shaped for theatre, laptop fixed

I saw a play at the Intiman this week. Sitting in the third row of those sharply slanted Epidaurean seats, I felt my whole soul uncrumple. I forget, when I am out of theatre, how perfectly I am shaped for it.

How can one be upheld by wind? By faith?

John has fixed my laptop. "It's temporary," he warns. "You've only got a few months till the chip on that graphic card fries completely." This is how bad it is: you fix it by shoving THROUGH the keyboard to reseat the chip in its socket. Put your fingers on the 6, the 7, and the Y keys. Press sharply to reseat the chip.

He also restored the computer to a date before it got the virus. Voila. All problems fixed. I am coming to you live from May 15, 2005.

This makes a huge difference:

I am writing this post AT HOME.

Not at Kinko's with the meter running. Not at work with every security program watching & recording. Not at my ancient Win95 desktop, which crashes every few hours and can't open most internet sites. Now you know why there's been such a sharp dropoff in my blogging the last few months.

my Alaskan family

My brother and his family at Crow Pass

This is my brother and his family. (Click to enlarge.) He moved to Alaska, fell in love with it, and never left. My sister-in-law is a 5th-generation Alaskan. I love this picture.

Diabelli Variations, reflections, art

I am listening to Piotr Anderszewski play Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. Or, as Beethoven termed it, Diabelli Transformations.

I am reflecting on why yesterday's meeting at work had such an impact on me.

The reason is, it felt like theatre.

We walked into a high-ceilinged room, with dusk falling, and lights turned low. The room was especially clean, with neat rows of chairs. A soft light glowed from the project screen, ready for the demos. Along the left side sat narrow tables with billows of white cloth, humous, olives, carrots, red peppers, sandwiches, and cheese -- my group has a lot of vegetarians, including our leader -- and brilliant small Christmas lights twinkling among the feast.

What felt like theatre to me was the

cleanliness
intention
light
beauty
spirit-nourishment

Someone had created, out of space and shadow, a glowing emptiness for us to walk into. It was the space that made us beautiful. And the steady accomplishments listed in our slides.

Work has seemed long and charcoal-grey the last two months. I needed that beauty.

Piotr, this pianist, was born in Warsaw, speaks fluent French, decent English. He is now playing Variation 18, Poco Moderato. He was 29 in this recording. He has a touch like Horowitz -- unbelievably delicate. I believe he hears Beethoven as if it were Chopin -- as if every note had that much meaning, that much sorrow against the joy, that much tenderness. I hear Beethoven newly, through his ears.

Where have I gotten the idea that art is not an acceptable way to spend my life?

this year I need Christmas

We had our holiday party today at work. It was our regular Casual Games product unit meeting, but specially catered with little white lights wound around our food and a special cloth under them. It was a "just us" meeting -- what we've done the last 6 months, what we're planning for the next 6. It reminded me of the Odin Teatret. A homey matter-of-fact celebration, after a year of hard work, in our own tall-ceilinged room off the cafeteria, with the sky & trees dusking behind us. Nothing is of exaggerated importance, but it all gets tended to. Like a cared-for farm.

I liked the lights and the beauty. My spirit is thirsty for this. I am grateful for all we have done, and all we are doing. I love being in this group; it's values are aligned with mine. I like how well we work with other groups, how long-sighted we are. I like working in a group where actual elders are running it. It is comforting, to have the big roots laid straight, the big snarls untangled; to be in a group of people striving for wisdom, as well as for watering the seedlings and making sure the cows get fed today.

Light the candles, sing the song
winter's come and summer's gone
Mary's babe in straw is laid
Li Po surfs the wind's mad glade

To clean the kitchen before dark
is the spirit's surest mark
Every broken heart can mend
with sleep and help, with caring friend

my doves, what I'm doing, Akropolis poster, Fate

Here's what I am doing.

1. Working a lot.

2. Cleaning.

3. Facing and catching up on finances.
Like straightening a crook in my spine.

4. Writing my theatre book.
I see everything dumbly through the lens of the book. How does this black dog with blue eyes relate to the book? How do purdah and Indra and peacocks and dust relate to the book? How does Jarlsberg cheese on a blue earthenware plate relate to the book? How does Chance's singing about his dead mother, with Sid on guitar, me on low harmony, the whole Cherry Orchard cast joyously joining the chorus, and Leonid, uncomprehending and exhausted, asleep in the next chair, relate to the book?

