Happy Birthday, Universe!

Today is James Ussher day. Why is that? Because 6014 years ago, God created the universe, and this 17th century Irish Archbishop figured it all out. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, on the eve of October 23, 4004 BC, EVERYTHING came into being. And we all owe it to Ussher's intrepid scholarship for pinning that date down.

Darwin was obviously on crack. Clearly, the dinosaurs and other prehistoric flora and fauna were wiped out in the Great Flood. It's a fact. Get used to it, evolutionary theorists. So today is for you, Creationists, you wacky bunch, and your champion, Mr. Ussher. I salute you!

Zappity Thanksgiving!

So sorry I'm late! Didn't have a moment to blog over the weekend, as it was filled with a whirlwind trip with Kayla to Vancouver, and turkey dinner. The dinner was delicious and enjoyed among good friends. But the highlight to my weekend was definitely Vancouver. It's amazing that it's taken me this long to hop across the water to go there. What I saw of it, which was very very little, was really cool. Unfortunately there was only so much I could take in in one day. I would love to go back (and I probably will). There was only one thing that seemed strange. The Vancouver Public Library, seen here...



...looks strikingly similar to a building located on Caprica, from Battlestar Galactica, seen here:



Coincidence? I think not! The Capricans must have studied Earth architecture and built a replica. It's the only explanation.

Hope you all had a wonderful Canadian Thanksgiving!

Humour, and Professional Goals

Well so far I'm keepin' my promise to post on Sundays. So far my score is 1 out of 1 Sunday since I decided to do this. That's 100% on schedule!

I realised something recently about my sense of humour and my prejudices, that I want to test. I have this theory that there could be a person who is relatively quite uneducated, dumb and unsophisticated, tell a very vulgar joke and I'd probably think it was terrible, and I wouldn't laugh. Then, have another person who is well-educated, intelligent and sophisticated person tell the same trashy joke and I'd laugh my ass off. Why is that? Is that the result of my own prejudices? Do I judge the less educated person with harsher standards? Or is it just the hilarity of hearing a very intelligent and classy person totally subvert their image with a raunchy sex joke, while the joke in and of itself isn't all that good? Is it simply the irony? I don't think it's a class thing; but I'm not entirely sure. I have to wonder if there's a correlation, like the smarter the person is, the funnier the joke will be, or something like that, as if it's a matter of having the authority to say it. Or maybe I will find the same joke funny whoever is saying it, but I'll give the smarter person more kudos, because it shows that they might have a broader range of humour? It might be that, because I know no matter who says it, I still hate potty humour. Sex? Yes. Violence? Sure. Fart jokes? Hellz no. But again, I do think there's something to all this. For me, it does depend on who's saying the joke. What do y'all think?

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The past week has been a very inspiring one. I had about three evenings in a row where I was so motivated to work on my Half-Mask and Acting Masque pieces, and I've been prolific. I've virtually finished my first draft, four days before I have to present it in class. I really enjoy this year, because the emphasis put on self-created works. It's a delicious synthesis of writing and performance, two areas of interest that have always remained compartmentalised. Now it has me thinking about all of my post-post-secondary goals as an artist. There are so many projects I want to devote myself to, and I don't know which one is the best one to do first! FYI, here are my most immediate goals:

-write/perform a Fringe show
-get involved in the spoken word circuit, either here or wherever I end up living in the near future. This means writing poetry again! After so long!
-start up a theatre troupe that does Full and Half-Mask performances, and other non-realistic forms of theatre, like Clown and Puppetry. I want to take workshops in all of these things. This might even be a possible idea for Fringe. All, but especially Mask. The work I'm doing on it in Movement class is so gratifying, and it's surprisingly uncommon in the biz right now. There are pretty much no companies in Canada that do this kind of Mask. So yeah. That needs to change.
-finish my Writing degree. Wanna wait a bit before I go back to school, but this option is very plausible in my mind.
-while at some point I'd like to get involved in Film and TV, right now I'm more interested in doing smaller, self-produced projects. If I could get a camcorder and some other friends with cameras, we could make little indie movies and videos to put on Youtube.
-On that note, I'm strongly considering starting a video blog. The problem is it would need a point of focus, which I don't have yet that will lend itself well to video, rather than text.
-do more classical theatre. I fell in love with Shakespeare last year, and I think I still want to audition for Stratford in a couple of years. But, you know, that's in a couple of years, so it doesn't exactly count. I need other professional work under my belt before that. Maybe Bard on the Beach?

So those are some of them. The idea of self-created, self-produced work is shining brightly in my mind right now, knowing how hard it will be to get myself out there in the industry otherwise. I'll play it by ear, but I intend to do all of those things. Just you wait!

Here's to You, Eva.

