Life is a voyage that's homeward bound.
Herman Melville
***********************
I got a chuckle out of a tech support fellow one night. After finishing the session he asked if there was anything else he could help me with. I said "No. Not unless you can tell me the real meaning of life." He laughed a good natured laugh and said he was sorry but he couldn't help me with that one.
------------------------------------
I remember seeing a card on a woman's desk one day. It was circular and on it was printed "A Round Toit" as in I'll take care of that as soon as I get around to it. So someone gave her a round toit.
One of the implications in the woman's work situation was that she was going in circles, and sooner or later everything comes around. In fact isn't that the way all of our lives are? We live in constantly repeating cycles: the days of the week, each with their special duties, the months of the year, the seasons with their unique circumstances. Special occasions recur: holidays, birthdays, anniversaries.
To live in cycles means to be in orbit. Our circles are not aimless, they are all going around something. The moon circles the earth, the earth circles the sun and, who knows, maybe the sun is in orbit around a much larger force than we can see.
For most of my life I knew what I wanted, to get roles and play them. It didn't much matter who the characters were I was portraying or what the plays were about. I had honed my skill to the point where I could take on any type of character, from the silliest to the most heroic, from the grandest to the most villainous. What mattered was that I had a script in my hand and a contract in my pocket. That was enough for me. I was living my life in the arts and that was exactly where I wanted to be.
Then about 15 years ago I began to ask some important questions. I wasn't questioning what I did, even though I had to put up with decades of prejudice from people who didn't know or thought they knew what life in the theatre really was. And I wasn't questioning why I did it. I already knew why. The questions were much broader and taller than that. Inadequately put they were questions about what I was orbiting around. What gave me the authority to be on the stage? What gave me permission to be an actor? What allowed me to entertain people? What gave me the right to interpret the human race to itself?
I was searching for the light giving, life enhancing sun around which I was orbiting. I was asking for the answer tech support couldn't give me: the real meaning of life.
Now, after 15 years of asking and groping, I don't know if I am any closer to finding an answer or even if it is possible to. In the process I've learned some important facts: that life is unfinished business, that prescience is a valuable but uncertain practice, that our capabilities far outweigh our achievements and, that no matter how many times we live through the cycles of our lives change is constant and inevitable.
And I am on the cusp of understanding something else. There is a spirit that gives existence to our lives, that justifies human endeavor, that defines nature and gives impulse and impartation to the arts. A great cosmic energy cell around which we orbit that asks nothing more from us than to be understood and expressed. It is the inspiration for all beauty and honest achievement, on stage or otherwise, it is where we artists come from, our spiritual home, and, maybe, the answer to the real meaning of life.
DB - The Vagabond
****************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 7 responses so far. Winter is almost over. What's your answer?
DB
******************************
Showing posts with label Herman Melville. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Herman Melville. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Jacques And Job
It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
Herman Melville
****************
Years ago I played Jules in a production of "My Three Angels" in Florida. During the show I had to carry a live chicken across the stage. The hen was big and heavy but she was no trouble. She flapped her wings on cue. The only problem was with her name.
The crew person who handled her backstage kept referring to her as "Henrietta" and that's how she would be listed in the program. I objected. Every chicken who has ever appeared on a stage has been called HEN rietta. Couldn't people, for once, come up with a real name and not try to be cute. No. Henrietta she remained. I don't think she cared, but I did.
Another time I did a play in New England which was based on a short story that had been made into a famous film. The director wanted us to do the play exactly the way they did it in the film. He even hired actors who looked the same as those in the film. He would not listen to any alternative reading of a line or interpretation of the script. We were to reproduce the film on the stage. How boring.
I've known directors who have come straight out of a Drama Department somewhere who then try to produce a play just the way it was done back in school. How boring! How stupid!!
I have seen actors who try a Rex Harrison hair cut or Marlo Brando speech because they saw it in a movie. This sort of nonsense doesn't stop at the stage door.
Some thinker comes up with a theory about something. It sounds good. So people accept it as fact and then base their words and actions on it without ever challenging the basic premise. That can go on for decades, even centuries. How many different ways can one explain the theology that comes out of most seminaries? When you come right down to it the question "What's new?" has no answer.
Jacques Bolduc was a theologian who lived in the 16th - 17th Century in France. He was a Capuchin friar and a Hebrew scholar. After many years of research and study he published an account of the book of Job in which he claimed Job was the first book written, possibly by Job himself or one of his friends and possibly discovered by Moses and rewritten. He also put forth the idea that Judaism and hence Christianity are based on Natural Law and the 7 precepts of Noah's sons (Genesis 9).
