Melissa Dunphy's Journal

I doubt I'll see the destigmatization of mental illness in my lifetime

2010-03-02T00:44:00.007-05:00

I just saw Shutter Island. Not a bad movie - I'll try not to spoil it here - but when the credits started to roll, I found my heart breaking. Partly, I'm sure, this was due to my seasonal depression. Partly, the subject matter hit close to home (here's a blog I wrote about my mother's bipolar disorder a couple of years ago). But mostly, what I felt was despair at the reactions of many of the other audience members in the cinema.

It was a movie about a mental asylum, so of course, the symptoms of mental illness were depicted, and people laughed at them all too often. Not the kind of nervous laughter you make when you're uncomfortable - that I can understand and appreciate. This was open, look-at-how-funny-these-broken-people-are amusement. Most people have been educated not to laugh at, for example, the spastic walk of someone with cerebral palsy, or the tremors and jerks of someone with Parkinson's disease. It's still, however, apparently pretty acceptable to crack up at the hilarious behavior of crazy people.

I don't know how much of this was due to the movie, and how much was the audience. I think the movie toed the line. Certainly there were some moments when the antics were supposed to be amusing and ironic, and I can forgive the audience for laughing then. Hell, mental patients often have a decent sense of humor, and sometimes even they can laugh at the things they do. But there were other honestly quite tragic moments when I thought, how on earth is it acceptable to laugh at what just happened? Maybe it's because I saw the movie in Philadelphia (I honestly believe Philly moviegoers are among the worst in the world - if they're not talking constantly, they're being shot for talking constantly). Maybe I'm just overly sensitive. It's just a movie, and it was marketed as a thriller-horror. But I walked out of that cinema close to tears. I just don't see the stigma surrounding mental illness going away any time soon.

Linguistic song cycle texts

2010-02-21T20:23:00.003-05:00

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

"That that is, is. That that is not, is not. Is that it? It is. That that that is that that is not is not that that is that that is is not true is not true."

"James, while John had had "had", had had "had had"; "had had" had had a better effect on the teacher."

Annual V-day reminder in honor of my dad - please have your prostate checked

2010-02-14T01:53:00.003-05:00

On February 14, 2006, my dad died from prostate cancer after a battle that lasted only a year from diagnosis. He was fifty-six years old. His death was even more difficult for me to understand because it could have been prevented if he had had his prostate checked regularly and the cancer had been found sooner.

Experts recommend that men receive annual screening for prostate cancer after age 40. I say, heck, start when you're 35. According to the American Cancer Society:

About 1 man in 6 will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime ... Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in American men, behind only lung cancer. About 1 man in 35 will die of prostate cancer. Prostate cancer accounts for about 10% of cancer-related deaths in men.

If you catch it early enough, your chances of being cured are excellent. If you don't catch it early ... well, that's why I write these reminders.

Please. If you're over 35, get checked. Please.

Egypt photos in one convenient blog post, and Female Genital Mutilation

2010-02-07T11:39:00.012-05:00

From December 22 to January 7, Matt and I went to Egypt. Please insert all the adjectives you'd normally associate with fulfilling lifelong-dream nerd-vacations.

Pictures = a couple hundred thousand words:

Travelling to Egypt and shots of around Cairo, where we spent most of our time.

We stayed at the Museum View Hotel and made good friends with the awesome guys who run the place.

Pyramids etc in Memphis, Giza and Saqqara.

While exploring Saqqara, I found some rather creepy bones in a shallow grave in the sand dunes.

Luxor, including the Valley of the Kings and Karnak.

The White Desert, which I believe to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

Cairo is full of cats, and being a terrible catfag, I took a whole set of pictures of them.

Matt's pictures, taken with a better eye and a better camera.

Videos!

(If you know what the song is here, please tell me.)

Terrible Cairo traffic:

Simultaneic call to prayer:

Before I move onto a more serious subject, let me insist that I loved our time in Egypt. We spent three days at the Egyptian Museum (each "day" was really only a few hours - my brain kept overloading), and I finally put to rest the rage I described in this blog entry, written after visiting the King Tut exhibition at the Franklin Institute (here I am putting the rage to rest). I could have stayed in the country for weeks longer and still not seen everything I wanted to see. I honestly believe the world would be a better place if everyone had an Egyptian sense of humor.

However. On my first night in Cairo, while reading a guide book, I discovered a fact that reverberated inside my skull for the rest of the trip, and even now, when I talk about our time in Egypt, I try to find a way to worm it into conversation, because everyone I've spoken to has found this equally shocking.
Over 90% of women in Egypt have undergone female genital mutilation.
Over 90% of women in Egypt have undergone female genital mutilation.
Over 90% of women in Egypt have undergone female genital mutilation.
Over 90% of women in Egypt have undergone female genital mutilation.
Over 90% of women in Egypt have undergone female genital mutilation.

Let me put this another way. Around 97% of Egyptian women have their clitorises cut off at some point between birth and marriage.

Clitoris. Cut. Off.

In fact, according to the female genital mutilation wiki, FGM is more prevalent in Egypt than anywhere else in the world. We all assume that FGM is a problem further south in Africa, or only among very conservative/backward societies, but this isn't the case at all.

Why is this done? Apparently it stops women from being too sexual. Your wife will be less likely to stray if she gets less pleasure from sex. It's also considered a cosmetic improvement, and there's a widespread belief that men find uncircumcised genitalia revolting. There are also (of course, incorrect) beliefs that there are some kind of health benefits in the practice, and that the clitoris causes pain if left unchecked.

Maybe this makes me an awful western tourist with a disgusting lack of cultural relativism, but sometimes when we were walking around the city, I would suddenly focus on all the women around me and realize that the likelihood of any of them ever having an orgasm in their entire lives was close to zero. It made me sad and sick to my stomach.

Around 80% of women in Egypt approve of the practice. FGM is technically outlawed in Egypt, but it hasn't seemed to help. Here's the UNICEF page on Egyptian FGM.

Histology

2010-02-04T11:16:00.010-05:00

I'm finally recovering my near-vision after visiting the optometrist. It's been nearly ten years since I last visited, shortly after getting LASIK in 2000, to check that, indeed, I had been given perfect vision by the power of ~~Grayskull~~ lasers and a tiny circular saw. More than perfect; I'd been living with such amazing eyesight for the last decade, I'd forgotten what it's like to be a flawed mere human, and the onset of a very slight myopia drove me to book an appointment.

During my visit, I was administered those annoying pupil dilation drops. It's been so long since I last had them; when I stumbled blindly out into the painful sunlight, I was suddenly shot backwards through time to 1997. I had volunteered to be a patient at the UNSW optometry school clinic. The student who examined my retinae was either incompetent or had a crush on me, because he took an incomprehensibly long time shining bright lights in my eyes. My cheeks were streaming with tears. I remember thinking he was cute, and wishing he would just ask me out and get it over with. Afterward, I walked across campus with one eye shut and the other squinted to a slit, and attempted a three-hour histology prac.

PRO TIP: do not attempt a three-hour histology prac when your chemically dilated pupils make you sensitive to bright light and unable to focus near-distance.

During the halftime break, I went outside and bummed a cigarette off some guy, Jason, who looked about as fed up with the class as I did. We chatted for a while. I think that was the first time I'd ever spoken to him properly.

Help us bring the Gonzales Cantata to New York

2010-02-03T18:39:00.006-05:00

For those of you who weren't aware, or haven't scrolled down yet, last year, my composition the Gonzales Cantata was giving an incredibly successful staging in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. The performances received some wonderful media attention, including a spot on The Rachel Maddow Show:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

(After this segment aired, "Gonzales cantata" was the most searched term for three hours according Google Trends.)

