This Thursday, November 26th, 2009, my blog is one year old! Hurray!

And! I’m going to celebrate this wee milestone! On Thursday, I will post a bunch of blog related data and perhaps some reflections or two! It’s going to be crazy, let me tell you! Birthday data! It doesn’t get any more celebratory than this!

How can you help me celebrate? You can bring the human touch to my alien-robot celebration!

If you read this blog, Thursday is the time to let me know! If you have a favorite post, please let me know! If you have a favorite discussion thread let me know! If you have a favorite anything related to this blog (e.g. favorite unnecessary use of the exclamation mark!), let me know! If nothing else, on Thursday, please take a moment to write, “Happy Birthday Blog!” It will be very much appreciated! Shout outs on your blog will also be greatly appreciated!

I’m also going to be celebrating the milestone live-in-person at a super secret venue TBA. I’m working Thursday evening so the actual live-in-person celebration won’t happen until Sunday, Nov. 29th. If you can read this and can make it, you are invited!

(NB: the only reason the venue is presently super-secret is because I discovered last night that the place I want hold this little soiree is being renovated and may not be available. Hopefully, this will be sorted by Thursday!).

For those of you who can’t make it, you can participate by determining my karaoke set-list for the evening. I will sing whatever three songs receive the most votes Thursday through Sunday (until 6PM). If, due to renovations, the karioke doesn’t happen that night, I will sing the top songs as soon as possible thereafter.

On-line or off, help me celebrate my blog’s birthday on Thursday and / or Sunday! Feel free to use exclamation marks with wild abandon!

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I own many socks. Many, many socks.

I don’t like to do laundry and I hate wearing socks more than once a day. In fact, if I even take my socks off, I am loathe to put the same pair on again. Because I don’t like wearing socks, I take them off whenever I can. So, I often end up wearing more than one pair a day. Consequently, I own many socks.

My socks only come in two colours: black and white. No colour. No patterns. I buy only the plainest black socks available and only the plainest white socks available. I wear white socks with white athletic shoes and black socks with everything else. Fear not: socks and sandals are always no-go.

I found myself wondering the other day: is my sock aesthetic too regimented and monochromatic? Is it wrong perhaps to wear black socks with brown shoes? I know women check out the shoes guys wear; do they also check out their socks?

So, what does your sock drawer look like? Should I consider sock diversification? Are there sock style tips about which I should be aware? And, most importantly, is the female gaze assessing my socks?

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I love art, great ideas, and community building. Not surprisingly, I love the idea of Timeraiser: a night out that brings together art, volunteers, and agencies looking for volunteers. I was there to check out Ottawa’s version, on Saturday, November 14th, 2009.

In a wine and cheese atmosphere, volunteers chatted with agency representatives, matching volunteer skills with agency needs. Volunteers then bid on works of art, using commitments of time rather than money. The winners of the silent auction who complete their pledged volunteer hours will receive the piece of art next year.

Plus, it was a good excuse to dress up, sip wine, nibble, and mingle with other go-getters who believe in the importance of volunteering.

The biggest surprise of the evening for me was the quality of the art available. There were some very fine pieces to be won (E.g. Claudia Urbach, Bus stop, Downtown Ottawa). Moreover, the artists were paid for the art, thanks to corporate donors. A nice touch there.

I talked with a few agency representatives and they said it was a great opportunity for their organizations. They suggested the overall calibre of the volunteers in attendance was quite high.

Maria Redpath, of the Canadian Cancer Society, was back for a second year. She said her agency had recruited a number of quality volunteers the previous year. First-timers, Laura Haylock, of Salvaide, and Laura Telford, of Canadian Organic Growers, expressed a lot of optimism about the potential volunteers they had met.

By all appearances, the event seemed like a win-win-win opportunity. The organizers should be commended! I suspect I will be back next year and ready to bid!

What do you think? Does it sound like something you would enjoy? Has anyone participated in a Timeraiser event or something like it?

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All’s well that ends well and Schaübhne Theatre Company’s revised and updated production of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler ends very well.

The final moments of this production border on gloriousness. Unfortunately, the 130 minutes that proceed them are nowhere near as satisfying. Overall, this up-dated version of Ibsen comes across like a well-executed soap opera intermittently punctuated with rare moments of aesthetic brilliance.

Hedda Gabbler, our heroine, is bored and petulant from the very moment we meet her. We soon learn that she has married someone she doesn’t love because, of all her suitors, he is the only one willing to foot the bill for her pampered but boring lifestyle.

An old love re-enters her life, riding a wave of unexpected success. Hedda, fueled by a toxic mixture of bordeom and jealousy, decides to destroy his life and, effortlessly, she does. Her game, however, does not play out as she hopes and, because of her own criminal actions, she ends up at the mercy of someone who intends to take full sexual advantage of his power.