Bolduc was basically ignored. But when he wasn't there were scathing criticisms of his books. Other theologians called them heretical, absurd, preposterous and sacrilegious. Why? Because they didn't conform to the traditional teaching of the church. Even today there is hardly any notice of Bolduc in modern theological study, and yet some are beginning to think that Job did predate Moses, though they don't give Bolduc credit for first thinking so.
He wasn't completely ignored however. Among the few who listened to him was Thomas Hobbes, the English philosopher, who used Job's term "Leviathan" as the title of his most important work, which then troubled the theological waters, like the healing angel of Bethesda, and began a world wide discussion of what that name Leviathan really means.
Look closely. The smiling parson with his arms outstretched in beneficial holiness may be preaching nonsense and not know it. But if so, be assured the nonsense doesn't stop at the last pew.
In science, education, economics, politics, sports and any major endeavor are those who hold on to the "tried and true" and don't listen to a different reading of it. It's easy to believe you're right when no one disagrees with you. It's hard to believe you're right when everyone disagrees with you But those who have the courage to step away from imitation, to practice original thinking and to stand tall and sturdy when the storm of mindless disagreement pelts and blows, just might be on to something.
DB - The Vagabond
***********************
AUTUMN QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
At what event of the past do you wish you could be present? Why?
8 responses so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Thank you.
DB
************************
Herman Melville
****************
Years ago I played Jules in a production of "My Three Angels" in Florida. During the show I had to carry a live chicken across the stage. The hen was big and heavy but she was no trouble. She flapped her wings on cue. The only problem was with her name.
The crew person who handled her backstage kept referring to her as "Henrietta" and that's how she would be listed in the program. I objected. Every chicken who has ever appeared on a stage has been called HEN rietta. Couldn't people, for once, come up with a real name and not try to be cute. No. Henrietta she remained. I don't think she cared, but I did.
Another time I did a play in New England which was based on a short story that had been made into a famous film. The director wanted us to do the play exactly the way they did it in the film. He even hired actors who looked the same as those in the film. He would not listen to any alternative reading of a line or interpretation of the script. We were to reproduce the film on the stage. How boring.
I've known directors who have come straight out of a Drama Department somewhere who then try to produce a play just the way it was done back in school. How boring! How stupid!!
I have seen actors who try a Rex Harrison hair cut or Marlo Brando speech because they saw it in a movie. This sort of nonsense doesn't stop at the stage door.
Some thinker comes up with a theory about something. It sounds good. So people accept it as fact and then base their words and actions on it without ever challenging the basic premise. That can go on for decades, even centuries. How many different ways can one explain the theology that comes out of most seminaries? When you come right down to it the question "What's new?" has no answer.
Jacques Bolduc was a theologian who lived in the 16th - 17th Century in France. He was a Capuchin friar and a Hebrew scholar. After many years of research and study he published an account of the book of Job in which he claimed Job was the first book written, possibly by Job himself or one of his friends and possibly discovered by Moses and rewritten. He also put forth the idea that Judaism and hence Christianity are based on Natural Law and the 7 precepts of Noah's sons (Genesis 9).
Bolduc was basically ignored. But when he wasn't there were scathing criticisms of his books. Other theologians called them heretical, absurd, preposterous and sacrilegious. Why? Because they didn't conform to the traditional teaching of the church. Even today there is hardly any notice of Bolduc in modern theological study, and yet some are beginning to think that Job did predate Moses, though they don't give Bolduc credit for first thinking so.
He wasn't completely ignored however. Among the few who listened to him was Thomas Hobbes, the English philosopher, who used Job's term "Leviathan" as the title of his most important work, which then troubled the theological waters, like the healing angel of Bethesda, and began a world wide discussion of what that name Leviathan really means.
Look closely. The smiling parson with his arms outstretched in beneficial holiness may be preaching nonsense and not know it. But if so, be assured the nonsense doesn't stop at the last pew.
In science, education, economics, politics, sports and any major endeavor are those who hold on to the "tried and true" and don't listen to a different reading of it. It's easy to believe you're right when no one disagrees with you. It's hard to believe you're right when everyone disagrees with you But those who have the courage to step away from imitation, to practice original thinking and to stand tall and sturdy when the storm of mindless disagreement pelts and blows, just might be on to something.
DB - The Vagabond
***********************
AUTUMN QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
At what event of the past do you wish you could be present? Why?
8 responses so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Thank you.
DB
************************
Monday, July 19, 2010
Get Out Your Handkerchiefs
A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
Herman Melville
*****************
Maybe that's my problem. Have I grown too comfortable with myself?
