I felt like making snowballs
And so I crushed the snow.
I felt like crushing snowballs
And so I threw some, so
I felt like kissing you, then,
But for a reason that we both
Understand and do not speak,
We did not kiss.
Where am I in the scope of history?
Where are we in history?
When future generations look back on us, both publicly and privately, how will we be percieved? Will we be seen as Rome right before the fall? Are we on the brink of some great collective epiphany? Who will be seen as the movers and shakers of our time?
Something that's been bugging me lately is the wasted potential of today's planet Earth. What if we focused all our attention on the improvement of all social conditions? What if we unlocked all the capital in the third world? How much impact would the ending of poverty, or at the very least hunger, have on human ideas (science, philosophy, art, literature, etc.)
Is this question extremely naive? This is within our grasp, isnt it?
Shed all your cynicism for just ten minutes and think about this seriously.
What if everyone instantaneously shared a collective sense of charity, whereby we would no longer feel capable of amassing so much capital without at least attending to the basic human needs of others on the planet? Is there a human pathology that makes us inherently greedy, or at least willfully ignorant of the plight of others?
What is so liberal about this idea? Theoretically, the Christian Right should have come up with this first. The earliest Christians lived in communes and shared everything. This was out of necessity, as Christians were being collectively persecuted for hundreds of years. Now that the west has ended up on top, for the time being, Christianity has become a defence for capitalism. This wouldn't be such a bad thing if modern economics made more room for a conscience. But people seem to be addicted to wealth. Look at the heads of huge corporations. Million dollar bonuses and golden parachutes. Meanwhile some kid in Haiti just went without dinner for the fourth night in a row.
Is that gap too big? Am I leaping to completely unconnected conclusions here?
But what if we found a way to even things out, just a little bit more. What if we could make sure that people didn't have to worry about where to get their next meal? Then they could worry about better things, like how to build a better burning lightbulb, or how to cure cancer once and for all. We could unlock the potential energy of billions of brains, and do something that benefits every living being.
Think of humanity as a big computer. Right now, we're only operating on a percentage of our processing power. What if we found a way to use humanity for its full capacity? Everyone's own individuality could contribute to a massive and diverse human supercomputer. We could all think for ourselves, both individually and collectively.
We're all human beings. We all live on the same planet. The powers that be are trying to make that planet smaller and smaller. How long until we can't ignore the problem of poverty any longer?
Where are we in history? Who will percipitate the next big change. What is the next big change?
What if sharing the wealth destroyed the marketplace completely, sending us into some horrible new dark age? What if liberation from money means the destruction of civilization?
What is the next stage of human evolution? We can't be done evolving. If that's true, if this is what it's like to be homo sapien superior, then what a big disappointment for humanity.
Can't there be a human scripture? Can't there be some text that we can all read, regardless of race/language/creed/religion, that convinces us to collectively improve our circumstances? Wouldn't that be so fulfilling? Wouldn't you love to tell your children, or your nieces and nephews, or your students that you were part of the big step forward? Wouldn't you be proud to say that you read the book that kickstarted the golden age of human kind?
Is this naive? Or is imaginative? I know I can't be the first person to think of this.
I'm not saying everybody would instantaneously become "good." I think there will always be a darker side to humanity. But what if that darker side was no longer represented in our public life? What if people unanymously allowed themselves to be guided by some golden principle of mutual respect and dignity? What if?
What if?
What if?
Where am I in history?
Am I one of many people to witness humanity fail to live up to its potential?
MY WINTER CLASS HAS FIFTEEN FUCKING BOOKS ASSIGNED FOR US TO READ!
Isn't that awesome? This is a totally wonderful way to spend winter break. No, I am not being sarcastic. The whole class is concerned with Wallace Steven's poetry, in which he contemplates the nature of the human mind. Which means I have to contemplate the nature of the human mind. Which means I am getting academic credit for essentially meditating through literature for three weeks. Before the first day of class, this sounded like a prison sentence. Now it sounds like a spiritual retreat.
I wanna write a play about Wallace Stevens some day. He had such a quietly unhappy life. Much of modern theatre has to do with unhappy lives. A play about Wallace Stevens would fit right in. Someday. Not now.
I NEED TO QUIT SMOKING.
TTFN
This is one for Jesse Blaine.
A run-down porch on a rotten shack of a home.
We open on an older woman with a shotgun pointed at very specific members of the audience. She's waiting for General Sherman to come burn her place down. She's got a lot of kids, and she keeps refering to her shack as though it's some lavish plantation that's in need of protection. Once the audience gains her trust, she starts to tell lude jokes and let her guard down. Eventually she sets her gun on the ground. Maybe she makes some lemonade during the intermission. In any case, by the start of act II, she plays the part of a hostess for a big party. Maybe celebrating the end of the world. She gives audience members cookies and tells them not to eat them until the end of the play, "when the lights go out."
then...
