Things, arranged.

The Extinction of the Whole Mind

After over a decade in the halls of higher education, I am leaving the world of tenure and academe as an associate professor of the dramatic arts. There are many personal reasons I have departed such a secure and coveted position, the most important one being that I am continuing to evolve and grow as a human being and want to apply my experience and skills with story to writing full time. What is disheartening about my departure from many valued colleagues and students is how the American university is becoming a place of de-evolution and shrinkage.

De-evolution in the sense that after the financial crisis of 2008, a new era of austerity, economic expediency and specialization has gripped the academy. Shrinkage in the sense that instead of enriching minds and enhancing the essential citizenry of our next generations, the academy is undergoing a narrowing and shallowing of education that will, in my opinion, come to haunt us soon in the 21st century.

Renaissance, Enlightenment, America as a Democracy of Informed Citizens. Noble sentiments that were major the themes of the past many hundred years of western civilization. When the twentieth century was dubbed "The American Century" by some, one of the key proofs therein was the dynamic transformation of our society that was a direct result of a broad based, world class and accessible university education in each of our fifty states.

However, today's public universities have been commoditized, politicized and legislated into something strange. Let us list here just a few of the more bizarre and existential conundrums facing today's universities:

* Seats to the highest bidder: Chronic budget cuts and a demand that universities behave in a more "entrepreneurial manner" by increasingly vocal stake-holders have led to a disproportionate level of foreign and out-of-state students who pay premium tuitions displacing local students. In-state students, some with exceptional academic qualifications are being turned turned away. They don't pay very much tuition. Universities that try and quota enough seats for local students face enormous budget shortfalls as a result, with no relief due to forced tuition increase caps. So much for the noble intentions of the land grant state university movement.

* Silo-ed departments competing with each other for student credit hours to get a slice of the ever shrinking budget pie must increasingly "popularize" their curriculum in order to attract students. The result is a dumbing down of curriculum to the lowest common denominator. Student credit hours mean dollars. Therefore, butts in seats by any means necessary. Hence, the Impact of the Hong Kong Kung Fu movie and Sex, Drugs, Rock n' Roll become two of the most populated entry level classes for incoming freshman in the Humanities department. Welcome to higher learning in America circa 2018.

* Credit pressure on students to specialize early and remain committed to one narrow track of study: competitive programs demand specific pre-requisites, and deny the student any real opportunity to explore other areas of knowledge due to heavy credit loads. The result is a collapse of the very essence of "universal" knowledge. Instead, students are tracked into ever narrower fields of specialization to feed a voracious economy. Know less, study harder, graduate and embark on a career as a human widget.

* The culture war wasteland: Today's university is a battleground of polarization, narcissistic identity politics and "us" versus "them" thinking that reflects much of our current wider culture, but is exacerbated by a fractured, isolated and limited world view which is the by-product of over specialization. There is little possibility for real learning when there is no light, space or air for an idea or argument or concept to be presented without the threat of retribution or lawsuit.

I could go on, but these are a few of the top factors that have rendered our universities impotent and ineffectual. When the ability to consider both sides of an argument or issue is lost, when the idea that a well educated, well informed citizen is a better citizen for a democracy is disregarded for expediency, when the belief that a narrow mind is of greater value to a society than a whole mind is advanced by those who wield power, then we have come to a dangerous time in history.

Finally, just so you don't take this article as the post-professorial whinings of a frustrated academic, consider this: in one of the most fascinating and challenging research projects I ever engaged in at the university, I tried to help Amazon's human resources people in Seattle solve a problem with their college recruiting programs. The problem was that Amazon had a seemingly limitless number of college applicants who could fulfill their technical, logistical, computational and industrial needs, but they have been struggling to find college graduates who could become future leaders; students who could think critically, solve problems, imagine creatively and see the bigger picture. They were looking for whole minds. I hated giving them the bad news:

Unfortunately, we just aren't educating a lot of those in these times. They don't seem to be in much demand.

