too late.

2010-07-09T18:00:00.001-06:00

For regrets.

Sounds Carry Uphill

2010-07-08T18:00:00.001-06:00

And in the midst of a crowd it can be hard to hear yourself think.

A red toy airplane buzzing overhead
Frisbee right behind us.
Soccer. Scene change. And the jets roar by.
Fireworks make me five again. White weeping willows in the sky.

I ran across the field, thinking they were over, only to find myself driving away from the finale.

(It wasn't ever me)

2010-07-07T18:00:00.001-06:00

And please don't tell anyone.
You'd never forgive me if you did.

Performing in Front of a Fountain

2010-07-06T18:00:00.001-06:00

Golden yellow cream sun sunlight
lights up the backdrop
Backstage we see everything that's happening on.
Shadows of shadows.
Tybalt's death in paper cut-out shadow puppets
Dancing on the wall
and when you look through the slit in the curtain there's a golden glowing stripe on your face
and the fountain is spouting sunfire and sparkling bullion
spilling liquid light
that's soaking over everything.
Lights like this don't fade into the evening--
they just bounce and reflect up and off into the sky forever:
The sun behind the fountain.

There's Nothing Left to Burn

2010-07-05T18:00:00.002-06:00

She put her hands gingerly on his back.
They stared up at the stars and all of them were moving like fireflies. Satellites.
Then they realized that the clouds were moving--Chess pieces. Dragons and ducks in the night sky.
Why didn't anything feel? We gave up and sang drinking songs.

I've Always Felt Guilty Doing What I've Loved

2010-07-04T18:00:00.001-06:00

"The goals of art are incommensurate (as mathematicians say) with social goals. The goal of the artist is not to solve a question irrefutably, but to force people to love life in all its innumerable, inexhaustible manifestations. If I were told that I could write a novel in which I should set forth the apparently correct attitudes toward all social questions, I would not devote even two hours of work to such a novel, but if I were told that what I shall write will be read in twenty years by the children of today and that they will weep and smile over it and will fall in love with life, I would devote all my life and all my strengths to it."

--Tolstoy

Lost and

2010-07-03T18:00:00.002-06:00

1- Wallet: (twice)
incl. Driver's License, Credit Card, Student ID, Frequent Fritter card from Bruges, Picture of You (x2)

2- Keys
(always)

3- Glasses
(sometimes)

4- Direction
(still looking)

Now That We've Broken Up, I No Longer Feel Intimidated by Your Ex

2010-07-02T18:00:00.001-06:00

"The poet takes the best things out of his life and puts them into his work. Hence his work is beautiful and his life bad."

--Tolstoy

The End of the Season this Summer

2010-07-01T18:00:00.001-06:00

Within the next week I'll have three projects up:
--Grassroots Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet--Actor, Producer
--Noorda Summer Camp: The Secret Life of Girls--Director
--Edinburgh Fringe Fest Preview: Rappaccini's Daughter--Director, Co-Writer

I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to do each of these projects--each one was a totally lucky break and I felt like I had won the lottery when I got each job. Now that the end is in sight for all three, I'm beginning to worry that lightning rarely strikes twice. Famine mentality sets in even while the meal is still on the table.

On 15 Days Gone By

2010-06-30T18:00:00.002-06:00

John drank a gallon of barium and I had to float the class twice.
Katie Sue tore her ACL doing the Julie Olsen.
Clark left for London.
Daniel's coming too.
I don't come over for the movies.
Kyle said my show should have been called "Lil Bitches".
That made me mad.
Andrew kissed the pavement. Road rash hickies everywhere. Love hurts.
I never sleep at night.
Anton said I was his favorite.
Jess and Nick are delights.
Porter's doing well.
Scott is full of wisdom (especially with children).
Liz has got a nue gig.
We all wish Daniel was getting paid more.
Deep down inside, I'm a terrible, terrible friend. (most of the time)

Lachrymosa

2010-06-16T02:51:00.001-06:00

Perfection. Absolution. Exaction.

Grassroots Growing!

2010-06-15T03:11:00.000-06:00

We got a great review from Utah Theatre Bloggers Association!

Check it out!

Words Are Powerful

2010-06-14T01:49:00.000-06:00

They can mean a lot.

Garabedian

2010-06-07T18:00:00.011-06:00

“Your style was kind of astonishing”
said Jameson.
"It was never there in the notebook at all"
he replied.
And Jameson thought back the the large desk Paul had kept in his office at NYU. The large desk that was entirely bare except for when Garabedian sat behind it feverishly plotting away in the small 4x6 notebook.
"That notebook was just somewhere for me to hold it, to keep it tied down so it wouldn't blow away until I'd put it all together. Good ideas are like kites--they want to take off without you, and unless you keep them under your thumbs til they're ready, you'll have a mess of string up in the trees before you now it and you'll be wondering how the whole thing got up there in the first place."

Grassroots Opening

2010-06-07T06:00:00.001-06:00

Really I thrive under stressful conditions. Do my best work when things are tight.
Had a blast performing with Grassroots on Friday. Everyone was late, half the cast lacked the foresight to realize that there would be nowhere to change into costume at the festival. I got lost. Everyone got lost. There was nowhere to park. It was noisy. It was hot, then overcast, then the wind picked up and blew our set over before we had even started. They were giving helicopter rides a few blocks away.
But
It was magical, the fading blue evening light pierced by twirling orange-yellow carnival rides, our cast holding the ladders against the wind and learning to project over the gale--demanding to be heard amidst the rush and competing attractions. Dan dressed as the Nurse, playing accordion. Trevor's pinstripe Mercutio perched on the top of a ladder waving red feather-boa from the top of his cane, drawing the crowd like pied piper. Small children peering up at Juliet in her balcony, Romeo holding his cordial against the elements.
"Go hence to have more talk of these sad things"
We did our jig and went our way.
Nothing went right; everything was perfect.

Thunderous Eagle

2010-06-06T18:00:00.003-06:00

looming over the mountain--wanted to see it's talons flash
nick the peak with lightning claws.
But it circled until after sunset
(beating great purple feathered wings and swirling leaves and midnight and gardens below)
What a wingspan.

(at times with fists)

2010-06-05T03:13:00.000-06:00

In the midst of it all, they kept looking up, wondering what came next. And something always did.

Cockle Burrs

2010-06-04T18:00:00.001-06:00

Only stick to you because they want to go somewhere
--Wandering hearts with clinging spikes.
and
I'm far too young to be bitter
and just old enough not to not be.
So next time it rains and you watch for the worms to surface and seek refuge on the sidewalk, please save one there for me--not a worm, but a glance up at the sky as you wince to keep the raindrops out with your pretty eyelashes.

(That crashing of glass is, in reality, the sound of my heart)

2010-06-03T18:00:00.002-06:00

She leaned in and whispered something so sweetly, not even he could hear her. And then, half asleep, he dreamed that she was someone else.

Tiger Hearts

2010-06-02T18:00:00.001-06:00

This will make you bleed. Not blood--but sweat and tears. Sweat and tears that are the lifeblood of perseverance. Or something like that. And no one will remember. Not even you.

Evidence of Your Creative Life

2010-06-01T18:00:00.004-06:00

I.
As I was looking over grad school admission requirements a few months ago, I was amazed at the variation in selection methods and processes.
One school simply asked applicants to:
"Be prepared to show evidence of your creative life"
That phrase has stuck with me over the past several months as I ponder what I could bring as evidence.
Theatre is in so many ways fleeting and ethereal--how do you capture something that's only meant to happen once? Everything a director does in hindsight appears as shadows and echoes.

II.
It's all about the process I suppose. While I cannot show you footage of what it looked like to see a flower in my garden bloom, I could probably tell you about all the watering and weeding I did to help encourage it's growth. These are things a gardener knows well, and should have no trouble explaining and practicing.
If I planned ahead, I could probably document the various stages of a flower's development, and I might be able to capture some of the experience through pictures, or even a video clip. But the fact remains that none of those things will be quite the same as actually seeing the beauty of a flower firsthand. Of feeling the velvet of it's petals, smelling it's perfume, or watching the way a honeybee might emerge from it dusted in yellow flecks of pollen. Trying to capture any of these things would result in a less than genuine understanding.

III.
But that's the trick of theatre anyway, isn't it? And isn't that precisely what a good director aims to do? The actors in Cherry Orchard are not really in Russia, nor have they ever existed in any part of the time period in which the play takes place, but all the same, if the production is successful, the audience might be persuaded that these things could be. That is how we are creative. We engage the imagination of the audience to the point of belief and wonder.

IV.
In the end, presenting convincing evidence of a life (creative or otherwise) is the ultimate aim of a theatrical experience.

Symphonic Acting?

2010-05-31T18:00:00.001-06:00

Directing actors is much more like conducting an orchestra than it is like producing a painting.
I have considered before the idea that actors are like paintbrushes: They must absorb the right color and work in concert with with one another to produce harmonious color schemes.They must be placed on the right locations on the canvas and with just the right technique to create the lines and shapes that compose the work.
But actors are not like paintbrushes, because while an artist holds a paintbrush in his hand and controls his instrument's every movement, a director does not. A puppeteer might, but a good director does not.
An orchestra conductor has before him a recipe for action--the score, just as a director has the script.
But many of the similarities end here. A conductor has a set number of musical instruments and understands the demands and limitations of each, the variation is controlled and well-defined according to the specifications of, for example, a concert violin.
A director must work with a very different set of instruments: Living, breathing, singularly unique, human Actors.
The seemingly infinite and limitless variety of human physicality and personality creates an entirely new set of challenges and potential for complexity.
While any performance of an orchestral piece will be unique and somewhat variable in execution, it is usually immediately clear as to whether or not the piece was performed as intended. Substituting electric guitars for the violin section would be a clear departure from most classical pieces.
And here's where things get interesting in term of looking at this metaphor of actors as instruments. Sometimes you find that the violins don't always want to be violins. The violins decide that they'd rather be trombones, and insist on trying to play the trombone parts. Or they decide that violins best know how loud the violins should play a section and proceed to ignore the conductor's direction by taking things up an octave and increasing the volume by 50 decibels. And sometimes the members of an orchestra show up with an instrument that's out of tune and expect you to ignore the fact that it's out of tune. Or worse, it might be missing strings and the conductor is expected to re-arrange the piece to accommodate for the limited range.
Would this EVER happen in a real orchestra? No, of course not.
But does it happen in the theatre? Yes. All the time. Especially as actors and directors are training and developing an understanding of this complex system.
But is there beauty and potential in that? Absolutely. An instrumental solo can be played with varying level of proficiency, and in the hands of a master, will also include some degree of nuanced interpretation and variation, but when it comes down to it, you only have a set number of variable to work with--tone, dynamics, tempo.
But how many ways are there to play Hamlet? The possibilities are endless.
When dealing with living, feeling, sensitive actors as instruments in the creation and exhibition of a work of art, things become much more interesting.

