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