love's labors

Those of you who know me well know that I love research. I'm probably more fully in my element when I'm exploring something, letting the process of discovery take me wherever it goes, weaving in and out of seeming discontinuity and revealing connections and relationships that I'd never imagined or suspected. Sometimes I had suspected there was a connection and found out I was right. And then some. It's a fun game - one of my favorites - and I've spent a lot of time trying to convince others that it's my job, my avocation, my calling. My work space should prove that easily enough. I think this goes back to at least grade school when, having become a lover of reading and exploring, I discovered the set of Encyclopedia Britannica we had in our house and began to browse through them regularly. I loved to browse, I loved the idea of browsing and wanted to become a browser when I grew up. In my own solitude and isolation I discovered worlds within worlds out there that I just didn't find available in school or at home, in my backyard or on random day trips. The encyclopedias became my buddies and the library was our Odd fellows lodge.

Thank God and nerd engineers for web browsers, the common day equivalent of my boyhood aspirations. I can find stuff and stuff linked to other stuff easier, and in most cases have access to or own a copy of an item with simplest of ease. For some time now I've been interested in, among other things, stories from around the world. Several months ago I stumbled upon a great book, World Tales, by Idries Shah (printed by Octagon Press). It's a great book filled with wonderful stories from the diversity of our world culture, but it also has great introductions which trace the roots and development of a tale from it's origins and tracks it's sphere of influence within other cultures. Just the sort of book or slew of books I would have loved stumbling upon as a kid. In similar fashion, I discovered this great site last night, also called World Tales; it's a beautifully, wonderfully designed flash site of stories which are animated well and they give some background to the stories and the characters common to the folklore board of advisers. You can also read the tale if you prefer. I hope you find as much enjoyment in these as I have been, and keep the connection going - tell a friend.

Call for suggestions!

We're putting together a series of plays for live performance, radio play & podcast and we'd love to hear your suggestions, especially on plays or adaptations of traditional stories, folktales or poetry from other countries & cultures. Send us a message with your own favorite plays or stories from your country & culture.

Some pieces currently in development or being considered are:

Shehzadi Nautanki
Choon Hyang
Karagöz & Hacivat
Gita Govinda By Jayadeva
Layla & Majnun by Nizami
The Birds by Aristophanes
Hassan of Baghdad by James Elroy Flecker
Tobit
Victory over the Sun by Vladimir Mayakovsky
Jataka tales
Maori Myths & Tales
The Conference of the Birds by Attar
Commedia dell 'Arte scenes
The Case of the Missing Bodies by Tom S. Long
Plays by Rabindranath Tagore
Arabic short play series
Short plays by David Ives
World Tales by Idries Shah
The Guide by R. K. Narayan
The Saddle Bag by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani
Plays by Carlo Gozzi
The long journey of Poppie Nongena
The Ring and The Book by Robert Browning

And more! So many more!

Add your favorites to the list!

of monks & kings

It's spring in more ways than finally being warm and sunny. The annual breaking of the winter's long hold over activity seems to thrust us forward with a flurry of creativity, almost as if to say "I'm still here and I'm still alert", and to assert ourselves over the cold lingering slumber. Just like nature. For Easter this year we've offered up a couple of projects to share with the community: the third edition of our zine, "The Gregarious Monk", which is a humble showcase of talent from our funky, eclectic church, the northampton vineyard, proffering a variety of articles on topics from candy to fitness, featuring crafting and book reviews and so much more. Recipes, photographs, random thoughts, poetry, short stories and personal reflections all laid out with spiffy graphics. Our community is rather savvy, diverse and prolific bunch with a wide range of interests collectively and individually. There will be more in the months to come, including an online version of it sometime soon.

Also for Easter several of us did a short excerpt of a radio play by Dorothy L. Sayers on the life of Jesus. We were allotted ten minutes tops, so we extracted a crucial section from the resurrection from the tomb, enacted it, recorded it (with sound effects) and added some pictures to accompany it. It had a few glitches but over all came off well, and we had a lot of fun doing it. You can listen to it here: Easter radio play audio or view it here: Easter radio play video.

This will be the first of several radio plays I'm planning to put together. I've been figuring out how to do podcasting and it seems like a fun direction to go toward creatively & experimentally.

blissfully bewildered

Wednesday evening a small group of us got together to make some noise. That was our intention and we were successful. I arrived at the church office a little before 7:00 pm to find Rachel, our worship leader, there. What are you doing here?, I asked her. Working, she replied; why are you here? We're here to make some noise. She probably didn't think I was serious.

