stolen new year’s meme; or, defibulator in boldface

In 2008, I gained: the friendship of some beautiful, beautiful people, a chance to get some of my work on its feet, a true appreciation for starlight, a copy of a heart-wrenching novel, and some of the most important life lessons yet.
I lost: a handful of innocence, and a willingness to turn and run.
I stopped: pretending it wasn’t my fault.
I started: fighting for what matters.
I was hugely satisfied by: the table read of Made for Each Other, and the formation of my writing group in general.  One day, you’ll all have your reward.
And frustrated by: Not having a job (yet) and not applying for any internships because of frustration number one.
I am so embarrassed that I: got swept up so easily.
Once again, I: worked for and found redemption, fell back in love with every single member of my family, found new spirituality, started but didn’t finish a wide set of plays.
Once again, I did not: tell anybody their own importance nearly often enough.  and I still haven’t been to Ground Zero…
The biggest physical difference between me last December and this December is: Chances are my hair is a little bit longer, and I think I’m sporting an altogether classier set of clothes these days.
The biggest psychological difference between me last December and this December is: It’s my life, now.
I loved spending time: with almost everyone:  new roommates, the lovely ladies of 1001 and their respective posses of friends, and, remarkably, in Silver 702.  And my one-time stint in the Kraine box office.
Why did I spend even two minutes: with all the wrong people?
I should have spent more time: Writing, browsing CareerNet, and maybe taking Facebook photos?
I regret buying: All the silly things.
I will never regret buying Too Much Light tickets even though with that money I could have bought sustenance.
I passed the buck to other people way too much.

I didn’t patch things up enough.

Judgmental people drove me crazy.
The most relaxing place I went was Central Park, on Awesomeday.
Why did I go to — that first WSN Theater meeting, and then NOT take any assignments?
The best thing I did for someone else was let them be themselves.
The best thing I did for myself was just try to work it out.
The best thing someone did for me was all the everyday things.  and, of course, give me a second chance.
The one thing I’d like to do again, but do it better, is wouldn’t mind another crack at explaining myself to a few people.

thanks, everybody.

jh

curbside activism

Last night, I went to a screening of Invisible Children’s latest documentary, GO. I had never seen the “rough cut,” the original film at the center of the Invisible Children movement, but I thought it was time to get informed one way or the other. The event was hosted by CHILD (not) SOLDIER, a social justice group on the NYU campus that focuses on global issues. I’d seen these guys collecting change outside Weinstein a couple of times, but I hadn’t attended one of their events until last night.

GO turned out to be a pretty impressive documentary. It was an expansion on the first film’s events: as a reward for raising the most money for donations, a small group of high school and college kids got to travel to northern Uganda, where the original footage was shot, and where the crisis is still going on. At first I thought the movie felt a little bit MTV, but its true and unforgettable colors showed through as soon as the activists got off the plane. The country director for Invisible Children’s programs in Uganda itself had to warn the students to fear for their lives. On their own initiative, the students spent a night in the Internal Displacement Camps, where refugees fleeing the civil war are forced to live while the conflict plays itself out. It’s obviously a complicated war, but the basics seem pretty simple to grasp. On one side is the Ugandan government–whose patrols are notorious for corrupt activity across the country. On the other side is the LRA, the rebel organization that forcefully conscripts children into its army. The specifics of the battles are mostly irrelevant, though, since Invisible Children doesn’t take a political stance in the war. It tries only to build avenues for peace and understanding for all of the Ugandans.

At the end of the movie, there was an update that showed the students in Washington DC, talking to people like John Kerry and Barack Obama. In the end, they helped get a bill through Congress that authorized major funding to find a solution in Uganda. One of the program’s roadies, the people who put on the screening, explained to us that the iconic “night commutes” from the first film had all but ended, and that the rebel army had been forced into nearby jungles to hide from the government. It seems like this organization has achieved some real results.

I stayed behind and talked with the roadies after the screening was over. We illegally stopped their giant van outside Kimmel and pissed off a number of Village commuters…all in the name of CHILD (not) SOLDIER and the Invisible Children initiative. The roadies were great people from all walks of life (one was from New York, one was from Australia and one was from the West Coast). They’d traveled to NYC from San Diego in three days, sleeping and eating in the van and subsisting mostly on coffee. I got a very freedom-riders vibe from the crew as one of the roadies leaned out the van’s door to share Invisible Children’s message with some curious pedestrians.

I’m hoping to work further with CHILD (not) SOLDIER in the future. The social justice “scene” at NYU is pretty quiet; I had forgotten how important these issues really are.

They can tell the story much better than I can, so I advise you to check out the Invisible Children site (www.invisiblechildren.com) Here, you can get info on their current missions and even get involved in one of the most important and innovative social justice programs of our generation: the Bracelet Campaign. If you’re an NYU student, I encourage you to learn a little bit more about Atanga Senior Secondary School, the institution we’re partnered with through IC’s Schools for Schools program. You can do this by tracking NYU through the Schools for Schools website. It’s an interesting read.

