Friday, June 20, 2003
"But most of the time, death for poets is what it is for the rest of us -- the beginning of that slow, inexorable process of being forgotten."
In an article about the poet Robert Lowell in The New York Times, I found the sentence above. So sharp, so cruel. When I look at pictures of my brother, he seems like he's 80, 000 miles away. I really can barely handle looking at photos of him, so when I can, I do.
It's strange beyond explanation or belief.
He's such a familiar part of my life. To know he's alive and around is second nature. To realize/believe that he isn't will take me years.
The thought that he will be forgotten torments me.
Anyway, I cannot write about him, so I'll stop trying for now.
-mk
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In an article about the poet Robert Lowell in The New York Times, I found the sentence above. So sharp, so cruel. When I look at pictures of my brother, he seems like he's 80, 000 miles away. I really can barely handle looking at photos of him, so when I can, I do.
It's strange beyond explanation or belief.
He's such a familiar part of my life. To know he's alive and around is second nature. To realize/believe that he isn't will take me years.
The thought that he will be forgotten torments me.
Anyway, I cannot write about him, so I'll stop trying for now.
-mk
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
I'm looking for a new roommate because my current roommate is moving in with her boyfriend. She is/was great. She's a native New Yorker (which I am not) & very upbeat, active, cool, nice, responsible, considerate -- all the things I'm looking for now. It's a daunting task. I am asking everyone I know, and I put an ad up on Craig's list. Based on the Craig's list responses, I think I will find someone who isn't psycho, but I really, really, really just don't want to deal with it. I would rather just have it just fall together. I hate dealing with things like this. I hate the thought of having people over to my mostly unfurnished apartment to look around. I hate having to interview people.
Joe says we should look at it as a casting call for my new play, "The Roommate." He is very funny sometimes. And, he has offered to be there at my apt when I have people over so that I am "safe" if someone weird comes by.
I kind of like the apartment with no furniture. I have so much stuff that it's nice to see everything so empty. The room is huge with just a couple of end tables and some shelves. I need to buy a couch.
On another note, I am in the process of memorizing "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe. You really don't know something closely until you memorize it. The poem is so musical. From the third stanza: "And the silken, still uncertain rustle of each purple curtain/thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before." It's so specific. So vivid. My plan is to use it as an acting exercise, like a monologue, but not really. Also, it's long, so it's good for the mind to memorize.
In the book I'm reading (for the book club, which will meet at my nearly empty apartment tonight), we are reading "Life & Death in Shanghai" by Nien Cheng. There's one part of the book where she decides to memorize passages from Mao's Book of Quotations and to remember poems she memorized when she was a small child, just to keep her mind sharp. I am slightly obsessed with keeping my mind sharp. Work is so intellectually unstimulating. I feel like I'm getting dumber every year since college.
--m
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Joe says we should look at it as a casting call for my new play, "The Roommate." He is very funny sometimes. And, he has offered to be there at my apt when I have people over so that I am "safe" if someone weird comes by.
I kind of like the apartment with no furniture. I have so much stuff that it's nice to see everything so empty. The room is huge with just a couple of end tables and some shelves. I need to buy a couch.
On another note, I am in the process of memorizing "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe. You really don't know something closely until you memorize it. The poem is so musical. From the third stanza: "And the silken, still uncertain rustle of each purple curtain/thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before." It's so specific. So vivid. My plan is to use it as an acting exercise, like a monologue, but not really. Also, it's long, so it's good for the mind to memorize.
In the book I'm reading (for the book club, which will meet at my nearly empty apartment tonight), we are reading "Life & Death in Shanghai" by Nien Cheng. There's one part of the book where she decides to memorize passages from Mao's Book of Quotations and to remember poems she memorized when she was a small child, just to keep her mind sharp. I am slightly obsessed with keeping my mind sharp. Work is so intellectually unstimulating. I feel like I'm getting dumber every year since college.
