Present: Marc, Jeff B, Dale
Marc read the text of a spam email Dale had received (see the Assignments page for all texts we work with.) We then played for a while with the translator widget on Marc’s laptop, first running “Now is the winter of our discontent/Made glorious summer by this son of York” into Chinese and back into English:
The present is the brilliance summer which York this Sunday does in the winter our discontent.
We then ran it through Japanese, French, and Russian, with progressively disintegrating results.
Then it was the text to “The Hokey Pokey.” Japanese yielded:
The right foot was placed.
The right foot was turned off.
You place the right foot.
Approximately you shake that entirely.
The prison of the hokey is done.
You yourself are turned.
That is concerning those which are completely.
There was more. It was a fun thing to do, and the concept might yield some interesting texts to play with.
Then we got on our feet. Marc decided he wanted to try out an exercise he had blogged about somewhere, either here or on his section of the site. It involved B (Dale) asking A (Jeff) for what he wanted, then doing it. The results were mixed, of course, since we were blundering our way through it. It ended with Jeff demanding that Dale hit him; Dale tackled him and they both went down.
In the follow up, C (Marc) works through B to get A to do… something. We were also unclear on this structure. But it ended up with Dale wearing Jeff’s coat on his head while Jeff crooned an Al Green song, which Marc found striking.
We discussed the perils and pitfalls of getting to the “climax” of such aimless scenes too quickly; this was actually our anxiety about performance. (Notice that the phrase “performance anxiety” was not used. Nope.)
Jeff read/performed the opening of his epic Native American poem, starting with creation. Dale suggested that we use that text as part of our ongoing explorations, perhaps using the Vocal Sequence as a tool.
Finally, in discussing concerns that we’re not really accomplishing anything, Dale related the results of Marc’s first summer as an instructor at GHP in 1997: his students had compiled all these meaningless but compelling bits (like the coat/Al Green moment) that he and his co-instructor felt should be showcased. Under Dale’s stricture that the show couldn’t be a “pastiche,” but had to be a theatre work, Marc created a structure into which all these bits fit. Coherent? Only in an artistic sense. Beginning, middle, end? Yep. Narrative? None. Fascinating? Utterly.
So as we work week after week, we might only be collecting coat/Al Green moments for a long time. And then suddenly we might find ourselves with something we need to share with an audience that no could have predicted or expected or planned.
MOMENTS:
- Pinter zipper
- coat/Al Green
- tackling
NEXT: Dec. 10, 6:30, NSOD
- TEXTS: Myth project; Charles Mee piece; spam email; NeoRealist pieces
- PATHS: Vocal Sequence, contact improv
I forgot to mention that I also expressed an interest in working with the NeoRealist Theatre texts. Marc is bringing those next week. (I’ve added that to the post.)
Something tells me that we may end up with something like this. (Just wait until the 2:00 mark. And apparently the third film, around 26:41, is a crowd pleaser. I’ll report back.)
Well, yes it is. My. I’m adding it to the Assignments, Text & Resources page.
Thanks for the Martin Arnold.
http://www.r12.at/arnold/index.html
You might also find this interesting. A snippet from Wikipedia; good nutshell statement:
Acting out is a symbolic message addressed to the big Other, whereas a passage to the act is a flight from the Other into the dimension of the real. The passage to the act is thus an exit from the symbolic nework, a dissolution of the social bond. Although the passage to the act does not, according to Lacan, necessarily imply an underlying psychosis, it does entail a dissolution of the subject; for a moment, the subject becomes a pure object.
I appreciate, by the way, the necessity to find a way to inscribe our activities into some kind of Imaginary semblance for the purposes of PR and healthy internal relations. But I also find it wearying and a bit melancholy. I like the fact that we each just come at stuff from wherever we are. No harmony, necessarily. It’s up to each of us to find a reason to cling.
The above was re: passage a l’acte, by the way.
Since Jeff and Barbara are in Vegas, they could explore the A, B and C exercise legally and within budget. Get back to us on that.