Ragged Claws

 

 

 

Here at the bottom of the sea

Silent sirens and mystery

Caverns of chorus vaulting high

No need for anything dry

 

Here at the bottom of the sea

A pair of ragged claws is me

Sunken bodies drifting by

Mermaid sings a lullabye

 

When I did sail the great wide ocean

The wind was my map and chart

Chasing dragons on the horizon 

A moral compass was my heart

 

On the shore a flag was flying

The battlements were steel and grey

Storm warning signs arriving

Live to fight another day

 

On the shore her voice was calling

 

Though lovers be lost

Their love shall not

 

Can’t forget the song she sang

 

Though lovers be lost

Their love shall not

 

 

The Cost of Doing Business

“When gun violence becomes commodified as content by the media, we consume it rather than experience it. As a nation, we’re dead to it now. Despite our momentary hysteria, we’ve pretty much compartmentalized gun death, random mass shootings in particular. Consequently, we live in a country that seems to agree that 33,000 gun deaths a year is an acceptable price to pay for our unique, constitutionally guaranteed access to firearms.”

 - Gregory Gibson, New York Times, Sunday February 18, 2018

The Sameness of All Things

 

The date is February 4th, 2018.

The event is the National Football League championship gama, AKA The Super Bowl.

The moment is when a Dodge Ram advertisement airs during the broadcast.

The ad is a collage of images of the Dodge Ram truck, supported by the voice of Martin Luther King Jr. delivering his iconic speech about the nature of 'Greatness'.

The message is clear: The Dodge Ram truck is equivalent to an entire race striving to overcome incredible historical, political, social and judicial oppression by embracing personal greatness.

In this moment, the long and tragic road America has been traveling, where everything, everyone and every aspect of American life becomes a commodity reaches its final destination as a place where only the bottom line exists.

We, as a nation, now agree that everything is the same, and everything that is the same is also for sale.

Totalitariam regimes and empires of the past have been overt about their insistence that all that exists has some fealty to the dominant power structure. Rome, The Soviet Union, pre-capitalist China to name a few of the well known. To render unto Caesar what is Caesar was to acknowledge who really owned everything. To serve the state and the party was the patriotic duty of every Soviet citizen. To declare unwavering commitment to Chairman Mao and the Communist Party was to be an upright citizen.

Now, in early 21st century America, to accept that persons, bodies, lives, thoughts, politics, deeds, ideals, principles, beliefs, cultures and all else are indeed commoditites in service of profit and power is to be a patriotic American. 

All the faux hashtag "movements" that inundate our lives, all the identity politics and culture wars that inform our existence are simply the by-products of this commodification phenomenon. The most vivid example of this is those in Hollywood who have allowed themselves to be bought and sold as products now wearing a certain color or lapel pin to awards shows where their self-commodity narcissism is celebrated on television by America. 

The question now is: whence goeth a nation when everything has been sold?

Time

 At the end of Ridley Scott's 1982 classic sci-fi film BLADE RUNNER, we hear a voice over as we see a vehicle heading towards a dystopian horizon.

"I didn't know how much time we had. Who does?"

In 2017, the Film BLADE RUNNER 2049 was released.

That's 25 years after the first film, which is set in a dystopian version of 2019. The story of the new film takes place 30 years after the original.

The original film was based on the Philip K. Dick book DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? That book was written in 1967 (published 1968), 15 years before the original film was made.

There is a lot of numerical symmetry going on here. Or is there?

We mark millennia, centuries, decades,  birthdays and year ends as if the dates and numbers hold some power or indicator of a greater truth. This is a uniquely human trait. We also see patterns,  cycles and symmetries in numbers and days. 

According to the tarot, a reading does not portend future events or explain past experiences; instead the cards present us with a pattern or canvas upon which we impose meaning, should we choose to do so. 

We are who makes meaning out of the pictures before us.

Time is a kind of picture: we look back, look ahead and act accordingly. We can remember the past, we can imagine the future. We can live in the permanent now, although this is becoming a more difficult task in our “what’s next” culture.

How then, shall we decide what to do next? Like travellers along a road, we walk along and take in the signs around us. Some of the things we encounter have meaning: another person, a task to be done, the people we care about. Some of the things we encounter are more enigmatic: a murder of crows, a sudden change in the weather, the coming of night. We consider,  contemplate and consternate.

And then, as if all of sudden, we turn off the path and walk towards unknown destinations. 

It’s Time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Actors Guide to Human Nature

This may be off putting at the beginning, but bear with me...

Understand that all humans are inherently: Selfish, Stupid, Lazy.

Humans will always prefer to gain as much as possible while knowing the least and doing as little as possible.

Understand that the sources of all human desire are: Acquisition, Rivalry, Vanity, Power.

From philosopher Bertrand Russell: the need to have more, have more than another, be self-centered and seek leverage over others.

Understand that the hidden causes of human actions are: Fear, Guilt, Shame.