4. Assistant-directing Leonid's production of The Seagull.
Rehearsals are Jan-Feb, then a year of twice-weekly performances, starting in March. Lower Depths follows, March-May, then it joins Seagull in repertory for the year. Performances are home performances, in the big house on Capitol Hill where rehearsals are held.

5. Working with Lyon & Charlotte to help produce the year of performances.

6. Helping produce Leonid's Japanese company's tour in April.
They are coming from Tokyo to do three performances of a Chikamatsu play -- "the Japanese Shakespeare," says Paul -- and a collaborative rehearsal of Seagull, where the Tokyo actors speak Japanese and the Seattle actors speak English. Leonid has had this company of 70 actors for 5 years.

7. Looking forward to Bart's Richard III at the Intiman this summer.

It feels good to be weaving theatre again through my life. Like the silver thread in a sari, and like its green silks too.

Working with Lyon, writing my book, changing my habits -- this is the leading edge of my theatre work, somehow: inconclusive, erratic, weak, blind, true.

"My doves, he says," said Wes, laughing as he interpreted Leonid's first words. "My doves." Wes laughed again.

Jennifer Lavy was given one of the Polish Laboratory Theatre's incredibly rare Akropolis posters. Black woodcut printing on light brown paper, nearly 50 years old. It lay on their grand piano, as quiet and full of power as its twin which hangs at the Odin.

Like Leonid said, when describing how he came to Seattle the first time:

It is Fate. Like all acts of Fate, it is not a coincidence.

what I'm reading

The Timeless Way of Building
Rebel Without A Crew: The making of El Mariachi by Robert Rodriguez
The Man Who Was Magic
Writing Down The Bones
Chinese Calligraphy: From Pictograph To Ideogram: The History of 214 Essential Chinese/Japanese Charaters

epiphanies

Life never seems to prepare us sufficiently for epiphanies. By definition they come upon us suddenly, dazzling us by their raw power. They are not magical intrusions from another world, but reality, naked and without shame. Their very ordinariness shimmers with unexpected depth, which is why they take us by such surprise. It does not matter whether they occur in the majesty of the Hagia Sophia or in the elegant simplicity of a wooden chapel, the effect is the same.

- the Monks of New Skete, In the Spirit of Happiness

How I read

I usually have four or five books going at once.

- one in the bathroom
- one in the car
- one I carry with me
- two by my bed

When I'm in a timeful phase of life, I go through that handful every couple days. In busy phases, like now, it takes a week or two.

What I'm reading

In the Spirit of Happiness, by The Monks of New Skete
Radical Simplicity
Illustrated Watercolor Journalling
The Art of Leading Yourself
Notes on Christopher Alexander's "The Nature Of Order, Vol. 1"
Tea With the Black Dragon
The Poetry of Li Po
The Novel

My dog went to Taiwan & South Korea

Momo

And right now Momo, a black dog from Thailand, is visiting my desktop. When I came in this morning, there were four animals cavorting (the max allowable I have set).

Xbox 360 launch day

The Xbox 360 launches Sunday. The halls are buzzing here.

There's a big event -- google for "Xbox 360 Zero Hour" to see the Mojave Desert blowita coming Sunday night. Tuesday they're setting up the tent behind our games buildings here, and we're getting our own 360s. Wednesday, we'll pretty much just be playing.

For the Xbox group, and groups making launch-title games, this caps 2 years of exhausting overwork. December will be full of empty halls, as people take their long-postponed vacations.

My faves of our games coming out -- Kameo, a virtual-world title.


Kameo

Project Gotham Racing has a cool thing, Gotham TV, where you see broadcasts of other races as they are happening, inside your game. And an even cooler thing, Gotham Photo, where you can zoom the camera anywhere in the city or around -- or in -- your car, and snap screenshots. Since the game-builders modelled Tokyo and other cities pretty fanatically, this is surprisingly satisfying.


Project Gotham Racing - photo taken inside game

A Very Important 22-Minute Meeting, or, red dogs and espresso porn

"Let's have a Very Important 22-Minute Meeting," said my friend Rob today. "Okay," I said. He turned and strode rapidly toward his office. "I'll drive," he said.

Turns out, a Very Important 22-Minute Meeting is exactly how long it takes to drive to Tully's or Starbucks, get a beverage, return, park, and be back in the building, at the breakroom on our floor.

"There's also a Very Important 91-Minute Meeting, if you want to cross the bridge for GOOD coffee," he said happily, and dived into a lush description of the differences -- viscuous, honey, caramel, sugar, bitter, toasted, burnt, velvet, porous, 1/8th of the way toward whipped cream.

