The Forge

Whether due to my presentation having had the semblance of potential or the number of male auditions being disproportionate to the number of male roles to be filled, i haven't the foggiest--either way providence has selected for me the role of William.

A quick read-through shows that William has only a handful of lines, and that his role is comically tragic, as he is in love with a woman who--zounds!--shall choose over him to be betrothed to a clown.

Anyhow, it's a small part, but a fun scene, and exactly what i was looking for when i said i wanted "a position that will get me used to being in front of an audience without giving me a chance to make a real fool of myself."

So, bravo.

William it is!

So that was audition number two in my scintillating attempt to get on a stage (that is to say, while the curtain is not drawn). We'll see, tomorrow, how that fares, but in the meantime, some observations.

I have notoriously been harsh when it comes to the acting demographic. The division i noted was and shall always be in existence, however not nearly to the extent that my paranoid self claimed in earlier, less experienced postings. In our first acting class, the instructor noted the great importance of not shunning technicians, something i know all too well from having worked nothing but (tech, that is) in previous shows.

But when it comes to auditions, i'm stepping into actor territory.

And although theatre ought to be a fun place for people of all walks to gather, i understand that there are many who either a. are terrified of never getting stage opportunities again after leaving college, or b. need as full an acting resume as possible in aspirations for a career in the field. In either case, there are a limited number of positions on a cast and everyone auditioning ostensibly wants in. Friends or not, the moments before stepping out onto the stage each person has one thing on his or her mind: i'm going to put forth my best, and i sure hope it's better than everyone else's best.

And i understand that such feelings are mutual among actors. Allow me to step outside my usually narrow viewpoint to make the observation that tension even between the seasoned veterans of the acting troupe is fairly high. And then you throw someone like me, the technician, into the mix.

I imagine it's a rather humorous circumstance to be in, for the actor, seeing me walk through the door and fill out a sheet. It's as if we're awaiting tryouts for the high school track team, and everyone else a runner. They recognize me as someone whose experience with running the extent of which, to date, has been running the stopwatch. This almost guarantees that i've no acting chops (something i'll fully admit--this is all about experience at this point) and, for the most part, stand little chance of acquiring their part. Which allows for some small talk, some joking around, because i pose no threat whatsoever.

I like the idea though. The play we're doing this year is Shakespeare's "As You Like It," and from what i understand there are 20 male roles. Assuming that this includes fringe characters, i see myself not after any sort of leading role but simply a position that will get me used to being in front of an audience without giving me a chance to make a real fool of myself. You don't become CEO at a major corporation upon entering (unless you're Eisner)--you enter as the janitor, and maybe advance from there. Yet there's no clear way of suggesting your intentions when you audition--no mop and bucket to make clear what you're here for--and as such you must appear at least somewhat audacious as you take the stage and, in my case, fumble.

Let me clarify, before you jump on that word--fumble. I have never acted, and my last audition attempt was half-hearted (i'd like to think of this as more 3/4-hearted). Therefore i have no standard of comparison to judge my performance by, except that of the more seasoned performers. So when i say i fumbled, i mean only to say that the bit of practicing i did before a webcam in my dorm room this afternoon was tighter and a little bit more entertaining than what happened when i stepped before Ketler Auditorium this evening. Granted, i'd not planned to audition (i only signed up today around 2 p.m.) and as such i can't be expected to have prepared as diligently as those who've had their eyes set on a role since the day they stepped foot on campus this semester. Not really an excuse, but more of a slight reprieve for me.

As to the others auditioning, i indicated that my key reason for attending was to watch what i considered successful auditions (or not so successful, depending on your experience, i'd guess) and, either way, take notes on what struck me as well-done, something that i could try to emulate in the future (like, say, tomorrow when i audition for the one-acts). The list i compiled was somewhat short (there were not very many people left to audition after me) but here it stands:

Location-specific accents are a great way to showcase your abilities, if you have any. One performer had a great Southern drawl (far more developed--and, i should think, more oft-used--than the British accent i slobbered over during my take) and, despite the fact that this was a Shakespeare role, demonstrated her willingness to toss aside the normal speech patterns if her character had no use of them. I suppose my best accent is Aussie, so i ought to have gone for that (or maybe something French?).

Movement with purpose. That's it. Despite a minute amount of blocking i'd attempted in my dorm rehearsals, i remained almost frighteningly still on-stage. Hm... i guess that's stage fright, huh? I wasn't afraid to move, i simply forgot to. Speaking of which...