The Cantata's second public performance is slated to take place at the prestigious Bard Conservatory in New York this April. As you know, the economy isn't in a particularly great place at the moment, and it was not possible to get as much grant funding as we would have liked for this performance, so we're turning to you for help.

We've started a campaign on the Kickstarter website - CLICK HERE! - and we're looking to raise $3,500. Kickstarter campaigns work on an all-or-nothing basis ' if we don't raise $3,500, none of the pledges will go through, and you'll be charged nothing. If we do reach our goal, you'll be charged for whatever you'd like to pledge on March 25th.

Please help support this project by contributing as little as $5 to our campaign. Every little bit helps! If you donate more, there are some great gifts available to you, such as CDs, tshirts, and a signed copy of the score. The payments are securely and instantly processed through Amazon. If all goes well, we're hoping to bring this production south to Manhattan, and your contribution will really help!

If you can't spare anything, I absolutely understand - but please consider taking a couple of seconds to spread the word by spreading the word to others you think might be interested.

In unrelated news, I hear Google is turning off FTP support for Blogger. Dammit. I'll probably have to do some awful tweaking to get the same functionality out of Custom Domains. But maybe it will inspire me to pay more attention to my poor neglected blog.

USB Flash Drive Earrings

2009-11-13T15:40:00.004-05:00

At last! I've been meaning to do this ever since I bought a Super-Talent Pico_B 8GB flash drive a couple of years ago.

Ingredients:

2 x earring wires of some description (I used shepherd's hooks with a coil and ball)
2 x Super-Talent Pico_C drives (They come in capacities up to 32GB, but to keep costs down, I bought two 4GB drives for $11.99 each from NewEgg)

Mmm, my camera takes nice macro-mode photos of USB drives.

Method:

Attach wires to drives. Duh.

Results:

Swingin'!

I love them! They're coming to Egypt with me.

Ah, yes! A couple of weeks ago, Matt divulged that he has six days of paid vacation left in this year. By taking his break over the New Year break, he finagled two-and-a-half weeks of paid vacation goodness. I insisted we leave the country because my new US passport needs stamps. The short list was Hong Kong, Peru or Egypt, and we decided to give our inner prepubescent Egyptophiles the Christmas they've been coveting for twenty years. We leave December 22, and we leave Egypt on Coptic Christmas day.

I am so inexpressibly excited.

R-A-U-S-C-H-E-N-B-E-R-G RAUSCHENBERG

2009-11-12T23:38:00.003-05:00

Sometimes, a name won't stick in my memory. One such name is Robert Rauschenberg. Matt and I saw the wanktastic White Paintings at the Guggenheim years ago, and were inspired to rip them off by painting white canvases white and hanging them around our house as decor:

Yet still, whenever I start to talk about Rauschenberg to other people, I can't remember his name. So tonight, while driving home from Ekta, I invented a song. Hopefully it will act as a mnemonic. It goes like this:

R-A-U-S-C-H-E-N-B-E-R-G RAUSCHENBERG!
R-A-U-S-C-H-E-N-B-E-R-G RAUSCHENBERG!
HE PAINTED WHITE PAINTINGS.
HE WAS FRIENDS WITH JOHN CAGE.
HE KNEW JASPER JOHNS.
HE ERASED A DRAWING ONCE.
IT'S ART.
R-A-U-S-C-H-E-N-B-E-R-G RAUSCHENBERG!

I think you're supposed to yell it over punk guitars, or maybe intone it over a Casio preset a la Wesley Willis.

Melissa Dunphy's Guide to obtaining a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy in Philadelphia 2009

2009-10-19T18:46:00.027-04:00

So, you've found a nice unoccupied or unlicensed venue and you want to hold a Fringe (or other) event there.

This is a guide based on my experiences acquiring a TCO. Hopefully some of this information will help you. Please note: if it doesn't, I can't be held liable. I'm not a lawyer, and this document does not constitute legal advice.

STEP 1: Contact the owner of the venue.
STEP 2: Temporary Certificate of Occupancy form and instructions
STEP 3: Architectural drawings
STEP 4: Get to know your friendly Licenses and Inspections local office
STEP 5: File the TCO
STEP 6: Meanwhile - what to get done before inspection
STEP 7: Inspection

STEP 1: Contact the owner of the venue.

This may seem very obvious, but in case it isn't, approach the owner of the venue before you do anything. Their approval is necessary, and they may even be able to help you with other parts of this process. Find out from them if you can use the venue for free, or negotiate a price for renting the venue. Ask the owner if they have a fire alarm system in operation, and if they do, see if you can get a copy of certification for it. [top]

STEP 2: Download/Print the Temporary Certificate of Occupancy form and instructions

The Temporary Certificate of Occupancy form is actually just a Building Permit Application form

Read and know the instructions forward and backwards. They give you a very good idea of what is going to be required of you. Note that you can occupy the building for 15 days. This technically includes rehearsals. List every time and date you are using the building within these 15 days (i.e. don't just say your event is from "May 10-17." List each day separately with the event/rehearsal time.)

It might also be useful to look at this Building Permit Checklist, though note that not all of it will pertain to your application

The TCO application will cost $250 to file. Don't file it quite yet - you have a lot to get through first.

Pro-Tip: if you are applying for a TCO for the Rotunda, the legal address is 4008-26 Walnut Street, not 4014.

Under "BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF WORK" on the application form, describe your event in about four words, and use the rest of the space to list dates and times and detail how you plan to fulfill the requirements listed in the instructions - go through point-by-point. For example: "All policies on Variance of General Application B-0923-05 shall be complied with. Maximum occupant load for rehearsals is 50. Maximum occupant load for performances is 350. Entrances and three exits shown on plan. Exits will be announced before each event. Illuminated exit signs and emergency lighting to be installed. Six (6) fire watch members will be present at each event and intructed on how to activate manual fire alarm system. Set dressing will be flame resistant. Toilet facilities on premises are adequate and market on plan. Disabled access to the building is provided and marked on plan." [top]

STEP 3: Acquire architectural drawings of the space for the TCO application

First, ask the owner if they have CAD or PDF blueprints of the space as it is. Having these will make your architect's job much easier and save you time and money. If a TCO application has been filed before for the space, ask if the owner has copies of previous plans so you can see what went into them. If you can get copies or take pictures of these, you can give them to your architect to help with her/his plans. The more material, the better.

If you know that the space has been used before for a LiveArts show, it's worth asking the Live Arts office (Carolyn Schlecker) if you can take a look at the TCO application and associated plans for that show, since they keep them all on file.

Now it's time to find your own architect.

Warning: architects are expensive. Seriously, I almost used a blink tag. You will need a licensed architect, as the drawings must be stamped with the architect's professional seal. The architect for the LiveArts Festival does not donate or reduce the price of his services to Fringe shows, and he quoted me $1,200 for a TCO application. Look around for recommendations from friends and colleagues or ask local colleges to recommend recent graduates, and hopefully you'll find someone who can give you a good price.

Recommended architect:

Jeff Goldstein, DIGSAU
340 N. 12th Street, Suite 421, Philadelphia, PA 19107
(215) 627-0808 x102
jgoldstein@digsau.com

Jeff was our architect for the Gonzales Cantata TCO application. He was an absolute pleasure to deal with, very professional, fast, reasonably priced, and his drawings received unsolicited compliments from the L&I inspector.

