Opening Your Heart to the World

Yesterday I think the thing I experienced was that I was pushed to let my heart be as open as it's ever been to a piece of Shakespearian text, and I truly allowed everything Shakespeare put into his words to be channeled through me and through my instrument in a way that was thrilling and electrifying and feels like it's impossible to reproduce without someone grabbing me by the back of the neck and forcing it out (which is quite literally what happened).

Previously to that, our teacher had a conversation with the group about what for them makes great theatre, and afterwards in our feedback session everyone agreed that the thing I did was the thing they look for and feel in those moments of great theatre. One of the teaching assistants talked about how seeing my work in that moment filled them with hope for the human race.

I filled someone with hope for the human race! WITH MY ACTING! I didn't fully comprehend what an incredible thing that is until I was struggling to calm my mind enough to fall asleep at the end of the day yesterday. In my intro to the group and the faculty, I spoke briefly about the role of (secular) humanism in my life and the how I feel myself struggling to maintain an open heart to the world even after having been wounded through that openness in some truly deep ways in my life. I know my heart is open for others to access, but I'm realizing I need to open my heart to myself and to let other people's thoughts and feelings go into that place even if it means I can be hurt because it also means I can receive something incredibly beautiful, like happened yesterday.

I have that same teaching assistant to thank for that revelation. And the world, as well. Thank you.

Shakes and Co Day Two: The Journey I Have BegunJourney (Fuck Fuck Fuck)

I am drinking a beer as of this moment, taking all the sights, smells and sounds of my "boot camp for actors", as one of the faculty members at Shakespeare and Company just referred to it as.

I will say this about my second day at Shakespeare and Company as it's sitting with me in this moment, I did some of the most textually connected work I've ever done. Inevitably, that's what happens when I have a good teacher poking and prodding me to cut out the bullshit, but today that happened to the Nth degree.

This training regime is incredibly intense, in every possible way. The nature of the work is such that I have to be careful, for the safety of the other participants, how much more I describe about the process thus far. I will say, I am incredibly far outside of my Harvard Extension acting class comfort zone, in ways I wasn't initially completely on board with about the nature of this training, but after today I'm done "trying" to be on board and just here, experiencing everything that's happening, moment to moment.

Yoda said of course, "there is only do or do not, there is no try" and from this moment, I'm done trying. I am going to do, or I will fail and try again. And again. And again. And so forth.

That is my mantra. There is no try, there is only do, or do not and trying again. I'm also celebrating the power of "fuck", as a word. And acting from your junk. And yourself. And all the other good shit. Yeah.

I promise I'll make time to write a more meaningful blog post later. When I actually have some free time. Which will likely be never.

Shakespeare and Company Day 0: Exclamation Points (!)

Here I am! In my dorm room thing! With my roommate! His name is Paul and he's very nice. I joked with my brother over dinner, "what's the worst that could happen, he could be a chronic masturbator" and so far so good on that front. I went with him to wander around some and see there was also wandering around the hallways to meet, of which there were several people, all also very nice. And some nice dorm like facilities, one lounge with a pool table and couches, another with a kitchen, several emptyish rooms with gym mats or what have you, I guess for rehearsals? I don't know! You know what else I don't know? My sonnet! But I'm taking a break from memorizing to type this blog post. Since I can't really do any podcasting from here in Lenox, given that Jesse and all my recording equipment is on the other side of the state (although I did bring a microphone and my portable recording interface thing, as well as a guitar, so maybe I'll try and set down some music at some point). Usually, as perhaps you've noticed, I'll blog more while I'm doing a show or taking a class, and since I'll spend the next month doing Shakespeare, Shakespeare and more Shakespeare, here's to having stuff to blog about!

Oh, which by the way, here's some shit to blog about: I was cast in a show! With Company One! It's She Kills Monsters! I'm very excited! It's been a goal of mine to work with Company One since I started seriously acting in Boston, because they do really good, cool stuff a lot of the time, and it's a good stepping stone into further paid acting work on the theatre scene. Come to think of it, this will be my third paying theatre gig in a row, which is pretty cool. I'm particularly excited that it'll be with Shira Milikowski, who's work I saw and enjoyed in the Lily's Revenge, and that it will be in the context of this particularly funny, ass kicking, heart felt script.

