I've got a smart complex. I have never worried about my smart-ranking as I have this summer. Graduated, no job, planning on applying to editing positions in Philly...and I'm frightened that I'll seem dumb or full of air or vapid in front of people whose opinions actually matter to me because, well, they are doing something I want to do.
I've realized how woefully few life skills I've acquired - by life skills, I suppose I actually mean 'job getting' skills. I was turned down for a teller position at a bank because I 'did not meet the minimum requirements' of the position. While at a job interview at an Italian restaurant, I described a caper as being "like a pea, but not a pea." Stupid. STUPID. Well...kind of funny, too.
But really, where did my confidence go? I AM that smart. I WORK that hard. I have talents and tons of friends telling me I've got them, and tons of not-friends recognizing them. Is it about 'getting lucky'? I don't know.
I've made the decision to move into a room in Kutztown on August first, job or no job. I'll find a way to make it work.
But it would be beautiful to be editing somewhere...
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Sometimes I think V-- and I live double lives. We inhabit every form of duality. Similar current relationships, similar views on marriage (and on what will happen when those views, so frail, in truth, fall to the wayside of our loss of youth and beauty and charm, so artfully deliniated by my favorite female).
I am wildly and wickedly bohemian lately. I spent last night composing spontaneously on a walk with John, changing most all my philosophical views on writing and on my process, on storytelling, on the essence of narration. Then, I toured two fantastically beautiful homes, drank a French table wine that was out of this world, watched an art film (but really talked throughout it and only payed attention to the first half, which was completely worthy of my time - my inattention is no slight to the film), and painted pre-colombian war paint on myself and on my friends' faces. I spoke passionately about Mayan poetry, about Faust, about a Protestant shame and feeling of pretentiousness when I spoke about my own writing. I quantified what publishing does to a writer. I felt brilliant and charming. I am still buzzing.
Ah! So much to love down here. I feel inexplicably free.
I am wildly and wickedly bohemian lately. I spent last night composing spontaneously on a walk with John, changing most all my philosophical views on writing and on my process, on storytelling, on the essence of narration. Then, I toured two fantastically beautiful homes, drank a French table wine that was out of this world, watched an art film (but really talked throughout it and only payed attention to the first half, which was completely worthy of my time - my inattention is no slight to the film), and painted pre-colombian war paint on myself and on my friends' faces. I spoke passionately about Mayan poetry, about Faust, about a Protestant shame and feeling of pretentiousness when I spoke about my own writing. I quantified what publishing does to a writer. I felt brilliant and charming. I am still buzzing.
Ah! So much to love down here. I feel inexplicably free.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
More papering; ignore if you don't want really disparate writing on Blake and Milton
What does Blake’s poem have to say about poets and prophecy? Milton’s? How comfortable are the poems with the idea of visions and visionaries?
“So the Angel said: thy phantasy has imposed upon me & thou oughtest to be ashamed. I answered: we impose on one another, & it is but lost time to converse with you whose works are only Analytics” (40)
-Much of Milton’s most involved poetic moments in Paradise Lost come with rhetoric and in rhetorical speeches.
-Milton speaks of prophecy in books 11-12 – both Milton and Blake almost use the same lines to describe man’s limits of perception. Blake: “The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man” (32). Milton: “I perceive / Thy mortal sight to fail: objects divine / Must needs impair and weary human sense” (Bk. 12 l. 8-10) and “But to nobler sights / Michael from Adam’s eyes the film removed / Which that false fruit that promised clearer sight / had bred” (Bk. 11 l. 411-414) and later Adam must “close his eyes” (l. 419) in order to take in all he is to see. Blake and Milton both speak to human reason clouding some larger sense of truth (divine Good and Evil in Milton; or poetic genius in Blake). Milton relies on some sort of divine intervention in order to expand human ‘sight’, or reason (but remains limited to expansion in terms of the ability to use the human mind to reason and rationalize) – Blake gives more credit by positing that humans, if they are open to more infinite frames of mind (equally entertaining multiple or oppositionary modes of thought; or giving words multiple definitions/meanings) have the ability for themselves to tap directly into these larger truths.