I'm happy to learn these things. Happy to be driven to an Important Meeting. Happy to be drinking an iced breve latte, while my red GoPetsLive dog -- which I downloaded free today -- trots across my screen, lays down on the blogger window, and scratches himself. At night, these pets go visit other pets across the world, and keep a blog of their travels. I hope mine goes to Korea and China.


My GoPetsLive red dog, Hamlet

"You've got to see espressoporn.com," said Rob, after reading this far. "It's safe to view at work."


A pic that coffee-lovers love, from espressoporn.com

This all strikes me as very Seattle, with Korea right around the corner. The coffee. The virtual-pet software. Red dogs and espresso porn. My faith in humanity is restored.

"Would you like to know the least common 4-digit number?" asked Rob.

I first met Rob when I was making kids' adventure games, and he was here as a freshman intern from MIT. He and I spent an entire night hacking, er I mean, decorating Michele McCarthy's (then still Michele Frame) office into an underwater scene, with dozens of foam-core cut-out fish suspended from the ceiling, and foam-core scuba-diver legs kicking toward the surface.

acedia

"They talk about the desert as part of the spiritual journey. Some call it acedia -- a time, maybe a place in a sense, when everything dries up. This place, and this life, lose their meaning. You get hit with anxiety of the most terrifying kind. "You've wasted your life," a voice inside you screams. You've thrown it away. All your sacrifices, everything you've endured has been as so much water poured into a hole in the sand.

When it hit me, I thought I'd lost it. The faith. God. Everything. I stopped believing. I didn't go around broadcasting the matter, but I tried to fight it. To do something about it. Wrong move. I realized, it's the novitiate all over again. I had to accept God being present to me in a different way."

-- Dom Thomas Mary MacDonald, Trappist monk

I am surrounded by blunt archangels. Their wings sweep and probe me, push me off balance.

Standing at the back of a boat, one sees a wild flurry of green water, swirling passage, wide waters of the sound. That's how Microsoft looks to me right now, and my life. A busy wideness.

I feel the buddha and the dharma, ever-close. I feel a great lack of sangha.

in this desert of countless sorrows

I am having a black day. With my last theatre structure gone, I feel made of wind.

My therapist said, "I feel the impulse to remind you who you are: You are a monk." His eyes were steady. "I think it is important that you know someone else knows you are a monk."

It was curiously settling, in this great and swirling darkness, to hear that.

"Where in the monk's journey am I?" I asked. "Where your first Call no longer rings true," he said, "And your next Call has not yet arrived." That felt right. I am still listening to god and obeying. I just cannot see where it leads.

"This is when many people abandon their Vision," he said. "They cannot tolerate the great discomfort, so they settle for something inferior."

"I read of a Russian monk whose prayer consisted of going outside at dusk and waiting," I said. "Sometimes god came. Usually he did not. That was not the point. The waiting was the prayer."

At the end I asked for a song. We sang together, me improvising a light high harmony over his melody. He sang:

in this land of the walking wounded
in this desert of countless sorrows
i will cling to his hand today and
fear not for tomorrow

in my heart i have made this promise
with this song i declare my choice
i will walk where the shepherd
leads and heed no other voice

in the chill of my darkest hour
i am saved from my deep despair
for the father who loves his
children hears my trusting prayer

in my soul there is one light shining
from the flame of my true belief
and its embers cannot be quenched
or robbed by any thief

in the end we are not forgotten
and our journey is not in vain
for the master who bought us here
will lead us home lead us home again

I was so deep I could only hear the first two lines.

i.n...t.h.i.s...l.a.n.d...o.f...t.h.e...w.a.l.k.i.n.g...w.o.u.n.d.e.d
i.n...t.h.i.s...d.e.s.e.r.t...o.f...c.o.u.n.t.l.e.s.s...s.o.r.r.o.w.s

I went to dinner before coming back to work. As I ate, I read the book I had begun this morning, Voices of Silence, about Trappist monks.

The buddha where I'm housesitting is Kuan Yin. She's got the mother/Mary presence of Tara, but is -- like the Dalai Lama -- an emanation of Avalokitesvara. "In its proper form," says a Google entry, "It is Kuanshih Yin, which means She who harkens to the cries of the world."

my horrible day

I woke up late. I lost my good dream when I woke up. I'd eaten all the fried rice, so there was only eggs for breakfast. I had two jolting crappy developments on my project when I got to work that made me want to say, Fuck it, YOU do the game. I haven't had time to process Sunday's Hamlet or housesitting. One of my friends is making more in stock this year than I am in salary. Kipley is loving his puppet show and making great progress and, with my finishing this acting lab, I AM NOW DOING NO ART AT ALL.

what I'm reading

- Online Game Architecture Back-End Strategies: The dark side of MMORPGs, infrastructure gone mad
- The White Pony: An anthology of Chinese poetry from the earliest times to the present day
- Gallico Magic
- Chanur's Homecoming

Hamlet scenes

My life has condensed to Work and Sleep. And not much of the latter. I wish I could talk about work in my blog.