So basically, my life is perfect. For the next month I'll be hanging out in Lenox doing Shakespeare ten hours a day, then when I get back I'll be in a show which is exactly where I want to be, doing what I want to be doing.

I've met a handful of other participants while I've been here, everybody seems fun and cool and on my wave length which is nice. I started quoting Shakespeare lines at people and thought "this is going to be fun!" Which it will be.

And that's my roommate, who I over heard saying he's about to go to bed so I'll sign off and return to memorizing. Until I blog again! Which will be soon. Just you wait.

Life (is a dream) of Pi

This evening I went with my family after doing presents and eating Christmas dinner to see Life of Pi in 3D at the AMC Loews in Downtown Boston, a film I'd read about based on a book people had told me about but which I'd never read, and I'm still processing the experience.

As a non religious person it spoke to me deeply about the meaning and level of importance in people's lives and how it helps them comprehend and accept both the beauty and the brutality of the natural world and the human experience.

And... I don't know, I can't summarize the themes of the film any more meaningfully than Ang Lee's images, especially experienced in 3D in a crowded theatre full of people. So if you can before it's pushed out completely from theaters try and see the film, OK? I can't speak for the book, but I can speak for Ang Lee as a film maker of great poetry, the film as one of the most effective blendings of real life visuals and special effects I've encountered, and the central performance as perhaps my favorite film performance so far this year (allowing that I haven't seen Lincoln and apparently Daniel Day Lewis is a great actor, but I think we all already knew that).

For it's immersive and striking use of 3D to develop a compelling story as told by a recognized film maker an immediate comparison that comes to mind is Hugo, Martin Scorceses' film from last year and also his first foray into 3D and one of the first films after Avatar that people went around seeing it was enhanced the experience to see it in that format. Except for me, Hugo was completely artificial, from it's visuals which were completely computer animated to it's performances and it's sentiment it felt calculated to the point of maudlin inauthenticity compared to Life of Pi. And mind you, Hugo is a different film with a very different message and is fundamentally supposed to be the film maker's love letter to the art of film making or whatever it was I read in reviews of the film and am parroting back.

But Life of Pi for me spoke to the depth of the human experience, and the search for meaning against a back drop of brutality, beauty and the omni present drive to survive whatever horrible things transpire. And ultimately the film for me was about the role of religion and mythology in making the harsh discordance of our experiences palatable and understandable.

Which again, as a non religious person, really spoke to me. Especially because, repeating myself, being a non religious person that's something I don't get or understand... being able to place your total faith in a power greater than yourself or in the idea that a power greater than you or your conception exists and entering into rituals that reaffirm that feeling and it being the fundamental thing from which you draw meaning or the power to go on living or whatever the purpose religion serves for any individual. It's super foreign to me. But unlike some religious people who may disdain it or find it distasteful... I enjoy seeing an instance of this wherein it's celebrated with such beauty and sensitivity, and it reminds me of the argument I always want to articulate in favor of religion that being that it's inspired so much art work of incredible, breath taking beauty.

I mean, right? Come on other atheists, Handel's messiah? The sistene chapel? Examples of spiritually informed art not from Western Culture... uh, the pyramids! That's something! Buddhist art too! Yeah, all incredible works of art the experience of which has enriched the human experience for literally countless lives across generations, you have to admit that's worthwhile. And even if religion is a source for a lot of problems, it can be a worth while lens through which to consider the world even if it's foreign to you or you've chosen to distance yourself from it because it was the lens through which so, so much of the human experience has been considered through out human history, right?

As an atheist trying to understanding the role and the experience of religion, I can have faith in at least that much.

Holiday Blog Post (prelude to training

I'm writing this from my mother's laptop in my parent's house, taking a moment to appreciate the luxuries implied by both, that I have a house within easy reach, with parents and a brother, heat, electricity, running water, food and computers to visit over Christmas.

I think that sense of gratitude was an important theme for me in 2012, I certainly blogged about it more than just on Thanksgiving the obligatory occassion in which we all take note that we could be much worse off. Perhaps it's inappropriate to frame it that way, but it's true. Whatever your situation you could be far more destitute than you are now, just by virtue of the fact that you're able to read this and therefore you either own or have access to a computer, do you ever think about that shit? Truth.