If you couldn't get CAD drawings from the owner of the venue, your architect will need to survey the space and create them from scratch.

Discuss with your architect what, if any, changes are being made to the space for the event, as all these will need to be put into the plans for your application. This will include marking on the plans which areas will be used by performers, which areas will be used by the audience, any seating structures, any set structures, and pretty much anything else you can think of.

The more information you can give the architect at the start, the less time it will take them to create your drawings and the less money it will cost you. Here's what I gave my architect:

A copy of the Temporary Certificate of Occupancy form (see above)
Instructions for filing a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy (see above)
Photographs of the space, particularly of any areas I wanted to alter for the event
A mock-up of the complete building plan including markings for set and audience seating, drawn as near as possible to scale

If you're handy with Photoshop, definitely give the architect a mock-up as in number 4 above; if you aren't handy in Photoshop, at least draw it by hand and include measurements so the architect has a good idea of what you want.

Once you have the plans for your space, print out at least eight copies of the plans. Yes, eight: six for the permit application, one for you, and one for the venue owner. You'll need to go to Kinko's or somewhere similar, because the minimum size for plans is 18" by 24", and I'm betting your home printer can't handle that paper size. [top]

STEP 4: Get to know your friendly Licenses and Inspections local office

There are 5 district offices of Licenses and Inspections. One of these offices will be handling the inspection related to your application, so contacting them early isn't a bad idea to develop a little rapport. You can show them your building plans and see what they think or ask them if they've done inspections at your particular venue before and if there's any advice they want to give.

Northeast Philadelphia
Rising Sun Ave. & Benner St., Philadelphia, PA
(215) 685-0581

Central Philadelphia
990 Spring Garden St., 7th Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19123
(215) 685-3787

South Philadelphia
11th & Wharton Sts., 2nd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19147
(215) 685-1576

North Philadelphia
217 E. Rittenhouse Street, Philadelphia, Pa 19144
(215) 685-2276

West Philadelphia
43rd & Market Sts.,Philadelphia, PA 19104
(215) 685-7681

If a TCO has been issued for your venue before, see if you can find the certificate itself - it will be signed by an inspector, and he or she may be the best contact person. [top]

STEP 5: File the TCO

Once you have all your ducks in a row regarding the application form and the architectural drawings, find yourself two spare hours, preferably first thing in the morning (filing is allowed between 8AM and 3PM, and note that the office closes at noon on the last Wednesday of each month), and take your completed Building Permit Application and six copies of your building plans to:

Department of Licenses and Inspections
940 Municipal Services Building
15th & JFK Blvd., Lower Level, Philadelphia, PA 19102

Take a number, and be prepared to wait for an incredibly long time for them to call you up. Give them your application. They have 30 days after the time you file the application to take any action, and they'll probably use the entire 30 days. Make sure you get an application number from them, and keep it safe, because you'll need it when you start chasing them down in a month's time. [top]

STEP 6: Meanwhile, back at the ranch, make sure the following are up to scratch:

Liability Insurance

This isn't necessary for your TCO, but your event needs to be insured. Some venues have special insurance requirements, so again, check with the owner about these.

Recommended insurance broker:

Chris Garrity, Domenick and Associates
325 Chestnut Street, Suite 916, Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 629-5701 x200
cgarrity@domenick.com

Chris does the insurance for all the LiveArts and Fringe Festival shows, and is very knowledgeable and helpful about this kind of insurance. A no-brainer if you're doing a Fringe show, and I would probably go to him first even if I were doing a show outside of the Fringe.

I saw the signs - emergency signs and lighting

After the architectural drawings, the next biggest headache of the TCO application will probably be the emergency signs and lighting. Check the instructions for all the particulars, but you'll need to make sure there are adequate emergency signs and lighting around the venue, so that if there is an emergency, all egress routes are lit - including routes from the bathrooms. If there aren't emergency lights already installed, you'll have to install them yourself. According to the application, you need a licensed electrician to sign off on the emergency lighting if you install it yourself, and this may set you back a few hundred dollars unless you know a licensed electrician.

I bought cheap exit lights from Exit Light Co. and wired lamp cords into them so they could be plugged into regular outlets rather than wired directly into the walls.

Disabled accessibility

Since you read the TCO instructions and know them backwards, you already know that the venue needs to be accessible to the disabled. If your venue isn't compliant, you'll need to buy or hire portable ramps - I don't have any recommendations on this front, since I haven't had to do it yet. If there are already ramps at the venue, check that the ramps are compliant: there cannot be a step of more than 3/8 inch anywhere on the accessible path - if there is, you'll need to buy transition strip molding from Home Depot or Lowes and fix the ramps yourself.

Non combustible materials

All fabrics that you use in set dressing, etc., must be non-combustible. You can find a spray from Turning Star which can be sprayed on most fabric to make it comply with these regulations.

Fire watch

You'll need volunteers to act as "fire watch" for each public event. If your building has fire sprinklers, you'll need one person per exit. If it doesn't, you'll need two per exit. Fire watch should have a "uniform" (can be a "STAFF" shirt), a cell phone and a flashlight. Use a cheap notebook as the "Fire Watch Log," which the fire watch will sign. Instruct fire watch on how to use the fire alarms and how to get people out of the building.

Toilets

Check the regulations for how many toilets you will need on the premises. If you don't have enough, you'll need to hire portable toilets. I don't have any experience with this. [top]

STEP 7: Inspection

Be prepared to play the waiting game. After 30 days, call your district office of L&I and ask to speak with whomever you contacted in STEP 4. Hopefully they'll remember you. Give them the application number that you saved in STEP 5 and ask them to check how it's doing in the system. If you're in a hurry, go back to the office of Licenses and Inspections on 15th and JFK with your application number. Take a number, wait your turn, and ask them if they can give you the business card of the engineer dealing with your application. Once you have that business card, you can start politely harassing that engineer to look at your application.

Don't bother trying to get the name of the engineer or deal with the main office over the phone. You'll waste far more time than it would take you to go down in person, unless you live in Pittsburgh. Maybe even then.

Once the engineer has signed off on your plans, you will get a notification in the mail, and the main office will send your application down to your district office. Then you can call the district office to arrange an inspection. First thing the morning of the inspection (8AM), call the district office again to confirm/double-check that the inspection is taking place that day.

During the inspection, the owner of the property must be available and in attendance, and you must be able to shut off all power to the venue to prove that the emergency lights and exit signs work. Also have copies that you can give to the inspector of the fire alarm certification and certification for any electrical work that was done. Make sure you have made a maximum occupancy sign and have the fire watch log with you.

The inspector's main job is to make sure that you have complied with all the health and safety regulations. Your set doesn't need to look perfectly pretty and the place doesn't need to be spotless, though it probably helps if it isn't a dump. Mostly, the inspector will be fixated on emergency provisions such as exits, alarms and lights, and will check that all emergency provisions on your plan have been installed and are operational.

If you pass inspection, you're done!! The district office of L&I will print out a certificate for you, sign it and seal it. Display it on your venue, and you're legal!
Congratulations!
(Sorry, couldn't help myself.)

Where is my head? Where?

2009-10-19T14:03:00.002-04:00

After the Gonzales Cantata wrapped up a few weeks ago, I ran headlong into my Ph.D. at Penn. Dived. Plummeted. Note to self: if it ever transpires that I hit the national spotlight again in the future, try not to start an intensive college degree immediately afterward without some kind of vacation in between. I feel so behind at everything. My brain can't find enough peace to organize itself. Whither creativity? I can't even wrap my head around keeping the house clean.

