Coming Up Short
I thought things like colds had a ten day cycle. Well, I've still got a bit of a cough after two weeks. Is it just a lingering symptom of the cold? I feel lots better, though still needing extra sleep. It is driving me nuts, because I want to devote more than the minimum to get by on my homework. I know it is more sensible at this point to stay healthy. Getting a little extra homework done for a few days, but making myself really sick would be a dreadful trade. This is not what I had in mind when I knew I'd need a higher degree of self-discipline to do ETI. Things never work out quite like we plan. At least this is a transient situation even if it feels interminably long.
A few things are clicking in classes. I'm regaining strength in the leg I broke faster than I was before class started. I was surprised at how weak the leg was, somehow figuring it was all atrophy. Wrong. I think that is a big part of the nastiness of the twisting spiral fractures. You can see in the x-ray how the long break forms a sharp curving edge on each bone and when the leg folded it is obvious it would slice through some significant muscle tissue. Each end of the bone slicing a different bunch of tissue, further aggravated by having the two bones break at opposite ends, slicing muscle in four places. As I build up strength I'm reminded by the dents or gaps in the muscle on the leg.
I mentioned in my class journal a we started working on a move that is very difficult for me because of the strength, but also because of the fear which bugs me even more. Working on the move in drill and the second time around in class I started getting a feeling that the strength was nearly there, and the physical memory causing the fear was getting less predominate. I really want to be able to do the move without modification. We stretch out to the side coming down on the right hand with the fingers pointing the way the body faces. The top (left) leg is nearly straight, and the right leg is underneath, bent a bit so all our weight is on the sides of the feet and the hand. Then we swing the left arm, bringing the weight back onto the feet where you rise from a squatting position. It is that shift back to the feet which is challenging me. Learning the minute details of the process help, and I feel like I'm getting close to being able to do it. (I even ordered a book about Meyerhold, hoping I could find some more helpful hints.)
Specifics in acting are clicking to. From my first classes specificity has been talked of, and I never really had more than an ill-defined intellectual picture of it. Repetition and coaching are finally internalizing it for me. As it works for me I'm finding it defies explanation, or at least how I tried to explain it in the past. It started with the idea that every sentence, every phrase is a new thought. Maybe building or refining other thoughts, but still it's own entity. Not surprisingly, just like in conversation or writing. I am trying piece by piece to present this idea in a way that makes sense for you and resonates for me. Boing. There it is, as I'm finally starting to understand it. Sadly, I don't know if it makes a bloody bit of sense to anyone reading this.
One of my favorite feelings in a scene is change. It goes back to the Glengarry Glen Ross scene from the first quarter of Meisner, which I've mentioned before. Feeling a personal triumph that I managed to change several times in the scene, then watching Jack Lemmon do the scene and seeing him change as many times in a single line -- which was both freeing and a goal to strive for. The specificity of every utterance of the character supports that kind of change. I find it exciting and maybe, just maybe, a bit less elusive.
Damn it. I want to never have a cold, a bad day at work, or a need to sleep. I want to explore these new approaches for myself and enhanced familiar approaches. I feel like I'm hobbled, my artistic self is struggling with heavy iron manacles around my feet, which are so familiar they nearly provide a pseudo comfort. They are familiar because I spent most of my life making the fucking things. Do I rejoice because I can see them? Or curse the effort it took to make them, and the effort needed to unlock them?
A few things are clicking in classes. I'm regaining strength in the leg I broke faster than I was before class started. I was surprised at how weak the leg was, somehow figuring it was all atrophy. Wrong. I think that is a big part of the nastiness of the twisting spiral fractures. You can see in the x-ray how the long break forms a sharp curving edge on each bone and when the leg folded it is obvious it would slice through some significant muscle tissue. Each end of the bone slicing a different bunch of tissue, further aggravated by having the two bones break at opposite ends, slicing muscle in four places. As I build up strength I'm reminded by the dents or gaps in the muscle on the leg.
I mentioned in my class journal a we started working on a move that is very difficult for me because of the strength, but also because of the fear which bugs me even more. Working on the move in drill and the second time around in class I started getting a feeling that the strength was nearly there, and the physical memory causing the fear was getting less predominate. I really want to be able to do the move without modification. We stretch out to the side coming down on the right hand with the fingers pointing the way the body faces. The top (left) leg is nearly straight, and the right leg is underneath, bent a bit so all our weight is on the sides of the feet and the hand. Then we swing the left arm, bringing the weight back onto the feet where you rise from a squatting position. It is that shift back to the feet which is challenging me. Learning the minute details of the process help, and I feel like I'm getting close to being able to do it. (I even ordered a book about Meyerhold, hoping I could find some more helpful hints.)
Specifics in acting are clicking to. From my first classes specificity has been talked of, and I never really had more than an ill-defined intellectual picture of it. Repetition and coaching are finally internalizing it for me. As it works for me I'm finding it defies explanation, or at least how I tried to explain it in the past. It started with the idea that every sentence, every phrase is a new thought. Maybe building or refining other thoughts, but still it's own entity. Not surprisingly, just like in conversation or writing. I am trying piece by piece to present this idea in a way that makes sense for you and resonates for me. Boing. There it is, as I'm finally starting to understand it. Sadly, I don't know if it makes a bloody bit of sense to anyone reading this.
One of my favorite feelings in a scene is change. It goes back to the Glengarry Glen Ross scene from the first quarter of Meisner, which I've mentioned before. Feeling a personal triumph that I managed to change several times in the scene, then watching Jack Lemmon do the scene and seeing him change as many times in a single line -- which was both freeing and a goal to strive for. The specificity of every utterance of the character supports that kind of change. I find it exciting and maybe, just maybe, a bit less elusive.
Damn it. I want to never have a cold, a bad day at work, or a need to sleep. I want to explore these new approaches for myself and enhanced familiar approaches. I feel like I'm hobbled, my artistic self is struggling with heavy iron manacles around my feet, which are so familiar they nearly provide a pseudo comfort. They are familiar because I spent most of my life making the fucking things. Do I rejoice because I can see them? Or curse the effort it took to make them, and the effort needed to unlock them?
3 Comments:
I find that colds linger for weeks. A gift of an over stressed life. When I'm not stressed, I don't get sick at all. Things that make you say hmmmmmm.
Sign of the times. There are some very well adapted Bugs out there! Hope it soon passes.
Generally I'm the type that doesn't get bugs until I relax. Over half the leaves during my ten years in the Navy started with a cold or flu. Maybe it's better to get them out of the way up front, especially if they're getting stronger.
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