Other than that, I'm grateful to have my parents, both of whom are in their sixties and who one day I will not have, also truthful. And my brother, who's only here a few times a year now that he's down in Columbus which is a much further trek than where he used to live in New York.

And that I'm here with Adia, who I'll miss terribly (as well as all my friends who are with me in spirit) while I'm off at Shakespeare summer camp... well, winter camp, or whatever, for the month of January. For which I leave on either Friday or Saturday, it's still being negotiated when exactly I'll do that. And then I'll be gone for an entire month, away away away from the real world, how's that shit? Pretty wild man. I wonder how I'll feel coming back from all that time doing Shakespeare, Linklater, Alexander, and all the rest of the stuff they teach you.

I'm really excited. And I don't tend to get excited about things easily, to be honest... towards most things I feel a weary, vague anxiety much of the time. No that's not true, I still get excited. And I'm excited about this. Because I love acting! I love training, I love the study of the craft. Almost as much as I love getting up and doing it. But I really, really do appreciate those aspects of it, but I've never been in a true, full out conversatory enviornment where I was able to live and breathe acting. And from all the people I've talked to who have done it, I've gotten the impression that the intensive is a life changing experience and how many of those do we get to go through, as artists or otherwise?

So just a few more days of real life, then it's off to Shakespeare camp, and I can't wait.

Do It Like It Matters (Until It Actually Does)

Here's a profound thought for the day. I haven't been writing as much in this blog, because I've been putting more of my energy into my joint podcasting and musical effort with my podcasting/music partner Jesse, which has not only been consuming the energy I'd been putting into writing when I was writing in this more or less weekly (times when I'd be writing I'm instead editing audio, for example) and in the process it's been fulfilling my need to be creative in a comparable way to how this blog has in the past. Also, probably because I haven't really been acting except for a few small readings and a little film shoot, and I mainly blog about acting stuff, therefore not much to blog about.

But here's something. Often on the subject of consistently releasing new podcasts, which I try to do every Sunday and have been pretty consistent at doing (with the exception of this Sunday, which is a more complicated issue) either Jesse or I will say "oh but it doesn't really matter". And in a very literal sense this is true. According to the statistics on Buzzsprout, the website that I'm using to host podcasts (for the time being) the average number of plays for a given episode is 14, with episode 4 having been played 21 times, and episode 8 having been played 8 times and the other ones existing in a spectrum in between. This is to be expected, since I haven't gone any lengths to expose my efforts to the outside world except through my social media network and given the weird, misunderstood, nichey nature of podcasts it's even more expected and who's going to Buzzsprout for podcasts? People go to iTunes, and we're not even on there, so basically I'm the only person in the universe with an investment in a new podcast being released to the internet every Sunday.

Except, as the proprietor and creator of this product that's exactly as it should be at this moment. And I should continue to be invested in maintaining that strict schedule because if I ever want to court a wider audience, and eventually that would be nice, I need to maintain that dedication throughout the time period in which it matters to no one else until eventually it does matter.

And this is the way to success in any creative field, through sheer tenacity and not giving up. Because when you start acting, or painting, or making music or whatever of course no one's going to care when you start and probably they shouldn't because you won't be very good. You have to care though, and no matter how long it takes for other people to care enough to give you money for what your doing (if that is your goal) you just have to keep going until that happens. Ya dig?

Well anyway, I do, and it really summarizes where I'm at with this podcast thing right now. Sure only eight people have clicked on my latest podcast, but in many respects it's improved on what we'd done before and hopefully the next one will have improved on that and so on and so fourth until eventually hopefully if we've been doing it long enough someone will start to notice. Or at least I have to tell myself that, and in the meantime just take as much satisfaction as I can from the work itself.

The end. Of this blog post, but not this blog! In fact, I'll be taking a forced hiatus from the podcast during the month of January while I'm doing the January intensive at Shakespeare and Company, so look out for blog posts then, I hope! Assuming I have the energy or focus after all the intense Shakespeare boot camp stuff I'll be doing.