Sometimes I stare into the middle distance and fantasize about moving to some kind of mountain-top or island lair with nothing but the internet and enough food to last me about a year. Maybe after about six months, I'll write some good music.

In the meantime, over this past weekend, we seem to have acquired a new kitten. She followed Matt home on Friday afternoon when it was very cold and wet. He might possibly have encouraged her, but only a very little. I made it worse when they got to the front door by feeding her and fussing over her and generally falling for her. Matt made "We shouldn't keep her" noises for a while, but it was obvious he was taking to her as much as I, and as much as she was to us. For two days, we left her outside (with food, a cat tent and heated bed), thinking (hoping?) she would go home, wherever that might be, but she didn't budge. I guess this is home for her now.

When I left Australia, I gave my cat Kenya to my parents, thinking they would take care of her. They didn't, and she disappeared. I've felt guilty about it ever since; Kenya was an excellent cat and one of my best friends. The new cat looks a great deal like Kenya:

Naming the new cat Nairobi after poor Kenya.

Nairobi meows like a Burmese, Jesus.

The Gonzales Cantata: YES WE CANTATA

2009-09-11T17:45:00.013-04:00

There aren't words to describe how I've felt this past week.

I can, at least, use words to divulge the facts: my composition the Gonzales Cantata caught the attention of the press and the imagination of the public last week, culminating in national television attention and a number one spot on Google Trends for about three hours on Thursday night. Not bad for a new concert opera based on political transcripts.

The extra press contributed to a very successful run at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival this past weekend at the Rotunda.

People have asked me many times: "How did you do it? What's your secret?" I keep thinking of Slumdog Millionaire. I have a particular set of skills which prepared me for a particular moment, and in an unbelievable stroke of luck, the moment presented itself. Cue fairytale.

Here's a handy table explaining what I mean.

How did you ...
...write the music?	I spent a lot of time in my youth playing and listening to Bach and Handel. I stumbled on a copy of Portrait of PDQ Bach in a secondhand CD shop in Brisbane in 1994. I once arranged Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" as an Elizabethan madrigal, complete with fa la las.
...know how to put on a show?	In 1999, I directed two shows for the New South Wales University Theatrical Society (NUTS). From 2004-2006, I worked at Gamut Theatre Group both onstage and off. I've worked as an actor and musician in Philadelphia long enough to have some great contacts (like my excellent stage manager Dina Steiner, who is worth more than her weight in gold).
...know how to promote?	I was the Public Relations Director at Gamut, which means I know how to distribute a press release. Maybe even more importantly, I was a "wine consultant" - a fancy word for telemarketer - at Cellarmasters Wine Club when I was 19/20, which taught me to resist as much as possible feeling defeated by the repeated (and repeated, and repeated) rejection or indifference of strangers. Ditto my "promo girl" experience - I've worked campaigns for everyone from Microsoft to Dove Soap to (God forgive me) Marlboro cigarettes.
...create a web presence?	I made my first website nearly ten years ago. It was a pretty embarrassing first effort, but I've had one ever since. Nowadays, I freelance in web design and implementation. I'm married to a web developer -- we laugh about the fact that we argue about website code more than just about anything else (he's way better than me, but I argue anyway). I'm also horrendously addicted to social media and thus understand its importance. And, having worked in television and watched the rise of YouTube, I knew enough to get on top of that too.
...navigate the TCO application?	I immigrated. I'm not afraid of bureaucracy. The first architect I contacted tried to charge me $1200 to navigate it for me. I found a better architect and did the red tape myself.
...find such awesome performers?	While I was at West Chester University, I made it my business to find singers who (a) could perform my compositions and (b) were wonderful people. For this performance, I also placed an audition notice on YAPtracker. (I didn't actually know to do that - they contacted me.) I used to work as a legal secretary, so I know how to draft up a contract.
Any other relevant skills?	TV news (understanding the importance of footage), closed captions (surtitles), conducting (first conducted a choir in Somerville House's 1996 Choral Festival), sewing (came in very handy for costuming), printing/photocopying (seriously, I am a photocopier whisperer).

Most importantly, this summer, I had some spare time and some spare change* (or, at least, a sturdy credit card). Every day, I sent out press releases, e-mailed press outlets, made phone calls and mailed CD's. I hated doing it. Full-time promotion is horrible; it gradually destroys your self esteem, motivation, energy, and possibly also your soul. I wouldn't want to do promotion this extensive for money. In fact, I would happily pay someone else to do it, if I could be assured they would work as hard.

Of course, I had invaluable help from publicity liaison Dan Williams and my husband Matt. One of Matt's publicity jobs involved posting about the Gonzales Cantata in the comments of relevant news stories. We never absolutely confirmed this to be the chance source of our break, but on Tuesday or Wednesday of last week, Matt left a comment on an article about Alberto Gonzales in the Wall Street Journal.

On Thursday, (the wonderful) Ashby Jones of the Wall Street Journal Law Blog called and interviewed me. You can see the result here.

The next day, we were on The Huffington Post, Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish on The Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, The National Review, and The Chicago Tribune. That evening, as we prepared for a preview performance, we received word that we were on FOX News.

At this point, I was already on cloud nine. I'm a news junkie. I may be a musician, but all my rock stars are journalists. If I could have anyone in the world over to my house for a dinner party, the first two invitations would be addressed to Helen Thomas and John Simpson of the BBC. When the chorus of the Gonzales Cantata angrily lists the administration's crimes, I quite deliberately make them sing "harassment of the press" twice.

After the preview performance, Matt checked his iPhone and the murmur went around: Rachel Maddow had tweeted about us. "Got nothing done today. Have spent the entire day obsessed with this (pdf)." She linked to the Gonzales Cantata libretto. Honestly, that would have been more than enough for me, even if Josh Groban totally didn't get it. But half an hour later, while I was changing in the dressing room, I got a phone call from a Maddow producer, warning me that they were about to crash our website. With this:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Most of the cast and crew, myself included, are too poor for cable, and watched the broadcast on a television at the bar next-door to the Rotunda, huddled under a single stupid overhead speaker with a painfully low volume output. There was a moment, staring at the television with my hands cupping my ears upward, when I really thought I was imagining the whole thing.

Our website crashed for about 10 minutes - Matt and I had to run back to the Rotunda, grab my laptop, leech a wifi connection from a nearby cafe, and pull the streaming mp3's (they are now hosted through Bandcamp, a rather excellent service). At home later, we discovered we were number one on Google Trends.

And that absolutely seals it, right? We did it. We won the Internet.

Since then, the Gonzales Cantata has been featured on more news outlets, numerous blogs (including this great article on Sequenza21 and this post on the Daily Show/Colbert Report blog) and received interest from several performing groups across the country. I started my Ph.D. at UPenn this week, but I can barely think about learning because I'm still coming down.

As if that weren't enough, Rachel Maddow talked about the Gonzales Cantata again tonight, comparing me to the influences I listed in our press release, John Adams and Phil Kline. Just being mentioned in the same breath as Adams or Kline is pretty fantastic in my book:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I am so damned happy. I'm also really happy and grateful for all the performers in the show, and I can't wait to give them each their percentage of the profit once I get it from the Fringe Box Office in October - payments which will be far less than they deserve (try splitting anything 33 ways, and see how far you get), but I hope they've at least enjoyed the ride too.

*It cost about $4,000, give or take, to mount this show. That's pretty cheap, but with the new skills and knowledge I've picked up, I think I can stage future performances on an even tighter budget. If you're wondering how I did it so cheaply, the trick is to be a complete control freak and do everything yourself, because then you don't have to pay anyone else.

