Meditation: The false self

Posted on by Dale

I’m bored in a hotel, so I’ve picked up an old draft of a post of one of those wounded warrior meditations. Sorry.

Part of my problem with my source material is that so much of it smacks too much of “such a worm as I,” albeit in a new agey way, which probably makes it even worse. Take today’s topic. Please. [/rimshot] The point seems to be that “as boys, we learned we had to find out who others wanted us to be,” and then we had to become that person. “Now,” though, we’re ready to become our “authentic” self.

Feh.

I know that a large part of growing up is figuring out what societal norms are, and we ignore those norms at our own peril. I’m sure most of my male readership, and probably the female as well, knows all too well the pain of not conforming. If I cared what my bucking those norms has cost me in my life, it would probably drive me mad. What, don’t you think, as I do, that one of the reasons NCTC never gained traction amongst the power elite in this town is because it was led by me? And I was, well, just a little bit off?

Who among us does not understand that we are many selves, that our true “self” is this amalgamation, did you know that amalgamation was synonymous with miscegenation many years ago?, of selves, and that we do not, can not show our “true self” to anyone because there’s not a single such persona to be shown?

Yes, I show different “selves” to different people. I share different things with different people. I’ve told things to Marc that I wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing with Jeff, and heaven knows Jeff and I have chatted about things in ways that would raise others’ eyebrows, and none of you knows the things I’ve told Ginny and withheld from you. And above all, there are the things that I’ve told no one, haven’t even put into private blog posts.

(Did you know there was such a thing? If you’re not the creator of a website, there could be all kinds of blogposts you never see, like little ghosts drifting between your reading, gazing knowingly out at you in your ignorance of the full measure of your host. So… back to your reading.)

So do I have a secret self? Dern tootin’. Does that make my public selves false? I cannot think how. I’m thinking that our wounded warriors have a problem with self in the first place. Grownups in the Lylesian sense don’t worry about that. (We worry about people finding our private blogposts.)

Labyrinth, 11/5/08

Posted on by Dale

I worked this afternoon on changing the right-angle turns to the curves I had originally planned.

I think it works better, although I’m going to have to work on balancing them out a bit.

It becomes more and more obvious that I am going to have to rent a wet bandsaw to cut the stones for the curves and for the central circle. I have to do that soon, before the dirt is delivered, and I’d like to get all that done before Thanksgiving. Hm… rental for the Monday before, dirt spread that week, seed planted on the weekend. It’s not going to be lush and green for the Lichtenbergian annual meeting, but it will be finished in every real sense.

I like having a plan.

Next?

Posted on by Dale

The question arose, after Coriolanus, what next?

Other than “sit in my backyard and watch the fire with a life-giving beverage in my hand,” I hadn’t given it an awful lot of thought. But ideas have been bubbling up in my head.

I’m still fascinated by puppets and would love to use them in something. See, as an example, Blair Thomas and Company. The drawback is the time and money; as Thomas says, “It’s such a tall order to spend the time that puppetry needs. If you take shortcuts, it’s the worst-case scenario, and the puppets are treated as props.”

The works of Brecht spring to mind, especially The Good Woman of Setzuan or The Caucasian Chalk Circle. I really like Good Woman/Person and its challenge to morality, and it would be fun to develop either of those scripts.

I’d be really interested in looking at some stuff that I do not understand, and here I can give as an example of the works of Charles Mee. Mee has put all his scripts online, free for the taking/manipulating/deconstruction, and I don’t understand the theatrical impulse behind most of them. So let’s do one. As Picasso says, “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”

(Although this script by Mee is pretty powerful.)

There’s always Shakespeare. The Tempest could be fun, and of course King Lear is the Everest of them all. Or we could go all the way obscure and look at Timon of Athens or King John or Henry VIII.

I will now ramble.

I’d be interested in just developing something in that way that Marc knows how to do but I don’t.

I really liked performing in the park, the theatre not so much. I felt alive in the park, and merely observed in the theatre.

While the idea of doing a School for Scandal with the Lacuna gang brings a smile to my face, I am no longer excited by the idea of making costumes.

I liked working with all men. It will feel odd to have women in the group.

When I look at stuff like Charles Mee or photos of other company-developed pieces, I often think that I don’t have anything to say in such a piece.

I am also skeptical of the power of non-narrative pieces. I want to be convinced otherwise.

I like the idea of looking at the Neo-Futurists for real.

We could set aside a short period, three or four weeks, Wednesdays only, and study a text, then quit. Ideas and lines of energy might emerge, and that would be fine. Or not.

I need to work on music.

The audacity of hopelessness

Posted on by Dale

Here’s a news story for you. Go read it. I’ll wait for you.