All this is too important not to share, so tell anybody who’ll listen.

everyone, look at josh.

The first day of classes went about as well as I expected–which is to say, it was pretty great. The two classes that I had today were Fundamentals of Acting I and History of Modern Ireland, 1500-1800. I know they seem like two pretty different areas of study, but my schedule tends to look a bit motley every semester, so it’s no big deal. Anyway, the entire business of going to classes was done by 2:00 or so, which left plenty of time to cruise through Union Square this afternoon with a cup of Coldstone and take in the wondrous late-summer weather (second only to early-autumn weather, in my book).

Fundamentals of Acting was definitely an interesting way to wake up. Going to the Tisch building is both an inspiring and a somewhat painful experience for me. The class is made up almost entirely of people outside the drama department proper (they, of course, already know the fundamentals of their respective studios) and this morning, nobody could find the classroom. When we finally piled in there, something quite remarkable happened. The professor had a number of volunteers sit in the “hot seat” at the front of the class, facing all the other students. He directed the audience to stare directly at the volunteer, so she could feel the real pressure of a live audience. Then, he gave the actor or actress something to focus on, either a physical object or a memory, and told them to examine this subject closely. I was really shocked by how hard it was to look away from some of the people, once they were engaged in what they were doing. Focus is, apparently, a more powerful tool in stagecraft than I first imagined.

History of Modern Ireland seems to be exactly what I was looking for: a low-key elective that would illuminate a new culture and set of beliefs. The professor has a pretty sweet accent and my frequent partner in crime, Jeff, is also in the class, so it looks like a winner for sure.

Random other updates: currently hard at work on my resume, finishing one-act scenes, and collaborating with other NYU artists to get my work informally and unofficially staged. The prospect of a future, one that can be glimpsed right now only in brief flashes, sets pen to paper (or fingers to keys, when I get lucky and have computer access) all on its own. I am going somewhere, despite what some people here at school seem to think.

Finished Fahrenheit 451 today. Bradbury’s descriptions are uniquely haunting. His incisive comments haven’t been blunted at all by the passing of years; if anything, his work is more relevant to our Wikipedia generation than any other. Still, though, I couldn’t help but smile when I pulled out the NYNF menu I’d been using as a temporary bookmark and got to thinking about where theater fit into Bradbury’s dystopia. It was nice to conclude that some things can’t be erased with fire or any kind of violence. Some art forms really will be forever.

Evening, everybody.

beep beep (pow)

I’m trying to do more writing here in general, and I promised I’d do a bit of ranting about the New York Neo-Futurists and their nightly crusade against complacency, so here goes.

I heard about NYNF and their signature show, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, at the end of freshman year. Last year’s Gallatin class was lucky enough to attend one of their performances during orientation, and Natalie (the mind behind Zut Suit Riot), my very best friend from that illustrious school, shared the basic idea of the show with me. Every weekend, on Friday and Saturday (location/time details to follow), the New York Neo-Futurists get together and try to perform thirty of their plays in the span of a single hour. Each play has a number, and the audience members determine the order in which the plays are performed by screaming out these numbers whenever there is a lapse in the action. Too Much Light is guided by the ideals of Neo-Futurism, which means that the actors involved never pretend to be or do anything that isn’t the actual truth. Bertolt Brecht would be proud.

Admission to the show is, true to Neo-Futurist form, up to chance: the cost of a ticket is $10 plus the roll of a six-sided die. Being the thrifty NYU student that I am, I’d picked up a “Skip The Roll $10 Flat Pass,” so last Friday I got through the line a bit quicker. Once I was inside the doors, one of the Neo-Futurists asked for an introduction.

“Hi, what’s your name?” she shouted, and I responded. As though she hadn’t heard, she scratched out the words “Beep Beep (Pow)” on one of those “Hello, My Name Is” stickers and handed it to me. Proud of my new identity, I put the sticker on my shirt and took a seat. Another member of the team handed me my menu for the evening as the audience trickled in. A clothesline above the stage indicated which plays remained to be performed, and a clock onstage kept track of the time. After a quick primer on the format of TML, the troupe hustled into its first performance.

I had my first choice selected–play number twenty-one, “A Dramatization of a Time in Which Joey Realized that He Was, By Extension, a Loser,”–ready to go when the clock started ticking, but another screaming voice in the audience prevailed, and we got to see number eight: “Eight Cups: A Public Service Operetta with Supertitles.” By the time the first play had ended, I was definitely shaking with laughter, and a couple of my friends were looking a bit concerned for me.

