Take Your Time

Judge not your brother.
Walk a mile in his shoes.
You'll see he's doin' the best that he can do.
Like me and you.

Eric Bibb
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Hello Lily
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I confess that in my younger years I had little patience with older folks. I thought they were slow, ignorant, muddle headed and altogether a drain on society. I was a member of the never-trust-anyone-over-30 generation. By the time I was 31 I had realized the foolishness of that prejudice. I had simply ignored the fact that older people had lived longer than I and undoubtedly had lessons and life experiences I knew nothing about.

My education into the world of older folks began to grow as I worked with actors who were older and more experienced not only about acting but about life, love, success and happiness. When I heard about struggles, lost opportunities and lost loves I realized there were scars from wounds I never had and might not have if I was lucky and paid attention.

I'm grateful to say I didn't have to reach the age of 31 before I began to see the real gold in those who had lived twice as long or longer than I had. The old geezer sitting on a park bench feeding the pigeons, or walking haltingly down the street with a newspaper stuck under his arm, or the old lady on the bus with leggings tucked under her skirt, or being pushed in her wheelchair, may be the owners of amazing stories of adventure and survival.

I met such a woman one day. She had a story to tell. Her husband would push her around in her wheelchair every afternoon in good weather. I saw them frequently. One day I stopped to talk and found out that years ago she entered a contest for a new bread recipe. She won it, they gave her a chuck of money and named the bread after her. It can still be found on some supermarket shelves.

One day I was in a supermarket line and in front of me was a very old woman. When she reached the check out with her few purchases she fumbled in her purse for her money. The man behind me grumbled and told her to hurry up. I turned and said to him "She's an old lady, she's lived a long life and she has a right to dodder if she wants to." Then I said to her "You take your time sweetheart." She looked up at me with a big smile and said "Thank you sir."

Now that I have achieved senior citizenship (or, old manhood, if you must) there are those around me who think I'm a doddering old fool. I live alone, walk slowly, don't use dope or listen to rap. What good am I? But beware, if I'm at the check out and you tell me to hurry up you might get an earful you'll regret

DB - The Vagabond
Never give up.
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Do I Like Me?

Lean too much upon the approval of people and it becomes a bed of thorns.

Tehyi Hsieh
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Hello Rose
****************
Like most actors I spent my working days seeking approval. First of all I wanted to be approved of by the director so that I would get the job. Once in rehearsal I wanted the approval of my colleagues, my fellow actors. Opening night would come and I wanted the critics to approve of me. And then I wanted to impress and charm the audience.

What was this need for approval? It is not germane to a performing artist to need approval. Being liked is a side show. The main event is the preparation and performance of the play, musical, ballet or whatever. The real pleasure for an actor is in the discoveries, developments, understanding the character, being able to create that character's life and presenting the drama in a moving and believable manner with beauty and artistry night after night. When an actor achieves that accomplishment he finishes his night's work with joy and satisfaction, no matter what anyone thinks of him.

Naturally we want to be liked. We want the applause, we want the good reviews and to be respected by our employers. Who doesn't? But when approval begins to take the place of reason, reality and conscientiousness, that's when the thorns start growing.

There's this famous story about a well known actress (maybe one of you knows the story better than I do and can fill in the accompanying details). She was doing a comedy. At one point she asked the character on stage with her for a cup of tea. For some reason it was a very funny moment and the audience would roar with laughter. But one night they didn't laugh. And for the next several nights there was no laughter. She asked a friend to watch the scene and tell her what was wrong. He did and told her that by the way she spoke the line she was asking for the laugh and that she should go back to asking for the tea. She did that and the laughter resumed.

In all areas of our lives it's the integrity and honesty of how we live and what we do that counts not the measurement of our popularity. As the Suna Sirah states "Honor yourself with humility, and give yourself the esteem you deserve." And I say, graciously accept the approval you get from others but know that you don't need them to tell you how good you are.

