In light of the looming tax deadline, I bring you this wellspring of incomprehensible mish-mosh, that reminded me of the instructions on the back of my 1099-B.
Forget world peace, I just wish government documents were written clearly and concisely. Until then, I shake my fist at you, vague technical lingo!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Monday, April 7, 2008
Self-assessment
"My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--It gives a lovely light!" --Edna St. Vincent Millay
Thursday, April 3, 2008
The Great Communicator
I was hanging out with one of my guy pals last night discussing classes, majors, and how we are both praying to the Lord above that the semester will be over. It’s that time for all college folk: the post-spring break slump. It has us all banging ourselves over our heads with textbooks a la Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
I asked him what classes he was taking, and suddenly he got really excited. Overly excited. ‘Are-you feeling-well?!’ excited.
The class?
Creative writing.
Now mind you, this kid is pretty sure he’s the next James Dean. He’s a gearhead, a tough guy, someone who’s always made fun of me for being an English major and literature and language aficionado, and here he is, sheepishly admitting that he really likes to write poetry.
Karma, much?
Within moments we were swapping poems, chatting about alliteration and metaphor, and laughing about the poet’s mantra to ‘Show! Don’t tell!”
That adage on assumption haunts me.
The power of language is undiscerning in who it touches. It can awaken a passion that banishes even the most pervasive spring semester blues, and spur one on to create, to share a bit of oneself, to commune with something greater. It speaks to the soul in a way that nothing else does, whispering, teasing, inspiring.
Write on, closet poet, write on.
I asked him what classes he was taking, and suddenly he got really excited. Overly excited. ‘Are-you feeling-well?!’ excited.
The class?
Creative writing.
Now mind you, this kid is pretty sure he’s the next James Dean. He’s a gearhead, a tough guy, someone who’s always made fun of me for being an English major and literature and language aficionado, and here he is, sheepishly admitting that he really likes to write poetry.
Karma, much?
Within moments we were swapping poems, chatting about alliteration and metaphor, and laughing about the poet’s mantra to ‘Show! Don’t tell!”
That adage on assumption haunts me.
The power of language is undiscerning in who it touches. It can awaken a passion that banishes even the most pervasive spring semester blues, and spur one on to create, to share a bit of oneself, to commune with something greater. It speaks to the soul in a way that nothing else does, whispering, teasing, inspiring.
Write on, closet poet, write on.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Line of the Week
"What the storyteller is doing, of course, is looking through the windows of his imagination, trying to see things more clearly, hoping to help and enlighten and entertain others at the same time.
And sometimes, if the panes in the windows are clear, he does." --Arthur Gordon
And sometimes, if the panes in the windows are clear, he does." --Arthur Gordon
May we all find clean, clear windows.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Lines, please!
Behold. Here recorded are the events of last night’s rehearsal.
5:05 pm: The actors start trickling in. Late, as usual. I’ll refer to each of them by their character names: Suzie, Roger, Julia, Terrence, Khalid, Jeff, and Lydia (me). Our director Stuart is impatient to start.
5:13: Everyone has assembled, and the actors begin their vocal warm-up: a series of tongue twisters that are prime both the brain and the mouth for maximum vocal performance. Since the play rests so heavily on the action within conversation, this exercise is an important one, and who doesn’t have fun saying: “A box of biscuits. A box of mixed biscuits, and a biscuit mixer,” as fast as they can? ( You know you want to try it!)
5:20: Stuart instructs us to pace: which is just theatre lingo for going through the play and saying lines as fast as we can without acting them. It’s a good refresher for remembering one’s lines, but its also important for rhythm. Conversations have a natural beat to them, like music, and in order for a play to be believable onstage, actors must tap into that rhythm. Pacing drills the lines into the actor’s brain so that they become second nature, natural reactions for the character, therefore allowing the actor to worry less about what they are saying, but how they are saying a line.
6:24: After a couple of line snafus (read dropped, mixed-up, or wrong lines and people who aren’t off-book) we finish pacing. Stuart declares a five-minute break. After we come back we will work on several moments in the play where conversations aren’t working. There is a mass exodus to the vending machines.