--m
Thursday, June 12, 2003
went to see amy's one-woman show the other night. she's a frickin' star. she's fearless. she's funny. she transforms herself completely. i usually hate one-person shows because they are usually so self-indulgent and BORING, but this one was different. almost the entire show consisted of other characters talking to her, not of her narrating. the best part was this man standing outside on the street who yelled after her, "hey, fat ass!" he was amazing. he told her to "own it" & got her to smile & she told him her name was "fuck you." very good.
today, i am fully feeling inadequate. i'm inadequate as an employee and as a daughter. i'm inadequate as a girlfriend. i'm certainly inadequate as a guitar player. my french is pretty bad. i don't read enough. i have too much paper. i forgot to bring my lunch. my clothes are too old--and i have too many of them. and, i don't feel like using capital letters. at least my hair looks good. it's turning grey.
more later...
i'm going to do one of those "100 things about me" thingies that i've seen on pages like this. i wish i had a comment section so that i could see if anyone has ever read this page (except for mfgm, who says she does).
--mk
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today, i am fully feeling inadequate. i'm inadequate as an employee and as a daughter. i'm inadequate as a girlfriend. i'm certainly inadequate as a guitar player. my french is pretty bad. i don't read enough. i have too much paper. i forgot to bring my lunch. my clothes are too old--and i have too many of them. and, i don't feel like using capital letters. at least my hair looks good. it's turning grey.
more later...
i'm going to do one of those "100 things about me" thingies that i've seen on pages like this. i wish i had a comment section so that i could see if anyone has ever read this page (except for mfgm, who says she does).
--mk
Wednesday, June 04, 2003
New York:
1. In front of the building where I work, the red, double-decker tourist buses stop to pick people up. Once when I was out there for an extended period, waiting for my friend Darrell so that we could have lunch, there was a fairly long line of people waiting to get on the bus and a large group of people sitting on the upper level of the bus, which is uncovered. Every time someone would give the driver his or her ticket and climb up the stairs to get to the top, everyone sitting up there would cheer & yell & clap, like the person had just made a strike in bowling, or something. And, they did this over and over again for, like, 5 minutes.
2. The other night when my boyfriend Joe & I were riding home on the subway, there was a lady on the train cursing and yelling at the top of her lungs at another passenger. It was hard to understand what had happened, but Joe said he saw them have some kind of altercation before they got onto the train. She was calling him "bitch" & saying she "knows all of his secrets" and all kinds of things, slurring her words pretty badly. It was very uncomfortable. They both got off after one stop.
3. My friend James, who is a drama teacher, was invited to attend a songwriting workshop in conjunction with the Broadway show, "Thoroughly Modern Milie," which won the Tony award for best musical last year or the year before. The intention was to show teachers the workshop so that they would, perhaps, hire the teacher, who was a songwriter for "Millie," to come give the workshop to their students. He said she started out by asking the group to think of a phrase that describes how they felt when they first moved to the city. For instance, she said, when she moved there, she felt like "the smallest building on the block." The group of people shouted out lots of things, and someone came up with the phrase, "I wish I had a better pair of shoes." Everyone in the group liked that phrase, but the teacher insisted that it wasn't the best phrase, but that they should use "the smallest building on the block" instead. So, they wrote a song using that phrase. And, through the process of "writing the song," James realized that it was a scam, that the teacher always uses the same phrase with every group of students, that she has it set up so that the activity cannot "fail," that they are not really taking any risk or doing anything creative in the workshop. He then went to see the show & found that all the songs in the show were "formula songs," and that there was nothing really risky or creative in the show.
4. Similarly, I recently worked sound on a play festival. The last performance of the first play was completely different from all the other performances. Every performance of the play had been EXACTLY the same before that point. It was like watching a videotape. Then, for some reason, this last performance was different, especially the lead actress. She "played" more. She got angrier. She sort of lost control. She awakened her scene partner & so he was more aware and better. It was, of course, their best performance.
