Sunday blog
Sunday blog
Ady's doin' a Sunday blog
Little bit of rain
Lil' bit a fog
But Ady's doin' a Sunday blog.
More soon!
Sunday, September 13, 2009
it's just us guys...
I was perusing our wonderful blog page when my eyes found our lovely list of followers, all Jason Lucas of them. I realize of course people can click on the link at the website and read the blog without "following" us, but officially no one is looking but us. This actually makes me a great deal more comfortable because I know I can tell you guys anything. Like that I am currently nude.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Tuesday... Thursday... What's the difference?
My day to blog is Tuesday but since I'm in the habit of forgetting on Tuesdays, I'm blogging today.
This is an exciting time for me!
I'm going to write this about it....
2025 - THE FUTURE
JODA- (having just landed on Planet Earth) I like these potatoes... but not this ridiculous traffic!... and the pollution here!... just awful.
EARTH ANN- I don't know... I don't think it's so bad. I mean there's TV and stuff. What about potato chips?
JODA- Haven't tried them.
EARTH ANN- A lot of the people responsible for the traffic are also responsible for the manufacturing and distribution of potato products.
JODA- Don't care!
EARTH ANN- Besides... we're not even in the traffic. It's outside!
JODA- Well I don't like to see it... And I smell garbage everywhere.
RUDA P~13- (thumbing through EARTH ANN'S drawers) Sure do use a lot of paper!
JODA- (laughing hysterically to the point of levitating slightly) That's an understatement Ruda P~13!! That's an understatement!
EARTH ANN- Look, I'm tired of being made fun of! How long is this going to take?
JODA- As long as we want. This is an alien invasion! We can do what we want... You're lucky we don't probe you.
EARTH ANN- Actually, that was the only part I was looking forward to.
RUDA P~13- Found it!!
JODA- What?
RUDA P-13- We can go now!
EARTH ANN- Thank god!
JODA- What is it?
RUDA P~13- Moisturizer for the lips!
JODA- What are lips?
RUDA P~13- You put a stick of make up on them?
Thanks so much everyone!!! I have the biggest smile on my face and I'm flipping you all off!
Love, Cassius Rosenthal
This is an exciting time for me!
I'm going to write this about it....
2025 - THE FUTURE
JODA- (having just landed on Planet Earth) I like these potatoes... but not this ridiculous traffic!... and the pollution here!... just awful.
EARTH ANN- I don't know... I don't think it's so bad. I mean there's TV and stuff. What about potato chips?
JODA- Haven't tried them.
EARTH ANN- A lot of the people responsible for the traffic are also responsible for the manufacturing and distribution of potato products.
JODA- Don't care!
EARTH ANN- Besides... we're not even in the traffic. It's outside!
JODA- Well I don't like to see it... And I smell garbage everywhere.
RUDA P~13- (thumbing through EARTH ANN'S drawers) Sure do use a lot of paper!
JODA- (laughing hysterically to the point of levitating slightly) That's an understatement Ruda P~13!! That's an understatement!
EARTH ANN- Look, I'm tired of being made fun of! How long is this going to take?
JODA- As long as we want. This is an alien invasion! We can do what we want... You're lucky we don't probe you.
EARTH ANN- Actually, that was the only part I was looking forward to.
RUDA P~13- Found it!!
JODA- What?
RUDA P-13- We can go now!
EARTH ANN- Thank god!
JODA- What is it?
RUDA P~13- Moisturizer for the lips!
JODA- What are lips?
RUDA P~13- You put a stick of make up on them?
Thanks so much everyone!!! I have the biggest smile on my face and I'm flipping you all off!
Love, Cassius Rosenthal
Monday, September 7, 2009
The Squirrel
Last Wednesday I had the most wonderful opportunity to engage with a wild animal. A squirrel. That morning I woke up two hours later than I usually do. And I thought it odd that I could have slept so late. I took bread for a walk, but because it was so hot I cut the walk a little short. If you don't walk before 8am in Austin it gets really hot. Anyway, Bread and I were walking up our street when I noticed a group of cats on my neighbors lawn. They appeared to be gathered around something and when I looked closer I realized they were gathered around a squirrel.