Disappoint yourself. Forgive yourself. Do better next time. And drink a toast to yourself every day.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never give up.
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The Med Puddle And The Stick

The compelling force of all times has been the force of originality and creation, profoundly affecting the roots of human spirit.

Ansel Adams
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Hello Bruce
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The artist is one who lives on the edge of discovery. The artist is one who sees the brilliant stone that others don't see, who picks it up and takes it home. The artist is one who is isn't afraid to listen to the silence and describe the invisible. To the artist the creative experience is nature.

Painters look at paintings, actors watch acting, musicians listen to music. And one of the fascinating things and yet one of the most normal is how a painter can appreciate a work of art done by a good painter who works in a completely different genre. It doesn't matter what the style is it's the artistry that counts.

Those who know me well know that I'm a great fan of and know a lot about classical music and opera. At work one day something reminded me of a Donovan song and began to sing it. My boss looked at me with astonishment. How did I know that song? How should I not know it? I listen.

When I lived in Inwood, which is the northern tip of Manhattan Island, my bank was a few blocks away. Midway there was a record store which specialized in C The owner had a speaker out in front with music playing. I loved going by there and sometimes would stop and listen for a while. They were excellent musicians. Salsa was their language.

I think if you gi e him the right surface an artist could make a good drawing with a stick and a mud puddle. Materials are another thing. Ansel Adams was a great landscape photographer. There weren't always photographers. Someone had to invent the camera. With each new technological invention or improvement artists will get a hold of it and turn it into a way of creating some original work of art which defies what the invention was first intended to do. Thus we now have computer art and electronic music. Some day we may see some massive sculpture in low Earth orbit gliding overhead to please and intrigue the whole world. Think of it.

Why are we artists? We have to be because that's what we are. It's an obligation, a compulsion, a joy and a privilege, and because what we do nourishes the very roots of human life..

Dana Bate - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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Seriously

Art is too serious to be taken seriously.

Ad Reinhardt
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Hello Sandy
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The only people who take serious art seriously are some artists, (occasionally), people who buy art and art critics. The people who don't take it seriously are those who do it, those who sell it and those wretched people who are somehow forced unfortunately to look at it or listen to it against their will. How do I know this? Because I'm an artist and because I've observed the way art is handled in this age.

Watch a good musician in concert. You may see intense concentration while a piece is being performed, but at the end the musician will probably break into a big smile and maybe even a laugh. Sometimes you even see the smile while the piece is being played. It is the joy of music, or dance that you are seeing. The smiles on the faces of the actors at a curtain call are showing the same joy.

I've known artists who will chuckle at a painting they've done or are working on. It's the same with writers. I know that I will get a laugh out of a particularly strange and subtle twist of language when I'm writing. I avoid cliches, because I champion original thought in myself and in others, so I will go searching for the expression that tells the story without repeating the tried and true. And when I see it in other arts, the dancer who pushes his body into a movement I've never seen, or the musician who gives me a surprising cluster of tones, I feel the same delight.

There is a solid bedrock of mystery involved in the relationship between an artist and the work being done. It has to do with value and origination, an invisible generic bond of co-creation between the artist, the work and the inspiration that demands and forces it into being. It is as if there is an anonymous angel of pure spirit that finds it in whatever galaxy it lives, brings it out of hiding and gives it to the artist who is ready to respond.

The scientist will study to uncover the secret laws of nature. The engineer will design the mechanism that measures. moves and controls the natural forces. But what the artist does is transcendental. And who can be serious about that.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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Do It Yourself

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

General George Patton
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Hello Marty
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"Direct the play, not the players." (Bate)

I knew a man who had been a Lieutenant in the U. S. Army during the Korean War in which he saw action. His immediate commanding officer was a man all the troops admired and respected That Major's orders were always couched in firm but respectful words. He would say things like "It would please me very much if you and your men took that hill." My friend said that remark was an order that meant that taking the hill was an absolute necessity. He said his men were amazingly innovative about it. If taking the hill was an impossibility they would figure out a way to do it.

