Monday, September 1, 2008
Emerging Enlightenment 9/01/08
In order to understand what it means to be awake,
we must first wake up.
DB - The Vagabond
**********************************
It is indeed an odd thing that most of us spend a major portion of our lives somewhere between asleep and alert. Just as it is usually a gradual process from one to the other, so is it to becoming truly aware of the world around us and the people in it as well as the person inside
There is no excuse for people going through their whole lives unknowledgeable about new ideas and their importance to the world, and yet so many people do. It is also not reasonable for one to live his life without ever becoming acquainted with himself. But far too many people do that.
We live in a world of products, both tangible and intangible. We consume the products or let them consume us and give no thought to the originating mentality behind any of them. But it is becoming aware of that mentality that is the first step in truly waking up. Everything has a language and is talking to us at every moment, but we, blissfully or not, pay no attention. Why don't we listen? Why don't we look? Why do we keep missing the point?
Years ago, in a shop, I saw a little black plastic box with a toggle switch on the top. The switch was labeled "on" and "off." It was pointing to "off." If you flicked it to "on" the box shook, the lid opened and an emaciated plastic arm came out, flicked the switch to "off," fell back into the box and the lid closed. I was delighted at the message of it. I vowed that I was coming back to that shop to buy it. When i came back the box was there, but now it was a bank. You put a coin in the slot, the arm came out, and grabbed the coin. The whole point of the original box had been lost on people. Instead it was "Gee. That would make a cool bank."
I've been reading a lot about Leviathan, that creature mentioned several times in the Bible. Modern, but mostly Medieval theologians, argue one way or the other about whether it was a whale, a crocodile or some as yet to be discovered sea creature, and eventually agree that it stands for the devil. But they stop at that as if it was enough. None of them go on to explain what they mean by the devil.
I'm waiting. But, so far the best explanation I've read is that the devil is the ignorant, stuck human way of thinking and doing things and messing them up. That will have to do until someone looks behind the face of Satan and understands the idea underneath the mask.
The music of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, etc contains great ideas. When I was a classical music announcer I used to try to discuss some of those ideas. Almost no one, including my employers, understood what I was talking about. Even now most of those announcing concern themselves with how old Mozart was when he wrote something, when Beethoven went deaf and who Liszt was sleeping with. None of which has anything to do with the music. The late string quartets of Beethoven and the Piano Concertos of Mozart describe the world we live in and the world beyond what we know of it.
If I can convince one person to really look behind a rose, listen to its song and tell me what it says, my life will mean something.
DB
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Griping Gnashers
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Griping Gnashers
Every act of terrorism is an act of revenge.
What we really need,
if we are going to survive,
is a War On Vengeance.
DB - The Vagabond
***********************************
I saw a conversation with a woman who ostentatiously displayed a cross around her neck and proclaimsd that she was a Christian, very religious and believed in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, Her questioner asked if she understood that an eye for an eye was an old testament ethic, Mosaic law, which Moses later abated, that historians point out it was an improvement over the common practice of visiting ten fold revenge on wrong doers, and that it was totally refuted in the New Testament. She said she never heard that.
I though: My God. It's bad news for Christianity. and all religions as a matter of fact, when people can go about announcing their faith, even to the point of displaying symbols of it, congregating, worshipping and fellowshiping, without knowing the principles their religion is based on.
All the world's great religions inveigh against vengeance, and yet most people, most religious people, seem to think they have a divine right to exact revenge on those who have hurt them and do it under the benign euphemisms of "settling the score," "creating a level playing field" and "gaining closure." But there is no closure. Vengeance creates wars and keeps them going.
Some will say that if you let someone get away with something without punishing them, they will do it again. Preventing them from doing it again is not the same as visiting pain and torment on them for doing it the first time. Our prisons are full of people many of whom are 2nd and 3rd offenders. The punishment has not deterred them.
Wanting to take revenge on someone and actually doing it are different things, but they are allied. A first major step toward an ethical life is to recognize that the desire is just as bad as the act. Christianity stresses the idea that even the motivation to do something should be aligned with the principle of love for one's neighbor and forgiveness of one's enemies. So do Judaism and Islam. I've read the books.
How on earth can those for whom revenge is a way of life be convinced of it's erroneousness when it seems endemic to the human passions? How to convince people to turn from a superficial reading of their sacred texts and hasty interpretations of them that do nothing more than justify the behavior of their own mortal personalities? How to convince people to stop missing the point?
Some folks think I am atheistic or irreligious. People have tried very hard to convince me to became part of their own religious persuasion, one way or another. A man stopped his car, ran over to me, handed me a religious leaflet, got back in his car and drove off. I once got a letter from a listener saying that he was very concerned for my immortal soul. No explanation was given. Someone, whose thinking isn't any clearer than mine, is always trying to correct my thinking. My answer is that even though I can recognize in myself the motivation to "get even," my faith and sense of humor have transformed my nature to the point where there is nothing in me that cannot forgive those who have done me wrong. Those who have not yet reached that point may laugh at the idea, but it is a true, tested and measurable condition,
"Let there be peace in the world, and let it begin with me."
DB - The Vagabond
Griping Gnashers
Every act of terrorism is an act of revenge.
What we really need,
if we are going to survive,
is a War On Vengeance.
DB - The Vagabond
***********************************
I saw a conversation with a woman who ostentatiously displayed a cross around her neck and proclaimsd that she was a Christian, very religious and believed in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, Her questioner asked if she understood that an eye for an eye was an old testament ethic, Mosaic law, which Moses later abated, that historians point out it was an improvement over the common practice of visiting ten fold revenge on wrong doers, and that it was totally refuted in the New Testament. She said she never heard that.
I though: My God. It's bad news for Christianity. and all religions as a matter of fact, when people can go about announcing their faith, even to the point of displaying symbols of it, congregating, worshipping and fellowshiping, without knowing the principles their religion is based on.
All the world's great religions inveigh against vengeance, and yet most people, most religious people, seem to think they have a divine right to exact revenge on those who have hurt them and do it under the benign euphemisms of "settling the score," "creating a level playing field" and "gaining closure." But there is no closure. Vengeance creates wars and keeps them going.
Some will say that if you let someone get away with something without punishing them, they will do it again. Preventing them from doing it again is not the same as visiting pain and torment on them for doing it the first time. Our prisons are full of people many of whom are 2nd and 3rd offenders. The punishment has not deterred them.
Wanting to take revenge on someone and actually doing it are different things, but they are allied. A first major step toward an ethical life is to recognize that the desire is just as bad as the act. Christianity stresses the idea that even the motivation to do something should be aligned with the principle of love for one's neighbor and forgiveness of one's enemies. So do Judaism and Islam. I've read the books.
How on earth can those for whom revenge is a way of life be convinced of it's erroneousness when it seems endemic to the human passions? How to convince people to turn from a superficial reading of their sacred texts and hasty interpretations of them that do nothing more than justify the behavior of their own mortal personalities? How to convince people to stop missing the point?
Some folks think I am atheistic or irreligious. People have tried very hard to convince me to became part of their own religious persuasion, one way or another. A man stopped his car, ran over to me, handed me a religious leaflet, got back in his car and drove off. I once got a letter from a listener saying that he was very concerned for my immortal soul. No explanation was given. Someone, whose thinking isn't any clearer than mine, is always trying to correct my thinking. My answer is that even though I can recognize in myself the motivation to "get even," my faith and sense of humor have transformed my nature to the point where there is nothing in me that cannot forgive those who have done me wrong. Those who have not yet reached that point may laugh at the idea, but it is a true, tested and measurable condition,
"Let there be peace in the world, and let it begin with me."
DB - The Vagabond
Friday, August 28, 2009
Hidden Harvest
+Thursday, September 4, 2008
12:15:19 AM EDT
Hidden Harvest
The beauties that we know, an amazing sunset, the taste of ripe fruit, the warm breeze of a Spring day, a painting by Van Gogh, the music of Mozart; these things are not complete. They are merely hints of the real beauty that is.
DB - The Vagabond
***************************************
Years ago there was a BBC TV program called "The Long Search." In it a British anthropologist went all around the world interviewing devout people of all the world's religions. He was attempting to discover what made a person religious and what kept them in a permanent state of faith.
I remember many of those interviews, but the one that stands out to me the most was with a Hindu gentleman. He was saying that Hinduism was a very non-materialistic religion. The interviewer asked how he could say that when all around them there were idols. The Hindu agreed that there are idols but he explained that he looked on them as so many fingers pointing to an invisible world of Spirit. He said that one could spend a lifetime looking at the finger until one day he begins to look at where the finger is pointing.
I was in rehearsal for a play and having a difficult time with my role. The character seemed to be so challenging and argumentative with the other characters, and I was portraying him with a heavy hand (as usual) which I knew was wrong. One day, during a break, the director, who was a very incisive and gifted director in his idiosyncratic way, walked past me, tapped me on the shoulder and said "Prometheus, my boy." and walked on. That set my head spinning and sent me to the dictionary. Prometheus, the mythical hero who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to humanity. Thinking about that legend helped me to understand my role, not as an angry, unharmonious debater but as the one voice of reason who could enlighten the scene. That changed my approach to the role and it worked.
I can tell from some of the comments and emails I get in response to the things I write, that there are people capable of and who do often look behind the veil, see the unseeable and examine the unexaminable. As I said in my last entry there are people whose thinking is not all that clear, who are trying to correct my thinking. Prometheus was punished by being chained to a rock by Zeus for a long time. When I come upon the rock that says "There are certain things we are not supposed to know" or that says "It's just an apple. Don't try to read anything else into it." that is the very rock I refuse to be chained to.
The veil of the temple has been spilt in two, the sanctum sanctorum is open for all, not just the high priest. We are capable of knowing the unknowable, of completing the sunset, of handling the fire, as long as we stop staring at the finger and begin looking to where it points.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
12:15:19 AM EDT
Hidden Harvest
The beauties that we know, an amazing sunset, the taste of ripe fruit, the warm breeze of a Spring day, a painting by Van Gogh, the music of Mozart; these things are not complete. They are merely hints of the real beauty that is.
DB - The Vagabond
***************************************
Years ago there was a BBC TV program called "The Long Search." In it a British anthropologist went all around the world interviewing devout people of all the world's religions. He was attempting to discover what made a person religious and what kept them in a permanent state of faith.
I remember many of those interviews, but the one that stands out to me the most was with a Hindu gentleman. He was saying that Hinduism was a very non-materialistic religion. The interviewer asked how he could say that when all around them there were idols. The Hindu agreed that there are idols but he explained that he looked on them as so many fingers pointing to an invisible world of Spirit. He said that one could spend a lifetime looking at the finger until one day he begins to look at where the finger is pointing.
I was in rehearsal for a play and having a difficult time with my role. The character seemed to be so challenging and argumentative with the other characters, and I was portraying him with a heavy hand (as usual) which I knew was wrong. One day, during a break, the director, who was a very incisive and gifted director in his idiosyncratic way, walked past me, tapped me on the shoulder and said "Prometheus, my boy." and walked on. That set my head spinning and sent me to the dictionary. Prometheus, the mythical hero who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to humanity. Thinking about that legend helped me to understand my role, not as an angry, unharmonious debater but as the one voice of reason who could enlighten the scene. That changed my approach to the role and it worked.
I can tell from some of the comments and emails I get in response to the things I write, that there are people capable of and who do often look behind the veil, see the unseeable and examine the unexaminable. As I said in my last entry there are people whose thinking is not all that clear, who are trying to correct my thinking. Prometheus was punished by being chained to a rock by Zeus for a long time. When I come upon the rock that says "There are certain things we are not supposed to know" or that says "It's just an apple. Don't try to read anything else into it." that is the very rock I refuse to be chained to.
The veil of the temple has been spilt in two, the sanctum sanctorum is open for all, not just the high priest. We are capable of knowing the unknowable, of completing the sunset, of handling the fire, as long as we stop staring at the finger and begin looking to where it points.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Monday, August 17, 2009
Infinite Improvement
Friday, September 5, 2008
12:01:59 AM EDT
Infinite Improvement
Actors are those who give themselves notes
long after the show has closed.
DB - The Vagabond
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Q. How many actors does it take to change a light bulb?
A. 50. One to change the bulb and 49 to say "I could have done that better."
There are some scripts and productions that are hopeless and are just as well forgotten about. They come under the category of "I-wish-I-hadn't-done-that." I could name a few, but they are better left buried.
But then there are plays from the recent and not so recent past that still intrigue me. I'll be lying in bed preparing to go to sleep and a scene or a moment from some play I once did will suddenly pop into my mind and I'll start going over it again, finding ways to do it better. I often wonder why I didn't think of something that is clear to me now. But then I realize that in the stress and rush to get the show rehearsed and open many things fell along the way that can only be picked up later - much later.
It's a shame that I can't go back and do it again, but the scenery has been torn down, the actors have all gone their ways and the show will never happen again. It's in the can, as they say. That doesn't stop me from giving myself notes about it however, as to how to improve it.
It's even more graphically true about sections I've saved to use as audition pieces. When I go through them now I find that I always do them better than I did when I did the play. I have one scene from The Merchant Of Venice which I did in the late 50s. I can't believe I got away with what I did, or didn't do, when I originally performed the play.
Once I went to see a play I had done and watched another actor play the role I had played (an actor who may be reading this right now). I have to admit, he played it better than I did. So let him change the light bulb. He's doing just fine.
DB
12:01:59 AM EDT
Infinite Improvement
Actors are those who give themselves notes
long after the show has closed.
DB - The Vagabond
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Q. How many actors does it take to change a light bulb?
A. 50. One to change the bulb and 49 to say "I could have done that better."
There are some scripts and productions that are hopeless and are just as well forgotten about. They come under the category of "I-wish-I-hadn't-done-that." I could name a few, but they are better left buried.
But then there are plays from the recent and not so recent past that still intrigue me. I'll be lying in bed preparing to go to sleep and a scene or a moment from some play I once did will suddenly pop into my mind and I'll start going over it again, finding ways to do it better. I often wonder why I didn't think of something that is clear to me now. But then I realize that in the stress and rush to get the show rehearsed and open many things fell along the way that can only be picked up later - much later.
It's a shame that I can't go back and do it again, but the scenery has been torn down, the actors have all gone their ways and the show will never happen again. It's in the can, as they say. That doesn't stop me from giving myself notes about it however, as to how to improve it.
It's even more graphically true about sections I've saved to use as audition pieces. When I go through them now I find that I always do them better than I did when I did the play. I have one scene from The Merchant Of Venice which I did in the late 50s. I can't believe I got away with what I did, or didn't do, when I originally performed the play.
Once I went to see a play I had done and watched another actor play the role I had played (an actor who may be reading this right now). I have to admit, he played it better than I did. So let him change the light bulb. He's doing just fine.
