Success for POGO!

Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to announce that the show was a success. We managed to have a great run, we even sold out the whole auditorium on Saturday evening. (I had to watch the show sitting on the stairs). Everyone seem to have a great time! The best part: we raised more money on Saturday than the entire run that Fallen Rock did last year, and all of that money is going to help kids with cancer! Wow! That's not even counting the money raised by the silent auction they had going as well. Wow again!

It feels good to be a part of that!

In the end, all the stress paid off, and we danced the night away in celebration at a club in Yorkville. I went to bed at 5am! Now life should go back to normal, and I'm done running around for silly items...well, until the next show comes along...

The theatre biz

Last night I had a chance to spend a little bit of time with a major theatre producer - it was kind of neat, but it does make me stop and think a little about what I want to do with the rest of my life. Am I so in love with theatre that I am willing to step into the "theatre biz"?

Maybe not so slowly converting...

It's happening. I'm not sure how, but it is. I'm becoming one of those people. You know them, the Mac enthusiasts. I don't know how or when, but I've jumped on that bandwagon. I'm finding myself drooling over the prospects of a new computer, and rather than presenting myself on board for a new PC I've been checking out the Apple website almost daily.

The new Intel Dual Core IMac are just really, really sweet machines. Really. It seems that commercials about it have to come on every day when I getting ready for work, just taunting me. And it turns out that my friend Chris is also drooling over it. Maybe we can get a pair, that would be nice.

It will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.

Someone's got a case of the Mondays!

I am a tried and true drama queen today - full on tantrum ready and everything. Let me take you through my day:

I awake early this morning, lug myself to the grocery store to buy the food props we need for the show. It's very heavy carrying tons of stuff on your back, even if it is on the TTC. Grr. Then I get home, feeling a little stressed because I have to strip the pillows/cushions off my couch and bed from home to bring to the set. I'm feeling frustrated because I wanted to have the set dressing stuff listed a while ago, and I'm confused and stressed because I don't know how I can carry groceries, my work bag, and two huge bags of pillows to the theatre on the TTC. Grr times two. I can't get a hold of a friend with a car, and I am forced to call the guy from the show who's helping me out with running props, almost in tears because I am feeling stressed.

I burn my breakfast bagel, feeling all the more incompetent and angry. I throw it in the sink. Grr times three. I put a new bagel in the toaster. I take a moment. My friend Elaine gives me another pillow to use for the show and tries to make me laugh. I breathe, and make a cup of tea.

I've forgotten to buy coleslaw for the show. And I'll need spoons for that. Can't even be plastic ones because it's set in the 1950's. Crap, more money, more hassles because I can't get to an open dollar store before work. I'm feeling stressed. Grr times four.

Angel comes, he looks tired and stressed. I feel bad because I didn't go back to the theatre the night before because I wasn't feeling good after church, and he was there until 2 AM. He takes the last of the props and goes off to the theatre. I take a moment to breathe and eat my bagel. I'm still cranky though.

I go to get on the TTC for work. A man watches a bunch of people walk by and for some reason, chooses to run after me trying to talk to me. I am about ready to clock him. He's trying to butter me up. I get all the more annoyed. I wait for the train. Some more gentlemen start talking to me because of my work ID tag sticking out from under my jacket. I am prompted to take it off and place it back in my pocket. Grr five and six. I read about Canada loosing to Finland in men's Olympic Hockey. Grr seven.

I get close to work on the Shepherd line, and my whole cup of warm tea looses it's balance and lands on the seat next to me, wetting my jeans in the process. Grr eight.

I am thoroughly unimpressed and feeling very down.

Gradually I cheer up a little, but the day still goes on, I've still got to go to the theatre tonight after work...

Hand painted props-a-go-go!

So, last night I spend yet another evening working on my props! They are looking pretty good. I'm actually quite proud of my hand painted cigarette boxes - Lucky Strikes, Vogues and Hit Parade. You'll have to come see the show to see them in their glory!