Interesting that Milton uses the word ‘impair’ to describe the effects of divine ‘sight’ or foresight/prophecy on ‘human sense’, or human’s ability to reason. Impair from Latin, pejorare – “to make worse”. So is foresight or the ability to prophesy a negative thing for humans? In the sense that Michael perhaps believes we shouldn’t shoot too high? It aids in the ‘knowledge isn’t all good’ argument of the poem – ignorance is bliss, sort of. But, in reverse, does that mean that not having an absolute or not being able to predict outcomes is best? That making mistakes and thus gaining wisdom from experience is better than having the knowledge of the mistake ready-made? Certainly more ‘poetic’ interpretation of the merits of human reasoning, in a Romantic sense – not having knowledge of purpose, not knowing what should come next, lends to creating self-purpose, to fashioning a purpose independent of the pursuit of absolutes (absolute truth, absolute good, etc.).
Milton framing speeches with caveats – “so spake the apostate angel”; he “weeped as only an angel could weep”
-arguments which are easily taken apart through reasoning them through – i.e., how the Devil in the Garden with Eve interprets eating from the tree of good and evil, AND eve’s subsequent rationalizing to herself of eating from the tree.
Blake places himself in the poem both as a prophet and as a friend of the prophets. He dines with Ezekiel and Isaiah in the twelfth and thirteenth plates: “I asked them how they dared so roundly to assert, that God spoke to them; and whether they did not think at the time, that they would be misunderstood, & so be the cause of imposition” (34). Blake has concerns about the deception that poets or prophets sometimes proffer in their writings. I don’t think he means it as a purposeful deception, but is concerned about the liminality of speech in being able to describe infinite things.
Blake’s concern of the finite used to describe the infinite, or his anxiety about receiving information from the “perceptions” (35) of a secondary source, shows up later in his journey with the angel who shows him his fate. While with the angel, Blake views his fate as epically hellish: “a cloud and fire burst and rolled thro’ the deep…beneath us was nothing now to be seen but a black tempest…we saw a cataract of blood mixed with fire” (38). But when the angel leaves, Blake sees quite a different scene than the one the angel presented him, and reports to the angel that “All that [Blake and the angel] saw was owing to [the angel’s] metaphysics; for when [the angel] ran away, I found myself on a bank by the moonlight hearing a harper” (39). Blake is incredibly wary of self-proclaimed poets or visionaries who claim to show truths but instead offer limited perceptions or interpretations. Blake believes that false prophecy leads to More here. Indeed Blake interprets himself as a primary source, not as a poet who reinterprets divine (or satanic) prophecy, but as a scribe who writes directly what the divine and what the satanic speak: “As I was walking among the fires of hell…I collected some of their Proverbs” (30).
Blake sometimes directly associates poetic genius with the ability to be a prophet; a true poet, he thinks, spontaneously is gifted or receives direct communication with divine Truths or sayings. Blake has a deep concern about art being or producing something original – his illuminated paintings, each one painted and produced differently than any other copy, may be the best testament to his obsession with originality. Blake’s harshest criticism is of Swedenborg, whom he says writes “a recapitulation of all superficial opinions, and an analysis of the more sublime, but no further” and also that “he has written all the old falshoods” (40). Poetic genius, Blake offers, is established in having a mind infinite enough to be capable of receiving these messages despite conflicting messages being produced by man. He thinks the function of a poet is to reproduce the divine, not interpret it, as he criticizes Swedenborg of doing. He praises poets whom he believes recapitulate messages from the infinite – messages which he believes both take into account the angelic/Good/reason/religious and “converse with Devils who all hate religion” (40) – and cites Shakespeare, Dante, and Milton all as poets who have expansive enough minds to be considered primary authorities of poetic thought.
In this vein, Blake is damning of interpretation and of gilded metaphor or poetic speech. Most generally, his own writing in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is plain and without set verse or rhyme. It lays out claims in a very clear and almost philosophic style; these claims are often numbered, bulleted, or separated by line breaks which aid in visual ease of the work. Often Blake equates eloquent speech as the building blocks to oppression and finite interpretation: “Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion” (32). Blake almost argues for a reading against the grain when he says that “opposition is true friendship” (40) or acerbically claims that he “reads the Bible together [with an angel who has become a devil] in its infernal or diabolical sense which the world shall have if they behave well” (41).
Both Milton and Blake I think use images of the devil and of hell as a protagonist (or anti-hero) for the shock value; the fact that the audience finds themselves sometimes rationalizing or approving of, in Milton’s case, arguments or speeches that the devils posit, or, in Blake’s case, Machiavellian-like prophecies that do have some credence. They play with the appeal of the taboo more here how milton’s play deviates from blake’s. While Milton may only argue to think and reason for yourself, or to question authority, Blake takes it one step further and actively argues for reading oppositionally to what is being offered you in the hopes of expanding your capability for understanding the infinite or receiving infinite truths.