DB
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Knuckle Knowledge
Sunday, September 7, 2008
12:02:54 AM EDT
Knuckle Knowledge
One is never relieved from proving one's grit.
DB - The Vagabond
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is a long one, so put the kettle on if you're going to read it.
Tremont Mountain
Tremont is part of the White Mountain National Forest which stretches from Maine into New Hampshire. There are two ways to hike to the summit. One is a straight up trail off of one highway. The other is a network of trails beginning at a different highway. One day in late October I decided to take the long way up, through the network of interesting trails.
I studied the map and trail guide and calculated that it would take me 4 hours to reach the summit. So I began at 10 a. m. I parked my car in a parking area just off the highway and locked it. I took my trusty walking staff and my back pack. In the pack I had a towel, a canteen of water, a plastic container for my sandwich and a banana. a flashlight, toilet paper, the trail guide, cigarettes and wooden matches.
At first there was an easy half mile walk to the brook which needed to be forded. A pebbly walk from the brook took me to a long, wide straight trail which led along the side of the brook, but then veered onto a spur trail that wandered through the woods to an old logging road beside a pond. After a while on that it came upon a gravel road which seems to have been put in for construction which never took place. On the other side of it was the trail that began the ascent up the mountain. It was a long winding, twisting trail through the forest and up the side of Tremont. It was well traveled, it seemed, but not well marked. The surface of the trail was mainly roots and rocks. It went along the ledge of a cliff, down into a small valley and eventually up through thicktrees to the summit. Easy to describe, but it took a lot of effort to do.
When I got to the summit I received a shock. As the timber line is only a few feet below the summit, I had not seen the sky in an hour or so. When I stepped out on to the peak I saw that the sun was a lot further along in the sky than I had expected. Since I didn't have a watch with me, I didn't know what time it was, but I knew it was later than I assumed it would be and I was going to have to descend the mountain mostly in the dark. But I wasn't really ready for just how dark it was going to be.
I quickly ate my sandwich and banana, tossing the banana skin (biodegradable - good litter), said to the mountain top that I would be back some day and started down.
The first hour was okay, but when I emerged out of the small valley the sun set and it became pitch dark, no moon, nothing. I got out my flashlight and proceeded.
The one thing I knew for certain was that no matter what I had to stay on the trail. I fell into a slow, quiet panic. All the roots and rocks I had stepped on as I came up now seemed to wriggle and squirm under my feet. I don't know if it was moths or small birds flying by me but I sometimes heard something like whispering close to my head. and also the sounds of foot steps in the woods next to me.
There was a strong temptation to just start down the slope of the mountain, but I knew that if I did that I wouldn't know where I was when I cam out and it might take days to find my car. And maybe I wouldn't come out at all but end up in a swamp or a briar patch. And there were cliffs I could accidentally step off in the dark.
So with flashlight in hand I poked along slowly, trying not to stumble and fall, trying to stay on the trail. Occasionally I would see a trail marker, which was encouraging, but mostly it was keeping my eyes on the ground and feeling with my feet. Now and then I would step off the trail, but somehow I knew it immediately and would step back to where I knew it was, and search for the next step. It was a matter of feeling the ground with my feet, intuition and some invisible guidance. Once I stopped to tie my boot and after I had moved on for a minute I realized I had left my staff back there, so I went back and got it. One learns to keep what one has. It was a valuable possession.
At one point the trail even ascended again for a short distance. That was confusing to me.
I didn't know how late it was, but I knew I shouldn't try to bed down for the night and wait until dawn. It was October, cold, and I wasn't dressed warmly enough to get through the night without suffering from exposure to the cold.
After many, many hours of finding my way through the thick forest and uncertain trail, I made it down off Tremont to the gravel road.
I knew that if I walked that road it would eventually take me to a tertiary road which would eventually take me to the highway which would eventually take me back to my car. But I could tell from the map that it would probably take me until mid day to do that. So I decided to continue on the way I had come.
I crossed the gravel road and entered the old logging road that eventually went along the side of the pond. I knew that the Appalachian Mountain Club had posted a sign marking the end of the spur trail and I was looking for it. After about an hour I saw it. But at that exact moment there was the loud sound of something throwing a large rock into the pond, right next to me. I knew there were no gorillas in New Hampshire so the first thing I thought of was that it was obviously Sasquatch, Big Foot, and I expected that at any moment I was going to be picked up by some big, smelly, hairy thing and slammed against a tree.
I didn't shine my flashlight over to see what sort of a beast it was. I just turned on to the spur trail and kept moving, slowly, over the roots and rocks. As far as I know, I wasn't followed.
But then, after another hour or so, I came upon a large tree that had fallen directly across the trail. I didn't remember that tree during the ascent, and it wasn't something that had recently happened, but it was quite obviously there and I must have gone around it. I knew I was on the trail, so I put my back pack down to mark it so that I could always return to that spot, and walked all around that tree searching for where the trail came out on the other side. I think I walked around that tree 3 times looking for the trail when, accidentally, my flash light picked up a trail marker that was off to the side. It was a red ribbon tied high up on a tree. Obviously this trail was used by cross country skiers in the winter and it was one of their markings. But it meant that the trail went of to the right and the tree simply lay along side of it. That's why I hadn't remembered it.
So i followed the trail out to the wide easy trail that went along beside the brook. After another hour or so I came out to the pebble area leading to the brook. I turned off the flashlight and let the sound of the brook lead me to the edge of it. I sat down to rest before I forded the brook, took out my cigarettes and matches. When I struck a match I was amazed to see, for an instant, 180 degrees around me, eyes. Big eyes, little eyes, round eyes, slanted eyes, squinty eyes. It seemed that all the creatures in the woods had come out to see what this was that was stomping through their bushes. Immediately there was the sound of scurrying as they all left the scene. I chuckled because I got the impression that I probably had company every step of the way.
I finished the cigarette, pushed it into the ground (more good litter, non-filter, very degradable) and forded the brook. My staff was very helpful for doing that. With it I could feel the rocks at the bottom that I could step on.
I dried off my feet with my towel and made the last half mile to my car. When I unlocked it and opened the door the light from inside flooded the parking area. It was a welcome sight. When i got in the car the clock on the dash board said 2 a. m. It had taken me 16 hours.
The next day I called my friend Ernie, who knows about these things, and asked him what made that loud noise at the pond that frightened me so much. He said it was probably a beaver. They slap their tails in the water to frighten off their enemies. I am here to tell you it's very effective.
A week later I took the other trail up to Tremonet. It was a tough straight up the hill trail, but it was shorter. When i got to the summit I got to enjoy the view that I had to miss the first time. On my way up I noticed frost forming on the brown and amber leaves that had fallen from the trees and I knew it would soon be hunting season, there would be no more hiking until the spring.
I never returned to Tremont Mountain after that. Why should I? I had proven my grit.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
12:02:54 AM EDT
Knuckle Knowledge
One is never relieved from proving one's grit.
DB - The Vagabond
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is a long one, so put the kettle on if you're going to read it.
Tremont Mountain
Tremont is part of the White Mountain National Forest which stretches from Maine into New Hampshire. There are two ways to hike to the summit. One is a straight up trail off of one highway. The other is a network of trails beginning at a different highway. One day in late October I decided to take the long way up, through the network of interesting trails.
I studied the map and trail guide and calculated that it would take me 4 hours to reach the summit. So I began at 10 a. m. I parked my car in a parking area just off the highway and locked it. I took my trusty walking staff and my back pack. In the pack I had a towel, a canteen of water, a plastic container for my sandwich and a banana. a flashlight, toilet paper, the trail guide, cigarettes and wooden matches.
At first there was an easy half mile walk to the brook which needed to be forded. A pebbly walk from the brook took me to a long, wide straight trail which led along the side of the brook, but then veered onto a spur trail that wandered through the woods to an old logging road beside a pond. After a while on that it came upon a gravel road which seems to have been put in for construction which never took place. On the other side of it was the trail that began the ascent up the mountain. It was a long winding, twisting trail through the forest and up the side of Tremont. It was well traveled, it seemed, but not well marked. The surface of the trail was mainly roots and rocks. It went along the ledge of a cliff, down into a small valley and eventually up through thicktrees to the summit. Easy to describe, but it took a lot of effort to do.
When I got to the summit I received a shock. As the timber line is only a few feet below the summit, I had not seen the sky in an hour or so. When I stepped out on to the peak I saw that the sun was a lot further along in the sky than I had expected. Since I didn't have a watch with me, I didn't know what time it was, but I knew it was later than I assumed it would be and I was going to have to descend the mountain mostly in the dark. But I wasn't really ready for just how dark it was going to be.
I quickly ate my sandwich and banana, tossing the banana skin (biodegradable - good litter), said to the mountain top that I would be back some day and started down.
The first hour was okay, but when I emerged out of the small valley the sun set and it became pitch dark, no moon, nothing. I got out my flashlight and proceeded.
The one thing I knew for certain was that no matter what I had to stay on the trail. I fell into a slow, quiet panic. All the roots and rocks I had stepped on as I came up now seemed to wriggle and squirm under my feet. I don't know if it was moths or small birds flying by me but I sometimes heard something like whispering close to my head. and also the sounds of foot steps in the woods next to me.
There was a strong temptation to just start down the slope of the mountain, but I knew that if I did that I wouldn't know where I was when I cam out and it might take days to find my car. And maybe I wouldn't come out at all but end up in a swamp or a briar patch. And there were cliffs I could accidentally step off in the dark.
So with flashlight in hand I poked along slowly, trying not to stumble and fall, trying to stay on the trail. Occasionally I would see a trail marker, which was encouraging, but mostly it was keeping my eyes on the ground and feeling with my feet. Now and then I would step off the trail, but somehow I knew it immediately and would step back to where I knew it was, and search for the next step. It was a matter of feeling the ground with my feet, intuition and some invisible guidance. Once I stopped to tie my boot and after I had moved on for a minute I realized I had left my staff back there, so I went back and got it. One learns to keep what one has. It was a valuable possession.
At one point the trail even ascended again for a short distance. That was confusing to me.
I didn't know how late it was, but I knew I shouldn't try to bed down for the night and wait until dawn. It was October, cold, and I wasn't dressed warmly enough to get through the night without suffering from exposure to the cold.
After many, many hours of finding my way through the thick forest and uncertain trail, I made it down off Tremont to the gravel road.
I knew that if I walked that road it would eventually take me to a tertiary road which would eventually take me to the highway which would eventually take me back to my car. But I could tell from the map that it would probably take me until mid day to do that. So I decided to continue on the way I had come.
I crossed the gravel road and entered the old logging road that eventually went along the side of the pond. I knew that the Appalachian Mountain Club had posted a sign marking the end of the spur trail and I was looking for it. After about an hour I saw it. But at that exact moment there was the loud sound of something throwing a large rock into the pond, right next to me. I knew there were no gorillas in New Hampshire so the first thing I thought of was that it was obviously Sasquatch, Big Foot, and I expected that at any moment I was going to be picked up by some big, smelly, hairy thing and slammed against a tree.
I didn't shine my flashlight over to see what sort of a beast it was. I just turned on to the spur trail and kept moving, slowly, over the roots and rocks. As far as I know, I wasn't followed.
But then, after another hour or so, I came upon a large tree that had fallen directly across the trail. I didn't remember that tree during the ascent, and it wasn't something that had recently happened, but it was quite obviously there and I must have gone around it. I knew I was on the trail, so I put my back pack down to mark it so that I could always return to that spot, and walked all around that tree searching for where the trail came out on the other side. I think I walked around that tree 3 times looking for the trail when, accidentally, my flash light picked up a trail marker that was off to the side. It was a red ribbon tied high up on a tree. Obviously this trail was used by cross country skiers in the winter and it was one of their markings. But it meant that the trail went of to the right and the tree simply lay along side of it. That's why I hadn't remembered it.
So i followed the trail out to the wide easy trail that went along beside the brook. After another hour or so I came out to the pebble area leading to the brook. I turned off the flashlight and let the sound of the brook lead me to the edge of it. I sat down to rest before I forded the brook, took out my cigarettes and matches. When I struck a match I was amazed to see, for an instant, 180 degrees around me, eyes. Big eyes, little eyes, round eyes, slanted eyes, squinty eyes. It seemed that all the creatures in the woods had come out to see what this was that was stomping through their bushes. Immediately there was the sound of scurrying as they all left the scene. I chuckled because I got the impression that I probably had company every step of the way.
I finished the cigarette, pushed it into the ground (more good litter, non-filter, very degradable) and forded the brook. My staff was very helpful for doing that. With it I could feel the rocks at the bottom that I could step on.
I dried off my feet with my towel and made the last half mile to my car. When I unlocked it and opened the door the light from inside flooded the parking area. It was a welcome sight. When i got in the car the clock on the dash board said 2 a. m. It had taken me 16 hours.
The next day I called my friend Ernie, who knows about these things, and asked him what made that loud noise at the pond that frightened me so much. He said it was probably a beaver. They slap their tails in the water to frighten off their enemies. I am here to tell you it's very effective.
A week later I took the other trail up to Tremonet. It was a tough straight up the hill trail, but it was shorter. When i got to the summit I got to enjoy the view that I had to miss the first time. On my way up I noticed frost forming on the brown and amber leaves that had fallen from the trees and I knew it would soon be hunting season, there would be no more hiking until the spring.
I never returned to Tremont Mountain after that. Why should I? I had proven my grit.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Locked Logic
Monday, September 8, 2008
12:05:57 AM EDT
Locked Logic
A person who can live in his own darkness
and patiently await the dawn with a sense of humor,
is not crazy.
What's crazy is to be afraid of the dark.
DB - The Vagabond
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Good Monday to you, may there be sparkles in your day.
********************************
Even before I got to confront the trolls of emails and journals, I came upon a few in the real world.
Several years ago a friend of long standing turned malignant on me for no reason. The lies and nasty name calling spread to his family and mutual friends, one of whom even suggested to me that I should apologize. I couldn't understand what I should apologize for. For not being more gracious in putting up with the lies? But I was gracious about it. I tried to understand what the ill will was about and I did it with humor and a light heart, until the moment when I knew the friendship was over. Every attempt I made to understand what to do to save that friendship was met with an increase of the abuse.
But the most interesting part of it was that I was being accused of darkness. One email included the sentence "I'm not going down this dark road with you." When I wrote back honestly wanting to know what dark road was being referred to, there was no answer.
I knew this fellow for 20 years. We worked together on several occasions. He has a lot of darkness in him, I'd seen it. I think he is running from it and, as with most people, pointing at others as he goes.
I once worked with a radio producer who insisted that he had no sinister side while he was doing sinister things, like stealing other people's ideas.
