I love the theater. I have experienced emotions in the theater that I can still feel today as I sit here. I have spent hours in the theater that have transformed my life. And I say this as a person who has had no shortage of real life experiences to compare. I genuinely enjoy the experience of most theater I go to see. I appreciate the work people do; I get a warm heart from watching a great young actor or actress; I get a kick out of the lines; I love the live energy in the room.
So, of course, as a person who writes plays, I would really like to see my work done more often for more people because I love the theater so much and I want people to feel what I feel when I am there. I believe that, when done right, they will love it too. -- Which of course, may be ridiculously quixotic and wishful thinking but isn't that the great thing about love? We want to share what we love with other people we love because we feel so much love? It's a great feeling.
Here's the paradox: While I love theater, and I enjoy most of the work I experience, I don't think most theater I see is very good. It rarely fully takes advantage of all of the potential of theater. It often feels forced, constricted, tense, overly-focused, or overly-polemic. It lacks the daring and bravado and free-ranging, surprising subject matter of most other art forms: music, photography, fine art, even television. Which I find extremely odd since one of the things I love about live theater is how capable it is of incorporating all other art forms -- dance, design, story, music, all of it.
How is this possible? Well, life doesn't have to avoid paradoxes so who cares. It's just true. The deeper meaning for me is this: I want theaters to do my work but I deeply dislike the work they choose to do. Now, someone must like the work they choose. They must have reasons for choosing it. They must, at least, think their audience likes it. (I'd argue with the last premise but that's another, different blog post.) SO -- HOW CAN I EXPECT THESE SAME THEATERS TO APPRECIATE THE PLAYS I WRITE WHEN I DISAGREE WITH THEIR FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES ABOUT THEATER AS DEMONSTRATED BY WHAT THEY PUT ON STAGE? The only thing we have in common is that we both have some appreciation for theater. . . I can't even say that they also love theater since most of the "theater" people I know can't stand to watch anything they weren't involved with.
Still -- I often go to many of these theaters and walk away both happy and unhappy. I enjoyed the experience. It's better than mediocre television (though rarely better than great television). I like the live experience even when it isn't better than television. Yet, I wouldn't recommend it to any of my friends who don't go see theater. You have to be in this clique that genuinely believes in this stiff, talking-head, "thematically-relevant," deterministic, self-important aesthetic or the clique of people who just like it when its live, in order to appreciate this stuff.
For years, I thought I'd do it differently and make it the way I liked it. And people would respond. But age teaches me that the doors to the audience are guarded by people who actually do like a different style of theater than I do. Nothing personal. But where does that leave me as a playwright?
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Friday, December 28, 2007
Questions questions
How do you tell the difference between your problem and someone else's problem? We should be humble, responsible people who take burdens unto ourselves -- burdens, blame, culpability, etc. . . But sometimes, isn't it appropriate to recognize that the world isn't a fair place? Other people who held the keys to this kingdom or that kingdom or are somehow connected to something you or I may want to do may be the cause of the problem. I mean, considering the petty, fucked-up people I've met in my everyday life, one has to assume that those same people work behind desks or computers in my professional life as well.
Taking personal responsibility and blame for everything is actually better in many ways than blaming others -- not because the self-help books tell you to do it --because then you have control. If I did it, then I can fix it. If the problem is the quality of the work I am doing, then I will improve the quality of the work. . . If the problem has nothing to do with the quality of the work that I do, if the problem is some kind of messed up thinking on the part of someone else that they can't even see, let alone fix, without years and years of therapy and a good whack upside the head with an aluminum baseball bat, then what the fuck am I supposed to do?
When I was around 28 or 29, I had some revelations about life. I won't bore you or myself with them here. Once you have revelations you either act on them or not, but repeating them is a bit of a smelly fart. Anyway, I remember thinking, "Yes, that probably is true, but I'm not ready to give up my anger yet." I wanted to be bitter and angry because I had always been bitter and angry and sometimes it was a comfortable feeling. It was a comfortable feeling. It also seemed at the time like the right response to a number of things even if, in an Oprah-ish kind of way, I recognized that it wasn't productive. It still seemed right. Just. Morally right to respond angry.
Now, years later, I don't have very many revelations about life to go off of. I haven't really been thinking about those big questions for awhile -- and I miss them. I really do. -- But I feel like I don't want to be angry anymore. So things don't go my way, so the work is stupidly fucked-up, so people are stupidly fucked-up, so I keep spinning through a cycle of hope and melancholy, so, so, so. . . I really can actually feel the bile in my joints and my blood and I want it out. . . I don't want my first response to anything to be annoyance, followed by a rant. Injustice, unfairness, irrationality. . . Is there another response I can have besides anger? Is there another response that still motivates action and keeps the blood moving through the veins? A response that isn't naive optimism that looks more like ignorance of reality?