As an actor, the best directors I ever knew were those who had the same respectful attitude. There were many directors who somehow felt they had the right to tell actors how to act. That unwarranted arrogance made most actors lose respect for the director and perform well in spite of him. But a good director was one who sought out the best qualities in his actors and addressed us with the knowledge that we knew what we were doing. One of the best directors I know would say "Find a different motivation for that scene" and then leave it up to me to do so.

An actor will make a choice and act on it. If a director wants a different choice he should say so and leave it up to the actor. He shouldn't tell the actor how to play the part or criticize him for the choice he made. Some directors are so stupid (I can name names, but I won't) who don't even know that what they are seeing is an actor's choice.

If directors only knew how much damage they do to actors, the production and themselves by their arrogance they would probably deny it.

There are some actors who seem to need to be told what to do. But they don't last long in the profession, just as such a soldier wouldn't last long on the hills of Korea.

I have come across the same circumstance in the world of music. For two years I was involved in raising money for the New York Philharmonic, which is one of the world's greatest orchestras and that is a formidable reputation for an orchestra to have and one that holds little meaning for one who doesn't really know from first hand what a symphy orchestra is and does. The Philharmonic has had a variety of conductors over the years and some of them evidently were more interested in teaching musicians how to play than in playing the music. A bass violinist said the orchestra was so good it could play any piece you put down in front of it, even the most complicated and difficult modern work. That orchestra can play anything. It doesn't need to be told how to do it.

In short I hope you have a boss, if you have one, who trusts that you know your job and doesn't try to tell you how to do it.

DB - The Vagabond
Never Give Up
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WEEKEND CONTEST

This is easy.

A farmer's son loads some pumpkins in his pick up truck and goes out to deliver them to various markets around town.

At the first market he delivers half of the pumpkins in his truck plus half a pumpkin.
At the second market he leaves half of the pumpkins he has in his truck plus half a pumpkin.
At the third market he gives them half of the pumpkins he has plus half a pumpkin.
At the forth market he delivers half of the pumpkins he has left plus half a pumpkin.
Then he drives his truck back to the farm to get more pumpkins because he's run out of them.
How many pumpkins did he have in the truck to begin with?

I await your clever answer.

DB
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AUTUMN QUESTION
This is not a contest.

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

Autumn is moving along.
Only 6 answers so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

I eagerly await your answers.
DB
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A Day In The Theatre

Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.

Robert Heinlein
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Have you ever noticed that no matter how big the ocean liner or tanker is when it docks it is tied up by a rope. With all of our newfangled gadgets it is the simple rope that does the job. Something once thought up and fashioned by some brain child to make it easier to keep the boat in place. A rope.

Some of our most important inventions are very simple things that virtually never change. Think of the golf tee. Golfers used to tee off from a pile of dirt or sand until someone thought of putting a stick under the ball. Now the tee is taken for granted.

Three of the most important inventions of use in theatre are tape, Velcro and, of course, everyone's favorite two fisted, brass knuckle, steel toed, betrayer of human intentions called the computer.

There have always been quick changes in the theatre, change of costume, change of character. The ancient Greeks used to do it with masks. But that changed when theatre tried to become more "realistic" and the lace took over. To accomplish a quick costume change by unlacing and lacing up took some doing, and lots of help. Changing scenery was just as complicated, muscle straining and time consuming. It gave rise to a new skilled laborer known as the "stage hand" for whom there is now a union.

At some point in the history of the entertainment business the lace was replaced by the button which did speed things up a bit but not by much. The button was an improvement but it came with a hazard. Buttons, like laces (and actors), could come undone and sometimes in a most embarrassing way. I have found myself twice on the stage with my fly open because in the rush to get the costume on I forgot to button up or they became unbuttoned somehow.

Soon the zipper replaced the button and costume changes became speedier although there were other hazards which the zipper presented that never occurred with the button or the lace. They had the same problem of being forgotten about, leaving the actor with the embarrassing job of zipping up as surreptitiously as possible while playing the scene. Worse than that however is that the zipper could get stuck, half way up it could get snagged by the tail of a shirt. Imagine, which is neither unusual nor extraordinary, two young apprentice girls fussing over an actors fly, trying to get the zipper unstuck while his entrance cue is coming up.