Rick Davis is breathtaking in his Orwellian manipulation of the language. Here’s my brief analysis of what he’s doing to the public:

“John McCain held the Bush administration’s feet to the fire more than anyone else for the first four years of the administration.”

Okay, that’s an easy one. Surely even the most brain-damaged nutjob realizes straight out that there’s been another three and a half years of Bushdom, during which McCain voted with the Current Occupant’s desires 90% of the time. These votes include voting to authorize the administration’s torture policies; kill the new GI Bill; authorize unwarranted surveillance; kill expansion of SCHIP; you name it, he’s voted with the White House position. (If I were a real blogger, I’d link to all those votes.)

“…he has attacked Sarah Palin and thrown the George Bush card back on the table.”

“The George Bush card”? Really?? The sitting President, the leader of McCain’s party, is now equivalent to Willie Horton?? It’s an amazing admission on Davis’s part that the past eight years of Republican governance have been an appalling disaster. He cannot possibly have meant that.

“If you bring up his association with William Ayers or Rashid Khalidi it’s, ‘Oh boy, that’s off limits; you can’t do that,’ but they can prosecute a campaign with hundreds of millions of dollars with no accountability.”

William Ayers? ::sigh:: A mischaracterized relationship with no discernible influence on Obama’s thinking or policies. A bogeyman. Rashid Khalidi? A completely falsified characterization, outright lies as to who Khalidi is and what he stands for. A racial bogeyman.

And notice the asymmetry of the sentence: two scary people = …? The natural end of that equation should be the aforementioned George W. Bush, but Davis can’t go there, can he? So he just tapdances. And notice too the awful awfulness: “prosecute… millions of dollars… no accountability.” Just what accountability does U.S. law, and here I’m thinking of the 1st Amendment, provide for campaigns, Rick? What accountability is Obama evading that McCain is adhering to? (vid. sup., re: Ayers, Khalidi)

“You have to wonder what his version of America is going to look like when people who disagree with him get attacked over and over again,” Davis said.

This is a stunning statement, absolutely gobsmacking. It’s a direct dogwhistle to the people who sincerely believe that Obama intends to establish a police state and round up all “right-thinking” people after his election. Crazy? Absolutely, but I’ve read their blog posts and the unhinged comments thereunto. These people are completely panic-stricken about the coming black power/Islamic/socialist destruction of our country. One is reminded of the recent research on the conservative brain being motivated by fear.

The statement is also a damnable hypocrisy, given the hell-for-leather tar and feathering the Republican party has been engaging in since Newt Gingrich passed out his little pamplet of labels to use against liberals. In this campaign alone, remember flag pins? Saying the Pledge? “Hate America”?

Not only all of the above, but Obama just aired a 30-minute infomercial in which he didn’t mention John McCain, or even the opposing side, even once. Can you imagine a 30-minute McCain production doing that? I didn’t think so.

In short, Rick Davis’s got nothing but LOLPreznents: “Hugely successful campaneing: ur doin it wrong.” Only four more days, my friends.

An open letter

Posted on by Dale

Dear Republicans:

When you ask me why I’m voting for the socialist, and I reply that the nation cannot afford more Republican governance, your next line is not, “Well, they were all part of it.”

Your next line is, “I like where our country is after eight years of Republican governance, and I’m voting for McCain so we can keep going down this road.” Try saying it out loud.

Just try.

Sincerely,
Dale

A moderate bittersweetness

Posted on by Dale

As you probably know, because half of you are in it, this weekend is the Lacuna Group’s all-male production of Coriolanus. It’s going to be entertaining. You should probably see it.

But what most of you don’t know is that this weekend was to have been the international world premiere of A Visit to William Blake’s Inn. In fact, at this very moment, we’d be at the reception honoring the production team, our international guests, and of course Nancy Willard, after what we can only assume would have been the triumphant opening performance.

Back when we were working to engage the community’s interest in the piece, we had to book the Centre for Performing and Visual Arts eighteen months in advance, and Don Nixon was more than willing to do that, so I found out when would be convenient for Nancy to come down, and this weekend was best. (It is Vassar’s fall break.) I marked it in my iCal. When the whole proposal fell through, I decided to leave it there so that I could watch it go by as time slipped away.

And slip away it has, has it not?

A complaint

Posted on by Dale

I wish to register a complaint.

As I posted recently, I got two new books about which I am very excited, Lion among men, by Gregory Maguire, and Octavian Nothing, traitor to the nation: The kingdom on the sea, by M.T. Anderson. Both are sequels, and both are presenting the same problem: it has been over a year since I read the previous volume in the series, and both are so complex in their social settings that I cannot remember all the characters and plotlines. I probably need to go back and read those previous volumes before tackling the new ones, and who has time for that?????