At intermission, I overheard her talking to the director, who had come to the last show. He said, "You see? Wasn't it better to not know what was going to happen?" She was beeming. She said, "It was dangerous."
I love acting because it is so dangerous. Your instinct to look for the safety net, the crutch, the "way to say the line" is the instinct you have to avoid. There is no "final answer." You know your lines. You know your blocking. You have to be there, in the moment, telling the story, playing it out. You have to trust. To trust is the most dangerous thing in the world.
I want to be in a play again soon.
--mk
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1. In front of the building where I work, the red, double-decker tourist buses stop to pick people up. Once when I was out there for an extended period, waiting for my friend Darrell so that we could have lunch, there was a fairly long line of people waiting to get on the bus and a large group of people sitting on the upper level of the bus, which is uncovered. Every time someone would give the driver his or her ticket and climb up the stairs to get to the top, everyone sitting up there would cheer & yell & clap, like the person had just made a strike in bowling, or something. And, they did this over and over again for, like, 5 minutes.
2. The other night when my boyfriend Joe & I were riding home on the subway, there was a lady on the train cursing and yelling at the top of her lungs at another passenger. It was hard to understand what had happened, but Joe said he saw them have some kind of altercation before they got onto the train. She was calling him "bitch" & saying she "knows all of his secrets" and all kinds of things, slurring her words pretty badly. It was very uncomfortable. They both got off after one stop.
3. My friend James, who is a drama teacher, was invited to attend a songwriting workshop in conjunction with the Broadway show, "Thoroughly Modern Milie," which won the Tony award for best musical last year or the year before. The intention was to show teachers the workshop so that they would, perhaps, hire the teacher, who was a songwriter for "Millie," to come give the workshop to their students. He said she started out by asking the group to think of a phrase that describes how they felt when they first moved to the city. For instance, she said, when she moved there, she felt like "the smallest building on the block." The group of people shouted out lots of things, and someone came up with the phrase, "I wish I had a better pair of shoes." Everyone in the group liked that phrase, but the teacher insisted that it wasn't the best phrase, but that they should use "the smallest building on the block" instead. So, they wrote a song using that phrase. And, through the process of "writing the song," James realized that it was a scam, that the teacher always uses the same phrase with every group of students, that she has it set up so that the activity cannot "fail," that they are not really taking any risk or doing anything creative in the workshop. He then went to see the show & found that all the songs in the show were "formula songs," and that there was nothing really risky or creative in the show.
4. Similarly, I recently worked sound on a play festival. The last performance of the first play was completely different from all the other performances. Every performance of the play had been EXACTLY the same before that point. It was like watching a videotape. Then, for some reason, this last performance was different, especially the lead actress. She "played" more. She got angrier. She sort of lost control. She awakened her scene partner & so he was more aware and better. It was, of course, their best performance.
At intermission, I overheard her talking to the director, who had come to the last show. He said, "You see? Wasn't it better to not know what was going to happen?" She was beeming. She said, "It was dangerous."
I love acting because it is so dangerous. Your instinct to look for the safety net, the crutch, the "way to say the line" is the instinct you have to avoid. There is no "final answer." You know your lines. You know your blocking. You have to be there, in the moment, telling the story, playing it out. You have to trust. To trust is the most dangerous thing in the world.
I want to be in a play again soon.
--mk
Monday, June 02, 2003
I watched the season finale of "Six Feet Under" last night. It was a particularly graphic and disturbing episode, but in general, I think the show is important because it explores issues of death like no other popular culture vessel. In the show, the mother remarried. After her wedding, she walked into the kitchen to find her ex-husband (deceased) crying. Before the wedding, the daughter, Claire, went to the cemetery to visit her father's grave, and her father was there among all the deceased, who were having a sort of carnival or picnic. There were balloons & crowds of people who looked like they were having a great time. She ran into her ex-boyfriend who she didn't know had died (& it isn't clear if he did die since the entire thing was in her mind, in a way) & her sister-in-law, who had been missing for some 8 weeks or so (I estimate). (Later in the episode it was revealed that the sister-in-law had in fact died, but I digress.)