“So the Angel said: thy phantasy has imposed upon me & thou oughtest to be ashamed. I answered: we impose on one another, & it is but lost time to converse with you whose works are only Analytics” (40)
-Much of Milton’s most involved poetic moments in Paradise Lost come with rhetoric and in rhetorical speeches.
-Milton speaks of prophecy in books 11-12 – both Milton and Blake almost use the same lines to describe man’s limits of perception. Blake: “The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man” (32). Milton: “I perceive / Thy mortal sight to fail: objects divine / Must needs impair and weary human sense” (Bk. 12 l. 8-10) and “But to nobler sights / Michael from Adam’s eyes the film removed / Which that false fruit that promised clearer sight / had bred” (Bk. 11 l. 411-414) and later Adam must “close his eyes” (l. 419) in order to take in all he is to see. Blake and Milton both speak to human reason clouding some larger sense of truth (divine Good and Evil in Milton; or poetic genius in Blake). Milton relies on some sort of divine intervention in order to expand human ‘sight’, or reason (but remains limited to expansion in terms of the ability to use the human mind to reason and rationalize) – Blake gives more credit by positing that humans, if they are open to more infinite frames of mind (equally entertaining multiple or oppositionary modes of thought; or giving words multiple definitions/meanings) have the ability for themselves to tap directly into these larger truths.
Interesting that Milton uses the word ‘impair’ to describe the effects of divine ‘sight’ or foresight/prophecy on ‘human sense’, or human’s ability to reason. Impair from Latin, pejorare – “to make worse”. So is foresight or the ability to prophesy a negative thing for humans? In the sense that Michael perhaps believes we shouldn’t shoot too high? It aids in the ‘knowledge isn’t all good’ argument of the poem – ignorance is bliss, sort of. But, in reverse, does that mean that not having an absolute or not being able to predict outcomes is best? That making mistakes and thus gaining wisdom from experience is better than having the knowledge of the mistake ready-made? Certainly more ‘poetic’ interpretation of the merits of human reasoning, in a Romantic sense – not having knowledge of purpose, not knowing what should come next, lends to creating self-purpose, to fashioning a purpose independent of the pursuit of absolutes (absolute truth, absolute good, etc.).
Milton framing speeches with caveats – “so spake the apostate angel”; he “weeped as only an angel could weep”
-arguments which are easily taken apart through reasoning them through – i.e., how the Devil in the Garden with Eve interprets eating from the tree of good and evil, AND eve’s subsequent rationalizing to herself of eating from the tree.
Blake places himself in the poem both as a prophet and as a friend of the prophets. He dines with Ezekiel and Isaiah in the twelfth and thirteenth plates: “I asked them how they dared so roundly to assert, that God spoke to them; and whether they did not think at the time, that they would be misunderstood, & so be the cause of imposition” (34). Blake has concerns about the deception that poets or prophets sometimes proffer in their writings. I don’t think he means it as a purposeful deception, but is concerned about the liminality of speech in being able to describe infinite things.
Blake’s concern of the finite used to describe the infinite, or his anxiety about receiving information from the “perceptions” (35) of a secondary source, shows up later in his journey with the angel who shows him his fate. While with the angel, Blake views his fate as epically hellish: “a cloud and fire burst and rolled thro’ the deep…beneath us was nothing now to be seen but a black tempest…we saw a cataract of blood mixed with fire” (38). But when the angel leaves, Blake sees quite a different scene than the one the angel presented him, and reports to the angel that “All that [Blake and the angel] saw was owing to [the angel’s] metaphysics; for when [the angel] ran away, I found myself on a bank by the moonlight hearing a harper” (39). Blake is incredibly wary of self-proclaimed poets or visionaries who claim to show truths but instead offer limited perceptions or interpretations. Blake believes that false prophecy leads to More here. Indeed Blake interprets himself as a primary source, not as a poet who reinterprets divine (or satanic) prophecy, but as a scribe who writes directly what the divine and what the satanic speak: “As I was walking among the fires of hell…I collected some of their Proverbs” (30).
