I set out for the Metropolitan Museum of art with a plan in my head and a spring in my step. Gorgeous, springtime weather. Notebook in bag, bag on back. Some bouncy tunes to keep the pace (Apples in Stereo or Lyrics Born, something with a driving beat and solid production). A pen in my pocket, almost dripping ink in anticipation. The knowledge that some sentences sound lascivious, even if you didn't mean for them to be at all. A mental image, clear as the motherfuckin' sky above me: it goes me, the roof of the Met, a seat on a bench, a coffee next to me, aforementioned pen against aforementioned notebook scratching with ferocity, some thoughtful music to spur me forward (Bach or Hildegard von Bingen, something with, uh, cellos. Or chanting.), and departing some hours later with a piece of writing so beautiful and brilliant as to change lives, and bring smiles to sour faces.

It would start like this, my amazing piece of writing:

Setting: Roof Garden, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Time: Early Afternoon (I would have been more specific)
Weather: Clear as a motherfuckin' crystal
Reason for equating clarity with Oedipal urges: unknown, but possibly meaningful
Mood: Instilled with a spirit of positive energy that feels very much like joy
Side Effects: Suspicion at a) such nice weather this late in the year and b)this sudden, intense feeling of solid good.
The surroundings: Here, I launch into a stunning examination of the city around me. The park stretching away toward the towers on the West Side. The museum and what it means to me. Analysis of sudden optimism. Description of almost certainly bitter coffee and the cool wind on my exposed hand. Beautiful, elegant turns of phrase. Verbs and nouns positively scintillating. A personal note to look up the spelling of scintillating. Everything succulent, sweet, and aggravatingly alliterative (but in an alluring way). Language so clear, it's like you were balls deep in Jocasta. A tiny portrait of a city and of me in relation to it, how each completes the other and how each is truly more than its whole. This shit would spiral with brilliant wizardry of craft and language and at its climax would break down the very rules it had just established! Suddenly free-form! Then suddenly structured! The lines begin to evoke more than describe. They run into one another and disperse, like so many... things that run into another and then disperse. Suddenly meter... then better meter! Suddenly rhyme! This shit is in rhyme now! The language was too much for the form, see, it had to burst through, charge through, break down and rebuild from nothing until it achieved something new and great! Oh, and then it ended like this:

I cast myself about me
And I realize I'm home
And I smile because intended prose
Turned into a poem or something, I meant this ending is pretty weak, but it wouldn't have been if I had written it in the roof garden of the Met, with the coffee and the wind and the music and the view and all this beauty!

So I decided to grab lunch first, because who can write on an empty stomach? I wanted food to go, because I wanted to sit in the park to, you know, start preparing my senses for the lyrical onslaught I was about to transfer to the page. But every place I stopped in front of, every promising establishment that caught my eye, failed to hold my attention for more than a second. Failed to provide within me that sudden spark of inspiration. My initial desire to obtain a simple meal was replaced by a flood of doubt. Surely, I thought, the moment that I finally caved to the purchase of lesser food, I would suddenly turn and see The Perfect Place! The place with a meal that was literally perfect. Alas, it would have been too late! I would have already chosen a meal, a poorly selected sack of what could loosely be called "goods." And I would stare longingly at something tantalizing separated from me by a sheet of glass and a decision made in haste. The thought of returning tomorrow to secure this second, perfect meal was impossible! Perhaps this place, like Brigadoon, open only one day in every hundred years to serve their manna to an unsuspecting hunter, and tomorrow the restaurant and everything it promised would return to mist, never to be seen in this lifetime.

I wandered several blocks past the museum, searching in vain for this mythical meal. I finally conceded. If I did not select a meal soon, I wouldn't have the time I needed to craft my poetic masterpiece. It also dawned on me that even if I did manage to find something so perfect, it's not like I would necessarily be able to afford it. After all, I was on Madison Avenue, in the eighties. I settled on an imperfect place, and I selected an imperfect and almost painfully pretentious sandwich that featured on its packaging a description of the method of tomato preparation, and no less than three adjectives to describe the cheese. This sandwich I could afford... barely. I stepped forward to the counter, and discovered that I had literally left my wallet in my other pants.

I apologized, blushed, and headed home. Headed home with every intention of returning. I retrieved my money and started to leave again, but by then the day was just a little bit more dull, the wind just a little bit colder. The clarity of my spirit now significantly less incestuous. The walk before me long, and the television singing its tantalizing siren's song. The possibility of having food delivered to me shockingly attractive. I settled into the easy chair, and I reached for the phone with one hand and the remote control with the other.

Right then and there, that imagined masterpiece-- like so many before it-- died, providing whole new levels of meaning to the term cardiac arrest.

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2004 was going to be the day that I helped change the world. The possibility of that change flooded my thoughts and adrenaline my heart at the knowledge of what goodness the day would bring. I was unable to sleep. Rolling fitfully in my bed, my eyes wide open, my thoughts so clear and infused with optimism.