A REALLY BIG TWIST.
The end.
Right now, I'm tentatively titleling this piece "A House of Lies" until I can come up with a better name. Something less melodramatic. This play will only work if I can drag some laughs out of the audience. Right now, I'm thinking one actor. This would be my first ever one-person show.
We'll see how it goes.
I'm reading Flannery O'Connor right now. Fucking marvelous. Jesse Blaine would eat it up.
Dear Cigarettes,
It makes me really sad to say, it's time we called it quits. It's not you, really, it's me. I just don't think it's healthy for me to be in a relationship with you right now. You break my heart every morning, and I know you can't help it, so I've decided to take action. Today will be our last date. I'll only kiss you three more times.
I have nothing but the fondest of memories of my time spent with you. How could I forget the first time I ever made out with you, after Ashleigh Sala bummed me one of you my senior year of High School. Or what about the time my parents caught us kissing when I was home visiting from college? Man, they were so furious. They thought you we from the wrong side of the tracks, but they didn't understand. It's been a great time with you cigarettes, I don't want you to think that I'm just going to retroactively hate you and proclaim you to be uncool.
Now I know we've broken up before, but this time it's for real. No more random hook ups. I don't want any late night drunken trysts with you, and I certainly don't want you to try to hook me up with your older brothers cigars and pipes. Your cousin from mexico and I are going to be having this discussion very soon as well. I really need to be free from you right now, I need to learn to live without you. Perhaps some day in the future, if I have some role in a play or there's some celebration, maybe I'll make an exception. But for now we are through, it's over. Kaput.
Yours no longer,
S
P.S. Ok, let's go make out one more time, for old time's sake.
Every year, I come up with a New Year's resolution that I usually don't follow up on. This year, my resolutions are big, so I've decided to get a head start. Hopefully, unless I give in to the temptation I had about three minutes ago, this should all work out for the best. Here are the resolutions:
1.) Quit Smoking
-Now that I am cast in the puzzle locker, and I'm starting to sing more often (Stephen Hiro might be playing a show with the Michael Tabors btw.) it's time I gave up smoking. I don't want to stay a smoker my whole life anyway, right? Quit while you're still ahead I say. Plus, I can't imagine smoker's breath helping me out on the dating scene.
2.) Party Less
-This is rather self explanatory. I have been partying quite a bit these past few months, and it's time that I reserved partying for special occasions only. I think this will help me get closer to my less party-oriented friends, who I'm noticing that I care alot more about these days. Drinking and smoking buddies are great, almost as great as actually drinking and smoking, but it's time to tone it down. I think the amount of cocaine that I've seen in front of people's faces these past few months is more than I need to see in a lifetime. Them shits is disturbing.
2.5) Party More with New People
-There are a whole bunch of friends that I've been neglecting in the last few months, just because I've been completely dominated by other things. This last semester, I'm going out with a bang. I'm going to try to get to know as many new people as possible, while at the same time hanging out with friends of mine I should have been spending more time with all along. You people know who you are. One of you just gave me the greatest Mix CD ever. So it's time to get to know you all a little better.
3.) MOST IMPORTANT ::: Become less Narcississiissssisstic.
-Alright, I admit, I don't know how to spell that word. I'm a terrible speller. But you get the point. These past six months or so, all I've been thinking about is myself. I've decided to change that recently, as you might have noticed by my previous post. Any help on this is greatly appreciated. Let me know what I can do to help others. Meanwhile, I'll be spending a whole crapload of time not thinking about myself. Strange that I would use a blog to come to this conclusion...
Ok. So that's it. Feel free to punch me if you catch me breaking any rules...except rule number two, 'cause I loves me some PBR on occasion.
I am in a good mood.
I have decided to fill my life with what is good.
I will do my best to always do what is good for others.
That is all I have to say for right now.
JUST KIDDING! I'm doing much, much better today. I'm just listening to Blood Money by Tom Waits for the first time in a long while, and I couldn't think of a better title for this post. Goddamn, I am totally "that" blogger aren't I? This Blog is a testament to how much of a geek I really am.
SEE! EVEN THAT WAS A TYPICAL THING TO SAY IN A BLOG! Arghhh. First facebook, now this. Oh well.
Anyway, I thought up a groovy idea for my next play. I want to attack the "college life" play, and make something that is more representative of what is really up for alot of people these days. I was thinking about this while I wrote my personal statement for my Brown application the other day. I -
-oh my god, I was accidentally on random with my itunes, and it went immediately from the first track of Blood Money to Mean Mr. Mustard from Abbey Road. That was the ultimate unexpected Mix moment. Ok, now it just went to Panda Bear. Not a good transition. We'll be listening to the Strokes for the rest of this post.