6:42: Late, as always, we begin working on a scene that involves fast-paced dialogue and passing a dish of relish. It’s about a 50 second bit of conversation hell. In order for it to work, lines must be said with the correct intensity (building!) and exactly at the right moment (mimicking natural conversation) to give focus to the words over the business of the relish passing. Who knew it was so hard to talk and pass relish at the same time?
6:56: We go to a scene at the top of the play that moves from genial, fast-paced, witty conversation to a full-out screaming match. Again, here the issues are in the intensity and the timing. The words are the focus and we have to make them as active and interesting as possible in order to keep the audience attentive and not sleeping in their chairs.
6:03: Pronunciation meltdown. The actors playing Suzie and Khalid speak English as a second language. Suzie just said sal-mon instead of salmon.
6:05: In an OT conversation, ‘Roger’ asks ‘Suzie:’ “Do we (Americans) sound like we have accents to you?”
She just looks at him.
‘Jeff’: (to ‘Roger’) Ethnocentric motherf****er!
6:07: Back on track. Stuart constantly tweaks bits of timing and line delivery to give focus and make sentences more clear to an imagined audience.
6:46: That scene is nailed down. We move to a scene at the end of the show where ‘Khalid’ has a lot of lines. I’ve been drafted to go through the script and mark where he mispronounces a word or circle places where his accent makes it difficult to understand him.
7:26: ‘Khalid’s scene has made progress. We are rewarded with another short break.
7:44: We start at the top of the show for a run-through. Stuart will not stop us until the play ends or we run out of time, and then he will give notes (God save us!). He reminds us especially to focus on the language, watching rhythm and intensity. “Keep it moving!”
9:11: (A rather symbolic time for the content of the play!) We finish the show. A good run, but by no mans perfect. ‘Roger’ must watch his mush-mouth-ness and his volume (too loud!) . ‘Suzie’ gets a little whiny at times, which is hard for audiences to physically listen to, ‘Khalid’ needs to keep working on his pronunciation and line memorization, while ‘Terrance’ has to tap into the natural rhythms and cadences of speech–he’s sounding artificial. ‘Julia’ has to up her intensity, ‘Jeff’ suffers from the same problem, but he also is having problems with volume. I need to watch my volume at times, as well as my mid-western accent–Stuart doesn’t want it to be too strong for the show.
It’s nit-picky stuff. I’m suddenly realizing how many complex factors go into communicating and communicating well. We hardly have to think about it in regular conversation, but it is imperative in theatre’s artificial conversations. Ultimately, Omnium’s success lies in the power of language and the actor’s mastery of it.
5:05 pm: The actors start trickling in. Late, as usual. I’ll refer to each of them by their character names: Suzie, Roger, Julia, Terrence, Khalid, Jeff, and Lydia (me). Our director Stuart is impatient to start.
5:13: Everyone has assembled, and the actors begin their vocal warm-up: a series of tongue twisters that are prime both the brain and the mouth for maximum vocal performance. Since the play rests so heavily on the action within conversation, this exercise is an important one, and who doesn’t have fun saying: “A box of biscuits. A box of mixed biscuits, and a biscuit mixer,” as fast as they can? ( You know you want to try it!)
5:20: Stuart instructs us to pace: which is just theatre lingo for going through the play and saying lines as fast as we can without acting them. It’s a good refresher for remembering one’s lines, but its also important for rhythm. Conversations have a natural beat to them, like music, and in order for a play to be believable onstage, actors must tap into that rhythm. Pacing drills the lines into the actor’s brain so that they become second nature, natural reactions for the character, therefore allowing the actor to worry less about what they are saying, but how they are saying a line.
6:24: After a couple of line snafus (read dropped, mixed-up, or wrong lines and people who aren’t off-book) we finish pacing. Stuart declares a five-minute break. After we come back we will work on several moments in the play where conversations aren’t working. There is a mass exodus to the vending machines.
6:42: Late, as always, we begin working on a scene that involves fast-paced dialogue and passing a dish of relish. It’s about a 50 second bit of conversation hell. In order for it to work, lines must be said with the correct intensity (building!) and exactly at the right moment (mimicking natural conversation) to give focus to the words over the business of the relish passing. Who knew it was so hard to talk and pass relish at the same time?
