Holidaze

Another groovy holiday season! Christmas with the family, which is the best thing about Christmas for me, out of many fine things about Christmas; most of the gifts I gave seem to have gone down well, and I got a slew of Eric Rohmer movies. Rohmer makes films that resonate with me, right down to bone marrow. They are as true as anything in film.

Our play, the Reindeer Monologues, went well overall despite a couple of frustrating nights. I believe it was Noel Coward who once said of a performance that it was a success, but the audience was a complete disaster. I'm less troubled by quiet audiences than most actors I know, since I was raised in a church of the frozen chosen, so I'm accustomed to quiet audiences/congregations, but glowering, unlaughing audiences are a bit demoralizing. I'm sorry, but if you didn't find anything to enjoy in our show, you should seriuosly consider the possibility that your life is a charred pit of misery and failure, and could use some reconstruction.

One of the actresses in our show was visited by her two sisters, who were delightful. Too bad they live far away... I keep meeting delightful women who are only visiting Alabama. Perhaps this is an indication that I need to leave the freakin' state, already.

We had a meeting to discuss the Politically Incorrect Cabaret, in which I'll be playing a part this time. I've enjoyed watching it in the past, and am pleased to be doing it! We're discussing the possibility of my playing Howard Dean and abusing the Democrats almost as cruelly as we do the Republicans. The cabaret members are divided between the "Democrats are perfect" camp and the "Tough love for democrats" camp of which I am a member, so it could be contentious. Still, at the moment there are many Republicans who are need of tough contempt, like the deceptively named Virgil Goode of Virginia, whose recent anti-Islam comments reveal that it isn't necessary to have the mental capacity of an adult human in order to be elected. In fact, I think it's time to initiate a new feature here at the blog, to be titled "The Platinum Douchebag," an award to be given on a semi-occasional basis to people whose mere existence proves that the human race ain't much. (Hey, anything to drive up the ratings.) Congratulations to Virgil Goode, recipient of the first Platinum Douchebag. Wear it with pride.

But hey, he'll get his at some point. Here's hoping we all get what we've got coming this year!

Le Morte D'Arthur

I've started reading this big thing, and so far (nearly done with Book One of about a zillion) it's way more fun than I expected! Two things jump out at me:

1. Arthur is presented as a hothead, with Merlin showing up and finger-wagging him into behaving more wisely than Arthur is inclined to do. Merlin plays a role not unlike that of many biblical prophets. Also, much of Merlin's wisdom seems like the kind of thing a hotheaded young man needs to hear: don't seek revenge against a potential valuable ally, etc.

2. Like all fantasy nerds, I've always though that one essential characteristic of archaic language is a certain stylized flowerness. E. R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroborus, the King James Bible and Shakespeare have a lot to answer for in this regard, although they do it well to wonderfully. Malory puts paid to this notion, with a prose style that is archaic but as simple and direct as Hemingway. The clarity and terseness of his prose stays out of the story's way.

Old Tyme Religion

Sorry, D&T, the last post was less gracious than it should have been; ya'll are dear friends indeed; I sympathize with your intentions and thank you for the gift. But I'm no more likely to return to the flock than ya'll are to add The End of Evangelion to your shortlist of favorite films.

Today I regard myself as a Unitarian pantheist; I believe that God, the idea of God, is a focus for our reverence, awe, hopes, fears and faith in the face of life and the universe. It's a bit like Yeats' thing about fairies that I commented on a few posts back; he was right to believe in fairies, but incorrect to believe that fairies were factual. They weren't factual; they were true. I believe much the same about God. So the literal-mindedness of the intelligent design crowd leaves me cold, while the vibrant, engaged faith of any number of people excites and inspires me.

It's the thought that counts.

My first Christmas present has arrived, and it is a book titled The Case For A Creator, sent by some dear friends from my old stomping grounds in Chattanooga TN. I'll certainly give it a day in court, although at a glance it looks like more of the Intelligent Design stuff that I find utterly uncompelling.

Lately I'm engaging two Christian writers whom I find more persuasive, or at least more relevant... one is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who tried to help assassinate Hitler, and paid with his life for his efforts. That's a pretty compelling faith-into-action story, but even putting such autobiographical elements aside, his writings are richly resonant, so far. I need to stop looking for online snippets and actually get a book of his; he wrote a few, and they're highly regarded on their own merits.

The other is Charles Williams, the forgotten Inkling. I finally got my hands on a copy of his book Descent Into Hell, and while I haven't started it yet it promises to be a haunting look at Williams' powerfully intense Christ-centered mystical worldview. I can't wait.

Just to be fair...