More Worth than Many Sparrows

2010-05-30T18:00:00.000-06:00

It was autumn.
The sun sparkled across the tumbling current in the overflow canal behind the factory.
He had been told never to go near the treacherous waters, and up until today, had never been tempted. That changed as soon as he saw the break in the fence. The opening snipped in the chainlink was just big enough for a young boy with a sense of adventure to weasel through, his cotton jacket only snagging a little as pulled his scrawny frame through the gap . The raft was harder to coax through the fence. He was careful not to let the jutting wire ends scar the half-inflated rubber skin of the bulging inner-tube.
Now he stood on the edge of the concrete river, surprised at how quick the dark water was, and yet so quiet. It's black snake body hardly made a sound as it squirmed through the deep white trough.
He would be fine once he got down into the water. It would be fun. He would ride his little makeshift raft all the way to the lake. It was getting down to the water that would be the scary part. The sides of the canal were steep and it was a good six or seven feet down to the water's surface.
He sat down on the edge and let his feet over the side first. There was barely enough of a slope to stand on, and he began scooting down towards the water while pulling the edge of his small raft behind him in one hand, and using the other to keep his balance on the steep incline.
He tried to move the raft down in front of him and made it nearly three feet from the water's edge before slipping and plunging hands-out face first into the deep current. The splash was louder and colder than he could have imagined, and then everything was instantly muted again as sank and tumbled. He gasped and struggled against the swift flow of the dark water pulling him down and pushing him along. Air, and more splashing, and flailing. His head slipped under as he lost his grip on the tube--it felt slippery in his hands and flipped over every time he tried to get his weight on top of it. It wasn't long before his clothes felt heavy and his limbs began to shake in the cold water. His fingertips were white and trembling as he clenched his hands into the rubber of the raft. The canal made a series of bends and he scrambled to grab onto the steep banks as he passed, but the concrete sides denied any holds and the water pushed him along faster and faster and threatened to tear him from the raft. It was in these moments that he thought not of his mother and her warnings, or of his father and the trouble he would be in, or even of how much he had wanted to impress his brother by proving to him that he was big enough not to be left out of all the fun. It was in these moments, as he approached the culvert pipe, that he thought of the little yellow birds that had built a nest outside his window. He remembered the chick that had fallen from the tree and how his featherless frame had scuttled and spasmed in the grass before the night came and he grew silent in the cold.
Again, the rushing current sucked him under and into the maw of the pipe; his raft popping from his hands as the water pulled him deeper.
In the darkness, he saw the yellow bird with the black wingtips and scruff of orange on it's forehead flitting back and forth from the treetops to the bushes near the ground. It landed on his window sill to share a mouthful of carefully gathered seeds.
What was it's name?
Do birds have names?
Does God, who knows when every sparrow falls, give them each a name because they are his own?
In slow motion he saw every wingbeat as the little yellow-orange bird bent his knees to launch from the sill, the outline of his black tipped wings forming perfect v's as he raised and lowered them above his back. The bird pulled his legs in close to his body floated into the open air.
He watched the bird fly slowly away from his window, and suddenly night was falling. Everything dimming into dusky blue until he could just barely make out a faintly bobbing yellow beacon against the night horizon. And then there was no horizon, and no bird, and everything was quiet.

Good Friends around the Fire

2010-05-29T18:00:00.001-06:00

My brother Andrew brought his guitar to the park for our rehearsal, even though he feels self-conscious about playing for strangers--because he's my brother and we do those sorts of things for each other.
Jordan came to the park even though it was really cold to support the show.
We all decided to go visit Daniel while he was tending Rocklyn.
As soon as we got to Daniel's house, Becca turned right around to go pick Liz up at the theatre even though we had just come from there.
Daniel watched the baby while Liz was at rehearsal. The baby threw up on him three times and he still loves her and he still loves Liz.
Matt and Amy and Jess and Nick and Dan and Kyle and Andrew and Becca and I all sat around the firepit in Dan's backyard until it was after midnight and the marshmallows were gone and our eyes were teary from smoke and laughing and after the chocolate on Becca's dress was found by taste-test to be less hershey, more bat, and after Kyle lamented reaching the ripe antiquity of twenty-two, and Andrew had played all the songs that needed to be played, we piled in the truck and drove home before the full moon had risen too high in the early summer sky.
And meanwhile, Robbie, Erin, and Eric drove all night long so they could be back with us by morning to finish the show.
These are the people I am glad to know.

Crickets

2010-05-28T18:00:00.001-06:00

If anything is beautiful in the world, it is the sound of crickets strumming the songs of summer.

Consciousness

2010-05-27T18:00:00.002-06:00

"That man who does not live in awe of something outside himself is dead. The experience of drama is one of those moments in which a human being sits in awe, wonder, and admiration of something outside of self."

--William Ball, A Sense of Direction

Revelations

2010-05-26T06:00:00.002-06:00

Brain is fried.
Today was way too long. One of those "day late and a dollar short" days.
Everything worked out in the end--and writing that I realize that it does in fact almost always work out. (when has it not!?)
Three of our actors in Grassroots are stranded in California. Things will work out though. The show always goes on.
Finally have a stage manager for Secret Life.
Can't wait to get cracking on Rappaccini. Can't wait to get to London.
Bill Ball quote floating around my head the past several days: "A thing becomes beautiful because of the possibility of it's absence." Or something along those lines. I love that concept. I think it's true and beautiful.
But does that mean, conversely, that a thing can become less beautiful because of the possibility of it's presence?

The Snowbank Shakespeare Co.

2010-05-25T18:17:00.002-06:00

The year I graduated from high school, May was warm and gorgeous.

I remember nights under the stars when we'd sit out in the park until after midnight talking about the future and all the plans we did or didn't have. After our all-night graduation party we watched the sunrise and then went for a morning swim in Brandon's pool. That's how warm it was.
It is once again that same time of May, but yesterday morning, everyone in the valley woke to a white slushy blanket of snow.
My first thoughts on looking out the window: 'How are we going to rehearse in this?'
This time last year, the Grassroots Shakespeare Company was just beginning it's brief but intensive rehearsal process--just eight days of evening rehearsals to stage an entire show.
This year we've gotten a head start and are nearly finished with an equally intensive process. But one that has been much, much colder as well.
We've rehearsed and performed in rain, wind, and some fairly chilly evenings, but never in the snow.
By the time evening rolled around, most of the snow had melted in an equally bizarre afternoon of shifting clouds and sunlight. We arrived at the park to find another bizarre scene. Most of the leafy, well-manicured trees in the park looked as though they'd been harrassed by Godzilla. Big chunks of elm and oak and maple were strewn in every direction, giant limbs ripped from their trunks by the weight of the late, heavy snow.
After we'd been rehearsing in the chilly night air, all of us freezing, I looked up, shivering, and said: 'Why aren't we burning the trees?!'
And there was no good answer. We collected a small pile of downed branches, stripped off their wet leaves, and then fed them slowly into a small fire we made in one of the barbecue units near the pavillion. It smoked and smoldered at first, but after serving the infant fire an appetizer of past term papers and last semester's handouts, it grew more hungry and able to consume the meaty twigs we gave it.
Our hands now warmed, we went back to our make-shift stage and finished blocking the epilogue of Romeo and Juliet.

Lunch with Clyde and Helen

2010-05-24T17:28:00.003-06:00

The four of us, sitting down to lunch. My brother, my grandparents, myself.
Helen is blind now:
'Everything is blacker than black' she says. 'Except when there's some light. I can still see where the lights are'.
Clyde is more radically liberal than most of the twenty-somethings I know. He explains to us the history of racial oppression and then progress he's seen in his lifetime.
Helen talks about our microscopic size in the cosmos, and how beautiful our little sphere is.
Andrew responds: 'And wouldn't it be a shame, knowing that we are so rare in the universe, that this might be the only place in the vast expanses of space where such creatures speak to one another, and connect, and can even contemplate the fragility of their existence, if we were to destroy each other?

Praise whatever is there. Whatever is there is praiseworthy.

2010-05-23T18:00:00.002-06:00

"The artist is a person whose business in life is to praise. Artists discover the wonders of nature and we call attention to those wonders. The theatre artist gathers people into a dark room and says to them, 'Look what we've discovered. Isn't this admirable? Isn't this wonderful? Isn't this awesome? Isn't this amazing?' An artist is someone who draws attention to what is praiseworthy in the Universe."

--William Ball, A Sense of Direction

The 6 O'Clock News

2010-05-22T18:00:00.001-06:00

I've made a decision and set a goal.
There are a lot of good things in the world that are worth talking about, and I'd like to make it my business to talk about them. There's this quote from William Ball in his book "A Sense of Direction" where he talks about the artist's whole purpose being to seek out the best things in life and champion them. He says the artist must find out what is good and worthwhile and share those things with the world. He goes on to say that this is especially the job of the director to attach himself to works that he can be passionate about, to share with actors the beauty and fragility of everything, and convey to the audience those wordless mysteries that can only be known through the catharsis of shared experience.
So if I am going to be an effective and passionate director, then I had better become pretty good at communicating beauty.
And so, I have set a goal: Every day at 6pm I will post about something in the world that I find interesting, thought-provoking, beautiful or otherwise worth sharing.
So I'll make a deal with you: you be my audience, and I'll do my best to make checking back here everyday worth your while. Deal? Alright.
Now go away and come back tomorrow.

Resolutions

2010-05-21T11:51:00.000-06:00

I'm back! After four months of hopping state lines and living in roadside hotels, I'm finally home again.
I've actually been home for nearly a month now, but I'm only just beginning to feel like I'm back. Like I'm rooted and making connections again.
Touring was good for me. It taught me a lot about myself and what I'm capable of. It made me desperately anxious to finish college. Having an actual, honest-to-goodness, legitimate paying job in theatre put to rest a lot of fears and reservations I've had about going into the arts. Sure, it's a risk. Sure, not many people can make a living from it. But spending four months with nine other people that are actually making it work was really eye opening. And empowering. It's actually possible. You can actually make a living doing what you love. I don't know if I've ever believed that before because I know very few people that make it happen. Now that I've seen it, I can believe it. I feel I can move forward with confidence in the direction of my choosing. I will no longer wonder: "What am I going to do with a theatre degree?" Because the answer is simple: Theatre. I will use my theatre degree for what it was intended: working in theatre.