The Gonzales Cantata: the Humble Beginnings

2009-09-11T17:32:00.004-04:00

Clips show blog entry!

Two years ago this month, I blogged:

I've embarked on a ridiculously ambitious composition project for the semester - I'm writing a cantata based on the senate judiciary hearings of Alberto Gonzales. Come on, if you had an idea like that, you'd sacrifice sleep and sanity to follow through as well. The only question in my mind is whether to call it Gonzales! The Cantata or stick to something more straight. I spent my first semester weekend cutting an 11-page libretto out of 240 pages of transcript from two separate hearings and his resignation speech.

A few months later:

I had the overture and an aria from the Gonzales cantata played at the end-of-semester composition final, and they've been picked up for the New Music concert at West Chester University on January 31st, which is exciting. I really should devote some of my newfound and short-lived free time to finishing as much of that sucker as I can; I'm terrified that if I delay too long, Gonzales will blow over in the news, given the fickleness of the American press and public.

March 2008:

Because half the reason I'm writing it is that hardly anyone I speak to in the real world seems to know anything whatsoever about Gonzales, it's pretty unashamedly pop neo-Baroque. It's about half-finished; I guess it will be about 40-45 minutes long when it's done. I created the libretto from the actual transcripts, and for shits and giggles, I reversed the genders of all the performers, so every role (Gonzales, Specter, Leahy, etc, who also all double as the chorus) is sung by a soprano or alto, with the exception of Diane Feinstein, who is a tenor. Instrumentation is chamber strings and harpsichord.

A year later, the premiere was given at West Chester University for my senior recital, then a 20-minute excerpt was performed at one of the more public New Music Concerts.

The Gonzales Cantata at the 2009 Philadelphia Fringe Festival

2009-07-12T21:45:00.008-04:00

I have been so busy, I haven't had time to blog about this outside of Twitter.

In a fit of masochism, I am bringing my composition the Gonzales Cantata to the Philly Fringe Festival this September. Earlier this year, after it was premiered at West Chester University, I was considering shopping it around to chamber choirs, but quite suddenly in April, I realized I wanted to do it again myself. It was one of those out-of-nowhere revelations that occasionally birth themselves fully formed into my head, like the moment I decided I wanted to switch to the viola when I was 14, or a couple of years later when I decided to move to Sydney to go to college, or the snap decision I once made to realize my dreamed-of solo American vacation plans and possibly meet up with that one guy I'd been talking to on the internet for a couple of years. These things always seem to turn out quite well.

Once the revelation comes, there's no stopping it. The Fringe Festival submission deadline had passed, but the form had been left online, and I filled it out and pushed through my payment before anybody could protest. I set aside a large chunk of my savings to finance the project. I was recommended the perfect venue: the Rotunda, a cross between a Capitol building and a church which is owned by the University of Pennsylvania, fortuitously the school where I will be starting my Ph.D. two days after the performances.

Since I have quite a lot of spare time this summer (my only employment commitment is a theater camp at Village Productions), I'm going all-out control freak. Directing, producing, conducting, preparing the space, promoting, costuming. It's all down to me. In other words, I'm a certifiable nutjob, or at least, as I mentioned, an extreme masochist.

I am being helped, though, by the wonderful Dina Steiner, who is stage managing, Becca Burrow, who is designing the marketing materials, Dan Williams, my marketing liaison, and Doug Durlacher, tech director. And most of all, of course, by Matt, who is helping in all kinds of ways, not least by being very patient with my "artistic temperament."

The cast, aside from a couple of instrumentalists, is now locked in, and I am so excited to start working with them. The Cantata is being sung by talented performers from as far as Baltimore and New York - graduates of Peabody, Juilliard, Oxford University, CUNY and Temple, and undergrads from the University of the Arts and of course my alma mater West Chester University. Two of them are currently at the Tanglewood Institute, one as a vocal fellow and one as a member of the faculty. I'm so delighted by the cast's enthusiasm, especially since the only financial carrot I can dangle is profit sharing -- which doesn't amount to much money in each performer's pocket with a cast of thirty. I'm especially thrilled and grateful that so many West Chester students are on board to sing the Cantata yet again after our two efforts in February and March. I regard that as a very high compliment.

Right now, one of the challenges I'm focused on is securing the venue. The space I'm using at the Rotunda, the Sanctuary, is unoccupied and not up to code, so I have had to apply for special permission from the Philadelphia city council to hold a temporary event there. The process has been so arduous and stress-filled - and expensive - that I'm planning on writing a complete guide in a future blog entry so that future event planners have an easy step-by-step process and budget to follow. First, however, I need to have my application approved, so that I know I've done everything right. Cross your fingers for me.

It's going to be worth it, though. Here's a photosynth (3D multiple-photo view) Matt created of the Sanctuary a few weeks ago. It's absolutely beautiful, acoustically terrifying (ten-second decay, with nifty dome reflections) and perfectly fits the line from the show: "It's almost as if the walls are actually crumbling on this huge department." The walls are crumbling. There's a giant 9-foot iron chandelier lying on the floor as though it came crashing from the ceiling. If I had millions of dollars in my back pocket, I would blow it on bringing this space fully back to life.

Also coming in a future blog entry: a full report on a 12-minute phone conversation about the Cantata I had with former Attorney General John Ashcroft at the end of May. Possibly, though, I'll just link you to the Live Arts blog; I'm being interviewed by them tomorrow afternoon, and that brush with the Justice Department is definitely being discussed.

But you'll look sweet upon the seat of an Advanced Elements Inflatable Kayak built for two

2009-06-23T19:55:00.011-04:00

From June 6 through June 12, Matt and I kayaked nearly 113 miles on the Schuylkill River Sojourn, paddling by day and camping by night, and eating VAST amounts of delicious food provided by the organizers at least three times a day. Along the way, we saw egrets, snakes, turtles, raccoons and bald eagles. Occasionally we saw the ill effects of human beings on the river environment - such as a fairly sickening gasoline spill all over the water at Reading.

Pictures speak louder than words, and there are links to a bunch of pictures below by the sojourn photographer, Cody Goddard, but if there are any words to be said about our awesome adventure, I should probably spend them on our kayak, which almost monopolized our conversations with other kayakers. When we showed up at the crack of dawn on day one with our Advanced Elements AdvancedFrame inflatable kayak (in tandem mode, though it converts to a single) in the back of the hatchback, we were met with skepticism by the sojourn organizers. "An inflatable? That won't do. We had some sojourners with an inflatable kayak once. They swapped it out before lunchtime on the first day." But we argued our way onto the water and proved them wrong.

On every day of the sojourn, we were at or near the front of the pack, and we didn't feel the wind affected our kayak any more than any of the others. The boat never sprang a leak, and the hull remained sound despite traveling through class two rapids and being stuck on jagged river rocks several times. We did benefit from an unusually wet season leaving the river quite high -- I probably wouldn't have been comfortable dragging our boat over rocks as frequently as the veteran sojourners said the trip required in drier years. But by the end of the trip, just by virtue of being there, we had worked wonders for the reputation of inflatable kayaks in the minds of every paddler on the river.

Seriously, Advanced Elements should just pay people to go on these sojourns. Best marketing for them ever. We did write to the company to tell them of our success, and they sent us some swag. But ... Advanced Elements, if you're reading this, seriously, pay us to go on future sojourns! People were remarking as we reached Philadelphia that they wouldn't be surprised to see more inflatables on next year's paddle because of our example. They only need to see them perform to become believers.

