Actors are perennially in search of two things: affecting an audience, and feeling personally significant. We can debate the order another time. In either case, there’s something relational at play, a need for emotions to stimulate the brain, or heart, or groin. (Again, we can debate the particulars later.)
In the best of circumstances, you’re working, on something you like, and you’re well paid. In these times you walk the earth with a lighter step. Traffic snarls are merely chances to listen to more music, rain is refreshing, and the dim-witted cashier is a person worthy of compassion. Read more…
2009 was dedicated to making massive change on every level. Will 2010 hold more of the same? The pursuit has made me feel more alive than any time I can ever remember. My mind felt as if it were shot out of a canon, and my skin tingled as if the nerve-endings had been attached to a live wire. I had no idea where I was going when it started. All I knew at the beginning of the year was that if I didn’t change, I would die. You’ll forgive the dramatic turn of phrase, but I felt the “diamond bullet,” as Colonel Kurtz put it in Apocalypse Now, the moment of binding pain, beauty and clarity that turns everything on its ear. Read more…
As 2009 draws to a close, and my thoughts are turning to the direction of 2010, street arrows seem to be looking bigger than ever. There’s an interesting relationship between suggestion/command and choice going on here. And some lovely abstract art, of course.
My time in London years ago aroused my interest in street signs. The many “Look Left/Look Right” signs saved my life on several occasions. Perhaps the arrows around New York have a similar purpose for me now…
(Please note, these are not my photographs. Thank you to the original photographers. I would credit you, but I did not find your names.)
I was doing a guest spot on a tv show this week, and every few hours or so my part got smaller due to time restraints. This is the nature of these things, and I don’t take personal offense. Only once in my life has a guest role gotten bigger, and that was a somewhat alarming experience. In that case, after my first day, I got home and was sent “new pages,” which generally involves some minor tweaking of lines and stage direction, but what arrived was a three page monologue, wherein I basically explained the entire episode. (So much for “show, don’t tell,” but there you have it.) Read more…
As I sat in the lobby of New York’s Public Theater I noticed two people laughing. It was my good fortune to have been to the Public twice in one week, and I recalled that on my previous visit, then, too, people were laughing. And I thought, “The lobby of the Public Theater is a remarkably happy place.” It was so strong a feeling that I wanted to share it. I reached for my phone to call someone. But as I slipped my hand into my pocket a woman shrieked, and I was distracted. Read more…
At 10 o’clock I was lying in bed reading a book and laughing out loud. Six hours later I was awake, blinking in the darkness, feeling anxious about some professional and personal matters. What happened in between was a mystery. Happily for me the anxiety passed rather quickly. I suddenly became more interested in how I could go from laughter to anxiety in such a short time, when nothing, but nothing, had circumstantially changed. Ironically, this shift of focus away from anxiety towards curiosity was the root of the matter, but there’s that forest-for-the-trees phenomenon that seems to get us with nearly the same frequency as the Charlie Brown-Lucy-football phenomenon. (Sigh.) Read more…
I would like to get every job I meet for. In point of fact, I would like to get everything I want, and I would like it handed to me on some kind of ceremonial serving dish, preferably delivered by beautiful people, all of whom tell me how great I am. This is not possible. Not during waking hours, anyway. But as I remind myself, the Buddha taught us that suffering exists, and my profession has more than its share. (He didn’t actually mention acting in the Four Noble Truths or the Eightfold Path, but please read on…) Read more…
Two things. One, I spend a lot of time on subways. Two, I believe in “choice of focus.” Anything can be looked at from more than one angle, and we make choices in what we choose to focus on. So as I drifted along one day, deep underground, and I felt frustration set in at being in some dingy metal can for the fifth time in five hours, I put my own belief to the test. What could be good about this? What am I not seeing that’s right in front of me?
Wow.
These are just a few examples. Click for larger views.