Glass Houses For Rent!

2010-04-28T08:00:00.001-06:00

Just a stones' throw away.

Often Things Are Better Left Unsaid

2010-04-27T08:00:00.002-06:00

I wonder if baby chicks ever decorate the insides of their shells before they realize it's all going to crumble around them?

I don't want to be back from tour. At least now I know that jobs exist out there that I could enjoy doing. I'm subbing as a tracker at Dixon this week, and while it's only a measly four hours a day, those four hours will feel at least twice as long as a full twelve-hour work day on tour. Turns out jobs don't always have to feel excruciatingly mind-numbing to be classified as work.
I'm looking for a car. A cheap one. Preferably a working one, though I will accept slightly busted.

Summer is coming, or already here, depending on which scale you use. According to the school scale, Summer has arrived for the cougars, and will arrive soon for the UVUers this week. My sister in High School will not see summer for another month. Of course the only true measure of Summer commencement is the signal from a chorus of crickets that is yet to tune their instruments this year.

What goes around, comes around. Over and over again. And again and again.

I moved back into my parents house for the Summer. Or at least for the part of the Summer that I'll be here. I moved back into my old bedroom that I haven't lived in since high school. It's a nice room, the only room that's ever really been my room.

Do you think chickens ever realize that they're never going to fly the coop? Or do they always keep hoping for something better? Do they know that anything out there is better?

Allergies in full swing. Nose versus Nature. Nature always wins.

Anna came back from India. She's really tan. I can't tell if it's from India, or from tanning since she's been back. She seems happier. She's moving to Salt Lake this week. I'm jealous.

Can chickens really run around with their heads cut-off? Could I run around with my head cut-off? Do chickens' heads realize they've become detached?

I think my brother was upset that I left him for four months on tour. I would feel the same way if he had left me with that apartment all to myself. I feel bad about that. I love my brother. I need to make it up to him.

Who are you? What are you doing here? Why are you reading this?

Do chickens know that they're chickens? If not, what do they know?

My grandmother's blindness has affected her memory. She's come unstuck in so many ways--she asked me twice what month it was. She used to tell me the same stories over and over again in detail, her eyes darting back and forth scanning the intricacies of her inner imagery. Now she tells the same stories, but without any detail. Her eyes are clouded with cataracts. At least she still knows who I am. I still love to be with her. Her soft, knobby, leather hands are still the same. Still hold mine just the way they did when I was four years old.

Do dreams happen in real time, or faster than real time? Up to one third of your life is spent sleeping. If I live to be 90 years old, I will sleep for 30 years.

Wouldn't it be great if you could program your dreams? Like popping a dvd into a dreamplayer that would let you live out an alternate reality in your sleep. Or at the very least a book on tape. There's a lot you could learn in 30 years of dreaming if you could remember any of it.

I wonder if my grandma remembers what I look like?

I watched part of a show on the Discovery channel with Stephen Hawking talking about different ways to time travel. If you orbit a black hole in a spaceship, time will move slower for you than for everyone else in the universe.

My sister tried to tell me that chai was herbal tea. "Well it's made out of plants, isn't it?" Yes, it is, along with Coca leaves and Hemlock, which also make excellent herbal teas I hear. Everything that's natural is good for you.

I ate leftover chicken for dinner. It was dry, but had buffalo sauce on the side, which made it more bearable. What is it about that sauce that makes it buffalo? Did people ever eat actual buffalo with that sauce? Wikipedia says that buffalo sauce is named after Buffalo, New York where it originated. Wikipedia answers so many questions and destroys so many beautiful mysteries.

I saw Dan and Liz on Sunday. Rocklyn is teething. That's one thing I'm glad we get out of the way before we start remembering things. Can you imagine how traumatizing it would be to experience that as an adult? Especially if you didn't expect it and had no idea what was happening to you. Although, I suppose that's really a lot what puberty is like.

Standing in line at the Hollywood Video going out of business sale:
Cashier: You got some good ones. And a lot of them for almost nothing--nice work.
Guy: Yeah, I totally did. It's always good when video stores go out of business.
Cashier: Good for you, at least.
That would be really hard to be faced with the fact that your job was terminal. Especially right now.
Cashier: Oh man, I think our printer just died.
Other Cashier: I call breaking it.
Cashier: Yeah?
Other Cashier: Yeah. With a baseball bat.

And other times, the things you think you shouldn't say out loud are just the things that should be said.

Avoidance

2010-04-18T01:27:00.000-06:00

The other day I was wasting time surfing the web and had the urge to check up on an old friend, but I couldn't remember what their blog address was. I jumped around on several other blogs I thought might link up, but still couldn't find it. While I was in the process of doing this, I remembered that I had a link to their page on my own blog, but some sort of gut reaction inside me jerked and I realized that I didn't want to visit my blog.
Then I thought: well, that's ridiculous--why would I not want to visit my own page?
But after being unable to find a link on any other pages, and giving in and visiting my own blog, I realized that it was true. I was, in fact, avoiding myself.
Why would I do that?
I feel like I'm someone who's pretty comfortable in their own skin. I do ridiculous things onstage every day on tour. Really embarrassing things, and they rarely ever even phase me anymore.
But I am an avoidist. (Yes. I did just make up that word)
If something makes me uncomfortable or creates the potential of adding stress to my life, I will go to lengths great and small to avoid it.
For most people, the definition of 'efficiency' has something to do with maximizing the amount of work you can accomplish in the least amount of time while exerting the least amount of effort.
For me, efficiency, is more about achieving the greatest amount of action while minimizing the duration and intensity of discomfort. And perhaps I just described Mill's concept of 'utility' in a twisted sort of way. Backwards.
Am I really uncomfortable with myself, and I just don't know it? Consciously, at least?
Maybe I'm just becoming less comfortable with disclosure, with the idea of putting myself out there on a digital platter for any cyber snoop to take a sniff of.
Or maybe I just don't have that same need to express myself that I used to, or maybe my expressive needs are already being met at the moment. I definitely don't write much when I'm involved in an ongoing creative endeavor.
Then why am I writing now? Sometimes I write when I'm lonely. These hotel rooms are starting to feel more and more like home. A strange home where the sheets magically change themselves everyday, where you never have to go grocery shopping or redecorate. A home where no one is ever waiting for you unless you lose your key and have to go down to the front desk to get a new one.
...
I just got off the phone and I'm lonlier now than I was before.
But really I don't think it's lonliness. I think I'm not ready for this to end. Tour has been hard, but it's been so rewarding and gratifying and met my wants and needs in so many ways. I'm not ready to go back to everything old--to my shitty overpriced apartment that is less home than this Best Western. To all the jockeying and cloying of the theatre department.
I shouldn't complain, I've got a lot of really fantastic opportunities lined up for this summer, but in some ways it all seems like a demotion. I'm not ready to come back to earth, to my old self.

Sketch: 12.28.09--The After Season

2010-02-04T15:47:00.001-07:00

Colors. Snow. Remnants of the holiday.

2.2.10 (late night in Vegas)

2010-02-02T02:06:00.000-07:00

(1)
"--and because"
those linking words.
We've got a show in the morning
and we'll drive half-asleep to the stage
smear make-up
dribble lips loosen chords limber up
(Where do we go from here?)
and I'm enjoying all of this but I feel so half-asleep
Lights lights lights
neon vegas lights
and finding my light the edges are blurry sometimes it's hard to find
She was half asleep when I called her
always on the fringes in the morning and at night we meet
across the timelines timezones time of mine
calling long-distance
she said sometimes the dyslexia makes some things better
45 or 54?
That's great. Just great. So great. Great great.
living long distance
I've been here before--and really I don't mind it
(tethered balloon keeps in contact with the ground.)
All the kids--bright kids. Good kids. Kids kids.
It's like Disneyland for wash-up kids
Caesar'sPalaceDisneyPalaceLuxorParisGrand
full of smoke and the drinking and the kinking and the girls
and the girls selling girls selling girls on the street
snapsnap"nightclub"snapsnap"specialdeal"
selling snapsnap neon lights neon shirts neon love snapsnap
(four miles south of the strip now)
SuiteEmerald. Green Carpet. No new towels. Could be worse.
Apathy incarnate. But everybody wants to feel, wants to
looking for snapsnap
snapsnap something that pops
something that's bright (snap)
that's sheen shiny shimmer shifty shining schnapp snappy
something that (snapsnap) fills the night
that feels so wrong snapsnap so right. (sna--
and it never comes. A city full of seekers looking for a deal
a real deal, a good meal, a deal deal, a budget budget scoring deal!
Airplanes overhead--circling for effect.
Jets. For a show. For us or them?
And what is this all about anyway?
We're somwhere around here--underground garage parking. there it is.

So Many Things

2010-01-24T23:23:00.000-07:00

I have no pictures for you, and for that, I apologize. Perhaps sometimes the thousand-words that a picture can convey are still not enough to do justice to the moment of a memory.
Some things in my life seem too good to be true, too sweet to be lasting:
I'm actually being paid to spend all my time in the theatre.
It's been this way for nearly a month now and I still can't quite come to grips with how good it is. The festival gave me a place to live, pays me a decent salary, adds a stipend for food, provides a car that the company shares, and picks up the tab for dinner every evening. I still can't believe it.
On top of that, my fellow actors couldn't be a more kind and considerate group of people to live and work with.
...
Grassroots held a successful workshop last Saturday, and while I was sad to be so far away, I am thrilled to hear that the show went so well, and was glad that I was able to contribute in helping with the cutting and in organizing.
I can't wait to put together a summer show with the troupe--we've got so many talented people on board and in the wings.
...
Got a call on Thursday about a job offer in June--Directing one of the shows with the Noorda Summer Program. Could not be more excited! What a great opportunity to sharpen my skills and get my feet wet.
...
Also getting more and more excited for Study Abroad in July--The Globe has a great season, and I'm eager to see what the other theatres will be offering. I'm also feeling pretty great about working with Scott on Rappacini's Daughter--our brainstorming sessions were electric. It ought to be an amazing experience--a once in a lifetime opportunity.
...
Also, I got straight A's for the first time in College at the end of last semester.
...
Writing all this makes me really nervous--everything really does sound too good to be true. I keep waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under me--can life really be this good? Am I just in some sort of crazy sweet spot in my life where I'm young and naive and nothing will ever really be this good again?

Breathe.