I ran over to scare the cats away so the squirrel could escape because it looked like one of the cats had her pinned by the tail. The cats scattered, and the squirrel tried to climb a tree. At this point it became clear that the squirrel was injured. It's arm was useless and flopped at it's side. It was unable to climb or walk, and it dragged itself for a little while and then collapsed with exhaustion. I immediately went in to a different state of being, and became hyper focused on this squirrel. I put Bread back in the house and grabbed my phone and a paper bag. The cats had regrouped by the time I got back, and I scarred them away again. The squirrel was also frightened and dragged itself into my neighbors car port and underneath a cart.
At this point I'm becoming frantic. Many of you know that I often prefer animals to people. I love animals, and cannot watch them in pain. It's why i don't eat animals, because I love them so much. So I'm frantically looking on my phone for a wild animal rescue group, trying in vein to catch the squirrel. I don't know how to catch the squirrel! I notice that my neighbor has opened his door and shut it again, so I knocked on the door to let him know that he's got an injured animal in his car port. This is the first time I meet my neighbor, although we have waved to each other on previous occasions. He is immediately as distressed as I and comes out to help.
I find a number for a rescue group and call. A woman answers and tells us to throw a towel on the squirrel and put it in a box. I only have a bag. The squirrel doesn't like having a towel thrown on it. It tries to run, but just manages to drag itself around. My neighbor is able to grab it and we put it in the bag.
Okay. So now I have a squirrel in a peets coffee bag. The squirrel doesn't even try to escape it's so exhausted by the pain and the ordeal of trying to run. So I take it into my apartment and look up the address for this rescue place. I drive with the squirrel for 15 minutes out of Austin and turn down a dirt road where there is a little house that serves as an intake center for these animals. Immediately after I arrive another man arrives with another injured squirrel.
A woman looks at my squirrel and then looks at the other squirrel and then takes my squirrel into the house. Another woman takes the other squirrel. I wait for about ten minutes and fill out a form, and also donate fifty dollars. The woman comes out and asks which one of us had the first squirrel I brace myself. She tells me that the squirrels arm is actually not broken, but she appears to have injured her shoulder. This is easier to rehabilitate than a broken arm. She says the squirrel should be able to be fixed and that when she's better they will release her back into the wild. but they tell me that she was nursing, although they think the babies will be old enough to fend for themselves. I thank them and get back in my car and drive home.
I'm late for class that day, but it doesn't matter. This was such a gift to me. Everything happened at the perfect moment. If my neighbor hadn't been home would I have been able to catch the squirrel? And to think that if I'd woken up on time or walked the whole walk that squirrel might have met a different end. And that happens...that's nature. And squirrels die like everything else. But how wonderful to co-create that moment with that squirrel. I'm so grateful for that day. because we are all connected. And I knew in that moment how joyful it is to be connected. I hope you all get to save your own squirrels.
I ran over to scare the cats away so the squirrel could escape because it looked like one of the cats had her pinned by the tail. The cats scattered, and the squirrel tried to climb a tree. At this point it became clear that the squirrel was injured. It's arm was useless and flopped at it's side. It was unable to climb or walk, and it dragged itself for a little while and then collapsed with exhaustion. I immediately went in to a different state of being, and became hyper focused on this squirrel. I put Bread back in the house and grabbed my phone and a paper bag. The cats had regrouped by the time I got back, and I scarred them away again. The squirrel was also frightened and dragged itself into my neighbors car port and underneath a cart.
At this point I'm becoming frantic. Many of you know that I often prefer animals to people. I love animals, and cannot watch them in pain. It's why i don't eat animals, because I love them so much. So I'm frantically looking on my phone for a wild animal rescue group, trying in vein to catch the squirrel. I don't know how to catch the squirrel! I notice that my neighbor has opened his door and shut it again, so I knocked on the door to let him know that he's got an injured animal in his car port. This is the first time I meet my neighbor, although we have waved to each other on previous occasions. He is immediately as distressed as I and comes out to help.
