I was wrong... so wrong

I saw this picture this morning, and it expressed my... my... I don't want to say "art."
"I get knocked down but I get up again.  You're never gonna keep me down. Pissing the night away."
Stephanie, it's perfect.
I've been doing a lot of soul searching, and by that I mean surfing the 'net.
Boomboom.
I must embrace the spirit of fried potatoes.
Actually, it's not that I must, it's that I can't not.
I hated the loss of my tail.
For Art is noble!
291
And I am distorted...
A line must be drawn somewhere.
Yes, Mother.
E.H.Plötz
#DeadMommiesLive!

But it may come three, two, one, two*

It's been several months since I updated this blog.  My last blog entry was written after the attacks in Paris.  I hit publish, but didn't post on social media that I had written anything.  I wasn't sure then and I'm not sure now that what I wrote didn't trivialize something of tremendous pain to so many.

My life and my writing has been in transition for the last year.

Last summer I wrote 90 short plays in 90 days.

Before this I had been working on a play about my experiences as a foster parent.  The play seemed artificial and forced.  I wrote thirty pages that I didn't like.

During the 90 in 90, I found myself writing a large number of short plays about my experiences as a foster parent.  When I returned to the play I was working on earlier, I realized that I had already written a play about fostering.  I gathered the best of the 90 in 90 and compiled them along with a one-act I'd written two years ago for FronteraFest into the play I had dreamed of writing about foster parenting.

I was struggling.  Trying, again, to force the words out.  To make it be a play with "internal logic."  A classical, traditional play with a beginning, a middle, and an end, in that order.  A "well-made" play.  A play with a coherent plot and character development presented in a normal chronological order.

Maybe that's just not me.

What I have is once again... not surreal.  It's not a dream.  Most of what is on the page is autobiographical... very autobiographical.  But as you can imagine for a play made of 30 or 40 smaller pieces scrambled together... it's surreal... with touches of Brecht... just for fun.

I also wrote a high school play.

And then the desert.  I have written nothing for four months.  Some of it was life (household repairs, health, etc.) getting in the way.  Some is just lack of... motivation... or rather focusing on a different area of my life.  Focusing on the practical, the everyday.  Things I often neglect.

I have dreamed of projects.  I've made notes.  I've done research...
...but I have not written more than a few words.

Nothing has inspired... yet.

But I can hear the Siren's call.


*The Monkees - "Ditty Diego - War Chant"

10 Aug 2015

PROMPT:  In the middle of a poem, write a scene. In the middle of a scene, write a novel. In the middle of a novel, sing a song.  In the middle of a song, close your mouth and leave the room.

Kirk Lynn, playwright/educator

George, 35, hops around on one foot.  He’s not very good, kind of wobbly.  Clairese, 33, enters.  She stops and watches George for a moment.
CLAIRESE
What are you doing, George?
GEORGE
(stops, standing on one foot looking around)
Ummm... hopping on one foot.
CLAIRESE
(annoyed)
I can see that you’re hopping.  Why are you hopping?
GEORGE
(hopping again)
Because it’s the only thing that makes sense.
CLAIRESE
Hopping on one foot.  How the hell does hopping on one foot make sense?
GEORGE
(stops)
Does anything else make sense?
CLAIRESE
No!
George begins hopping again.
CLAIRESE
(rolling her eyes)
That doesn’t mean hopping on one foot makes sense!
GEORGE
Who ever said it did?
CLAIRESE
You did!
GEORGE
I did?
CLAIRESE
I asked what you were doing.
GEORGE
Hopping around on one foot.
CLAIRESE
I know!  Would you shut up!
GEORGE
Can I sing?
CLAIRESE
No you can’t sing!
GEORGE
But I know a wonderful little song.
(reciting and hopping)
Twinkle, twinkle little bat...
CLAIRESE
That’s not a song!  It’s a poem!
GEORGE
Poems used to be songs and now songs are poems.
CLAIRESE
Shut up!  Shut up! Shut up!  Please just shut up!
GEORGE
(hopping)
Shutin’ up here boss.
CLAIRESE
George...!
GEORGE
(interrupting, hopping)
You don’t have to tell me twice to shut up.
CLAIRESE
Yes I do!
GEORGE
I know when to shut up.
CLAIRESE
No you...!
GEORGE
(interrupting, hopping, miming locking his lips)
Tic-a-lock.
CLAIRESE
(screaming)
Shut up!!!!
George puts his hand over his mouth and hops.  Clairese paces wildly in a rage.
CLAIRESE
What is wrong with you!?
GEORGE
Noth...
CLAIRESE
Shut up!
George hops.  Clairese paces and fumes.
CLAIRESE
(finally)
What am I supposed to do with you!?
George opens his mouth, but then remembers that he is supposed to be silent.  He hops and closes his mouth.
CLAIRESE
What am I supposed to do with you?!
George hops and shrugs.
CLAIRESE
You drive me crazy!
Clairese paces and finally turns again to George.
CLAIRESE
What have you got to say for yourself?!
George hops and mimes locking his mouth.
CLAIRESE
Speak!
GEORGE
(smiling)
Woof!
CLAIRESE
You are such an idiot!
George stops.  He takes a deep breath.
GEORGE
(serious for the first time)
What do you want me to say?
CLAIRESE
Why do you act like this?!
Clairese starts hopping around and looking stupid.  She stops.
GEORGE
(chastened)
I don’t know.
CLAIRESE
You don’t know!?  You don’t know?!
GEORGE
It... it relaxes me.
CLAIRESE
It relaxes you!!?
GEORGE
(indicating all around him)
I’m in a beautiful house.
(indicating Clairese)
I have beautiful wife.
(beat)
And I ask myself, how did I get here.
Silence.
CLAIRESE
How did you get here?!!
GEORGE
How did I get here?
Silence.
CLAIRESE
(calming a bit)
How did you get here?
GEORGE
I don’t know... Luck, good fortune... grace.
Silence.
CLAIRESE
Grace.
George hops and looks at Clairese.
Clairese, sighs, shrugs, and finally, hops.
End of play.