Game plan: Whether it lasts or not, I'll enjoy the sun while it shines.
Watch for a postcard in your mailbox.

12.29.09

2010-01-12T03:44:00.000-07:00

Post-Solstice from Asterisk and Octothorpe on Vimeo.

I am OK. My car is not.

2009-12-09T21:07:00.002-07:00

And I'm really grateful for airbags.

I was the caboose on a four car pile-up on I-15 today. The car in front of me came to a stop very quickly and three seconds later so did I. Plowed into the car in front of me at about 50 mph.

I feel lucky to have escaped virtually unscathed. Things could have been so much worse.

This Kills Me

2009-12-09T17:19:00.002-07:00

In a good way. Check it out:

silla-viento-peces from nick dangerfield on Vimeo.

Also, school is killing me.
In a bad way.

The Virtues of Brevity

2009-12-03T01:38:00.003-07:00

I'm trying to come to grips with the fact that there's never enough time to say everything I'd like to have said.
But maybe there's something beautiful about that. Maybe certain things are better left under-said, or unsaid entirely.
That way, there's always more. More to say and more to hear.
Sometimes, enough really is more than enough.

A Good Day

2009-12-02T02:51:00.002-07:00

Today, like most days in my life as of late, was a good day. Here's why:

-Directing Class: My favorite class this semester. Also, as far as performance classes go, there is usually ample opportunity for criticism and jockying--but there has been refreshingly little of that in this class. Everyone seems genuinely kind and supportive of one another's efforts. Such a great class.

-Rehearsal: With Jake Suazo, Jaclyn Hales, and Jana Grass. I have secret crushes on all of them. Awesome cast.

-Rehearsal: for 'The Dumb Waiter'. Scott is a great director and our rehearsals are always really productive. Also, acting with Josh French is a blast--I think he's sort of genius.

-Company Call: Scott Stringham and I were announced as co-recipients of the study abroad directing scholarship. We'll be collaborating on an adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story 'Rappacini's Daughter' to take to the international Fringe Festival in Edinburgh Scotland next summer. Wahoo!
Also, I officially received an Irene Ryan nomination for my role in 'Twelfth Night' last year.
Last but not least, my final project from Directing was selected as a showcase piece for Company Call. Jake, Jana, and Jaclyn brought the house down with their performance. They say 90% of a director's job is good casting, and it's absolutely true--so ultimately I feel really lucky to have such talented friends.

-Elisa: drove down from Salt Lake to see the performance at Company Call, which is really sweet considering the fact that she's in the middle of studying for finals at med school. That really meant a lot to me.

Four Seasons: After Company Call, Elisa and I went for dinner at Four Seasons Hot Pot and Dumpling. It's a little hole-in-the-wall chinese place on University, and lately, Elisa's favorite. She was really excited because the cook has been away visiting family in China for the last month or so, but has finally returned. We had our favorite: Steamed Buns--and they were delicious. Also, the fact that we're both sort of broke and that our check was only $7.46 went a long way towards making this place a continuing favorite.

All things considered, I'm a pretty lucky guy.

Sic Gloria Transit or Why I Like Wes Anderson

2009-11-28T02:10:00.002-07:00

Wes Anderson makes movies that know they're movies and aren't afraid to let you in on the secret.
I like that.
If you haven't already, get out and see Fantastic Mr. Fox. It's one of the most clever, well-crafted movies I've seen in a long time.
The writing is understated and witty, the design is impeccable, and somehow, even though they're stop-motion puppets, the characters are superbly acted--Really sort of mind-blowing.
Kudos Mr. Anderson. Now take a bow and get cracking on the next one.

Dear Glass Family: Please Invite Me To Your Next Reunion

2009-11-25T04:50:00.003-07:00

I just read that composer Phillip Glass and radio personality Ira Glass of 'This American Life' are cousins.
Who else have they got hiding out in that family tree? Buddy? Seymour? Franny and Zooey?
Was J.D. Salinger actually writing non-fiction?

Grassroots Strikes Again!

2009-11-20T13:43:00.003-07:00

SATURDAY
Nov. 21st
9 pm
Nelke Theatre--BYU
Admission: Free!

Somthing Wicked This Way Comes: Now Playing

2009-10-27T00:21:00.007-06:00

We're getting some great buzz and reviews! But don't take my word for it--Check out what the critics have to say:

In This Week

UVU Review

Daily Herald

Convinced?
Well then come see the show:

October 22-November 7, 2009
Noorda Theatre
7:30 p.m.
Midnight Shows on October 30th and 31st.

For tickets call 801-863-PLAY or

Buy Tickets Now!

Or if you're in the mood for something else, there is a lot of great Halloween theatre in the valley this year. I recommend:

Frankenstein--Mortal Fools Theatre Project at PTC

Little Shop of Horrors--Hale Center Orem

Sweeney Todd--ARTE at The Castle

See you at the show!

If We Can Build Roads and Buy Tanks, Why Can't We Buy Bandaids?

2009-09-30T11:27:00.002-06:00

You Should Have Been There

2009-09-30T10:40:00.003-06:00

For this.

Awesome and Creepy

2009-09-24T17:18:00.001-06:00

Check this out.

Public Service Announcement:

2009-09-23T00:03:00.000-06:00

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

9.22.09

2009-09-22T23:45:00.004-06:00

After so many thousands of years wandering the plains and living in huts out under open air, we have returned to the caves.
We build impossibly steep mountains and hole up in them; Stack our spaces one on top the other.
We keep out wind, rain, animals, air and even our old friend fire. Ghosts of Bon hide in flourescents, cheap incandescence; nothing to warm our darkness but the feeble zapping buzz of micro waves.
We dream of blue spark cinders--the dying of a distant flame. Only a long since memory long lost forgot. Whispers of smoke rising.

So I Might Get a lot of Flack for this...

2009-09-14T22:44:00.008-06:00

But I think it's a valid point.

"...Every half-hour.
That’s how often someone dies in America because of a lack of insurance, according to a study by a branch of the National Academy of Sciences. Over a year, that amounts to 18,000 American deaths.

After Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 Americans, eight years ago on Friday, we went to war and spent hundreds of billions of dollars ensuring that this would not happen again. Yet every two months, that many people die because of our failure to provide universal insurance — and yet many members of Congress want us to do nothing?"

That's a quote from Nick Kristof's latest editorial in the New York Times. Which you can find here in it's entirety.

Here's another gem, this one from Roger Cohen, also of the Times:

"France spends
11 percent
of its gross domestic product on health care
and insures everyone

and the United States spends
16.5 percent
of G.D.P. and leaves
20 percent of adults under 65 uninsured.

The numbers don’t lie: The U.S. system is wasteful and unjust."

The bottom line: If we were as efficient as France when it comes to health care spending, we could be saving 4% of our GDP and providing healthcare for everyone at the same time.
Now 4% may not seem like a lot, but that actually ends up being the yearly cost of our military.
So we could actually DOUBLE the size of our armed forces with those savings if we wanted to.
OR we could DOUBLE the pay for all of our dedicated men and women in the armed forces.
Now that sounds like something even a conservative could get excited about!

OR

We could continue to leave 1 out of every 5 americans without the medical attention they deserve while wasting a chunk of our national budget large enough to run the military.

10:41 pm--Corner of Stanworth and 3rd

2009-07-11T03:41:00.003-06:00

After Reynaldo died, he dreamed he was a cat.
Or rather, he dreamed that he had been a cat having a dream about being Reynaldo.
It was all very confusing, but when he woke up, he knew that something must change.
He knew this because the cat's dream of being Reynaldo had been so utterly and hopelessly boring. So boring, that even a housebroken calico, content to do nothing but lie in the sun while switching his tail and dozing off every few minutes had found his dream of being Reynaldo rather dull and pedestrian.
Things were making both more and less sense as Reynaldo was coming around. Someone was shining a flashlight in his eyes and asking him questions that he wasn't quite able to discern--in fact he was having a hard time piecing together more than two or three words in a row. And yet everything seemed so clear. So much clearer than they had been in a long time.
He realized that he was staring at the ceiling. He pinched and then blinked open his eyes several times before he noticed that the ceiling was moving. The white tiles and humming florescents streaked overhead just quickly enough that he had a hard time focusing on them before they left his field of view. They turned a corner and he realized that it was he, and not the ceiling overhead that was moving. He straightened the fingers of his right hand and felt the cool metal frame of the hospital gurney he was apparently being conveyed upon.

The Grassroots Shakepeare Company

2009-06-02T00:32:00.003-06:00

This is one of the most exciting and challenging projects I've worked on in a long time and I'm loving it. We open this week!
Head over to The Grassroots Blog for more info!

Kindness of Strangers

2009-05-27T22:16:00.002-06:00

So I was at the park, rehearsing with Grassroots, when I get a call from someone saying they had found my lost notebook--turns out I had left it somewhere else in the park at rehearsal the day before. (I hadn't even realized yet that it was missing)
So I'm glad I wrote my phone number in the front of my moleskine and glad that someone was kind enough to track me down. That note book is the only hard copy evidence of the last three years of my life.

Harbingers

2009-05-22T18:19:00.002-06:00

Crickets = the official arrival of summer. The most heavenly insectoid hallelujah chorus You'll ever hear.

The Library

2009-05-18T16:27:00.002-06:00

Sometimes I'm not sure what to do with my life, but then I come here and everything changes...

If there is any place in the world with some magic left in it, it is here.

The Lastest

2009-05-12T01:45:00.003-06:00

My latest project:
The Grassroots Shakespeare Company

Check it out!

and

find us on facebook!

Some Things Are Worth Paying For

2009-04-17T13:18:00.002-06:00

I believe that some of the most beautiful and worthwhile things in life cost just a little bit more. Almost always they come with a high price of personal sacrifice and hard work--but sometimes they require a selfless sacrifice from many.
As I heard about all of the tax protests earlier this week, I couldn't help but think of this girl in Ohio and all of the hard work she has put in so that she can have just a little ray of sunshine in her life.
The truth is, our tax dollars often fund the arts. And if we get all bent out of shape over paying taxes and demand cuts--the arts are often the first things to go. The one small piece of beauty in this girl's life will be the first thing to go.
So please, before we all get in a huff about things, let's stop and consider what we'll be losing as a whole, as a society and as a culture, if we allow the selfish demands of our individual pocketbooks to take control.

Watch: Ohio Serenade (come on, it's only eight minutes long)

Your thoughts?
(But please, if you care to comment, at least take the time to watch the short clip in question.)