I also forgot about verbal pacing. The point of a good delivery versus a poor one is that the same words are presented in a different way. It's almost funny in hindsight that all of the pauses i took on-stage were supposed to be lines and all of the hurried lines i delivered were supposed to come after well-mimed pauses. No one prepares everything he is going to say ahead of time, and thus neither would any well-played character. This, i noticed, is perhaps the best mark of a good performer: the ability to speak in a way that allows you to forget they are reciting someone else's words.

Universal humor is another thing i ought to have considered. Granted, i had limited resources, but even then i forgot about the option to use film/television as subject matter for my comic piece. Desperately i scanned my bookshelf for something amusing and found a Bill Bryson book--a type of humor i find subtly hysterical--and selected a passage. The issue is that most people don't appreciate British humor, and Bryson's is usually drawn-out (thus impossible to fully demonstrate in a 60-second snippet). Which reminds me...

What was up with the time limit? I guess it was a frame of reference, but it seems that (based on the several-minute monologues delivered un-impeded by the director) the 60-second parameters were "more like guidelines than actual rules." In the future, i'll try to remember that time is not my master: it's better to have a longer piece with a bigger punch (and be prepared to stop if asked) than to be succinct and then awkwardly stop where the writer never intended you to do so.

That was pretty much all that i gathered from the other performers, although i noticed in reflection a major problem with my approach today. I made, it seems, the mistake of thinking that just because i like to (and often succeed at) making people laugh, my character doesn't necessarily need to be the jester. I find i am also drawn to violent, sinister characters, and so perhaps in the future i will attempt a villain rather than a hero.

Well, i just figured i'd let everyone know that i went out for another audition. In the excitement, i forgot to call home, which is kinda crappy, but there's always the weekend.

In the out-on-a-really-long-and-questionably-firm-limb event that i get a part, i'll update tomorrow (Friday, for those of you who aren't up til all hours of the night) with that info. Otherwise assume what i'm assuming now--that this has been naught more than a learning experience, and a good one at that.

My new desk is set up in such away that, from time to time, i can look up from my computer screen and directly down the street and into the obscurity of my vision. That is to say, my desk is under a window.

There is not an inherent problem with windows that i would like to address. They are beautiful things, designed to let light intercept what would otherwise be sheer darkness, and therefore admirable on principle. Most people look out windows to see if there is anything worth participating in outside. I look out my window to see if there is anything worth observing. And that makes all the difference.

I recently was assigned to read an article for my American Literature class that brought to my attention a huge problem with the way my generation, and i in particular, exist in the world today (this, by the way, is the time where you read that article before continuing, since what i'm about to say won't make a whole lot of sense without having done so).

The truth is, all of the observations that Mark Edmundson makes about my generation are, tragically, quite accurate. I had to laugh at the different scenes he described--scenes like the cell-phone whip-out at the end of classes, the facebook-checking during classes, the personal soundtrack on the way to classes--each something with which i could easily identify. But Edmundson's point isn't that my generation is overly intimate with technology or that we have a vendetta against the world we inhabit. No, his point is far graver: in our endeavor to be everywhere at once, we have ceased being anywhere at all.

I have been raised, at no individual's fault in particular, to believe that i should be ever-setting goals for myself, that i should always "keep my eye on the prize"--in effect, that i should live for the future. And while having direction in one's life is never a bad thing (and in fact, something i'm sorely lacking at present), i think a distinction ought to have been made somewhere that living for today was okay too.

Which is another problem, because when i say "live for today" a lot of people break out in carpe diem and think--as Edmundson indicates--that the only way to truly live is to be constantly on the go, in case the world we know and (think we) love suddenly crashes down and we're stuck where we are. And the natural course of logic presented here is that where we are is precisely where we never want to be. It's a last resort to actually inhabit your current location, and to be stuck in the "here" is the thing you end up living in fear of every day.

And that's the reason i have a problem with how i set my desk up under a window. Every day i look out and see friends throwing a disc around, or on their way to eat, or simply going somewhere to hang out and chat. But i stay here, browsing the web in an entirely mindless way, smiling at the thought that, isn't it nice to see Jack and Jill enjoying the beautiful weather?

What? What happened there? Why am i not running out to enjoy the beautiful weather myself?

That's a tough answer. The fact is, i like staring out windows. Because whatever's on the other side of the window isn't where i am, and the knowledge that there's a somewhere else is the only thing that gets me through some days. But am i really getting through? Have i actually been living if i've spent all day imagining i weren't doing so?