Who doesn't have darkness in them? Who hasn't found themselves down in a pit or nailed to a cross now and then. It would be great if life was always sweet and joyful. But it's not. Where there's life there's trouble. It is necessary for us to take off the pretty pink tinted glasses, stop pretending that we are always walking in the bright sunshine and look at the dark things with courage and reason. Do you think there's a crocodile under the bed? Don't lie there shivering with fear. Look under the bed. Is there a monster in the closet? Turn on the light and open the closet door.
Some shadows are short term problems. Others take time But they can never be chased away by running or pretending they aren't there. And to blame someone of something you can't face in yourself is the same thing as pulling yourself up by putting someone else down.
We all have dark places along the journey. To do the best we can and patiently await the outcome is the manly and womanly thing to do. But to be afraid of the dark is childish.
DB - The Vagabond
12:05:57 AM EDT
Locked Logic
A person who can live in his own darkness
and patiently await the dawn with a sense of humor,
is not crazy.
What's crazy is to be afraid of the dark.
DB - The Vagabond
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Good Monday to you, may there be sparkles in your day.
********************************
Even before I got to confront the trolls of emails and journals, I came upon a few in the real world.
Several years ago a friend of long standing turned malignant on me for no reason. The lies and nasty name calling spread to his family and mutual friends, one of whom even suggested to me that I should apologize. I couldn't understand what I should apologize for. For not being more gracious in putting up with the lies? But I was gracious about it. I tried to understand what the ill will was about and I did it with humor and a light heart, until the moment when I knew the friendship was over. Every attempt I made to understand what to do to save that friendship was met with an increase of the abuse.
But the most interesting part of it was that I was being accused of darkness. One email included the sentence "I'm not going down this dark road with you." When I wrote back honestly wanting to know what dark road was being referred to, there was no answer.
I knew this fellow for 20 years. We worked together on several occasions. He has a lot of darkness in him, I'd seen it. I think he is running from it and, as with most people, pointing at others as he goes.
I once worked with a radio producer who insisted that he had no sinister side while he was doing sinister things, like stealing other people's ideas.
Who doesn't have darkness in them? Who hasn't found themselves down in a pit or nailed to a cross now and then. It would be great if life was always sweet and joyful. But it's not. Where there's life there's trouble. It is necessary for us to take off the pretty pink tinted glasses, stop pretending that we are always walking in the bright sunshine and look at the dark things with courage and reason. Do you think there's a crocodile under the bed? Don't lie there shivering with fear. Look under the bed. Is there a monster in the closet? Turn on the light and open the closet door.
Some shadows are short term problems. Others take time But they can never be chased away by running or pretending they aren't there. And to blame someone of something you can't face in yourself is the same thing as pulling yourself up by putting someone else down.
We all have dark places along the journey. To do the best we can and patiently await the outcome is the manly and womanly thing to do. But to be afraid of the dark is childish.
DB - The Vagabond
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Maestro's Mark 8/11/09
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
12:12:00 AM EDT
Maestro's Mark
Direct the play, not the players.
DB - The Vagabond ---------------------------------------------------
Good day friend.
*****************************************************
Oh, that more directors understood.
I have written here about dopey actors I have known. But, in all fairness, I must talk about some dopey directors. The shameful fact is that I can probably squeeze into a Volkswagen beetle the number of good directors I have worked with over the years. Most of them seem to think that it is their job to give acting lessons to the cast. While it may be true that some young, inexperienced actors might need some sort of training, the rehearsal is not the place for it nor is the director the proper teacher.
I often advise youngsters who are looking for an acting career to study with an actor, not a director. If you want to learn how to play the violin, do you study with a violinist or a conductor. There are too many intricacies to the art of acting that directors are unaware of or have forgotten about. I will say that if you walk into an acting class and the teacher is sitting in a chair with a clipboard in his lap taking notes, head for the exit.
I once served on a jury in a trial during which the judge was not watching nor listening to the testimony but was typing notes into her computer. Both attorneys asked for and got a new trial. The acting teacher must pay close attention to everything you're doing and not take notes. Taking notes is what directors do.
Some directors will order an improvisation on the first day, before anyone is really acquainted with the play, their characters or even each other. It usually means the director has no vision or ideas of his own. Doing that is a stupid waste of time. Improvisation itself is very valuable under the right circumstances. Some day I will write about my friend Stuart and the best improvisation I was ever involved with.
The only screaming fights I've ever had with directors were over their inability to understand that stage business must be rehearsed. There are fight choreographers and fight rehearsals so that people don't get hurt. But complicated activity on the stage, especially when it is tied in to the timing of the scene, doesn't happen when you push a button. Why is it some directors have a total blind spot about that?
Twice I was involved in something I will never do again. I performed a rehearsed scene for a directing class. One was at a prestigious New York City film school, the other was under a private grant. In both cases the teacher was more interested in criticizing the actors than in helping the directing student.
In the first case, I don't know whether the teacher was playing a nasty game or if he was just an ignoramus. I tend to think it was the latter. But he had no idea what he was talking about. I almost stopped him to tell him to stick to the directing and leave the acting to the actors. The only thing those students were learning, in both cases, was how NOT to talk to actors.
I'll close this with an amusing story. The three character play had a line that read something like this "You work and work and save money so that you can buy a house. Then you move into the house and where are you?" The director began the rehearsal one day by saying that she wanted to deal with the realities. So I asked her if we were still in our apartment or if we had moved into the house. She answered "Oh, I don't care. It doesn't matter where you are." So much for the realities.
Some day I'll write about how important PLACE is to the actor and the production.
DB - The vagabond
__________________________________________
May you have lots of sunshine in your heart today.
*********************************************************
12:12:00 AM EDT
Maestro's Mark
Direct the play, not the players.
DB - The Vagabond ---------------------------------------------------
Good day friend.
*****************************************************
Oh, that more directors understood.
I have written here about dopey actors I have known. But, in all fairness, I must talk about some dopey directors. The shameful fact is that I can probably squeeze into a Volkswagen beetle the number of good directors I have worked with over the years. Most of them seem to think that it is their job to give acting lessons to the cast. While it may be true that some young, inexperienced actors might need some sort of training, the rehearsal is not the place for it nor is the director the proper teacher.
I often advise youngsters who are looking for an acting career to study with an actor, not a director. If you want to learn how to play the violin, do you study with a violinist or a conductor. There are too many intricacies to the art of acting that directors are unaware of or have forgotten about. I will say that if you walk into an acting class and the teacher is sitting in a chair with a clipboard in his lap taking notes, head for the exit.
I once served on a jury in a trial during which the judge was not watching nor listening to the testimony but was typing notes into her computer. Both attorneys asked for and got a new trial. The acting teacher must pay close attention to everything you're doing and not take notes. Taking notes is what directors do.
Some directors will order an improvisation on the first day, before anyone is really acquainted with the play, their characters or even each other. It usually means the director has no vision or ideas of his own. Doing that is a stupid waste of time. Improvisation itself is very valuable under the right circumstances. Some day I will write about my friend Stuart and the best improvisation I was ever involved with.
The only screaming fights I've ever had with directors were over their inability to understand that stage business must be rehearsed. There are fight choreographers and fight rehearsals so that people don't get hurt. But complicated activity on the stage, especially when it is tied in to the timing of the scene, doesn't happen when you push a button. Why is it some directors have a total blind spot about that?
Twice I was involved in something I will never do again. I performed a rehearsed scene for a directing class. One was at a prestigious New York City film school, the other was under a private grant. In both cases the teacher was more interested in criticizing the actors than in helping the directing student.
In the first case, I don't know whether the teacher was playing a nasty game or if he was just an ignoramus. I tend to think it was the latter. But he had no idea what he was talking about. I almost stopped him to tell him to stick to the directing and leave the acting to the actors. The only thing those students were learning, in both cases, was how NOT to talk to actors.
I'll close this with an amusing story. The three character play had a line that read something like this "You work and work and save money so that you can buy a house. Then you move into the house and where are you?" The director began the rehearsal one day by saying that she wanted to deal with the realities. So I asked her if we were still in our apartment or if we had moved into the house. She answered "Oh, I don't care. It doesn't matter where you are." So much for the realities.
Some day I'll write about how important PLACE is to the actor and the production.
DB - The vagabond
__________________________________________
May you have lots of sunshine in your heart today.
*********************************************************
Monday, August 10, 2009
Nifty Newness
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
12:01:57 AM EDT
Nifty Newness
If you want to know the truth of something,
imagine looking at it from the side you can't see.
DB - The Vagabond
******************************
Good day people of the world.
----------------------------------------
That quotation came about as a result of a life drawing class. One day the teacher asked us to draw the model as if we were on the opposite side of the room. She was sitting in a chair with one arm draped over the back of it. It was very difficult to get all the details of the figure but it was a great exercise.
I carried that technique over into acting. All plays are about conflict. An inexperienced actor will just shadow box, flailing or raging into the air without knowing what he is really fighting against. I decided to spend some time imagining what the source and substance were of the force that was challenging my character. It added so many dimensions to what I was doing. It gave validity to my character's struggles.
As with all art, there is a life lesson in this technique. How much time and effort do we ever spend really understanding an opposing point of view? When in an argument, don't we rather dig in our heels and refuse to listen to the other guy?
Similarly in politics, no matter which side you're on it's common to quickly reach the conclusion that the other side is just plain wrong. Liberals and conservatives should investigate, observe and learn what the other side thinks. They should imagine things from the opposite point of view.
Think of the heel digging that goes on with religion. I don't think there is any more ignoring of conflicting views than is practiced by those who have a firm belief in their own faith. I know a woman who converted to Christianity by reading a book many "Christians" refuse to read and which, in fact, some have burned.
When the disaster of 9/11 happened to the World Trade Center a lot of time. effort and money was spent immediately to find how HOW it happened, but not a nickel was spent on WHY it happened. What would be the situation in the Middle East and South central Asia if the American could really imagine and understand the Arab's thnking.
To refuse to see things from another's point of view or even to acknowledge that he has a right to have one is pure cowardice.
To imagine life from the other side maybe won't change a person's mind, but it will enlighten him.
DB
12:01:57 AM EDT
Nifty Newness
If you want to know the truth of something,
imagine looking at it from the side you can't see.
DB - The Vagabond
******************************
Good day people of the world.
----------------------------------------
That quotation came about as a result of a life drawing class. One day the teacher asked us to draw the model as if we were on the opposite side of the room. She was sitting in a chair with one arm draped over the back of it. It was very difficult to get all the details of the figure but it was a great exercise.
I carried that technique over into acting. All plays are about conflict. An inexperienced actor will just shadow box, flailing or raging into the air without knowing what he is really fighting against. I decided to spend some time imagining what the source and substance were of the force that was challenging my character. It added so many dimensions to what I was doing. It gave validity to my character's struggles.
As with all art, there is a life lesson in this technique. How much time and effort do we ever spend really understanding an opposing point of view? When in an argument, don't we rather dig in our heels and refuse to listen to the other guy?
Similarly in politics, no matter which side you're on it's common to quickly reach the conclusion that the other side is just plain wrong. Liberals and conservatives should investigate, observe and learn what the other side thinks. They should imagine things from the opposite point of view.
Think of the heel digging that goes on with religion. I don't think there is any more ignoring of conflicting views than is practiced by those who have a firm belief in their own faith. I know a woman who converted to Christianity by reading a book many "Christians" refuse to read and which, in fact, some have burned.
When the disaster of 9/11 happened to the World Trade Center a lot of time. effort and money was spent immediately to find how HOW it happened, but not a nickel was spent on WHY it happened. What would be the situation in the Middle East and South central Asia if the American could really imagine and understand the Arab's thnking.
To refuse to see things from another's point of view or even to acknowledge that he has a right to have one is pure cowardice.
To imagine life from the other side maybe won't change a person's mind, but it will enlighten him.
DB
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Righteous Reasons
Sunday, September 14, 2008
12:07:58 AM EDT
Righteous Reasons
When we no longer notice justice, mercy, compassion and honesty, it will mean that the world is finally at peace.
DB The Vagabond
***********************
"What do you mean by that?"
I mean what I said.
"You mean in a peaceful world there will be no justice, mercy and so on?"
No, that's not what I said.
"You think a world without compassion, honesty and such is a peaceful world? I don't think so."
Neither do I and that's not what I said.
"I can't live in a world where there's no compassion."
Nor can I, but that is still not what I said.
"Well, I hope I never stop noticing justice."
You might, if there was no reason to.
"Let me get this straight. You think a peaceful world is one in which there is no justice, mercy, compassion or honesty, right?"
Wrong. That's not what I said.
"All right then, what did you say?"
I said, when we no longer notice justice, mercy, compassion and honesty, it will mean that the world is finally at peace.
"I don't get it."
(Sigh) DB
12:07:58 AM EDT
Righteous Reasons
When we no longer notice justice, mercy, compassion and honesty, it will mean that the world is finally at peace.
DB The Vagabond
***********************
"What do you mean by that?"
I mean what I said.
"You mean in a peaceful world there will be no justice, mercy and so on?"
No, that's not what I said.
"You think a world without compassion, honesty and such is a peaceful world? I don't think so."
Neither do I and that's not what I said.
"I can't live in a world where there's no compassion."
Nor can I, but that is still not what I said.
"Well, I hope I never stop noticing justice."
You might, if there was no reason to.
"Let me get this straight. You think a peaceful world is one in which there is no justice, mercy, compassion or honesty, right?"
Wrong. That's not what I said.
"All right then, what did you say?"
I said, when we no longer notice justice, mercy, compassion and honesty, it will mean that the world is finally at peace.
"I don't get it."
(Sigh) DB
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Snatching Sagacity
Monday, September 15, 2008
Snatching Sagacity
It's not enough just to live life, we must seize it.
DB - The Vagabond
******************************
"Carpe diem" Horace wrote, (Seize the day).
I used to know a radio announcer who was on the air from 6 in the morning until noon. In the control room where he worked there was a small, square calendar, the kind with a single date on each page. You know the type, Hollywood movies were fond of showing the passing of time by having the pages blown away in the wind.
Every morning, when this announcer came to work, one of the first things he did was tear off the page from the prvious day, crumple it up and throw it in the basket.
I came to work at about the same time and one morning I found him in a loud, shaking rage, yelling at the announcer who had just worked the all night shift. The regular all night announcer was off that night and a replacement announcer had been there. At some point after midnight he had removed the page from the calendar and the morning announcer was yelling at the poor fellow over it.
The morning man went on the air and was his usual charming, entertaining self, but he considered his day was ruined because he couldn't perform his morning ritual of the new day. "Seize the day" does not mean tearing a page off the calendar.
Life is confusing, chaotic and challenging and we help ourselves through it by developing dependable patterns of behavior and thought. The danger is letting those patterns take the place of life itself. Someone wrote to me recently about a woman who only votes the way her husband tells her to. If you keep your house clean and neat as a pin (whatever that means) it's a good thing, but it should never take the place of adventure.