I'm sure there is but I can't think of it. Shows how good and comfortable I got with anger.
Taking personal responsibility and blame for everything is actually better in many ways than blaming others -- not because the self-help books tell you to do it --because then you have control. If I did it, then I can fix it. If the problem is the quality of the work I am doing, then I will improve the quality of the work. . . If the problem has nothing to do with the quality of the work that I do, if the problem is some kind of messed up thinking on the part of someone else that they can't even see, let alone fix, without years and years of therapy and a good whack upside the head with an aluminum baseball bat, then what the fuck am I supposed to do?
When I was around 28 or 29, I had some revelations about life. I won't bore you or myself with them here. Once you have revelations you either act on them or not, but repeating them is a bit of a smelly fart. Anyway, I remember thinking, "Yes, that probably is true, but I'm not ready to give up my anger yet." I wanted to be bitter and angry because I had always been bitter and angry and sometimes it was a comfortable feeling. It was a comfortable feeling. It also seemed at the time like the right response to a number of things even if, in an Oprah-ish kind of way, I recognized that it wasn't productive. It still seemed right. Just. Morally right to respond angry.
Now, years later, I don't have very many revelations about life to go off of. I haven't really been thinking about those big questions for awhile -- and I miss them. I really do. -- But I feel like I don't want to be angry anymore. So things don't go my way, so the work is stupidly fucked-up, so people are stupidly fucked-up, so I keep spinning through a cycle of hope and melancholy, so, so, so. . . I really can actually feel the bile in my joints and my blood and I want it out. . . I don't want my first response to anything to be annoyance, followed by a rant. Injustice, unfairness, irrationality. . . Is there another response I can have besides anger? Is there another response that still motivates action and keeps the blood moving through the veins? A response that isn't naive optimism that looks more like ignorance of reality?
I'm sure there is but I can't think of it. Shows how good and comfortable I got with anger.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Symbolism
I think I hate symbolism. One thing standing in for another thing -- for what fucking reason? "That tree represents my son's young life" Why? Why, why, why? Why not be direct or at least be clever or descriptive or something.
I like metaphor and simile and analogy -- the comparison of unlike things in order to deepen our understanding of the thing. I don't like bad metaphor or simile. "Your eyes are as blue as the ocean." Bad, bad, bad. Oceans are blue. Eyes are blue. The relationship adds nothing. You should write "Your eyes are a deep blue." Only compare when there is no other way to describe. "Your eyes are as blue as song." That says something that is impossible to say any other way; it provides a sense.
Back to symbolism. I should really read more about it since I hate it so much and am also not sure I know what it is precisely. Still I think what I hate most is symbolic politics. Clinton was impeached not for a blowjob or really for lying under oath about something that isn't a crime. (People don't get prosecuted for lying about things that aren't crimes. It would take too much resource.) He was impeached by the GOP because they got all upset about what it means symbolically for the president to have lied under oath, and gotten blowjobs.
The media reports on what a thing symbolizes on the campaign trail rather than what it actually is.
Yet, I think real things happen for real people in the halls of government, in the world, everywhere. Symbolism, sure, I can't avoid it. We naturally, perhaps, make symbols in our head in order to understand things -- but its only 10% of the thing. The rest is actually happening but everyone is talking about the 10% and it's obscuring the 90%.
OK. This rant probably makes no sense. I'm glad no one is reading this blog. I do like writing it though. Strange. I wouldn't journal about this because it isn't personal enough to care about personally yet I would write about it in a public place that I don't think anyone sees, hoping no one sees, but only worth writing because it public. Yet again hoping no one sees. Ah, the world of psychology. . . Not so complicated really. . .
I should really think between periods of sentences, if for no other reason than this syntax is awful.
Mornin;.
I like metaphor and simile and analogy -- the comparison of unlike things in order to deepen our understanding of the thing. I don't like bad metaphor or simile. "Your eyes are as blue as the ocean." Bad, bad, bad. Oceans are blue. Eyes are blue. The relationship adds nothing. You should write "Your eyes are a deep blue." Only compare when there is no other way to describe. "Your eyes are as blue as song." That says something that is impossible to say any other way; it provides a sense.