I find a number for a rescue group and call. A woman answers and tells us to throw a towel on the squirrel and put it in a box. I only have a bag. The squirrel doesn't like having a towel thrown on it. It tries to run, but just manages to drag itself around. My neighbor is able to grab it and we put it in the bag.
Okay. So now I have a squirrel in a peets coffee bag. The squirrel doesn't even try to escape it's so exhausted by the pain and the ordeal of trying to run. So I take it into my apartment and look up the address for this rescue place. I drive with the squirrel for 15 minutes out of Austin and turn down a dirt road where there is a little house that serves as an intake center for these animals. Immediately after I arrive another man arrives with another injured squirrel.
A woman looks at my squirrel and then looks at the other squirrel and then takes my squirrel into the house. Another woman takes the other squirrel. I wait for about ten minutes and fill out a form, and also donate fifty dollars. The woman comes out and asks which one of us had the first squirrel I brace myself. She tells me that the squirrels arm is actually not broken, but she appears to have injured her shoulder. This is easier to rehabilitate than a broken arm. She says the squirrel should be able to be fixed and that when she's better they will release her back into the wild. but they tell me that she was nursing, although they think the babies will be old enough to fend for themselves. I thank them and get back in my car and drive home.
I'm late for class that day, but it doesn't matter. This was such a gift to me. Everything happened at the perfect moment. If my neighbor hadn't been home would I have been able to catch the squirrel? And to think that if I'd woken up on time or walked the whole walk that squirrel might have met a different end. And that happens...that's nature. And squirrels die like everything else. But how wonderful to co-create that moment with that squirrel. I'm so grateful for that day. because we are all connected. And I knew in that moment how joyful it is to be connected. I hope you all get to save your own squirrels.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
On Acting, Authenticity and Imitation
When Stanislavsky and The Moscow Art Theatre came to the US for the first time, the world of performance was forever changed. Acting had to that point been a presentational process. Finishing schools were what actors had as spaces to hone talent. The notion of authenticity, though today hashed out in endless directions, was new. No one thought audiences wanted to see real life, so no one tried to give it to them until Stanislavsky fell in love with and obsessively tried to duplicate the spontaneous creative process and brought it to the stage.
When members of the Moscow Art Theatre stayed in New York and began teaching, young actors flocked to them, many of whom would go on to become some of the most influential performers and teachers in the history of American acting.
These Russian instructors must have been fascinating figures. Maria Ousspenskaya, for example, was a small, intense old woman who drank heavily and chain-smoked cigars. For any young woman trying to find herself in pre-WWII America, this surely was a thrill to behold.
I've said before that I think that these young actors, in trying to learn an entirely new process, mistook the teachers for the work itself. There has always been an emphasis on severity in "authentic" acting in the US. Method acting is often associated with unexplainable misery and twitchy suffering. How is it that "reality" includes so little humor?
The people who brought the notion of authenticity to the US were from a very foreign land, a land who's culture, politics and topography were radically different from our own. They had also come from a land that had just gone through a violent shift and was settling itself into a dark and secretive regime. How was it then that what constituted authenticity for them was so similar to what constituted authenticity for American actors? One could argue the overall unifying power of the human condition, and to a certain extent, I would agree with that, but I'm convinced that we are far too affected by our material realities for that to be a sufficient explanation. I think it was simply that, like many young actors, those original students felt insecure with what they had to offer. The Russian version of authenticity was so much more interesting, and it made them feel more interesting, even if for them it was not actually authentic. I wonder to what extent actors are still trying to imitate those first teachers instead of engaging in the process that was actually being taught - learning to relax enough to tap into what is truly you - all the colors in you - so that you can use it on the stage and be real. So many years and so many words for something so simple.