Hamlet scenes are going well. We're doing:

Hamlet - to be or not to be
Hamlet/Ophelia - get thee to a nunnery
Laertes/Ophelia - fear it dear sister
Polonius/Laertes - to thine own self be true
Polonius/Ophelia - do not believe his vows

chagall painted goats floating sideways in the sky

I don't believe Chagall was thinking anything except humming, like Pooh with honey, when he painted goats floating sideways in the sky, green women, red men, pale moons.

We had our next-to-last Living Your Vision coaching call tonight. This week's focus was "Fame And Reputation" or as it is sometimes known, "Legacy." I read my Intention, Choices, and Actions. The others were quiet. "I'm done," I said. They were still quiet. "Do you want some affirmation, Rachel?" asked the leader. "No, I'm good," I said. "I've used up a lot of time. The next person can go now." They began to speak. It was as if I had said something great. It was strange. Usually I know if I have said something great. This was not tongues of fire. It was my to-do list.

Writing these were a welcome break for me. It felt like designing calligraphy for my housemate last night. Creating for me is a contented mindless hum. I rest in the act of creation.

black hole singing

Astronomers have detected sound waves from a super-massive black hole. The "note" is the deepest ever detected from an object in the Universe.

The black hole lives in the Perseus cluster of galaxies, located 250 million light-years away. The pitch of the sound can be determined. Although far too low to be heard, it is calculated to be B flat. With a frequency over a million, billion times deeper than the limits of human hearing, it is the deepest note ever detected from an object in the Universe. The B-flat pitch of the sound wave, 57 octaves below middle-C, would have remained roughly constant for about 2.5 billion years.

by Dr. David Whitehouse, BBC News Online science editor

radiant ghosts

When I first taught acting in January '99, I hired three Robyn-Hunt-trained guest artists to demonstrate Suzuki slowtens -- Naho Shioya, Michael Perrone, and an actress friend of theirs. From then on, I used students from earlier classes as guest artists for later ones.

At the Odin I used myself, also trained by Robyn Hunt. This year I fell off; no slowtens in Improv, and few in Noir, as several of the actors had foot issues.

I'm bringing guest artists for this class. A treat for me. The students don't realize the transmission they're getting.

Oh man -- I should see how many guest artists I could get. Have everyone I've trained up there, a horde of radiant ghosts.

Holly, Rick, Matt, Lexi, Birgit, Shane, Jessica, Maggie, Derek, Ben, Gwen, Jenni, Jeff, Ian, Malia, Brett, Shea, Brian, Kris, Kristine, Dean, Radmila, Scott, Scott Johnson, Mike, Dave, Tony, Jyothi, Sandra, Jody, Jones, Justin, Alexei, Anya, Ed, Christina, Ashley, Kerry, Mimi, Paul, those three gorgeous Chorus women from Italy, Mexico, & South Africa, Heather, Lois, Chris, Flicka, Brad, Jeffrey, Peter, Vincent, Lucy, Ashok, Colleen, Alok, Amy, Yaniv, Greg, Vincent & Jennifer, Yvette, Christie, Sal, Pam, Denise, Erica, PJ, Cas, Angelica, Jeff, Sandra, Lyon, Marina, Mary, Keith, Lara.

Let the 5 new actors see the previous 450.

Robyn would have thousands.

Keep your pelvis moving
Slow down at the interaction
Don't think, don't think, don't think
Turn the whole world with your spine
Move like a drowned statue
We perform for the eye of god

they are xraying my building tonight

I have to leave by 11:30. They have a big xray on a crane, and will be examining the building for structural defects. How cool. There have GOT to be glitches in that system. (laughing) I wish I could see the pix. My dentist keeps a monitor by the chair, I can see my teeth xrays in moments.

I thought games were fun to work on. "Build an xray machine that can xray a building." "How big a building?" "Marketing says any size building." Silence. "That would take a fucking crane." "Crane. Good thought." "Do they need a handheld version?" "Only for the hard-to-get-to interior parts."