3.27.09-2

2009-04-09T08:00:00.001-06:00

Dolores lay quietly weeping in bed--her warm tears filled the wrinkled corners of her eyes before cascading down the sides of her face and into her thin white hair matted on the hospital pillow.
An angel had been sent to comfort her, but Dolores continued to feebly press the red call button she held tightly clutched with both hands. She was convinced that the majestically beautiful messenger at her side was yet another one of her frequent hallucinations brought on by advanced dementia.
Often, she knew when she was hallucinating and would quietly close her eyes and hum until the visions departed.
She clicked the red button again.
She was afraid of yielding to the dementia, but seeing that she was alone, she licked her dry lips and ever so softly exhaled the question:
"Why are you here?"
The angel said nothing, but smiled gently and gazed back at her with kind eyes full of understanding. She was surprised to see that the angel was beginning to weep.
"You pressed the call button?" came the reply from the foot of her bed. "What can I help you with?"
It was the nurse. Her cheeks were flushed red after being outside in the cold on her smoke break.
"Is my daughter here yet?" asked Dolores, her eyelashes still wet and glistening.
The nurse only looked puzzled and cleared her throat. Her mouth frowned.

Just after the nurse left, the angel knelt at Dolores' side and whispered something so softly and delicately in her ear that she could scarcely make it out. The tears continued to roll down the sides of her soft leather cheeks and she clutched the red call button with both hands.

3.27.09-1

2009-04-08T08:00:00.004-06:00

Robert grasped the stainless steel railings glimmering in the bright afternoon sun and hoisted himself up onto the diving board. The artificially blue pool water below heaved and rippled as it swallowed the scrawny pink body of the the boy who had just sprung from the low dive beneath him.
Robert remembered how his grandmother had taught him about Jesus--about how he had walked on water. She said he had done all of his miracles by the power of faith.
She drew him up into her arms: "If you believe enough," she had whispered in his ear, "there's nothing you couldn't do."
He took a few steps forward and found himself precariously suspended high above the water, gently bobbing up and down on the warbling tip of the board.
He wondered if he could put one foot in front of the other and walk off the edge without falling.
He closed his eyes; felt the wet grit of the board beneath his feet, the smell of chlorine, and the sound of splashing which seemed so, so far below him.
He stretched his arms, lowered his head, bent his knees, and pressed his all of his meager weight down into the board before allowing it to rebound and return the energy he had lent it. His legs became pistons as they straightened--hips, knees, ankles, arches, toes. Finally, he felt his feet leave the sandpaper surface.
And then there was silence. He hung perfectly suspended between the rippling blue crystal below and the bottomless depth of the sky above. Everything slowed, and for a split second, he understood.
It was only after he opened his eyes again that he realized he had been falling.
He hit the water in a flailing crash before it engulfed and cradled him in it's quiet heavy blueness. It pulled him closer and whispered in his ear. And there beneath the surface he continued to float--suspended between the horizons.

4.07.09

2009-04-07T11:54:00.004-06:00

Last night I dreamt I was a ghost inside your house
admiring you invisibly
--unable to speak, feel, touch, or be heard.
But then you noticed the sandy footprints I had tracked inside the house
and threw me out.

Both Less and More Bionic than Before

2009-03-30T00:39:00.004-06:00

My time in the hospital was kind of a blur. The light grew and faded over and over again--like a tide that washed in and out of my small bay of a room.
I tried to read. Tried to memorize my lines--but everything is so hard to hold onto when you're being held by the warm, foggy blanket of narcotics.
I was there four days.
Andrew came to visit me. Carl. Ashley. Amy and Clark dropped by in the middle of the night and I thought it was a dream. Renae and Cory came several times--so nice. My mom flitted in and out. I don't think she likes hospitals.
They moved me to the sixth floor on the second day. That night there was a man yelling in the room next to mine all night long--but he seemed so far away that I barely lost a wink.
They took seven screws out of the left side of my ankle, and kept two in on the right. And the plate of course. It looks like some sort of shallow strainer spoon--polished silver and full of holes. The sort of souvenir spoon you'd get from visiting a colony on mars. They gave me the jingling artifacts in a plastic ziploc bag with a label that said: "Hardware--left ankle"
Apparently, some people try to sell used implants on the internet to people in third world countries who can't afford new. But not to worry. I don't plan on giving anyone else my infection any time soon.
I'm feeling much better, but the bad news is, they're worried about the wound becoming infected again so they sent me home with an IV pump.
Yes, a pump. I will be attached to a clear plastic bag full of Nafcillin via a battery-powered pump that I will have to tote around with me all the time, everywhere I go. It will be pickling me with antibiotics round the clock for the next six weeks.
My fridge is now stocked with said bags of antibiotics--a new bag every day.
I will change out the plastic tubing that is now attached to my arm every three days, and once every five days or so, a nurse will come and put a new hole in my veins for the medicine to flow in through.
If the flow were reversed on my pump, it could quietly and efficiently drain me in a matter of hours. Luckily, I don't think the pump comes with that option. I'd hate to think that I was secretly attached to a robot mosquito--you never know where they've been.

Going Under the Knife

2009-03-25T03:26:00.004-06:00

I'm trying to be optimistic about this. I'm getting surgery again in the morning. I can't sleep. I thought maybe writing a list of pros and cons would help clear my head.

CON:
Being cut open.

PRO:
Anesthesia.

CON:
Pain.

PRO:
Pain meds.

CON:
Pain meds.

CON:
Four day hospital stay.

PRO:
Spring break extension. Sort of.

CON:
Hospital gowns.

CON:
Peeing in a bottle.

CON:
Hospital food. Jello.

PRO:
I'm getting my plate out.

PRO:
I'm going to ask if I can keep it.

PRO:
Visitors. (Hint Hint)

Did I miss anything? Let me know if you think of anything else. Or, better yet, come visit me! I'll be listed in the hospital directory.

2.XX.09

2009-03-23T10:53:00.003-06:00

Busdriver like the
Boatman
ferrys souls across the Styx
Seats meant for two
hold only one
--everyone alone.

Winter garb
hoods and scarves
and fingerless mittens
hide
all but a few patches of cold pale skin.
Greys and blacks and
dark navy blues
Walking funeral shrouds.

The only color of the day: a thick-skinned
blood orange
bright rind peeled back to reveal
deep purple bruised flesh
savors sweet fresh red wound:

Things that remind us we're alive.

On Pondering My Open Notebook:

2009-03-17T21:43:00.007-06:00

Blank page:
a wall standing firm resolute unyielding
unwilling to be scaled, toppled, tunneled under,
or made to disappear.
Only can we try in vain to cover it's expansive surface with thin scratches and fading scribbles
--like pencil marks on the pyramids.

Upon this towering mountainous frighteningly white and pristine
unadorned imposing monolith
must we pin our pithy tacks.
(which sometimes defile or desecrate that beautifully clean untouched, unspoiled space)

Sometimes our best attempts fade and peel with the paint
sometimes fail to stick
but every now and again our scrawling black lines give the illusion of spreading cracks,
the impression that we have somehow found a chink in that white perfect solid surface.
(But the wall spreads out as far as the eye can see in any direction and is far taller than the sky)
There is no filling it, seeing over it's highest towering top, or any amount of cracking to ever make it weak.

there is no other side.

It is tomorrow
and the ocean
the canvas and the stage
it is a handshake or a whisper
(the space between your lips before you breathe)
: It is the everstretching edge of the horizon on a globe.

(Let it never be our past)

Consumption: Most Recently

2009-03-09T18:47:00.016-06:00

Punch Drunk Love
After seeing so many movies over the last few years with twist endings, I kept waiting for the turn while watching this one. It never came.
Turns out it's just an ultra-surreal romantic comedy that in the end isn't all that romantic or comedic. But it was a real piece of eye candy at times. I loved the oversaturated colors and quirky art direction. And the only element that rivaled the visual quality of the piece was the sound. I watched it wearing some pretty great headphones and I don't think I've ever really experienced a movie with that caliber of aural finesse. The whole movie was finely tuned to take full advantage of the stereo effect (I can only imagine what if would have been like in Dolby surround) which created so many subtle textures and spaces. And the accompanying score from composer Jon Brion was phenomenal.

W.
I was really looking forward to seeing this one. I had heard that it received mixed reviews for a couple of reasons--conservatives didn't like it because it doesn't shy away from exposing Bush's Bushisms, and liberals didn't like it because it didn't give Bush the roasting he deserved.
While you might hope that this sort of a balance to reveal a subtle and nuanced portrayl of a complex character, you'd be sorely disappointed.
Josh Brolin gives a great performance as Bush, but the writing he was given doesn't really delve any deeper than the cartoonish phrases and cowboy exploits that we've already seen from the real Bush after enduring eight years of his misunderestimations on the news.

Sicko
Of all the movies I've seen recently, this one hit me the hardest. After breaking my leg last November and undergoing major surgery, my medical bills topped out at over $15,000. Luckily I've got great insurance and so I won't have to shell out hardly anything out of pocket--BUT, unluckily, my insurance coverage runs out at the beginning of next month, leaving me to wonder, how in the world would I have ever been able to pay for my desperately needed care if I had not been covered?
Costs associated with healthcare are now the number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States and this film takes a good long look at why that is. Michael Moore is an incisive and witty commentator on the state of things as he travels the globe comparing different systems of healthcare. I was both entertained and deeply moved as I watched the stories of so many americans struggling to make ends meet in the face of tragic circumstances. If you take the time to see one movie from this list, make it this one.

Coraline
The amount of artistry and attention to detail that went into making this film is just staggering. Even before the movie actually starts, I'm blown away by the credits and titles.
I was really impressed too by the way the director chose to use the 3D effect as more than just a gimmick--but a way to further the story and add to it's depth. (No pun intended...ok, maybe it was) Everything in the real world for Coraline is washed out, dull, and compressed. This makes her journey into the alternate world behind the door all the more vivid and rich. The sets become deep and expansive--full of wonder and in Coraline's case, danger too. If you haven't seen this one yet, make a point to go--it just won't be the same outside the theatre.

Buffalo '66
This movie took awhile to grow on me but I can't stop thinking about it. The characters were so honest and believable--several times I felt like I was intruding on a really private moment. Sort of uncomfortable and hypnotic all at the same time. The cinematography was really beautiful--full, rich, grainy unabashed pre-digital film stock, shot mostly with natural and existing lighting.
Vincent Gallo was electrifying on screen and it is evident that he was just as powerful off as he wrote and directed the piece.
The comedy was painful--uncomfortably funny. I wasn't sure if I wanted to laugh, or cry, or cower in fear with the characters. I don't know if I've ever seen anything so emotionally complex.