Every single item we ordered from the NYNF menu proved to be just as fulfilling. Some, like BOWLS, were enthusiastic laugh riots where the Neo-Futurists got to put all their boundless energy to use (pow! thwack!) Others had a more subtle effect, like Joey’s aforementioned discovery of his own defeat, and a play called “Puppy Avatar!” starring a very furry leader of the free world. But I was most intrigued and affected by the Neo-Futurist’s less traditional work. The very first play on our menu, “Snapshot: Jackson, MS (where she pauses on a hillside to remember…)” was a really engaging little piece of stagecraft. My senses haven’t been quite so shaken by ten seconds of acting in quite a while. “One More Round (just in case)” was a remarkable exercise in collaborative performance, evidence of the NYNF’s strength as a group. One of the plays, “A Series of Stills Plus Music…” had a heart-stopping moment of silent realization, and one called “Marco Polo” elicited a collective “Awww!” from the crowd.

All in all, the Neo-Futurists did in a few minutes what most other shows I’ve seen in NYC can’t do in as many hours. The aesthetic, attitude and structure (if you can call it that) of their weekly performance somehow cut right to the essence of the dramatic art I’m working so hard to master. Every Friday and Saturday, the Neo-Futurists share with their audience something that’s transient, destructible, something worth cherishing simply because it will never, ever happen again. The Neo-Futurists, after all, are constantly in the process of removing old plays and adding new ones–to date, more than a thousand have been produced between NYC and Chicago troupes. These guys were willing to trust me and my fellow audience members with the life and livelihood of their production. They put a lot on the line, weren’t afraid to involve the attendees. Something about that philosophy really compels me.

We didn’t get to see all of the plays, despite my constant glares at the clock and jerky head-motions intended to stop its hands from moving. I’ll definitely be going back, if for no other reason than to see some new plays and try to get thirty at once. I’ve been promised–a charismatic Neo “swore to Christ”–that they’d order pizza if every seat in the house was full for a performance.

I don’t know how many people read this blog, but dammit, I’d like some pizza with my creative, career-choice-affirming, intensely eclectic theater! Let’s make some plans, people.

There’s nothing like seeing/hearing these guys for yourself, so check them out at:

http://www.nyneofuturists.org/site/

Wow, that was WAY longer than I’d anticipated. Worth it though. As a self-proclaimed theater artist, I have a lot to say about these guys. NYNF seems to be committed to making every second on their stage an inspiration. You gotta admire that. I’m hoping to get a slew of new names from the person at the door.

Thanks for reading, more to come

-Beep Beep (Pow)

new faces

the dream descending has, in a sense, gone public. recently added it as my “website” on my facebook profile. this means two things: one, beginning to use my real name on this blog, and two, hopefully, a lot more readers. the quality of the writing probably won’t improve, but it’ll be nice to know that maybe some new people are out there checking this out for the first time. comments, be they constructive, destructive, or instructive, are always welcome. this is a place for conversations.

real entries about the New York Neo-Futurists, first days back at NYU, and my broken computer are on the way.

supplies are endless in the evening; by the morning they’ll be gone.

When everything is lonely, I can be my own best friend.

Welcome to my eleven PM ritual. Since it’s your first time, let me give you the grand tour. It’s just me, sitting here at the computer in complete darkness, accompanied this evening by Bright Eyes and my mug of water. I’ve got a very specific new mug in mind that I’m planning on buying on my first day back in New York City. It was designed by John Allison, one of my favorite comic artists, and it truly deserves the adjective “madcap.” Anything worthy of such a word definitely warrants a purchase in my book. But I digress.

In the book that’s quickly becoming my playwriting bible, To Be a Playwright by Janet Neipris, there’s a helpful bit of advice that I’m trying my best to adopt. Neipris instructs the writer to live as a warrior, and that means some discipline. And that means writing every day. So, when eleven PM–my favorite time of day–hits, I crawl over to my mom’s laptop (sensing my imminent return to school, my laptop decided it was the perfect moment to malfunction) and get to work. It’s been working out well so far, so now I’m making it more or less public. I understand The Dream Descending doesn’t have too many avid readers, but all of you matter…even if it’s just all one of you.

I’ve always been a night person at heart. I always have a hard time falling asleep. Usually it takes at least an hour, and even then it’s a process not unlike Olympic wrestling. I don’t think I’m an insomniac, as a few of my TAs could probably tell you, but something tugs at me to stay awake as soon as the sun goes down. Every important conversation, every moment of connection I can recall has happened under cover of darkness, from stone steps to closed-down coffee shops. It’s just the way my mind works. Someday I’ll write another post about the importance of physical illness to the craft of writing.