I can just imagine how that project went. "Jim, hey buddy, can I come xray your garage tonight?" "Why?" "It's for my project. For work. I just wanna try it out." "Why don't you xray your own garage?" "I can't fit the crane in my driveway." "Crane?"

"Where's the crane?" "George borrowed it. He's doing prototype work." CUT TO -- George driving a crane VERY slowly down the freeway at 2:00am. Lights. "Can I see your license & registration please?"

It's no different -- me making a game, Mark making a play, Kipley & Cornel making a puppet show. Building stuff is fun. Getting paid to build stuff is even funner.

oh my gosh, it's all connected

My friend Kris Strong has what we call The Whomp Factor. When she gets big, she gets huge -- like a spinnaker sail suddenly going whomp, bellying out, and the boat leaping downwind.

We were driving around one night, exploding with insights. We pulled into the nearest Microsoft building, grabbed a whiteboard, and began mapping everything we were figuring out.

Hair wild, eyes luminous and huge, she suddenly froze and said:

Oh my gosh -- it's all connected.

That's how I feel right now in my life. Lyon, Miyazaki, my housekeeper, Jeff, Boon, Radmila, my niece, Kipley, John, my brother, Joan, JJ, Scott, the ever-Odin, Leonid, Chekhov, emptying the house, life-coaching, teaching my last class, a hot Hamlet fivesome, muscularity at work, a game the size of three, two books & candle to start the day, prayers throughout, Intentions daily, eating clams-and-vegetarian, rejoining my body, rivering art.

This is how my first year of theatre felt. I am as hungry and much stronger. This next 7-year cycle is theatre in the world. You must make your life a Mass, said the old priest to the silent one who was leaving the priesthood to get married, but not leaving god or his practice.

A High Mass is one with singing. A Low Mass is one without.

The rehearsal studio is the guru bead on the mala. In rehearsal I stand in the dream-world & waking-world at once, and all my gifts are required.

like a wind from the desert

My housemate is like a wind from the desert. He wrote in his blog:

Five years ago I stopped listening to other people, one year ago I stopped listening to myself, now I just listen to God and life is so much fucking easier I cannot even begin to describe it.

"How often do you check in with god?" I asked last night. "Pretty much all the time," he said.

It was like having a world-traveller passing through.

if my door is open, people come in

When you look in my office, you gaze at a glowing white art table. I keep two art lamps on and the overheads off. It looks like a stage set. On the table stand five carved wooden Hasidic musicians & a carved angel. On the wall above hangs a dark-green-and-peach buddha, Van Gogh trees, a Chihuly sketch, and my calligraphy. To the side is concept art for my game.

This white expanse draws humans like a jewel.

If my door is open, people come in. They sit at the art table or settle into the guest chair, and start to talk.

It's like a little party. This happens no matter what their level of management, or even whether I know them.

They come to rest.

Sitting at or near that glowing white empty art table, restores their spirits. Light is like water; it's like sitting by a fountain.

Two guys just left, after 2 hours. I got a complete overview of World of Warcraft, a tour of Google's tools, a site that compares search results, an introduction to a realtor, the inside scoop on two hiring companies, advice for one guy's project, and why Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem on the GameCube is one of the most elegant games ever designed.

If I kept the door to my heart & thoughts & home open, the same thing would happen there.

rachel needs

So here's the latest, thanks to Jeff Grubb. Google for: "Rachel needs" -- except using your name, & the quote marks. Copy the first 15 answers.

Here is my & my officemate's answers. It's funnier if you do your own name.

Rachel needs your prayers.
Rachel needs help when she enters Manhattan's meat-packing district.
Rachel needs £5000 pounds sterling.
Rachel needs to refer to Web sites.
Rachel needs guidance and normal supervision.
Rachel needs help with a question on "Value Laddering."
Rachel needs to have blush that is very bright and colorful.
Rachel needs $180.70.
Rachel needs f*king now.
Rachel needs to clearly reflect.
Rachel needs to be responsible for her own behaviour.
Rachel needs to stop being so loud.
Rachel needs time to chill out.
Rachel needs an auctioneer.
Rachel needs to get her partner back into treatment.

Steve needs a doctor.
Steve needs you.
Steve needs help again please.
Steve needs to find a squirrel hitman.
Steve needs more money.
Steve needs to hurry up.
Steve needs a new v8-pack function.
Steve needs some reasons for the traffic.
Steve needs to deliver a keynote.
Steve needs to let go beyond his visual radar.
Steve needs help Hello!
Steve needs to cut two pieces of wood.
Steve needs $300 for the weekend.
Steve needs to slap somebody around.
Steve needs two women.