Acting is imitation only to a certain extent. Stanislavsky had epiphanies that inspired him to seek out more. In furiously trying to duplicate or re-create he sometimes traded the moment-to-moment for studiousness and stumbled often in the process. He was the first, and he was in love with the search, so I hold nothing against him. The young American actors who studied with members of Stanislavsky's troupe saw people embracing life on a level they had never seen and tried to imitate it in an effort to lead bigger lives themselves. Actors today see successful actors they admire and they try to duplicate the spark, but it doesn't work because it isn't their spark. Are we seeing the running flaw here?
In life we sometimes have moments of being utterly connected. For a fleeting moment, we get how it all works and see the universe and its components functoning effortlessly, and we become effortless with it. When it goes, it makes perfect sense that we want it back. Unfortunately, far too often, we attempt to get it back by trying to imitate the original experience instead of trying to connect again. We become rigid instead of relaxed, and rigidity does not lead to epiphany.
We are supposed to experience life on a moment-to-moment basis, always allowing for spontaneous growth and change. Few of us manage this a fraction of the time, but it is the point. In trying to authentically imitate life, actors learn to experience the stage moment to moment. If they do it right, they can successfully bring in all the shades of human experience with all its mystery and buffoonery alike. As livers of life, we must at the very least do this. Knowing that we are fascinating enough and complicated enough and funny enough, we must at every possible moment bring our authentic selves to the forefront and live life from there. That way actors will have more to live up to.
Life is never meant to be an imitation.
-ady
When members of the Moscow Art Theatre stayed in New York and began teaching, young actors flocked to them, many of whom would go on to become some of the most influential performers and teachers in the history of American acting.
These Russian instructors must have been fascinating figures. Maria Ousspenskaya, for example, was a small, intense old woman who drank heavily and chain-smoked cigars. For any young woman trying to find herself in pre-WWII America, this surely was a thrill to behold.
I've said before that I think that these young actors, in trying to learn an entirely new process, mistook the teachers for the work itself. There has always been an emphasis on severity in "authentic" acting in the US. Method acting is often associated with unexplainable misery and twitchy suffering. How is it that "reality" includes so little humor?
The people who brought the notion of authenticity to the US were from a very foreign land, a land who's culture, politics and topography were radically different from our own. They had also come from a land that had just gone through a violent shift and was settling itself into a dark and secretive regime. How was it then that what constituted authenticity for them was so similar to what constituted authenticity for American actors? One could argue the overall unifying power of the human condition, and to a certain extent, I would agree with that, but I'm convinced that we are far too affected by our material realities for that to be a sufficient explanation. I think it was simply that, like many young actors, those original students felt insecure with what they had to offer. The Russian version of authenticity was so much more interesting, and it made them feel more interesting, even if for them it was not actually authentic. I wonder to what extent actors are still trying to imitate those first teachers instead of engaging in the process that was actually being taught - learning to relax enough to tap into what is truly you - all the colors in you - so that you can use it on the stage and be real. So many years and so many words for something so simple.
Acting is imitation only to a certain extent. Stanislavsky had epiphanies that inspired him to seek out more. In furiously trying to duplicate or re-create he sometimes traded the moment-to-moment for studiousness and stumbled often in the process. He was the first, and he was in love with the search, so I hold nothing against him. The young American actors who studied with members of Stanislavsky's troupe saw people embracing life on a level they had never seen and tried to imitate it in an effort to lead bigger lives themselves. Actors today see successful actors they admire and they try to duplicate the spark, but it doesn't work because it isn't their spark. Are we seeing the running flaw here?
In life we sometimes have moments of being utterly connected. For a fleeting moment, we get how it all works and see the universe and its components functoning effortlessly, and we become effortless with it. When it goes, it makes perfect sense that we want it back. Unfortunately, far too often, we attempt to get it back by trying to imitate the original experience instead of trying to connect again. We become rigid instead of relaxed, and rigidity does not lead to epiphany.