Blake sometimes directly associates poetic genius with the ability to be a prophet; a true poet, he thinks, spontaneously is gifted or receives direct communication with divine Truths or sayings. Blake has a deep concern about art being or producing something original – his illuminated paintings, each one painted and produced differently than any other copy, may be the best testament to his obsession with originality. Blake’s harshest criticism is of Swedenborg, whom he says writes “a recapitulation of all superficial opinions, and an analysis of the more sublime, but no further” and also that “he has written all the old falshoods” (40). Poetic genius, Blake offers, is established in having a mind infinite enough to be capable of receiving these messages despite conflicting messages being produced by man. He thinks the function of a poet is to reproduce the divine, not interpret it, as he criticizes Swedenborg of doing. He praises poets whom he believes recapitulate messages from the infinite – messages which he believes both take into account the angelic/Good/reason/religious and “converse with Devils who all hate religion” (40) – and cites Shakespeare, Dante, and Milton all as poets who have expansive enough minds to be considered primary authorities of poetic thought.
In this vein, Blake is damning of interpretation and of gilded metaphor or poetic speech. Most generally, his own writing in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is plain and without set verse or rhyme. It lays out claims in a very clear and almost philosophic style; these claims are often numbered, bulleted, or separated by line breaks which aid in visual ease of the work. Often Blake equates eloquent speech as the building blocks to oppression and finite interpretation: “Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion” (32). Blake almost argues for a reading against the grain when he says that “opposition is true friendship” (40) or acerbically claims that he “reads the Bible together [with an angel who has become a devil] in its infernal or diabolical sense which the world shall have if they behave well” (41).
Both Milton and Blake I think use images of the devil and of hell as a protagonist (or anti-hero) for the shock value; the fact that the audience finds themselves sometimes rationalizing or approving of, in Milton’s case, arguments or speeches that the devils posit, or, in Blake’s case, Machiavellian-like prophecies that do have some credence. They play with the appeal of the taboo more here how milton’s play deviates from blake’s. While Milton may only argue to think and reason for yourself, or to question authority, Blake takes it one step further and actively argues for reading oppositionally to what is being offered you in the hopes of expanding your capability for understanding the infinite or receiving infinite truths.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
I awoke this morning to the following four thoughts:
1. When did I become assertive?
2. When did I start needing to go to bed early in order to not be cranky?
3. When did I develop a hierarchy of the order in which I need to pay my bills?
4. Where the fuck were my glasses?
Suddenly, I turned around, and I was an adult.
Childhood me always imagined adulthood me as wearing high heels and lipstick and going grocery shopping at an elevator-background-music-playing Stop n' Shop after clicking away at my corporate job. Romanticism through the eyes of a working-class-raised child.
I never imagined at twenty-two I would be:
-blogging
-fiscally conservative
-fatherless
-dyeing bits of gray hair
-worrying about budgets
-lamenting the loss of carbonation after leaving my San Pelligrino out too long
and other various adult thoughts of the non-Romantic kind.
more to come later when I can think straight...as in, the 'so what?' is to follow.
1. When did I become assertive?
2. When did I start needing to go to bed early in order to not be cranky?
3. When did I develop a hierarchy of the order in which I need to pay my bills?
4. Where the fuck were my glasses?
Suddenly, I turned around, and I was an adult.
Childhood me always imagined adulthood me as wearing high heels and lipstick and going grocery shopping at an elevator-background-music-playing Stop n' Shop after clicking away at my corporate job. Romanticism through the eyes of a working-class-raised child.
I never imagined at twenty-two I would be:
-blogging
-fiscally conservative
-fatherless
-dyeing bits of gray hair
-worrying about budgets
-lamenting the loss of carbonation after leaving my San Pelligrino out too long
and other various adult thoughts of the non-Romantic kind.
more to come later when I can think straight...as in, the 'so what?' is to follow.
Monday, April 27, 2009
afraid I'll lose this. Don't mind the poor grammar if you read Spanish.
En “El Dragoncillo” por Calderón de la Barca, lo tomé el papel de Teresa, una esposa frustrada en una casa de, en su opinión, “necedades” (17). Teresa es una mujer fuerte en su abilidad de controlar su esposo por fuerza fisical y verbal. Su frustración viene de muchas cosas, en muchas casas relacionadas a su esposo – de la deuda que su esposo tiene a la ciudad y de su estupidéz en específico. Teresa parece ser mujer con mucha inteligencia; ella es agudo y puede mentir facilmente cuando la ocasión se presenta. Por ejemplo, cuando el alcalde llega a su casa pidiendo a su esposa, Teresa dice que él “retraído / le halleréis en la Iglesia” (28-29) en que las autoridades no pueden detenerle. Y Teresa es la maestra de bromas y puede manipular sus palabras facilmente: “Pues Juan Soldado crea y se persuada / que de todo eso hay solo la en-pan-nada” (51-52).