19 July 2015

PROMPT:


Dr. Heidi Russell, 36, well-dressed with glasses, sits behind her desk.  Edgar, 58, enters.
HEIDI
I’m disappointed, Edgar.
EDGAR
(with a shrug)
I gave it a shot.  Groucho meets Bugs Bunny in the fifth dimension.
HEIDI
This is an important grade, Edgar.  I will give you a chance to rewrite the paper or turn in a new one, if you wish.
EDGAR
That very generous of you, Dr. Russell, but I don’t think more time or thought would make any difference.
HEIDI
You can’t really believe what you wrote?!
EDGAR
Of course I believe it.
HEIDI
We’ve been to the Moon, Edgar.  We’ve just taken close up pictures of Pluto. We’re on the verge of solving the mysteries of the universe...
EDGAR
What difference does any of that make?
HEIDI
What difference?!  What difference!?
EDGAR
Yea.  What difference?
HEIDI
It’s... it’s...
EDGAR
We still dig rocks out of the ground, melt the metal out, process the metal into car parts, assemble two tons of these parts, half way around the world, ship the assemble vehicles to a car park nearby, dig crude oil from half way around the world, ship it in giant ships to this country for processing, then ship small quantities of it to local stores on many, many corners of every city on the globe, so you and me and my grandmother can go to the mini-mart for soda pop that is killing us.  And that’s not even the tip of the iceberg.
HEIDI
I understand how you feel, Edgar, but the advance in science and medicine...
EDGAR
Medicine is amazing.  My life expectancy is into the nineties.  I’m going to far outlive the money I’ve earned. Children in this country and most of the modern world don’t die of illness that used to wipe out one in three.  And for what?  We can’t control population growth.  Malthus may have had the date wrong, but not the wrong principle.  The planet cannot sustain our species much longer, even if we stop, today, global warming.
HEIDI
We’ll find a way...
EDGAR
And what way will we find when Alabama gets the bomb?
HEIDI
What?!
EDGAR
It’s an old joke, but not that far-fetched.  Iran can make bombs, Saudi’s certainly can, the Israeli’s. The list grows daily.  Sooner or later...
Edgar jabs an imaginary button in his opposite palm.
HEIDI
Edgar...
EDGAR
And you know, better than I, how we treat tens of thousands of our own children in this country.  You told me you were you’d been in foster care as a kid when I said I was a foster parent.
HEIDI
I... I was...
EDGAR
Were you an orphan?
HEIDI
No.
EDGAR
No.  Most of the kids in foster care aren’t.  Their parent abused, neglected, or abandoned them.
HEIDI
(quietly)
My father is in prison still for killing a man in a bar.  My mother used heroin.  She beat me and she... she... pimped me out for drugs starting when I was ten.
EDGAR
How many foster homes were you in?
HEIDI
I... I don’t know.
EDGAR
You seem to be doing very well.
HEIDI
I meet with a psychiatrist once every other month to keep my meds balanced and I go to therapy twice a week.
Heidi pulls up her sleeves and shows the scars on her wrists and arms, some of them appear relatively new.
HEIDI
I... I cut... sometimes.
EDGAR
(sympathetic and apologetic)
Oh, Dr. Russell.  I... didn’t know.
Heidi quickly roles down her sleeves.
HEIDI
I shouldn’t have done that.
EDGAR
I won’t... tell anyone.
HEIDI
I know.  I wouldn’t have shown you if I didn’t trust you.
EDGAR
Dr. Russell...
HEIDI
Please, when we’re in my office, you can call me Heidi.
EDGAR
Heidi.  I know that my... my point of view about the world is hard to understand.
HEIDI
I understand it completely.  I just don’t want to believe it.
EDGAR
I didn’t believe it for a long time.  I believed that we were an intelligent and rational species that could and would solve the any and all problems.
HEIDI
(slight laugh)
And then you became a foster parent.
EDGAR
(laughing)
No.  As a matter of fact, foster parenting was my response to realizing that our nearest ancestors on the evolutionary ladder solve their problems by throwing feces at each other.
HEIDI
You became a foster parent because humans are stupid.
EDGAR
It seemed reasonable at the time.  I certainly don’t regret that decision.  And foster parenting has given me a chance to develop a more positive side to my philosophy.
HEIDI
Why didn’t you... why don’t you write your paper about that?!
EDGAR
Writing is a linear, logical, exercise.  What I believe... what I hope, is non-linear and non-logical.  I believe we will never solve the mysteries of the universe, because they are ever changing.  The universe is not a rational place.  The laws of physics may apply in this tiny corner, but...
(gesturing to the heavens)
...out there are angels.  I believe angels are the missing matter of the universe.  There is no atom smasher that can break an angel down into its constituent parents.  No detector that can quantify how many them there are.  But they bind the universe.  And even if one day, we pass on from this planet, the angels will protect whatever is important.
HEIDI
I hope we are important.
EDGAR
I hope we are too.
End of play.

