Year 4, Day 231: Shakespeare Institute -- Two sides to every story.

I have once again written about five blog posts since the last one I posted, and then either summarily dismissed and deleted them, or set them aside to be finished at some other unspecified time.  I am hoping this one will make it through my tireless need to self-edit.  I am still convinced that people, just nameless-faceless people, troll the internet looking for ideas to steal, so I am more than a little wary about posting anything anymore.  That being said, I have decided to take back my own voice and to stop being scared of expressing my thoughts, at least on here.  Edited to say: Read this one while you can because who knows how long before I delete it.

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Chapter 1:

One of my favorite quotes from the recent years of reading and writing are the first words of a philosophical treatise (read as, "book") that I had the pleasure of first picking up years ago.  It was, in fact, the first one of its kind that I picked up for my Master's course at NYU over five years ago now.  It was John Dewey's book, Experience and Education.  Several people in my life have heard me go on and on about this book on the philosophy of teaching, and fewer still have heard me speak about this idea I'm going to discuss here as briefly as I can.

"Mankind likes to think in terms of extreme opposites.  It is given to formulating its beliefs in terms of Either-Ors, between which it recognizes no intermediate possibilities.  When forced to recognize that the extremes cannot be acted upon, [human-kind] is still inclined to hold that they are all right in theory but that when it comes to practical matters circumstances compel us to compromise" (p.17).

This idea that man and woman are inclined to believe, think, act, and educate all within the concept of creating a polarity of thought to achieve these ideals feels correct.  The added stipulation that we compromise those extreme opposites when it comes to practical matters also feels like more than just truth, but bordering on a human fact of life.  'We will always want the best for ourselves, but will be forced to compromise our ideals when we must deal with the wants and needs of others.'  This is not an academic or scientific question that I am positing here, but rather something that I feel particularly qualified to pose, a philosophical idea.

Stay with me here as I would like to build on what Dewey has already stated.  What he was talking about was our tendency to create polarities, not only to define what we think and feel about the world, but also who we are, how we vote, what food/movies/books/ideas/people we like, and how we generally treat ourselves and others.  The first step in discussing this issue is by recognizing that Dewey's statement can be taken as truth.  This is most easily exemplified by the very existence of politicians.  If one politician states that they are (for example) against overly taxing people who make more than a certain amount of money, there is an immediate (human) response in voters to either agree or disagree with that idea.  By expressing a preference, the politician has created a polarity.  In fact, I could probably posit that without polarity, politics (and newspapers) would not even exist, but that is an entirely different discussion.

The strange reality of that situation (or any) is that the answer to that question, "Should we tax people according to their income?" is never so binary as saying, "I agree" or "I disagree," though the world as we know it has come to believe it so.  Sometimes we forget that we are dealing with human beings, who are as complex in thought as we ourselves have been known to be from time to time.  It is not a binary decision that has to be made, (and here is where I deviate from my mentor, Dewey,) it is also not degrees of compromise that we must consider as our alternatives to thinking decisions must be made one way or the other.  Though humankind "is given to formulating its beliefs in terms of Either-Ors", the mechanics of thought are not as two or even one-dimensional as believing one answer is the complete opposite of another.  Rather, think of the decisions that are expected of you on a daily basis as more organic than the choices that are made up or given to you by those roles or people in life that are served by creating polarities (politics, news, religion, interior design, etc.).  Put simply, and in parlance to those that might one day read this blog, think of these decisions as items on the menu at Starbucks.  One decision does not discount the validity or undo the decision made at another time or by another person.  These decisions you make at Starbucks (1-pump, half-caf, extra-shot, grande skinny vanilla mocha with a scoop of matcha) are as personal to you as your politics should be, your taxes should be, and your opinions on life should be.  We forget that the people we meet in life are as nuanced in their emotional maturity as we are.  That getting turned down for that job seemed like a binary decision on the part of that guy in the interview, but it was (and always will be) far more complicated a situation than just, "he didn't like you" or "the guy they hired was best friends with the CEO", even though popular fiction movies and news stories would have you believe it so.