Anyway, I thought up a groovy idea for my next play...as...I...just said with the exact same words at the start of the second paragraph. Wow. I'm getting way too easily destracted. BACK TO THE PLAY. I want to attack the typical college play and see if I can't find a way to make it actually work. I have never seen a play about college life that I actually liked. I don't think our generation has had a chance to represent ourselves yet. Mostly we've been leaving that up to people who are older than us, but now is the time for us to be coming out on our own. Look at the underground culture today, it's packed with shit that most people don't know about. I really want to write a play that attacks the current status quo of popular entertainment. Pop culture is where our generation has been getting the majority of its ideas, at least on a mundane day-to-day basis. Why aren't we trying harder to shake that shit up and bring someting new into the world?
So I want to write a party play. And I want the audience to have to stand or sit on the floor for the first act, like they have to inhabit the world of the play. Think Tony n' Tina's wedding, only the last two acts return the audience to the typical theatrical setting, with seats, a stage, a set, etc. And I want fog machines and loud music to fill the lobby (where would presume the first act would take place.) Tons of actors. Collective hero. Nobody completely stands up and takes command of the world of the play. Serve booze. Yank the audience into experiencing this stuff for themselves (wouldn't most likely be their first time). That way the world of the play is more believable and easily accepted. And I want it to be extreme. I want to light the theatre on fire with this play. Figuritively speaking.
I've wanted to come up with an idea like this ever since seeing Tropicana at the National Theatre. We'll see how it goes.
Ok, for now, I must "reread" the Tempest and prepare for my Shakespeare final in . . . SIX HOURS. shit.
---Listening to Odelay---
Ok, so this is the first post. Let's see if this works at all.
Obviously, like most college-aged bloggers, I'm putting this together because I'm slightly down and out.
Can't sleep.
Should be studying.
Totally unmotivated.
And I guess I needed another excuse to sit in front of my computer for hours on end.
But you know what? Life, in spite of all the crap that's been going on lately, has not managed to totally get me down. I think what threw me off tonight was a bunch of pointless facebook drama that my Ex just put me through. I don't really pay much mind to facebook, so that wasn't what bothered me. It was the fact that after all this, and nearly a month of not talking to each other, she still managed to do something to get under my skin. Bah. Hogwash.
Damned intermittent insomnia. Damn the fact that the only cure seems to be sharing a bed with someone.
I wouldn't be dwelling on this stuff normally, as I have now gotten completely over Fran. But I figured it was an attempt on her part to communicate in some way. She's was always big on non-verbal communication. So, I sent her a pleasant email asking her to explain, because from what I last gathered, she and I didn't have any big problems (aside from violently ending our 2 1/2 year relationship over the past semester.) When I got to GMail and finished sending the email, I thought that I had mistakenly said something I shouldn't, so I decided to check my sent mail folder to retrace my steps. When I open up the email itself, all the GMail ads have to do with breaking up with people, and how to get over it. WHAT THE FUCK? How did it know that *******@gmail.com and Sptacek@gmail.com had ever been dating. How did it know that they have since broken up? These are the questions that are keeping me up tonight. That and the fact that I slept over at Drew Munao's house until 3 in the afternoon.
Normally I'd be calling Dan right now to see if he's up and wants to grab some food, but he's probably busy with his movie or hanging out with F. Stop asking me if they're together, because I don't know and I don't really care. Still, I wish there was a chance of Perkins in my near future. Perhaps I'll go there and study for my Shakespeare final there...
I am amazed that I'm still friends with Dan. Perhaps there is a deeper reason for this.
Working on his movie has been loads of fun. Makes me feel productive again. Plus, I feel like I'm doing good work. The vampire song works nicely with the film. I'm wondering if it was worth it to put it on the JAWS album, or if I should have waited and put it on something later, so's it could have been a little more special for Dan.
I need to start a new play. Finally finished editing Billie. Now's my chance to move on. El Dorado needs a bit more time against the wall. I was thinking about a sequel to El Dorado, set some indeterminite amount of time after the events of the first play, but I feel like I need to bust out and do something different. Something simpler. Maybe a time travel play. Or maybe a romance. It needs to be a play that I'd enjoy writing. As much as I like El Dorado so far, that play almost killed me to write. Billie not so much. I need to write another black comedy like Billie the kid. Only this time, no cowboys. No kitchen sinks either.
Ah well. That's for me to ponder later.
You've just read the first post in my blog. Either this means you have way too much time on your hands or you are in some way interested in what I have to say. Thanks for reading in any case. I promise to keep the blog less mopey in the future.
