Mistakes

Don't fear mistakes.. There are none.




Miles Davis

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Hello Diane

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Miles Davis was a great jazz trumpeter who knew music thoroughly. The pianist Herbie Hancock told about one day when they were playing together and Hancock accidentally struck a chord that had nothing whatsoever to do with the music they were playing and Davis played notes around it that brought it into the range of the piece.



Strange things happen sometimes in the performing arts. I once saw a ballerina lose her slipper during a performance. She kept dancing while one of the male dancers scooped it up and presented it to her as if it was a cherished gift of love.



I was doing a play one evening and another actor said something that wasn't even remotely his line. I couldn't respond to him with my scripted line. I had to make one up on the spot that would answer him and still get back to the plot.



During the filming of Dr. Stragelove George C. Scott accidentally did a tumble while pointing at something. He came up with a smile still pointing. Kubrick left it in.



There are always stories of writers setting out to write a story about one thing and ending up with something else because a mistake loomed somewhere and changed the whole idea or inventors who discover something they weren't looking for when they made a mistake in the shop, or the artist who accidentally spills some paint on the canvas and the painting takes off is a completely new direction, or a chemist in his lab mixing the wrong ingredients and discovering a new solution.



Many discoveries can be made by accident. When you make what you think is a mistake instead of throwing it out, stop and consider it. You may have discovered something.



DB - The Vagabond

Never give up.

Drop the Mask

No one is outside the maze of human behavior looking in.

Dana Bate
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Hello Rose
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We are all invited to the huge masquerade of human life. Some of us are wearing masks and some of us are not. Those of us who don't don the disguises of the masses, the artists of the world, and specifically the writers, are given the task of judging the faces, the facades, that they see.

Two important questions must be asked. The first is who is behind the mask and the second is why did the person behind the mask choose that particular mask to wear? The great writers do this with ease and appreciation. Like the ever changing figures in a life drawing class hardly anything is more complex than the human being. But the writer must be careful to observe and store vital information about the person whose mask he his trying to peer behind. The pretender will always give himself or herself away in the end. In fact, if they are serious pretenders they probably want to be found out because only an excellent observer can do it. One who deserves their respect. Unfortunately the seeker for truth frequently ends up being so disgusted with the pretensions of the masquerader there is no mutual respect. Some people's masquerades are transparent though they don't think so.

The observer of life must also remember that he too wears a mask even though the mask may be in fact his own face.

"Trust a few" Shakespeare wrote. How do we know who we can trust? We can trust those who are worthy of our trust> But how do we judge worthiness? Only time and careful observation can tell. We can trust those who have danced through enough of life's ballrooms to have learned honesty.

The pretentious, the devious, the duplicitous are those we learn not to trust and that knowledge of others can only come through careful observation as we do our own dancing in the maze. Those who are not what they say they are or what they think they are are the greatest pretenders on the dance floor. They are the clay of novels and short stories for the writer to sink his typing fingers into. Dishonesty reveals itself eventually, often to the writer before iit's revealed to the pretender, and by revealing itself reveals the truth and, for one observer, the mask comes off..

DB - The Vagabond
Never Give Up
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Ideas

A great idea can't be expressed too often or in too many ways.

Dana Bate
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Hello Ken
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It's a question of approach and acceptance. We are all individuals and therefore different from each other in spite of our similarities. Babies are born not knowing everything, although I claim they probably know more than we imagine they do, they are after all thinking creatures. As time goes by they accumulate knowledge and ways to articulate what they see, feel and think. Some sort of language is developed. At last the spoken language becomes writing and other forms of communication.

Along with other developments of a human being come preferences, ways that define our character and impulses that move us in the directions of our lives.

The great ideas of the world exist in many forms but all of them are not ideas themselves but the trail markers along the pathways. Great writers reach into the bottomless well of words to describe what lives in their minds in it's purest form. One may not learn from the written word to seek the true ideas behind them. That is a matter of preference.

A painter has in his hand a brush with which he can stroke the formless truth of things and point the way to its understanding. My favorite painting is "The Piano Lesson" by Matisse. One person may look at it and see the triangles and curls. another will see the tensions of life when the conflict of need, desire and fulfillment cross each other.

Music is another, and perhaps the greatest, communicator of ideas. The poetry that accompanies the melody of a song or the grand interlocking levels of an orchestra will bring a listener on to the trail that the music is pointing toward, the trail that leads to where the music leaves off and the lush forest of pure thought is found.

How we approach literature and works of art determines how close we get to understanding the great ideas that foster them. But it is also important to know that the ideas are there seemingly hidden behind the words. Knowing that means that someday at some time the idea will open up itself and the illumination of one's thinking will happen.