Sadly, no.

So i must conclude that i've spent a tremendous amount of time not living. So, first step in my little road to recovery? Get out.

It's the second step that i need help with. See, i clearly have a sort of Jekyll/Hyde issue when it comes to my social life. In some situations, i'm wildly outspoken, laugh loudly, and in fact probably could deal with shutting up every now and then. But other times, times where most people would raise their head and shout someone's name in response to the happiness brought on by seeing them, i duck my head down a little deeper and hope i'm not noticed.

I need to learn not only to get out, but to say hi to Jack and Jill and ask if i can join in the disc tossing. I need to learn to take initiative.

But in the meantime, could you do me a huge favor? Gimme a little push. If you see me walking past on the sidewalk, looking at my feet, yell at me.

Okay, not yell, but maybe something like "heads up, buddy." Maybe that's all it takes. Maybe i need to know i'm seen. Even if i've been seen all along.

And in return, i'll do my best to keep the head up.
And, you know,

Live a little.

Arriving at Grove City College for a second year has, as it were, awakened in me a sense of life that was gone a week ago, such lack the basis of my decision to hold up on the posting. Audrey had a valid point--that The Forge is as much for me as it is for anyone else--and hers is a point that i myself encouraged previously (see 'the emo complex').

Nevertheless, The Forge was doing as little for me as it was for the friend i mentioned. I don't want anyone to imagine that my decision to stop posting was due to a reliance on outside support for motivation; i have gone much of my life without anyone clearly supporting what i've been doing, and have no problem with pursuing a course of action without support so long as i feel it's the right thing to do. Sometimes that leads to my undoing, but often it doesn't (and even when it does, there's always a lesson to be learned).

It occurs to me that saying i'm changing my mind today would be rather pathetic (it being but a week since i made the decision) and besides, my mind hasn't changed: the forge does need to be reborn properly, and i do need to figure out a direction for both it and my life before i can make any sort of progress at all.

Yet there's that voice in the back of my head that's been screaming ever since i stepped foot on campus grass. It's saying "screw this. i want to write!"

So i'll tell you what. I figured out a way to compromise, a way to maintain the scattered humanity that the forge has been while creating a filter for people interested only in the uplifting aspects of my writing. It's not ready for an official unveiling yet (i want to actually format a bit, rather than deal with these stupid presets), however i can say that the empyreal forge is going to be a bit more like my ideal blog than this forge has been.

That's it for now. Except maybe i'll recommend that you check out a band i recently found called "The Morning Of." Their song "Reverie" is incredible.

-Adam

I was recently talking with a good friend of mine and the subject of this blog came up. He said, in a rather straightforward fashion, "I remembered why i don't read your blog. I checked it the other day, and i read the post about...and the post about...and then i stopped. I don't enjoy reading it. It doesn't do anything for me...you seem depressed."

And although my initial response was indignation, after some reflection i've come to realize how startlingly accurate his analysis of the blog is. For all the promoting i've done for this handful of entries, it has come down to nothing more than a scattered, disjointed collection of thoughts, sometimes happy, often sarcastic, and lately brooding. Without direction, it has become "a tale told by an idiot."

I used to enjoy doing this--i'd have something happen to me and think "oh my god. this is going to be a great blog." I'd postpone other activities so i could finish writing, and then i'd enjoy hearing people's reactions. Sometimes i'd have half a dozen people tell me that such-and-such entry had made their day, and that was enough to keep me going.

But i've changed. And as i've changed, so has this blog. I said, not so long ago, that my purpose is to entertain, and to make people laugh. That, too, is the purpose of this blog.

But right now, that is something i cannot do, something i cannot be. There are a lot of dark clouds gathered overhead in my life and until i've worked them out, there's no way i can be the man i've wanted to be, the man this blog was supposed to help me become.

And so, until further notice, i am closing down the forge. It will sit here, stagnant, until i've worked out who i want to be, and then what i want this to be.

I hope you understand, and if you would like me to send you an e-mail when i reopen, just send me a message or comment or e-mail. It will probably get depressing to come back here and see nothing new for the next couple months, if it comes to that.

Again, thank you. This place has been one of learning and meeting, one i hope will flourish in the future. But for now, it shall be laid to rest.

-Adam "Mr. Smith" Bogert

"Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

new surrender.