Chapter 2:

The reason I have been thinking about this is not because I want to try and make life's simple decisions (i.e. to go to the bathroom or wait for the next rest stop) more and more complicated.  It is because I believe that I can be better in recognizing those polarities and ridding my life of thinking about them in that way.  The most poignant and recognized polarities in my world these days are racism and sexism.  This is not because I identify or know anyone that identifies as a racist or a sexist (in fact, I'm trying to picture an even moderately intelligent human being walking around and saying to folks, "Hi I am a sexist/racist" and I can't imagine who that would be).  Rather, I know LOTS of people who have identified racist or sexist tendencies in other people.  The 'conversation' usually begins with the words, "Everyone is saying..." or "I'm tired of hearing that..." or "People say...", or something that amounts to the speaker being on one side of their argument and 'people' being on the other side.  Republicans and Democrats have been using this tactic for as long as there has been a reporter there to record it.  The reason that this is important at all, is that this kind of thinking has even begun to affect the way that modern artwork is portrayed and interpreted.

Most recently, a twitter-hashtag cropped up on my Facebook feed called #StarringJohnCho.  The artist, William Yu, used an incredibly intelligent manner of addressing an issue of racism in the entertainment industry, and the artwork used one of my favorite actors as the subject of many movie poster mash-ups (John Cho - whose work includes Go On and Selfie, two tragically named yet brilliantly written and acted short-lived TV shows of the past ten years.)  John Cho in a picture that replaces Matt Damon's face with his as the star of "The Martian" was amongst the number of mash-ups I saw there.  It was interesting and even at times thought-provoking.

"I'm tired of hearing from people that they can't 'see' an Asian American actor playing the romantic lead or the hero, so I created #StarringJohnCho to literally show you," he said."

See the link here.

He's not wrong and he may have indeed heard from many people on the internet, in person, over the phone, or by smoke signal that some person or another cannot physically or metaphysically see an Asian-American actor as a romantic lead.  In the circle of people this twitter-author may keep to, there might even be a thousand comments to his website agreeing or disagreeing with this idea.

Not the artwork, neither the obvious message that has been handed to us, nor even the blatant problem in the entertainment industry that this artwork addresses has tried to polarize our thoughts.  In fact, the mash-up of these photos allows my imagination to run with ideas of cultural plurality on the level of Star Trek meets Star Wars (and all of the races, cultures, and creeds that might introduce.)  It is the artist, and the BBC reporter that wrote about it, who have provided us not only with the problem that we as human beings face, but also that which so many of didn't even know we craved: the answer.  ("Here is John Cho.  An Asian-American actor.  He looks like a leading man, doesn't he? Cast him as a leading man and all will be *maybe* forgiven.")  This artist and his reporter are two pieces to this one example, and yet there is no end to the polarities we face on a day-to-day basis.

Chapter 3:

On some level or another I believe that at one point in my life I have thought these things:

I believe that I must fight racism, because I have been told that it is form of hatred.

I must fight sexism, because that too, is hatred incarnate.

I must identify those that practice racism and sexism and work to banish them from our world.

I thought I'd address these two as representative of these kinds of polarities in our day-to-day lives as there are a few things that must be noted about racism and sexism.

Despite our world history, where sexism and racism have been very nearly palpable movements in political and cultural circles (and still are today in some African and Middle Eastern cultures, from what I understand), these are not ideas based solely on hate (though some would like to believe it so, because they would like to be thought of as fighting on the side of "love").  Sexism and racism are truly the weapons of those that wish to divide our understanding of the world into two camps.  It is the human condition to try and boil down our understanding of other people's motives into right and wrong, good and bad, up and down, left and not-left, and to be or not to be... though it is easy to do so, this can not and should not be the only question left to us: which side do we fall on?

There are many old sayings that continue to segregate, polarize, and partition our ideas, and my favorite is: "You gotta pick a side," or "There are two sides to every story."  What I will begin to do in my life is no longer accept the premise of these statements.  I have to stop thinking of the world in terms of black and white, or shades of grey as I compromise between two arbitrary, so-called opposites.  I must make my thinking reflect who I am as a person: complicated, muddled, plural-thinking, and three dimensional.  There are always more than two sides to any argument and if I can't find a third or fourth answer to some fairly simple questions I must begin to refuse the premise of the argument and ask a different question of myself.  Sometimes I hear people quoting Hamlet as if it were some kind of gospel, as if "to be or not to be" were actually a question, or indeed the only question that needed answering, when there is so much more to life than asking and answering queries of whether or not life should be lived at all.  I believe Shakespeare wrote it with a suicidal/homicidal, clinically depressed Prince of Denmark in mind, so if you fit that description, well, your life has already be kind of decided for you now hasn't it?  What's the point of it all?

To be, or not to be? That is the question—

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep—

No more—and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished! To die, to sleep.

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. -- Hamlet (III.i.57-69)

Year 4, Day 231 -- Words Written: 11,259 (for this chapter).