Humans are afraid of what they do not understand and will always be motivated to avoid or attack what they fear, or will pursue actions based on a fear of what others and their own consciences may judge them as. Humans carry guilt over who and what they have done, and endeavor to suppress it. Humans are ashamed of their own actions that are the result of their true nature and will try to dispel this.

Understand that the human circumstance is: Denial of all of the above.

Humans will always deny all of the above because it is simply too hard to face the truth of who and what they are.

Understand that the singular human capacity that counters this situation is:

LOVE.

From Jacques Derrida: after all is understood about humanity, there is hope because we have the capacity to love, which is the only human trait that can help a person rise above their condition.

None of these concepts are to be taken as cynical or pessimistic. They are simply attributes of a sentient being that is trying to find the “best” way to survive and thrive in the world. The capacity to love allows a human being to care more about something or someone outside of their experience, thereby raising the possibility of recognition, acceptance, examination and choice.

These choices then become human actions.

I like Snowflakes

 

I have heard the rants. They all revolve around this central idea:

"This generation are a bunch of snowflakes. They think they are so special, so unique, so precious. It's sickening."

First of all, get your metaphors right. Snowflakes are in fact unique. That's just science.

Now, let's consider the source.

Every generation since the beginning of generations has blamed, vilified, dismissed and been disappointed by the next one.

The retreat into the faux wisdom of raging age is nothing more than self-loathing spewed outward when it finally overflows.

The so-called insights the aged purport to possess is often a manifestation of disappointment, a deflected blame that comes from realizing their own failures. 

Human beings are unique to this reality because they can dream, imagine, ruminate and consider abstract concepts. Often humans can make real the seemingly unrealistic. Yet on some level, there seems to remain a constant, consistent dissatisfaction with the ways things have turned out. 

Some revelations that have become cliches:

"It was better in my day."

"We knew what it was like to struggle."

"There's no more _______ anymore."

"Rock music is dead."

"This generation just doesn't get it."

The truth is, the generation before yours said this about you, and the generation before them said this about them, and so on, and so on, and so on.

What is behind the particular "snowflake" attack is a deep resentment towards a generation that may or may not be seeking an authentic individual human identity. This is combined with a supposition that this generation of proto-narcissists are particularly sensitive and vulnerable.

The snowflake is to be despised for attempting to define individualism on a fundamental level and for being aware of both themselves and the world around them. 

I am reminded of some other revelations that may now be cliches:

"America is about Individualism."

"E Pluribus Unum"

"Land of the free, home of the brave."

In order to be free, one must recognize themselves as individuals first. In order to be brave, one has to know what it is to empathize with something worth fighting for that belongs to the many.

In other words, one has to possess certain snowflake-like qualities.

If age and wisdom are so invaluable, then why is the world the way it is? The aged and the wise have their hands on the steering wheel of history, yet they careen into the unknown like carnival clowns, all the while their contorted faces turned to the back seat, spewing venom at the bemused kids.

Take a good look at yourself in the rear view, sage of sages, and just keep going. The snowflakes are right behind you.

 As The Who said, the kids are alright.

Love is Everywhere

The Edinburgh International Festival 2017

As Meow Meow careens through her cabaret re-fraction of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid, she lays bare her broken-heeled down at heart seen too much / felt too deep train wreck life with wit, style and brutal self-awareness. She also takes us deep down into the depths of her psycho-sexual psyche with astounding virtousity in song, movement, effortless aerial work and deadly-sharp humor.

Meow Meow's little mermaid is longing for Love, but trying to define it, shape it, see it and say it becomes increasingly difficult as she attempts various stratagems to own it. The meta-feminist tropes are here, too: the problem of being objectified and wanting to be objectified, the need to be authentic and accommodating, the seemingly intractable problem of male unwokeness.

What makes Meow Meow's cabaret a shining jewel of a theatrical experience though, is the incredible presence, power, grace, style and vocal brilliance of Meow Meow herself. Her command of the room, the story, the music and the mode of performance are simply at a level akin to someone like Mick Jagger in a 75,000 seat stadium at the height of his powers. Rare, mysterious and to be reckoned with.