Ever since that pivotal day when my teacher/mentor said "Can't you find anything to do?" my life has been spinning. Every day, even in my reduced circumstances, I still find activities, sometimes just mental, but always with a positive goal. Even when things become emotionally bleak, as they periodically do, there is always some puttering to be done, some bit of chaos to be put in order. Life is never the way we want it, and if it is it doesn't stay that way for long. There is always more life to be lived than we are living, there is more to life than we know, so why not seize it and discover it. Investigate things with imagination and observation and find that there is always something more to do.
Beethoven continued to compose music even after he became deaf. Matisse continued to make art works even after his eye sight went dim. To seize life is often uncomfortable and unbalancing but if we don't do it we have no life at all.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Snatching Sagacity
It's not enough just to live life, we must seize it.
DB - The Vagabond
******************************
"Carpe diem" Horace wrote, (Seize the day).
I used to know a radio announcer who was on the air from 6 in the morning until noon. In the control room where he worked there was a small, square calendar, the kind with a single date on each page. You know the type, Hollywood movies were fond of showing the passing of time by having the pages blown away in the wind.
Every morning, when this announcer came to work, one of the first things he did was tear off the page from the prvious day, crumple it up and throw it in the basket.
I came to work at about the same time and one morning I found him in a loud, shaking rage, yelling at the announcer who had just worked the all night shift. The regular all night announcer was off that night and a replacement announcer had been there. At some point after midnight he had removed the page from the calendar and the morning announcer was yelling at the poor fellow over it.
The morning man went on the air and was his usual charming, entertaining self, but he considered his day was ruined because he couldn't perform his morning ritual of the new day. "Seize the day" does not mean tearing a page off the calendar.
Life is confusing, chaotic and challenging and we help ourselves through it by developing dependable patterns of behavior and thought. The danger is letting those patterns take the place of life itself. Someone wrote to me recently about a woman who only votes the way her husband tells her to. If you keep your house clean and neat as a pin (whatever that means) it's a good thing, but it should never take the place of adventure.
Ever since that pivotal day when my teacher/mentor said "Can't you find anything to do?" my life has been spinning. Every day, even in my reduced circumstances, I still find activities, sometimes just mental, but always with a positive goal. Even when things become emotionally bleak, as they periodically do, there is always some puttering to be done, some bit of chaos to be put in order. Life is never the way we want it, and if it is it doesn't stay that way for long. There is always more life to be lived than we are living, there is more to life than we know, so why not seize it and discover it. Investigate things with imagination and observation and find that there is always something more to do.
Beethoven continued to compose music even after he became deaf. Matisse continued to make art works even after his eye sight went dim. To seize life is often uncomfortable and unbalancing but if we don't do it we have no life at all.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Friday, August 7, 2009
Trusty Terms 8/07/09
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
12:08:31 AM EDT
Trusty Terms
One lesson you can learn from composing music is that no matter what the problem is in life the solution already exists.
DB - The Vagabond
*************************************
I was working for a big, important classical radio station in a large city. One evening a week there was a special program heavily sponsored by a multinational corporation. As a result the music was carefully chosen to be the best performance of the best music possible and the show was scripted. It was usually hosted by the chief announcer. But one evening he was unable to be there and the announcing of the program fell to me.
I carefully checked over the script ahead of time and made sure the record album was in the control room. There was one piece scheduled for the show, a long symphony lasting about 45 minutes. The program began, right after a 5 minute newscast, with brief recorded theme music, followed by a live introduction That was followed by a 20 second recorded commercial. After that came the script, written by the music department. Then came the music. After it came a one minute live commercial read by me, the closing theme and a word about next weeks program.
For some reason I will never understand I told the engineer that I would reverse the commercials, do the one minute live commercial at the beginning and the recorded commercial at the end. This was not the way it was scripted but I felt it was best to do it that way.
So the program began. I opened it, did the introduction, read the one minute commercial, read the script, signaled the engineer to start the music and settled back to listen and read my book. But disaster struck!
At about 15 minutes before the hour the engineer called into me that the piece was about to end. I said "When?" He said "Right now." Sure enough I was hearing the final cadences of the symphony. Somebody, either the record company or the music department, had mistimed the piece, the one thing I didn't check on. It was going to bring the program up to be almost 15 minutes short. But I had no time to think about that. The engineer was saying "What should I do?"
I told him to give me the microphone when the piece was over and then go to the 20 second recorded commercial. I announced the end of the piece in a calm and dignified manner and as soon as the recorded commercial was on I dashed down to the music library, want right to a specific shelf and pulled out an album. I didn't know where I was or what I was doing. I never spent any time in the music library. But the album I pulled had a ten minute piece on it that was just perfect for the program. I ran back to the control room, gave the record to the engineer, told him what to cue up, took the album cover and ran back to the studio. I sat down just as the 20 second commercial was ending and, again with the proper dignity and sophistication, announced the second piece. The program ended smoothly. The amazing thing was that if I hadn't reversed those commercials I wouldn't have had the time to solve the problem.
There was another announcer there, Frank, who was busy preparing the next newscast. He saw the whole thing happening and after the second piece was playing he came to my studio, opened the door and, with an awestruck look on his face, said "How did you do that?"
I just laughed and said "I don't know."
DB
12:08:31 AM EDT
Trusty Terms
One lesson you can learn from composing music is that no matter what the problem is in life the solution already exists.
DB - The Vagabond
*************************************
I was working for a big, important classical radio station in a large city. One evening a week there was a special program heavily sponsored by a multinational corporation. As a result the music was carefully chosen to be the best performance of the best music possible and the show was scripted. It was usually hosted by the chief announcer. But one evening he was unable to be there and the announcing of the program fell to me.
I carefully checked over the script ahead of time and made sure the record album was in the control room. There was one piece scheduled for the show, a long symphony lasting about 45 minutes. The program began, right after a 5 minute newscast, with brief recorded theme music, followed by a live introduction That was followed by a 20 second recorded commercial. After that came the script, written by the music department. Then came the music. After it came a one minute live commercial read by me, the closing theme and a word about next weeks program.
For some reason I will never understand I told the engineer that I would reverse the commercials, do the one minute live commercial at the beginning and the recorded commercial at the end. This was not the way it was scripted but I felt it was best to do it that way.
So the program began. I opened it, did the introduction, read the one minute commercial, read the script, signaled the engineer to start the music and settled back to listen and read my book. But disaster struck!
At about 15 minutes before the hour the engineer called into me that the piece was about to end. I said "When?" He said "Right now." Sure enough I was hearing the final cadences of the symphony. Somebody, either the record company or the music department, had mistimed the piece, the one thing I didn't check on. It was going to bring the program up to be almost 15 minutes short. But I had no time to think about that. The engineer was saying "What should I do?"
I told him to give me the microphone when the piece was over and then go to the 20 second recorded commercial. I announced the end of the piece in a calm and dignified manner and as soon as the recorded commercial was on I dashed down to the music library, want right to a specific shelf and pulled out an album. I didn't know where I was or what I was doing. I never spent any time in the music library. But the album I pulled had a ten minute piece on it that was just perfect for the program. I ran back to the control room, gave the record to the engineer, told him what to cue up, took the album cover and ran back to the studio. I sat down just as the 20 second commercial was ending and, again with the proper dignity and sophistication, announced the second piece. The program ended smoothly. The amazing thing was that if I hadn't reversed those commercials I wouldn't have had the time to solve the problem.
There was another announcer there, Frank, who was busy preparing the next newscast. He saw the whole thing happening and after the second piece was playing he came to my studio, opened the door and, with an awestruck look on his face, said "How did you do that?"
I just laughed and said "I don't know."
DB
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Ancient Affection
Thursday, August 28, 2008
12:09:12 AM EDT
Ancient Affection
When an old man dies, a library burns down.
African proverb
****************************************
One of the most remarkable people I ever knew was my grandmother, Charlotte Cole. I was only 14 when she died, but I remember as a child, literally sitting at her knee and listening to her talk.
She talked about growing up in the Shenandoah Valley in the late 19th Century where she was taught to sing, dance. act and play the piano.
When she married she and my grandfather moved to Pawnee City, Nebraska to pioneer the land. She spoke of her life as a farmer/rancher's wife, of the other pioneers around, of the men and women of the local Indian tribe, of riding on the back of an ox to go to market because there was no seat in the ox cart. She spoke of the tornados that would rip through a person's home taking the pictures off the wall but leave the wall standing, of the sod house they lived in, where she bore two sons and a daughter. She talked of her sons, one, a successful businessman who, when he was a teenager bought a piglet for 50 cents and a year later sold it for 50 dollars, and the other an important baseball coach and trainer.
When my grandfather died, she took my mother and hit the road with a traveling theatre company. She taught my talented mother the rudiments of entertainment and they worked as a song and dance sister act. She talked of the dangers and hardships of traveling out west in the early 20th Century and of the strong theatre people who helped and protected each other. She recalled performing in places where the men in the audience would come in armed. She talked about the time the two of them barely escaped being kidnapped by men who would seize girls and force them into prostitution. They were called "white slavers" in those days. She told of performers being stranded in far-off places, because the unscrupulous producers would take the money and leave.
When she got to New York City she went to work as an actress in silent movies when they were being made in Astoria and Long Island City. She lived, with her trunk, in a NYC hotel room until she died. That trunk contained all the bits and pieces of an adventurous career. She let me poke around in it and look at the things in there, and she would talk about them.
She knew many people. She knew opera singers, comedians, politicians and prize fighters. She had an engaging, infecting sense of humor. She even found something amusing about her own passing. She was a fiery Christian.
It wasn't until I became an adult that I realized how valuable all that information was. I wish I had taken notes or had had a tape recorder. The library that was my grandmother exists now only in the shreds of my meager memory. I am the only one left of my family who knew her and I was the only one who listened to her.
DB - The Vagabond
12:09:12 AM EDT
Ancient Affection
When an old man dies, a library burns down.
African proverb
****************************************
One of the most remarkable people I ever knew was my grandmother, Charlotte Cole. I was only 14 when she died, but I remember as a child, literally sitting at her knee and listening to her talk.
She talked about growing up in the Shenandoah Valley in the late 19th Century where she was taught to sing, dance. act and play the piano.
When she married she and my grandfather moved to Pawnee City, Nebraska to pioneer the land. She spoke of her life as a farmer/rancher's wife, of the other pioneers around, of the men and women of the local Indian tribe, of riding on the back of an ox to go to market because there was no seat in the ox cart. She spoke of the tornados that would rip through a person's home taking the pictures off the wall but leave the wall standing, of the sod house they lived in, where she bore two sons and a daughter. She talked of her sons, one, a successful businessman who, when he was a teenager bought a piglet for 50 cents and a year later sold it for 50 dollars, and the other an important baseball coach and trainer.
When my grandfather died, she took my mother and hit the road with a traveling theatre company. She taught my talented mother the rudiments of entertainment and they worked as a song and dance sister act. She talked of the dangers and hardships of traveling out west in the early 20th Century and of the strong theatre people who helped and protected each other. She recalled performing in places where the men in the audience would come in armed. She talked about the time the two of them barely escaped being kidnapped by men who would seize girls and force them into prostitution. They were called "white slavers" in those days. She told of performers being stranded in far-off places, because the unscrupulous producers would take the money and leave.
When she got to New York City she went to work as an actress in silent movies when they were being made in Astoria and Long Island City. She lived, with her trunk, in a NYC hotel room until she died. That trunk contained all the bits and pieces of an adventurous career. She let me poke around in it and look at the things in there, and she would talk about them.
She knew many people. She knew opera singers, comedians, politicians and prize fighters. She had an engaging, infecting sense of humor. She even found something amusing about her own passing. She was a fiery Christian.
It wasn't until I became an adult that I realized how valuable all that information was. I wish I had taken notes or had had a tape recorder. The library that was my grandmother exists now only in the shreds of my meager memory. I am the only one left of my family who knew her and I was the only one who listened to her.
DB - The Vagabond
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Careful Chiseling
12:04:02 AM EDT
Feeling Stressed
Hearing Wagner Edit Entry Delete Entry
Careful Chiseling
Man cannot remake himself without suffering,
for he is both the marble and the sculptor.
Alexis Carrel
********************************************
"And a little child shall lead them."
It is said of Michelangelo that he claimed to see the statue within the block of marble and just chiseled away everything else until he revealed the pure work of art inside. I think it may be the other way around for the real human being.
It is heartbreaking to see a child's hopes broken and it's expectations closed up. Why? Because the child is still at the point of innocence about the world. People will say "Well, that's all part of growing up. That's life. C'est la vie."
But who really knows what la vie is? There are more books than you and all your friends and neighbors can read in a lifetime trying to explain it. Biologists with their diastole and systole can only go so far and simple phrases like Life is God don't hold one's interest for very long.
Life seems to be a conglomeration of things that keep getting added on from the moment we are conscious of our first hope being dashed, until we are surrounded and made up of all the ills, fears, angers, hatreds, failures and regrets as well as the thrills, successes and realizations of our days. But what did we lose along the way in this process of "growing up"? How many of us remember the joy of our first cupcake or our first balloon?
If there is a paradise to be found it may be that it can only be gained by remaking ourselves in the image of the pure, innocent being we were made to be, with hammer and chisel in hand to chip away, in sorrow and hard effort, all the accumulated dross that makes us think we are wise and adult, until we finally reach the pure, innocent self inside.
DB
Feeling Stressed
Hearing Wagner Edit Entry Delete Entry
Careful Chiseling
Man cannot remake himself without suffering,
for he is both the marble and the sculptor.
Alexis Carrel
********************************************
"And a little child shall lead them."
It is said of Michelangelo that he claimed to see the statue within the block of marble and just chiseled away everything else until he revealed the pure work of art inside. I think it may be the other way around for the real human being.
It is heartbreaking to see a child's hopes broken and it's expectations closed up. Why? Because the child is still at the point of innocence about the world. People will say "Well, that's all part of growing up. That's life. C'est la vie."
But who really knows what la vie is? There are more books than you and all your friends and neighbors can read in a lifetime trying to explain it. Biologists with their diastole and systole can only go so far and simple phrases like Life is God don't hold one's interest for very long.
Life seems to be a conglomeration of things that keep getting added on from the moment we are conscious of our first hope being dashed, until we are surrounded and made up of all the ills, fears, angers, hatreds, failures and regrets as well as the thrills, successes and realizations of our days. But what did we lose along the way in this process of "growing up"? How many of us remember the joy of our first cupcake or our first balloon?
If there is a paradise to be found it may be that it can only be gained by remaking ourselves in the image of the pure, innocent being we were made to be, with hammer and chisel in hand to chip away, in sorrow and hard effort, all the accumulated dross that makes us think we are wise and adult, until we finally reach the pure, innocent self inside.