But costume changes and set changes still took time and often if the changes were major the producers would put in a cross over to take up the time. A cross over is done in front of the curtain and usually consists of other characters following (sometimes chasing) each other across the stage. Other times an extra something was inserted to take up time. I read somewhere that the song "On The Street Where You Live" which was sung in front of the curtain was put into "My Fair Lady" to cover the huge set change.

Theatres were built with a lot of space above the stage called "The Heaven" where scenery could be stored when not on stage .Gradually set changes became easier with winches taking the place of pulleys and weights. Then the winces became electronically operated which gave rise to a specialty stage hand know as the "winch operator." I was a winch operator for one season in Boston. It's very tricky, but it works.

Now about tape. There are two kinds of tape used in the stage: spiking tape and glow tape. Spiking tape is used in TV and films also. It comes in several colors and is placed on the floor so the actor can find where he is supposed to be when he enters, or where he has to move if he's already on. The audience won't see us looking for our tape because we are very clever at finding it, some of us. I have know of actors who seem to have never heard of spiking tape, especially one soap opera actor who will remain nameless. Along the way some lazy person invented glow tape. This tape will glow in the dark if it has been in the light for a while. Glow tape is used to find our place when we have to enter the stage in the dark or to find our way out and not run into the scenery, as some dunderheads do, if we have to exit in the dark. Believe me in happens. I was the dunderhead who ran into the scenery during a performance of Zorba when I didn't see the tape. The glow tape is on the floor, the steps and the corners of all the furniture and other set pieces that we are liable to run into in our rush to get in place. I remember a production where I had to enter in the pitch dark on the upper right side of the stage and sit in a chair in the lower left side. When I stepped onto the stage I saw something that looked like the runway of a major airport at night. In Arthur Miller's "The Price" the second act picks up exactly where the first one ended. One actor had some glow tape on the back of his coat so I wouldn't run into him when we came into place to start the act.

Historically, about the same time glow tape became available Velcro hit the stage. There are still laces to be done up, buttons to be buttoned and zippers to be zipped, but when it comes to the quick change it's the scraping sound of the Velcro that tells the story.

The computer has become a great blessing and curse to the theatre as computers are notorious for being. With computers all the lighting effects can be preprogrammed. For example, if the lights are supposed to dim out slowly, say on a 7 count, it can be programmed to do that and the stage manager and electrician no longer have to count to seven together. if they ever did. When I started in theatre a dimmer board was a rack of large handles and to do a black out one had to jump on the rack and ride the handles down with body weight. Now the computer does it with a click.

In the theatre as anywhere else we live under the constant threat of Murphy's Law. As a result, even with all the new fangled gadgets there still have to be the skilled crew people around, the costumer with safety pins at the ready, the electrician with his eye and hands on the dimmer board and the stage hand watching.

The computer is also used in some theatres to perform complicated set changes. The massive effect in "Les Miserables" for example. But even then if a piece of scenery has to be temporarily held in place before it flies back up to heaven the stage hand will tie it off. And what will he use to tie it off?

A rope.
---------------------------------
DB - Vagabond Journeys
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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

I await your answer.
DB
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Bravos And Bozos

Every calling is great when greatly pursued.

Oliver Wendell Holmes
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"Oh, no. Not another actor story." Cool it! Don't rush for the exit.

I was riding on a bus in New York. There were two girls sitting behind me and as they were talking I overheard one of them say "Why should I go on a date with an actor no one has ever heard of?" I wanted to turn around and say "I'm an actor no one has ever heard of and there are thousands of us all over the world. If he's a good actor, conscientious and dedicated to his craft he's probably a fine man and you should give him a chance." Of course, I didn't. It was none of my business.