Year 4, Day 117: Shakespeare Institute -- Red.

I have written five long blog posts since October, and published none of them.  They were accounts of my gripes, concerns, problems, questions, and observations for the past three months.  I have also put in work on a play I wrote years ago so that it might one day be shot as a short film (probably not).  I have been heavily editing myself these past few months because of what I might say in a public forum, and how that will be used against me later on in life.  I am far more important to the world in my own mind than I am in real life.

In movies and on the television, we, as a society, are constantly shown dramatic representations of the masses, or the 'red shirts' of society.  In the original Star Trek series, all of the commanding officers of the Enterprise wore gold or blue shirts, the plebes, the technicians, the less-than-officers of the ship were relegated to wearing red and were, more often than not, the ones that died in every episode, unceremoniously and without much regard from their captain or shipmates.  The 'red shirts' died as they walked into traps, or when the ship had been hit by the enemy's photon torpedoes.  They were the ones to fall about the ship or go flying out into the emptiness of space.  The crew would have a moment of silence for their 'fallen comrades' and then by the end of each episode it was onto the next adventure.

When we see the statistic on the news, in paper or on the screen, of people hurt or killed somewhere those lives are the 'red shirts' of our world.  When we see those pictures, or lists of names, we pray that we aren't living in the episode where someone close to the protagonist of our story is now no longer on the show.  Occasionally it will be someone we once met that we can then pay tribute to on our Facebook wall, and 'have all the feelings' about for a day or so, and not so occasonally and far more tragically, it will be someone that makes us disappear from the TV show of our lives altogether. Or at least for a month or two before the inevitable 'press release' announcing the death of a loved one comes out, thanking literally everyone for the love and support they have shown to us during our troubled time.  It never occurs to us that we are the red shirts, and we are the statistics, and one day, we too will be relegated to a press release, and/or an obituary, and a tear or two from the people closest to us.  How does that make you feel?

There are two, and only two, possible responses to this:

1. Well, shit.  That kind of sucks.  You mean I'm not going to star in a movie in Hollywood, or become best friends with ScarJo or have a Kardashian at my wedding?  I'm not going to cure cancer, become a famous lawmaker/lawbreaker, or live the life of a suffering artist only to be appreciated late in life when I sell one of my paintings for a million dollars?  I'm not going to do any of that?  I'm going to spend the rest of my life as a boring, and quite possibly sad, teacher of theatre in some backwater town whose students will never amount to anything beyond corporate desk jockies and gas station attendants?  I will be average?  I'm going to die without having anything to show for it?

2. Wait a second, are you telling me that there are other people out there like me?  I'm not alone?  I'm not alone.  Do you think they'd want to star in a movie with me?  I bet they do.  Do you think that their story is just as interesting as mine is, or better?  Can I tell their story?  I want to tell their story.  I want to hear their story first, and then tell it to other people.  Do they think about the same stuff I do?  Are they afraid like I am?  Where do I meet these people?  Don't I see them on the street everyday?  It can't be that hard to smile at someone who passes me, because maybe they'll smile back, and then I won't be just a 'red shirt' to them... at least for the second, or minute, or hour that I get to spend with them.  I won't be average in their eyes, and when I am gone they will remember me just like I will remember them?

Was Shakespeare a 'red shirt'?

"When beggars die, there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes." - Julius Caesar (II.ii.30)

"Dare'st thou die?
The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great
As when a giant dies." - Measure for Measure (III.i.77)

Year 4, Day 117 - Words Written: More than you.

Year 4, Day 17: Shakespeare Institute -- I am Spartacus, and Caesar.

The fourth year of my PhD has begun, and the occasion has passed without any fanfare.  I am still writing this monster of a thesis, and will be for another two years.  There is no cause to celebrate this news as it would be like commemorating an un-birthday, a three-years of almost sobriety, or a Tuesday.  As in, the person experiencing the event considers the idea to be mundane so if you try to throw them a party, they will most likely find an excuse to leave early.  Now, because we were talking about it, I'd like to tell you my thoughts on the broad idea of meta-theatre, as it has pervaded my thesis and thus my life and everything in and around it.  Gather round children...

