Sunday, December 20, 2009

sound in mind and body


video, what's that? i was raised on radio. we weren't invaded by a television set til i was fourteen. and that was too late. at seventeen i decided you either watched television or did something else in your life. so i've seen very little of it.


i can't stand the hype. it's not the ads, rather the over-the-top energy everyone displays. tough on the nerves. and i always hated the fact it killed conversations. sure, you can share a football game or a talk show, however usually everybody sinks into a blank stare and silence.


no, i'm not from another planet, but sometimes i feel i am. and though i'm passionate about movies, video art seems wasted on me. i like the still photograph, the unmoving painting, the sculpture which, unlike human beings, invites me to walk around it and caress it with my eyes.


so, it is a bit of a personal revolution to have a miniature hd camcorder myself. up to this point i've used it in snippets. and that's led to some unexpected perceptions. here's a bit from fall at mt. hough lookout, amidst a storm:




what strikes me is the quiet, despite the rain and wind. and here is one taken on the train pulling into oakland, ca:




the scene feels much harsher, not just visually. taken out of context the mechanical sounds scrape the brain. and here's one waiting for a play, reservoir dolls, to begin:




obviously you have to be in the mood for companionship. the audience adds to that push which turns stage performers into miniature gods. (never fall in love with one until you've known them offstage!)


putting these pieces of an autumn life together impresses me with how much not only scenes but their audio affect me. to leap from one to the other is energizing, as long as one state or another does not go on too long. variety is the health of life, not just the spice.


here are the final photos from chico dance theater 2009. a real pleasure for me and i think everyone involved.










i've also posted video nippets from the class. now this is where video gets useful!









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Tuesday, December 15, 2009

your dreams at night your other life


isn't it terrible to waste your time sleeping? well, here's the key to not doing so.


regard those dreams as a parallel existence. the wise say we're dreaming all day anyway. we rarely wake up. and when we do, it's such a shock we go right back to sleep, inhabiting the past and future, never the present.


yes, these thoughts proved by last night, when i once again wandered my magic city which goes by the name of 'new york.' no, it bears no resemblence to the real city. rather it's a combination of new dehli (which certainly can't be real, it contains such contradictions), tokyo, wellington, munich. obviously, if you cross all those cities with each other, you end up with - xanadu.


i tossed and turned. revolutions. the communard of 1871 paris. plenty of foolishness and dead bodies. in the end i escaped (after being a temporary revolutionary) in a laundry basket. am i really a conservative? the thought disturbed me so much i woke up!


yes, don't try to interpret your dreams. they don't mean anything, except they're the diary of a life you live alongside this one. it's your chance to multiply experience. to feel less bounded and controlled.


chang tzu dreamed of being a butterfly. then he woke up. or did he? was he chang tzu, who dreamed of flying? or was he a butterfly, dreaming the gravity-bound philosopher?


like every dancer, i sometimes feel airborne. only to land on bad feet! yet, perhaps i've only dreamt i've come to earth. why bother? who's to say that second beer not the real truth, the feeling of being blessed?


more chico dance theater pics at










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Friday, December 11, 2009

age cannot wither you


the fact is you will never, never grow old. not in your own mind. we each have an ideal age, and that's what we will always be.

mine probably 25/26 when i traveled, met a lot of women for sexual adventures, explored the world, thought i would be significant in history, and suffered.

yes, i did have some pretty miserable moments. i tend to idealize people, overrate their accomplishments (a counselor eventually told me: 'do not fall in love with someone's potential'), and this particularly leads to disillusionment in love.

of course, we must idealize the other in order to get involved. and the species depends on illusion for it's propagation! the other must see us as a king or queen before we squeeze the toothpaste.

alas, for the past 28 years i've seen the real person almost instantly. even actresses, who appear adorable onstage, turn into complex personalities as soon as they exit. (and i used to fall in love with thespians a lot.) dramatic characters are just that, meant to fire up our imaginations.


yet i must be a degas at heart (as sue pate has so aptly pointed out). i see the informal moments, when women yawn or scratch. the real person leaps to the fore. and all my anima dreams shatter.


still, i would like to find the sugar-plum fairy under my tree at xmas. the delight of the soul-mate, we can never give it up.


cdt photos:







alas, i always love living in utopias: fairs, circuses, festivals. how can the shock of the return not be profound?


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Saturday, December 5, 2009

the present is a foreign country


well, shut my mouth. usually, i don't like talking so much! but a friend said, 'your blogs depressing. i feel so old.' that is not my purpose. as long as y0u do not seek the approval of other people, you will be free.


of course, you may be considered obnoxious, unsocialized, a child. that can't be helped. to live in the present is to be aware of the moment. for example, the sound of traffic . i keep realizing as i sit here in my chico room, the white noise i hear really what i woud hear in paris or new york city. it's the quality. and when i really listen, i'm transported.


the secret of life is no great secret. all you have to do is be aware. the moment's where you can truly meet the one you love, the extraordinary adventure. we travel to foreign lands in order to be completely here, and that's why a journey to india or belize so spectacular. as in an auto-accident time suddenly slows down. the shock puts us in a moment that becomes eternity.


this is why actors act and dancers dance. past and future disappear. crime and savagery have the same source. a very temporary action can decide our life, despite our best intentions. and maybe we will spend the rest of our life in an italian jail. luck follows us or deserts us.


if we practice gratefulness, perhaps we can experience what we, as an individual, are all about. tragedy is no different from ecstasy. each brings us back to our essence.


yes, it is transitory. and we must grab the moment as it flies.


don't miss chico dance theatre. you have three more performances.