Five of us showed up with choice materials to explore and share with one another. Bobby brought a small metal cup and something that looked like a midget version of the Pillsbury dough boy, except it had some sort of spray nozzle top hat affixed to it and you could shake it like a baby maraca. Jeff brought an amplifier and a microphone with a volume pedal and a small delay effect box. Chip brought a guitar, an amp and several odd glasses which he filled withe different levels of water. I was going to bring some copper tubing I have, which you could blow into or bang about, but it turned out to be about eight feet in length and too long to put in the car. I brought some metal rods, 3/16 x 36", which are fun to place on a table, pull back and release while you change their length. I looked about the office for some objects and found a drum, a couple of vases with fake marble like rocks in them, and a couple plastic pitchers. Joel showed us all up. Joel has the most toys of us all and came with an untuned guitar and amp, a tenor saxophone, several glass beakers, a small drum, a set of tuned wind chimes he had made, a set of tuning forks, a marching band glockenspiel, some screwdrivers, a brass bowl for gonging, several pvc pipes cut to different pitch lengths, a cardboard tube 5' in length and about 8" in diameter, a car brake and a car tire. Probably several other objects which evade my memory at the moment.

The idea to do this came after an arts meeting we had about a month ago. The topic moved to music and it turned out that several of us listen to experimental music and were interested getting together to see what we could come up with. We had one guiding rule- that we shouldn't stick with any instrument that we naturally know how to play. Not too difficult since we mostly had things which had an indeterminate tuning. Other rules applicable were for determining how it might possibly be structured- a sense, a mood, an emotion; a time concept or a poetic construct, like call and response. We ended a piece when it felt like it had reached a finishing point, and in less than two hours had created three distinct and ephemeral pieces. We beat on things, we rattled stuff, we added different rhythms over other rhythms, hit things with random pitches, ran sounds through the microphone and manipulated them, squawked with reeds and pieces of paper, chanted and yelled, rustled bags and gamboled about in junk and noise and discovery and reverie. It was like men going into the forest to beat on drums and bond. Well, not really. It was more like young kids, left alone and unsupervised, finding out about sound and creativity. Worship music from the church of the blissfully bewildered.

changes

I'm changing the lay out of my blog so you may find it a little difficult to find things for the time being. I decided that I no longer care for the dark back ground and I'm going to try something lighter. Maybe it's an artistic development- like a need for some bright spring sun & warmth.

onward, undaunted & delirious

True to projection & promise, I haven't written much. Not that there isn't much to tell, just that it's mostly clerical & tedious. Great fun- like watching an epic Warhol-produced film of the stock market enacted by kabuki actors. Tedious and strange. I- we- have been forced to take a winter break and to regroup. While it's a good time to consider what to do in the coming year, and how to go about doing it, it also places us back in the crux of where we were a year ago, when we were beginning to lay this all out, and that feels like a set back. Theatre works on a long term planning scale- most of us have impressions with the immediacy of it's arrival & the temporary quality of it's brief visitation. Somewhere beyond that is months- often years- of planning which falls into the "administration" category. I actually like that aspect of it all. Well, to an extent. There is something creative in itself that comes with making & mapping plans, but then there comes a divide so abrupt that it becomes a challenge to live between the two worlds of creativity and business. Which is where I am today- back in front of the easel with the giant flip pad, pointer in hand, jousting at projected crudities turned inert & two dimensional with the aid of pie charts, bar graphs and power point presentations. How does it get from here into a living, breathing, exciting reality? While it has been work of a nature which I'm not particularly familiar with or fond of, it has been fun, and that is partly why I started this organization- to do something that I enjoy as well as something that others would appreciate. But there are grant proposals to be written, funds to be raised, prospects to contact, facilities to inquire into & all manner of groundling troops and brass to muster and polish so that we can surmount the misty hills and gold capped mountains of dreams. And always, the seemingly infinite purgatory of meetings to endure, which, while often dramatic rarely leaves one with inspiring fodder to dramatize about. O Beatrice, mediator & intercessor of souls in peril, where have you fled?

Are you an Idealist? Can You Imagine a Better World?

If so, please read on:

There is this website- Idealist.org- which is asking us all this question. This week they are coordinating a series of start-up meetings around the world in an effort to engage ourselves and our communities into living out and achieving our ideals together.

These start-up meetings will provide an opportunity to connect with others who want to help build a network, and to talk about how we can create more connections and opportunities for action between people, ideas, and resources in our neighborhood, village, school, or workplace. These meetings are about taking a step back from singular issues and looking at the big picture. How can we create a community where ideas and resources are easily shared between people? How can we create more opportunities for everyone to get involved? Through these meetings we hope to take the first steps toward creating communities where projects and organizations are better connected, supported and ultimately more successful.

There is probably a start-up meeting close to you. To learn more and become involved, please go to Idealist.org.

The Patience of the Bricklayer

New post. May 1st. Two months since the last one. Almost. Right on schedule.