And now ... photos! We are still deciding which of these to buy (photographer's gotta earn bread.)

Dear Mr. Shakespeare,

2009-04-22T21:42:00.002-04:00

How are you? I am fine.

It's almost your birthday here in America. Happy birthday! Do you celebrate birthdays when you're dead? Is it weird that we celebrate your birthday? Do you measure time at all when you're dead? I am unsure. Are you in any discomfort? If so, I hope you don't measure time. Or maybe it would be better if you did. I am unsure.

I am currently, this moment, acting in a play you wrote: Hamlet. I think it's a very good play. My favorite part is the "What a piece of work is a man" monologue. I am playing Ophelia. She's a bit damp sometimes, but I guess it's a pretty good role. You should have written more stuff for women. I'm not sure what you really thought about us. All the tragic ones go mad and die. It gets a little repetitive after a while. I say this because I've kind of built half a career on your shoulders, so it's hard not to notice these things. I would like to play Hamlet one day, but everyone would make a big deal out of it because I'm a girl. I don't want to play him because I'm a girl; I want to play him because I think I get him. Ditto Richard III. His gender wasn't really your fault, though.

The last time I played Ophelia, my dad died. This time, my dad's dad died. Do you see them around? I don't really believe in an afterlife, but if you do see them, say hello for me.

People talk such a lot about Ophelia, which is funny, because she's not even on stage all that much, and she doesn't really do anything, aside from go mad and die. Hector Berlioz wrote Symphonie Fantastique after falling in love with an actress playing Ophelia, and he couldn't even understand what she was saying, being French and all. Did you know that already? Do you know everything when you're dead?

Anyway, happy birthday. I have a curtain call now. Thanks for your work.

P.S. What was your inspiration for writing Hamlet? Don't answer that, it was a joke question.

Tangled/Triangle

2009-03-16T23:06:00.005-04:00

Firstly, many thanks to Matt, who took time out from his busy server-moving, Linux-crunching schedule over at the NIN Hotline to iron out a few bugs on the performance page, huzzah. While he was at it, I replaced a couple of the sidebar widgets on this blog page which were unsatisfactory. The Flickr slideshow I had been using, for example, suddenly started sprouting ads. Goddamn.

Last week, Network for New Music performed my latest piece, Tangled/Triangle, a sound/art collaboration with the amazing artist Becca Burrow:

This Thursday, a 20-minute selection from my Gonzales Cantata is being performed at the West Chester University New Music Concert (free admission!), along with lots of fantastic music from fellow WCU students and some lesser known amateurs named Lutoslawski and Corigliano. Once that's done, I'll augment the rehearsal session and full performance with the new audio, and hopefully have a really good recording to add to the official cantata website and send around with the score.

In the meantime, I am desperately trying to juggle Macbeth performances, Hamlet rehearsals, my teaching schedule, and the final weeks of my undergraduate degree. Despite this craziness, I managed to find time last week to discover the perfect necklace, which I would probably buy if I had ever spent anything close to $250 on an item of jewelry in my life.

A dream, and dreams

2009-03-10T23:39:00.004-04:00

Right before I woke this morning, I dreamed I went to a doctor complaining of feeling tired all the time (I do. IRL, I mean. It's disconcerting. I've slept 8-9 hours every night this week.). The doctor listened to my symptoms, nodded sagely, and gave me his verdict: "You have meningitis."

This seemed a perfectly acceptable diagnosis. "Oh no! What do I do?"
"There's a treatment I can give you, but in order to qualify for it, we must find the worm on your body that gave you meningitis."

This was also reasonable. There was a hitch, however. "I haven't seen a worm on my body."

The doctor gave me a knowing look.

"Oh! I mean, sure! There was a worm on my body, sure!"

Just to make the lie more believable, the doctor took a scalpel and made a small cut on my face. "There," he said. "That will be where we took the worm out."

He handed me some kind of prescription, and I walked out of his office. I had nearly reached the street when I felt a sudden wriggling in my shoe. Upon removing the shoe, of course, I found a fat, maggoty worm coming out of my foot. The worm fell to the floor, then morphed according to weird four-dimensional dreamland physics into a black two-headed cat. That is, a cat with a second head where its tail should be. The bidirectional Janus cat ran through a nearby restaurant and dove into a hole in the wall, astonishing the dining guests.

Thus ended the crazy dream. What the hell is that all about?

On another subject, for those who don't follow my Twitter account religiously or converse with me physically, I have proven that if you talk about wanting to do something enough, it will probably come true. I've been accepted into the University of Pennsylvania's Ph.D. program in composition on a Benjamin Franklin fellowship. Come fall, it's Ivy League for free! For better than free, actually; I get a lovely stipend on top of having the tuition and medical comped. And I get to skip my master's degree, which is a nice saving of time and money too.

This means that I will have to give up acting for at least four years. Good thing I'm going out with a bang. Right now I'm playing Lady Macbeth for the Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre's touring version of Macbeth, and I'm in rehearsals for Hamlet at the Lantern Theater, in which I'm playing Ophelia. There will be days later this season when I play Lady M in the morning and Ophelia in the evening. They both end up the same way; if something goes wrong in any of my performances, all I have to remember is to lose my mind and stumble off-stage to die.

I suppose it's possible that all this craziness has something to do with the crazy dreams.

Popular Culture Says: Black men and Asian ladies love each other.

2009-01-23T21:55:00.008-05:00

I've always hated the way we're all conditioned by the media and pop culture to stick to our own race in relationships, no doubt because I'm a mongrel. Age three: blonde Barbie was encouraged to date blond Ken, and [insert ethnicity] Barbie ended up with [insert ethnicity] Ken. It made sense to everyone after the lesson about fitting round and square pegs in their respective holes. On TV through the 80's: mainstream families were one race (Family Ties) or another (The Cosby Show), but rarely both or anything else, unless a big deal was made of the racial issue. Even today, I always get a good chuckle about the predictability of movie couples pairing up because they look like one another*. I scored free tickets to the egregious Dungeons and Dragons movie a few years ago, and of course, the white hero ended up with blonde heroine, while his black sidekick didn't give her much of a second look after spying a hot black female elf. Oh, she was an entirely different species, and hundreds of years older than said black sidekick, but she was black, so naturally they hooked up.

*What's up with that? Hello? Inbreeding?

Speaking of Marlon Wayans, see also Requiem for a Dream, in which he played a black sidekick of a very different nature, who also had a black girlfriend, unlike his skinny white friend, who had Jennifer Connolly -- who proved by the end of the movie that mixing races and sex is every nightmare come true at once.

In the last decade-and-a-half, though, ethnicity cocktails have become suddenly cool, at least on TV. It seems Hispanic people look the most like white people (before moving to the US, I never thought of them as separate), so having J.Lo and George Clooney fall in love onscreen was easy. But what about those other pesky races? Black people and Asians look very different from whites, and Mr. and Mrs. Middle-America may not be quite comfortable yet with the thought of them bumping up against white genitals (except in Mr. Middle-America's porn collection). So why not pair them with each other?

Wait, silly me, I forgot that Asian men are invisible. OK, black men and Asian ladies, then? Perfect! Like Ming-Na and Mekhi Phifer on ER. And Sandra Oh and Isaiah Washington on Grey's Anatomy. And Tamlyn Tomita and Joe Morton on Eureka. And others I've spotted which you can probably name.

Apparently it's called Blasian love or something. There's a Facebook group for it.

