Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Personal

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I am not a terrific actor. I have zeal, and am unafraid, but i always balk at surrendering myself entirely to a persona that is not wholly my own. Acting, for me, is a series of motions, and when i am acting i string them together as fluidly as possible. Sometimes, though, i know the movements and the words so cold that i stop speaking and let the character speak through me. Those are the moments when i am truely an actor.

Despite not thoroughly mastering the art of acting, i am slowly becoming more aware of the acting of others. I can see, now, the vast difference between motions being gone through and characters. This sight has turned live theatre into something much nearer to a sporting event for me, but what it has truly revolutionized is the screen. No longer can i appreciate overwrought dramas or lightweight sitcoms, where the actors are just punching the lines in all the right places; acting is not pummeling. No longer can i endure even the most viscerally executed CG action sequences; not if i have to suspend my disbelief in the characters doing the fighting.

It might sound like a revolution of criticism, but that’s only because the standards for what we call “actors” have sunk so low. Suddenly i get the point of the Academy Awards — they are not to award the most favorite actors for the most fun roles. No. They are for the actors who chose not to appear in their movies, instead letting their characters speak for themselves.

I wish i could do it, but for the time being i am content to appreciate it. I am more than content to drink up masters like Ian McKellen, who skips from playing fairytale heros and villians to portraying the imperfections of real life without skipping a beat. I love ensembles, like the one on West Wing, who are so in on the show that i have trouble watching them on talk shows and award ceremonies when they are just being themselves.

I like that I can see this all now, a layer beyond the story and the movement and the words. Yay for college education.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/11/106870870418760368/

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Aim refused to get drunk before our interminable night class on Monday, so instead we stuffed ourselves silly with bubble tea and made a list of think I could do in June.

1. Graduate; get a job in Philly. Pros include staying in the same physical area with the same social network, which incurs lower cost and promotes mental stability. Cons include feeling as though i’m starring in my own personal version of The Truman Show or, alternately, reminding myself how pathetic my life is on a weekly basis. (Note: Cons do not apply if employed by the University of Pennsylvania or Philadelphia Magazine)

2)Graduate; get a job away from Philly. Includes the major benefit of living independently somewhere other than here. Detractions include lack of startup capital, moving all of my stuff, having to buy a car, and the fact that I don’t think my dozen closest friends are going to set-up a schedule where at least one of them is crashing on my couch at all times. At least, not without some prompting.

3)Graduate; attend grad school. Combines academic challenge with possible relocation. My already-existing student loans and the fact that the letters G, R, & E often induce a panic attack are definite detractions, as is the fact that i’d rather gnaw my arm off than go to class lately. (Note: Detraction #2 is waved if I pull a Martha).

4)Graduate; go abroad to do something worthwhile. Pros include buying a backpack guitar and getting a new passport photo. Oh, and changing the rest of thr world a little bit while potentially padding my resume. Cons include putting the rest of my life on hold for a year, airfare, immunizations, the fact that I barely speak anything other than English, and paying hiked-up import prices for new records.

5)Graduate; become a Rock Star. I know that almost everyone wants to be famous but, lets face it, most people have no particular reason to get famous no matter how much they want to be. I used to be most people; in high school i had a recurring fantasy invoked while singing in the shower. It involved me singing in the shower (wait for it…) only to be interrupted by an astute questions posed by my interviewer from Rolling Stone, who i had permitted to join me in the bathroom to facilitate his interview but promptly forgotten once faced with my audience/shower-fixtures. I could conceivably make this a reality. Pros to this include the fact that there’s really no reason for me not to be famous – i’ve got decent songs, a decent voice, and am decently cute (which is more than i can say of any new band i’ve heard/seen within the last month). Cons include that since becoming a rock star is not a definable career choice, and i can’t obtain job security or a future through attempting it, i have relegated it to a back burner for over half a decade so that it’s never really close to reality. Also, it’s a lot of hard work, and schlepping around with my guitar, and believing in myself.

This is what i do while i’m supposed to be blogging, if there is such a time of day. Feel free to share your opinions, additional pros and cons, or alternate options.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/11/106866494839649888/

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We are spiders, though only showing half of our limbs to the casual viewer. Yes, we have just four to walk stairs and climb ladders with, but there are others — for social ascent, occupational strides, and hanging on to love, maybe, though they could be for anything else.

We are spiders, and we trail a single string of us, our history and opinions and experiences, and as we turn in circle upon circle we leave behind a complex web of people and places that are bound to us.

We are spiders, and things get caught in our lives. Stuck in our web, they flail madly and desperately to escape, but wind up inexorably tied to all of our people and places as they thrash, leaving our once-perfect display of natural geometry in a tangle of bent angles and broken connections.

We are spiders, and our webs are not permanent structures. They can be elaborately expanded upon, or casually discarded, leaving us with just that single string of thread to create anew.

We are spiders, spending our whole lives weaving and catching and crawling and expanding, but sometimes the old web seems in such a state of disrepair that we should take our single thread and start again, keeping some elements but eschewing the rest, leaving our old structures to decay on the branches we hung them upon.

We are spiders, and I am arachnophobic.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/10/106762895148663779/

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I just got back a midterm marked: No complaints – a solid effort. The comment is nice enough, but it doesn’t seem to match up with a 48/50 grade. Maybe if he had used an exclamation point…

As i walked from class, preoccupied with mentally arguing over the .4 i had lost on an earlier question on Security Dilemma, i stopped for a moment to consider who i would say that to. Certainly not someone who did a nearly perfect job, that’s for sure. It’s the sort of thing i would say to an anonymous member of upper management who managed to make conversation about Drexel or the Eagles or my guitar or some other nonsense with me for an entire elevator ride up to my department on 35 … “No complaints, sir, that was a solid effort.” It’s the kind of thing i say about decent lasagna made by non-Italians, or about opening acts who i have no intention of hearing again. It usually does not accompany a 96% approval rating — more like a 88%, or maybe even a 79%. I would have been perfectly happy with “solid effort” and an 88%, or with my 96% and “Outstanding job – you should expand upon this topic in your paper.” But what i’ve got leaves me feeling … eh.

What the hell am i going to be a stark raving perfectionism about after i’m done with this nonsense in (checks watch) seven and a half months?

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/10/106736429862474693/