At the "cemetery picnic," the deceased all seemed to be completely at peace. The ex-boyfriend was playing frisbee with his little brother who died in a gun accident in the first season of the show. He looked completely loving, completely happy. He told Claire that he was too selfish when he was alive and that it is better now. He told her he enjoys taking care of his little brother. Likewise, the sister-in-law was completely aglow with joy.
So, the show has made me think about my own best guess of what it means to be dead. I am trying to come to terms with what it means from the point of view of the living -- the sadness of knowing you are never going to see the person again, and the wondering what life really means, what is important, etc. These questions (& more) will probably take me years to sort out.
It has only been 6 months since I lost one of the closest people to me, my brother. It is the first time I have ever lost an immediate family member. In a weird way, it helps me to know that death is universal, that a lot of people die everyday (just as a lot of people are born everyday). It lessens the despair, just to know that it is a shared despair, that it is "normal" to feel the despair, that it is "part of life" (don't say these things to me, though; I hate it when people try to "talk it away" or make sense of it).
Sometimes, I feel like we are truly just insects on the planet's face (to paraphrase that song from "Rocky Horror"). What does it mean? Connection with other humans is important, yes, but other than that, what does it mean? We are just animals. We are nothing, really. When someone dies, he really just vanishes into thin air (or so I feel). There are a zillion other people around, and he is only missed by those who knew him personally. Everyone else couldn't give a damn. Time marches forward.
That issue was explored in the show, as well, when the daughter asked the father if he was angry at the mother remarrying. He said, "He's alive and I'm not, so that pretty much seals it up for him, doesn't it?" (not an exact quote, despite punctuation).
It's a cruel truth. Death is a cruel, cruel truth. They say that in time it seems less so, but I think you have to go through the terrible part of it to get to the other side of it. Anyway, that's my hope speaking. Hi, Hope.
--mk
|
At the "cemetery picnic," the deceased all seemed to be completely at peace. The ex-boyfriend was playing frisbee with his little brother who died in a gun accident in the first season of the show. He looked completely loving, completely happy. He told Claire that he was too selfish when he was alive and that it is better now. He told her he enjoys taking care of his little brother. Likewise, the sister-in-law was completely aglow with joy.
So, the show has made me think about my own best guess of what it means to be dead. I am trying to come to terms with what it means from the point of view of the living -- the sadness of knowing you are never going to see the person again, and the wondering what life really means, what is important, etc. These questions (& more) will probably take me years to sort out.
It has only been 6 months since I lost one of the closest people to me, my brother. It is the first time I have ever lost an immediate family member. In a weird way, it helps me to know that death is universal, that a lot of people die everyday (just as a lot of people are born everyday). It lessens the despair, just to know that it is a shared despair, that it is "normal" to feel the despair, that it is "part of life" (don't say these things to me, though; I hate it when people try to "talk it away" or make sense of it).
Sometimes, I feel like we are truly just insects on the planet's face (to paraphrase that song from "Rocky Horror"). What does it mean? Connection with other humans is important, yes, but other than that, what does it mean? We are just animals. We are nothing, really. When someone dies, he really just vanishes into thin air (or so I feel). There are a zillion other people around, and he is only missed by those who knew him personally. Everyone else couldn't give a damn. Time marches forward.
That issue was explored in the show, as well, when the daughter asked the father if he was angry at the mother remarrying. He said, "He's alive and I'm not, so that pretty much seals it up for him, doesn't it?" (not an exact quote, despite punctuation).
It's a cruel truth. Death is a cruel, cruel truth. They say that in time it seems less so, but I think you have to go through the terrible part of it to get to the other side of it. Anyway, that's my hope speaking. Hi, Hope.
--mk