DB
Determining Delight
12:05:03 AM EDT
Determining Delight
A happy person is not a person
in a certain set of circumstances,
but rather a person
with a certain set of attitudes.
Hugh Downs
**********************************
Get ready, September is coming, and that means all the quotes will be from that rank amateur philosopher and silly dabbler in esoteric doings known as DB - The Vagabond.
September is the month that I clean out my shelves and empty out my boxes to see what I've gathered over the past year or so in thoughts, ideas and impressions. I carefully go through the dusty bits and pieces to come up with 30 wisps of wisdom, sprinkles of spirituality, simple sayings and dollops of delight for your reading pleasure. So pay careful attention. On October 1st the WILL BE a test.
All of the quotes are original, but they come from the eccentric brain of a reader of strange books, of a man who spent his working life glamorizing ideas and changing them into entertaining events while at the same time stumbling through a troubled life, amassing a catalogue of lesson learning errors, and occasionally coming upon a rare place in the mental forest where no one who left any trace had ever seemed to be before me.
As I wrote to someone today, I consider myself blessed to have a sense of humor which allows me to enjoy the absurdities and ironies of life and which erases the need for any sort of cynicism.
It is my wish that you all enjoy a month of Vagabondisms Come October the great philosophers will return.
DB - The Vagabond
Determining Delight
A happy person is not a person
in a certain set of circumstances,
but rather a person
with a certain set of attitudes.
Hugh Downs
**********************************
Get ready, September is coming, and that means all the quotes will be from that rank amateur philosopher and silly dabbler in esoteric doings known as DB - The Vagabond.
September is the month that I clean out my shelves and empty out my boxes to see what I've gathered over the past year or so in thoughts, ideas and impressions. I carefully go through the dusty bits and pieces to come up with 30 wisps of wisdom, sprinkles of spirituality, simple sayings and dollops of delight for your reading pleasure. So pay careful attention. On October 1st the WILL BE a test.
All of the quotes are original, but they come from the eccentric brain of a reader of strange books, of a man who spent his working life glamorizing ideas and changing them into entertaining events while at the same time stumbling through a troubled life, amassing a catalogue of lesson learning errors, and occasionally coming upon a rare place in the mental forest where no one who left any trace had ever seemed to be before me.
As I wrote to someone today, I consider myself blessed to have a sense of humor which allows me to enjoy the absurdities and ironies of life and which erases the need for any sort of cynicism.
It is my wish that you all enjoy a month of Vagabondisms Come October the great philosophers will return.
DB - The Vagabond
Emerging Enlightenment
Monday, September 1, 2008
12:14:28 AM EDT
Emerging Enlightenment 9/01/08
In order to understand what it means to be awake,
we must first wake up.
DB - The Vagabond
**********************************
It is indeed an odd thing that most of us spend a major portion of our lives somewhere between asleep and alert. Just as it is usually a gradual process from one to the other, so is it to becoming truly aware of the world around us and the people in it as well as the person inside.
There is no excuse for people going through their whole lives unknowledgeable about new ideas and their importance to the world, and yet so many people do. It is also not reasonable for one to live his life without ever becoming acquainted with himself. But far too many people do that.
We live in a world of products, both tangible and intangible. We consume the products or let them consume us and give no thought to the originating mentality behind any of them. But it is becoming aware of that mentality that is the first step in truly waking up. Everything has a language and is talking to us at every moment, but we, blissfully or not, pay no attention. Why don't we listen? Why don't we look? Why do we keep missing the point?
Years ago, in a shop, I saw a little black plastic box with a toggle switch on the top. The switch was labeled "on" and "off." It was pointing to "off." If you flicked it to "on" the box shook, the lid opened and an emaciated arm came out, flicked the switch to "off," fell back into the box and the lid closed. I was delighted at the message of it. I vowed that I was coming back to that shop to buy it. When i came back the box was there, but now it was a bank. You put a coin in the slot, the arm came out, and grabbed the coin. The whole point of the original box had been lost on people. Instead it was "Gee. That would make a cool bank."
I've been reading a lot about Leviathan, that creature mentioned several times in the Bible. Modern, but mostly Medieval theologians argue one way or the other about whether it was a whale, a crocodile or some as yet to be discovered sea creature, and eventually agree that it stands for the devil. But they stop at that as if it was enough. None of them go on to explain what they mean by the devil.
I'm waiting. But. so far, the best explanation I've read is that the devil is the ignorant, stuck human way of thanking and doing things and messing them up. That will have to do until someone looks behind the face of Satan and understands the idea underneath the mask.
The music of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, etc contains great ideas. When I was a classical music announcer I used to try to discuss some of those ideas. Almost no one, including my employers, understood what I was talking about. Even now most of that announcing concerns how old Mozart was when he wrote something, when Beethoven went deaf and who Liszt was sleeping with. None of which has anything to do with the music. The late string quartets of Beethoven and the Piano Concertos of Mozart describe the world we live in and the world beyond what we know of it.
If I can convince one person to really look behind a rose, listen to its song and tell me what it says, my life will mean something.
DB
12:14:28 AM EDT
Emerging Enlightenment 9/01/08
In order to understand what it means to be awake,
we must first wake up.
DB - The Vagabond
**********************************
It is indeed an odd thing that most of us spend a major portion of our lives somewhere between asleep and alert. Just as it is usually a gradual process from one to the other, so is it to becoming truly aware of the world around us and the people in it as well as the person inside.
There is no excuse for people going through their whole lives unknowledgeable about new ideas and their importance to the world, and yet so many people do. It is also not reasonable for one to live his life without ever becoming acquainted with himself. But far too many people do that.
We live in a world of products, both tangible and intangible. We consume the products or let them consume us and give no thought to the originating mentality behind any of them. But it is becoming aware of that mentality that is the first step in truly waking up. Everything has a language and is talking to us at every moment, but we, blissfully or not, pay no attention. Why don't we listen? Why don't we look? Why do we keep missing the point?
Years ago, in a shop, I saw a little black plastic box with a toggle switch on the top. The switch was labeled "on" and "off." It was pointing to "off." If you flicked it to "on" the box shook, the lid opened and an emaciated arm came out, flicked the switch to "off," fell back into the box and the lid closed. I was delighted at the message of it. I vowed that I was coming back to that shop to buy it. When i came back the box was there, but now it was a bank. You put a coin in the slot, the arm came out, and grabbed the coin. The whole point of the original box had been lost on people. Instead it was "Gee. That would make a cool bank."
I've been reading a lot about Leviathan, that creature mentioned several times in the Bible. Modern, but mostly Medieval theologians argue one way or the other about whether it was a whale, a crocodile or some as yet to be discovered sea creature, and eventually agree that it stands for the devil. But they stop at that as if it was enough. None of them go on to explain what they mean by the devil.
I'm waiting. But. so far, the best explanation I've read is that the devil is the ignorant, stuck human way of thanking and doing things and messing them up. That will have to do until someone looks behind the face of Satan and understands the idea underneath the mask.
The music of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, etc contains great ideas. When I was a classical music announcer I used to try to discuss some of those ideas. Almost no one, including my employers, understood what I was talking about. Even now most of that announcing concerns how old Mozart was when he wrote something, when Beethoven went deaf and who Liszt was sleeping with. None of which has anything to do with the music. The late string quartets of Beethoven and the Piano Concertos of Mozart describe the world we live in and the world beyond what we know of it.
If I can convince one person to really look behind a rose, listen to its song and tell me what it says, my life will mean something.
DB
Griping Gnome
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
12:06:10 AM EDT
Griping Gnome
Every act of terrorism is an act of revenge.
What we really need,
if we are going to survive,
is a War On Vengeance.
DB - The Vagabond
***********************************
I saw a conversation with a woman who ostentatiously displayed a cross around her neck and proclaimsd that she was a Christian, very religious and believed in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, Her questioner asked if she understood that an eye for an eye was an old testament ethic, Mosaic law, which Moses later abated, that historians point out it was an improvement over the common practice of visiting ten fold revenge on wrong doers, and that it was totally refuted in the New Testament. She said she never heard that.
I though: My God. It's bad news for Christianity. and all religions as a matter of fact, when people can go about announcing their faith, even to the point of displaying symbols of it, congregating, worshipping and fellowshiping, without knowing the principles their religion is based on.
All the world's great religions inveigh against vengeance, and yet most people, most religious people, seem to think they have a divine right to exact revenge on those who have hurt them and do it under the benign euphemisms of "settling the score," "creating a level playing field" and "gaining closure." But there is no closure. Vengeance creates wars and keeps them going.
Some will say that if you let someone get away with something without punishing them, they will do it again. Preventing them from doing it again is not the same as visiting pain and torment on them for doing it the first time. Our prisons are full of people many of whom are 2nd and 3rd offenders. The punishment has not deterred them.
Wanting to take revenge on someone and actually doing it are different things, but they are allied. A first major step toward an ethical life is to recognize that the desire is just as bad as the act. Christianity stresses the idea that even the motivation to do something should be aligned with the principle of love for one's neighbor and forgiveness of one's enemies. So do Judaism and Islam. I've read their books.
How on earth can those for whom revenge is a way of life be convinced of it's erroneousness when it seems endemic to the human passions? How to convince people to turn from a superficial reading of their sacred texts and hasty interpretations of them that do nothing more than justify the behavior of their own mortal personalities? How to convince people to stop missing the point?
Some folks think I am atheistic or irreligious. People have tried very hard to convince me to became part of their own religious persuasion, one way or another. A man stopped his car, ran over to me, handed me a religious leaflet, got back in his car and drove off. I once got a letter from a listener saying that he was very concerned for my immortal soul. No explanation was given. Someone, whose thinking isn't any clearer than mine, is always trying to correct my thinking. My answer is that even though I can recognize in myself the motivation to "get even," my faith and sense of humor have transformed my nature to the point where there is nothing in me that cannot forgive those who have done me wrong. Those who have not yet reached that point may laugh at the idea, but it is a true, tested and measurable condition,
"Let there be peace in the world, and let it begin with me."
DB
12:06:10 AM EDT
Griping Gnome
Every act of terrorism is an act of revenge.
What we really need,
if we are going to survive,
is a War On Vengeance.
DB - The Vagabond
***********************************
I saw a conversation with a woman who ostentatiously displayed a cross around her neck and proclaimsd that she was a Christian, very religious and believed in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, Her questioner asked if she understood that an eye for an eye was an old testament ethic, Mosaic law, which Moses later abated, that historians point out it was an improvement over the common practice of visiting ten fold revenge on wrong doers, and that it was totally refuted in the New Testament. She said she never heard that.
I though: My God. It's bad news for Christianity. and all religions as a matter of fact, when people can go about announcing their faith, even to the point of displaying symbols of it, congregating, worshipping and fellowshiping, without knowing the principles their religion is based on.
All the world's great religions inveigh against vengeance, and yet most people, most religious people, seem to think they have a divine right to exact revenge on those who have hurt them and do it under the benign euphemisms of "settling the score," "creating a level playing field" and "gaining closure." But there is no closure. Vengeance creates wars and keeps them going.
Some will say that if you let someone get away with something without punishing them, they will do it again. Preventing them from doing it again is not the same as visiting pain and torment on them for doing it the first time. Our prisons are full of people many of whom are 2nd and 3rd offenders. The punishment has not deterred them.
Wanting to take revenge on someone and actually doing it are different things, but they are allied. A first major step toward an ethical life is to recognize that the desire is just as bad as the act. Christianity stresses the idea that even the motivation to do something should be aligned with the principle of love for one's neighbor and forgiveness of one's enemies. So do Judaism and Islam. I've read their books.
How on earth can those for whom revenge is a way of life be convinced of it's erroneousness when it seems endemic to the human passions? How to convince people to turn from a superficial reading of their sacred texts and hasty interpretations of them that do nothing more than justify the behavior of their own mortal personalities? How to convince people to stop missing the point?
Some folks think I am atheistic or irreligious. People have tried very hard to convince me to became part of their own religious persuasion, one way or another. A man stopped his car, ran over to me, handed me a religious leaflet, got back in his car and drove off. I once got a letter from a listener saying that he was very concerned for my immortal soul. No explanation was given. Someone, whose thinking isn't any clearer than mine, is always trying to correct my thinking. My answer is that even though I can recognize in myself the motivation to "get even," my faith and sense of humor have transformed my nature to the point where there is nothing in me that cannot forgive those who have done me wrong. Those who have not yet reached that point may laugh at the idea, but it is a true, tested and measurable condition,
"Let there be peace in the world, and let it begin with me."
DB
Hidden Harvest
Thursday, September 4, 2008
12:15:19 AM EDT
Hidden Harvest
The beauties that we know, an amazing sunset, the taste of ripe fruit, the warm breeze of a Spring day, a painting by Van Gogh, the music of Mozart; these things are not complete. They are merely hints of the real beauty that is.
DB - The Vagabond
***************************************
Years ago there was a BBC TV program called "The Long Search." In it a British anthropologist went all around the world interview devout people of all the world's religions. He was attempting to discover what made a person religions and what kept them in a permanent state of faith.
I remember many of those interviews, but the one that stands out to me the most was with a Hindu gentleman. He was saying that Hinduism was a very non-materialistic religion. The interviewer asked how he could say that when all around them there were idols. The Hindu agreed that there idols but he explained that he looked on them as so many fingers pointing to an invisible world of Spirit. He said that one could spend a lifetime looking at the finger until one day he begins to look at where the finger is pointing.
I was in rehearsal for a play and having a difficult time with my role. The character seemed to be so challenging and argumentative with the other characters, and I was portraying him with a heavy hand (as usual) which I knew was wrong. One day, during a break, the director, who was a very incisive and gifted director in his idiosyncratic way, walked past me, tapped me on the shoulder and said "Prometheus, my boy." and walked on. That set my head spinning and sent me to the dictionary. Prometheus, the mythical hero who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to humanity. Thinking about that legend helped me to understand my role, not as an angry, unharmonious debater but as the one voice of reason who could enlighten the scene. That changed my approach to the role and it worked.
I can tell from some of the comments and emails I get in response to the things I write, that there are people capable of and who do often look behind the veil, see the unseeable and examine the unexaminable. As I said in my last entry there are people whose thinking is not all that clear, who are trying to correct my thinking. Prometheus was punished by being chained to a rock by Zeus for a long time. When I come upon the rock that says "There are certain things we are not supposed to know" or that says "It's just an apple. Don't try to read anything else into it." that is the very rock I refuse to be chained to.
The veil of the temple has been spilt in two, the sanctum sanctorum is open for all, not just the high priest. We are capable of knowing the unknowable, of completing the sunset, of handling the fire, as long as we stop staring at the finger and begin looking to where it points.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
12:15:19 AM EDT
Hidden Harvest
The beauties that we know, an amazing sunset, the taste of ripe fruit, the warm breeze of a Spring day, a painting by Van Gogh, the music of Mozart; these things are not complete. They are merely hints of the real beauty that is.