We are supposed to experience life on a moment-to-moment basis, always allowing for spontaneous growth and change. Few of us manage this a fraction of the time, but it is the point. In trying to authentically imitate life, actors learn to experience the stage moment to moment. If they do it right, they can successfully bring in all the shades of human experience with all its mystery and buffoonery alike. As livers of life, we must at the very least do this. Knowing that we are fascinating enough and complicated enough and funny enough, we must at every possible moment bring our authentic selves to the forefront and live life from there. That way actors will have more to live up to.
Life is never meant to be an imitation.
-ady
Friday, September 4, 2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
A Place to go...
There is a place that you can go... not a physical place... It is primarily a "mental" place but it also has to do with your emotions and your attitude. Those things are mental too but it's important to point out that you can't go to this place if your attitude is shitty or you are feeling sorry for yourself.
When you're in this place, things that you want come easily to you. When you're in this place you can virtually see your desire manifesting before you. You can feel your part in it all from your physical place and you can also feel the "divine" working with you.
When I am in this place, I feel one with everything, without ever having to take the time to consciously state that to myself. I create beyond my dreams and I have many of the best moments of my life. I find that the more I allow myself to go to this "place" the better I feel.
It's a process and it takes time, especially if you have a tendency to lie to yourself about how wonderful you really are...but you start to feel it and that makes all the difference.
I am at a place right now where I can clearly feel the difference between "then" and "now", maybe for the first time ever, but there will be a little time before my whole life catches up and abundantly reflects the changes going on within me. Not everyone sees it yet. People still see the "old" Clay and some people will choose to cling to that image, even long after I have shed it. That is not in any way important to or detrimental to my process.
At this point, I finally don't need anyone else to see it for it to be real now because I feel it.
When it comes to ourselves, we know where others can only guess. We have all of our answers and possess all that is needed to guide ourselves successfully toward what we want and what we feel we deserve. We are doing it constantly, even in spite of our lack of awareness of it.
Everyone has access to the "place" within themselves that loves instead of criticizes... allows instead of restricts... dances instead of hiding. The thing is, you can't take all of your made up problems and neurosis to this place. It just never works. Only you, the pure, loving, accepting, joyous part of you can get there and when you do... you will see that there are worlds of inspiration, waiting for you to translate them into physical reality. Just be honest and brave. We have all wasted too much time caring too much what everyone else thinks! No one else knows! They can only guess!
I love everybody who reads this and more than that... I love me!
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
-Director
When you're in this place, things that you want come easily to you. When you're in this place you can virtually see your desire manifesting before you. You can feel your part in it all from your physical place and you can also feel the "divine" working with you.
When I am in this place, I feel one with everything, without ever having to take the time to consciously state that to myself. I create beyond my dreams and I have many of the best moments of my life. I find that the more I allow myself to go to this "place" the better I feel.
It's a process and it takes time, especially if you have a tendency to lie to yourself about how wonderful you really are...but you start to feel it and that makes all the difference.
I am at a place right now where I can clearly feel the difference between "then" and "now", maybe for the first time ever, but there will be a little time before my whole life catches up and abundantly reflects the changes going on within me. Not everyone sees it yet. People still see the "old" Clay and some people will choose to cling to that image, even long after I have shed it. That is not in any way important to or detrimental to my process.
At this point, I finally don't need anyone else to see it for it to be real now because I feel it.
When it comes to ourselves, we know where others can only guess. We have all of our answers and possess all that is needed to guide ourselves successfully toward what we want and what we feel we deserve. We are doing it constantly, even in spite of our lack of awareness of it.
Everyone has access to the "place" within themselves that loves instead of criticizes... allows instead of restricts... dances instead of hiding. The thing is, you can't take all of your made up problems and neurosis to this place. It just never works. Only you, the pure, loving, accepting, joyous part of you can get there and when you do... you will see that there are worlds of inspiration, waiting for you to translate them into physical reality. Just be honest and brave. We have all wasted too much time caring too much what everyone else thinks! No one else knows! They can only guess!
I love everybody who reads this and more than that... I love me!
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
-Director
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