Paper Moon
I can't believe I've never seen this one before! Instant favorite. Ryan O'Neal is fantastic, as was Madeleine Kahn--but neither was as pitch perfect as Tatum O'Neal who delivered hands down the best performance I've ever seen from a child actor. The story was clever and the dialogue witty and original without ever becoming trite or corny. Director Peter Bogdanovich paints a charming and naturalistic portrait of the Depression-era Midwest without being overly-sentimental or sugary. The film style is raw and fits the period beautifully with richly contrasting black and white tones and long depth of field focus. I really don't know if there's anything I could fault about this movie.

Your thoughts? Have you seen any of these? Any others you might like to reccomend?

Review: Barton Fink

2009-02-18T21:01:00.004-07:00

More than anything I loved the look and feel of this movie. The staggering attention to detail was evident in every frame.
Even though the movie is set in 1940's Hollywood, most of the action takes place in Barton's dilapidated art deco hotel from a previous era. The deco greens and oranges created an atmosphere that was both hot and humid and oppresive, but also moldy and decaying.
John Turturro's performance was subtle and nuanced. He was nervous and neurotic but always realistically so. On top of his superb general characterization, the emotional weight demanded of him was immense and he was pitch perfect in delivering.
John Goodman was terrific and terrifying as Barton's neighbor turned psychopath. He's the kind of actor that can really draw an audience in and earn their trust--which makes it all the more impressive and conflicting in the mind of the viewer when we realize that he was never who we thought he was.
I always love seeing Steve Buscemi even in smaller roles. He just seems to pop up everywhere--and in this movie he literally did just that. In his first entrance in the film he pops up out of a trapdoor behind the hotel counter to check Barton into his room. He was the hotel's only visible employee and a perfect reflection of it's pale and sickly condition.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the concept of the film. As far as I can tell, it's both a post-modern noir buddy-film period piece and a tragi-comic metaphor about the creative process and our relationship to creative works as viewers.
In any case, Barton Fink won the Palm D'or prize, Best Director, and Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival in 1991--but grossed only $6 million at the box office. So if you're a film critic, you'll probably love this movie. And if you're someone who loves blockbusters, you probably won't.

2.02.09

2009-02-02T12:19:00.004-07:00

Surface:
stretched out like the taut liquid skin
on a rippling body of water.
We float
just above
hovering over the depths
watching people, times of day, lights streaming through leaves
splash.
surface and submerge.
Sometimes wishing we could drown in the depths of memory
or bathe in the quiet of a moment.
We pass--
like leaky lifeboats with our hands stretched out almost falling in
fingers barely brushing.
There is no tide.
No waves.

This morning I woke up
hungry
the kitchen was cold.
I looked down and found my feet warm
standing in a puddle of sunlight.

I can't believe January is almost over.

2009-01-25T01:09:00.004-07:00

Life is good. I'm back on my feet and can do almost everything I could before.
It's funny, I've never been much of a runner, but ever since the accident I have this incredible urge all the time to run.
But I can bicycle again and I'm loving that. I took a ride in the rain earlier today and it was so clean and cold and refreshing.
This week has been great--Have been looking forward to the inauguration for months and it didn't disappoint. Loved the music, the poem, the new president--so fitting.
Back in rehearsal for Twelfth Night--hadn't realized how much I had missed that cast.
Spent most of the afternoon on Thursday with a good book in the library.
Saw 'Defiance'--and really liked it.
Posted the parts for our Shakespeare play in my Youth Theatre Class on Friday--the kids were jazzed.
Ate at Cucina in Salt Lake earlier today--had the chicken curry salad. Perfect.
Stopped by a birthday party tonight.
Went grocery shopping with my brother.
Church, and home for dinner with the family tomorrow. Should be relaxing.
I hope it keeps raining. Such a nice change from the snow.

I see right through you Mona

2009-01-20T23:59:00.005-07:00

I think I'm done with romanticizing my life. Not because anything traumatic or difficult has happened to me--but because it feels more honest to. At least for now. Things can still be beautiful and exciting without being spun, composed, or put on a pedestal. I'm ok with that.
Today I went in for production photos for Twelfth Night. I realized that I'm really bad at posing. It's one thing to suspend disbelief and live in an alternate reality while acting on stage, and another thing entirely to try and project a contrived appearance in front of a camera.
"I'm sorry, I'm not so good at posing" I said right before we began the shoot.
"Oh that's fine, everyone has been making silly poses so you'll fit right in" replied the photographer.
I don't think she understood what I was saying.
"You're a little stiff" she said after awhile.
Part of the problem is these nervous tendencies I have. Some people bite their lips, or get sweaty palms, but my reaction to stress or nerves is a little different. I smile. I get this big, goofy grin on my face that won't go away. And if I try to make it go away, it just ends up looking ridiculous like I'm trying not to laugh. I have blown many an audition because I was so nervous that I couldn't quit smiling. I'll be attempting a somber or angry piece and the director just thinks I can't take anything seriously because I can't wipe that smirk off my face.
But it did serve me well as a missionary--everyone thought I was the most cheerful person they'd ever met, when in reality, talking to total strangers just made me really nervous. And so I smiled. And to be fair it did become true in the end--it's difficult to wear any sort of facial expression for any amount of time without it rubbing off on your psyche. I suppose if there's any nervous habit to have, this one is as good as any.
I had a girlfriend once who could see right through it. Whenever I'd get upset with her, I'd start smiling--because confrontation makes me nervous--and she'd know what I was really feeling.
In any case, my nervous smile did not serve me well during the photo shoot. I think in the end I got two expressions on film: the smile, and this sort of blank look that I can achieve if I clear my mind and steady my nerves. But I'm ok with that--I think that was honest.

Soup Kitchen

2009-01-13T02:21:00.004-07:00

So I have this bad habit of not going to sleep until I'm good and tired--which rarely happens when I'd most like it to.
Earlier today I had a migraine. I can always tell when they are coming--I start to get this weird pressure behind my eyes accompanied by this sinking feeling. Then it becomes a race--if I can get to a couple of Excedrin within about twenty minutes, I'm usually in good shape. If not, then it's a good dose of full blown nausea and hypersensitivty to light, sounds, and smells. I have no idea what causes them. Thankfully, I don't get them frequently at all--in fact I can't remember when the last time I had one was. And luckily, if I can choke down a couple tylenol and lie down in the dark for awhile I usually have it beat in about an hour. My heart really goes out to those people who get migraines for twelve hours. Misery.
That was all a roundabout way of saying that I had a nap and so I am not yet tired.
A few thoughts:
I hate spiders. BUT, I am perfectly willing to coexist with them provided that they are not over a certain size or speed. (ie I will let the little green house spider do his job in peace, but the large swiftly darting hairy monstrosity had better hope he's faster than I am) Also, there is a zero tolerance policy in terms of arachnid invasion of personal spaces. Spiders of any size or type will by squished on site if found in my bed, shoes, or dishes.
Secondly, Did you know that Avocadoes are sometimes called Alligator Pears? I love that. So fitting. But also, the name 'Avocado' comes from the aztec word 'Ahuacatl'--which means Testicle. I don't love that. I think I'll stick to calling them Alligator Pears.
Lastly, I got a new crockpot for christmas. All last semester I saved money by buying cheap and delicious soup ingredients in bulk and making giant batches of stew. (That's kind of a sick phrase though 'giant batches of stew'? Sick. Who would want to eat a batch? Or stew? Gross.) But it actually is really great. Most of the time. And I love cooking so, two birds with one stone, right? (That's not a soup. At least not one I've made)
In any case, I am shamelessly soliciting your help blogworld. Do you have any great soup recipes that you would be willing to send me? If your soup is selected as one of the lucky winners to be made in my crockpot, I may even invite you over for a bowl. Fair?

3 for Free!

2008-12-19T01:55:00.003-07:00

So I somehow managed to finish writing a full one-act play. And somehow they decided to produce it and let me direct.
Come see the finished product tonight! I'm pleased as punch and think you will be too!

The Death of Pericles

2008-12-11T16:56:00.003-07:00

I put on my vinyl maroon armor for the last time today. Mark played the piano backstage before the show and his Ben Folds anthems were a perfectly fitting soundtrack for what has turned out to be one of the most epic theatre experiences I have had thus far.

It all started back in June. I don't think any of us had any idea what we were really getting ourselves into. And looking back, I'm still not sure that I can really wrap my head around what just happened:

8 Cast Members

Nearly 4 months of Bi-weekly shows.

Roughly 1,250 Miles on the road.

At least 200 tacos from Taco Bell. (costing nearly $1000)

1 Cast member replacement

36 performances.

1 Broken leg.

About 12,000 Elementary aged kids with (hopefully) a greater appreciation for Shakespeare.

Awesome.

Considering the fact that most shows I have done before have run for maybe twelve performances at the longest--this is epic. And I've loved it. I've always worried that I'd never be able to hack it doing the same show over and over again. I wondered if it would get boring or stale--but somehow, I enjoyed every performance. Even on crutches.

The Verdict

2008-11-19T00:09:00.003-07:00

Nine screws
and a plate.
Stainless steel.
Lifetime sentence.

Break a Leg!

2008-11-14T10:15:00.003-07:00

...and this time I actually did.
I have now officially had my first major stage injury. Who knew theatre could be such a dangerous profession?
Quick recap: Right now I'm touring with the BYU Young Company Shakespeare Troupe--We perform a one hour version of Pericles: Prince of Tyre for elementary schools to give the kids what we hope will be an exciting and entertaining introduction to Shakespeare. For some children it is the first play they will ever see.

For whatever reason, most elementary schools have a set of wide stairs that lead off the front of the stage. We set up a big, colorful curtain at the top of those stairs and use multi-leveled space to perform on.
At the top of the show, I, Pericles am fleeing from the wicked King Antiochus. I burst through the curtain, fly down the stairs and stop just short of barreling into the kids to give the show an energetic and attention grabbing start. Only yesterday, it was perhaps a little more attention grabbing than I would have liked.
I burst through the curtain, flew down the stairs, caught my foot on an edge, and hit the ground with a solid thump. I looked up to see my left foot twisted nearly ninety degrees outwards away from my body. This did not look right. It did not feel right either. It felt loose and wiggly--like it was disconnected. I couldn't move it and the weird angle was putting a lot of strange pressure on things, so I reached down and -griiindCrack- yanked it back to the right angle. Sadly this did not solve the problem.
"Guys, I think we're going to have to stop the show..." I said in front of a crowd of wide eyed grade school kids.