First, I must catch everyone up by answering the relatively easy question of: What is meta-theatre? According to Wikipedia, "metatheatricality is generally agreed to be a device whereby a play comments on itself, drawing attention to the literal circumstances of its own production, such as the presence of the audience or the fact that the actors are actors, and/or the making explicit of the literary artifice behind the production."  Did you get all that? In fact, meta-theatre or meta-drama are expressions that are still seeking exact definition within the western culture of theatre history and analysis, but this one definition is the principal way in which I would like to use the expression here. An act of theatre that is meant to comment on acts of theatre. It is a sometimes self-deprecating, sometimes self-effacing, but mostly just plain selfish act to find the theatre within your own actions. That is, however, what people have been doing since before Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream over four hundred years ago.  Only now, this meta-theatre comes in the form of Instagramming your food because an act of theatre to us human beings is now as ever-present as the cameras we document them with.

To be clear, there is nothing interesting about your food to the casual observer. There is also not anything interesting about your food to you, the photographer, past the moment of you eating it and photographing it, save for a little indigestion or a lot of gas.  It is in that moment you capture your point of interest on camera, however, that the act of personal theatre and thus an act of meta-theatre lies. The moment you point your camera at something, a plate of food - a little boy chasing down pigeons - yourself and three of your BFFs - incorrectly spelled public signage... it is in that moment that you are hovering in an act of metatheatricality. You are aware of the camera as it is capturing your experiences, or at least the experiences you may wish to convey to the "rest of the world" via Facebook. It could be the most mundane out-of-focus off-balance piece of crap shot you've ever taken... but right in that moment, you liked the idea of someone finding you important enough to document your life far more than you were actually enjoying the moment itself. You liked the feeling so much that you documented something else you saw five minutes later, which, if we are being honest, was equally "meh".

The reason this can be called meta-anything is that when you are taking the photo, you already know, even while it is happening, that you plan to look at this photo later on, or seconds after, to make sure that you got the shot that you wanted.  (This idea of "meta" is not cause for the term "meta" to enter your everyday vernacular, and if I hear you saying "that is so meta" I better like you enough NOT to throw something heavy or sharp at you.)

Now that everyone is caught up, here is why I've been thinking about it.  I have become desensitized to the theatre of everyday life.  I feel the same amount of consternation at a politician lying as I do when friends of mine misspell something on social media.  I feel that school shootings in the USA are just as tragic as the spoken, written, and publicized passive platitudes that inevitably follow them, "OMG, this is terrible!"  I fear dying as just a statistic far more than I fear living as one.  The theatre of life has been dulled, and I feel that the Sondheim lyric, "if life were only moments, then you'd never know you had one" should be amended to, "if life is made of moments, make a bigger moment and share it with everyone you know to punctuate the monotony of those other less important ones."  I am aware of all these things as they are happening to me, and yet I cannot stop them.  I am aware that I am absorbing all the stories, all the theatre, all the pain, strife, happiness, power, struggle, ends and beginnings of life all over the world and I have become dulled to it all.  So, after you've become aware of the dull or numb feeling in your life, what is the biggest problem you face?

It's finding the off-switch, the mute button, or the bookmark.  That moment when your eyes are tired, your ears hurt, your throat is sore, and you just need a shower and a nap.  Where nothing is quite so inviting as your pillow, a blanket, and a dark room where no one knows and no one cares.

You will decide whatever it is tomorrow, cause you've heard all that you can handle already today and it's not even noon.

Even this blog post... why did I write this?

Why are you reading it again?

I'm so tired I can only focus on those one sentence truth-bombs that Buzzfeed, Distractify, and politicians are so keen on, and I want so badly to have the energy again to think deeper than that.

Maybe there is a TV show on that can think it for me, or a song lyric that I can quote, or an internet meme that shows me the way, mostly so I can look like I have it together.

I have had the most boring day so I'll pretend to get excited about this spaghetti bolognese.

I won't complain about life unless I can simultaneously lecture someone on how they are doing it all wrong.

Wait, was that someone talking about me?

Hi, my name is David and I'm an addict of the attention I get when I turn on the microphone, and turn up the speakers to 11.

I'm a self-righteous jerk who knows everything about everything and I can't stop.

I can't.

For if someone must be Caesar, I shall fall on that sword.

For I am tired and don't know who else I could possibly listen to but myself.

"I could be well moved if I were as you.
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me.
But I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true-fixed and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.
The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks.
They are all fire and every one doth shine,
But there’s but one in all doth hold his place.
So in the world. 'Tis furnished well with men,
And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive,
Yet in the number I do know but one
That unassailable holds on his rank,
Unshaked of motion. And that I am he
Let me a little show it even in this:
That I was constant Cimber should be banished,
And constant do remain to keep him so." -- Julius Caesar (III.i)

Year 4, Day 17 - Words Written: Over half of all the words.