Teresa opera con mucha manipulación - maneja la situación con el sacristan por su sexo (al menos es la alusión), y aprovecha de su posición social sobre su criada. Pienso por su estatus asumado y actual que fisicalmente Teresa es una mujer alta (quizá más alta de su esposo), delgada y de bastante belleza. Es fuerte en sus movimientos – cada movimiento tiene una dirección resuelta.
Aunque no habla de sus motivos directamente en el texto, es seguro adivinar que sus motivos para su infidelidad potencial viene de su frustración con su esposo y su sentimiento de siendo atrapada en sus papeles como esposa y como mujer. Ella habla de sus obligaciónes de mantener su papel de ama de casa, diciendo “obedecer es forzoso” (229) y lamenta de su inhabilidad de escapar de su situación: “no hay corral, puerta o terrado / por donde os reteréis” (19).
En nuestra escena, tomamos la desición de trasladar la escena a la época de los setenta. Hay un período de muchos cambios sociales, marcado por el escape de la realidad por el uso de las drogas alucinógenas, por algunas manifestaciones de igualidad social y economical entre hombres y mujeres, y por el sentido de anti-nacionalismo en cuanto a la Guerra de Vietnam. Calderón, escritor durante los años de decadencia nacional de España (los primeros años de los 1600), era encontrado cambios similares en cuanto al sentido nacional - después de la pérdida de la Armada en 1588, el orgullo nacional se había inacabado. La promoción de las artes bajo de Felipe IV se manifiesta en un sentido más individual y creativa, promotiendo ideas más liberales en cuanto al papel de la mujer y la critica de la sistema social en general – se viste en Calderón la bias a la situación de Teresa por llamar su esposo el “Gracioso villano” (italisis mío).
Pero como siempre existía la Inquisición y por eso había una nececidad de presentar la critica en una manera subversivo – por comedia. En la versión original de Calderón la manifestación de esta critica viene de esta comedia, que yo interpreto en una manera fisical – Teresa, en su abuso verbal de su esposo, también le golpe y le arrastra por la oreja su esposo cuando él cuestiona su autoridad. En el tiempo de Calderón este tipo de poner los cuernos a un hombre por una mujer era hilariosa. El sentido de bochorno provoca a la audiencia el deseo simultando de criticar la situación entre esposo y esposa y reír en una manera y un lugar segura, permetida por la exaggeración del abuso fisical de Teresa.
Aunque habían zancadas hechas en la igualidad entre hombres y mujeres en los setenta, también todavía existe una tensión en el cambio imprevisto al papel de la mujer. Las mujeres subían penosamentes con la yuxtaposición de su papel tradicional como esposa y su nueva papel de poder como una fuerza económica como sostén de la familia. En una manera similar hay dudas del directivo economical de la casa por Teresa – ¿al que extento es Teresa ruinada por tener que mantener su papel como esposa, y al que extento es Teresa capable de administrar con éxito?
En la obra original, el soldado conducta mágico para adivinar la fuente del banquete, que en su tiempo se consideraba un espectaculo pero también una solución muy racional y aceptada por razones de y creencias en la superstición. Temerosos que está technico no podría ser interpretado en una manera seria por nuestra audiencia moderna, cambia el evento a un resulto de tomar drogas. Creo que está interpretacion era una paralela muy buena al uso de mágico en cuanto al efecto. El usa recreacional de drogas ilegales es un muchas casas un espectáculo y una performancia muy similar al uso de mágico. El usa de las drogas (como marijuana) es algo comprendido ambos como una cosa seria y una cosa comica por nuestra generación. Mantiene un sentido de lo comical en esta parte de la obra – con las palabras de tonterías que el soldado pronuncia – pero también el fin con el imagen horrible del sacristan y el ‘fuego’ (en nuestra escena, las serpentinas) es considerada como algo serio – un resulto de un mal viaje.
Teresa, en este sentido, experiencia un mal viaje y su resolución de asumir su papel tradicional de mujer – “Yo voy a mi cocina” – es una resulta directa de su propio castigo por tomar las drogas (que actan como simbolos de su natura submersiva o su rechaza de su papel tradicional y conservadora de ser esposa buena).