I'm in the next phase of launching the theatre project, which is to begin doing something instead of lots of clerical paper shuffling, organizing & imagining. Not that this phase is all that different, it just involves so much more actual contact with people and self-promotion. We are awaiting word back on our non-profit/ tax exempt status- no real sense in when that may actually come through- as well as a decision about a grant, which we were expecting to hear from "by the end of April". I decided I should contact them just to check in, keep abreast of the process and remind them that we are still here. They responded very nicely and appologetically that their board will be meeting tomorrow evening, May 2nd, and will contact me about their decision. So- still waiting.

I seem to do well at waiting. Most people believe this about me & are impressed by the ability to be patient, still & to trust. We all know that waiting is an excruciating excersize in suspended animation, each episode comprising seconds of infinite length making up something akin to an historical epoch. It's surreal & not very entertaining. It's boring & it sucks, but wait we must. Fortunately there are other things to do and this is why we have hobbies & avocations. So we wait & busy ourselves with other things.

I'm in a bit of a quandary with those three topics: non-profit/ tax exempt status, grants & waiting. The initial grant will help me to better determine what I do next & what scale it will involve while the status determination will help to receive firther funding with other grants. The next phase will depend upon doing a production so that I can demonstrate, or prove, that we are worthy of some major risk brokerage & backing. Meanwhile there are stones to be hewn, landscapes to be surveyed, mortor to be mixed, workers to muster & ground to be broken. "The patience of the bricklayer is assumed in the plans of the architect". That's a line from a poem I read decades ago, the only line from it that has stuck with me. I've long forgotten who wrote it so excuse me for not giving credit.

Last Wednesday we had our first board meeting & celebration. Three of us went to a local upscale restaurant, Food 101, & enjoyed a wonderful dinner while I reviewed the process accomplished & plans for this next step in developing the organization. I had prayed the week before & felt that I wasn't to be too concerned with the non-profit status & grant determanition, which I mostly had managed to be concern & worry free, and that I should begin focusing on mounting a production & shooting for our first performance in September/ October.

we're currently experiencing technical difficulties...

I figured that the major problem with keeping a blog would be the regular updating of it. So it is. I probably don't have the correct priority ratio going on here since my dedication to posting on my blog is very, very low in comparison to what I feel is important: starting & organizing a theatre company, writing, composing music, finding grants to apply for, applying for grants, researching & developing material, designing... writing for the church, ministering to others through faith & arts, and deriving creative ways to draw us all closer to God and into the bigger picture... etc ad nauseum. None of that in any particular order except to say that writing a blog about anything, let alone about all of this, absolutely comes last. I mean, have you noticed the span of time between this post and the previous one? I feel that may actually be good. Believe you me - I've read many blogs out there. No comment other than, like television, I've found it a pretty good practice to cease and desist. I could write about my current adventures in freelancedom: hitting the Regional Entertainment Production & Administrative job expo in Boston last Saturday, recording, copyrighting, publishing and distributing a CD portfolio for said same, applying for a grant from the Foursquare Foundation, applying for a DUNS number & registering my small business as a non-profit so that I can apply for another upcoming grant... and so on & so on. I think you probably get the point here- not exactly the most exciting stuff to read, and I'm fresh out of pointless rants to post to the hordes of faceless non-entities surfing through the blog bog out there. Although recent developments in the Port Dubai Transit Authority department have got me on my toes and away from this mezmerizing Orwellian magic mirror we call cyberspace...

When I do write again- when I have the time and I feel I actually have something to say- I'll try to make it engaging & worthy of expending your time and brain power on. Maybe- just maybe- it will be insightful, thought provoking, clever, encouraging & inspirational. Someting to strive for and live up to. Anyone getting the hint out there?

still life, moving fast ...

I'm slowly making the virtual move out of my studio and into the world of being a mendicant by avocation & necessity. The first of the year was slated for self promotion- hey... here we have a blog now- and that fell away as I received a generous offering of computer malfunctions and the time consuming reinstallation of the operating system and all programs. The holiday lag tapered as I made my way through 7 to 14 & then 21 days of intensive cybertherapy with my laptop. An unhealthy emotional transference was forged and we had to cease our regular meetings for awhile, but I can't live with out the thing. It's like white zinfandel in a box- instant state of the art creativity which has superceded a natural predilection toward purity and patience in honing a craft. No seasoned vintner here, waiting for the fruits of the harvest after weathering a harsh, trying year. It's February first now. I've come back to beg of it some gracious assistance toward organizing my life in accelerated real time. There's research to be done, grant proposals to be written & submitted, promotional material to be developed, printed, published and distributed- all via this same wunderboxe which I use to write with, to compose music, to illustrate and design with and to communicate to the world at large and my family in the next room. The fact isn't lost on me that one hundred years ago people were far more productive without computers than we seem to be with them, but I can't break away from it. Having a fairly reliable reference library, world music ensemble, vocation counselor and research assistant available 24/7- particularly at 3:00 AM- in my studio is a futuristic dream come true and a bargain that I'm not willing to part with. From here on it's to infinity & beyond. And practice, practice, practice... together.