Okay. I’ve had some more thoughts about why I appreciated Dale and Jeff in their moment of Zen. I am always trying to factor in the possible experience of an audience. I always want to problematize such questions. I’m an experimenter with respect to such things. I WANT TO CONTROL THEIR REFERENTS. If there are too many comfortable ways for the audience to approach and cosy up to the event, I go on alert. I’m kind of a minimalist and a modernist in that sense. I think that’s why I struggled for another way to get to the tackle. I didn’t want some audience members thinking about any movies, etc. Nor did I want them to see a “story” of a relationship unfold. Again, the need to control the referents, the associations. I like to imagine audience members trying to tell their friends the next day what they experienced stumble upon a “lacuna” in their own text of reminiscence.
“I guess you just had to be there.”
“I’ll go again. Want to come with?”
I have decided to subject all moments of ego-centered self-characterization to our translation process. Here’s a bit of the above statement:
I want to check their instructions. If there is convenient mode of audience to process and comfortable to the activity, I am forewarning. My such is the minimum program sends with a little modern person.
It gives forage that is because I fought so that another way obtains to the trastos. I did not want to some members of the hearing that thought about no films, of the etc. Nor wanted that they saw a “history” of a curl reveal. Of
I wish to imagine the members of audiences which test that I say to their friends the next day which they tested their slip on “vacuum” with in force reminiscence.
Trastos is Spanish for junk, paraphernalia, or lumber.
And finally: “You only.” Must be from that place me “it guesses me it is to go
again. It comes, Sip u ten:00 bedspreads? “
sip u ten:
oo bedspreads?
Yes. Exactly.
If there is a convenient mode,
the program sends a little modern person.
We forage and fight so to obtain the trastos,
and sent films to members of the hearing,
and they saw the curl of history revealed.
I say to friends the next day: You only. It
must be that place in me.
They test their slips and force reminiscence
in the vacuum, and again on ten bedspreads.
Or don’t try to make it fit into standard syntax. Just let it flow and imagine characters in a soap opera speaking it.
Or have it flow over the listeners like warm air from the overhead vents.
Other:
i check their instructions
i want the process to be comfortable
we forewarn we send we fight we forage
we force reminiscence
they saw history they thought about films they
imagine a test for members
it guesses me
it is to go again
it comes to friends the next day
it slips it is to go again
it comes to friends the next day
in force
I was about to begin this comment with “Not to…”, but nope, I mean to: I’m not sure what your concerns in #4 are about the meeting summaries. That’s all they are. They’re not PR. They’re not framed for anyone but those of us who were there or those who missed a session and want to know what happened. Gaps in the record to be filled in by participants in comments. It’s a record, tagged for future reference. It’s for Jeff Allen, who missed Wednesday but wants to participate. Now he’s got access to the texts we intend to play with. Would they be less “wearying” if we hid them?
One more:
Following the instructions, they pick their way through the bits of junk and lumber. A little person is with them, fighting to climb over the piles of history, scrambling quickly like some clown in an old silent film. They all move behind and through the thick curls of smoke, foraging for bits of food. No one can imagine what lies ahead, tomorrow, beyond the small bit of ripe fruit or the sweet residue on the inside an open can, how they are going to slip into the next day. No one can force imagination that far, past the hunger, past obtaining. They go and come. It must be here. There. It must be. Must be.
Re #10. No, I love the summaries. I love the links and being introduced to Martin Arnold.
“Something tells me we may end up with something like this.” I know you are trying to be entertaining.
But I don’t want to say what it may or may not be like.
My sensitivity to that is a symptom, I realize.
Marc, did you write Post 11? Because it’s a brilliant metaphor.
I like the summaries, personally. It allows everyone to “touch base,” and they’re also good as an informal group history. “What were we doing and thinking last January?” etc.
Not to say that I always agree with them. But, like Dale said, that’s what the comments are for.
I added some text to our assignments page. Hm.
Mmm. One must be careful what one improvises. It might just wind up as a text!
Favorite line: Anything ending with “Mr. President.” Gotta love that.
I didn’t think we were being self-conscious enough. Thought this might help.
That, and the nudity.