It is important, therefore, to make the right choices. Suppose you go out to buy a chair, You go to the furniture store and look over all the chairs. You sit in a few. The chairs all perform the same function, but one is the right one for your room. One of them provides the looks and the comfort you want. You take it home and it becomes a part of your life.

Suppose you decide to buy a work of art, a painting let's say. You will exercise the same or more care in making a choice about that. That painting will probably be with you the rest of your life, speaking to you every day, leading you to where the trail begins.

Then let's say you go to buy a Beethoven symphony. Now it's not only the music itself but the degree of enlightenment of the conductor and the members of the orchestra who perform the music that determines how much and how true the experience is to the ideas of the genius who was on the trail to them.

It is the nature of Truth to reveal itself. Being aware and observing the world around us in all of its articulations surprises happen and treasures are revealed. And when they open up a door or light up a trail marker the voyage to a better understanding of ourselves as individuals continues and the destination becomes closer.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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Look here. I am about to close down this invitation if I get no more offerings.

This is an invitation for anyone and everyone to post an entry of their own on my journal, Vagabond Journeys http://vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com/.

The end of the year is upon us and since it is a time for celebrations, remembrances, resolutions and plans for the future I think people have things to say.

Not to take away from the postings on your own journals, but to add to the joy of my own is why I invite you to write for mine.

I want to read what your thoughts are about this magical time of the year. This invitation is open to everyone: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans, Agnostics, Atheists and the Uncertain.

Tell me your thoughts on Chanukah, Christmas, Ashura, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, New Years Eve. or any subject you wish or associate with this holiday season.

There are no limits in regard to length. The only limitation is that, for reasons so far unexplained to me, my blog does not take photographs, animations, videos or pictures of any kind. I deal in words.

Please accept my invitation. Send your entry to my email address dbdacoba@aol.com I will copy and paste it into my journal and it will be displayed promptly. You may sign your name or not as you wish, and you may leave a link to your blog or your email or not, as you wish. I will do NO editing or censoring. Eloquence is not necessary, mind or heart or both is all.

I have 10 Guest Authors so far. Check them out.
All are welcome. Admission is free.

DB
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The Right Answers

Sometimes creativity is a compulsion not an ambition.

Ed Norton
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Hello Mark
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One day I had lunch with a young actor who wanted to pick my brains about acting. We went to a restaurant where he bought me a pizza. It was a good pizza. I told him I would ask him one question and that if I didn't get the right answer I was going to talk him out of it.

The question was "Why are you an actor?"

The answer was "Because I love entertaining people."

That was a good answer so I talked for the next hour or so about acting: the job, the career, the techniques, the artistry. While I was speaking and answering his questions I realized something I didn't usually think about which was how much I loved acting, the theatre, the opportunity and process of entertaining people.

In my late teens I had several opportunities open to me and a few skills in other trades. But when I realized that I was an actor I put all my other talents in the shed and never looked back.

I've had occasions to encourage other younger actors as time went by. I remember talking with one who said he loved performing and rehearsing but he hated auditions. I turned his head around about that when I told him an audition was a chance to put on a show and entertain people.

I have known artists, painters and writers who lost sleep and did not realize it because they had to finish what they were working on. I have known ballet and modern dancers for whom discipline was such a constant way of life that they exhibited more of it than any one else. And I've known actors who were more alive on the stage than any place else. I finally realized one day that I was totally at home on the stage, that I was more comfortable, confident and capable of life the moment I stepped out on to a stage. I loved it.

Learning lines is one of the tasks of an actor. It's tedious, hard work, but the more you do it the easier it gets. I got some excellent advice from Helen Hayes who said that she memorized something every day even when she didn't have a play to work on, just to keep her memory skills in shape.

For an artist there are simple terms to describe cosmic things. Some call it the Muse, to others it's a compulsion, or a desperation or the thrill of living and expressing life. Everything you write, a novel, a history, a short story, a poem, a journal entry, becomes a part of the unbelievably limitless world of the written word. It's the same with a painting, No matter where it's hung or not hung it is part of the genius of visual art.

From the grandeur of ancient Greek and Roman theatre, through the rag tag Commedia players moving around through the Middle Ages, to the authority of European theatre, to Broadway, Hollywood, TV drama and an occasional work of quality on You Tube, actors have been entertaining people with the portrayal of real life and the glamorization of ideas for centuries.

Is there any bad art? Of course. But the people who produce it should have been asked the question I asked the young actor years ago. And if the questioner didn't get the right answer he should have talked them out of it.

Great works of art have been made, are being made right this instant and will continue to be made by artists, just as long as they are compelled by love and the right answers.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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AUTUMN QUESTION

What event over the past year changed your life, a lot or a little?

3 answers so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

I await your answers.
DB
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