In deconstructing the idea of the classic cabaret chanteuse, Meow Meow informs her songs with the true-to-life flaws that are meant to be hidden beneath the polish and romance of the performer. The old school cabaret singer would drop a world-weary anecdote here, a witty bit of repartee there, but they would channel their true self-revelations into the song stylings. Meow Meow decides to expose the woman behind the persona and in doing so creates another layer of persona that creates a wonderfully complex experience for the audience: Meow Meow is a character created by the actress who is performing a cabaret, and her character is playing another character, and at the same time, she is pulling back the curtain to let us see woman inside of it all. It is a brilliant mirror ball game that ultimately reflects back to us our own flaws and hopes.

Meow Meow also employs a few just-for-fun surprises that play into this show on a show inside a show on top of a show concept. Is this a part of the show? Are we really supposed to do that? Wait. Okay. Is she really...? Who cares. We are in Meow Meow's firm, tickling grasp. Let's dive deep with her.

Time Accumulates

 

The Edinburgh Festivals, 2017.

Selina Thompson's solo performance SALT takes you on a startling journey across oceans, across time and across the complex landscape of the struggle to find one's humanity in a world that is decidedly inhumane.

Thompson's words are simple yet poetic, powerful yet non-polemic. She has an easy way with her words, holding you close on her adventures and letting you into her heart and mind with refreshing honesty. Her saga on a begins in her native Birmingham, moves through Europe and onto Africa, Jamaica, America and beyond via cargo ship. She also traverses her geneology through slavery and racism, examining her black womanhood in the context of a past of recurring pain and a present of permanent Otherness in Europe.

Onstage there is a makeshift altar, water, plants, a microphone, a boulder of salt and a sledghammer. Thompson informs the audience before the show: "Here are the rules. When I put my safety goggles on, you put yours on."

The pulverizing of the salt boulder is a release, an attack, a labor, a metaphor and a catharsis. We begin to understand how the sea, the natural elements and the society we live in shape us as human beings. We also understand how time accumulates: rather than a chain of events, Thompson asks us to think of time as a tactile element like sand, where each event and moment fall one upon the other until the mound and then the mountain we stand upon informs our view of the world we live in.

Towards the end, as Thompson grinds the salt with a mortar and pestle, we realize we are a part of a ritual: an evocation of spirits exalted and damned. We are being blessed with witnessing.

One artist performance work is a daunting proposition. How to hold an audience? How to create the journey? What theatrical elements to employ? Is the content sustainable in the space and time required? Is the artist and the artistry compelling enough to keep us interested?

With SALT, Selina Thompson succeeds in creating a memorable, moving and meaningful experience for all.

With Ad Infinitum, the heart is a Translunar Paradise

Jacques Lecoq created a startling physical vocabulary for actors that has become a recognized style throughout the world. Based in the rich and vast history of European clowning, Lecoq also brings the power and grace of the dance and ballet together with the natural, human centered movement attributes of the human body. Together, Lecoq allows an actor a wide range of specificity, complex characterization and stage presence that is unmistakable when articulated with virtousity.

Ad Infinitum theatre includes two Lecoq trained actors, Deborah Pugh and George Mann.  They are former students of my friend Jason Turner of l'ecole Lecoq in Paris, who taught me so much about what questions to ask about the human body in the theatrical space. Their show at this year's Edinburgh Fringe, Translunar Paradise, is a powerful and artfully rendered tale of life before and after loss.

Deborah and George play a simple couple from the early years of courtship and romance to the lonely and nostalgic final days of life. Their consumate command of Lecoq technique delivers detailed characterizations of the nuances of everyday living through the years: a meal, a walk, a disagreement, a heartbreaking loss and finally, death. All this while not a single word is ever uttered.

The accordian player and singer stands in as a sort of chorus, aiding the characters with a prop here or a helping hand there, all the while offering poignant and evocative vocalizations to enhance her languid accordian soundscape.

Theatre practitioners should always ponder the essential elements that are placed in the Time and Space of the Moment before an audience. What is necessary? What is the theatrical vocabulary being employed? What is extraneous? What is the central theatrical "gesture" of the piece? How does all this live in the realm of metaphor, which is the core identity of the theatrical impulse?

These days, more often than not, the stage is used and abused as a place for narcissistic identity politics, clumsy polemic, self-validation and trite, shallow observations masquerading as artistic profundity. It is the curse of the millenial theatre space, a place where the choir can be shouted at and the 'safe space' cuddle-need is indulged.

To see virtuousity of technique, universal human mysteries explored, questions asked without simple answers and the naked honesty of human frailty,  spend some time with Theatre Ad Infinitum's Translunar Paradise.  At the Pleasance Courtyard in Edinburgh.