It's that time

Auditions.

I dread them before, I love them during, I hate them after.

I am terrified of being under-prepared, over-prepared beforehand.

I love my ability to be myself in front of people I don't know, to be open with them and make good impressions. I love the adrenaline and competitiveness that I get during an audition.

I hate knowing the results. I hate feeling guilty if I get a role, no matter how hard I try to convince myself that I deserved it, I hate seeing the disappoint in people's faces, I hate being treated differently by friends.

All of this passes in time. I am impatient, the process is different for everyone.

In case you haven't heard...

This next week in Vancouver is The Wrecking Ball.
It is a rally of sorts to create awareness of all the government funding cuts to the arts.

This Monday night at the Vogue theatre. For FREE. 8pm the fun begins.

More info here:
http://thewreckingball.ca/performances/358/the-wrecking-ball-vancouver

If the arts are important to you, you should probably be there.

Jesus

Jesus
by Page France

I will sing a song to you
And you will shake the ground for me
And the birds and bees and old fruit trees
Will spit out songs like gushing streams
And Jesus will come through the ground so dirty
With worms in his hair and a hand so sturdy
To call us his magic we call him worthy
Jesus came up through the ground so dirty
I will sing a song for to you
And you will stomp your feet for me
And the bears and bees and banana trees
Will play kazoos and tambourines
And Jesus will dance while we drink his wine
With soldiers and thieves and a sword in his side
And we will be joy and we will be right
Jesus will dance while we drink his wine
Jesus will come through the ground so dirty
With worms in his hair and a hand so sturdy
To call us his magic we call him worthy
Jesus came up through the ground so dirty
Jesus came up through the ground so dirty
Jesus came up through the ground so dirty
Jesus came up through the ground so dirty

Please listen to this song. It has got me excited from a place deep within. I think it is my soul. The bolded lines are the lines that jumped out at me when I first heard this song. What beauty. "And we will be joy and we will be right"- I am having a hard time finding joy right now. It seems to be that my magic has left me. But this song has reminded me of an experience that still brings me a bit of joy. It has been tainted, that is certain, but not lost. Because for me, Jesus has already come through the ground so dirty with worms in his hair. He picked me up, spun me around and called me His magic.
In that moment, I was Grass Grass, I was his lover, child, and delight. A moment so pure with ecstacy, I felt exploding inside myself.
And that memory, you will never take away from me.

K

I'm going to cry if I want to...

Well, at least I know one person who reads my blog and all the credit is due to her for the wonderful entertainment I recieved yesterday by going to see the Arts Club performance of Les Miserables. A friend of mine plays Cosette in the show and does a divine job of it. If you have not bought tickets, they extended the show for another two weeks and they are selling out fast! Buy them!

On days when I do not trust my own writing I rely on others. Rilke, to be more precise. My search for greatness this week culminates in this passage from 'Letters to a Young Poet',

"If you trust in Nature, in what is simple in Nature, in the small Things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behing, astonished, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness, and knowledge...I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try and love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now."

There is nothing more prominent that I am learning right now than to live my questions. There is nothing else I can do. And the more I become in tune with my questions, hopefully I will grow to live in some sort of answers. Most of the things I catch myself caring about, I don't want to care about. Who cares how blonde my hair gets in the summer? Who cares how much money I have? How many books I read? What kind of car I drive? How much I do for others? How much they do for me? I am guilty of all these things and so so many more. In church we talked about Mark 9:33 where the disciples discuss greatness. I feel so pressured into greatness, coming from the family I have and going into the profession I am, both of which subliminally tell me that if I am not great, I am not much. Jesus taught that to achieve greatness is to be a servant to all. This morning in my mind I was whining to myself about how I had planned my birthday activities this weekend and how unfair it was that I was not treated like some sort of royalty, blah blah, blah...poor me. I was reminded by the excerpt above and the passage from Mark that those things in themselves do not mark my greatness It is when I am a servant like I was this weekend, except without realizing it like Rilke states, that I am indeed great. Maybe this is more confusing than it needs to be, but it makes sense to me.

Unconscious Desire

Funny thing, I looked in my writing file today and I clicked on the Word Document labelled 'Unconscious Desire' and this is what popped up. I do not even remember these words. I guess it really was an unconscious desire.

Wild abandon to all things lovely

To all things beautiful.

Caress my heart, my cares.

Man, filthy being, your heart is empty and your insides rotten.

I could never...stops. No, that is a lie I tell myself.

I wish my heart was open and your love could slide in.

I wish, I wish, I wish a lot of scenarios.

None of them being real or true or ever even possible for you!

What do I wish that could really truly happen?

Let God be God and man be man.


Ah yes I remember now. This was about the construction workers. I hope this June for you is lovely because all I seem to be hearing are stories of pain, frustration, and anger. It seems to be a phase in my world right now. I am doing surprisingly well despite these heart-wrenchers. It is causing me to think and write and for this I am thankful. I am taking a playwriting class/mentorship/whatever you want to call it with Lucia Frangione as well. I will leave you with a verse I have recently discovered and labelled MINE.

"Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seeds to sow, will return with songs of joy, carring sheaves with him"
Psalms 126: 5-6 NIV

Song of the Day:
See by Maclean
-This may or may not be a plug for a dear friend who is in this band and internet, if you do not know this band, you should. Some excellent tunes.

That song I sing

"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them" - Henry David Thoreau

This will not be me. There is a time for silence and a time for awakening. This is my awakening. I am constantly aroused by literature, music, theatre, and dance. Especially when they are combined into a single performance. This is what I will seek after. Thoreau is right and the separation I have found in the world has erupted in me and the thick, sitting silence has parted. The song will come out.