Funny how you can spend hours doing this kinda thing. I remember the first time I did props - I went in thinking I was never going to do it again. Here I am, three shows and a movie later. Sigh.

Guess it pays to have a little bit of talent when it comes to finding random things.

A golden nugget forward - Thanks Ryan!

The Washington Post's Style Invitational asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are this year's winners:

1. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

2. Foreploy (v): Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

3. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

4. Giraffiti (n): Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

5. Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

6. Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

7. Hipatitis (n): Terminal coolness.

8. Osteopornosis (n): A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

9. Karmageddon (n): It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

10. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

11. Glibido (v): All talk and no action.

12. Dopeler effect (n): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

13. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

14. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

15. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating. And the pick of the literature.

16. Ignoranus (n): A person who's both stupid and an asshole

She's a Grease-y sick one

Oi!

I've been sick lately, followers, so I apologize if I have left you dangling and awaiting more information about my life. Really, there isn't much to say. I've been sick. There really isn't anything like head cold to butt into your life and knock you flat.

The rest of my life has been about working on the props for Fallen Rock's Production of Grease that I'm working on. Props-Master-a-go-go! It goes up next week, and you can get your tickets here. Please, come see it, all the money is going to charity. Sweet. After that I will have my life back, I promise!

Poop Etiquette

If you want a really good laugh, go to The Peevery and read the section on Poop Etiquette. HA!

An update on the eye

I woke up this morning and while I was putting on my make-up I noticed something funny. No, my left eye did not turn purple after I walked into the pole, but I do have a lovely little greenish-yellow mark just above the crease in my eyelid. Nice.

If you look hard enough, you can't even see it through the eye shadow! Ha!

Subjectivity and Objectification - A diatribe (Part One)

Recently I've found myself once again feeling frustrated because of the presence of objectification in today's culture. Most specifically my frustration lies in the responses that I have had from friends (mostly male) because of the pictures that I have posted of myself here. Although most of the statements were made in jest, I feel like I cannot ignore the root from which they have come.

First let me stipulate that the picture found on the post "Pieces of me" were taken by myself as a means of artistically exploring how I want to portray my own self. Currently I am looking to work on an artistic project that depicts the "real" and "honest" me. I took these pictures in the simplest terms using one camera and one bedroom lamp. They are SELF PORTRAITS. They are not meant to be provocative or to imply that I am actively seeking voyeurism. Yet, somehow some still consider my pictures to be "risque" or "nudies".

I wonder if these were male self portraits if I would have received the same reaction. Is the female form more more inherently sexual than the male's? And why, in our advanced society are we still finding ourselves part and parcel of the whole realm of sexual objectification?

My "art" has been undermined by the determination of the world to consider the human form as an object, and I have come face to face with the "sexual gaze". It begs the question "When can the female form in art transcend this gaze?"

I realize here that I am coming to the table in the midst of a bias. I am considering this topic from the perspective of a female artist who is working in a traditionally male dominated field. My materialist feminist sensibilities automatically cause me to want to fight to see the mythical subject of "woman" or in Lacanian terms "the other" (the counterpoint to the male) dismantled, so that women too can move towards subjectivity in art.

So yes, this diatribe does stem from the idea that we are still crawling out from a patriarchal society when it comes to the creation of art. The male gender and the sexuality still has a stronghold when it comes to the canonized texts of the theatre and even film. Naturally, the theory that stems from this point of can spill over in to visual art such as photography because they are interrelated. You could even consider photography as snapshots of a moment of live theatre.

This explains why I am referring to the "male gaze" - I am referring to the traditionally held European "ideal" audience of the white, middle-class, heterosexual male. This "ideal" spectator is carved from the likeness of the culture in which he exists and all aspects of performance, or art, can be manipulated so that their meaning is most intelligible to that spectator. Now, I do realize that not all art does stem from this perspective, I mean there have been many developments in art, but every now and then you do have to stop and consider the impact that this sensibility has created to help understand where are is coming from.