Why not? After all, Thurgood Marshall married a Filipina. And now all those Blaxploitation films make sense. Maybe we'll get a few more Tiger Woods out of it, too, and eventually a Hiro from Snow Crash. And if they practice hard and do a good job, maybe one day minority men will earn a chance with some of those magic untouchable white wimmin. Yes, we can!

EXTRA: I <3 you, Yahoo Answers. Q and first A are pure gold.

On Ambition II: Still Hating Yourself and Loving It

2008-09-25T14:04:00.011-04:00

A man's worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions.
-- Marcus Aurelius

If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing.
-- St. Augustine

Ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the good fortune to satisfy us. Its appetite grows keener by indulgence and all we can gratify it with at present serves but the more to inflame its insatiable desires.
-- Benjamin Franklin

Desire is the root of evil.
-- Gautama Siddharta

After focusing on real life for a while, I suppose it's time to return to the question of ambition that I've been avoiding because it feels like I need to write a thesis. Which I don't have time to write. But here are some casual thoughts on the replies below.

I'm not angry at my parents, and it doesn't feel right to me that others should condemn them for the way I was raised. As Adam said, I understand their motivation. Maybe it has a lot to do with the fact that my mother grew up in fairly horrific circumstances. One of ten children, she survived the Cultural Revolution by eating scraps and vermin before swimming to Hong Kong at the age of 22 to escape. I don't think anyone who hasn't experienced that kind of poverty and hardship can possibly understand what it takes to survive. I can philosophically ponder the necessity of ambition on the internet like a wanker; to my mother, ruthless tenacity and the relentless drive to succeed were needed just to keep from dying and climb out of the gutter.

Actually, I find I often connect with children-of-immigrants because they have a similar relationship with their parents. When people survive a war, or famine, or the Holocaust, or some kind of displacement, and manage to pick themselves up and move across the world to find a better life, they frequently seem to come out of it with a similar appreciation of ambition and hard work. Or maybe it was in their temperament to begin with, and that's why they immigrated. Chicken/egg.

Abuse is a very loaded word. I do not consider myself abused, but I don't know where I draw the line on what "abuse" is. Certainly, sexual abuse is abuse. Beating. Malicious intent. Neglect. Beyond that, it's hard for me to say exactly what is absolutely right and wrong. Who sets the standard? I'm sure I could point to any parent on the planet and find something in their technique to call abuse; all parents make mistakes. When does a mistake become abuse? When does it even become a mistake?

My mother considers the laissez-faire parenting practices of many Western families to be child abuse. I'm not kidding; she's expressed this opinion many times. A classmate of mine was very intelligent but didn't study or perform well academically; my mother privately criticized her parents for not having the courage and strength to push their child to achieve. To her, failing to engender ambition in one's children is akin to failing to teach them moral values or the basic skills needed to survive in the world. My mother has the same reaction to the "Be proud of yourself! Just do your best! Be whatever you want to be!" style of parenting as (I assume) you have watching incompetent parents struggle with their undisciplined, useless brats on Nanny 911 or Maury. She just draws the line in a different place. "Why wouldn't every good parent want their child to succeed, to be the best?"

It's easy to read my last entry on ambition and assume I had a deeply unhappy childhood, but I really didn't. There were moments of disappointment, awkwardness, unhappiness - sure, even terror - but I also remember distinctly not wanting to grow up because I loved the life I led. I was taught to love learning, and I was never denied the fulfillment of that desire. I loved achieving, and I loved being the smart kid. I was given a lot of trust and social self-determination. I never wanted materially, and was treated to ridiculous experiences way beyond our socio-economic status, like family trips overseas and a hoity-toity private school that I loved attending -- for god's sake, I went to Space Camp. When I recall my childhood, it averages out to a pretty good one overall.

Similarly, I can see that some people might assume that I'm so driven to succeed that I don't enjoy my life because it's a means to an end. No -- if that were the case, I'd be writing this blog entry between treating patients. I love what I do now, and I can't think of anything I've done in the last five years that was purely a means to an end and not personally fulfilling on its own (aside from a few jobs I've taken to pay rent). I've always believed the journey should be just as wonderful as the destination (which is why I really don't care if someone "spoils" a good movie for me).

So, why this discussion? As the title of these posts makes clear, I have one heck of a love/hate relationship with ambition, and I think ambition is one of the most ambivalently viewed human traits -- in any culture. We strive for contentment, but when someone claims to be content in a state we consider unworthy, we deride them for not being ambitious. Some consider ambition a dirty word and try to rid themselves of all desire (an endeavor which becomes an ambition in itself?). Others see this approach as a kind of oppression invented or re-purposed by those who wish to keep society static. Some believe that without ambition we are nothing. Others believe that ambition makes us slaves.

Do we want ambition, or don't we? How much do we want to achieve in life, and at what cost? Can ambition be turned off like a switch in order to achieve contentment, or does the abandonment of ambition cause a slow sink into resentment and self-loathing? Is there an acceptable middle ground?

I don't advocate paying too high a cost, but if you really believe that my experience was so terrible ... well, to paraphrase Bill Hicks a little: name ten people whose achievements you place in the highest regard, and I guarantee you that most of them will have a drive resulting from some hole in their self-esteem, probably created in their upbringing by their parents. Einstein may not have been gagged and put in a sack (that we know of), but Leopold Mozart placed *far* more pressure on young Wolfgang than my mother ever placed on me (jms, you didn't really think I was going to let that slide, did you?). Are we willing to give up the idea of operating at full potential and the possible results for the sake of a happy childhood or adult contentment? Is it a bad thing that I look at what I've done, and always think to myself, "It's not enough"? Isn't that what keeps one adding, walking, advancing?

The truth is, as much as ambition cripples my self-worth, I fucking love the rush of achieving. I love the motivation it gives me. I love the fact that I can make myself do amazing things by thinking myself into a hole and clawing my way out of it creatively. I love the competition, real or invented. I love the sense of primal satisfaction I feel a moment before I tell myself I'm not good enough, the job's not yet finished, and I ride off to slay another dragon.

But I don't know if it's right to love it.

[Incidentally: on this day, exactly twenty years ago, my mother was admitted to a psych ward for the first time. Ugh, no, don't weep for me or her, I just thought it was interesting.]

Things more important

2008-08-13T12:28:00.003-04:00

Sometime soon, I'll post a part two to the last entry, replying to people's thoughts (which are really great, thank you -- it's a good discussion). But here's a post to say that sometimes we all need to step back and remember how important life is. Just life. Breathing, eating, sleeping. And sometimes we get carried away with drama and love and ambition, but life is more important than all these things, and if we value it the right way, everything else will probably fall into place.

Cancer is a horrible thing, and my heart goes out to people whose families have been affected by it.

Ambition, or Hating Yourself and Loving It

2008-08-06T23:15:00.018-04:00

am-bi-tion
Pronunciation: \am-'bi-shən\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French or Latin; Middle French, from Latin ambition-, ambitio, literally, act of soliciting for votes, from ambire
Date: 14th century

a: an ardent desire for rank, fame, or power
b: desire to achieve a particular end
the object of ambition <her ambition is to start her own business>
a desire for activity or exertion <felt sick and had no ambition>

The noble Brutus hath told you Caesar was ambitious: if it were so, it was a grievous fault, and grievously hath Caesar answered it.

I've been thinking a lot about ambition lately -- about where it comes from, and whether it's a good or bad thing.

I grew up believing that ambition was paramount. Contentment was a dirty word, a state of mind which necessarily breeds stagnation, and which should be left to the inept and the elderly; we should never be content with ourselves and our lot in life, or we won't strive to better ourselves, I thought. Or think. I'm not sure. (That is the question.)