I have written an essay in this journal everyday since 2004, except for the six weeks I spent with the phone against my ear listening to scratchy disco music followed by silly instructions from even sillier tech support people, crawling around on the floor unplugging and re plugging Ethernet cables in a vain attempt to get back on the Internet. When it was finally determined that the problem was with the computer itself some kind people got together and got me a new one so I could keep on supplying the great googleland with my thoughts and words.
What's happened? I genuinely love and appreciate the few who still read my rambling reads. But I have lost so many readers over the past year that I feel I must be doing something wrong. It can't just be "Let 'em eat facebook." I've tried pinging my entries. I've tried registering with this and that. But when I end a day with one comment and only 7 hits on the entry, as happened the other day, when I used to get between 35 and 50, I know something is wrong.
An independent publisher likes my entry of the 17th well enough to republish it. Where is everybody else? Have I become too maudlin, inane, humorless, uninteresting or sophomoric? Whats a mattah ya don like my pitchah?
Ah, I know what you're saying "He's whining again." No I'm not, I'm asking. What do people want to read? I don't have a garden to weed or a lawn to mow. I have no grandchildren to brag about or pets to take cute pictures of. I don't want to write about my physical condition, that got me into trouble before. Have mercy on me. I am bereft. Left with nothing but my imagination and 7 decades of life experience. I will write what people want to read, whatever it is.
I don't know how to specialize. I don't have enough recipes, I'm not interested in sports and there are only so many theatre stories I can tell before I bore myself into oblivion. So what do I do? Puzzles?
Cryptograms are hard work and no one does them except Bill, who rips them off before his first cup of coffee. Otherwise my puzzles and seasonal questions have become some of the most unpopular things on the web.
I really, truly am searching for a whole new approach to my writing because I enjoy writing and I enjoy writing to people.
I read through all the blogs on my blog list today and on some of them I left the 15th, 30th or 80th comment. At 11:25 p.m. on my blog I have 11 visits and 2 comments. See what I mean? I am grateful; for those comments. I am. Thank you Rose. Thank you Ma.
Maybe I'll do what some people do, knock off for a while, forget about it, spend the rest of the year just painting pictures and writing stories. Change my name and start a new journal about something as yet unknown.
Help.
DB - The Vagabond
Herman Melville
*****************
Maybe that's my problem. Have I grown too comfortable with myself?
I have written an essay in this journal everyday since 2004, except for the six weeks I spent with the phone against my ear listening to scratchy disco music followed by silly instructions from even sillier tech support people, crawling around on the floor unplugging and re plugging Ethernet cables in a vain attempt to get back on the Internet. When it was finally determined that the problem was with the computer itself some kind people got together and got me a new one so I could keep on supplying the great googleland with my thoughts and words.
What's happened? I genuinely love and appreciate the few who still read my rambling reads. But I have lost so many readers over the past year that I feel I must be doing something wrong. It can't just be "Let 'em eat facebook." I've tried pinging my entries. I've tried registering with this and that. But when I end a day with one comment and only 7 hits on the entry, as happened the other day, when I used to get between 35 and 50, I know something is wrong.
An independent publisher likes my entry of the 17th well enough to republish it. Where is everybody else? Have I become too maudlin, inane, humorless, uninteresting or sophomoric? Whats a mattah ya don like my pitchah?
Ah, I know what you're saying "He's whining again." No I'm not, I'm asking. What do people want to read? I don't have a garden to weed or a lawn to mow. I have no grandchildren to brag about or pets to take cute pictures of. I don't want to write about my physical condition, that got me into trouble before. Have mercy on me. I am bereft. Left with nothing but my imagination and 7 decades of life experience. I will write what people want to read, whatever it is.
I don't know how to specialize. I don't have enough recipes, I'm not interested in sports and there are only so many theatre stories I can tell before I bore myself into oblivion. So what do I do? Puzzles?
Cryptograms are hard work and no one does them except Bill, who rips them off before his first cup of coffee. Otherwise my puzzles and seasonal questions have become some of the most unpopular things on the web.
I really, truly am searching for a whole new approach to my writing because I enjoy writing and I enjoy writing to people.
I read through all the blogs on my blog list today and on some of them I left the 15th, 30th or 80th comment. At 11:25 p.m. on my blog I have 11 visits and 2 comments. See what I mean? I am grateful; for those comments. I am. Thank you Rose. Thank you Ma.
Maybe I'll do what some people do, knock off for a while, forget about it, spend the rest of the year just painting pictures and writing stories. Change my name and start a new journal about something as yet unknown.
Help.
DB - The Vagabond
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