Pienso que la fisicalidad y la exaggeración de la pronunciación de frases o palabras por mi personaje se traslada a la audiencia muy bien. La audiencia responde a este táctico en una manera positiva y exitosa (se reían y por conectarse con el humor se asociaron más con el mensaje de la obra).
Pienso que la translación del soldado a un soldado veterano de Vietnam escaparon mucha de nuestra audiencia. El concepto de dar refugio a un soldado es algo extraño a nuestra sociedad y época pero algo muy común en el tiempo de Calderón. Nuestra intención era mostrar el idea que los veteranos de guerra no dababan la bienvenida en el tiempo de Calderón en una manera similar que la sociedad estadounidensesa en los setenta no respectaban los soldados vietnamitas.
Si tuviera la oportunidad de presentar nuestra escena de nuevo, pienso que habría añadir más tiempo para explicar por acción el uso de las drogas y los efectos de las drogas en las personajes. Este haría acumplido por expresiónes de la libertad que Teresa experiencia en su usa de las drogas – quiza por bailar o por calmar sus actidudes muy agresivos a actitudes más relajados. También no entiendo en el nivel de trama la situación de Teresa cuando el soldado conjura el fuente del banquete – si comprendiera la situación con más claridad, pienso que habría cambiado mis acciónes.
Este proyecto añade a mi sabiduría del papel de comedia en las obras del siglo de oro para un deviso de criticar las reglas y tradiciones de la sociedad española en una manera aceptable a los en poder – como en general la fisicalidad dentro del teatro añade a mostrar a la audiencia dónde debe analizar situaciónes similares en sus vidas.
Teresa opera con mucha manipulación - maneja la situación con el sacristan por su sexo (al menos es la alusión), y aprovecha de su posición social sobre su criada. Pienso por su estatus asumado y actual que fisicalmente Teresa es una mujer alta (quizá más alta de su esposo), delgada y de bastante belleza. Es fuerte en sus movimientos – cada movimiento tiene una dirección resuelta.
Aunque no habla de sus motivos directamente en el texto, es seguro adivinar que sus motivos para su infidelidad potencial viene de su frustración con su esposo y su sentimiento de siendo atrapada en sus papeles como esposa y como mujer. Ella habla de sus obligaciónes de mantener su papel de ama de casa, diciendo “obedecer es forzoso” (229) y lamenta de su inhabilidad de escapar de su situación: “no hay corral, puerta o terrado / por donde os reteréis” (19).
En nuestra escena, tomamos la desición de trasladar la escena a la época de los setenta. Hay un período de muchos cambios sociales, marcado por el escape de la realidad por el uso de las drogas alucinógenas, por algunas manifestaciones de igualidad social y economical entre hombres y mujeres, y por el sentido de anti-nacionalismo en cuanto a la Guerra de Vietnam. Calderón, escritor durante los años de decadencia nacional de España (los primeros años de los 1600), era encontrado cambios similares en cuanto al sentido nacional - después de la pérdida de la Armada en 1588, el orgullo nacional se había inacabado. La promoción de las artes bajo de Felipe IV se manifiesta en un sentido más individual y creativa, promotiendo ideas más liberales en cuanto al papel de la mujer y la critica de la sistema social en general – se viste en Calderón la bias a la situación de Teresa por llamar su esposo el “Gracioso villano” (italisis mío).
Pero como siempre existía la Inquisición y por eso había una nececidad de presentar la critica en una manera subversivo – por comedia. En la versión original de Calderón la manifestación de esta critica viene de esta comedia, que yo interpreto en una manera fisical – Teresa, en su abuso verbal de su esposo, también le golpe y le arrastra por la oreja su esposo cuando él cuestiona su autoridad. En el tiempo de Calderón este tipo de poner los cuernos a un hombre por una mujer era hilariosa. El sentido de bochorno provoca a la audiencia el deseo simultando de criticar la situación entre esposo y esposa y reír en una manera y un lugar segura, permetida por la exaggeración del abuso fisical de Teresa.
Aunque habían zancadas hechas en la igualidad entre hombres y mujeres en los setenta, también todavía existe una tensión en el cambio imprevisto al papel de la mujer. Las mujeres subían penosamentes con la yuxtaposición de su papel tradicional como esposa y su nueva papel de poder como una fuerza económica como sostén de la familia. En una manera similar hay dudas del directivo economical de la casa por Teresa – ¿al que extento es Teresa ruinada por tener que mantener su papel como esposa, y al que extento es Teresa capable de administrar con éxito?
