End of the beginning of the...

Well, I did something today I have never before done in my 45 years - I cleaned out my desk. It was a weird feeling - throwing stuff in boxes, throwing stuff away. I tried to decide if I wanted to keep some things as records, in case somehow I end up being somebody who writes an autobiography and I have to try to recall my stormy years at the Actors' Shakespeare Project. But I put them in the recycling bin. Ya gotta move forward, ya know?

I also had to decide if I was going to leave certain "gifts" behind as caustic reminders that I had a taken everything else away with me, but I chose to take the high road there.

I don't know how I feel about it. I'm very glad I'm leaving on a six week trip tomorrow, so I can clear my head of the past 2 years for real, and get thinking about the future.

At least my friends are interesting

So, though I am currently one of the most boring people on the planet, I am impressed by some of my friends.  I had two meetings recently, in particular, that were pretty impressive.

On Sunday, I had coffee with a friend, a terrific actor and incredibly funny person - okay, it was Steve Barkhimer!  When I arrived, he was passing the time reading Plato's The Laws. Turns out, funnyman Steve has been spending the last 10 years or so making himself into a Plato scholar- and the Laws was the last notch on his belt and he would be master of the whole canon.

Now, I was a Classics major in college, and I never read The Laws.  It's pretty dry stuff, but we discovered some very interesting.  The Laws consists of a three old guys talking about what the perfect society might be.  Steve told me (remember, I have never read so much as a word of it) that the spend the first couple of books talking about stuff like how much they should drink, and what sort of music they should listen to.  This is what's important in the perfect society, I guess.

What's interesting is that I was there to talk to Steve about this project I have been thinking about, and I started off by referring to the TCG conference I went to in June.  It was all about Gen Y,  how to reach them, make them come to your theaters.  One of the basic lessons people were talking about was that to get Gen Yers into your theatre, you had to let people drink in the theater.  Another thing was that Gen Yers are looking for a total experience, so that you had to look for ways to include music, spoken work, etc., around your performances.  

So it looks like we've come full circle, back to Plato.

Day Dreaming through Dad-dom

It's strange, but I'm definitely finding myself slipping into a summer dream over the last week.  I have hardly had a single creative thought, and very little impulse to try to have one.

Mostly, I'm being a stay at home dad.  It's kinda great, and kinda boring.  I do laundry, pick up toys and clothes, make meals, put my kids to bed, take them to the pool and the tennis courts.  I feel a little like I'm sleepwalking, but in a rather pleasant dream.  But there's almost no thinking involved, which is a little weird.

I've spent most of the last 5 years thinking intensely all the time: worrying, wondering, pondering, inventing, obsessing, solving, raging.  These days, I just do basic stuff, and my mind hums along quietly, without anything particularly interesting going on in it.  

Obviously there are exceptions.

Okay - this is really cool

Check out this new way to message.

Half-Mad Escapade

You'd think I'd be too old for this sort of thing, but I wasn't the oldest - my brother and my father both joined my sister, her husband, and 6 teenagers to go see the latest Harry Potter movie at MIDNIGHT last night.  And Spencer!

That was the real reason for going.  My teenage nieces were all set to go, and they invited Spencer, who's been tearing through the books lately and really wanted to go.  I wasn't about to just let my 9 year old go off to a movie theater at midnight, so along I went.  Good excuse, right? Ok, I also really wanted to see the movie.

It was an incredible scene.  I should have taken pictures.  That had it on 12 screens, and there were hundreds, thousands, of college kids, many of them dressed up, ready to go.  There were signs on the doors when we arrived saying, "next available show, 3:15a.m." and sure enough when we got out at 2:45, there they were, people even crazier than us. 

I liked the movie a lot.  It was really beautiful - shot with real eye for interesting geometries and compositions.  It's also very funny, which makes a nice break.  And those kids are learning to act.  The climax is not as violent and crazy as the book, but focuses more on the psychology and worked for me.   And it has the most beautiful credits I can remember seeing.  

Spencer loved it - the whole thing - staying up late, being with his cousins at this event, and seeing the movie.  So it was pretty great.

Auto Tune the News

My brother introduced me to these.  This most recent one found on Huffington Post.  I think it's the best one so far.  They use the auto-tune software that pop music artists use to keep their voices on pitch and then add a boatload of silliness.

The Sign Says Headshots

The results are in - after an exhaustive poll of 8 or 9 people, I'm choosing the following three shots:

The first one will probably be my main shot - it was overwhelming favorite.  The second one will be a commercial shot, and the third will be just to have around if I need something a little edgier or less youthful (I feel kinda good that I can get still look fairly young at the ripe old age of 45).  

They all still need re-touching, but I'm very happy with the way they turned out.  Thanks to everybody who helped me decide. Props to Stratton McCrady who did such a fine job on them. Use him for all your photographic needs!

Ziggurat: newyorker.com

I have been very taken by this story in the latest New Yorker about the Minotaur:

Ziggurat: newyorker.com

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I rarely read the fiction in the New Yorker. I'd like to say that the reason is that Kelli is always stealing them and hiding them on her bedside table, but the real reason is that I'm just too lazy to spend the time to get into them.  Pretty much I just read the movie reviews, the theatre reviews, the Shouts and Murmurs, and look at the comics.  It's sad.

But this story really sucked me in.  That's partially because I'm still the geeky classics major, and I just have a weakness for classical mythology; but it's got a glimmering poetry to it - with a limpid clarity like a fluorescent bulb burning in a misty back street dive somewhere.  It's got an ache, too - which I think is my favorite thing about art - how it examines those hungers you just can't satisfy...