We were laughing and laughing, in that trying-to-keep-it-muffled kind of way. What is a squirrel hitman? Why two pieces of wood? Rachel needs guidance and normal supervision. He put Steve needs to let go beyond his visual radar into his email sig line.

One more -- "Rachel wants."

Rachel wants to fit into the streets of New York.
Rachel wants £35M.
Rachel wants very much to consolidate on recent successes.
Rachel wants to place a parrot that has been taught to speak Maypure.
Rachel wants it different.
Rachel wants students to be "with it" and "with her."
Rachel wants you to bring her an apple from the corner grocery store.
Rachel wants to make bacon.
Rachel wants to be one big happy family.
Rachel wants to do 18 things.
Rachel wants her and Gareth to stop blaming Kerryn and look at their own behaviour before they ditch their emigration plans.
Rachel wants to take a break.
Rachel wants to know why a special ops team are trying to kill them.

Scenes for NonActors -- the memory be green

I'm teaching my BCC acting class for the last time. I decided to go out on a Shakespeare. With Hamlet.

I am teaching for my teachers. Like cleaning a house impeccably, knowing I'm leaving it.

The actors, in Walking, could not come present enough to all freeze instantly, at once, with no signal. Normally, I'd work on the whole group. This time I stripped the stage to two actors. I worked until they got it. Then I added one more. Then another.

I learned this from Alexei Ognev, a Russian actor. He was being an orchestra director in an improv. The other actors were playing invisible instruments & voicing the sounds. "Stop," he said. "You." He pointed to the nearest person. "You play." The actor quailed. "I don't even know how to play violin," he said. "You play, please," said Alexei. The actor played, his voice quavering. "Again," said Alexei. "Again, please." "Again." He was in no hurry. Not as the maestro, and not as Alex.

I, too, was not in a hurry.

We did a surprising amount in one timespun class. Blind-touch mirroring was a soundless fracture. Braided haikus cracked again. Wall statues was a huge crack; I sent them up in 2's and 3's, but by the second round they had morphed into a single seamless group.

After getting scripts, they left for separate rooms. I sat in the hall writing. A peaceful 45 minutes passed.

I had them write haiku as their characters -- "I, Polonious," "I, Hamlet." Then haiku about themselves.

The day ran like silk through my hands.

I was not wrong about their fineness. They came like stags and does.

I gave the full teaching for Shakespeare. And I let them hear the language. I did Claudius near the top of the play. Let them hear the ring, the sensuality, the bite.

Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
The memory be green, and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe,
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
The imperial jointress to this warlike state,
Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,--
With an auspicious and a dropping eye,
With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole,--
Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along. For all, our thanks.

-- Claudius, in Hamlet, by Shakespeare

virtual sweden

Thanks to JJ -- check out Virtual Sweden's gorgeous panoramic shots from all over, not just Sweden.


London's St. Clement Danes

If you're on a fast machine, click "Full screen version" and pan around. Jaw-droppingly gorgeous.

what I'm reading now

The Power of Focus, by Jack Canfield et al
The Left Hand of God, by William Barrett
The View From a Monastery, by Brother Benet Tvedten
A Book Of Luminous Things: An international anthology of poetry, ed. by Cselow Milosz
Hamlet, by William Shakespeare

what I'm reading

What I'm reading now:

- Push Comes To Shove, Twyla Tharp's autobiography
- The Silver Wedding, by Maeve Binchy
- Talking With Artists, Volume 2, by Pat Cummings.
- The Chinese Have A Word For It, by Boye Lafayette De Mente.
- Things Seen And Unseen: A year lived in faith, by Nora Gallagher.

praying kinesthetically

I have an inner altar where I set things I want white light poured on. Last night I dreamt I had become the altar. Then it shifted and the whole world became the altar. I fell into a deep sleep.

I pray between my snooze alarms. I start with gratitudes; just say thank you for the first couple rounds. Seek help on my projects. Lay open for messages. It varies. I do 4 or 5 prayers before getting up, seven minutes each. I plan for a half hour of snoozing when I set the alarm.

I used to use that time to dream. Now I use it to commune. It's like horse dreams. Drowsing, uncomplicated.

The more kinesthetic the environment -- immersed in a hot-tub, or surrounded by bedding -- the more honest my prayers.

