What a Life

TO DO:

Lady Anne Monologue for Styles in Acting
Get "A" on Knife Fight for Stage Combat
Monologue for "How I Learned to Drive" Audition
Song for "How I Learned to Drive" Audition
Make it to Callbacks "How I Learned to Drive"

Make Plans for 21st Birthday
Have Awesome 21st Birthday
Get "A" on Lady Anne Monologue
Think About Halloween Plans
Celebrate Halloween
Audition for Dance Works
Meet with Advisor
Register for Spring Classes
Buy Brother Birthday Present
Be Awesome


Let's talk about Halloween.

Worked at my professor's daughter's school's haunted house party!
I did face painting.  My friend gave me an octopus
and I gave myself a colorful hedgehog!  

Halloween has got to be one of the best inventions ever.  For all of the non-theatre people of the world who don't get to dress up and become someone else every other day, it's a great way to express creativity.  Unfortunately I've come to realize that a huge number of people who don't share my views actually exist.  Okay.  I know that there are people who think Halloween is dumb, but my brain only justifies this by considering that their childhood experiences of Halloween must have had something to do with it.  The other day I was trying to remember all of the Halloween costumes I've ever had.



In no particular order:
Pocahontas
Devil
Black Cat
Saint Francis
Witch
Belly Dancer
Geisha
Sam from LOTR
Fairy
Flapper
Pirate
Alice in Wonderland -------------------->

That's all I could come up with.  When I was thinking about Halloween for this year, I originally planned on making a Marilyn Monroe dress (the white one from The Seven Year Itch) but that never happened.  My little brother is going as Link from Zelda this year.  I brought an ice skating costume back to school with me - it's the one my sister wore for the circus themed auction my church/school had back in the day. I also have a black and white stripped shirt that I could wear and be a bandit or a ref, but that's not very original.  But since I have the googly eye headband now, I'm thinking purple people eater...  Shucks, I love Halloween!

Note to self - don't go out in public without makeup assuming you won't see anyone who matters.  Rather, go out into public without makeup knowing you're gorgeous anyway.  <3

Enter Witty Title Here

The most beautiful campus in Wisconsin.  And it's all mine!
(The bright red in the foreground is Sumac by the way.)

Fall is dwindling down to brown.  But this picture is still gorgeous.

Still fixated on The Tempest.  It inspired this poem.  We've moved on from Sonnets and now are in to Villanelles.  Soon to be out of Villanelles and into free verse - that should be interesting.

Prospero's Goodbye

I wish I'd seen the scene of your goodbye.
Your sidelong glance is dolor now defined -
It purged your heart and left your tear ducts dry.

Beloved spirit from the sea and sky
obeys you, lord - You master of mankind.
I wish I'd seen the scene of your goodbye.

Just waiting there, your features all awry,
to kiss the lips of lives you left behind.
Was your heart purged and were your tear ducts dry?

You'd kill the thing that dies without a cry -
the book, you drowned. Your power you resigned.
I wish I'd seen the scene of your goodbye.

The question. I see it in your aged eye.
Where really lies the thing for which you pined?
Just purge your heart and let your tear ducts dry.

I left you at your isle.  I can't deny
it's tripping to the forefront of my mind:
I wish I'd seen the scene of your goodbye
to purge my heart and drain my tear ducts dry.

In my Shakespeare class we're moving on to monologues.  Initial showing are this week.  I'm very excited to see what everyone has done.  What I like the best about watching others perform Shakespeare, is analyzing what works and what doesn't.  The best are the ones where I know exactly what they're saying without having read the particular play.  The problem in my case is, I'm doing a Lady Anne Monologue from Richard III and I haven't read that one yet.

wretch.

However.  I was one of the few to volunteer to present for day one of initial showings (mostly because we didn't have a whole lot of time after finishing up our scenes.)  So I was the forth and last to go.  And I amazed myself.  Yup.  I'll just say that for not having worked on it at all besides reading through it several times to get comfortable with the words I was surprised by the emotion I summoned.  Real tears, folks.  That's what Shakespeare does for me.

Short, sweet, and to the point.  Cheers, friends.

Reasons to be Brilliant

According to my preschool journal, I wanted to be a dentist.  Sadly, I didn't remember that at all.  I always tell people that when I was little I wanted to be a vet, which is true, it's just apparently not my original dream job.  Then I think I narrowed it down to a famous dolphin trainer.  Somehow it turned into English teacher, then English professor, then famous novelist, then famous dancer, then famous actor, then famous costume designer (somehow the word "famous" made it into a lot of my dreams)... I finally spiraled into the frightening world of "who knows."  If you haven't noticed, the name of my blog is Word Words Words.  However, since that was already taken for the URL, I chose "reasons to be brilliant."  This is one of my reasons to be brilliant:  When you're brilliant, you don't have to chose one dream life - you can have it all.  So I recently decided that after graduation I will do anything and everything and it will bring me joy.

I wrote this little poem two years ago in a journal for a philosophy class that
was supposed to represent who I was at that time in my life.

This realization made me realize that I no longer agree with myself.  What would it mean to be the last person on earth?  I've finally been able to put my finger on the true source of joy in my life: people.  No matter how many times I say that I hate people, I can't convince myself that I really do.  I have this issue with humanity as a whole sometimes.  Sometimes I have doubts about whether humans are inherently good or not.  Sometimes I think we go about living in all the wrong ways.  Sometimes I think money is the worst invention in the history of the world.  But when push comes to shove, it's human interaction that creates beauty.  It's laughter that is the universal language.  It's compassion that helps me know that I'm no different than anyone else - even the people I know who drive me crazy.  I don't want to be alone.  Not really alone.  And the nice part is... I don't think I ever am.