I took a flight from Boston to Portland, Maine one winter day. It was a tiny 6 seater commercial plane from a small New England airline. When we took off the sky was very gray and threatening. Soon after it began to snow heavily. In the winter New England weather can be fierce. I was next to a window, of course, but I couldn't see anything out of it except gray, I was in the front and there was only an open curtain between me and the cockpit. I could see the pilot and the front window which was iced up. The trip took about 30 minutes. We started to descend. I still could see nothing out the window until suddenly I saw the runway no more than 50 feet below us and probably less. The pilot set the plane down as gently as if he was putting a baby to sleep in its bed.

One day I watched a man single handedly pitch a tent that covered about a 25 foot square area. If you think there is nothing to pitching a tent, think again. It took him about an hour. It was up for a long Autumn weekend and the wind never blew it over.

I have had the benefit of watching masters at work, master artists, master engineers, master technicians. I learned that whatever it was my duty to do, mopping floors, proofreading documents or performing on the stage, it deserved my complete attention and best efforts.

It's easy to tell the difference. If you take your car in it's not hard to know if you are talking to a real mechanic who knows his business or a bozo. It's the same if you call your computer company or your ISP. There are a few who understand how things work and can solve your problem. A few. But there are a lot of bozos. No doubt there are a lot of bozos working for BP. but there are also intelligent, knowledgeable, dedicated engineers who will get the problem solved eventually.

"What does he do for a living?" "He lives." I could have said that proofreading was not really my calling, I'm really an actor. But as long as the legal document was in front of me and a play script wasn't, to get that document right was my calling. Or to quote that eminent philosopher and wise old sage, me, "What's the next step in life? It's the one right in front of you."

DB - The Vagabond
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SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

In your opinion what is the most amazing thing that could happen during this decade? Make it as outrageous as you want but keep it within the realm of what you consider a possibility.

15 responses so far.

Answers will be published the first day of Summer.

Thank you.

dbdacoba@aol.com

DB - The Vagabond
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Enjoy It

After you've done all the work and prepared as much as you can, what the hell, you might as well go out and have a good time.

Benny Goodman
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My friend Marty (remember him?), who's doing fine by the way, sent me a quote this morning from an unknown source which says "Do something you love and you'll never have to do a day’s work in your life."

Some directors have a habit of telling the actors just before opening night to go out and "have fun with it." I don't know why they say that unless it's an attempt at offering an antidote to the struggles of rehearsal and preparation. Otherwise it's an unnecessary remark. If course we will have fun with it. If we didn't enjoy it we wouldn't be doing it. It's too difficult.

About ten years ago Ed Earle and I were doing a play in which we were the two main characters. During a break in rehearsal one of the designers came up to us to compliment us on being so good and so funny. I said to him if he thought we were good in rehearsal "wait until you see us in front of an audience."

The purpose of "all the work" that Goodman talks of is to be as entertaining as possible when the audience comes. I don't think there is a single musician who can just pick up his instrument, walk out on stage and play it brilliantly without preparation, without tuning it, warming it up and himself. Benny Goodman may get to a point in performance where his clarinet plays itself, but not without a lot of preparation.

An actor must know many things before opening night. He must know the lines so well he doesn't have to think of them. That takes hours of tedious work and is the biggest pit for an unprepared actor to fall into. He must know the story and his place in it. He must know where he is both on stage and off. He must know how to work as an ensemble player with the other actors. There are some well known actors who never achieve that knowledge, and it shows. He must know how to perform his role with all of its details and subtleties. The accent in Benny Goodman's remark is on the work and preparation as well as on the good time. The only times I have seen an actor suffer during a performance was when he was unprepared and his lock of knowledge of one of the things I just mentioned caught up with him.

My friend David came to see me perform in a play only once. He went out with the cast for a beer afterwards and jokingly said "I don't know how much they're paying you, but it's too much, because you're having too much fun."

What the hell, you might as well.

DB
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APRIL FOOLERY

Weekend Contest
This contest is open for the next 5 days.

APRIL FOOLERY
Choose as many numbers as you want and fill in the blanks
Winners will be posted on the evening of April 4.
The decisions of the nasty biased judge are final. Prizes will awarded on the basis of originality and whatever makes me laugh.