Back to symbolism. I should really read more about it since I hate it so much and am also not sure I know what it is precisely. Still I think what I hate most is symbolic politics. Clinton was impeached not for a blowjob or really for lying under oath about something that isn't a crime. (People don't get prosecuted for lying about things that aren't crimes. It would take too much resource.) He was impeached by the GOP because they got all upset about what it means symbolically for the president to have lied under oath, and gotten blowjobs.
The media reports on what a thing symbolizes on the campaign trail rather than what it actually is.
Yet, I think real things happen for real people in the halls of government, in the world, everywhere. Symbolism, sure, I can't avoid it. We naturally, perhaps, make symbols in our head in order to understand things -- but its only 10% of the thing. The rest is actually happening but everyone is talking about the 10% and it's obscuring the 90%.
OK. This rant probably makes no sense. I'm glad no one is reading this blog. I do like writing it though. Strange. I wouldn't journal about this because it isn't personal enough to care about personally yet I would write about it in a public place that I don't think anyone sees, hoping no one sees, but only worth writing because it public. Yet again hoping no one sees. Ah, the world of psychology. . . Not so complicated really. . .
I should really think between periods of sentences, if for no other reason than this syntax is awful.
Mornin;.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Idea
No legendary playwrights have come out of the current new play development process. There are great playwrights in the world today but their voices are scattered; their vision diluted; and they earn no respect from either the world at large or the theater community specifically. Playwrights have been infantilized, encroached upon, and beaten down. To write anything of value is almost a victory. And, the support doesn't exist for it.
I'm not angry. I'm just making some bold, declaritive statements about the disappointment I feel when I assess the theater world today -- a world which I love deeply.
All the great playwrights we admire from the past were nurtured by an entirely different system. They all worked often with the same people, often within a company, often with devotion to their vision over time. Shakespeare. Chekhov and the Moscow Art Theater. Even Arthur Miller and Tenessee Williams had a certain support from institutions in New York at a certain point.
Obviously, the world has changed a lot since then. Maybe no writer for the theater can matter today. The theater world isn't as centralized as it once was -- what with the rise of regional theater. Whatever. This isn't a disertation. I don't feel the need to prove my point.
Here's my idea:
Theatres, in New York and regionally, of a size that can afford this, should hire playwrights on five year contracts with a commitment from both parties for three plays. Over five years and three plays, this writer may get the chance to do something fantastic. There should be a commitment to the local community, local ensembles, etc.
One play over one year with a theater (the current grants that do exist, in small doses) isn't enough to get great. Also, it isn't enough to introduce the audience to the playwright. Committing to three plays may alleviate the box office danger of doing new work because 1. You can introduce the writer to the audience with a bang. "We think this person is so interesting we're committed to doing THREE plays. You should come see." and 2. By the second play, the name is no longer unfamiliar to the audience.
The five year program should be non-renewable. After five years of productions at a worthwhile theater, if a writer can't get those works and others produced at other theaters then maybe he or she really isn't good and enough. The writer should have a real career by then where they may not need as much institutional support. It also shouldn't be open to anyone who isn't five years out of grad school (or undergrad). No matter how much potential a writer has they have to be in the world long enough to assimilate the stuff they learned that was valuable and forget the other stuff. And the job shouldn't be open to anyone who already doesn't need the support (big time playwrights who can get their plays produced by good theaters even before they write them).
It's expensive. It's a risk. But what theater-making isn't an expensive risk? And this may be the only way to really start making great new theater -- some intelligent reconciliation of the new theater world we live in with the clearly successful ensemble model of the past.
That's it. . . I can wish can't I?
irony of all ironies is that I still have to doubt that I'd be one of the playwrights who would get one of these jobs. . . how many theaters nationwide do you think, if given some grant support, could support something like this?
I'm not angry. I'm just making some bold, declaritive statements about the disappointment I feel when I assess the theater world today -- a world which I love deeply.
All the great playwrights we admire from the past were nurtured by an entirely different system. They all worked often with the same people, often within a company, often with devotion to their vision over time. Shakespeare. Chekhov and the Moscow Art Theater. Even Arthur Miller and Tenessee Williams had a certain support from institutions in New York at a certain point.
Obviously, the world has changed a lot since then. Maybe no writer for the theater can matter today. The theater world isn't as centralized as it once was -- what with the rise of regional theater. Whatever. This isn't a disertation. I don't feel the need to prove my point.