So.  Let's add that little epiphany to my list of reasons to be brilliant.  Brilliance leads to happiness.  So do hedgehogs.

(and rainbows!)

More Hair Than Wit?

There are two options in life when it comes to hair... Cut it or don't.  Until about thirty minutes ago, I was in the NO SCISSORS! phase of life in hopes of growing it out to where it was before I hit the CUT IT ALL OFF! phase two and a half years ago.  However.  Growing out hair is frustrating and unattractive (in all honesty).  As I look back through pictures of my 'shorter than it is now' hair I say to myself, "CUT IT ALL OFF!"  Then I look at my 'longest it's ever been' hair and I say, "NO SCISSORS!"  What's a girl to do.  Oh, that's right.  Read The Tempest instead.

As it turns out, The Tempest has actually joined my list of favorites when it comes to Shakespeare.  I look forward to watching Julie Taymor's new version of the play... She used Helen Mirren as Prospero (well in this case Prospera).  I've seen clips and it seems psychedelic and amazing.

"I'll drown my book"

To tie this back into the "hair" rant... I love Mirren's hair in this role.  If my hair wasn't curly I'd have this cut in a heartbeat.  I plan on filing this look away in my memory bank though for when I'm older and go grey.  It's such a great short cut because it's not so severe like ever other old lady's cut.

Moving on.

Last time I promised the poem about the Van Gogh painting.  My professor, again, loved my work.  Again, he raved over it.  And again he gave me a 3++ on a scale of 1-3.  (Every other poem I've seen so far has either gotten a 2+, a 3-, or a 3+)  Unfortunately my classmates did not really agree.  It was completely silent for about 40 seconds when my workshop started.  (Yes.  I counted.)  Of course I knew that meant they either hated it or didn't understand it.  Or both.  So I was getting comments like "I really loved this but I didn't really get it."  "Who was Vincent supposed to be?"  "I felt like it was really good but the words were wasted on the setting."  What?  After my professor explained that it was about a Vincent Van Gogh painting they were like "Ooooh!"  I wasn't allowed to speak through any of this but I can say that it was still plenty frustrating that my work makes so much sense to me but my peers never "get it."  I really don't think that my poetry is that complex.  Sure it's more complicated than "you're breaking up with me and my heart hurts because of it" but it's not really that hard to understand.  I'm not E.E. Cummings.  But what of it.  Here's my poem.  

The Cafe Terrace

With cold, white linen set in front of you - 

How did you learn to see the glow of stars?

Somehow you broke my heart.  Reaching through bars

to kiss the colors - mix each vibrant hue.

The blushing gold that drips into the blue

and fades to black as thick and deep as tar

pleads, 'Stop. Stop, you demons - Au revoir.

These tortured nights, I pray this drink subdues.'

Sweet Vincent. I can hear your crying now.

Drowned in swirling light that choked your mind

and forced you soul out through your fingertips.

Yes. I can feel its weight upon your brow

to have no voice inside a world that's blind -

to speak a sorrow ne'er to pass your lips.

Believe it or not I can actually connect this back to hair.  Van Gogh was a ginger.

"I dream my paintings and I paint my dream"

To Sonnet or Not To Sonnet

Yay Macbeth!

Dear Chris Richman,

You don't know me, and I don't know you.  However.  I am terribly offended by your lack of a brain.  I have recently become the new owner of a book you chose to scribble all over.  This book is the wonderful text: Macbeth text and contexts by our beloved William Shakespeare.  Of course it's apparent that you could have cared less.  I just spent thirty minutes erasing (mercifully you wrote in pencil) your idiotic comments about how Lady Macbeth is a cow and a b**** and various other opinions on the characters too offensive to mention.  I'd just like to let you know that most of your naivete has been expelled from the text.  I hope that the next time you decide to spill your idiotic thoughts out onto a page written by my friend Shakespeare, you're smart enough to not write your name in the front cover.  Unfortunately, the name Chris Richman is incredibly common and there is no way for me to track you down and smack you.  You might also want to work on your cursive.  You have the handwriting of a five-year-old.

"I will kill you  Do not touch"  says Chris.  I say "fair is foul, and foul is fair"

Moving on then.
As I was musing over the fair and cruel Lady Macbeth, trying with all my might to use her as an inspiration for a sonnet, I realized that Shakespeare is far superior to me when it comes to language.  Therefore, writing poetry about his work is pointless.  When I came to my senses I found myself staring at this lovely picture.

Van Gogh - The Cafe Terrace

It hangs in my bedroom by my closet/at the foot of my bed.  Besides exerting such mastery over color and contrast, I think that my dear friend Vincent had a fabulous eye for beauty in the world.  And not just beauty, but a certain sense of sorrow that leaks into his work.  So I wrote a little sonnet about it for class.  Since it won't be work-shopped for two weeks... I'll give you the poem from last week.  It's a sonnet that doesn't exactly adhere to the proper form.  I took some liberties.  But my professor raved about it nonetheless.

A Disappointed Life

There is an ocean in my way.
Its tides are like the doubts within my heart -
They swell and fade, resilient though, to part.
I wish to find a place without decay
To which I can escape.  I want to stay -
To sit and wonder why things fall apart.
My wings are sore.  My shoes, my blisters, smart.
I fear the endless shades of blue and grey.
So now I hang like lonely portraits do
In empty rooms where dust falls in my eyes.
I am the one who leans her longing on
The window ledge and watches people through
The polished glass.  And as they age and die
I am protected from the burning sun.

Three cheers for poetry!  Now it's time for The Tempest!

Here's a baby rhino for your enjoyment!