In one last desperate attempt to rail against the people and the world around her, Hedda kills herself. Unfortunately, for our heroine, her final act of defiance is ignored by the very people she intends to defy. Their indifference carries with it a hint of ridicule.

I suppose, in the late 19th century, Hedda’s situation might have engendered some sympathy because, at least in that context, it is more plausible to believe her existence is largely determined by her social circumstances. Even so, it is difficult to sympathize too much with Hedda because the aristocratic tragedy of her circumstances seems to be only that she is forced to marry beneath her station.

In the early 21st century, however, Hedda’s situation does not generate any sympathy. She is simply a spoiled brat who plays with pistols instead of surfing the net, who destroys the lives of old lovers because it is more vivid than HDTV, and who kills herself because she can’t be bothered finding a good lawyer.

On the one hand, it is plausible that the production intends to satirize the lifestyle of the German middle class, generally-speaking, and the 21st century Hedda, in particular, and the satire is lost on me because the play is performed in German, with French and English surtitles. Moreover, this more charitable reading helps justify performances, costume choices, and staging choices that are reminiscent of television soap opera.

For example, at one point, the German actor seems to use the word “kitsch”, the French translation uses “kitsch”, and the English translation uses the word “sentiment.” The expression “kitsch” brings with it a host of conations not at all captured by the word “sentiment.”  The result is the francophones in the audience have a big laugh that simply does not translate.

On the other hand, as far as I can gather from his interviews, director Thomas Ostermeier expects us to sympathize and identify with Hedda. From this I can only infer he also expects us to identify with her ennui, her disdain for the people around her, and her nihilism.

And with that discovery, we return to the final glorious scene.

Hedda lies dead, her suicide ignored. Suddenly, the conventions of realism are ruptured, as Hedda’s hopelessly naive husband discovers his home is revolving. He carries on as if nothing is really the matter. He ignores the absurdity of his metaphysical reality in the same way he ignores Hedda’s reaction to it.

I suspect Ostermeier’s intention is that we are meant to feel sympathy for Hedda whose last desperate effort at glory in an absurd world is ignored by a mediocre and naive middle class who likewise ignore the absurd foundations of their existence and carry on living as if nothing really is the matter.

On this reading, the final scene is a beautiful yet tragic homage to our nihilist heroine.

In contrast, in this final scene, I see a spoiled brat, whose last pathetic and self-indulgent tantrum is rightly ignored, along with the snobbery and metaphysical absurdity that motivates it. Her nihilist tragedy is, for me, a moment of delight. She is the fool, and the last laugh is on her.

The world’s middle classes are rightly criticized for many of their life choices, however, the decision to ignore the tantrums of a spoiled nihilist and to choose life in the face of its metaphysical absurdity is a choice that should always be celebrated — whoever makes it.

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On Friday, November 6th, 2009, I saw my first live ballet: the National Ballet of Canada’s production of The Sleeping Beauty at the National Arts Centre. If this production is representative of what live ballet has to offer, I’ve been missing something wonderful.

I attended Friday primarily because I had never seen a live ballet before. It seemed like an oversight on my part. I love contemporary dance, I love orchestral music, and I love theatre. It seemed a no-brainer: I should love ballet. So, how is it possible that I’ve never seen a live ballet?

In conversation over coffee before the show, I realized that, despite all the very obvious reasons why I should love ballet, a worry remained: it might just be too damn boring.

After all, that’s exactly what contemporary pop culture has been hammering into my head since as far back as I can remember. Of all the arts, no other is so consistently characterized as being the epitome of boring — especially for men. Sure, girls might like all that prancing about, but guys — well, guys are genetically programmed to be bored to tears by all of it. Right. Right?

I’m sure you will all be surprised to learn: contemporary pop culture is wrong about ballet. Period.

The Sleeping Beauty is stunning. An absolute orgy for the eyes, ears, and aesthetic gland. The athletic grace and power on display is a wonder to behold, the stagecraft is gorgeous, and the music glorious. Ballet is beauty unbound.

The only thing really not present in The Sleeping Beauty is story. The story in The Sleeping Beauty is highly allegorical and mostly irrelevant to the experience. Notice, however, I don’t say “the story is missing” because I’m not convinced narrative elements would add much to the experience and could conceivably detract from it.

In fact, the only aspect of the performance that is less than ideal is the attempt to convey narrative with some rather hammy mime and many sweeps of — admittedly — majestic capes. Fortunately, there is the wonderful music and the beautiful costumes and set pieces to entertain the audience until the dancers get back at it.

As a newcomer to the art form, three aspect of ballet stuck out for me in particular.