I read about a Russian monk whose form of prayer was a silencing of himself. He would go outside in Nature at dusk and listen. Some days there would be a message. Often nothing. Sometimes just his own restless thoughts. He didn't expect anything. To be available was the act of prayer.

I have an ex-missionary friend who smokes and prays. I had her do it out loud one time so I could listen. I envied her the depth of the relationship.

The fictional and the dead are not less real to me than the living.

I invite Stanislavski & Chekhov to every rehearsal. I read today that Twyla Tharp put an invisible Balanchine in the corner of her studio and kept him there for 20 years. Just so he could keep telling her, "It's not right. Fix it."

mimic octopus

I saw a fantastic creature called a mimic octopus. It not only mimics colors, it also mimics shape and movement.


The Indo-Malayan Mimic Octopus, octopus species 4.


The mimic octopus


Sitting up in his burrow


Mimicking a sea-snake


Mimicking a starfish


Mimicking a lionfish (looks drifty when swimming)


Mimicking a flounder (and undulating like one)


Mimicking seaweed

There was even a part on the tv show where it made its legs all angular and walked sideways like a crab. The theory is that, because its habitat is so bland, camouflage is insufficient. It has learned to mimic predators. It's startling how smart this octopus is.

Here is a post by Paul Myers, biology professor at University of Minnesota, with two movies of the wondrous octopus in action. You'll need Quicktime to play these.


Here is his incredible Octopus-Swimming-Like-A-Flounder movie. (Click on "Here," not on the picture.)


Here is his Octopus-As-SeaSnake movie. Watch till the end to see the startled fish.

these habits will be mine for life

Almost everything I'm doing is the ordinary, the plain. I can't even brag about it; who would care? To open a bill the day I get it. To pay it when it's due. To return an email, return a phone call, put aside savings, vaccuum.

Yet by the time this winter's rains & snows have passed, these habits will be mine for life. As stubbornly as I eat vegetarian meal by meal, I wade into SJ, TJ habits. Oddly comforted, sure this strange ground is my path. The path which led to Russia, through the Odin, into a river, to emptying my house, leads here.

What shall I do with these 5 actors?

I feel the wind on my face constantly. Like gazing at god, a steady kinesthetic Yes.

I drove to Seattle tonight and wanted to stay. This is my body's natural inner clock, to sleep all day and work all night. Walking through Bergamo, still warm at 2:00am, meeting actors from other companies and our own, moving from stone bar to stone cafe.

Why am I planting this slow garden of my life?

If I only look at god, the answers are so unexpected.

love's confusing joy

If you want what visible reality
can give, you're an employee.
If you want the unseen world,
you're not living your truth.
Both wishes are foolish,
but you'll be forgiven for forgetting
that what you really want is
love's confusing joy.

--Rumi

Nice with my niece

Someday my niece and I are going to Nice.


We'll start at the beach, on the French Riviera


Then we'll turn and admire the town


Eat a nice baguette or a pastry by the seawall


While we look at our map


On the street we'll buy some fleurs


On our way to the Opera House


Where we'll enter


Proceed to our seats


Admire the chandelier


Enjoy the performance


Afterwards we'll stop at a little cafe


Drink a cappucino & hot chocolate


Go back to our hotel


And go to bed

Bon soir. Quel bon jour, ma petite. Quelle belle ville. Quelle belle vie.

what I'm reading this week

My Life In The Russian Theatre
by Nemirovich-Danchenko

cameron & the girls

In Her Shoes, with Toni Collette & Cameron Diaz

I love these actors & Shirley MacLaine. Can't wait till Friday when it opens.

NO WORK TONIGHT!!!! I don't have to come in early tomorrow!!!!

What shall I do to celebrate.

it is by embracing all of who we are

It is by embracing all of who we are that we earn the freedom to choose what we do in this world.

-- Debbie Ford

moment of beauty

Good food

A couple days ago I walked into a Pasta & Co, thinking it was Starbucks.



They have a big deli counter, and a lot of appetizers. Fancy stuff. No additives. Delicious. Expensive. Worth it.





I bought fruit crispbread, a spreadable cheese, and olive paste.

the poem of "cracking all over the place"

call up your armies --
mercenary men of strength and
heart, warm witch women

let their singing be
the noise you most long to hear --
sing till you shatter

all the beauty you
desire is here -- slake yourself,
grin dripping, howl

we must be whole to
thrive -- redemption enters sideways
it's all connected

from my garden comes
the calm for class, the will at
work, dreamt Italy

i am cracking all over the place

Yesterday I taught Scenes for Non-Actors. I was very different from last time I taught. I was different at work today too. I'm good at work, I realized. Work is easy. I was surprised to find myself different in class. I was stunned to find myself different at work.