Year 3, Day 338: Shakespeare Institute -- Pickwick not Drood.

As a PhD student, I am no longer graded on my performance to date.  I am given a current status by my supervisors based on what they think I will do in the future.  I could've just written the academic equivalent to "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" and I'd have still gotten a 'giving cause for concern' if they thought I wouldn't be finished with the project in time.

I have to stop looking for a grade.  I spent 38 years in that system, and even when I got here (England) I was looking for the best grade I could get from the teachers that would soon be my PhD supervisors.  I was looking for approval from my teachers to know if I was doing the right thing.  They didn't tell me I had to stop.  Hell, I didn't even know that was a thing that I had to do.  The worst thing about the grade they give me... it's not even for me.  It's for the University.  So they know how I am doing, and it is my supervisors giving me a 'giving cause for concern' because they are worried about the University saying to them in a year's time, "Why didn't you say anything if you thought the candidate might not finish in time?"  I have to stop looking to these people for a grade because they are not interested in giving me one that is at all related to the work I have done...

I was about to say, "...for them."  I'm doing this for myself, right?  I'm writing this because I want to? What do I think is going to happen after all of this is done... a book deal, an adjunct professorship, a job flipping burgers while thinking deep thoughts about Shakespeare?  What?

Then I remember, it is not the destination that matters, it is how you get there.  This 80,000-word monster is the white whale to my Ahab.  I have never done something so momentous, or thoughtful, or conquered something this scary in my life.  It doesn't matter what anyone else's journey might be or have been when they get the PhD, my experience here is what matters and like a good friend of mine once said, 'It will be the hardest thing you ever do.'  He also added the caveat, 'and, probably not the greatest...' to that, but I am trying to stay positive here and this god-forsaken well-thought out piece o' crap is my Pickwick Papers, and hopefully not my Drood.

Oh, and never tell your supervisors about your health problems.  Just trust me.

---

  There once was a child who'd been diagnosed by every doctor in fifty miles as having fifty diseases, one for each mile and one for each doctor.  Without fail, for every new visit, the doctor said, "I can fix that."  The child would sit quietly, and look to his mother, she'd nod and smile, and then listen to each expert for surely this time they'd tell her they understood what she was going through.  The child would cough, and he'd open up wide.  The doctor would examine, write something on a sheet that would never be seen by anyone but maybe him or his staff when they wanted to remind themselves fondly of this visit.  The child imagined the nurses, sitting in rocking chairs, pining over this doctor's scribble one day saying tenderly, "What a lovely boy!  I do miss him so!"  The child hopped down from the examining table, as he'd done many times before, though it was sometimes a couch, a chair, a bench, or a great big bed with paper sheets that crinkled when you lay down.

  "What's wrong, momma?"

  "Shh, the doctor's talking, sweety." The child reminded himself that when the adults are talking, he should just listen and learn.  He'd ask her later.

  "What's wrong, momma?"

  "What did I just say?"

  "Oh, right.  Sorry, momma.  Sorry, doctor."  Maybe he'd ask her later.

  "Can we go now, momma?"

  "Ok, you sit down in the waiting room and I will be right out."

  "Yes, momma.  Bye, doctor."

  It was the same routine that was done on that last mile and with that last doctor.  "Depression," said one and "Flu," said another.  "Death," said one that his mother cried after leaving.  Couldn't any one of the professionals see what she was going through?  The waiting room smelled like antiseptic feet.

  "Let's go baby.  Just another mile, to another doctor."

  "I can fix that."

  "Shh. The doctor's talking."

  "Palsy."

  "Another more mile.  Just one more."

  "I can fix that."

  "Shh.  I need to hear him."

  "Rheumatism."

  So it went for fifty miles.  Fifty doctors.  Fifty diagnoses.  All of them knew how to fix the boy.  Each time the mother would listen to the doctor, maybe cry, and since none of them understood her she'd take the boy to the next doctor to see what was wrong with him.  The boy wondered if the nurses all went to the same antiseptic feet store for their air freshener, or if there had been a sale.  Never a complaint of how the waiting room smelled, just curiosity.

  On the fifty-first mile, the mother and child saw the last doctor.  They didn't know he was the last one, he just was.  The boy nodded and smiled and his mother looked to him.  Finally, this was someone who understood her.  There was no coughing, or opening his mouth wide.  There was no scribble that the doctor would make for his nurses' keepsake wall.  The mother and son then walked that fifty-one miles, passing each doctor they'd visited on the way back.  They laughed as they remembered what each one had said about the boy, and when they got to the one who'd said, "Death" they both cried when they laughed so hard their bellies hurt.