Resolution of these Two States, Dream and Reality*

I went to a reading yesterday afternoon of a play I liked very much.  The play was a science fiction set in the not-to-distant future.

I stayed for the "Talk Back."

The moderator and, I presume, the author asked questions about how well we, the audience, understood and followed the internal logic of the play; did the "world" of the play make sense.  I listened, added a brief comment or two, and left happy with the whole experience.

It wasn't until I lay in bed trying to go to sleep that it struck me.

I've been to a quite a few "Talk Backs."  One discussion point always seems to be the internal logic of the play and I thought of one of my touch stones in modern theater, Alfred Jarry.

Did Alfred Jarry ever wonder about the internal logic of his plays?  Did August Strindberg?

My sense is "no."

But is there a market for this sort of thing, plays without internal logic?  A market is important.  I don't write plays for my health..., not that I'm likely to get wealth, but I would, at least, like a few people to see my stuff.  In fact, if I must be honest, and I don't, and, in fact, rarely am, I would like to make a living from writing theater... or film... or television.

I grew up on television.  Internal logic is a high priority for most standard adult fare on TV.

And so much of the modern theater seems... driven is to strong a word, influenced (?), informed (?), I don't know, by TV and film.  TV and film is where the money is.

But there are/were some exceptions - Bob Newhart, Mary Hartman, Green Acres, Warner Brothers cartoons.  And that's just off the top of my head.

All comedies.  Probably explains, partially, why I am attracted to comedies.

But the anti-rational does not have to be comedic.

I want to create a non-rational, illogical, free-spirited theater.

Now... how do you do that...?

And get anyone to attend?


* Andre Breton, Manifesto of Surrealism

Be regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois*

I gave my two latest plays to my mentor and friend to read and he faithfully did so.

He really liked them, the ideas, the language, but said that they lacked emotion, putting his thumb on my major problem.

I have known that I struggle to get emotion into my plays.  They are often filled with ideas, but lack intensity.  That's why I often write comedies.  I have no problem writing jokes.  Emotions other than laughs, I find difficult to embody.

And it's not that I struggle with this in my personal life.  I have no trouble recognizing and talking about my emotions to others.  My wife recently remarked that I'm quite good at it.  She too wondered why I had so much difficulty getting my emotions into my work.

There are two issues here: 1) the way my brain works; 2) the subjects I choose to write about.

When I write, my brain is always looking for just the right word.  This is an intellectual process for me.  The part of my brain being used is disengaged from my feelings.  This is a good thing in that I write often lovely and well expressed thoughts... and a bad thing in that they are thoughts being expressed and not emotions.  I suspect that with work on my editing, I can overcome this problem.

The second, the subjects I choose to write about often come from my intellect and not from my core.  This is both a good thing and a bad thing.  Good in that I have no lack of ideas that I find interesting and that get me writing.  Negative in that instead of writing about what moves me, I almost always write about what interests me.  Even when I put a gun in a characters hand, I struggle to bring the violence inherent in the weapon to the stage.

And my solution... rationally, I know I have to write something emotional.

I have always been drawn to the emotional in other's art work.  I read about anti-rationalism, the Counter-Emlightenment, Sturm und Drang, Romanticism, melodrama, etc.  I believe that the universe is a non-rational place.

And yet, I love mathematics and the physical sciences.  This is what I studied in college.  I still remember basic Calculus and it's been thirty years since I was in a classroom using this on a daily basis.

But if I am to become a "successful" artist, and isn't that what we all want, even if defining what success means is different for all of us, I have to tap into my emotions... somehow.


*Gustave Flaubert