5 ENTRIES SO FAR

On the first day of April my true love gave to me
12______
11______
10______
9_______
8_______
7_______
6_______
5_______
4_______
3_______
2_______
and_______

Good luck
DB
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Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead

If your love is true, strong and innocent it can pass through the lives of evil men and still remain pure.

DB - The Vagabond
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Romeo: Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear
That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops, --

Juliet: O! swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

Romeo: What shall I swear by?

Juliet" Do not swear at all;
Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Is there such a thing as constancy? I believe there is, although I would certainly not hold myself up as an example of it. I have known and admired couples who have maintained a constant love affair through many decades of married life. I also knew a couple who got married to each other three times and divorced twice. There seems to be a wry consistency there. These days the news is filled with accounts of infidelity among the rich and famous, of sexual wickedness in high places (to paraphrase).

50 years ago I got married to the theatre. It took me many years to realize and understand that. Meanwhile, everything else, including my social life, took second place. I used to blame myself for that. I don't any more. Recently a woman said to me that she admired me for sticking with my career for so long, even through the hard, thin times. It's true that the life of an artist, particularly a performing artist can be hard on one's social and family life. Some make it work, some don't. For those who don't it means that people are going to get hurt along the way.

It may seem selfish and cruel, and it is. Make believe can carry one a long way. How long it does determines how many people get hurt. But eventually an artist has to come to understand himself well enough to know how not to fool himself and.others, and if he does, the cruelty will stop.

There were many moments in my life when I would step off the stage after a performance and say to myself "I love this. I love this more than life itself." And with that attitude nothing was going to stop me.

An actor cannot work alone. He is surrounded by people: other actors, designers, choreographers, stage managers, directors, managers, producers, critics. And some of them are "evil" men and women. Some of them will do everything they can to stop him, interfere with him, discourage him and bring him down. It comes with the trade.

An actor has to constantly fight for the right to do his work. But it's the imperturbable love of doing it that carries him through the attacks with grace and innocence so that his work is pure and strong. As far as I know there is no other way.

DB
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Still searching for a question to make the Winter Quiz,

Quality Questions 9/04/09

A work of art is a creature which beckons, points and leads the way. But if we see it as merely a thing in itself we are still lost.

DB - The Vagabond
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Climb aboard.
____________________________
A CEO of a major American oil company was quoted as saying that he had never given a dollar to any cultural cause in his life, that he never would and he was proud of it. That man is truly lost.

Probably nothing and no group of people suffer from as much criticism, prejudice, misunderstanding, misinterpretation and maligning as art and artists do. I know I have written about the inane habit many people have of not being able to separate the actor from the role he plays. The man who plays the clarinet does not go around all day with a clarinet in his hands. Why should a man who plays a villain go around all day with villainy in his heart? It makes no sense.

Books have been burned or banned from library shelves, paintings have been taken off the walls, statues have been destroyed or covered up, not because of what they are but because of what an ignorant person or group of people think they are.

A work of art can be pleasing and enjoyable on a very simple level, but, yes, sometimes it can be dangerous. But the danger is primarily in its prophetic abilities.

When Pierre Beaumarchais wrote his trilogy of plays about Figaro in the 1770s the hero was a barber, a common man. The aristocrats came and laughed. They were so amused at the idea of a commoner being able to control a nobleman and his family, something they knew would never happen. But within a short time there were revolutions, and near revolutions, in which the common people took over the reins from the oppressive, conservative, aristocratic governments all over Europe and America. Did Beaumarchais' plays cause those revolutions? No. They pointed to them.

Plato says somewhere that when the modes of society change the modes of music always change first. When Arnold Schoenberg developed the twelve tone theory of music compostion in the 1920s in which equal importance was given to each tone of the scale it erased the traditional method of keys with their inner harmonic relationships. There were plenty of polemics about Schoenberg's music but was he preaching Socialism or predicting it?