  On the last mile, the boy thought to ask his mother, "What was wrong, momma, and why did it go away?"

  "Well, that doctor he knew a lot of things.  I saw on his wall that he had a lot of keepsakes and scribbles from other doctors saying that he knew what he was talking about."

  "Did he say, 'I can fix that?'"

  "No, but I did."  The boy nodded and smiled and he looked to his mother.  Finally, this was someone who understood her.  When they got home, the boy and his mother made scribbles and keepsakes of their own, traded them, and laughed about them, and kept them on their wall, one for each mile and one for each doctor.

---

I'd like to tell you which character I am in this story, but mostly I'd like it if I didn't have to tell anyone who they are and who I am ever again, and have everyone just be happy to have read something coherent that I wrote at 8:00 am on Friday morning because I couldn't sleep.  I need sleep, and I get these things popping up in my head instead.  

Don't forget to tip your waitress.

Macbeth
How does your patient, doctor?

Doctor
Not so sick, my lord, as she is troubled with thick-coming fancies that keep her from rest.

Macbeth
Cure her of that! Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon her heart.

Doctor
Therein the patient must minister to himself.

Year 3, Day 338 -- Words Written: A scribble and a keepsake.

Year 3, Day 308: Shakespeare Institute -- Giving Cause for Concern

For a PhD student, nothing stings quite so much as the expression, "Giving Cause for Concern."  It is what they put on your supervision form when they believe you to be underachieving in your writing.  They have just had a supervision with you where you could not answer all of their questions, because part of your process to get the most out of each meeting was to clear your mind (as it is sometimes hard to follow the supervisor's train of thought if you have your own agenda in there) and you couldn't think of a sufficient answer to the question they are now "Giving Cause for Concern" over.  Every time you have a supervision, both of the people assigned to you talk about you and your work until the very moment they have something else going on, a meeting, another victim, a lunch, or something, which can either be a good thing as they are excited by your work, or a bad thing, because they have a lot of criticism for you.  The strange thing is that you don't know which it is until about a day later... because all of us in the PhD business strut around this tiny village day in and day out needing to be taken down a peg or two... when you get the supervision report saying they are "Giving Cause for Concern" over the work you have just handed in.

I have been told I am satisfactory before in these reports.  I really have.  Never a "Very Satisfactory" from them -- which is a real classification, by the way, as if to say one's work could be "incredibly normal" or "ultra-mediocre" if one worked hard enough at it -- but I've been told that I am good enough.  On paper.  Where they, instead of highlighting "Giving Cause for Concern", I imagine them nodding to themselves and saying, "Oh, why not?  He's done an alright job for us this month, nothing incredible, and he certainly doesn't stand out from a crowd.  But we'll give him this moment... Satisfactory!"  It says a lot that you are aiming right at the middle of the bunch when you are writing a PhD (a work that is supposed to be an actual, original piece of scholarship, bt-dubs-) so that you don't rock the boat, or act the upstart, or insult those that have come before you.  I've been told that no one ever recieves a compliment around here, especially about their writing, when they are writing a PhD.  Once again, because us PhD students are the jackasses who invented the "construction-worker-wolf-whistle", the "I-don't-care-if-I'm-standing-in-a-crowded-elevator-fart", and "Donald Trump Hair", and therefore need a dose of humility every chance the administration gets.

I'm fairly certain I'm completely alone on this one.  No other PhD student has ever felt this way, ever. The fact that I have admitted to receiving a "Giving Cause for Concern" means that I am weak-willed and shall never recieve a University appointment, or that I shall be run out of town as soon as the villagers have decided to fire up the torches and pitchforks, or that my supervisors look on me with shame and embarrassment and will insist on calling every academic institution in the world after this to let them know that I am not worthy.  I will be relagated to a minimum-wage customer service call center in the middle of America for AT&T, or CableVision, or Comcast, or Verizon, or the complaint center for Young Misunderstood Democrats in Texas... My brain goes overboard sometimes, but you get the idea.  Getting this 'grade' is bad.

In fact, the only thing I can do, other than throw myself off a metaphorical bridge, is ignore this and move on.  Keep writing the best I can, and keep getting the crap kicked outta me.  Ask for acceptance and get denied.  Keep asking, keep writing, and one day I'll have a PhD and feel relief because I no longer have to ask people if I'm a bad writer.  This bad grade, as it were, is not recognized by me.  If I get kicked to the curb it will undoubtedly be unpleasant, but way less torturous than I have imagined it to be.