En la obra original, el soldado conducta mágico para adivinar la fuente del banquete, que en su tiempo se consideraba un espectaculo pero también una solución muy racional y aceptada por razones de y creencias en la superstición. Temerosos que está technico no podría ser interpretado en una manera seria por nuestra audiencia moderna, cambia el evento a un resulto de tomar drogas. Creo que está interpretacion era una paralela muy buena al uso de mágico en cuanto al efecto. El usa recreacional de drogas ilegales es un muchas casas un espectáculo y una performancia muy similar al uso de mágico. El usa de las drogas (como marijuana) es algo comprendido ambos como una cosa seria y una cosa comica por nuestra generación. Mantiene un sentido de lo comical en esta parte de la obra – con las palabras de tonterías que el soldado pronuncia – pero también el fin con el imagen horrible del sacristan y el ‘fuego’ (en nuestra escena, las serpentinas) es considerada como algo serio – un resulto de un mal viaje.
Teresa, en este sentido, experiencia un mal viaje y su resolución de asumir su papel tradicional de mujer – “Yo voy a mi cocina” – es una resulta directa de su propio castigo por tomar las drogas (que actan como simbolos de su natura submersiva o su rechaza de su papel tradicional y conservadora de ser esposa buena).
Pienso que la fisicalidad y la exaggeración de la pronunciación de frases o palabras por mi personaje se traslada a la audiencia muy bien. La audiencia responde a este táctico en una manera positiva y exitosa (se reían y por conectarse con el humor se asociaron más con el mensaje de la obra).
Pienso que la translación del soldado a un soldado veterano de Vietnam escaparon mucha de nuestra audiencia. El concepto de dar refugio a un soldado es algo extraño a nuestra sociedad y época pero algo muy común en el tiempo de Calderón. Nuestra intención era mostrar el idea que los veteranos de guerra no dababan la bienvenida en el tiempo de Calderón en una manera similar que la sociedad estadounidensesa en los setenta no respectaban los soldados vietnamitas.
Si tuviera la oportunidad de presentar nuestra escena de nuevo, pienso que habría añadir más tiempo para explicar por acción el uso de las drogas y los efectos de las drogas en las personajes. Este haría acumplido por expresiónes de la libertad que Teresa experiencia en su usa de las drogas – quiza por bailar o por calmar sus actidudes muy agresivos a actitudes más relajados. También no entiendo en el nivel de trama la situación de Teresa cuando el soldado conjura el fuente del banquete – si comprendiera la situación con más claridad, pienso que habría cambiado mis acciónes.
Este proyecto añade a mi sabiduría del papel de comedia en las obras del siglo de oro para un deviso de criticar las reglas y tradiciones de la sociedad española en una manera aceptable a los en poder – como en general la fisicalidad dentro del teatro añade a mostrar a la audiencia dónde debe analizar situaciónes similares en sus vidas.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Sitting at my coffee shop, loving the way the coffee is always burned when I come in, perfect when I leave; it is hard for me to think, in the relative safety of having a room already paid for, five classes overwhelming me with writing, and a gig that makes me a woman of modest means, that in two months I'd better have a real job with a real income and health insurance. I'd rather work here. If I could only live off of here...
Life has been amazingly comforting lately, and I am not sure why. I was thinking more the other day about something V--- had said - about being privelaged and about having bought myself a priveleged mind and an upper-middle class education - and my response, concerning something about having "natural talent" despite your financial means and advantages, and about not feeling bad for being advantaged. And then I was thinking further about what had led me to determine that anyone had "natural talent", as everyone is a product of an environment and not of nature, or genetics, purely; that what led me to this statement was a series of assumptions I've had so successfully drilled into me - a product of our generation's "Romantic" conecpt of the purpose of Work and of Life; our "me"-centric-ness, perhaps. And I was happy about all of this thinking, and the realization that I am solely what I have created myself to be, and how others have interpreted that creation to be; and futhermore that my reality is an extension of that creation. It is an incredibly empowering feeling to know that life is how I choose it to be, how I choose to narrate it.
But I can see how easily this revelation could alternately be associated with some existential angst - to be a creation of words, mere words, and of nothing more. That the only equalizer is death, past which we have no certain narration.
hmmm.