That is all.

Brief labyrinth, 10/20/08

Posted on by Dale

The other afternoon, I sat musing on my handiwork and wondering if I really ought to consider changing the flush/right-angle look back to the curved-end pathways I originally planned.

I moved some stones around:

I think I like it much, much better. For one thing, it will open up that mysterious little place in the middle where the curves can’t quite meet. For another, it makes the traversal a smoother experience, even if only psychologically. (Technically, in this world, one actually has more room to maneuver with the extra space in the square corners.)

Okay. I have a guy coming by this afternoon to talk with me about whacking stones. We’ll chat about this.

Musing

Posted on by Dale

I haven’t blogged in over a week, for several reasons.

First, since I have to wait for the removal of the 1972 Mercedes Benz 250c in the back yard before I can bring in the topsoil with which I shall finish the labyrinth, work on that project is at a standstill. So no blogging there.

Second, we’re in the final throes push for Coriolanus. It’s amazing how trying to get a late Shakespeare play ready for an audience will consume your extra time, energy and thought.

Third, the idea that I could write during all of this about that stupid Quiet Strength stuff is not even worth exploring.

So, I am at loose ends this afternoon, as I sip my liquids in preparation for my first ever colonscopy in the morning. Yes, I’m sharing. And no, “loose ends” was not a pun. That’s later this evening.

I’m about to repair to the back yard where I will warm myself in the sun and do one of two things: a) redefine literacy assessment in the state of Georgia; and/or b) read more of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, a lovely French novel I got last week after reading it reviewed in The Week.

If I finish both of those, then I have two other books that came yesterday that I’m quite excited about. The first is The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: Volume II, The Kingdom on the Waves, by M.T. Anderson. Anderson is one of my favorite writers. He seems to be able to do anything. Feed, a dystopian teen science fiction novel which will change your relationship with internet connectivity forever. Whales on Stilts and its sequels (collectively known as M.T. Anderson’s Thrilling Tales): Whales is a total and hysterical goof on the kids’ adventure series genre, but at the end of The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen it seems that Mr. Anderson is up to something odd. We await The Flame Pits of Delaware: a Jasper Dash Adventure with baited breath.

And of course, the first volume of Octavian Nothing was, as its title says, astonishing. Alternative historical fiction, if you will, set in the American Revolution. Journals, narrative, letters, other kinds of sources, pile up to tell us the story of Octavian Nothing, a young man raised in curious circumstances by philosophers in Philadelphia in the 1760s.

The second book calling my name is Gregory Maguire’s A Lion Among Men, the third of the Wicked series. Now if all you know of Wicked is the insipid and saccharine musical, you are missing an astounding telling of tales. Maguire takes Frank L. Baum’s Oz and reimagines it as the setting of a grim political thriller. Conditioned as we are to see Baum’s characters in terms of the great 1939 movie, it’s more than a little shocking to discover a dark, dangerous, and coherent back story lurking beneath the cheerful map of Munchkinland.

Wicked itself covers the original story, giving us the life of Elpheba, aka the Wicked Witch of the West, and the desperate times she found herself in. The sequel, Son of a Witch, follows Liir, her son, as he finds himself continuing his mother’s journey. In both, and in the first three pages of Lion which I allowed myself to read, Maguire is a master prose stylist, amusing and astounding you in turns with his wit and imaginative power.

If you don’t hear from me for a couple of days, you’ll know where I am.

Labyrinth, 10/11/08

Posted on by Dale

It’s late. I’ve had friends over to dine and drink and walk down to the theatre to see the company’s improv troupe, which was not at all bad. Some real talent there. I’d like to see their “best of” guys do a show.

After Coriolanus rehearsal this morning, I worked on laying out the rest of the labyrinth, always excepting the outer ring on the north side, where I must build up the soil to be more level.

You will notice that I have modified the plan I’ve been working with. Rather than the curved lines I’ve been using, I’ve used the more geometric form usually found in drawings and indeed in my tattoo. Naturally this is easier to lay out than cutting stones to fit curves. However, I’m not sure I like it better. I may try changing the switchbacks to the curved version I’ve been working with.

At any rate, now I have to get many truckloads of topsoil brought in, then fill in the whole pattern with the soil, then plant grass seed, water it, etc. I may actually have a completed labyrinth in time for the Annual Meeting of the Lichtenbergians.

Of course, to get the soil moved in, I have to get rid of the 1972 Mercedes-Benz that has been parked for three years in the only space I have available for dumping of soil.