Here's my idea:
Theatres, in New York and regionally, of a size that can afford this, should hire playwrights on five year contracts with a commitment from both parties for three plays. Over five years and three plays, this writer may get the chance to do something fantastic. There should be a commitment to the local community, local ensembles, etc.
One play over one year with a theater (the current grants that do exist, in small doses) isn't enough to get great. Also, it isn't enough to introduce the audience to the playwright. Committing to three plays may alleviate the box office danger of doing new work because 1. You can introduce the writer to the audience with a bang. "We think this person is so interesting we're committed to doing THREE plays. You should come see." and 2. By the second play, the name is no longer unfamiliar to the audience.
The five year program should be non-renewable. After five years of productions at a worthwhile theater, if a writer can't get those works and others produced at other theaters then maybe he or she really isn't good and enough. The writer should have a real career by then where they may not need as much institutional support. It also shouldn't be open to anyone who isn't five years out of grad school (or undergrad). No matter how much potential a writer has they have to be in the world long enough to assimilate the stuff they learned that was valuable and forget the other stuff. And the job shouldn't be open to anyone who already doesn't need the support (big time playwrights who can get their plays produced by good theaters even before they write them).
It's expensive. It's a risk. But what theater-making isn't an expensive risk? And this may be the only way to really start making great new theater -- some intelligent reconciliation of the new theater world we live in with the clearly successful ensemble model of the past.
That's it. . . I can wish can't I?
irony of all ironies is that I still have to doubt that I'd be one of the playwrights who would get one of these jobs. . . how many theaters nationwide do you think, if given some grant support, could support something like this?
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Sense? Sense? Who Needs Sense?
Last night, I got in to an argument with a friend about politics. Of course about politics. The conversation started even because I was remarking how strange it is that people get so emotionally attached to their candidates of choice. I've been checking political blogs when I procrastinate these days and -- republican or democrat -- once they pick a candidate, they make talk about rational discourse but little of what they say is rational discourse. They accuse the other side of calling each other names by calling each other names.
Though I like to think I'm not a person who does this, I probably do. . . except I'd like to think I'm not a person who does this and I try very hard to not be a person who does this. I know we're supposed to be humble and assume that we all have flaws -- which I know I do -- but do all our flaws have to be the same flaws?
The conversation last night got really heated when my friend accused me of propagating the same old partisan politics because I said that I wouldn't vote for someone because he is a Republican. . . He said it was lazy, destructive thinking. I think I especially go balistic if someone accuses me personally of not thinking right. I spend a lot of time thinking. I can justify my thoughts until the second Tuesday in October for anyone who wants to sit around that long and listen. I know that doesn't make the thoughts rational but I doubt that someone should accuse me of anything with my thinking since I don't know their thought process and I make no claims to no it.
I'd like to say I was on the high road. I don't remember accusing my friend of thinking any particular way. I know that I criticized his willingness to vote for a Republican this year. I know that I said that this year -- of all years - regardless of who the Republican is, you simply can't vote for him. I realize that someone might get their dander up on that statement. It certainly is confrontational. (You! Don't do what you are about to do! You can't! Or you're an idiot! -- Full disclosure. I never said the word idiot but its hard not to sound like you're saying it anyway in a heated argument.) However, regardless of how difficult the statement is, it makes no presumptions about the person who is the recipient of the statement. It's a personal thesis to the speaker with an argument to support it. It has nothing to do with "partisan" politics or culture wars or other symbolic political statements. (More than half of all politics now is symbolic and it makes me want to cry.)
For what its worth, the argument is this: Republicans have been responsible for a variety of governmental disasters in the last -- depending on your perspective -- seven, ten, fifteen, or twenty-seven years. You can point to a list. Iraq was a dumb war. Katrina was mismanaged. Cutting services in a variety of areas of the federal government has led to problems in sectors that the media never talks about. Time wasted arguing about homosexual marriage instead of doing something about health care. Not doing anything about health care, energy, education, etc., etc. This are real things -- not symbols. If it was later in the day, I could even make the list bullet points and more concrete. The current Republican leadership is demonstrably incompetent, ignorant, arrogant, and disingenuous (Have they actually done anything about gay marriage and abortion besides talk about it to rile up some folks?). Also hypocritical and in some cases criminal. A list can be made.