Subjectivity and Objectification - A diatribe (Part Two)

For many years, and even in modern times as well, we find references to Freud's psychoanalysis. Many of us are familiar with the Ego, the Id and the Superego, but fewer may be familiar with Freud's theory of scopophilia. In his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Freud describes scopophilia as a love of looking, and goes on to to say that it is based on a curiosity that seeks to complete a sexual object by revealing its hidden parts. The pleasure derived from looking is tied into our sexual desires without being directly related to the erogenous zones, yet it still produces erotic pleasure. Scopophilia is also associated with taking people as objects and subjecting them to a curious gaze.

Then tie this into Lacan's theory of the mirror stage, a stage of development in which the child begins to realize that there are elements around them that are not are not a part of it, the "other". Images and sense of the "self" becomes fragmented in this stage because the child does not have full control over its movements or body. The child develops a sense of identity versus subjectivity. But yet, the image viewed by the child is not the "me", rather it is a misrecognition, it is an image of the real self, and therefore this stage also forms the basis of the process of recognition and misrecognition of ourselves. The child begins to search for identification in an external image, and not in an internal sense of a separate whole identity.

You may wonder why I am bothering to give this history. It is because these psychoanalytic theories form the basis for one of the most compelling essays of the objectification of women that I have ever read. The essay is called Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema and is written by Laura Mulvey, a renowned artist in film. In her essay, Mulvey argues that there are two main contradictory aspects to the act of deriving pleasure from visual images placed on a screen. One is related to scopophilia, and the other is related our narcissistic need to identify with the figures on the screen. Scopophilia implies separation from the erotic object one is viewing, and narcissistic indentification demands identification with the on-screen object based on the spectator's fascination with the recognition of his or her own likeness.

In a patriarchal society where the male gaze is considered active and the female gaze is considered passive, we find an imbalance. Scopophilic tendencies lead the woman into the trap of being viewed solely as an object of sexual desire, and narcissistic tendencies place the woman into a role where she is the "other". She is left to take her place as the bearer and not the maker of meaning. Projections and fantasies of males are free to be imposed on female characters. This may not be simply done in the act of viewing a figure, these fantasies can then become imposed on to the representation of the figures placed on the screen.

If all representation is structured by male desire, then sexuality becomes integral in constructing the spectator's subjectivity. Not only does performance imply a gaze, it also brings in preconceived notions, and more often than not they come in the form of imposed gender lines. Therefore, in gendered relationships, the passivity of the woman's role in representation slips the "woman" into a position of non-subjectivity. She is not granted a voice. The female cannot enter into the realm of existence of who she really is while she lives in the male dominated world.

It is, therefore, THIS aspect of the representation that causes a problem. The fact that representation creates ideologies. For so long, art created in a patriarchal society has played in to the ideology that woman are meant to be passive, and merely the canvas upon which males desires are painted. Being aware of this causes us all to find a way to check how we relate to an object of art.

Consider again "Pieces of Me". This art was created with the intention of creating a subject to be considered first and foremost a person, and a person in the simplest terms. Depending on what context you find yourself in, you relate to the pictures in a unique way. They are in theatrical "conversation" with you. Now, the trick then is to ask yourself how you are relating to the object. Are you trying to take pleasure from the figure, or are you trying to find yourself in it? If you find yourself trying to do either, take a moment to allow for the operation of other variables such as age, class, race. How do these then affect what you see? By resisting the urge to go with you immediate instincts, you are forcing yourself into the position of a critical spectator, and spectator that can begin to see art based on art rather than art based on the objectification of the subject. You essentially give back a voice to the subject because rather than being a means of living out your fantasy, they are free to speak from their own.

Works consulted:

Dolan, Jill. The Feminist Spectator As Critic. London: UMI Research Press, 1988.

