bit part

I think I've done it! Moved from fantasy to the quest of an attainable dream.
First of all, let me innumerate my tragic assortment of paradoxical qualities. For one, I jabber without a single eye-blink before vast crowds (for better or for worse). Assigned a chapel seat "down front" in college, I realized, one morning, I was still standing when the organ cranked up the service. (Picture this in slow motion ...) I turned, looked behind me at five thousand of my peers, all looking my way. Whoo! Wow! I grinned, I waved, I finally sat down.
I also have a fair dose of audacity. And a ... secret longing for the theater. Enter the tragical paradoxical: I have a "tin ear" for acting. So, it's a pitiful whine of a longing, never to be fulfilled. (Though my parents were in plays, and took me to innumerable plays growing up.)
Auditions after auditions, from Cheaper by the Dozen in the tenth grade, to Into the Woods, a few months ago. So many, that the audition's kind of become "the thing." If an audition-reviewer had been there, this past summer, he'd most-definitely have noted my rousing rendition of "Rainbow High!" from Evita at the Little Theater.
This past Monday night would have been the pinnacle of my auditioning career -- to become my alter ego, Aldonza (Man of La Mancha). Aldonza, who sings, "kitchen slut!" and all manner of thrillingly despairing lines at the TOP of her beautiful lungs. The Aldonza I listened to as a child, over and over (my parents had the record). Doubtless, why I am so warped.
But I didn't go, Monday. Because, you know what? I think I actually, for real, might like a go at the stage. Just once. Which is hard to admit, because I have friends who are the real deal (maybe I'll sneak off to another state).
But just to taste it. Once. To get it out of my system. A few weeks in those mysterious shadows, behind the red curtains.
I may blaze with the fiery spirit of Aldonza! (ha!) but, with my ability, I wouldn't truly enjoy trying to play her on stage.
This year, 2007, I want to aspire to something real. A bit part. Which, to me, would be more thrilling than the breathless silence of an audience, just subjected to my heart-wrenching wail of a woman, "spawned in a ditch, by a mother who left her there; naked and hungry, and too cold to cry." (I can't say I blame her, I'm sure she left hoping that I'd have the good sense to die.)

I Deserved That

Hey, Christian folks -- read this blog. For one, I love the writing. Which makes the ripping-out of my guts all the more horrible. Don't read to agree or disagree -- just learn.
I wish the only thing he had to say about Christians was, "There was this guy at work who spent all Saturday helping me move."

http://www.brentrasmussen.com/log/node/363

Punk Write

I don't know if on-line guy-meeting is for me, because it involves writing. And writing's where I love to shout, rage, rave and basically, act the loon. I mean it! Everything I'm saying! With a world of thought and conviction! But the keyboard's still a 61-piece drum set, and I am the spiky-haired, tatted, two-drumstick-twirling punk. (Despite the limitations of my talent and skill.)
We're not entirely what we create, you know. I don't think Stephen King chats up the grocery clerk with, "Gray day outside! Kind of like the mottled coat of a ressurrected Yorkie." Monet wasn't a blurry smear of color; he didn't dash along hallways marking blurry smears, or smear YOU with blurry smears.
I once wrote to a guy I was just getting to know. A fellow creative. We ate supper one night, and the only thing I really remember him saying was a thin, dismissive: "weird." Which I've carried between my ribs since. Doubtless, something I'd written gave him that impression.
I have a few optional responses to my dilemma. Channel the inner Ritalin when it comes to the simple, communicative e-mail. Very good. Also, maybe I can do what the Apostle Paul couldn't even pull off: meld a mild personality with bold, vivid letter-writing.
I don't want to tame words, though. I want them to dance through a meadow like the townsfolk in the Safety Dance video. Give me a meldody -- a plot, a point -- and I'll crank it up as far as it'll go. Just be glad I'm not in your basement.

Something Like Shawshank Redemption

But not involving sewers (or emotionally gripping characters or situations). Independent filmmaker, I envision a cubicle, maybe seventh floor of your average office building. A woman, entombed in her gray box glances nervously right, left, before crouching and lifting a square of her carpet, cut with a razor. It resembles a hatch, a shaft, leading down so far the tiny square of light, shining like a diamond. A deep breath, one more glance, and she begins her descent.
Now, I think the hook to all this is: everyone really wants to see what's under the floor. Really. Literally, and what's between floors. Right? Cut carpet, wires, foam ceiling tiles, dust. Spiders. And what's at the bottom? You'll just have to wait for Sundance, or Cannes.

funky fonts

I think Christianity-in-postmodernism is all about Christian books and Bibles in funky fonts.