artistic families

[rm]

I just auditioned for this play abotu Frank O'hHra thanks to the good graces of a friend who hooked me up with the opportunity. Lord knows if anything will come of it, but it has me all excited and frenetic, because oh my god, you _can_ write about this shit. I tend to have this (rather studied and ineffectual) aversion to making art about art and towards articulating why I want to, but this pleasant little audition in this unbelieveable apartment just sort of shook me out of it.

Which leads me to a quasi-related question:

Talk to me about the artistic families you know about/admire/find interesting/hate/are afraid of. And talk to me about what artistic family means to you -- genetic or constructed? love or friendship? Clear-cut or murky? What are the plausible geometric permutations? Enabling the product or part of it? Is it stuff like the emergence of Sofia Coppola? Bohemian cliques like the Frank O'Hara mess? Francis Bacon and his troubled relationships with his muses? Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh? Baz Luhrmann's Iona, etc.? Talk to me about how other people do it and why you care. And talk to me about how you do it if this pertains to you (and I can think of at least two instances on my friendslist that I think qualify).

My brain is al buzzy. Please feed me.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

I think the two biggest problems writers face is bieng witty in social groups as a substitute for writing and cultivating a misanthropic lifestyle as a substitute for actual writing. I've fallen in to both traps.

Actors seem to have a narrower trap -- it's this idea that you must be around peopel and social all the time -- I'm not sure what it comes from, but it's a pressure I feel. And it doesn't work for me. It harms my work and my ability to get work done.

I've yet to find a similar trap in directing, I think because I have to be on top of so much shit at once.

Going to the movies is everything for me, for every art that I do. I never walk out of a theater without being different than I came in, even if just for five minute.

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

See, when I write the book called The Dangers of Being Witty, it will be arguing in favor of the Gazebo theory. If I have to walk half a mile I'm more likely to sit down at the damn kitchen table and write, than I am if Steph is in the room nextdoor sorting tchotchkes. And when you write Misanthropic Lifestyle as a Substitute for Actual Writing, I hope you will interview me, because the last three years are about the best embodiment I've seen. No suicide, no hospitalization, but ongoing malaise will kill you.

If I am in charge of something I get tons done. I am a lousy team member. If I am expected to morph into a group for very long I get contentious and sad.

This weekend I'm going to see March of the Penguins.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I hear that March of the Penguins is weirdly good.

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

The preview nearly made me cry. This worries me.

[rm.livejournal.com]

It worries all the reviewers too. They're like "why am I fucking crying at penguins?!?!?!"

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

The section of the Boston Globe where reviewers screen movies for parents note, "Seal attacks penguin and presumably kills it; penguin parents appear to grieve over a cracked egg or lost chick." I will be prepared with tissues.

I managed to avoid The Parrots of Telegraph Hill although that had a nerdy guy to distract you from the birds.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Somewhere in this is a joke about the penguins' artistic families, but I'm too fucking tired.