6:56: We go to a scene at the top of the play that moves from genial, fast-paced, witty conversation to a full-out screaming match. Again, here the issues are in the intensity and the timing. The words are the focus and we have to make them as active and interesting as possible in order to keep the audience attentive and not sleeping in their chairs.
6:03: Pronunciation meltdown. The actors playing Suzie and Khalid speak English as a second language. Suzie just said sal-mon instead of salmon.
6:05: In an OT conversation, ‘Roger’ asks ‘Suzie:’ “Do we (Americans) sound like we have accents to you?”
She just looks at him.
‘Jeff’: (to ‘Roger’) Ethnocentric motherf****er!
6:07: Back on track. Stuart constantly tweaks bits of timing and line delivery to give focus and make sentences more clear to an imagined audience.
6:46: That scene is nailed down. We move to a scene at the end of the show where ‘Khalid’ has a lot of lines. I’ve been drafted to go through the script and mark where he mispronounces a word or circle places where his accent makes it difficult to understand him.
7:26: ‘Khalid’s scene has made progress. We are rewarded with another short break.
7:44: We start at the top of the show for a run-through. Stuart will not stop us until the play ends or we run out of time, and then he will give notes (God save us!). He reminds us especially to focus on the language, watching rhythm and intensity. “Keep it moving!”
9:11: (A rather symbolic time for the content of the play!) We finish the show. A good run, but by no mans perfect. ‘Roger’ must watch his mush-mouth-ness and his volume (too loud!) . ‘Suzie’ gets a little whiny at times, which is hard for audiences to physically listen to, ‘Khalid’ needs to keep working on his pronunciation and line memorization, while ‘Terrance’ has to tap into the natural rhythms and cadences of speech–he’s sounding artificial. ‘Julia’ has to up her intensity, ‘Jeff’ suffers from the same problem, but he also is having problems with volume. I need to watch my volume at times, as well as my mid-western accent–Stuart doesn’t want it to be too strong for the show.
It’s nit-picky stuff. I’m suddenly realizing how many complex factors go into communicating and communicating well. We hardly have to think about it in regular conversation, but it is imperative in theatre’s artificial conversations. Ultimately, Omnium’s success lies in the power of language and the actor’s mastery of it.
Monday, March 24, 2008
An Actor's Life for Me
Mini eureka in play rehearsal the other night: This is fabulous fodder for bloggage!
By ‘this’, I mean all of the ways the actors and director have to tackle issues of language: rhythm, tone, believability. After all, the script is merely words put into the actor’s mouth by someone else. Our job is to relate them in a way that is both natural and consistent to our ‘character’ and furthers the larger moral or themes of the play as interpreted by the director.
The play I’m in: Omnium Gatherum by Theresa Rebeck and Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros, is lingually challenging (My director lovingly refers to it as ‘a talky piece of shit.’). The script itself is intelligent, witty, and sharp, and the main action of the play is not physical, but verbal. The attention here is solely on the language: what we, the actor, say, and how we say it.
I’ll be pseudo live-blogging a rehearsal (no laptop!), noting especially issues that involve language for a different approach to Line, Please!’s central theme.
More to come.
By ‘this’, I mean all of the ways the actors and director have to tackle issues of language: rhythm, tone, believability. After all, the script is merely words put into the actor’s mouth by someone else. Our job is to relate them in a way that is both natural and consistent to our ‘character’ and furthers the larger moral or themes of the play as interpreted by the director.
The play I’m in: Omnium Gatherum by Theresa Rebeck and Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros, is lingually challenging (My director lovingly refers to it as ‘a talky piece of shit.’). The script itself is intelligent, witty, and sharp, and the main action of the play is not physical, but verbal. The attention here is solely on the language: what we, the actor, say, and how we say it.
I’ll be pseudo live-blogging a rehearsal (no laptop!), noting especially issues that involve language for a different approach to Line, Please!’s central theme.
More to come.
Line of the Week
"Puns are little "plays on words" that a certain breed of person loves to spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied way to indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far the cleverest person on Earth now that Benjamin Franklin is dead, when in fact what you are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in a lifeboat, the other passengers will hurl him overboard by the end of the first day even if they have plenty of food and water." --Dave Barry
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