Truth is Stranger than Fiction

I recently got it into my head to re-read The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas.  I wonder why?  It's the story of a man falsely accused by jealous rivals who for really quite trivial reasons subject him to almost Biblical suffering and rob him of his simple dreams and throw away his whole life.  But he comes back and exacts a slow and very thorough revenge upon them...

To be honest, I actually didn't notice the revenge fantasy part of this until I had started reading the book again.  There's another, realer, more basic reason I was drawn to this book. It's my "creep into a den and safely escape" book.  When I was about 12, I went to my friend Simon's farm in the countryside of Ohio.  I chased a ball into some very dense brush, and came out with an absolutely horrific case of poison ivy.  I had it all up both arms and both legs.  I was in such discomfort that I was confined to bed for about 4 days.

My bed was in a converted barn, and was one of those delightful contraptions built by industrious intellectuals turned handymen - a set of massive plywood bunkbeds, made of the cheapest materials and thus almost demonically overbuilt - a fortress of wood - I recall you could actually slide some sort of panel in front of, though that is probably the invention of my memory.  However, it was a den, no question about it.  I could disappear there, all day, and nobody would even know I was there.  And for those 4 days, I did nothing but read The Count of Monte Cristo.  It was a marvelous escape from my unbearably itching body - into the streets of Marseille, the dungeons of the Chateau d'If, the secret cave, the buzz of Rome, the intrigues of Paris.  I was completely lost.  I can't remember ever reading such a big book so fast, and being so completely swept away.  I think I'm looking for that feeling again.

So I'm reading it again.  It's a great read, I can tell you.  Last time, I read the abridged version, that came in at just over 800 pages.  This time, I'm going for the full 1243!  I can't put it down!

I was particularly struck by this passage, which I marked: "I thought him enough of a philosopher to realize that there is no such thing as murder in politics.  You know as well as I do, my dear boy, that in politics there are no people, only ideas; no feelings, only interests.  In politics, you don't kill a man, you remove and obstacle, that's all.*"   Ah, politics.  It's the same in big governments, and little companies...

Oh and don't see the movie - it's appalling.  Read the book!

*translated by Robin Buss

FIFTEEN

Well, he did it.  

Roger Federer is the stand-alone greatest tennis player ever.  15 Grand Slam Titles, in 6 years - it's unreal.

I know you're probably not a big tennis fan, but indulge me -  this is huge.  This epic, epic final: 5-7,7-6,7-6,3-6,16-14 - which Andy Roddick really should have won - he was playing a bit better than Federer - but Roger just kept hanging on, and on, and somehow ended up the winner.  It's the kind of thing that makes you love sports again -committed, acrobatic, intense, and full of artistry and history.  Two guys pushing their bodies and minds to the physical limits for 4 1/2 hours - I know it's not like earth-shattering or anything - but it's beautiful.  Like a really good play.

This will explain why I haven't been posting that much recently.  I've been pretty much glued to the television for the last two weeks.  I sat there for 5 hours today watching this incredible match.  Spencer watched it all with me - finally getting so excited during the marathon 5th set that he would jump up, run through the living room, then come barreling back and throw himself on the couch, then do it again.  And this is a 9 year old!  My dad was their, too - but he mostly stood there and made sage comments, as is his wont.  I think he wanted to Roddick to win, so he was a little down.  My mom watched, too, but at 10-all in the 5th she couldn't take it anymore and went out to the kitchen and ready the TLS until a match point finally came along.

But I really feel for this guy:

He looked like somebody had killed his dog.  After all that work, to come up short again.  Still, he was very gracious - I admire his class.

You betcha!

Well!  This is a surprise.  People are speculating that it's so she can concentrate on running for president in 2012, but I don't see how this will actually help!

My brother thinks she's just tired of the neverending bad publicity, and will show up as a talking head on Fox with a nice six figure salary.  Stay tuned!

The world is your photo library

This is a truly amazing piece from TED -

As Time Goes By

We watched Casablanca last night - first time I have seen it in probably 15 years.  Oh My Freakin' God is it a fantastic movie!!!!!  I had forgotten.  Here's why:

1. The supporting cast is chock full of great actors giving beautiful cameos that make every moment of it a treat - they draw you into such a complete world, where you really feel all the desperate human stories passing through the town.  Every moment is alive with wit and truth. Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, S.Z. Sakall, Leonid Kinskey all giving perfect little jewels of performances.  It's like really, really good Chekhov.

2. Chemistry.  Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman have such a hot relationship seething beneath the calm 1941 surface.  There's such ache in their every encounter.  It's really interesting to read that most of the people making the movie thought it was fairly run of the mill. Bergman called it "pretty ordinary stuff", and writer Julius Epstein said it had  "more corn than in the states of Kansas and Iowa combined. But when corn works, there's nothing better." But it won best picture in 1942 and survives as one of the best movies of all time.

3. Humphrey Bogart is one of the most extraordinary film actors ever ever ever.  This movie is one of the first old flicks I every saw, when I was about 15, and it started me on a lifelong love these great pictures, but I, of course, was completely in love with Ingrid Bergman.  She was the most radiant, beautiful, expressive and deep women I had ever seen, and I have continued to adore her through the years.  

But as a young man, I never appreciated Bogart's genius.  I liked him - he was tough and dry - but I confess that I sometimes found his delivery monotonous, and he seemed a little stiff to me.  Ah youth.  Watching this movie again, now, I am overwhelmed with the subtlety and specificity of his acting, how much he is in the moment at every moment, and how incredibly passionate he is, how bold and honest his choices.  It's miraculous stuff.

And let's not forget Dooley Wilson, who gives as sensitive and genuine a performance as you are like to see.  And he didn't even really know how to play the piano.  Beautiful.