Therefore, for at least the forseeable future, I wouldn't vote for any of the people involved in these instances. And, at this point, even though I have always believed that people can have philosophical political differences, anyone who doesn't disassociate themselves from these malevolent fucks -- even people who don't agree but still think of themselves as republicans -- has to be lumped in with them. I don't think this is always the case but I think a fairly rational case can be made that this is the case right now. At this point in time, a pox on you and your entire house regardless of whether the people living in one of the bedrooms secretly, really secretly, doesn't agree with all the ways in which you've fucked up the country. A few years ago you could hope that those people might take over the house. At this point, they have to take over the house without any help from my hoping, before I'll set foot near that neighborhood again.
That's the argument why I won't vote for a republican. Honestly, what the fuck is irrational about that? OK. You can disagree with the conclusion but its an entirely fair conclusion, isn't it?
Surprisingly, I guess people would rather be idealists or symbolists. "You can't make such bold generalizations. It just contributes to partisan politics." One -- we weren't talking about partisan politics. Two - yes, at some point, it is fair to make generalizations. When you have a large enough sample set, yes. . . O, and here's the one that really kills me. "O, you think the Democrats would be better? You really think they wouldn't do the same corrupt things." -- You know. . . Well. . . Probably they'd do different corrupt things . . . but. . . Here's the thing. . . I don't know! There is no evidence on their side because they've basically been out of power -- except when Clinton was president. The economy was good. And they were cleared of every accusation except lying about getting a blowjob. -- so well, it's a limited sample set. I won't even use it as evidence. My point is -- It's time to find out what they do. Stick with the evidence. The evidence doesn't prove to me that they would be as asshole-ish and incompetent as the Republicans. Nor, I suppose, does it prove to me that they won't. I refuse to say either way because I don't know. With the GOP, you know.
Evidence not idealism or cynicism or symbolism. . . But I'm probably just being emotinally irrational myself. (By the way, can't we make a rational argument emotionally? Do you have to sound like Spock from Star Trek in order to sound like you've thought through the evidence and come to conclusions based on reason? Also, by the way, we need emotions in order to be reasonable. . . I read that in a long scientific book somewhere though I honestly can't remember any part of the argument. . . But, I'm sure its true, I am. . . cause. . . you know. . . I vaguely remember it. . .
You know you should stop writing when you're using ellipses the same way you would run out of steam in speaking "Um. . . OK. . . So, . . my point is. . . what I just said. . . I mean. . . that's what I'm saying. . ."
Thank you. Good Morning
Though I like to think I'm not a person who does this, I probably do. . . except I'd like to think I'm not a person who does this and I try very hard to not be a person who does this. I know we're supposed to be humble and assume that we all have flaws -- which I know I do -- but do all our flaws have to be the same flaws?
The conversation last night got really heated when my friend accused me of propagating the same old partisan politics because I said that I wouldn't vote for someone because he is a Republican. . . He said it was lazy, destructive thinking. I think I especially go balistic if someone accuses me personally of not thinking right. I spend a lot of time thinking. I can justify my thoughts until the second Tuesday in October for anyone who wants to sit around that long and listen. I know that doesn't make the thoughts rational but I doubt that someone should accuse me of anything with my thinking since I don't know their thought process and I make no claims to no it.
I'd like to say I was on the high road. I don't remember accusing my friend of thinking any particular way. I know that I criticized his willingness to vote for a Republican this year. I know that I said that this year -- of all years - regardless of who the Republican is, you simply can't vote for him. I realize that someone might get their dander up on that statement. It certainly is confrontational. (You! Don't do what you are about to do! You can't! Or you're an idiot! -- Full disclosure. I never said the word idiot but its hard not to sound like you're saying it anyway in a heated argument.) However, regardless of how difficult the statement is, it makes no presumptions about the person who is the recipient of the statement. It's a personal thesis to the speaker with an argument to support it. It has nothing to do with "partisan" politics or culture wars or other symbolic political statements. (More than half of all politics now is symbolic and it makes me want to cry.)
For what its worth, the argument is this: Republicans have been responsible for a variety of governmental disasters in the last -- depending on your perspective -- seven, ten, fifteen, or twenty-seven years. You can point to a list. Iraq was a dumb war. Katrina was mismanaged. Cutting services in a variety of areas of the federal government has led to problems in sectors that the media never talks about. Time wasted arguing about homosexual marriage instead of doing something about health care. Not doing anything about health care, energy, education, etc., etc. This are real things -- not symbols. If it was later in the day, I could even make the list bullet points and more concrete. The current Republican leadership is demonstrably incompetent, ignorant, arrogant, and disingenuous (Have they actually done anything about gay marriage and abortion besides talk about it to rile up some folks?). Also hypocritical and in some cases criminal. A list can be made.