A "Cut him some slack" post from liberal cartoonist and columnist Ted Rall. Of course Rall needs to cut Danny Hellman some slack, Hellman being a talented illustrator and prankster who pulled a mean prank on Rall and has been in court for years as a result. So here's the deal: Ted, drop the lawsuit and I'll, uh, stop dissing Mallard Fillmore. Deal? Probably not.

Reindeer Monologues

Birmingham Festival Theatre is doing Reindeer Monologues again this year, and I'm trying to relearn my monologue. I'm finding that it's familiar enough to take for granted, but not familiar enough that I actually know the thing. It's going to be fun to do it again, but relearning it may be a bit of a chore. Some of my fellow returning reindeer are reconcieving their roles, and while I'm not planning any sweeping changes I am trying to fine tune a few things. On the other hand I somewhat agree with David Mamet that actor-y acting, lots of technique, is mostly wasted effort. I worry that honing the perfect line readings will only distract me from maintaining clear energy and focus. a sequence of polished line readings could, perhaps, result in a credible performance, but mightn't it end up pasteurized and homogenized? That's no good.

In this show Comet is a spin doctor, and I based a lot of my rhetorical choices on preachers. Only after the show closed did I realize that Chuck Swindoll had been my main model, since he's the only fiery preacher I ever heard growing up. I suspect he must be less sociopolitically conservative than many preachers with that fiery Billy Sunday style, since my Mom listened to him regularly. One interesting detail: whenever I delivered Comet's spin-filled defense of the play's wayward Santa it was impossible (for me, anyway) to not think of Karl Rove et al. Will the monologue play a bit differently now that Rove and company have had to eat an all too thin sliver of humble pie?

Speaking of oversized political figures, I have a notion of what my next performance after Reindeer Monologues may be, but it's only a tenuous offer so I shouldn't say much more. But it would involve playing a satirical version of a real-life politico.

Is anything else going on? I got a car, but it's bad luck to even acknowledge the existence of these terrible things; any little jinx will cause them to break down. Oh, but speaking of car trouble, did you hear that Bruce Tinsley, the guy who does the abysmal comic strip Mallard Fillmore, got busted for drunk-ass driving? Second offense on four months? And he accused the cops of hassling him out of some kind of grudge? Source... Way to duck (No pun intended) that personal responsibility to which you guys give so much lip service, Little Tinsley Jesus!

Truth be told, I'm not getting my schadenfreude on because of his position on the sociopolitical spectrum, but because, as comics critic R. Fiore put it in
The Comics Journal, Tinsley should be arrested for impersonating a cartoonist. You can be as far right as you want if you're funny or insightful. You'll never hear me dis P. J. O'Rourke, who's a rock-ribbed conservative, but is also brilliantly funny. And if O'Rourke were busted for drunk driving, he'd own up to it. Heck, it would fit his Republican Party Reptile persona. Considering how many conservative figures have fallen to the hypocrisy problem in recent months, I'd suggest more of them drop the spray-on "Values" and become RPRs like O'Rourke. Hey, if the values are really your values, great, but if not, find some other way to pander to the base.

Edit: Obviously Tinsley needs to do the decent thing and say "I've got a problem. I'm seeking help." I hope he gets it. I suspect there's a connection between the quivering nastiness of his comics and his alcohol problem. By "nastiness" I emphatically do not mean "conservatism."

Hidden Histories

I'm often curious about how much of the real story slips past. I was recently thinking about the Ecoscape at my alma mater, Birmingham-Southern College. It's a lovely and intriguing botanical garden, with hiking trails, trash art (huge shiny insects and such made of refuse) and a high treehouse of which I'm fond. I haven't visited the Ecoscape in years, but it's a happy place in my memories. Anyway, my friend Matthew, who was my college roommate, helped build it. I was oddly oblivious to it at the time; he talked about it (he called it the Ecoplex) but I wasn't good at engaging what people said back then. But he was putting his heart and soul into it; as president of the campus enviromental organization he was pivotal in the preperation and the persperation involved in turning an undeveloped field into an artful garden peppered with sculpture.

Here's the part that makes this cool to me: he was doing all this partly for a grade, but mostly to take his mind off an ex-girlfriend. Years later the woman in question visited the Ecoscape as a returning alum, and took some lovely digital snapshots of the gardens. When Matthew and I perused these photos he commented that she didn't know the Ecoscape was in no small measure a monument to her, or at least to his feelings about her.

Matthew and the ex-girlfriend are now happily married, although not to each other.

Anyway, I think it's too bad most people who visit or even work at the Ecoscape will never know about these sentimental layers undergirding the gardens. But that's true of most places, isn't it? There are so many stories we'll never know about the places where we live.

Matthew, please don't cave my skull in and bury me in the Ecoscape for telling this story.