Hey guys, Stephen wrote a description on the album title, check it out below:

we will all come to the point in our life where we have to admit that we
feel defeated, that something has conquered us.
we must change, not because we want to, but because we desperately
have to. we can not take life in its current suffocating state, even to
admit such desperation shows that we are feeling deserted,
wandering the barren desert,
a shell of our former selves.

it is only up from here, it is impossible to sink any lower into ourselves
or our circumstances.
but we can be salvaged, a deliverance.
no vice can stand, no fix can take.
the thorn in the side can be removed,
but you have to be willing to admit and surrender.
surrender your habits,
your lifestyle,
your past,
your present,
and your future.
this is your new surrender.
the new surrender.

new surrender.

Seems like anberlin is writing the soundtrack to my life again.
New surrender it is, then.

I sat in the passenger seat, gazing down the highway and up at the sprawling sky above it. I'd been doing a similar thing all day, but it struck me that the trees were a bit darker now than they'd been several hours ago. The clouds were a little bit more menacing, and some of the cars passing on the other side had their headlights on. Evening was upon us.

And that's when i was struck by the notion that i was living in a very, very little box. My little box has a clock in the corner with twelve little points on its little face. I've come to understand that when the little hand on the little face has hit each of the little points two times, a little box in time has closed, opening a new little box for me to inhabit. There is no continuity in my little boxes, there is simply the inevitable, unstoppable progression of separate little units wherein only menial little tasks can be accomplished.

But that's not what life is supposed to be, not at all. Life is supposed to be one huge open-ended chain of possibilities. The clocks can be tossed out the window for all it matters, because all they really do is help us keep our cages locked up. And when we stop living in little boxes, the tasks we can accomplish are suddenly huge, meaningful, and can have eternal consequences.

I've been compartmentalizing my entire life. Despite every word i've ever uttered about being the same person in the dark as in the light, despite every time my integrity has been complimented, i've been living a series of well-calculated, well-separated lies. Actually, calling it a series isn't quite right--it implies progress. No, i've just been living in a collection of lies, each seemingly truthful when taken alone but disgusting when viewed together.

I'm not necessarily talking about a Jekyll/Hyde sort of scenario. I am, in mannerisms, speech, attitude, and most other manifestations of character the identical person in all areas of my life. God knows i have my dark secrets, but then He and i are working those out.

The point is that i have thus been unable to amalgamate the different facets of my life that i tend to otherwise list together as the parts of my whole. My church life, my school lives (here in Pawling and that at GCC), my gaming life, my family life; each is its own entity, only rarely overlapping with another and then in an entirely accidental way.

When i'm at college, i am engulfed by all that college implies. My friends, my home, my elders, my time, my activities are all located on or in proximity to the campus, and the world beyond that locus fades to the faintest of my thoughts. I'm sure my friends and family have noticed a sharp diminution in contact during the months i am not among them, but i don't think i've been much concerned with it.

The same can be said with each of the areas i listed earlier. When i am with the circle of friends i formed while in the Pawling school system, i tend to forget about the other friends. It has only rarely crossed my mind to intermingle, and while such experimentation has certainly not ended poorly, it has evidently not been successful enough for my subconscious to raise it as a suggestion more often than extremely occasionally.

My recent trip to Maine brought together a different, extraordinarily tight-knit collective of friends and family that drove me to (despite my numerous facebook updates) largely ignore or put off anything outside of Maine that might have been vying for my attention. Granted, this was somewhat the point of driving ten hours away, but the fact remains that i left messages from old roommates and new acquaintances by the wayside, unable to mentally deal with them until i had returned to the world from whence they'd come.

I mentioned in my previous update that i feel a strong need to redirect my life. Part of that, i'm discovering, is integrating the parts of me into something i can live with on a daily basis. I fully know that i wish to maintain good relations with friends and family on all levels, whether here in my own house or overseas via an xbox live connection. And the first step in doing that is to accept the fact that, as much as my mind wants me to, i cannot create barriers between the different dimensions of my life. It's nothing but self-deception.

As i looked at that darkening sky today, i realized that the sky was only really that dark because the massive terrestrial ball i am on was spinning, and that the point i inhabited was slowly moving to the side facing away from the sun. The glorious sunlight that i'd been enjoying a few hours earlier was now, in a limited sense, shining down on friends in California.

Viewing our lives in a limited sense is comfortable, and helps us deal with changes by pretending that they have not eradicated the past, but simply created a different present. But string theories can only take us so far, and besides all we are doing is trapping ourselves in little boxes.

Only when we accept the largeness of life can we truly begin to live it.