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Wednesday, December 2, 2009

politics, the great sadness


what a shame it is, the fact of life. everything in which you will be involved for your working life will include the push and shove of politics.


i know it hurts. you will be promoted, demoted, lose your job, gain prestige according you how you play the game.


i wish i could let you off the hook. to say that virtue and the best of intentions rewarded. alas, it is not so. every job, every enterprise, means you must gain allies, demote your opponents.


how odd it is, some love the politcal endeavor, which means gaining allies and mentors, those above who will protect you, further your interests. and your ability will determine your success in social life, if you want to be a nice person, to hold your place, then everything will depend on your connections. who likes you, who doesn't. as a friend once said, you don't lose your job through incompetance, but through a personality conflict.


social animals, good gravy, we are that. freud, late in life, believed our primal urge the desire to belong to a small group. exile means death. and this is our limitation.


if we can go to the bars, love sports, then we will be beloved. and if we cannot, hiding in books and intellectual endeavors, no one will protect us when we need aid. politics is a fact of life, in the office, on the diamond, in the home. being primates, we must find influence within the group, in order to further our cause, whether it be personal or social.


and depending on this ability, we will rise or fall in the social order. we will find people to support our causes, or not. what a difficult fact of human life.


i've posted more rehearsal photos of the chico dance theater:




the program is being gutted. where is the afficionado who understands life is a dance? without it we will all wither. even when we think we're standing still, we do a small dance. doing it well is the difference between life and death.

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Saturday, November 28, 2009

stay away from imaginary places


my last trip to greece ruined me for greece. ah, i could cry. my time on the island of rhodes in the sixties a mythical experience. you can see the novel here:




and my trip to russia extinguished its dream:




it wasn't that i didn't have lots of luck and a great time. the cabin of peter the great, the homes of dostoyevsky, rimsky-korsakov, pushkin, chekhov, pasternak, a visit to the hermitage and the moscow art theater. everything fell into place. prostitutes wandered in and out of the hotel next to red square. i roamed the kremlin (how cramped the churches inside).


yet the reality harsher than my adventures in russian lit. yes, i'd read everything. almost all the novels of dostoyevsky, the plays and stories of chekhov, gogol, pushkin, tolstoy. the list is endless and the fascination lasted for years. alas, reality destroyed it all.


the same happened in india (i didn't have a camera with me). true, indelible scenes imprinted themselves on my brain. i made it to the taj mahal, then to nepal after thailand and sri lanka. a friend once said, 'we travel to see ourselves in a place.' all too true. unfortunately, we'd better go to places we've never romanticized. india the actual obliterated the india of my imagination, all the stories i'd read, the history. garbage replaced the pristine fantasies.


actually, i'm looking a tiger in the eye right now, one from bandhavgarh national park, india, a bengal beast. it's a screensaver that opportunely popped up. how magnificent it is. the real thing would probably leave me cold.


yes, matisse always looks better to me in books, and the paintings of bonnard worse. only picasso seems to reproduce easily, his work illustrative, the colors not complex and the lines strong. so, go see the work of the last two in paris - it won't disappoint. avoid the work of matisse. he always looks more pallid than his reproductions.


someday i want to write about the lady of shallot. transfixed by images in the mirror, she had a vibrant life. running after the actual sir lancelot, she died a miserable death. don't take the risk of making certain dreams come true. pick and choose.


here are the pics of the chico dance theatre run-thru before thanksgiving. this reality will definitely be better than the dream:




and i've re-worked some of my native-american collages. i'm not sure they aren't more intriguing than any photograph. these last often tell you more than you want to know.




and many of you have already seen the pictures of the blue room fall ball:




yes, it is embarassing, but i've also posted pictures of the production i directed several years ago, 'incorruptible':



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Monday, November 16, 2009

look into the abyss


and the abyss will look back at you!


that's one of my favorite sayings from nietzsche. what does it mean? who knows? guess you have to experience it to understand it.


a couple years ago i read an article by hugh macleod and now he has a book http://gapingvoid.com/books/ you can pretty much get the gist from this web-page. i've been browsing the book at barnes & noble.


and what strikes me most is how doing some kind of odd artwork can lead you out into the world, but 'successful beware.' and i especially like 'Dying young is overrated.' true, i have wandered in and out of keats' house on hamstead heath and the room where he died by the spanish steps. gazed up at the blue house in oaxaca where d.h. lawrence wrote 'mornings in mexico.' the fanatic, as he lay dying his wife had to grab the pen out of his hand.


this reminds me of my world-traveler companion, berta gardner. she would never part with her pack anywhere. the damn thing must have weighed sixty pounds. as she lay dying in the hospital, her sister finally convinced her to let her take the pack out of the room. and that was the end.


the moral from macleod: "You are responsible for your own experience.' if you tempt the abyss, have your passion and the proper tools to deal with it. and "Nobody cares. Do it for yourself."


have you ever sat in class or in the theater, looked around you and thought, 'none of these people will be here in a hundred years?" i have, and maybe that's the abyss. the artist francis bacon thought of himself as a snail crawling across the canvas and leaving slime. hmm, being francis bacon he may not have been being hard on himself after all.


hugh maintains if you've got the creative urge you're stuck with it. compassion, not pity, my friends. if you've seen ben allen's performance of 'johnny got his gun' at the blue room, you know what i mean.


new photos:






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