Dolan, Jill. Presence and Desire. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1993.

Mulvey, Laura. Visual and Other Pleasures. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989.

http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/wyrick/debclass/fredu.htm

http://www.haberarts.com/mulvey.htm

http://www.colorado.edu/English/ENG2012Klages/lacan.html

http://www.rlc.dcccd.edu/annex/comm/english/mah8420/EyesofLauraMulvey.htm

"Adventures in workland" or "there and back again"

Talk about being on an adventure wagon today. Right in the middle of one of my calls today, I encountered a slight problem - I got something in my eye, or so I thought...I tried to push through and finish the call, but my eye was watering and it was messy. (You know how fussy mascara is, right ladies! ha!) It turned out that my left contact lens had actually ripped! I managed to pluck it out, but in two separate halves! Ugh!

Honestly, I was flabbergasted. I had no idea what to do because I had no supplies with me to deal with this seeing as it has never happened to me before! Yikes. I couldn't see anything at all! I had to leave work, take the TTC an hour all the way home, get new contact lenses (and reinforcements to put in my desk) and then hop on the TTC to come all the way back!

Oh, the adventures that my left eye has managed to cause this week! Sigh.

At least it's not purple.

Counterfeits

Sometimes I ponder just how easy it is to become a counterfeit in someone's life. I mean this in the sense that you are acting a role that may be friendly, but at the same time is has tendancies that lead towards being a replacement for the "real thing". Often I feel like I have directly placed myself in positions like this. I've allowed myself to use or be used by someone to boost my/their ego or to be a comfort in a most basic way. When I ponder this, I find myself feeling kind of ill. Mostly because true frienships should not be based on counterfeit situations. They should be based on love and trust, and most of all in respect. It's can be a hard line to draw at the best of times.

All I know is that I can't make a solid future investment when all I have is counterfeit currency in the bank.

When smart things happen to stupid people

I thought this story was very blog worthy. Slightly shameful, but blog worthy none the less.

Today when I was leaving church, I had a very classy moment. I was walking with my friends and walked straight into a metal pole. I know I was slightly distracted by thoughts, but I never imagined I would be that off my game. I walked right smack into the metal pole, and hit so hard that the sign was actually shaking. Of course then I recovered enough to laugh uncontrolably. But still. It kinda hurt.

I now have a red mark above my left eye. In fact, it's all an "egg" as my mom would call it - you know, one of those lovely hard bumps. Boy, is my face red, literally.

I'll keep you posted if it goes purple.

In response to posted comment

The notes in this comment feild are addressed to Some Joe Schmoe.

It's baaack!

Every now and then in my life I'll go through a period of time where I feel disconnect from my one true passion (besides my faith): Theatre. Yeat, it never fails, there is always something that brings me back to it. Right now I'm feeling that sense.

At first, I begin to feel this little inkling to go see some theatre. I just want to be in the audience again. I want to engage in live action. I go to engage in "the spark" - the live moment where action on stage just becomes fluid, and there is a sense that it just lives on it's own. And then I feel it - the pull from deep inside. The part of me that just screams to be a part of this! I find myself listening to musicals again, I find myself picturing blocking for these musicals in my head. I find myself thinking of other potential ideas for plays and for performance pieces. My mind wanders to what it would be like to pursue directing for real and I find myself wanting to be a part of a production again, and I find myself wanting to be a part of everything that is theatrical!

I wonder about finding money, and think, wow, if I could find a really cheap place to rehearse and a cheap place to use as an area, I could put up a show in just a few weeks! I mean, I just need to cover the cost of the rights, the theatre, I can beg borrow and steal the rest (figuratively).

I mean, Tuffy, you'd be in, right? Remember LOC Productions? Matt? Kate? Maddy? Chris? Shari? I mean, we could do this! Really do this! Here, now! Let's go! I'm game! If only I had my way now!

So, it's back. The passion is here. I've gotta get me a fix. Really, who's in?