I showed up at the emergency room still in costume. After getting checked in onde of the nurses asked: "So what were you doing?"
"I was performing in a play and..."
"Oh, we were hoping you'd say that. The outfit was a little strange..."

Turns out I fractured three bones near the bottom of my leg and it's going to take a surgery on Monday to put everything back together again. Probably three or four screws and a plate.
Then it will be crutches for the next six to eight weeks until I can get the cast off. Yikes.

I figure after years of well wishers telling me to "Break a Leg!" my body finally obeyed.

Dabblings

2008-11-12T02:03:00.003-07:00

While it may seem that I have taken a hiatus from the world of writing, nothing could be further from the truth. I am writing my brains out. There they go--splattered all over the keyboard again. Yuk.
In fact I'm taking a course on writing for stage and screen. And I'm loving it.
I'm forty-six pages into my first play. Take a peek if you'd like. Any suggestions on how it should end?
(But if your attention span isn't that long, you can just tell me how you like the first scene--it's only seven pages)

I've also written a couple of shorter ten minute pieces if you're interested:
A Comedy and a Drama.
I'm really not all that proud of those two, but I'm really too proud to make any sort of formal apology here.

Cheers!

Decision 2008

2008-11-03T05:59:00.009-07:00

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."

--G.K. Chesterton

My two cents:

Sure, Barack Obama is bound to make a few mistakes as president. Contrary to popular belief, he is only human. He's got my vote all the same.

Also, I'm pretty sure I'd move to Canada if Sarah Palin ever got elected.

Keep it Like a Secret

2008-10-13T23:32:00.003-06:00

For a long time now, I haven't been sure what to write.
I struggle with this.
I think part of my problem is that I'm not quite sure who it is I'm writing this for. For awhile I kept trying to package and sell it, like it was a product.
But I don't think that's the point.
I'd like to write--there's something so intrinsically satisfying about writing: seeing thoughts crystallize on paper. Perhaps I'm writing this for myself? But that never seems to be motivation enough for me--I think I lack the foresight for it. There's no need for me to communicate to my present self what I'm thinking and feeling, and I never feel like my future self cares--I want more than anything to connect deeply and immediately with someone here and now in the present.
I rarely bring myself to write until I feel that need.
I don't think I've ever taken more pleasure in writing than on my mission when I would write ____. Nothing has ever felt so urgent, so important. I have never felt before or since that I was so entirely understood and accepted. I feel like I know a good deal about who I am, what I want, etc. But yet I am always changing, re-examining, being shaken up. Not that any of that is a bad thing. It's almost always positive in the end.
In any case, I think the only remedy is one that I've come to time and time again. I just need to sit down and spit it out--and trust that good things will develop.

Ellipses

2008-09-29T13:22:00.006-06:00

"Where have you been?" she exclaimed, spilling the armful of books she had been carrying with a cascade of paperback thumps on the pavement.

He felt sheepish and could do little more than shrug quizzically in response while walking over to help her with the mess.

But they were happy to see one another just the same.

For those who stop by every now and again to have a look in this peephole of my brain, it must appear to you that nothing much is happening. It seems I have not been entertaining visitors in quite some time.

But I am happy to report that good things are happening!

Come see my play: Pericles

Intrigue, Famine, Murder, Pirates, Shipwreck, Love, Jousting, and Adventure--all packed into a one hour adaptation of Shakespeare's lively Romance. It's theatre especially adapted for young audiences, but the humor and brillant direction from Chris Clark is certainly not lost on the more mature members of the audience.

ps--I get to play Pericles. How cool is that?

Or, if you catch "Seussical: The Musical" at the SCERA theatre, you will get a good eyeful of my handiwork. I did props for the show--watch out for the Pillberry Bush that Gertrude McFuzz steals from--my pride and joy for this show.

Coming up next month will be another terrific and innovative piece of theatre from Chris Clark--a stage adaptation of the 1922 classic film "Nosferatu" just in time for Halloween. I put together the storyboards that will be used as blueprints for the show--so while you won't actually see any of my work on stage, it's a project that I am really excited about and was grateful to be a part of. I have not been this

excited to see a play in a long time.

Also next month, we start rehearsals for Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" at UVU--I'll be playing Count Orsino. More details to come on that one.

In the meantime, school is going well, and one of my youth theatre classes will be going down to compete in the Utah Shakespearean Festival competition at the end of the week--I wish I could go with them, but Pericles conflicts.

I'm also working on writing a play for the New Script Workshop at UVU. More details as that develops.

And my roomates are really awesome. Carl is studying Italian and Physics, Andrew is a History Major, and Joseph is in Music with an emphasis in Vocal Performance--Opera. He practices every morning in the shower and I love it.

'True Love Won't Find You in the End'

2008-08-18T23:00:00.003-06:00

"How about that" she said under her breath.
And he sat there, numbly saying nothing.
It was the first time he had ever really told his story aloud to anyone. It had been rolled over and over in the churning tumbler of his brain countless times before, but until now had been only a collection of images, sensations, disconnected patches of emotions--nearly all of them wordless and without any sort of real organization. This was the first time he had attempted that difficult transition of stored memories to dry, breathy words and the exchange had left him less sure of himself and of his story. Just hearing the words dissolve into the air had made the images and events behind them seem less substantial. He was worried that she hadn't understood and that she wouldn't understand when he continued. His tongue still felt stiff and his throat was dry and he heard himself mumble something about a drink of water.
"I'm sorry, what was that?" she asked.
"Water" he said.
"Sure. I'll be right back." she replied as she slowly got up from her chair.
He wondered again if he should have said anything at all. Perhaps it would have been better had he kept his mouth shut and kept her out of it. Then again, he thought, who better to tell?
He felt her hand on his shoulder and realized that he hadn't noticed her return to the room. She handed him the glass, which was already sweating, and sat down again.
"So," she began "What happened next?"
He hesitated briefly and considered fabricating the next part. He could make something up--anything to save himself from the shame that would come next, from the look she would give him after he was finished, and most especially from what it would mean for the both of them. But the air in his lungs exhaled on their own and something in his mouth formed the words and strung them into sentences without his volition. Part of his mind wandered away for that part. A small piece of him sat outside and listened while he told her what he never thought he could tell.
After that, they both sat in silence. After a few moments when the echoes of what he had said stopped ringing in his ears, he became acutely aware of the steady ticking of a clock above the mantel.
He looked up at her for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. He searched her face for any clues as to what she might be feeling, but her eyes were still searching the floor as though she might find the meaning hidden somewhere between the woven patterns in the rug.
After a time, her eyes slowly found their way up from the ground and stared back into his.
She may or may not have said something at that point, but he couldn't remember either way because it was all he could do to keep from being swallowed by the depth in her eyes.
"We'll talk more about this in the morning." he finally managed to to whisper.
But he knew full well that they wouldn't, he knew that this was the last time they would ever speak of this. It was in fact, the last time they would ever speak to one another at all.

Latent Images Developing

2008-08-12T17:12:00.003-06:00

Dear Friends--
Developments coming soon! Tomorrow is our last day in the UK. We're in Edinburgh performing in the Fringe Festival--I couldn't be more pleased. This has been a long time coming.
In any case, I'm flying back on Thursday and will hopefully have some pics up for you sometime next week!

More Summer

2008-06-22T19:24:00.011-06:00

This past week has been both fast and slow, as Summer often is.

Last Saturday, Ashley and Elaine and I decided that a short road trip was in order. We left Monday afternoon. It was hot and we drove fast deeper into the heat and headed south.
We decided to go to Fish Lake--a deep blue lake that sits on top of a mountain and commands the desert for a hundred miles in every direction.

We ditched out on the freeway and took a back road that promised to lead us through the tops of the mountains and to our destination in grand scenic style.

The pavement dissolved in the heat underneath us and gave way to dust and gravel.
We encountered a "Road Closed" sign chained to the trees across the road.
We proceeded to lift the chains and drive under.

We wound up through the hills and into the aspens and pines and through meadows and stopped at a lake that wasn't on the map to hear a chorus of summer frogs rehearsing in the late afternoon.

We saw a moose.

We came to the top of the mountain pass only to encounter another road closed sign--and eight foot snow drifts blanketing the road ahead.

We drove back down, underneath the chains again.

It was dark soon after, so we decided to search out some fabled hot springs south of Richfield and after some help from the nicest cowboy gas station attendant on the planet, we found them. Mystic hot springs. A hippie-owned hot water haven in the desert hills.
We soaked in giant white bathtubs under a nearly full moon.

The next morning we found ourselves in a green pine and quaking aspen valley at nine thousand feet elevation next to a five mile long and one hundred foot deep lake.

We launched the old boat and found ourselves chopping high-speed across the water like a dolphin afraid of the deep.

We cut the engines and took a floating nap.

I nearly ran the boat aground in the lake's only shallow spot.

Later, we took off into the woods and found, among other things, Rust Springs, the High Top Meadow, and a pack of cigarettes dangling on a string from a tree--a lost and found.

The next day was lazy. We woke up late. Cleaned and picked a dot on the map called 'Frisco' that claimed to be a ghost town as our next destination.

We drove through what felt like dozens of small towns, stopped and stood inside Butch Cassidy's house and listened for ghosts.
Pulled over and explored an abandoned gas station and then drove some more into the evening.

We realized that Frisco was farther than we thought and left it to ghost another day without us.

Moon rise came as we soaked in the Meadow hot pots on the way back. Sitting on rock ledges in warm and crystal water over an underground cave we watched bats snatch bugs from the surface of the pond.

Thursday was recovery. Also found out that I got cast as Pericles in the Young Company Shakespeare production of the same name.

Friday was Family Reunion in Heber--catching up with long lost cousins.

Saturday new glasses ordered and lunch with Dad and Andrew at Taco Riendo. Best Horchata of my life. Every time.

Later on, King and I strike, followed by an adventure with Clark and Amy.
We went to the Hollow Mountain up the canyon--a looming quarter mile tunnel that ends on a cliff face. It's entrance is a forty-foot grid of rusted iron bars like a cage over a gaping mouth. I made Clark and Amy walk the whole thing in the dark.

We told ghost stories in the car, almost hit a deer, and landed in my yard sleeping on a spare mattress we had pulled out on to the lawn. It was getting light before we fell asleep, and we woke up scant hours later this morning to the clip clip sound of my neighbor trimming the roses.