I directed Shakespeare, Euripides, Chekhov early, the biggest plays I could see, because some part of me knew I was not long for scripted texts; that they would pour through me and be gone.

Now I wonder if theatre itself may be like those texts. I don't want this to be true. Perhaps the form will mutate, not vanish. I feel myself, like some tectonic plate, lifting skyward.

I dreamt I had received the entire Stanislavski System

Last night I dreamt I had downloaded the whole Stanislavski System. It came in a rush, like a salmon, mysteriously intact. I had the entire massive file.



Stanislavski was there. We were all inside the computer, in the datastream. He was a tiny glowy golden figure like the Princess Leia holograph in Star Wars. Nemirovich-Danchenko & Leonid were glowy figures to the left, out of sight.

I also, I realized, had absorbed the entire mountain of what Rumer Godden knew -- monks & monasteries, cool-wind Kashmir, sparrow children.



I was climbing down from the top of that mountain, roped with a pickaxe. The mountain looked like a giant thangka, like Jiang's white-faced Empress who hangs in my front room. I was climbing near her blue eye & her black one.


Jiang's Empress

==============

In my waking life, I am slowly typing into another blog the entire manuscript of Leonid's unpublished first book, In Admiration of the Human Being.

I am rereading Nemirovich-Danchenko's My Life In The Russian Theatre. The part about how he and Stanislavski met; and had an 18-hour conversation that began in a restaurant, moved to Stanislavski's country home, lasted all night, and ended with them founding the Moscow Art Theatre which changed acting forever.


Nemirovich-Danchenko & Stanislavksi at the Moscow Art Theatre

He spoke about how apt he thought the Russian proverb was, Two bears won't get along together in the same den -- especially given two men used to absolute rule; how they created an artificial division of duties to get themselves past this -- Stanislavski had the final word on form ("Art"), Nemirovich-Danchenko on content ("Literature"); how this never really worked, although they always obeyed it -- yet how, indeed, they did manage to create the theatre.

It is precisely this point which was to become the most explosive in our future mutual relations...

None the less, on that remarkable morning we snatched at this artificial device, so intensely did we desire to banish all hindrances, so endlessly attractive, so tremendous and precious seemed that visionary edifice which we had adorned inwardly and outwardly, infecting each other from two-o-clock of the previous day with our temperaments, beautiful dreams, and closeness to realization. Each of us honestly and without calculation was ready to take upon his own shoulders the sacrifical burden of making the concession, if only to keep the divine conflagration in us from being forthwith extinguished.

Sometimes such trifles are recalled, such seemingly insignificant trifles!

For the whole of life there has remained in my memory the silence before the dawn in the farmhouse, upon my return from Moscow.

-- Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko

I am also reading Christopher Alexander, the humanist architect & creator of pattern languages, author of The Nature of Order, on how real human structures grow.

An organically-grown human structure

In the carpenter’s workshop, each piece is gradually built and fitted, over many years, until each tool fits just where it belongs, and each surface is just the right size and height for the carpenters work. [...]



There is no perfect layout process, and no perfect theory of layout, which you can use to get the perfect working environment. The carpenter's workshop, referred to above, is the end product of years and years of gradual, painstaking adaptation. During these years, the carpenter works, each day, and every now and then he does something usually something small, and quickly done to make the work more comfortable.



Thus, the great comfort that is achieved is not arrived at by being right. It is arrived at by being wrong, and by making small modest steps, to make what is wrong slightly more comfortable, slightly less wrong.

It is important to recognize that the state of mind in which the carpenter is able to achieve this, is a very humble one. He is never trying very hard to make perfect environment for himself. He is never under the illusion that he can reach anything perfect. He just keeps trying to make it little bit better all the time.

This process of gradually trying to make things little bit better, all the time, is the only state of mind in which you can really get there, because it is low stakes, humble and fairly easy. You don't have to try to hard, you don't have to kid yourself or anyone else you just have to keep working at it, bit by bit, and having a few small ideas which slowly make things better. [...]

As you will see, this easy process requires a very particular set of tools, to let you get there. [...] We shall see that the tools that are needed for this process are surprisingly sophisticated.

-- Christopher Alexander

========

My question is:

How do I grow something organically? Which is in service to god? With another person?

The answer I am receiving is:

With a leap of faith. Despite all common sense. Starting from yourself, making things a little bit better all the time. With humbleness. You know how.