Now that I’m on the subject of biology, let me just rave for a spare second or two about neuroscience. My suitemate last year was looking into a course called Brain and Behavior, and frankly, it creeped me out more than a little bit. It’s strange to think about all the electricity crackling up there in the human brain, all the ideas going back and forth. Can you really cram that into a lab manual? It’s more than just ones and zeroes, more than just neuro-transmitters, I’m sure of it. Even if we could read it, all that code…well, just knowing your ABCs doesn’t make you a poet. There’s something that stitches us all together, ties the double helix around itself and keeps it from unraveling, something more than chemistry. And that’s the only thing in the world worth fighting for. So, when I’m living as a warrior, that’s my banner. Stand aside.

Pandora might be my new favorite website ever. The station it’s designed for me based on the work of Joanna Newsom (favorite singer, constant inspiration, and off-again on-again celebrity crush for yours truly) is taking my head in all kinds of crazy directions and generally making me feel like a cultured, elitist indie-kid. And that’s always a plus.

Work is beginning on the as-yet-untitled WWI play; its form is shifting constantly and I can’t get a handle on its dramatic arc just yet. I can’t let go of the feeling that brings me back to it, though. Your high-school friend can share your locker, sure, but would you put your life in his hands? And–if you can’t–then what’s your life worth, anyway, a little trembling puddle on the ground that no one can hold?

See you guys tomorrow night.

a ring returns

ours is the chipped, cracked world of the second-rate gemstone.

nothing glimmers, nothing shines like a lingering dream.

on the ground there’s noise.

the heartbeat of this world is a buzzing alarm clock,

sharp sound stinging, a honeybee hungry for death

and all our sweetness is bound up in what’s cast away.

on the ground there are no glittering veins of gold,

no caches of silver to tempt the traveler

our cities and ceilings, cradle and coffin alike

are cut from stones only half worth having.

above our heads, amber, heavy with crackling insects,

below us, agate, swirling with imperfection

thieves of light, weights eternal,

this is the earth,

on the ground this is home

to a semi-precious human race.

doctor horrible, world war one, and why everything important happens in july.

It’s been a while.

For the few of you who’ve managed to stumble your way here from elsewhere on this great series of tubes, welcome back. Hope your seat-belt is still securely fastened.

Joss Whedon has recently graced us with pretty much the greatest forty-three-some-odd minutes yet seen on the internets: Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog. If you didn’t watch it back in its heyday, you’ve missed your chance for the moment; it’s no longer available free online. You could be like me and watch some of the songs on Youtube (On the Rise, Brand New Day, and A Man’s Gotta Do are my personal highlights), or you could support further excellence from Whedon’s crew and buy it on iTunes. Either way, I highly recommend checking it out.

In response to a playwriting contest by NoTechTheater (not sure I’m spelling that correctly, will have to do some recon to confirm) I’ve begun work on a play set during the first World War. It’s based on some past-life meditation I did with Frazier. It doesn’t demand attention like my other various brain-children (which will all be elaborated upon here sooner or later) but it’s got a few images that I can’t put out of my mind. I envision an America in the grip of an unrelenting fever dream, a headstrong kid who’s outgrown his Superman undies but dares to take to the skies anyway. What kind of morals did we have then, that we’ve lost now? Why can we still look back on that struggle, on that world choked with mustard gas and the tears of a nation burying its innocence, and convince ourselves that we were the good guys?

Lastly, and maybe least importantly, basically everything important happens at the end of July, no exceptions.

I’ll keep you posted.

J. Joseph

the amazing adventures of The Playwright

We live in a world where Batman fights with Superman.  We got no time for mistakes.

Welcome to life in Gotham City Metropolis New York, which is basically a place where would-be superheroes go to don their spandex.  It’s full of convenient back alleys where Bruce Wayne’s parents might get shot and high buildings from which the Joker can be thrown to his almost-demise.  It’s got graveyards and public parks–sometimes in the same place.  It’s got weird cafes and homeless people who spend grimed-over quarters on Jane Austen novels instead of booze.  It’s a city where one subway stop can be the Odyssey, but where one wrong turn at night might mean the Inferno.

And right now, it’s home.

I’m here to break it all down, to sort out which street-corners and downtown lofts are golden calf and which are lamb of God.  I’ve seen so many movies and read so many words about this place that I can’t be sure whether it’s Carrie Bradshaw’s city or Mark Cohen’s.  Needless to say, I’ve got a lot to figure out, and I’ve decided to do it in the most roundabout way I can think of:  writing about it.

That’s the mission statement of The Dream Descending:  to interrogate, to explore, and to challenge.  I’m not promising that by the end of the day, I’ll have figured anything out.  In fact, I’ll probably just scribble all over this page, and you’ll look at it and say, “I could’ve written that.”  You’ll wonder why I decided to write a post in praise of the Downstein burger.  By the time I stop writing, I’ll basically be back where I started.

Then I’ll have done my job, I guess.

I guess I’ll finish with credit where it’s due–

Joshua Joseph am I, a Kosmos, of mighty Manhattan the son

This one’s for you, Walt.