First, no doubt about it, dancers en pointe is an alien sight. All those fuzzy paintings of ballerinas don’t capture the kinesthetics of this very demanding approach to dance. Overtime, once I became accustomed to the experience of en point dancing, I began to appreciate the aesthetic opportunities it offered but I admit, in the early-going, it was a little off-putting.

Second, on more than one occasion, the dancers moved in a way that I thought was an error until he or she repeated the movement. In other words, some of the physical vocabulary of ballet, at first sight, will be alien the uninitiated. Again, overtime, these alien elements of dance began to make more sense aesthetically.

Finally, in the early going, especially in comparison to the female dancers, the male dancers seemed quite clunky and almost cumbersome. I suspect this may have been an intentional consequence of the choreography because once the male soloing began the fusion of grace and power was downright bewildering. These guys soar.

Overall, my first experience of ballet can only be described as mind-blowing. I look forward to the next performance I can attend.

I was also left wondering why ballet gets such a rough ride in contemporary pop culture. Ballet is ultimately about incredibly skilled athletes performing incredibly beautiful feats of grace, agility, and strength against a stunning visual and aural backdrop. How can people not enjoy that?

Are there any other ballet fans out there? Any reflections or memories from your first experience of ballet? Has anyone else seen the National Ballet of Canada? Any theories about the pop cultural prejudice against ballet?

I’d love to hear any and all thoughts on ballet.

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Many moons ago, I posted my favorite single line of song lyric and asked people to share theirs. Now we move from the micro to the macro! My question: what is your favorite song lyric?

To clarify: I’m not asking for your favorite song necessarily but what song you think has the best lyrics considered as a whole — as opposed to a line or two from the song. For example, the music might be total ass but all the words taken together could be awesome.

I choo, choose Suzanne by Leonard Cohen

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she’s half crazy
But that’s why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you’ve always been her lover

And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind.

And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said “All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them”
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone

And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you’ll trust him
For he’s touched your perfect body with his mind.

Now Suzanne takes your hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror

And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that you can trust her
For she’s touched your perfect body with her mind.

Why do I admire these lyrics? I love when art is both personal and universal, subverts and re-articulates our expectations and conventions, and uses structure to convey or support meaning. All of this happens in these lyrics.

At the beginning, this song seems to be a poignant but quirky love song. By the end, it subverts that expectation and, at the same time, the cultural trope that man equals mind and woman equals body.

It does this with a beautiful revisioning of the Jesus narrative: arguably, the most important account of the union of body and spirit in Western culture.

Structurally, the Jesus stanza operates in this song the same way Jesus himself is meant to operate in human history: as the bridge between body and spirit and as the vehicle to a new covenant with God.

Furthermore, the comparison with Jesus transforms Suzanne from a crazy-woman-novelty-fuck into a quasi-prophet-soulmate. This in itself is a commentary on how men and women come to love each other.

Ack. If I start parsing individual lines,  I could go on and on. So I will stop here.

Please, what is your favorite complete set of lyrics and why? Please post the lyrics in question as well

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Last week, I wrote a play! Here it is! When you have a chance please give it a read and let me know what you think. I’m pretty pleased with it, so I hope you enjoy it.

Home In Time: A Play In One Act.PDF

All thoughts, comments, etc. are very welcome.

For more of my plays, click here.

I suspect most of my regular readers also follow me on Twitter or Facebook, so you probably know what I am about to tell you (I’m even on MySpace, but who the hell uses that anymore).

If you don’t know what I’m about to pitch, and this is the first time you hear it, please let me know in the comments section below. I’d be very interested in knowing if I have regular readers who aren’t linked into my other social media platforms. Hey, if nothing else, it’s a good excuse to introduce yourself. So please do.

And that concludes my preamble.

As most of you probably know, I am trying to drum up support for a joint Great Canadian Theatre Company and Ottawa Theatre Network funding proposal that has been submitted to the Aviva Community Fund.

If the proposal manages to make it through the various hoops it will mean, among other things, valuable seed money for the Ottawa Theatre Network — an organization that I am helping to boot-strap into existence and that many people in the community think is needed to help boot-strap Ottawa professional theatre to the next level.

If you want to help me help the Ottawa Theatre Network and Ottawa professional theatre, it is very easy to do. Go to the Aviva proposal, register to vote (in seconds), and then vote. Return the next day, repeat. And so on. Also please tell friends to do the same. It’s easy peasy. NB: it doesn’t matter where in the world you are. Just vote.

Now, what might not be immediately obvious is why I am supporting this campaign. Some very reasonable folks have expressed some very reasonable concerns about the whole idea of pitting worthy groups-in-need against each other in a de facto popularity contest. So, if I think those concerns are reasonable, why am I pushing the campaign?

I’d say, there are two reasons.

First, this campaign is an incredibly easy way to engage people and create an opportunity for people to get caught up in the story of the Ottawa Theatre Network. It’s a publicity home-run.