DB - The Vagabond
***************************************
Years ago there was a BBC TV program called "The Long Search." In it a British anthropologist went all around the world interview devout people of all the world's religions. He was attempting to discover what made a person religions and what kept them in a permanent state of faith.
I remember many of those interviews, but the one that stands out to me the most was with a Hindu gentleman. He was saying that Hinduism was a very non-materialistic religion. The interviewer asked how he could say that when all around them there were idols. The Hindu agreed that there idols but he explained that he looked on them as so many fingers pointing to an invisible world of Spirit. He said that one could spend a lifetime looking at the finger until one day he begins to look at where the finger is pointing.
I was in rehearsal for a play and having a difficult time with my role. The character seemed to be so challenging and argumentative with the other characters, and I was portraying him with a heavy hand (as usual) which I knew was wrong. One day, during a break, the director, who was a very incisive and gifted director in his idiosyncratic way, walked past me, tapped me on the shoulder and said "Prometheus, my boy." and walked on. That set my head spinning and sent me to the dictionary. Prometheus, the mythical hero who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to humanity. Thinking about that legend helped me to understand my role, not as an angry, unharmonious debater but as the one voice of reason who could enlighten the scene. That changed my approach to the role and it worked.
I can tell from some of the comments and emails I get in response to the things I write, that there are people capable of and who do often look behind the veil, see the unseeable and examine the unexaminable. As I said in my last entry there are people whose thinking is not all that clear, who are trying to correct my thinking. Prometheus was punished by being chained to a rock by Zeus for a long time. When I come upon the rock that says "There are certain things we are not supposed to know" or that says "It's just an apple. Don't try to read anything else into it." that is the very rock I refuse to be chained to.
The veil of the temple has been spilt in two, the sanctum sanctorum is open for all, not just the high priest. We are capable of knowing the unknowable, of completing the sunset, of handling the fire, as long as we stop staring at the finger and begin looking to where it points.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Infinite Improvement
Friday, September 5, 2008
12:01:59 AM EDT
Infinite Improvement
Actors are those who give themselves notes
long after the show has closed.
DB - The Vagabond
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Q. How many actors does it take to change a light bulb?
A. 50. One to change the bulb and 49 to say "I could have done that better."
There are some scripts and productions that are hopeless and are just as well forgotten about. They come under the category of "I-wish-I-hadn't-done-that." I could name a few, but they are better left buried.
But then there are plays from the recent and not so recent past that still intrigue me. I'll be lying in bed preparing to go to sleep and a scene or a moment from some play I once did will suddenly pop into my mind and I'll start going over it again, finding ways to do it better. I often wonder why I didn't think of something that is clear to me now. But then I realize that in the stress and rush to get the show rehearsed and open many things fell along the way that can only be picked up later - much later.
It's a shame that I can't go back and do it again, but the scenery has been torn down, the actors have all gone their ways and the show will never happen again. It's in the can, as they say. That doesn't stop me from giving myself notes about it however, as to how to improve it.
It's even more graphically true about sections I've saved to use as audition pieces. When I go through them now I find that I always do them better than I did when I did the play. I have one scene from The Merchant Of Venice which I did in the late 50s. I can't believe I got away with what I did, or didn't do, when I originally performed the play.
Once I went to see a play I had done and watched another actor play the role I had played (an actor who may be reading this right now). I have to admit, he played it better than I did. So let him change the light bulb. He's doing just fine.
DB
12:01:59 AM EDT
Infinite Improvement
Actors are those who give themselves notes
long after the show has closed.
DB - The Vagabond
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Q. How many actors does it take to change a light bulb?
A. 50. One to change the bulb and 49 to say "I could have done that better."
There are some scripts and productions that are hopeless and are just as well forgotten about. They come under the category of "I-wish-I-hadn't-done-that." I could name a few, but they are better left buried.
But then there are plays from the recent and not so recent past that still intrigue me. I'll be lying in bed preparing to go to sleep and a scene or a moment from some play I once did will suddenly pop into my mind and I'll start going over it again, finding ways to do it better. I often wonder why I didn't think of something that is clear to me now. But then I realize that in the stress and rush to get the show rehearsed and open many things fell along the way that can only be picked up later - much later.
It's a shame that I can't go back and do it again, but the scenery has been torn down, the actors have all gone their ways and the show will never happen again. It's in the can, as they say. That doesn't stop me from giving myself notes about it however, as to how to improve it.
It's even more graphically true about sections I've saved to use as audition pieces. When I go through them now I find that I always do them better than I did when I did the play. I have one scene from The Merchant Of Venice which I did in the late 50s. I can't believe I got away with what I did, or didn't do, when I originally performed the play.
Once I went to see a play I had done and watched another actor play the role I had played (an actor who may be reading this right now). I have to admit, he played it better than I did. So let him change the light bulb. He's doing just fine.
DB
Knuckle Knowledge
Sunday, September 7, 2008
12:02:54 AM EDT
Knuckle Knowledge
One is never relieved from proving one's grit.
DB - The Vagabond
This is a long one, so put the kettle on if you're going to read it.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Tremont Mountain
Tremont is part of the White Mountain National Forest which stretches from Maine into New Hampshire. There are two ways to hike to the summit. One is a straight up trail off of one highway. The other is a network of trails beginning at a different highway. One day in late October I decided to take the long way up, through the network of interesting trails.
I studied the map and trail guide and calculated that it would take me 4 hours to reach the summit. So I began at 10 a. m. I parked my car in a parking area just off the highway and locked it. I took my trusty walking staff and my back pack. In the pack I had a towel, a canteen of water, a plastic container for my sandwich and a banana. a flashlight, toilet paper, the trail guide, cigarettes and wooden matches
.
At first there was an easy half mile walk to the brook which needed to be forded. A pebbly walk from the brook took me to a long, wide straight trail which led along the side of the brook, but then veered onto a spur trail that wandered through the woods to an old logging road beside a pond. After a while on that it came upon a gravel road which seems to have been put in for construction which never took place. On the other side of it was the trail that began the ascent up the mountain. It was a long winding, twisting trail through the forest and up the side of Tremont. It was well traveled, it seemed, but not well marked. The surface of the trail was mainly roots and rocks. It went along the ledge of a cliff, down into a small valley and eventually up through thicktrees to the summit. Easy to describe, but it took a lot of effort to do.
When I got to the summit I received a shock. As the timber line is only a few feet below the summit, I had not seen the sky in an hour or so. When I stepped out on to the peak I saw that the sun was a lot further along in the sky than I had expected. Since I didn't have a watch with me, I didn't know what time it was, but I knew it was later than I assumed it would be and I was going to have to descend the mountain mostly in the dark. But I wasn't really ready for just how dark it was going to be.
I quickly ate my sandwich and banana, tossing the banana skin (biodegradable - good litter), said to the mountain top that I would be back some day and started down.
The first hour was okay, but when I emerged out of the small valley the sun set and it became pitch dark, no moon, nothing. I got out my flashlight and proceeded.
The one thing I knew for certain was that no matter what I had to stay on the trail. I fell into a slow, quiet panic. All the roots and rocks I had stepped on as I came up now seemed to wriggle and squirm under my feet. I don't know if it was moths or small birds fling by me but I sometime heard something like whispering close to my head. and also the sounds of foot steps in the woods next to me.
There was a strong temptation to just start down the slope of the mountain, but I knew that if I did that I wouldn't know where I was when I cam out and it might take days to find my car. And maybe I wouldn't come out at all but end up in a swamp or a briar patch. And there were cliffs I could accidentally step off in the dark.
So with flashlight in hand I poked along slowly, trying not to stumble and fall, trying to stay on the trail. Occasionally I would see a trail marker, which was encouraging, but mostly it was keeping my eyes on the ground and feeling with my feet. Now and then I would step off the trail, but somehow I knew it immediately and would step back to where I knew it was, and search for the next step. It was a matter of feeling the ground with my feet, intuition and some invisible guidance. Once I stopped to tie my boot and after I had moved on for a minute I realized I had left my staff back there, so I went back and got it. One learns to keep what one has. It was a valuable possession.
At one point the trail even ascended again for a short distance. That was confusing to me.
I didn't know how late it was, but I knew I shouldn't try to bed down for the night and wait until dawn. It was October, cold, and I wasn't dressed warmly enough to get through the night without suffering from exposure from the cold.
After many, many hours of finding my way through the thick forest and uncertain trail, I made it down off Tremont to the gravel road.
I knew that if I walked that road it would eventually take me to a tertiary road which would eventually take me to the highway which would eventually take me back to my car. But I could tell from the map that it would probably take me until mid day to do that. So I decided to continue on the way I had come.
I crossed the gravel road and entered the old logging road that eventually went along the side of the pond. I knew that the Appalachian Mountain Club had posted a sign marking the end of the spur trail and I was looking for it. After about an hour I saw it. But at that exact moment there was the loud sound of something throwing a large rock into the pond, right next to me. I knew there were no gorillas in New Hampshire so the first thing I thought of was that it was obviously Sasquatch, Big Foot, and I expected that at any moment I was going to be picked up by some big, smelly, hairy thing and slammed against a tree.
I didn't shine my flashlight over to see what sort of a beast it was. I just turned on to the spur trail and kept moving, slowly, over the roots and rocks. As far as I know, I wasn't followed.
But then, after another hour or so, I came upon a large tree that had fallen directly across the trail. I didn't remember that tree during the ascent, and it wasn't something that had recently happened, but it was quite obviously there and I must have gone around it. I knew I was on the trail, so I put my back pack down to mark it so that I could always return to that spot, and walked all around that tree searching for where the trail came out on the other side. I think I walked around that tree 3 times looking for the trail when, accidentally, my flash light picked up a trail marker that was off to the side. It was a red ribbon tied high up on a tree. Obviously this trail was used by cross country skiers in the winter and it was one of their markings. But it meant that the trail went of to the right and the tree simply lay along side of it. That's why I hadn't remembered it.
So i followed the trail out to the wide easy trail that went along beside the brook. After another hour or so I came out to the pebble area leading to the brook. I turned off the flashlight and let the sound of the brook lead me to the edge of it. I sat down to rest before I forded the brook, took out my cigarettes and matches. When I struck a match I was amazed to see, for an instant, 180 degrees around me, eyes. Big eyes, little eyes, round eyes, slanted eyes, squinty eyes. It seemed that all the creatures in the woods had come out to see what this was that was stomping through their bushes. Immediately there was the sound of scurrying as they all left the scene. I chuckled because I got the impression that I probably had company every step of the way.
I finished the cigarette, pushed it into the ground (more good litter, non-filter, very degradable) and forded the brook. My staff was very helpful for doing that. With it I could feel the rocks at the bottom that I could step on.
I dried off my feet with my towel and made the last half mile to my car. When I unlocked it and opened the door the light from inside flooded the parking area. It was a welcome sight. When i got in the car the clock on the dash board said 2. a. m. It had taken me 16 hours.
The next day I called my friend Ernie, who knows about these things, and asked him what made that loud noise at the pond that frightened me so much. He said it was probably a beaver. They slap their tails in the water to frighten off their enemies. I am here to tell you it's very effective.
A week later I took the other trail up to Tremonet. It was a tough straight up the hill trail, but it was shorter. When i got to the summit I got to enjoy the view that I had to miss the first time. On my way up I noticed frost forming on the brown and amber leaves that had fallen from the trees and I knew it would soon be hunting season, there would be no more hiking until the spring.
I never returned to Tremont Mountain after that. Why should I? I had proven my grit.
DB - The Vagabond
12:02:54 AM EDT
Knuckle Knowledge
One is never relieved from proving one's grit.
DB - The Vagabond
This is a long one, so put the kettle on if you're going to read it.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Tremont Mountain
Tremont is part of the White Mountain National Forest which stretches from Maine into New Hampshire. There are two ways to hike to the summit. One is a straight up trail off of one highway. The other is a network of trails beginning at a different highway. One day in late October I decided to take the long way up, through the network of interesting trails.
I studied the map and trail guide and calculated that it would take me 4 hours to reach the summit. So I began at 10 a. m. I parked my car in a parking area just off the highway and locked it. I took my trusty walking staff and my back pack. In the pack I had a towel, a canteen of water, a plastic container for my sandwich and a banana. a flashlight, toilet paper, the trail guide, cigarettes and wooden matches
.
At first there was an easy half mile walk to the brook which needed to be forded. A pebbly walk from the brook took me to a long, wide straight trail which led along the side of the brook, but then veered onto a spur trail that wandered through the woods to an old logging road beside a pond. After a while on that it came upon a gravel road which seems to have been put in for construction which never took place. On the other side of it was the trail that began the ascent up the mountain. It was a long winding, twisting trail through the forest and up the side of Tremont. It was well traveled, it seemed, but not well marked. The surface of the trail was mainly roots and rocks. It went along the ledge of a cliff, down into a small valley and eventually up through thicktrees to the summit. Easy to describe, but it took a lot of effort to do.
When I got to the summit I received a shock. As the timber line is only a few feet below the summit, I had not seen the sky in an hour or so. When I stepped out on to the peak I saw that the sun was a lot further along in the sky than I had expected. Since I didn't have a watch with me, I didn't know what time it was, but I knew it was later than I assumed it would be and I was going to have to descend the mountain mostly in the dark. But I wasn't really ready for just how dark it was going to be.
I quickly ate my sandwich and banana, tossing the banana skin (biodegradable - good litter), said to the mountain top that I would be back some day and started down.
The first hour was okay, but when I emerged out of the small valley the sun set and it became pitch dark, no moon, nothing. I got out my flashlight and proceeded.
The one thing I knew for certain was that no matter what I had to stay on the trail. I fell into a slow, quiet panic. All the roots and rocks I had stepped on as I came up now seemed to wriggle and squirm under my feet. I don't know if it was moths or small birds fling by me but I sometime heard something like whispering close to my head. and also the sounds of foot steps in the woods next to me.
There was a strong temptation to just start down the slope of the mountain, but I knew that if I did that I wouldn't know where I was when I cam out and it might take days to find my car. And maybe I wouldn't come out at all but end up in a swamp or a briar patch. And there were cliffs I could accidentally step off in the dark.
So with flashlight in hand I poked along slowly, trying not to stumble and fall, trying to stay on the trail. Occasionally I would see a trail marker, which was encouraging, but mostly it was keeping my eyes on the ground and feeling with my feet. Now and then I would step off the trail, but somehow I knew it immediately and would step back to where I knew it was, and search for the next step. It was a matter of feeling the ground with my feet, intuition and some invisible guidance. Once I stopped to tie my boot and after I had moved on for a minute I realized I had left my staff back there, so I went back and got it. One learns to keep what one has. It was a valuable possession.
