Where to Begin?

Seriously, where does one begin? (I think there was some movie, maybe Spiderman 1 or 2, where Peter Parker's whining about picking up threads of lives. Moron. But if I could just remember the quote, I'd put it in here. Since I can't, you, my imaginary readership, will just need to be Tantalized.)

How's that working out for ya?

Thought so.

Well, before anything else, I must give madd propz to Twitter for re-hooking me on blogging. Of course, I planned to restart, or reboot, this venue of self-expression once my 22 credit-hours of class and several theatre productions were over and done with, but I was frankly concerned that I wouldn't have the drive to post stuff. Then I remembered that I had signed up for Twitter a while ago (I tend to sign up for things and then forget they exist) and that I could quickly and easily mini-blog using That medium. So I did. And thanks to Twitter, I am now Back In The Saddle with the whole exposing personal details online thing.

Speaking of several theatre productions, this might be a good time for me to inflate my ego and impress all of you nonexistent readers by reckoning the reckoning of different shows in which I've been involved. So, with little further ado:
Alice in Wonderland
Emily
Third
Antigone
2009 ACTstravaganza
The Great Divorce

So yeah...that actually did not inflate my ego much...but when one considers that I worked all those shows in a 5-month period, that's kinda cool. Or something. I guess. Maybe. OH! I got a free Amp this morning. For those of you who don't know what an Amp is, a) I pity you, Foo', and b) it's an energy drink.

I have hulu to be surfing, so we're going to call a halt to this inaugural, or perhaps re-inaugural, post. Peace, all.

(That's funny, because nobody's going to read this.)

Long live Comebacks!

All The World Sat Singing. It's a Parable, Peeps.

All the world sat singing.

They were all dressed in white, and they sang a hymn of praise to the All. For the All had finally conquered the Me and won the victory, and the people were glad. All the world sat singing, and their song was a single melody repeated incessantly—“Glory to the All, for we are All”—repeated incessantly. There was no harmony; there was no need for harmony. The crowd was dressed in white, sameness folds of linen woven in one piece, never a seam to break the flow. There was no color; there was no need for color.

All the world sat singing, and their hymn of praise to the All was never-ending. But in the heart of one small figure in the back of the people there blossomed a note of difference. She was small of stature and big of soul, and her hair was as black as a raven. And to herself she whispered, even as she continued to chant with all the world—to herself she whispered, “Why is there no harmony? Why is there no need for color?”

All the world sat singing, for the All had finally defeated the Me. And though some sages said that the Me would never die, they either changed their thinking or were done away with. For they who said such things were rebelling against the All, and the All must be victorious. The small figure with the big soul and the raven hair knew what happened to the sages, and silently had learned.

All the world stood singing, and their hymn of praise to the All was cloying. The small figure with the big soul and the raven hair chanted with all the world, but the blossom of Me within her was growing. It thrust deep roots into her big soul and drank of its joyous life. It captured her, overwhelmed her, filled her, and burst forth from her mouth in a harmonic jovial cascade. It did not attack the All with its harmony; it joined with the All and enriched it and deepened it, and all the world wondered.

All the world stood wondering as the hymn of praise to the All welled up stronger than ever, not helping the harmony of the Me, but seeking to drown it with sheer volume. But as the small figure with the big soul and the raven hair heard the hymn grow stronger, so too did she raise her voice and the harmony of the Me grew stronger also. And now, somewhere else in the crowd of people, another blossom of harmony and Me burst forth in full bloom in another section of the people, and another, and another. The hymn grew greater and more magnificent as the All was once more dissolved into the Me, and the Me blended to become an All—not the All, but an All. And as the All dissolved, all the world grew afraid and fell silent.

All the world stood silent, the hymn of praise to the All dying on their lips. A few brave souls still sang their harmony, but it was as fine embroidery without a tapestry. The threads of glorious harmony fell down into the wells of silence, distant and dry. Only the small figure with the big soul and the raven hair could still sing, and her voice was dying. She struggled, for she knew that if the song fell silent, the world would perish.

All the world lay dying; the small figure with the big soul and the raven hair could no longer stand upright. She falls to her knees, gasping out the life-giving chant, but she knows that it is hopeless. She totters; her breath comes in great heaving gasps; the dying people around her silently beg with their deafening silence for her to save them, for at least a moment more. She wavers—she falls—a strangled cry from her lips, and all is silence.

All the world lay dead. The All had finally conquered.

Laziness

So I was going to write a long, glorious post about how the concept of Friendship is being deconstructed, but I'm too lazy. I'm in the middle of The Empire Strikes Back, and I'm in no mood to rouse myself. See, here's the thing, in brief: it used to be that people who were friends respected each other, and communicated that respect through respectful behavior. Now, it seems, friends express their friendship by abuse and by disrespect. It seems positively counterintuitive. Why can't friends be Friendly to each other?

That's all for now, folks. I need to get back to Hoth.

Long live Laziness!

For Your (Imaginary) Viewing Pleasure

I'm having a really hard time not laughing at this one. Seriously: it's a terrible thing, and I'm ashamed of myself for not feeling sorrowful for the player, and the team, and the player's family. Ah, I'm truly a perverted little fiend.

Long live emotional equivocation!