Therefore, for at least the forseeable future, I wouldn't vote for any of the people involved in these instances. And, at this point, even though I have always believed that people can have philosophical political differences, anyone who doesn't disassociate themselves from these malevolent fucks -- even people who don't agree but still think of themselves as republicans -- has to be lumped in with them. I don't think this is always the case but I think a fairly rational case can be made that this is the case right now. At this point in time, a pox on you and your entire house regardless of whether the people living in one of the bedrooms secretly, really secretly, doesn't agree with all the ways in which you've fucked up the country. A few years ago you could hope that those people might take over the house. At this point, they have to take over the house without any help from my hoping, before I'll set foot near that neighborhood again.
That's the argument why I won't vote for a republican. Honestly, what the fuck is irrational about that? OK. You can disagree with the conclusion but its an entirely fair conclusion, isn't it?
Surprisingly, I guess people would rather be idealists or symbolists. "You can't make such bold generalizations. It just contributes to partisan politics." One -- we weren't talking about partisan politics. Two - yes, at some point, it is fair to make generalizations. When you have a large enough sample set, yes. . . O, and here's the one that really kills me. "O, you think the Democrats would be better? You really think they wouldn't do the same corrupt things." -- You know. . . Well. . . Probably they'd do different corrupt things . . . but. . . Here's the thing. . . I don't know! There is no evidence on their side because they've basically been out of power -- except when Clinton was president. The economy was good. And they were cleared of every accusation except lying about getting a blowjob. -- so well, it's a limited sample set. I won't even use it as evidence. My point is -- It's time to find out what they do. Stick with the evidence. The evidence doesn't prove to me that they would be as asshole-ish and incompetent as the Republicans. Nor, I suppose, does it prove to me that they won't. I refuse to say either way because I don't know. With the GOP, you know.
Evidence not idealism or cynicism or symbolism. . . But I'm probably just being emotinally irrational myself. (By the way, can't we make a rational argument emotionally? Do you have to sound like Spock from Star Trek in order to sound like you've thought through the evidence and come to conclusions based on reason? Also, by the way, we need emotions in order to be reasonable. . . I read that in a long scientific book somewhere though I honestly can't remember any part of the argument. . . But, I'm sure its true, I am. . . cause. . . you know. . . I vaguely remember it. . .
You know you should stop writing when you're using ellipses the same way you would run out of steam in speaking "Um. . . OK. . . So, . . my point is. . . what I just said. . . I mean. . . that's what I'm saying. . ."
Thank you. Good Morning
Monday, December 17, 2007
Return
Thank you, Ciso, for relaunching this blog space on my website.
I have, really really oddly, the urge to blog. I think it is because I have -- for the first time in my life - writer's block. I used to make fun of my students who said they had writers block. "Writers write well or they write badly but they write. What the hell is writers block?" Except now I think, I have no purpose for writing, no point, no reason for it.
So, oddly, I want to blog something even though I don't believe anyone will read this or anyone who has read it in the past will be looking near it now. The idea that something can be read publicly seems to me an affirmation in this case of the idea that we can write and influence people. We can write and care and be purposefully in the world.
I like that no one will read this. What I just wrote is ridiculous. Yet, I like the idea that someone could read this. It makes me feel better about being a writer in general. . . if I am a writer. Which I'm doubting. Since I don't believe in writer's block but I have it anyway.
O, and here is something fun to listen to. We made it to be played before a 1930s radio play as though it were just a regular ad. I get a kick out of the cheesy style.
Enjoy. Everywhere%20Signs_004%20%282%29.mp3
I have, really really oddly, the urge to blog. I think it is because I have -- for the first time in my life - writer's block. I used to make fun of my students who said they had writers block. "Writers write well or they write badly but they write. What the hell is writers block?" Except now I think, I have no purpose for writing, no point, no reason for it.
So, oddly, I want to blog something even though I don't believe anyone will read this or anyone who has read it in the past will be looking near it now. The idea that something can be read publicly seems to me an affirmation in this case of the idea that we can write and influence people. We can write and care and be purposefully in the world.
I like that no one will read this. What I just wrote is ridiculous. Yet, I like the idea that someone could read this. It makes me feel better about being a writer in general. . . if I am a writer. Which I'm doubting. Since I don't believe in writer's block but I have it anyway.
O, and here is something fun to listen to. We made it to be played before a 1930s radio play as though it were just a regular ad. I get a kick out of the cheesy style.
Enjoy. Everywhere%20Signs_004%20%282%29.mp3
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