2008-06-21T02:48:00.008-06:00

Scene I

Int. of apartment of ROGER and

ANNA. Roger is alone. He makes

a cup of coffee and sits at

table. Anna enters from outside, she takes off her coat and:

ROGER

Where have you been?

ANNA

Out. I meant to stop by the store and get some milk.

ROGER

...Well, what happened?

ANNA

I ended up at the church--stopped to pray. I lit a candle

for your mother. (she checks the sugar bowl)

Are we out of sugar?

ROGER

I'm sure she'll appreciate that...yes.

Silence

ANNA

Why don't you ever come any more. Your mother would be

disappointed.

ROGER

She doesn't need to know--

ANNA

But if she did--

ROGER

Are you going to tell her?

Pause

ANNA

No. You should at least call her though. She's dying to hear from you.

ROGER

I will. Maybe.

He goes to do the dishes

ANNA

I should have stopped at the store on the way back. I got

distracted--there was this girl...

ROGER

Will you pick up some mustard when you go? Eggs too. And I

think we're out of milk.

ANNA

Sure...do you remember that bicycle my sister would always

ride? When we went to visit last summer? With the

streamers? It used to be mine.

ROGER

Hmm.

ANNA

There was a girl riding in the park. She had long streamers

on her handlebars just like mine did. Do you remember that

bike?

ROGER

Sure.

ANNA

I stopped to watch her ride. I sat down on one of those

orange benches near the edge. Then there was this couple, a

few benches down, feeding the birds. I couldn't help

watching them--

ROGER

I've got to get ready for work.

ANNA

They looked around, and when they didn't think anyone was

watching, she pulled him in slowly and kissed him...

He has stopped to listen.

ANNA

Then he opened his eyes for a minute and they saw

me--but he sort of grinned a bit and pulled her

in again...

ROGER

That's disgusting. There's nothing worse than a couple going

at it in public.

ANNA

But it wasn't like that--they weren't... You

could see it in the way they looked at each

other. The way they kissed. It was different.

ROGER

I'm going to be late.

ANNA

I miss that.

ROGER

What? The bicycle?

ANNA

No, the...well, yes that too. But...being like...

ROGER

I've got to go. I'll see you after. Do you want me too pick

up some sugar?

ANNA

Yes--but...maybe you could come back here first? We could go together.

ROGER

What?

ANNA

After you get off--Maybe we could walk to the store together?

ROGER

Um? No, it's fine, it's on my way back, I'll just--

ANNA

Roger, would you kiss me in the park?

Long Pause

ROGER

Yes. Of course. But I've got to get going--I can't be late. We'll talk about this when I get back. I love you.

He kisses her

ANNA

I love you too.

He goes

ANNA

Don't forget the milk too.

He leaves. She is alone

Viva la Verano

2008-06-14T03:30:00.000-06:00

Today Ash and I went to the Summer Fest. It was last minute and lovely. We went not because we had any interest in buying things from the booths or waiting in line for hours on end to board an electric whirlygig of whizzing neon splendour, but because we wanted to see these things and smell them and hear the racket of the crowd and be pushed and squeezed and reminded of how many human beings we share these little plots of land called cities and towns with.
The ground was thick with footprints and we almost felt sorry for the grass, but it was just doing it's job.
We weaved in and through and out of bunches of people we've never met and Ash said it made her feel old because there were so many teens that we no longer felt any affinity with, and I said it made me feel young because I saw so many families, parents with little kids running around waving glow swords and cotton candy--I'm not old yet because I don't have any of these little creatures called kids.
And I remembered what it was like to see a carnival when I was six years old--radiating light and resonating color, spinning and shouting into the night, candy and popcorn and games offering prizes that were bigger than I was. And I remember how much I loved my mom, because she hates carnivals but would always take me anyway and sometimes let me ride the rides--even though they were really over priced.
We heard popping and a boom and we ran down the street to find a good spot to tilt our heads back and watch blooming fiery bouquets in the sky--red and gold and purple sparking blossoms opening and fading into crackling cinders overhead leaving nothing but smoke and ashes in the night after a thousand oohs and aahs. Fireworks so big and close that the repeating booms felt like a second heartbeat pounding in my chest.

This experience reiterated the fact that there are some things that will always be filled with a great deal of magic regardless of how old I am:
-Fireworks
-Bubbles
-Snowfall
-Fireflies
-Thunderstorms
-Rain
-Waves on the Shore
-Campfires
-Frozen Lakes
-Mountain Peaks
-The Sound of Crickets
-Cities and Crowds
-The Desert

Every time I experience something on this list I am again brought to a sense of childlike wonder.

After, we went with friends to a giant house in the middle of nowhere in Mapleton to join a freezetag tournament.
Thirty people. Three taggers. Three full floors full of long hallways and winding corners to pursue and evade. At times it felt like watching a heard of antelope in your living room.
Somehow, nothing was broken and no one was injured.
We played the sort of freezetag where you have to crawl between the legs of a frozen comrade in order to free them. My shining moment of the night came when I dove head first down the stairs passing under three arched sets of legs to set them free.
Somehow, I had gotten it into my head that I was too old to play tag.

Tonight I realized that I may never be to old for tag, or fireworks, or a carnival, or even diving down a curving set of stairs head first between someone else's legs--or at least I hope I'm not.

Long live this Summer.

Please

2008-06-13T02:31:00.003-06:00

An Eccentric Architect
+
A Madcap Plan
+
Jonathan Safran Foer
+
Puzzles, Riddles, and Ciphers
+
Secret Panels, Coded Messages, and Hidden Keys

=Every child's dream.

PS-I will build a house like this someday.

Priorities

2008-06-12T01:26:00.001-06:00

Cost per year to effectively end world hunger:

$ 200 billion

United States budget for Military forces during the year 2008:

$ 200 billion

Sparingly

2008-06-11T23:19:00.000-06:00

So today my younger sister reminded me of something rather mean I had done to her when she was much younger and more gullible.
I told her that chicken nuggets and patties and tenders all came from a special place.
I told her they came from a boneless chicken farm--you know, where they raise boneless chickens?

The best part is, she believed me.

On a side note though, I think that this is an interesting commentary on modern food consumerism. Everything we eat is so over processed and modified to the point where the final products are often totally unrecognizable as something that once occurred naturally.
Even organic products like grapes and watermelons have been modified through genetic selection to be seedless.
Another evidence of human tampering: bananas are so inbred and genetically homogenous that your common yellow banana is unable to evolve any resistance to disease because they are all basically clones. If one got sick, they would all get sick. If any new diseases were to emerge that affected banana trees, that would be the end. We would have no more bananas.

The processing of meat is another story entirely and goes far beyond centuries of genetic selection. By the time it reaches your plate, it has been so altered that it is hard to imagine that it was ever moving, flexing, blood pumping muscle in a living creature. Bludgeoned, butchered (skin stripped off, muscles ripped and tendons sliced, bones broken) blood drained, then ground up into a red mush, shrink wrapped in plastic and styrofoam, thrown on a searing hot grill and then slapped between two sesame seed buns for your convenient consumption--you'd have a hard time ever imagining your burger peacefully grazing in a meadow.
Do you think people would eat so many hamburgers if they had to kill and butcher the animals themselves?

On a personal note, my mom read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle when she was in high school and became a vegetarian for a while as a result of the graphic descriptions of butchery and meatpacking.
To this day she will still not eat red meat in any form--but she does enjoy fish and poultry.

Due to her warranted disgust with red meat, the only sources of protein in the house while growing up were canned tuna and turkey hot dogs. Even as I write this, there is a 24 pack of the lowest priced turkey hot dogs sitting in the bottom drawer of my mother's fridge. They are disgusting. The first item listed on the ingredients is "mechanically separated turkey". I'm not sure exactly what that entails, but I am sure that I don't ever want to know and that "mechanically separated anything" makes me just a little bit queasy.
(I think I'll stick with the boneless chicken--at least that's natural!)

Not to mention that eating meat is maybe one of the most environmentally unfriendly and intensely wasteful things you could do--in many ways it's worse than driving a car. Consider the following:

Animals fed on grain and those which rely on grazing need more water than grain crops ^[6]. According to the USDA, growing crops for farm animals requires nearly half of the U.S. water supply and 80% of its agricultural land. Animals raised for food in the U.S. consume
90% of the soy crop
80% of the corn crop and
70% of its grain. ^[7].
In tracking food animal production from the feed through to the dinner table, the inefficiencies of meat, milk and egg production range from a 4:1 energy input to protein output ratio up to 54:1. ^[8] The result is that producing animal-based food is typically much less efficient than the harvesting of grains, vegetables, legumes, seeds and fruits. (Wikipedia)

Think about it: Driving your car probably isn't causing people to starve to death, but by eating meat you could potentially be depriving another man of his meal.

That's really the kicker for me. Imagine if we took all that soy and corn and grain that we are using to feed pigs and cows for meat and fed people instead? You could feed a lot more people! This isn't hypothetical either--people need food! People are dying! They are starving to death because we are feeding pigs instead of them!

So while I'm not really morally opposed to the use of animals as a food source, I am opposed to the poor treatment of animals and poor management of limited resources.

Food for thought (pun intended) and all the more reason to follow good advice and eat meat only sparingly--if at all.

Italics

2008-06-11T01:51:00.002-06:00

I really wish I could write in italics.
No, not here on the computer, but with my hands holding a pen on paper.
Have you ever tried? It's really tough!
It would just be useful that's all.

2008-06-10T02:48:00.007-06:00

What about umbrellas?
Umbrellas like parachutes--a plane full of paratroopers gliding to earth on unbrellachutes.
Or umbrellas for secret agent scuba divers to catch all their bubbles before they got to the top and gave them away.
What about umbrellas looped like bat's wings with tin bones extended and black nylon stretched tight, hooked feet to hold on to.
How about umbrellas that flap backwards in a gust of wind and try to fly away--what about a flock of migrating umbrellas?

What about fireworks?
Weeping cinder willows white hot in the sky.
What about fireworks from space? What would fireworks look like from space? Would you be able to tell the difference between a war and a celebration?
What about miniature fireworks that you could fire off inside on a rainy Fourth of July--the tiny rockets no bigger than a thimble bursting blooms like a bouquet on your kitchen table as everyone let out little 'oohs' and 'aahs'.

What about rain on a desert day that sets steam off the sidewalk when it hits the hot pavement? Or hot snow that freezes when it touches cold ground?

What about people who love each other and never had to feel differently no matter what happened or how far apart they were or how much time had past? What about love that could grow and grow until there was no room left inside but it stretched you and filled you and made you bigger like a balloon that wouldn't pop.