At one point the trail even ascended again for a short distance. That was confusing to me.
I didn't know how late it was, but I knew I shouldn't try to bed down for the night and wait until dawn. It was October, cold, and I wasn't dressed warmly enough to get through the night without suffering from exposure from the cold.
After many, many hours of finding my way through the thick forest and uncertain trail, I made it down off Tremont to the gravel road.
I knew that if I walked that road it would eventually take me to a tertiary road which would eventually take me to the highway which would eventually take me back to my car. But I could tell from the map that it would probably take me until mid day to do that. So I decided to continue on the way I had come.
I crossed the gravel road and entered the old logging road that eventually went along the side of the pond. I knew that the Appalachian Mountain Club had posted a sign marking the end of the spur trail and I was looking for it. After about an hour I saw it. But at that exact moment there was the loud sound of something throwing a large rock into the pond, right next to me. I knew there were no gorillas in New Hampshire so the first thing I thought of was that it was obviously Sasquatch, Big Foot, and I expected that at any moment I was going to be picked up by some big, smelly, hairy thing and slammed against a tree.
I didn't shine my flashlight over to see what sort of a beast it was. I just turned on to the spur trail and kept moving, slowly, over the roots and rocks. As far as I know, I wasn't followed.
But then, after another hour or so, I came upon a large tree that had fallen directly across the trail. I didn't remember that tree during the ascent, and it wasn't something that had recently happened, but it was quite obviously there and I must have gone around it. I knew I was on the trail, so I put my back pack down to mark it so that I could always return to that spot, and walked all around that tree searching for where the trail came out on the other side. I think I walked around that tree 3 times looking for the trail when, accidentally, my flash light picked up a trail marker that was off to the side. It was a red ribbon tied high up on a tree. Obviously this trail was used by cross country skiers in the winter and it was one of their markings. But it meant that the trail went of to the right and the tree simply lay along side of it. That's why I hadn't remembered it.
So i followed the trail out to the wide easy trail that went along beside the brook. After another hour or so I came out to the pebble area leading to the brook. I turned off the flashlight and let the sound of the brook lead me to the edge of it. I sat down to rest before I forded the brook, took out my cigarettes and matches. When I struck a match I was amazed to see, for an instant, 180 degrees around me, eyes. Big eyes, little eyes, round eyes, slanted eyes, squinty eyes. It seemed that all the creatures in the woods had come out to see what this was that was stomping through their bushes. Immediately there was the sound of scurrying as they all left the scene. I chuckled because I got the impression that I probably had company every step of the way.
I finished the cigarette, pushed it into the ground (more good litter, non-filter, very degradable) and forded the brook. My staff was very helpful for doing that. With it I could feel the rocks at the bottom that I could step on.
I dried off my feet with my towel and made the last half mile to my car. When I unlocked it and opened the door the light from inside flooded the parking area. It was a welcome sight. When i got in the car the clock on the dash board said 2. a. m. It had taken me 16 hours.
The next day I called my friend Ernie, who knows about these things, and asked him what made that loud noise at the pond that frightened me so much. He said it was probably a beaver. They slap their tails in the water to frighten off their enemies. I am here to tell you it's very effective.
A week later I took the other trail up to Tremonet. It was a tough straight up the hill trail, but it was shorter. When i got to the summit I got to enjoy the view that I had to miss the first time. On my way up I noticed frost forming on the brown and amber leaves that had fallen from the trees and I knew it would soon be hunting season, there would be no more hiking until the spring.
I never returned to Tremont Mountain after that. Why should I? I had proven my grit.
DB - The Vagabond
Locked Logic
Monday, September 8, 2008
12:05:57 AM EDT
Locked Logic
A person who can live in his own darkness
and patiently await the dawn with a sense of humor,
is not crazy.
What's crazy is to be afraid of the dark.
DB - The Vagabond
Good Monday to you, may there be sparkles in your day.
********************************
Even before I got to confront the trolls of emails and journals, I came upon a few in the real world.
Several years ago a friend of long standing turned malignant on me for no reason. The lies and nasty name calling spread to his family and mutual friends, one of whom even suggested to me that I should apologize. I couldn't understand what I should apologize for. For not being more gracious in putting up with the lies? But I was gracious about it. I tried to understand what the ill will was about and I did it with humor and a light heart, until the moment when I knew the friendship was over. Every attempt I made to understand what to do to save that friendship was met with an increase of the abuse.
But the most interesting part of it was that I was being accused of darkness. One email included the sentence "I'm not going down this dark road with you." When I wrote back honestly wanting to know what dark road was being referred to, there was no answer.
I knew this fellow for 20 years. We worked together on several occasions. He has a lot of darkness in him, I'd seen it. I think he is running from it and, as with most people, pointing at others as he goes.
I once worked with a radio producer who insisted that he had no sinister side while he was doing sinister things, like stealing other people's ideas.
Who doesn't have darkness in them? Who hasn't found themselves down in a pit or nailed to a cross now and then. It would be great if life was always sweet and joyful. But it's not. Where there's life there's trouble. It is necessary for us to take off the pretty pink tinted glasses, stop pretending that we are always walking in the bright sunshine and look at the dark things with courage and reason. Do you think there's a crocodile under the bed? Don't lie there shivering with fear. Look under the bed. Is there a monster in the closet? Turn on the light and open the closet door.
Some shadows are short term problems. Others take time But they can never be chased away by running or pretending they aren't there. Read today's entry from rdautumnsage's Journals.
And to blame someone of something you can't face in yourself is the same thing as pulling yourself up by putting someone else down.
We all have dark places along the journey. To do the best we can and patiently await the outcome is the manly and womanly thing to do. But to be afraid of the dark is childish.
DB
12:05:57 AM EDT
Locked Logic
A person who can live in his own darkness
and patiently await the dawn with a sense of humor,
is not crazy.
What's crazy is to be afraid of the dark.
DB - The Vagabond
Good Monday to you, may there be sparkles in your day.
********************************
Even before I got to confront the trolls of emails and journals, I came upon a few in the real world.
Several years ago a friend of long standing turned malignant on me for no reason. The lies and nasty name calling spread to his family and mutual friends, one of whom even suggested to me that I should apologize. I couldn't understand what I should apologize for. For not being more gracious in putting up with the lies? But I was gracious about it. I tried to understand what the ill will was about and I did it with humor and a light heart, until the moment when I knew the friendship was over. Every attempt I made to understand what to do to save that friendship was met with an increase of the abuse.
But the most interesting part of it was that I was being accused of darkness. One email included the sentence "I'm not going down this dark road with you." When I wrote back honestly wanting to know what dark road was being referred to, there was no answer.
I knew this fellow for 20 years. We worked together on several occasions. He has a lot of darkness in him, I'd seen it. I think he is running from it and, as with most people, pointing at others as he goes.
I once worked with a radio producer who insisted that he had no sinister side while he was doing sinister things, like stealing other people's ideas.
Who doesn't have darkness in them? Who hasn't found themselves down in a pit or nailed to a cross now and then. It would be great if life was always sweet and joyful. But it's not. Where there's life there's trouble. It is necessary for us to take off the pretty pink tinted glasses, stop pretending that we are always walking in the bright sunshine and look at the dark things with courage and reason. Do you think there's a crocodile under the bed? Don't lie there shivering with fear. Look under the bed. Is there a monster in the closet? Turn on the light and open the closet door.
Some shadows are short term problems. Others take time But they can never be chased away by running or pretending they aren't there. Read today's entry from rdautumnsage's Journals.
And to blame someone of something you can't face in yourself is the same thing as pulling yourself up by putting someone else down.
We all have dark places along the journey. To do the best we can and patiently await the outcome is the manly and womanly thing to do. But to be afraid of the dark is childish.
DB
Maestro's Mark
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
12:12:00 AM EDT
Maestro's Mark
Direct the play, not the players.
DB - The Vagabond ---------------------------------------------------
Good day friends.
*****************************************************
Oh, that more directors understood.
I have written here about dopey actors I have known. But, in all fairness, I must talk about some dopey directors. The shameful fact is that I can probably squeeze into a Volkswagen beetle the number of good directors I have worked with over the years. Most of them seem to think that it is their job to give acting lessons to the cast. While it may be true that some young, inexperienced actors might need some sort of training, the rehearsal is not the place for it nor is the director the proper teacher.
I often advise youngsters who are looking for an acting career to study with an actor, not a director. If you want to learn how to play the violin, do you study with a violinist or a conductor. There are too many intricacies to the art of acting that directors are unaware of or have forgotten about. I will say that if you walk into an acting class and the teacher is sitting in a chair with a clipboard in his lap taking notes, head for the exit.
I once served on a jury in a trial during which the judge was not watching nor listening to the testimony but was typing notes into her computer. Both attorneys asked for and got a new trial. The acting teacher must pay close attention to everything you're doing and not take notes. Taking notes is what directors do.
Some directors will order an improvisation on the first day, before anyone is really acquainted with the play or their characters. It usually means the director has no vision or ideas of his own. Doing that is a stupid waste of time. Improvisation itself is very valuable under the right circumstances. Some day I will write about my friend Stuart and the best improvisation I was ever involved with.
The only screaming fights I've ever had with directors were over their inability to understand that stage business must be rehearsed. There are fight choreographers and fight rehearsals so that people don't get hurt. But complicated activity on the stage, especially when it is tied in to the timing of the scene, doesn't happen when you push a button. Why is it some directors have a total blind spot about that?
Twice I was involved in something I will never do again. I performed a rehearsed scene for a directing class. One was at a prestigious New York City film school, the other was under a private grant. In both cases the teacher was more interested in criticizing the actors than in helping the directing student.
In the first case, I don't know whether the teacher was playing a nasty game or if he was just an ignoramus. I tend to think it was the latter. But he had no idea what he was talking about. I almost stopped him to tell him to stick to the directing and leave the acting to the actors. The only thing those students were learning, in both cases, was how NOT to talk to actors.
I'll close this with an amusing story. The three character play had a line that read something like this "You work and work and save money so that you can buy a house. Then you move into the house and where are you?" The director began the rehearsal one day by saying that she wanted to deal with the realities. So I asked her if we were still in our apartment or if we had moved into the house. She answered "Oh, I don't care. It doesn't matter where you are." So much for the realities.
Some day I'll write about how important PLACE is to the actor and the production.
May you have lots of sunshine in your heart today.
DB
12:12:00 AM EDT
Maestro's Mark
Direct the play, not the players.
DB - The Vagabond ---------------------------------------------------
Good day friends.
*****************************************************
Oh, that more directors understood.
I have written here about dopey actors I have known. But, in all fairness, I must talk about some dopey directors. The shameful fact is that I can probably squeeze into a Volkswagen beetle the number of good directors I have worked with over the years. Most of them seem to think that it is their job to give acting lessons to the cast. While it may be true that some young, inexperienced actors might need some sort of training, the rehearsal is not the place for it nor is the director the proper teacher.
I often advise youngsters who are looking for an acting career to study with an actor, not a director. If you want to learn how to play the violin, do you study with a violinist or a conductor. There are too many intricacies to the art of acting that directors are unaware of or have forgotten about. I will say that if you walk into an acting class and the teacher is sitting in a chair with a clipboard in his lap taking notes, head for the exit.
I once served on a jury in a trial during which the judge was not watching nor listening to the testimony but was typing notes into her computer. Both attorneys asked for and got a new trial. The acting teacher must pay close attention to everything you're doing and not take notes. Taking notes is what directors do.
Some directors will order an improvisation on the first day, before anyone is really acquainted with the play or their characters. It usually means the director has no vision or ideas of his own. Doing that is a stupid waste of time. Improvisation itself is very valuable under the right circumstances. Some day I will write about my friend Stuart and the best improvisation I was ever involved with.
The only screaming fights I've ever had with directors were over their inability to understand that stage business must be rehearsed. There are fight choreographers and fight rehearsals so that people don't get hurt. But complicated activity on the stage, especially when it is tied in to the timing of the scene, doesn't happen when you push a button. Why is it some directors have a total blind spot about that?
Twice I was involved in something I will never do again. I performed a rehearsed scene for a directing class. One was at a prestigious New York City film school, the other was under a private grant. In both cases the teacher was more interested in criticizing the actors than in helping the directing student.
In the first case, I don't know whether the teacher was playing a nasty game or if he was just an ignoramus. I tend to think it was the latter. But he had no idea what he was talking about. I almost stopped him to tell him to stick to the directing and leave the acting to the actors. The only thing those students were learning, in both cases, was how NOT to talk to actors.
I'll close this with an amusing story. The three character play had a line that read something like this "You work and work and save money so that you can buy a house. Then you move into the house and where are you?" The director began the rehearsal one day by saying that she wanted to deal with the realities. So I asked her if we were still in our apartment or if we had moved into the house. She answered "Oh, I don't care. It doesn't matter where you are." So much for the realities.
Some day I'll write about how important PLACE is to the actor and the production.
May you have lots of sunshine in your heart today.
DB
Nifty Newness
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
12:01:57 AM EDT
Nifty Newness
If you want to know the truth of something,
imagine looking at it from the side you can't see.
DB - The Vagabond
******************************
Good day people of the world.
-----------------------------------
That quotation came about as a result of a life drawing class. One day the teacher asked us to draw the model as if we were on the opposite side of the room. She was sitting in a chair with one arm draped over the back of it. It was very difficult to get all the details of the figure but it was a great exercise.
I carried that technique over into acting. All plays are about conflict. An inexperienced actor will just shadow box, flailing or raging into the air without knowing what he is really fighting against. I decided to spend some time imagining what the source and substance were of the force that was challenging my character. It added so much dimension to what I was doing. It gave validity to my character's struggles.
As with all art, there is a life lesson in this technique. How much time and effort do we ever spend really understanding an opposing point of view? When in an argument, don't we rather dig in our heels and refuse to listen to the other guy?
Similarly in politics, no matter which side you're on it's common to quickly reach the conclusion that the other side is just plain wrong. Liberals and conservatives should investigate, observe and learn what the other side thinks. They should imagine things from the opposite point of view.
Think of the heel digging that goes on with religion. I don't think there is any more ignoring of conflicting views than is practiced by those who have a firm belief in their own faith. I know a woman who converted to Christianity by reading a book many "Christians" refuse to read and which, in fact, some have burned.
When the disaster of 9/11 happened to the World Trade Center a lot of time. effort and money was spent immediately to find how HOW it happened, but not a nickel was spent on WHY it happened. What would be the situation in the Middle East and South central Asia if the American could really imagine and understand the Arab's thnking.
To refuse to see things from another's point of view or even to acknowledge that he has a right to have one is pure cowardice.
To imagine life from the other side probably won't change your mind, but it will enlighten you.