Today's lesson: If you tell someone they suck at something often enough, they will eventually ignore you and do it anyway without you.  If you express your disappointment in someone often enough, they will eventually ignore you and be awesome without you.  If you are taking your bad day out on everyone around you often enough, your friends will write it off as a personality quirk and avoid you on those days... your students will believe it is their fault, process this blame-cycle, eventually see reason, then ignore you and do it anyway without you.  Unless you are JK Simmons at the end of Whiplash, then and only then will your dickishness pay off in the form of a killer drum solo.

Dromio:
But I pray, sir, why am I beaten?

Antipholus:
Dost thou not know?

Dromio:
Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten.

Antipholus:
Shall I tell you why?

Dromio:
Ay, sir, and wherefore; for they say, every why hath a
wherefore.

Antipholus:
Why, first, for flouting me, and then wherefore, for
urging it the second time to me.

Dromio:
Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season,
When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason? -- Comedy of Errors (II.ii)

Year 3, Day 308 - Words Written: --Reset Counter Back to "0"--

Year 3, Day 294: Shakespeare Institute - "Listen to the PhD, child..."

The reason I am doing my PhD has been made clear to me many times.  I began this whole process in an effort to make people listen, and a PhD hanging on my office wall might help me do that.  If I publish a book, a few more people might listen.  I could change the world if I could only make people listen.  If only...

Instead, I have come to the conclusion that the PhD is for no one else but myself.  I have studied, researched, and written about Shakespeare, the RSC, and A Midsummer Night's Dream enough to know that a PhD is not a lesson to the rest of the world that speaks volumes about the guy who bothered to write it.  It is a lesson in listening.  You cannot come to a conclusion about someone unless you've heard their story, and even then, it is only speculation.  It is a lesson in learning.  No kidding.  When does research end and scholarship begin?  Right about the time you are no longer a casual observer, but an active participant in the process.  In other words, its as if you were watching a movie and then one of the characters on screen turned to you and asked, "hey, what do you think?" or actually reached through the fourth wall to shake your hand when you proffered it.  Not because you were looking to change things, but because you were paying attention so well that they in turn paid attention to you.  If you listen well enough and ask the questions that need answering, those that you would hear speak, will begin to listen.

The PhD does not make people listen to you.  Most people will pause maybe long enough to bother to see what the PhD was actually written on (e.g. paper or plastic).  Having the prefix "Dr." as anything other than an M.D. means that you are probably going to bore the crap out of them that listen to whatever it is you have to say, so why bother, right?  So, the smartest thing you can be in this world is a collector of stories, a listener, an examiner, and an inquirer...  (I'm not suggesting y'all start writing a magazine or newspaper, but if its something you believe in, could it hurt?)  ... and a PhD is the greatest lesson in listening ever devised.

That all being said, I suck at listening and really need to work on that.  Maybe if I yell a little louder, I will hear a little better.  That's how it works, right?

Listen to the MUSTN'TS, child
Listen to the DON'TS
Listen to the SHOULDN'TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WONT'S
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me-
Anthing can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be. --Shel Silverstein, "Where The Sidewalk Ends"

Year 3, Day 294 - Words Written: -- something, something, blog, something, the end --

REVIEW: Open Stages 2015 @ The Royal Shakespeare Company

I have, of late, noticed that the review I wrote for Twelfth Night a long, long, time ago still gets the most hits on this blog (and by most, I mean "tens" more than other posts), I thought I'd write another review.  This time it is for a one-off show that involves over 250 people being onstage in a single evening, a performance those performers will never forget and one that you, the reader, have likely never heard of.  It is the 2015 Open Stages Showcase, and it goes up this evening, and it is the culmination of two years hard work by amateurs all over the country and the folks over at the RSC.  This is a story, one of many I'm sure, that is told by one of the amateur practitioners that has been a part of the process since the beginning.  This is the best that I can tell it, I think... I might edit it later on.

In early July 2012, we, of the Shakespeare Institute Players, were asked by the RSC to pitch a play to the Open Stages Project that they were beginning in September.  Long story, very short, I pitched a play on behalf of the Players, a production of Measure for Measure set in "Dust Bowl" America, that was accepted to the project.  It was one of about 90 productions from around the country that was accepted to be a part of it.  There were a few reasons that all of us in the Players wanted to be a part of this incredible venture (and when I say "all" and "we", of course I am speaking just for me, when in fact there were lots of other people that took part in this.)