In the 1940s New York City became the center of the art world with the rise of AbstractExpressionsism and artists such Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline and Hans Hoffman. And what was it telling us? The world had just been torn to shreds by the second world war, culminating in the massive destruction of two civilizations by atomic bombs. Life would never be the same. Painting became nonpolitical and nonobjective. A work of art no longer had to be about something. It became the reality of the artists' emotional and subconscious lives. It was a completely personal revolution, a modern version of the rise of the common man, his thoughts, feelings and experiences. It was now a true communication, as it had always been, but without the limitations of tradition, a communication from the artist to the viewer, one on one.

That revolution made it's way into poetry, theatre, music and dance. And I think that's where the finger was pointing. Freedom. Freedom of expression. Freedom of speech. Freedom from boundaries and limitations. You don't have to paint abstract art or compose twelve tone music. But you can if you want to. It's personal. Your choice. The revolution is still going on (but don't tell the aristocrats or that CEO).

Now there is electronics: computer graphics, electronic music or electronically altered traditional music (rock bands) and massive and complicated special effects in films. What is that pointing to?

The best way to view a work of art is to ask what it is saying to you. Don't make assumptions. Take time and let its message speak. Congratulate yourself. The artist is talking to you. YOU.

DB - The Vagabond
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I enjoy your hugs.
________________________
SUMMER QUIZ

This is not a contest.



A young man out west just took home 88 million dollars from the lottery.



Whether you play the lottery or not, if you suddenly had 88 million dollars, or the equivalent of whatever your currency is, what are the first three things you would do with it?



You have all summer to answer if you wish.

20 responses so far.



DB

Tarnished Tapestries 8/07/09

How vain it is to sit down and write when you have not stood up to live.

Thoreau
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You're welcome here, rain or shine.
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Happy are those artists who achieve success at an early age. As long as they keep going they know that their works will be bought. But why do we hear of someone who publishes his or her first novel at the age of 75 or 80? That's a good question.

Many years ago I got a phone call from a man I didn't know. He told me he had written a play and wondered if I would read it and give him my opinion. He told me it was about the assassination of a famous political leader in England. It sounded like a good drama so I agreed to read it. He had it delivered to my building and I started to read. I wasn't particularly tired but I feel asleep midway through the first act.

He had made a series of fundamental mistakes. First of all it began with a chorus of men rolling beer kegs into a pub. It was a musical. I thought maybe it was a comedy about death, so I read on. Then he struggled over writing British dialect. One should not try to write dialect unless one knows it thoroughly. Otherwise just say they are Englishmen and leave it up to the actors to do the right dialects. Then he brought into the pub the character of George Bernard Shaw. One shouldn't bring Shaw into a play unless one can write dialogue for him which is at least as clever as his own, The assassination was a foregone fact. There was no suspense, no distress, no danger. And finally, there was nothing of the writer in the play, no point of view, no character speaking for or against the author's own ideas. In fact, there were no ideas. It was a straight narrative of events. No doubt the author's history was correct, but it wasn't a play. I sent it back with my opinions and that was that. The play was never done.

When I was asked what kinds of roles I played as an actor, I answered that they were either autobiographical or wish fulfillment. In a certain sense those are both the same. They were autobiographical because I made them that. I always drew from my own life experiences, either lived or observed, to fill in the important areas of the role. The rest was invented.

Every work of art is autobiographical to one degree or another, That can't be helped. The good artist can never completely disassociate himself from the work. Nor should he try to. The reason that fellow's play didn't work is because there was nothing of himself in it.

I've had a few exhibits of my paintings and won a couple of awards. But I have never sold anything through an exhibit. No one is publishing my essays or stories. So why do I do it? I do it because I have to. It's like breathing or feeding myself. One good reason for older folks to write is wisdom. Wisdom doesn't necessarily come from intelligence, it may come from a life lived. My words are often torn from the obscure, inner pages of my being. I am not rich or famous but I have stood up to live 7 decades of a difficult, adventuresome, vagabond life and now I am sitting down to write about it.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
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Spend a day without worry.
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Coin I put before the wrong deep, worm. (9)