You are not my conquering hero
Aug. 28th, 2004 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmRoaming around the city this morning for actorly reasons, I was finally able to put my finger on the emotional tone of what's going on here, what with the sort of grass roots swell of every random person doing whatever they can to protest -- random leaflets on lightpoles, directions to protests hanging out of windows, etc. -- people are acting like they're getting away with something, and getting away with it for the last time. It's got that same freaky gallows vibe as say September 13th, and it convinces me that on the Before - During - After scale of 9/11, that the results of this election are what usher in After.
The streets are empty, and lined with baracades all over 7th and 8th Avenues, quite far downtown. New York isn't a place of empty streets, and we distrust them. It, and the rifles in the subways, add to the unease.
Because of the environment in which I was raised, protestors mostly seem like people who can afford the time to protest to me... which is fine... really the leisure class should do something other than hunt and fish and bitch about property costs in the Hamptons (*snerk*), so going up to Inwood, and seeing the level of anti-Bush vitriol and organization there was massively gratifying.
My audition was weird. Pear shaped. Did the monologue... adequately, which in the world of acting is less than. The floor had a pattern that was making me dizzy. This is not an excuse, merely a statement of fact. The director seemed puzzled by my choice of monologue when I introduced it (which surprises me, I think Lady Anne is a common enough choice and a perhaps obvious one for me), and even more puzzled when I completed it.
"That's really interesting he said. It's... it's... it's a good fit for you, and you should keep working on it. I'm the type of director who likes to work with people and I don't have time right now. But, that's a really interesting choice, and it suits you very well, in a surprising way."
As untranslateable as that is, I've taken it to confirm two things -- 1) I definitely have that certain necessary je ne sais quois required for this acting thing. 2) That said, my monologue needs to be more thoroughly staged, and until I get that, it's going to remain interesting like an ugly hat. What I can't figure out is number 3) -- which is why the notion of me doing Lady Anne is so unsettling? Maybe he saw short hair and thought Viola? Eh....
The delegates are out and about and very easy to spot. Extremely defensive body posture and narrowed eyes at everyone on the subways. Some going up to the Cloisters seemed to be compulsively counting the ratio of blacks to whites on the train and got nervous when I left them all alone when I moved down the car to look at a map.
I think they thought we'd be happy to have them here. That we would hail them, even in our rage, for bringing our impoverished city their clean and moral dollars. That we would at least celebrate their patriotism for coming to a city so under threat.
Well they were wrong. We've been living under a nightmare of so many layers for years now. And people who are still here are so damn fierce, and we know this place so well, the delegates are quite at our mischevious mercy.
Realized that for the first time in perhaps years nothing I'm keenly, actively interested in creatively right now involves an anti-hero. I'm sure this will last about a second and a half, but at the moment, my brain feels clean and bright, and maybe just a little more like other people's than usual.
I've been of mixed mind about how out of hand I want the protest situation to get (whatever is more likely to make people vote Kerry over Bush, I'll take -- and there are varying and good arguments for what will be more effective), but seeing the fear of the delegates out and about, I realize that my personal preference at the moment is that we the protestors and we the citizens of NYC are as honorable, dignified and relentless as possible, because these people are like wounded animals and our simple good posture and pride seems to scare them the most. It's as if they expected us to know we were sinners, and to huddle, hunched over and craven in our little tenement caves waiting for their great rescue. Dudes, turn off the Fox News and look around.
Finally, I'm pretty proud of myself for having shrugged off the 9/11 trauma maybe better than some other people. Mostly, I only watch the planes in the sky because I like them, or wonder where they are going, or am thinking about Australia. But I also realized that the reason that King Arthur got under my skin so bad (yes, aside from "ooooh, the pretty") is because it's about a losing battle, and fighting it anyway. That sort of stuff has always been emotionally interesting to me of course, but now it's just relentless, scary life here besides.
This is the end of all sorts of things. I can only pray that it's the right ones.
The streets are empty, and lined with baracades all over 7th and 8th Avenues, quite far downtown. New York isn't a place of empty streets, and we distrust them. It, and the rifles in the subways, add to the unease.
Because of the environment in which I was raised, protestors mostly seem like people who can afford the time to protest to me... which is fine... really the leisure class should do something other than hunt and fish and bitch about property costs in the Hamptons (*snerk*), so going up to Inwood, and seeing the level of anti-Bush vitriol and organization there was massively gratifying.
My audition was weird. Pear shaped. Did the monologue... adequately, which in the world of acting is less than. The floor had a pattern that was making me dizzy. This is not an excuse, merely a statement of fact. The director seemed puzzled by my choice of monologue when I introduced it (which surprises me, I think Lady Anne is a common enough choice and a perhaps obvious one for me), and even more puzzled when I completed it.
"That's really interesting he said. It's... it's... it's a good fit for you, and you should keep working on it. I'm the type of director who likes to work with people and I don't have time right now. But, that's a really interesting choice, and it suits you very well, in a surprising way."
As untranslateable as that is, I've taken it to confirm two things -- 1) I definitely have that certain necessary je ne sais quois required for this acting thing. 2) That said, my monologue needs to be more thoroughly staged, and until I get that, it's going to remain interesting like an ugly hat. What I can't figure out is number 3) -- which is why the notion of me doing Lady Anne is so unsettling? Maybe he saw short hair and thought Viola? Eh....
The delegates are out and about and very easy to spot. Extremely defensive body posture and narrowed eyes at everyone on the subways. Some going up to the Cloisters seemed to be compulsively counting the ratio of blacks to whites on the train and got nervous when I left them all alone when I moved down the car to look at a map.
I think they thought we'd be happy to have them here. That we would hail them, even in our rage, for bringing our impoverished city their clean and moral dollars. That we would at least celebrate their patriotism for coming to a city so under threat.
Well they were wrong. We've been living under a nightmare of so many layers for years now. And people who are still here are so damn fierce, and we know this place so well, the delegates are quite at our mischevious mercy.
Realized that for the first time in perhaps years nothing I'm keenly, actively interested in creatively right now involves an anti-hero. I'm sure this will last about a second and a half, but at the moment, my brain feels clean and bright, and maybe just a little more like other people's than usual.
I've been of mixed mind about how out of hand I want the protest situation to get (whatever is more likely to make people vote Kerry over Bush, I'll take -- and there are varying and good arguments for what will be more effective), but seeing the fear of the delegates out and about, I realize that my personal preference at the moment is that we the protestors and we the citizens of NYC are as honorable, dignified and relentless as possible, because these people are like wounded animals and our simple good posture and pride seems to scare them the most. It's as if they expected us to know we were sinners, and to huddle, hunched over and craven in our little tenement caves waiting for their great rescue. Dudes, turn off the Fox News and look around.
Finally, I'm pretty proud of myself for having shrugged off the 9/11 trauma maybe better than some other people. Mostly, I only watch the planes in the sky because I like them, or wonder where they are going, or am thinking about Australia. But I also realized that the reason that King Arthur got under my skin so bad (yes, aside from "ooooh, the pretty") is because it's about a losing battle, and fighting it anyway. That sort of stuff has always been emotionally interesting to me of course, but now it's just relentless, scary life here besides.
This is the end of all sorts of things. I can only pray that it's the right ones.