The Quiet World

In an effort to get people to look
into each other's eyes more
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.
Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly I say I only used fifty-nine today
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn't respond
I know she's used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.

-Jeffrey McDaniel

Hope this helps

It has come to my attention that some do not know the correct use of the term "fundamental". So with courtesy of Dictionary.com, I have provided a definition below:

fun⋅da⋅men⋅tal

 

–adjective

1.	serving as, or being an essential part of, a foundation or basis; basic; underlying: fundamental principles; the fundamental structure.

2.	of, pertaining to, or affecting the foundation or basis: a fundamental revision.

3.	being an original or primary source: a fundamental idea.

4.	Music. (of a chord) having its root as its lowest note.

–noun

5.	a basic principle, rule, law, or the like, that serves as the groundwork of a system; essential part: to master the fundamentals of a trade.

6.	Also called fundamental note, fundamental tone. Music. a. the root of a chord. b. the generator of a series of harmonics.

7.	Physics. the component of lowest frequency in a composite wave.

I hate the radio

I know, I know. You try putting up a show, going to school full time and blogging. Yeah, not so easy.

That's really a lame excuse. The main reason why I haven't posted, and a current predicament of mine is that words fail me. They fail me. I get so frustrated with them. They do not express what I am feeling most of the time. I have put my trusty notebook aside for the time being and I am focusing more on other's words, because obviously men like Merton and Fromm still know how to use them effectively. I feel a little defeated by my language.

"In the act of creation man transcends himself as a creature, raises himself beyond the passivity and accidentalness of his existence into the realm of purposefulness and freedom"

- Erich Fromm

Junior Boy

Watch the sun come up

Go on and leave

Coffee is all you mean to me

anyway

And I have that.

Mornings alone smile my insides

And give me rest.

Peaceful rest.

Sway to the song

Remember the music

That brought me to you.

The Lord is my keeper

I shall want and want and want.

When first things are first

"When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now. In so far as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased."

-C.S. Lewis

My parents had this quote on their wedding invitations. I think it is true.

Mmm

"After all everybody, that is, everybody who writes," said Gertrude Stein, "is interested in living inside themselves in order to tell what is inside themselves. That is why writers have to have two countries, the one where they belong and the one in which they live really. The second one is romantic; it is separate from themselves, it is not real but it is really there."

- G. A. Harrison, "Gertrude Stein's America"

You make me feel five...and it's the best feeling.

You make me feel five

Blonde sunshine hands in the air

Yellow flowers fanning love

Where's that dirt?

Anything you want, you got it.

Anything you need, you got it.

Anything at all, you got it.

- Karyn Guenther and Roy Orbison

Still alive

I'm falling in love with Bon Iver. He's my new music crush. That and Lenka. Some good artists if you would like to check out.

You may wonder where I have been for so long. You may not.

I've been working on a new show, which is completely opposite of the last one. I'm an asian god in The Good Woman of Setzuan by Bertolt Brecht. I am learning heaps simply by exploring. It's been a good experience so far. Dates will follow.

I've also been seeing some good theatre. Last night I went to see The Constant Wife at the Stanley Theatre on Granville. If you see any theatre this month, see that show. I was delighted and charmed, I could not stop smiling. I would even go again.

Holy Mo opens at Pacific Theatre this week, Feb. 6. Make sure you get out to see that show.

One Thing I Love:
Going to theatre alone
Song of the Day:
For Emma by Bon Iver

Perfect Fear

I was only on the fourth page or so before I got that choking feeling in my throat.
Twenty seconds later the sob came out. I hardly ever read such honest and vulnerable writing.
Grief has a way of doing that.
I'm reading a book for a new idea that is in my head. I shouldn't say new, it's been in there for awhile, but newish.
I want to be able to write like that. My heart out on the page. My craving is to be understood. My desire is to be noticed. But then I realize the amount of sacrifice that takes. There is a part of me that wants to hold and nurture it all inside. And yet there is a stronger force telling me this must come out, I need to come out. Need to.

So I will write it. There cannot be fear of failure. There cannot be fear. My love for art is becoming a perfect love that constantly casts out fear.

Not Today

I wanted to hold your hand and walk with you through foreign lands
Unsure of where this road might lead, never once thought to stop me
Weather does not determine whether or not I'll get lost in my thoughts
And tell time by the sun overhead, longing for things unsaid

Today there's still pain
I know I've got to move on but it's just not the same
And anything that I say won't make sense, not today, not today

And I'll walk through this forest alone
While the birds above sing of home
Moon, rise up fast and shed your light
Change this dark day into night
'If only' the words that keep the here from there
No longer hold their scare
Because 'if only' were to happen here
It still would not take my tears

Today there's still pain
I know I've got to move on but it's just not the same
And anything that I say won't make sense, not today
It's like pretending you're find
That you're okay but not today

I'm crying out for God, I'm crying for the things I love

Today, there's still pain
I know I've got to move on, but it's just not the same
And anything that I say won't make sense, not today
It's like pretending you're fine
That you're okay, but not today, not today

- Brendan Kwiatkowski

Babies

Bringing to your attention a new baby blog that has been born.

He was in the last show with me.
Just to let you know.

Forever Ago

Urgh I know. Haven't posted in awhile. I started school again this week, which is proving to be yet again amazing.

Usually I post pieces I have written about a month prior to posting but here's where I've been at recently.


Waiting. All I do is wait.

Falling. All I do is fall.

Doubting. All I do is doubt.

Walking. All I do is crawl.


Waiting. All I do is fall.

Falling. All I do is doubt.

Doubting. All I do is crawl.

Walking. All I do is wait.


Loving. All I see is love.


One Thing I love: pow in whistler. It's blowing my mind right now.
Song of the Day:
Rain by Bishop Allen