How do you sleep the night before you change the world?

I gave up on sleep in the middle of the night. I read news articles on the internet. I tried to watch SportsCenter, but found that I could not focus on the scores. I returned to my computer and read more news articles. I showered, I dressed, and I arrived at my polling place 45 minutes before it opened, because I could think of no place else to go.

I felt change.

They say to “write what you know.” They seem to be on to something. So from now on, I am going to write what I know, beginning with this brief list:

I know the quadratic equation.
I know the words to all the theme songs from the Disney Afternoon.
I know by heart the delivery phone number for Yummy House.
I know how to connect anyone to Kevin Bacon in no more than six steps.
I know how to program the clock on the VCR.
I know verses by Shakespeare, Thoreau, and Dr. Dre.
I know what subtext is.
I know the entire cast lists of Saved by the Bell and every incarnation of Star Trek. Except “Enterprise.”
I know how to bullshit a five paragraph essay the morning that it’s due and
I know how to get an A on it.
I know that this information will be of no more help to me in my life, ever.
I know every phone number that I learned before 2001, but none since because
I know how to use the phone book on my cellular.
I know the New Testament like the back of my hand and I know why it’s wrong like the back of my other hand.
I know that my disease with religion rests somewhere between reasonable and overly harsh.
I know how to tie a tie in about three tries.
I know how to cook pasta on a stove.
I know the difference between “your” and “you’re.”
I know how to use an apostrophe and
I know you hate it when I tell you that you misused it, but
I also know for sure that you’re going to have to deal with it until you learn.

I know that this life is far, far too short and
I know that that is both unfair and wonderful.

I know what the world looks like from the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, and 38,000 feet.
I know that a surefire sign of youth is being either too optimistic or too cynical, and I can feel myself vacillating between the two extremes with very little regard for the middle ground.
I know what hope feels like.
I know what it felt like to cast my vote on that cold, dark morning and
I know the joy I felt because I was going to do more than just vote. The shame I would feel at the end of the day for not doing enough. I loaded into a rental car packed with people. I listened to NPR and discussed how much we would win by. How tomorrow the world would forgive us. How these four fast friends and I would take Philadelphia by storm. How we would change the world, together.

We waved signs and sent shouts skyward, responding to car horns of acclamation and jeers from the opposition. I walked miles through a city I did not know, ringing doorbells and begging people to claim their constitutional right to make their voice heard. A man in a business suit saw our signs and spit on us, and we did not know how to react. An old woman smiled at us, and saluted us, and told us that she could not wait for us all to get drafted so that we could go to Iraq and die. My stomach reacted violently to a sleepless night, ten cups of coffee, and no food at all. I struggled through the pain, following winding suburban streets to knock on the doors of strangers. I told myself that there was no possible way the Republicans were as disorganized as my party was, with our mish-mash lists and uncertain leaders. I felt pride at doing my part for change. I felt cocky for supposing to go to a neighboring state to tell them what to do. I felt elation at victory achieved in Pennsylvania. Then I felt sickness as I finally collapsed into bed, unable to even comprehend what had happened.

So I want to write what I know. But I also want to write hope, and right now I fear that the two are incompatible. I want to write that knowledge is power, and I want to write that I live in a world of compassion, and in a country of wisdom and goodness. I want to write that a few young, scrappy people can affect social change and I don’t want to be made to feel childish for believing that.

I want to sing, and I want to dance, and I want to say that this is worth it, and that his matters. I want to learn and love, and I want to come to the end of my meager allotment of days knowing that I have lived.

I want to stand in a high, open place and scream how wonderful it all is, how wonderful and strange.

I want to know joy.

I want to write these things, but these are things I hope and want. These are not things that I know. What I know feels too useless and cheap, too old and too weak. Too hopeless. Too cynical. Like Fox Mulder’s poster, I want to believe. I want to write boldly and speak loudly.

I want to know these things I hope. More than I can say.

So forget it. Forget the maxim and the teaching and the common wisdom. I am going to write what I do not know. I am going to write what I hope unwaveringly. Because knowledge springs from hope, and if that’s not true then it ought to be.

So sing and dance and shout from a high, open place. Don’t let one day or four years or eight years decide the way you’ll see the world. Sing loudly. Dance boldly. Shout with all you possess. Our ignorance will become our strength, and our words will change this world.

And if you say to me that this is the naiveté of youth, then I say “Fuck you, and fuck getting older, because I believe in a world of hope!”

Or, at the very least, I believe in a world where I can hope for hope.

I think that’s what I’ll be writing from now on.

I wrote the following in... I guess March of 2004. It's been about a year since I wrote it, and I have absolutely no recollection of writing it.

But I am now intrigued.