First, we got to work with the RSC, their staff, on their stages, in any capacity whatsoever.  We got to take classes with RSC professionals for free (Voice, Speech, Acting, Movement, Stage Combat, Stage Management, Directing, Design, Music, and many others) over the course of the next year.  As students ourselves, and ones that were paying the University of Birmingham for the privelege of being called so, a free class(es) with working practitioners at a professional company was something none of us wished to pass up.

Second, this was an opportunity to perform on stage at the RSC (or, in my case, have a production I've directed staged at the Swan Theatre.)  Putting the entire show up at the Shakespeare Institute in the summer of 2014, and having RSC professionals come to see it and give us critical feedback on it, was once again an incredible, enlightening experience.  The unique part of this was that, as a member of the Open Stages Project, we were to get together about a year later to bring the show back from the dead to rehash an excerpt of it on the RSC stage at the Swan Theatre (ten minutes, consisting of three scenes and one song performed as if on a speeded-up playback).  That day is today, 14 June 2015.

Third, in 2016, another project was going to happen cleverly called "Dream 16".  This is still to be (it hasn't happened yet) the culmination for the RSC on their country-wide collaboration and celebration of amateur theatre-makers that will be performed in February 2016.  The idea was that they would get a troupe of amateur actors to portray the mechanicals in the play A Midsummer Night's Dream, including the rather large role of Bottom the Weaver.  We auditioned, we had fun, we did not get the part, such is life.

Fourth, this was our one (and most likely, only) chance to work in such a hallowed space.

My thesis topic, loosely interpreted, is the study of one particular production's design at the RSC, so I don't have the words to express my joy in all that has happened to me and around me for the last two years with regards to working with the RSC and the Open Stages Project.  That I get to see a piece of Shakespeare's work, directed by me, onstage at the Swan... well, that's more than I'd ever thought to hope for and I wish I could say thank you enough times for the people involved to start believing my gratitude.  Right now, I think it annoys RSC folk when I hug them for showing me to the toilet.

I know there were some companies that did not get into Open Stages, and even more companies that did not get into "Dream 16".  We were told only once after our audition (via email) that we weren't good enough, and that stung enough to know that I wouldn't wish it on anyone.  The reality of that is, I recognize the people who live with that feeling everyday (mostly other actors at other auditions) and have nothing but admiration for them as they pick themselves back up, dust themselves off, and try again.

The reason I mention that is because I would like to enlighten the disillusioned.  The project, and especially today here at the end of our two-year process, has not been all musk-roses, sunshine, and Shakespeare.  It's been the usual production hell that theatre professionals have come to expect around the world, and because it's the RSC, amp that hell up to about 1000 degrees centigrade, throw 220 actors on the barbie, and cook until they stop squirming and "just deal with it"... and you've got yourself one hell of a show that no one, well maybe the parents of the kids who are a part of it, will ever see.  If you are reading this, you probably know me and know that I have seen professional and amateur companies alike go thru "tech hell", it might even be that some of you reading this were actually there and know of what I speak... I'll just say, the assessment is equal and fair.

(On a more personal note, I would've preferred not to have been told by the company stage manager at the RSC that my lighting ideas in my production script were shit, or rather, "not-well-planned-out and terrible", but since she asked for design notes two months ago on a script and blocking that has changed many times since then... and she probably has union lighting guys barking in her ear about what a crappy set-up this was, and also what a shit detail it is to have to come in on a Sunday morning and cater to a bunch of non-professionals, she might also rather just be home sleeping... I figured she was just taking her anger, frustration, and crap out on one of the people that actually wanted to be there, and one that could do nothing about an RSC professional stage manager making their day just a little less bright.  I digress, and since this is my blog, I needed to vent so that I could return to that stage door this evening with my head held high.)

I'm not complaining.  Let me repeat that, I am not complaining.  I get to see "My Shakespeare, rise!" for the first time tonight in a place that I have and will call "church" for a long time coming.  Here's to dreams coming true and many more being created all at the same time...


"I therefore will begin. Soul of the age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room:
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still while thy book doth live
And we have wits to read and praise to give."  -- Ben Jonson
"To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare"
(Printed on one of the first few pages of the First Folio, published in 1623)

Year ?, Day ? - Words written: ?
(this post is anamolous and should be considered outside the realm of PhD-land)