People want to help. People want to participate. People will help and participate, if the entry costs are low and the project understandable. Voting, finding voters, and spreading the word is a game we can all easily understand and enjoy. Even the idea of the game is easy to transmit: help, vote now, please! Moreover, because it happens on-line, it is fairly effortless for everyone.

Once that almost effortless effort is made, people will be that much more involved — however tiny –with the Ottawa Theatre Network’s story. If we make it to the next round or win, it will be a publicity grand slam and those people who helped — even if with only one vote — will take pride and ownership in the organization.

Even if we don’t make it to the next round, as a bare minimum, the Ottawa Theatre Network will have been on the lips and minds of key stakeholders for several days — even weeks — and they will feel more involved in our story. They will be involved as participants, rather than mere observers. Even the critics are getting caught up in the story.

Second, it is a great way for me to figure out what kind of buy-in we can generate for the Ottawa Theatre Network via a social media, grassroots, word-of-mouth campaign. On Day 1, we had zero votes, three days later, we have x number votes. I can even track who and how people are talking about it. It’s a very useful and easy arts marketing experiment.

Along the same lines, it also provides the opportunity for social media experiments like the one you are currently living simply by reading this post — a bunch of us are blogging about this proposal today (Friday) in one shape or form. It may be enough to cause a critical groundswell. Or maybe not. At least, we will know one way or the other.

So, yes, there are legitimate concerns and the Aviva funding scheme is by no means perfect. There are, however, good reasons to jump in, participate, and see what we can make of it. I am fairly confident we can turn this funding zombie into a funding blow-job. If nothing else, it’s an opportunity to practice looking for reasons for action instead of looking for reasons not to act. And that is always a good thing.

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In the 200,000 years since Homo sapiens first appeared on the planet, our ability to use and create resources has improved dramatically and our population has exploded.

When I reflect on the tremendous technological, demographical, and social changes of the past ten, fifty, and hundred years, it seems to me the most significant change concerns how we associate with each other.

Thanks to our increased economic, political, and communicative powers, many of us seem much more willing to create relationships and groups based on personal attachments and shared purposes that are unrelated to brute proximity and / or blood relations.

We also seem more inclined to accept that persons can — and maybe even should — belong to more than one group.

I say “seem” because I suspect some humans always have been willing to associate in this fashion and, because some of us can in fact associate in this fashion now, I suspect we always have been able to do it.

After all, from an evolutionary perspective, we are the very same primates we always have been. The tools we use are different, there are many more of us but, biologically speaking, we are very much the same.

I also suspect we didn’t associate in this fashion only because of a scarcity of resources and a superabundance of coercion. Without today’s technology and freedoms, it was simply impossible for the necessary connections to be made.

The lesson I draw from this line of thinking is that some of us are on the frontier of a new kind of living that was, until now, impossible. I also suspect, because I have faith in the species, it is a kind of living that will one day be taken for granted.

Therefore, in this ephemeral moment of unrealized possibility, I think we should nurture, cherish, and celebrate these new opportunities, relationships, and groups. I am even tempted to say, we should create these relationship and groups as a matter of duty because so many persons previous to us who had no choice but to go alone into the wilderness.

I won’t make this strong claim, however, because I am sure all those brave persons who ventured into the unknown wilderness alone — whether it be real or allegorical — did so because they longed for a world where a person could choose to live and associate how she pleases — even when it means being alone in the wilderness.

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Richard Rorty, a contemporary and recently deceased philosopher I admire, once quipped that philosophical debates are won by whomever is best able to come up with clever distinctions. The essence of his point is that philosophical debates are won and lost in the battle over the definitions employed to define the debate. Whomever sets, controls, and defines the terms of debate will win the debate. To see this observation in action, one need look no further than politics.

Along similar lines, he also suggests that people generally discuss and debate issues within certain taken-for-granted assumptions. Ultimately, he suggests, it is these fundamental assumptions that determine a person’s point of view in any particular discussion or debate.

I’ve realized, in the course of our discussions on this blog, I have some very specific assumptions that pretty much inform all my claims about human social behavior (like, sex, love, and friendship). I’d like to hear what you think about these assumptions.

They are:

1. A resource is anything a person values.
2. Any person can identify, create, and control resources (although, due to coercion, some do not, practically-speaking).
3. We organize ourselves into distinct social groups which collectively identify, create, and control resources.
4. We identify, create, and exchange resources with others in our group (cooperatively and / or competitively).
5. We identify, create, and exchange our resources with the members of other groups (cooperatively or competitively).
6. In principle, the total set of all resources is not finite, even if some particular resources are finite.
7. At roots, all our disputes concern the control and exchange of resources.

First impressions? Thoughts? Do you agree / disagree? Am I overlooking something?

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