Attempting to engage those around you in discourse is often an exercise in futility. Certainly you see this is the case. I’m not even talking about discoursing in regard to theatre and art, I’m talking about getting anybody to talk to you about basically anything. I’m confident this does not just happen to me. Generally, people don’t want to talk about stuff. Whether this is because of my stunning prowess as a rhetorician has yet to be proven conclusively, but I wouldn’t rule it out.
One reason people have given me for not engaging in discussions on serious themes is that they don’t “want to argue.” This seems ridiculous to me; if we’re not here to argue, what the hell are we doing here? Passive acceptance isn’t worth the breath it takes to sustain life long enough to nod in dumb agreement. I’m here to argue.
And that’s not even the point. So, I don’t mind arguing—that’s something to keep in mind. But I believe there can be heated discussion without argument. I believe the two are disparate, and that they’re dissimilar enough that I figure people shouldn’t confuse them. I don’t know what separates them, I just know that they’re separate. I don’t feel offended when people disagree with me, I feel offended when I make a point on a challenging issue and nobody demands that I back myself up with facts, or nobody disagrees. That’s what’s really offensive. It’s not demeaning to be challenged, it’s respectful.
All that aside:
Another reason I believe people tend not to discuss things—and this might be particularly with me—is that they’re afraid of sounding uninformed or less… I don’t know, prepared for an argument. I tend to state things with a lot of… gusto. I tend to state things loudly and broadly and it scares people into thinking that I’m not a poorly-informed hack. Little do they know. All jokes aside, vocabulary tends to worry the prospective counterpoints away, and I am at least skilled at appearing to have one. A vocabulary.
Also, I apparently have the tendency to… state things in such a way that cuts off counterargument. I mean, except for my brother, who is able to systematically immolate nearly any argument I can bring up on any subject. But yes… I state things dramatically and solidly, and again that frightens people off.
If you’re worrying that this is off the topic of why I’m choosing to do theatre as a career, put those worries aside and know that, while I don’t have a clear plan, I do remember where I’m trying to get back to, thesis-wise.
What those who choose to discuss things with me will quickly notice is that I am your typical extravert—sometimes I don’t know what I mean until I hear what I say. So I might bombastically state a point and then back away from it suddenly and without warning. I just want to talk about things because not only does it help me learn how to talk about things, it helps me figure out what I think about those things in the first place.
There may be more reasons people choose not to discuss openly in public. But fear of being wrong, fear of seeming inadequately prepared, fear of offending a friend… perhaps one to throw into this list is just plain ignorant and pleased to stay that way, though I hope that isn’t the case with anyone I’d try to engage in discussion outside of classes in CAS.
OK so then point one: theatre gives me the opportunity to discuss themes and ideas without making anybody seem responsible for defending a side, or convincing me or anything. Theatre gives me an opportunity to pick a play with weighty elements, and spend months in a room with a talented and brilliant group of people in physical discussion with one another and with the themes. Rock on, you know?
Point two: after all that time engaging in discussion with a brilliant cast about just what the hell we’re doing with a play, I get to engage the audience in discussion. Sorta. This is a tricky one, in that I get to present a fully fleshed-out argument to an audience if I so desire. I can do one side; I can do the other. I can also present both sides of the argument with neither one winning so well. I get to personally decide the argument I’m presenting to a whole crowd of people who have paid for the experience of hearing my argument presented to them.
Sweet!
Then, similarly, people tend to be able to hear arguments better when they’re presented by the above oft-mentioned PRETEND PEOPLE. Why this is I have NO CLUE, it seems singularly bizarre to me that people would be willing to pay money and spend good time sitting in rows watching fake people talk about issues rather than engage in issue discussion themselves.
For many, theatre is seen as entertainment rather than discussion. These people should watch television.
“So,” you say, “this is very elitist of you. Theatre is for those who wish to engage in discussion, and those who desire entertainment should watch Everybody Loves Raymond?”
Well… yeah, OK. Maybe that is what I mean.
I don’t know! I don’t know?
I want an audience that wants to engage.
That wants to argue.
That is willing to stand up afterward and blatantly disagree.
That stands up and blatantly disagrees during a performance.
I want an audience that is not complacent.
That does not complacently agree.
That does not want solely to be entertained.
I am not interesting in maintaining order. I don’t mean that I want to physically attack anyone, but I want to create a theatre of aggression. A theatre of argument. A theatre...

Look, I want theatre to be entertaining. I just think you can have your cake and that you can eat it too but that also your cake can kick fucking ass! Like be a really tasty cake. Theatre does not have to be lecture OR entertainment. There is a middle ground where theatre can be both engaging and entertaining. I want to do this. I do not want to offend an audience, I want to engage them in a communal conversation that sparks thought and discussion.
So, you see, getting to


The Point
Is that theatre, for all its weirdness, can be kind of effective, oddly enough. If done right I think I can achieve these things I am after.


We’ll see I guess.