DB
12:01:57 AM EDT
Nifty Newness
If you want to know the truth of something,
imagine looking at it from the side you can't see.
DB - The Vagabond
******************************
Good day people of the world.
-----------------------------------
That quotation came about as a result of a life drawing class. One day the teacher asked us to draw the model as if we were on the opposite side of the room. She was sitting in a chair with one arm draped over the back of it. It was very difficult to get all the details of the figure but it was a great exercise.
I carried that technique over into acting. All plays are about conflict. An inexperienced actor will just shadow box, flailing or raging into the air without knowing what he is really fighting against. I decided to spend some time imagining what the source and substance were of the force that was challenging my character. It added so much dimension to what I was doing. It gave validity to my character's struggles.
As with all art, there is a life lesson in this technique. How much time and effort do we ever spend really understanding an opposing point of view? When in an argument, don't we rather dig in our heels and refuse to listen to the other guy?
Similarly in politics, no matter which side you're on it's common to quickly reach the conclusion that the other side is just plain wrong. Liberals and conservatives should investigate, observe and learn what the other side thinks. They should imagine things from the opposite point of view.
Think of the heel digging that goes on with religion. I don't think there is any more ignoring of conflicting views than is practiced by those who have a firm belief in their own faith. I know a woman who converted to Christianity by reading a book many "Christians" refuse to read and which, in fact, some have burned.
When the disaster of 9/11 happened to the World Trade Center a lot of time. effort and money was spent immediately to find how HOW it happened, but not a nickel was spent on WHY it happened. What would be the situation in the Middle East and South central Asia if the American could really imagine and understand the Arab's thnking.
To refuse to see things from another's point of view or even to acknowledge that he has a right to have one is pure cowardice.
To imagine life from the other side probably won't change your mind, but it will enlighten you.
DB
Oldster's Obligation
Thursday, September 11, 2008
12:06:03 AM EDT
Oldster's Obligation
Know that if you turn aside from your journey
you're on a new journey with a different goal.
DB - The Vagabond
??????????????????????????????????????????
What does an old man do when he discovers that he is practically useless to the world? What if he became an actor to spread some ripples of light, joy and entertainment? But what if no teeth to "speak the speech trippingly" and an uncontrollable cough and a painful hip brought an end to that career? Then what if he went to drawing and painting, hoping to continue, but deteriorating eyesight made that too hard? Then what if he took to writing, only to find a diminishing readership and that others could write better and in much greater depth on the same subjects, and that the comments they got were much more important and articulate than the ones he left? And what if even reading became too difficult for him as he struggled to bring the words into focus even with a magnifying glass? What if he has a stack of interesting books that he will never get to read? What if the meager amount of money that comes in to him goes to pay his debts, which are staggering? What if he has no friends or family around? What if he has a son who is an elusive stranger to him? What if he went to work for a theatre that doesn't want him any more? What if he is a poor, sick, useless, lonely, old man? And what if, in the face of all of that, he refuses to give up? What then?
DB - The Vagabond
12:06:03 AM EDT
Oldster's Obligation
Know that if you turn aside from your journey
you're on a new journey with a different goal.
DB - The Vagabond
??????????????????????????????????????????
What does an old man do when he discovers that he is practically useless to the world? What if he became an actor to spread some ripples of light, joy and entertainment? But what if no teeth to "speak the speech trippingly" and an uncontrollable cough and a painful hip brought an end to that career? Then what if he went to drawing and painting, hoping to continue, but deteriorating eyesight made that too hard? Then what if he took to writing, only to find a diminishing readership and that others could write better and in much greater depth on the same subjects, and that the comments they got were much more important and articulate than the ones he left? And what if even reading became too difficult for him as he struggled to bring the words into focus even with a magnifying glass? What if he has a stack of interesting books that he will never get to read? What if the meager amount of money that comes in to him goes to pay his debts, which are staggering? What if he has no friends or family around? What if he has a son who is an elusive stranger to him? What if he went to work for a theatre that doesn't want him any more? What if he is a poor, sick, useless, lonely, old man? And what if, in the face of all of that, he refuses to give up? What then?
DB - The Vagabond
Righteous Reasons
Sunday, September 14, 2008
12:07:58 AM EDT
Righteous Reasons
When we no longer notice justice, mercy, compassion and honesty, it will mean that the world is finally at peace.
DB The Vagabond
***********************
"What do you mean by that?"
I mean what I said.
"You mean in a peaceful world there will be no justice, mercy and so on?"
No, that's not what I said.
"You think a world without compassion, honesty and such is a peaceful world? I don't think so."
Neither do I and that's not what I said.
"I can't live in a world where there's no compassion."
Nor can I, but that is still not what I said.
"Well, I hope I never stop noticing justice."
You might, if there was no reason to.
"Let me get this straight. You think a peaceful world is one in which there is no justice, mercy, compassion or honesty, right?"
Wrong. That's not what I said.
"All right then, what did you say?"
I said, when we no longer notice justice, mercy, compassion and honesty, it will mean that the world is finally at peace.
"I don't get it."
Written by dbdacoba
12:07:58 AM EDT
Righteous Reasons
When we no longer notice justice, mercy, compassion and honesty, it will mean that the world is finally at peace.
DB The Vagabond
***********************
"What do you mean by that?"
I mean what I said.
"You mean in a peaceful world there will be no justice, mercy and so on?"
No, that's not what I said.
"You think a world without compassion, honesty and such is a peaceful world? I don't think so."
Neither do I and that's not what I said.
"I can't live in a world where there's no compassion."
Nor can I, but that is still not what I said.
"Well, I hope I never stop noticing justice."
You might, if there was no reason to.
"Let me get this straight. You think a peaceful world is one in which there is no justice, mercy, compassion or honesty, right?"
Wrong. That's not what I said.
"All right then, what did you say?"
I said, when we no longer notice justice, mercy, compassion and honesty, it will mean that the world is finally at peace.
"I don't get it."
Written by dbdacoba
Snatching Sagacity
Monday, September 15, 2008
12:05:05 AM EDT
Snatching Sagacity
It's not enough just to live life, we must seize it.
DB - The Vagabond
******************************
"Carpe diem" Horace wrote, (Seize the day).
I used to know a radio announcer who was on the air from 6 in the morning until noon. In the control room where he worked there was a small, square calendar, the kind with a single date on each page. You know the type, Hollywood movies were fond of showing the passing of time by having the pages blown away in the wind.
Every morning, when this announcer came to work, one of the first things he did was tear off the page from the prvious day, crumple it up and throw it in the basket.
I came to work at about the same time and one morning I found him in a loud, shaking rage, yelling at the announcer who had just worked the all night shift. The regular all night announcer was off that night and a replacement announcer had been there. At some point after midnight he had removed the page from the calendar and the morning announcer was yelling at the poor fellow over it.
The morning man went on the air and was his usual charming, entertaining self, but he considered his day was ruined because he couldn't perform his morning ritual of the new day. "Seize the day" does not mean tearing a page off the calendar.
Life is confusing, chaotic and challenging and we help ourselves through it by developing dependable patterns of behavior and thought. The danger is letting those patterns take the place of life itself. Someone wrote to me recently about a woman who only votes the way her husband tells her to. If you keep your house clean and neat as a pin (whatever that means) it's a good thing, but it should never take the place of adventure.
Ever since that pivotal day when my teacher/mentor said "Can't you find anything to do?" my life has been spinning. Every day, even in my reduced circumstances, I still find activities, sometimes just mental, but always with a positive goal. Even when things become emotionally bleak, as they periodically do, there is always some puttering to be done, some bit of chaos to be put in order. Life is never the way we want it, and if it is it doesn't stay that way for long. There is always more life to be lived than we are living, there is more to life than we know, so why not seize it and discover it. Investigate things with imagination and observation and find that there is always something more to do.
Beethoven continued to compose music even after he became deaf. Matisse continued to make art works even after his eye sight went dim. To seize life is often uncomfortable and unbalancing but if we don't do it we have no life at all.
DB
12:05:05 AM EDT
Snatching Sagacity
It's not enough just to live life, we must seize it.
DB - The Vagabond
******************************
"Carpe diem" Horace wrote, (Seize the day).
I used to know a radio announcer who was on the air from 6 in the morning until noon. In the control room where he worked there was a small, square calendar, the kind with a single date on each page. You know the type, Hollywood movies were fond of showing the passing of time by having the pages blown away in the wind.
Every morning, when this announcer came to work, one of the first things he did was tear off the page from the prvious day, crumple it up and throw it in the basket.
I came to work at about the same time and one morning I found him in a loud, shaking rage, yelling at the announcer who had just worked the all night shift. The regular all night announcer was off that night and a replacement announcer had been there. At some point after midnight he had removed the page from the calendar and the morning announcer was yelling at the poor fellow over it.
The morning man went on the air and was his usual charming, entertaining self, but he considered his day was ruined because he couldn't perform his morning ritual of the new day. "Seize the day" does not mean tearing a page off the calendar.
Life is confusing, chaotic and challenging and we help ourselves through it by developing dependable patterns of behavior and thought. The danger is letting those patterns take the place of life itself. Someone wrote to me recently about a woman who only votes the way her husband tells her to. If you keep your house clean and neat as a pin (whatever that means) it's a good thing, but it should never take the place of adventure.
Ever since that pivotal day when my teacher/mentor said "Can't you find anything to do?" my life has been spinning. Every day, even in my reduced circumstances, I still find activities, sometimes just mental, but always with a positive goal. Even when things become emotionally bleak, as they periodically do, there is always some puttering to be done, some bit of chaos to be put in order. Life is never the way we want it, and if it is it doesn't stay that way for long. There is always more life to be lived than we are living, there is more to life than we know, so why not seize it and discover it. Investigate things with imagination and observation and find that there is always something more to do.
Beethoven continued to compose music even after he became deaf. Matisse continued to make art works even after his eye sight went dim. To seize life is often uncomfortable and unbalancing but if we don't do it we have no life at all.
DB
Trusty Terms
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
12:08:31 AM EDT
Trusty Terms
One lesson you can learn from composing music is that no matter what the problem is in life the solution already exists.
DB - The Vagabond
*************************************
I was working for a big, important classical radio station in a large city. One evening a week there was a special program heavily sponsored by a multinational corporation. As a result the music was carefully chosen to be the best performance of the best music possible and the show was scripted. It was usually hosted by the chief announcer. But one evening he was unable to be there and the announcing of the program fell to me.
I carefully checked over the script ahead of time and made sure the record album was in the control room. There was one piece scheduled for the show, a long symphony lasting about 45 minutes. The program began, right after a 5 minute newscast, with brief recorded theme music, followed by a live introduction That was followed by a 20 second recorded commercial. After that came the script, written by the music department. Then came the music. After it came a one minute live commercial read by me, the closing theme and a word about next weeks program.
For some reason I will never understand I told the engineer that I would reverse the commercials, do the one minute live commercial at the beginning and the recorded commercial at the end. This was not the way it was scripted but I felt it was best to do it that way.
So the program began. I opened it, did the introduction, read the one minute commercial, read the script, signaled the engineer to start the music and settled back to listen and read my book. But disaster struck!
At about 15 minutes before the hour the engineer called into me that the piece was about to end. I said "When?" He said "Right now." Sure enough I was hearing the final cadences of the symphony. Somebody, either the record company or the music department, had mistimed the piece, the one thing I didn't check on. It was going to bring the program up to be almost 15 minutes short. But I had no time to think about that. The engineer was saying "What should I do?"
I told him to give me the microphone when the piece was over and then go to the 20 second recorded commercial. I announced the end of the piece in a calm and dignified manner and as soon as the recorded commercial was on I dashed down to the music library, want right to a specific shelf and pulled out an album. I didn't know where I was or what I was doing. I never spent any time in the music library. But the album I pulled had a ten minute piece on it that was just perfect for the program. I ran back to the control room, gave the record to the engineer, told him what to cue up, took the album cover and ran back to the studio. I sat down just as the 20 second commercial was ending and, again with the proper dignity and sophistication, announced the second piece. The program ended smoothly. The amazing thing was that if I hadn't reversed those commercials I wouldn't have had the time to solve the problem.
There was another announcer there, Frank, who was busy preparing the next newscast. He saw the whole thing happening and after the second piece was playing he came to my studio, opened the door and, with an awestruck look on his face, said "How did you do that?"
I just laughed and said "I don't know."
DB
12:08:31 AM EDT
Trusty Terms
One lesson you can learn from composing music is that no matter what the problem is in life the solution already exists.
DB - The Vagabond
*************************************
I was working for a big, important classical radio station in a large city. One evening a week there was a special program heavily sponsored by a multinational corporation. As a result the music was carefully chosen to be the best performance of the best music possible and the show was scripted. It was usually hosted by the chief announcer. But one evening he was unable to be there and the announcing of the program fell to me.
I carefully checked over the script ahead of time and made sure the record album was in the control room. There was one piece scheduled for the show, a long symphony lasting about 45 minutes. The program began, right after a 5 minute newscast, with brief recorded theme music, followed by a live introduction That was followed by a 20 second recorded commercial. After that came the script, written by the music department. Then came the music. After it came a one minute live commercial read by me, the closing theme and a word about next weeks program.
For some reason I will never understand I told the engineer that I would reverse the commercials, do the one minute live commercial at the beginning and the recorded commercial at the end. This was not the way it was scripted but I felt it was best to do it that way.
So the program began. I opened it, did the introduction, read the one minute commercial, read the script, signaled the engineer to start the music and settled back to listen and read my book. But disaster struck!
At about 15 minutes before the hour the engineer called into me that the piece was about to end. I said "When?" He said "Right now." Sure enough I was hearing the final cadences of the symphony. Somebody, either the record company or the music department, had mistimed the piece, the one thing I didn't check on. It was going to bring the program up to be almost 15 minutes short. But I had no time to think about that. The engineer was saying "What should I do?"
I told him to give me the microphone when the piece was over and then go to the 20 second recorded commercial. I announced the end of the piece in a calm and dignified manner and as soon as the recorded commercial was on I dashed down to the music library, want right to a specific shelf and pulled out an album. I didn't know where I was or what I was doing. I never spent any time in the music library. But the album I pulled had a ten minute piece on it that was just perfect for the program. I ran back to the control room, gave the record to the engineer, told him what to cue up, took the album cover and ran back to the studio. I sat down just as the 20 second commercial was ending and, again with the proper dignity and sophistication, announced the second piece. The program ended smoothly. The amazing thing was that if I hadn't reversed those commercials I wouldn't have had the time to solve the problem.
There was another announcer there, Frank, who was busy preparing the next newscast. He saw the whole thing happening and after the second piece was playing he came to my studio, opened the door and, with an awestruck look on his face, said "How did you do that?"
I just laughed and said "I don't know."
DB
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