Making a Commitment

This weekend will mark the release of the 8th episode of my podcast, currently titled the Mike Handelman Podcast, although that may change soon... the title I mean. But hopefully not the dedication I've shown in producing it regularly! Even more regularly than I write this blog, and guess which takes a greater investment of time and energy? It's a rhetorical question, making a podcast is much harder. Yet rewarding! Even if they are averaging ten to twenty downloads a piece... which come to think of it, is how much traffic my blog posts receive on average... but for me, a big part of this experiment has been committing to an idea and sticking to it. The idea in this case being producing and regularly releasing a podcast, just like a professional person in the entertainment industry. Not that there are that many people making a living off their podcasts, in fact almost no one is doing that, but they are using them as a tool to promote themselves and their brand. The archetypal example being Marc Maron, who had worked as a respected although not particularly affluent stand up who helped kick off what's called the "alt comedy" movement, and stayed afloat in the entertainment industry throughout the 90s before joining with the ship that was Air America (an attempt at a liberal talk radio station) through it's various ups and downs and after being finally fired from it for the last time, started doing a podcast.

An example numerous comedians have followed, myself being one of them. When asked what young comedians started out should do, another well known podcaster (if you follow podcasts that is, which lots of people don't, yet) Doug Benson said "start a twitter account and then start a podcast" both of which are easy, free ways of self promotion and brand building (unless and until your podcast blows than you need to pay for hosting but that's another thing) and podcasting isn't as easy as it sounds! At least, not if you want to do it well, which is my ultimate goal.

And keeping sight of that goal has eased the transition from the end of Uncle Vanya to where I'm at now, which is focused on editing and releasing a new podcast every Sunday and listening for what myself and my partner Jesse can do better from week to week, a goal I've been accomplishing.

And thinking about it feels like a real accomplishment. I was reflecting on my past creative endeavors and I realized that I've put more focus, time and energy into this project than just about anything else I've ever started completely on my own. Sure I've put a lot of time into theatre and film things that I've been a part of over the years, but in all of those examples I've been in some way or another subservient to another person's master plan. But this is me, this is my thing, and so far it's success or failure has been dependent on my talent and dedication.

With that comes a degree of anxiety, I am collaborating with someone else and I can't take all the credit even if I am the "director" of the project (and the producer, and the editor, and the... you get the idea) and I'm trying to keep Jesse on board and motivated without being a pain in the ass. Which is a feeling I struggle with. In the few times I've taken on a "director" role, prior this point exclusively in theatre classes, it's something I've struggled with as well. The people I'm working with are volunteering their time and energy, and how do I manage that effectively and not be overbearing? If nothing else, this phase of my podcasting career will also serve as a record of how we got to know each other and have become better friends by working on this together and how do I manage that friendship aspect of the project? It would be easier in some ways to hire someone to do the podcast with me, but not nearly as satisfying or rewarding, and I can't easily think of anyone else I'd rather be working with from week to week. But there's that component, from week to week to week, I'm asking for a lot of time and so far he's been very gracious in giving it and I couldn't have gotten this far without him in the room lending his energy... I've tried it, and getting on the microphone by yourself is harder and a lot less fun than having someone to bounce energy off of. It's also a necessary skill I should learn someday, and I can think of some examples in the podcast field of people who do it very well.

Which brings to mind another source of anxiety, where am I going with this? When and how will I take it there? One step has been the establishment of a Facebook page for my podcast. A facebook page I actually established a while ago intending it as a means of promotion for my acting stuff and this blog, but I've been too bashful to share it with the world. No longer! That shits gone public! Likewise I've yet to move beyond the very small pond of Buzzsprout, the free service where I've been hosting my podcast and where no one is particularly likely to see it without first being linked to another, more professional and money costing service like Libsyn and then to the grand daddy of podcast directories... iTunes. Basically, I've been waiting until we could consistently deliver a product I felt comfortable sharing with strangers, which took us a while both from a technical stand point and a creative one but I feel like we've gotten there and my hope is when I get from the January intensive to start doing that. Assuming we can resume our present momentum, which I'm hopeful we can and even if it takes a little while I now have a nice back log of episodes to recycle.

So all in all, I feel good about the work I've been doing. I've found an outlet separate from my live performance, channeled my energy into it and taken visible steps towards developing it... all good things! Now, the next steps are to develop a live performance component that ties back to the podcast which I hope will be Jesse and I's comedy music which we can play out with first at open mics and then hopefully at real events in real venues. And of course, actually building an audience. All in good time! Time I look forward to.