Ambition is a central concept to Chinese (even Asian) culture and outlook. Chinese parents foster ambition in their children in ways which seem brutal to those with a more Western outlook. I understand this, and hold no ill-will towards mine. My mother was ever watchful for and quick to quash laziness and complacency in her daughter. Through my elementary schooling, she rode me hard to achieve academically, and nothing was ever good enough. I remember breaking down in tears in class over test scores as high as 99%. My concerned or incredulous fellow students thought I was exaggerating when I explained how angry my mother would be, but I wasn't paranoid. I held back tears as I met my mother at the school gate, and when I showed her my exam, the first words out of her mouth would be "Only 99%?" I knew the rest of the evening would be spent listening to tirades about how careless I was and how much harder I needed to study. Even if I scored full marks, she'd never show any outward pride or affirmation, instead reminding me of past mistakes and counseling me not to become too confident lest I slip up the next time.

Here's the worst thing my parents ever did. I tell you this not to feel sorry for myself or shock you, but to illustrate how the will to achieve is forced upon kids by the culture in which I was raised. When I was three or four, I threw a tantrum because I didn't want to study. My parents tied me up, stuffed a tea towel into my mouth, and put me in a sack. I remember the smell and taste of the cloth between my teeth, and the tears running down my face and pooling under my cheek. The sack was made of some kind of polyester, which left me stifled and hot as I struggled and tried to scream. While I lay on the floor, they talked within earshot about how useless I was if I didn't work hard, and how they might as well dump me in Musgrave Park to be raised by Aborigines, who would make me drink metho.

This abhorrence, fear almost, of my laziness extended into my adulthood. When I was 24, for example, my mother and I had an enormous fight on the phone because she accused me of being lazy and having fun instead of working hard. At the time, I was working fifteen hours a day at three separate jobs.

I don't think this is particularly unusual for Chinese parents; it's far from the worst story I've heard (I was never kicked across a room, or threatened with amputation, or chained to a toilet). The point is that my parents, like many of their culture, deliberately and systematically undermined my self-esteem to engender ambition. I worked hard because I didn't want to be useless, and they worked hard to make me believe that uselessness was always a possibility. I wanted to make them proud, and they worked hard not to show they were proud so I would keep on working. They did this because, within their culture, doing so is an act of love. They believe that giving a child that unquenchable thirst for achievement is the best thing one can do as a parent, that the result might be the next Einstein or Mozart. It might be hard on your children in the short term, but in the end, they'll thank you, or if they don't, you'll at least know you did what needed to be done.

What makes people do great things? What drives individuals to earn more money than they could ever spend, or practice an instrument until they are the best in the world, or train until they win an Olympic medal, or ignore personal relationships for art, or kill themselves studying radium? It seems common sense to me that many of the most successful people in the world are driven by the same kind of neurosis, stamped upon them by parents or circumstances in the same way. We're never good enough, we have to try to be good enough, we keep trying, sacrificing everything. Some succeed, some don't, but success on that level isn't possible without that abnormal drive. If genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, the greater part of genius is the ability to make the effort.

(Not that I'm a genius. Logic - cats - four legs.)

But this affects us in other ways too. We catastrophize. When your whole life is spent imagining the worst in order to avoid it and capitalizing on the intoxicatingly potent power of self-hatred, it can be hard to turn that off. Unfortunately, while such a schema might succeed when you're finding the motivation to improve a test score from 99% to 100% or impress people with your myriad accomplishments, it might mean that you assume the worst in personal relationships, that you're crippled by feelings of inadequacy. The very thing that makes you do the great things you were programmed to do necessitates terrible insecurities that sabotage happiness.

I'm trying to figure out where my priorities lie. What do I want out of life? Is it OK to be content after all? Should there be compromise, and where should the compromise intersect the opposing viewpoints? I'm struggling with that question. There's a large part of me that still holds contentment in contempt and believes in the schema. But another part sees the damage that it causes and wonders if it's worth it. I don't know what the answer is, or what will come of it. We'll see, I guess.

New dresses at dadadress urrr urrrr want want urrrr

On Saturday, I'm seeing Encounters At the End of the World. <3 to Werner Herzog.

Monkey Hat

2008-08-06T01:38:00.005-04:00

About a year ago, I was walking with Matt on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia just as most of the cute little stores on that street were closing. In the window of one store, I spotted the most awesome collection of knitted animal hats ever. I vowed to come back when the store was open and buy one.

Six months later when I began working in Philly full-time, I searched incessantly during my lunch and after hours for that store. Seriously, I spent hours and hours trudging up and down Chestnut, even branching out to Market, Sansom, Walnut and all the cross streets in case I had mistaken the location. Nada. I also searched furiously on eBay, but could never find the enchanting hats I remembered. I gave up.

But! Today, as I was working on South Street ... I saw them! The store that had once been on Chestnut had moved to South! I bought a monkey hat on the spot. Next, I want the frog, and then the rooster.

They are made/imported, incidentally, by Peruvian Trading Company. They're hard to track down online. I love my Monkey Hat.

Oh, and here's a picture from Monday that I also took with my Blackberry. Enjoy.

Village Productions

2008-08-02T21:18:00.006-04:00

Starting this September, I'll be teaching drama classes and private lessons at Village Productions in Pottstown (I know, I've already talked to them about possibly working on the website). The company have found themselves a permanent facility for the first time -- an old furniture warehouse is being transformed into the Tri-County Performing Arts Center, or TriPAC. I visited the site for the first time today, and I'm tremendously excited about it because (a) I'm renovation-nuts and (b) watching a theatre take shape like this is kind of cool.

Here's the main stage, which will be a black box. That's an orchestra loft above the stage, although the set-up will be very flexible so that the stage and audience risers can be configured any which way within the space.

On the second level are offices and three large classrooms, which can be combined by folding away acoustic wall panels to form a second performance area, shown here. (N.B. exposed brick wall at the right is being preserved as-is, aha!) I'll be teaching four classes a week in this space.

This is the fourth wall from the last shot, because metal studs and foil-backed insulation bales look sweet.

In the basement is a fairly extensive backstage area (green room, dressing rooms with sinks, two showers!) and costume/scenic workshops, as well as a couple of private studios where I'll be giving one-on-one coaching. This is a shot from the scenic workshop through exposed studs into the green room. You can see plumbing hookups for the green room kitchenette on the lower left, and on the right is the entrance to one of the dressing rooms.

So, yay. Everyone enroll your kids and your neighbors' kids in classes here, please.

The downside to having to visit the TriPAC today is that I missed seeing John Waters' live show in DE :(

Sub-Lyme news

2008-07-30T16:39:00.002-04:00

I received notification in the mail today that Barry the tick was found to be negative for Lyme disease bacteria! Still, screw him for biting me. Death to all ticks.

I have some nice news on the job front, too: seems I will be playing Ophelia in Philly next year. Stay tuned for more on that. I am incredibly excited but also a little pensive because the last time I played Ophelia, one of my dads died.

If you visit this blog regularly and possess the ability to read, you are aware that I have been experiencing some personal turbulence these past few months. Hopefully that is clearing up. There's a lot of hope going on. It's intense, but also kind of beautiful.

sky sky sky sky sky sky sky

2008-07-25T00:05:00.004-04:00

On another note: Explosions in the Sky ... Lights in the Sky ... Skyhooks ... the universe is evidently trying to tell me something! No idea what. Look up?

I feel really awful tonight, so that may well be it.