My Latest Poesy (Another Rip-Snorter IMuO)

A Reverie Befell Me, Walking Across the Courtyard

I push the door open. I don’t know what the

weather will be when I do so:

rain

snow

Cool rushing wafts of glorious lake air

what? I idly wonder.

Yet I go outside anyway. I push the door

open

and step onto the melting slushy snow.

Yes, it’s rain, a steady, light spatter on my

shirt

hands

face.

I feel the glory of the rain on my skin,

the unsurpassed

universal

sensual

final and ephemeral splendor of the spatter.

The snow beneath my feet is gray, packed.

Feet have crossed here, treading

thoughtlessly

on the miraculous individuality of the flakes.

Their life is at an end.

Too long they’ve lingered on; their brothers

the raindrops

unconsciously fratricidal

murdering, amalgamating, consolidating.

The snow from this morning is almost gone.

I leave the snow behind.

Already the light from the building behind me is

a distant memory of civilization and order. I walk

staring dully at my feet squishing and plashing

treading down the old dead grass of last fall

which just now sees the light of day after a winter of discontent.

The rain

the glorious rain

the mystic rain

it spatters on my glasses and clogs my vision

the light from the parking lot reflects

throwing tiny spots of faint wavering white light into my retinas.

I pass a tree. A young tree

its branches red and overconfident with the hint

hint of new growth

hint of new leaf

hint of new life

a maple, I think.

The tree is lit; a spotlight shines through its branches in mockery of its nakedness.

The spotlight bleeds a film of white light into the corner of my eye:

I am blinded

and yet I can see

I once was lost, but now am found: was blind, but now I see.

Now I notice more spotlights

dotting the sodden courtyard

mocking in chorus the vulnerability of the young maples

villains.

The rain awakes me from my trance

and I walk on, stumbling a bit in the gravel.

More snow up ahead, but my path won’t cross it.

Tenacious it is, and touching; will Old Woman Winter never relinquish her grip?

The rain

harbinger

herald

it tugs at my heartstrings.

I feel the touch of the Divine

but it is beyond my ken.

What is He doing? What am I feeling?

Ah, that I had the tongue of Homer or the wit of Chaucer

then

then I’d understand this.

The rain

so steady

it’s not merely precipitation

the crass meteorologist’s euphemism

it’s something higher

loftier

grander

deeper

like a chorus concluding their song

or the breathtaking hideous beauty of the ice

jostling and crunching in-shore on Lake Michigan

the cold grasp and gasp as you lose your balance ice-skating

the silent scream as, hiking, you startle a placid doe

it’s the Joy of Lewis.

I do not preach

I do not pry

I merely say

Tonight, a reverie befell me, walking across the courtyard.

Tonight, I felt the touch of God.

Self-Diagnosis

So, I'm shockingly depressed right now, and God's granted me the grace to be somewhat objective about it. I've experienced Black Holes like this before, to lesser or greater extents. The most recent, before this one, was Very Hideously Black, and it was right after my largest theatre production experience yet: Alice in Wonderland. Now, I'm re-plunged in gloom, not quite to the same extent as before, but still pretty bad. Incidentally, today was the final performance of Acacia's Emily, for which I was helping backstage.

An analytical mind like the one God gave me jumps to the conclusion that my happiness and my involvement in theatre are inseparably connected, yet I shy away from the conclusion. Because this means a few things:

1. I'm much, much, MUCH more irresponsible and immature than I thought.
2. I'm far too in love with theatre. Too in love for my own good.
3. I can count on this Mood Swing thing. Now perhaps this one is not exactly logical, because there's always the possibility that I'll change.

Despite how much I want to believe that this is NOT the answer to my foul moods, I'm afraid it is. It's the post-show blues, and that's how it's going to work for me. I will need to get used to these swings, and I certainly hope they go away...soon.

Long live self-analysis!

Das Blog Returns, Temporarily

So right now I should be out enjoying the beauty of an uncommon day, probably walking down by the lake; yet I choose to sit here in my dim dorm and pontificate. Why? Merely because it's been forever since I've pontificated, and that needs to change.

In the temporal realm, things are much, much different. I'm no longer King/Hare in Alice, mostly because Alice is gone bye-bye. For which, as a matter of fact, I am rather sad. Because even though Alice was a perfectly nightmarish process, the end result was rather enjoyable. Add to this the fact that the two shows in which I'm currently involved, Emily and Third, are rather more grown-up and mature productions, and I'm feeling rather lost, theatrically. Oh, and also: it was emphasized to me very poignantly on Tuesday my utter lack of experience in theatre, as I concocted what I thought was a subtle costume and ended up looking like a bar-fight creeper hobo rapist who didn't know his lines. It was pretty pathetic. And then my performance for Musical Theatre AND DANCE, which I expected/hoped would go better, did not. I looked like Indiana Jones meets the Red King, and right now I'm really questioning the point of going on with this theatre nonsense. It seems I've hit a wall.

Let's see, what else is new? Ah, I'm divorced; a fairly amicable event, nothing too vicious on either side. I'm in full swing of stage-managing one of the productions here; I'm considering auditioning for the lead in the Fall Musical; I'm pretty much Pwning-with-a-P all my classes; the vicious depression that was afflicting me is slowly receding...

Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

That's it, in brief.

Long live Comebacks!