Today was Eva Markvoort's Celebration of Life, at the Phoenix Theatre. It was a beautiful event. It featured the screening of her documentary 65_RedRoses; various people speaking, including Jan, Linda, Eva's fellow classmate, and her parents; and even a recording of her vocal masque. For non-Victoria readers, she was a former student at the Phoenix Theatre who was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis as a baby and lived with it throughout her all too short life. The doc was about her harrowing journey waiting for an organ donor, a few years ago. She died on March 27, this year. I came to the Phoenix the year after she graduated, and I know a lot of people who knew her personally. It's a strange position to be in. Stranger still is that today was the closest thing to a funeral I've ever been to, and I didn't even know her. But that doesn't mean that her life and her message haven't touched me. The things she has accomplished in her all too short life is staggering and humbling. The amount of love that that event generated--because from what I've been told of Eva, she was full of love--has already inspired me to share my life with others as much as possible, and to work passionately on what I am passionate about in life. During the documentary, as I watched Eva struggle simply to breathe, I became so aware of the healthiness of my own lungs, my own ability to breathe deeply, my own capacity to live deeply. Who am I to take that for granted?

I should also confess that I haven't been a faithful follower of her blog. In fact, the first time I ever went on it was tonight. I expect that I'll be on there more, now. On top of everything else, she's inspired me to keep blogging, and to remember that I do have something to say, even if it's not as big of a something as her journey.

Thank you, Eva.

As I had suspected, school has already started to take over life. No more leisurely reading--nope! I have to read Oscar Wilde, and various acting theores--and no more leisurely writing--it's VOCAL MASQUE TIME!--but I will certainly try to keep up on here. With any luck I can get a book in if I read slowly and patiently on bus rides. Also, Christine has approached me about a very interesting and exciting newspaper project, and I await with puppy-dog eagerness to hear more about it from her.

That's all for now! I hope to blog again next Sunday. Have a beautiful week, everybody!

By the Way...

Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Sweet Jesus!

When I was on campus today, there was a free ice cream booth by the bookstore. You heard me. FREE. ICE CREAM. What a brilliant idea. Anyway, one of the people giving out the ice cream was a Catholic priest, Father Dean Henderson, whom I recognised from Holy Cross Church where I went for Lent. After I left the booth, I got this picture in my head of a Catholic mass where the priest dishes out a decadent maple walnut flavoured ice cream cone to each devotee for the Eucharist. I guarantee the Church would be way more popular if the Body of Christ was ice cream, and not some silly wafer. God Inlactate, if you will.

I at least think it's a good idea.

Now that the summer has drawn to a close, my year so far has been radically different from what I planned it to be. While the idea behind my Year of Extraordinary Thinking remains true and admirable, my own plans have had to change. I ended up not doing tree planting, I didn't enter the 3-Day Novel Writing Contest, I didn't finish writing my submission for SATCo, and I didn't ever get an artist's retreat. The reasons I didn't do these things were partially out of my control, but to the degree that it was in my own hands I chose not to do these things. There were a lot of personal demons that reared their ugly heads this summer and I wasn't brave enough to face them and soldier on. Because of that, I simply didn't have the energy to work on these things. I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed.

What this summer did bring with it was worthwhile in its own way, however. In producing and creating a puppet show for kids, I had a renaissance of sorts for children's literature. The fact that my mom is studying it right now only further whetted my appetite. Being around little kids (3-10) for the first time in a bajillion years was great. The immediacy of their imagination and life was invigorating. My mom made a remark a week or so ago about her granddaughter Lucy's visit to Calgary; she said that it's good to always have a young child in the house. I think she's absolutely right; she speaks as a grandmother, and I speak from a different place of course-- only as an actor, a person who depends on remembering how to reach the world of play. But I can see why that is true. Children were a good thing for me, during a very hard summer when I sometimes verged on taking myself way too seriously.

But: I'm biking more, I observed Lent and went through a lot of spiritual inquiry, I've learned a few new recipes from my cookbook (although I've fallen embarrassingly behind on that resolution), I've already hosted two storytelling parties, and despite the drawbacks, I did devote more time and energy to writing. These are not to be written off. It is progress. Yet the real measure of this Year of Extraordinary Thinking is whether or not I've been living truly and honestly. Have I been honouring my values? Have I been true to my self? That is perhaps the hardest thing anyone can do, but it is also the most important. It's important to check in with that question as often as possible. More often than I have been. So to start my fourth year on the right foot, now is a good time to ask it. In the short term, I can't say I am living as honestly as I know I can be, as I was meant to be. Two days from school starting and excited though I am, I don't feel ready. There is not enough time and my life is kind of crazy, what with moving in to a new place. Things haven't settled yet, and it's frustrating because I can't think straight right now. My desire to create is greater than my time or energy for it. Thankfully this can all be mended. Once school starts things will be settled, I'll be in a rhythm, and it'll be okay. But it's important to have the right start. Every little step counts.