Life has been amazingly comforting lately, and I am not sure why. I was thinking more the other day about something V--- had said - about being privelaged and about having bought myself a priveleged mind and an upper-middle class education - and my response, concerning something about having "natural talent" despite your financial means and advantages, and about not feeling bad for being advantaged. And then I was thinking further about what had led me to determine that anyone had "natural talent", as everyone is a product of an environment and not of nature, or genetics, purely; that what led me to this statement was a series of assumptions I've had so successfully drilled into me - a product of our generation's "Romantic" conecpt of the purpose of Work and of Life; our "me"-centric-ness, perhaps. And I was happy about all of this thinking, and the realization that I am solely what I have created myself to be, and how others have interpreted that creation to be; and futhermore that my reality is an extension of that creation. It is an incredibly empowering feeling to know that life is how I choose it to be, how I choose to narrate it.
But I can see how easily this revelation could alternately be associated with some existential angst - to be a creation of words, mere words, and of nothing more. That the only equalizer is death, past which we have no certain narration.
hmmm.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
My life is, currently,
Four dates, three days,
twentyish pages of my thoughts,
five hundredish pages of reading
a swirl of kisses and scenes in the back of a coffee shop
when I should have clocked out a half hour ago.
Animated films, sushi, plates overflowing in the sink,
dinner overflowing on the stove.
a future of being jobless, supportless,
considering missionary work and salvation from the church
for an otherwise stuck existence in pennsyvania, or, worse -
Connecticut.
Walkin in Memphis
Whistling in bare feet
Bringing free coffee home to exhausted roommates.
Vine charcoal
sad music
beautiful voice.
Beautiful model
Ugly model
uglier me.
Proliferate writing.
Proliferate dating.
Too many irons in the fire.
twentyish pages of my thoughts,
five hundredish pages of reading
a swirl of kisses and scenes in the back of a coffee shop
when I should have clocked out a half hour ago.
Animated films, sushi, plates overflowing in the sink,
dinner overflowing on the stove.
a future of being jobless, supportless,
considering missionary work and salvation from the church
for an otherwise stuck existence in pennsyvania, or, worse -
Connecticut.
Walkin in Memphis
Whistling in bare feet
Bringing free coffee home to exhausted roommates.
Vine charcoal
sad music
beautiful voice.
Beautiful model
Ugly model
uglier me.
Proliferate writing.
Proliferate dating.
Too many irons in the fire.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
A list of men never to fall in love with
Professors
Premeds
Recovered or recovering heroin addicts
Men who like theater too much
Men who don't like theater enough
Men who are intellectual without being smart
Premeds
Recovered or recovering heroin addicts
Men who like theater too much
Men who don't like theater enough
Men who are intellectual without being smart
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Back at school, and back in work, and back in a rhythm. Back to goodnight at eleven on weeknights and four on weekends; back to hava java (and new as a soon-to-be-barista, starting friday); back to finding my friendships with professors wholly more interesting than most of my friendships with my peers (with some remarkable exceptions). Back to single; back to searching. Back to life without regular outings, dorm showers and bad shaves, cooking and cleaning, coins for laundry. Lots of backs.
It is time for me to move again. I am feeling the itch and am searching for outs. I really would like to go abroad right away but I feel like my daughterly duty is to stay here and take care of people. I might bolt anyway.
I am most happy when I am sitting here with the cast of characters in this coffee shop. I don't know enough about any of them to make them real, and give them humanity outside of the adjective-shell I've wrapped them in in my head, and that distance feels best to me. I can perform. I can be bold. I can make damn good coffee. Maybe.
In four months this will all be gone and I will be somewhere new and with a whole new set of people to learn and remember and perform in front of and make damn good coffee for. It's a refreshing feeling.
It is time for me to move again. I am feeling the itch and am searching for outs. I really would like to go abroad right away but I feel like my daughterly duty is to stay here and take care of people. I might bolt anyway.
I am most happy when I am sitting here with the cast of characters in this coffee shop. I don't know enough about any of them to make them real, and give them humanity outside of the adjective-shell I've wrapped them in in my head, and that distance feels best to me. I can perform. I can be bold. I can make damn good coffee. Maybe.
In four months this will all be gone and I will be somewhere new and with a whole new set of people to learn and remember and perform in front of and make damn good coffee for. It's a refreshing feeling.
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