halloween and other things

went to a halloween party saturday night with bill. well, i went as a photocopy of bill and he went as a photocopy of me. bill has the weirdest, greatest ideas.

the party was hosted at this guy's loft here in chicago. there was a huge party there for the Chicago Improv Festival earlier this year. i felt really stupid. not because of my costume (i've always wanted to get inside bill's skin and see what makes him tick.) but because i've been in chicago for two years and i knew hardly any one at this "improv" shindig. it makes me feel the last couple years have been wasted. and it really made me miss austin and the group of friends i'm going to be hanging out with in LA, all Austin transplants. i knew more people when it was during the festival because i know more improv folks from other cities than i do from chicago. it's like when people ask me about someone i might have known in film school and i just have to tell them i was a bad film student and was just doing theatre all the time. i've had the same core group of friends since high school. that's sad and great all at once.

bill and i walked through the party, no one understanding our costumes because they had no idea who"bill" and "jeremy" were. we just looked like we had garbage bags taped to ourselves in the low trance party lighting. it was packed pretty tight with people i recognized from seeing them on stage. there were even a few people i was in a group with from about a year ago; a failed Playground incubator troupe. i would see them before they saw me and be sure not to look in their general direction. in all cases i avoided contact with them. god, i suck. i've had repeated incredibly sparce interaction with them over the past year or so. it's always the same how are things going-i don't know you at all even though i was in a group with you for five months conversation. really annoying chit chat that i need to learn how to subject myself to.

so i started to imagine if the same party was in austin. what would everyone be wearing? who would be talking to who? who would be dancing on the dancefloor which was pretty much non-existent at this increasingly lame party? bill got some alcyhol. i got a water and felt even more pathetic. i finished it fast so people wouldn't see my lameness in my hand. my hand that was covered by a facsimile of bill's hand. our costume worked best when one of us would wear the mask and the other wouldn't because then we had the same face. eventually we decided it would be better if we switched masks and wore our own faces so when people asked who we were, we could lift the mask and say, "Myself." It got a few laughs from strangers who I'll never see again.

ran into an old improv acquaintance who ran in a different circle back in the day. he's just moved up here to study prov and do the whole scene. it was nice to talk to someone i knew in a social setting who i don't live with for a change.

the whole night just put my panties in a bit of a bunch (i was really playing the part of bill with the unicorn panties.) it's probably just my brain but moving out of chicago is getting to be more and more what i want and the move-date seems to get further and further as time passes. like i'm running down a hallway in poltergeist or looking at a shark from the beach (those were pretty obscure film nerd references if you missed that.) Anyway, as time passes, it slows and might actually be going backwards. kind of like that khronos projector... i think.

anyway, there was a lot of fun to be had last night at the party. i just wish things were different.

_____________

walking in new york back in september i had a strange idea.

the place i was staying was about a mile's walk from the train and i did a lot of walking in general in new york, but i got a very strange brainstorm on one trip. i want to have my funeral before i die. i realize it's a morbid and selfish wish but i want to see who gives a damn about me and comes to my funeral. i want as many people as can to get up and say what they want. i want to know how i've affected people. this would only work if i had some kind of terminal illness and knew i was gone in 3 months or something. it would be in a huge catholic cathedral yet have absolutely no religious overtones or rituals. i would sit in the back, probably in a wheelchair and sunglasses just for effect, and when it was over i would stand up and walk out not talking to anyone. then i would meet everyone at an ihop and we would have lunch and pretend i wasn't already dead. it's totally egotistical to ask for everyone to focus on me and tell me what they think of me. me. me. i can't help the thoughts that are in my head, though, and we're all egotistical to a certain point. i just wanted to share that strange idea with you. a strange idea that would make for a great documentary. make me out to be the egomaniacal improv bastard in the film. what do i care? i'm dead in three months.

__________________

we're phen to go on a massive tour in november to austin and connecticut and ohio, back to chicago for a couple days and then off to austin again for thanksgiving. it's gonna be really nice. i hope it doesn't snow up here until i move away at the end of may. (smily face made out of punctuation)

there was something else i wanted to write about but i can't remember what it was. ah, yes. but it's not something i really want the world to know, and not even the faithful blogateers, of which you might be a member. therefore i will write about it in a vague poetic spilling:

1. dive in
2. it's only 3 years of a life
3. the story heats up cools down
4. things get broken
5. words absent for spells
6. it was nice to see your story
7. although i fear i know you too well
8. the next hello will be colored with all you've been
9. how can i erase that and pretend to be surprised?
10. i crush.

goodnight. i hope the image of bill being me and me being bill is something that haunts you.

but not really.

b

sad, sad me post

well, here it is, 9 pm on a friday. what the hell am i doing at a computer? there are only so many fridays before my life ends and i should be performing at nine pm for as many of them as possible.

needles to say (and in the eyes) i had a great an uneventful day. i spent the better part of the day researching what i hope will become a new project of secret importance. don't bother asking me about it over private email, you won't get a damn word out of me about it. unless you have some bit of info for the research.
i'd like to add, too, that i'm not very good at doing research. i gathered a lot of information but i'm still not sure how to approach the subject. nonetheleeeeess, i am giddy at the thoughts it produces.

i've been in a great mood all day, the first day in quite a while. in addition to the top secret research, i also recieved great news regarding future employment, another topic i cannot speak upon with much detail. it was slight and it is a longshot, but who knows.

well, they say when you go to LA that you need to have a screenplay done and a sitcom pilot ready to go. just about everyone i know who's headed to LA is either working on or has completed these things. the only type of writing experience i have is dinky improvised poems in this blog and some old sketch material for catch 24 shows. so, tonight, i begin writing one of these things not knowing how to or what the hell it will be about.

needles,
b

i'm realizing

i'm realizing that I haven't written about improv in a while. it is, after all, the reason i started this blog and something i hold very close. so here's a couple of boiling ideas i've got in me right now.

idea 1.
whenever most people grab our DVD, Occupation: Future Guy, at a show or what not, they ask if it has show material on it. i'm always confused by this question but it is a valid one. it must just throw me off because i've seen it. i even took to writing a warning on the back that there is no live show footage on the DVD. it's strange because it's sketches and scripted stuff. that's not what we do on the road, and it's not how we make our huge, whopping personal salaries. i'm not sure how that's going to happen yet.
anyway, it got me thinking that we should just put out a DVD of one of our shows. while not a completely original idea it would be highly cheap for us to produce and we could have it out real fast. but, it's also not an idea that's all that interesting to me. for me, it's gotta have jazz, ya know. it's gotta have comedy jokes that the general public can get behind. it might even have to have nudity.
so after i discarded all of these three things the new DVD should have I settled on a hybrid idea. howsabout a combo live and locationey, costumed, short film thing. hmmm. which of the formats i've come up with lend themselves to this? ah ha. Real SURreal!
One of my favorite shows to perform, Real Surreal involves improvising a largely normal 40 minute or so narrative based on an audience suggestion. then taking some sort of break, sometimes in the business called an intermission. (i don't use that term because it sounds dirty.) so after this "break" the second half of the show is the same story only told from a surreal, avant garde perspective. the idea is to really jack with the language of storytelling. to draw out the same emotions and story concepts with a totally different type of narrative, one that can be easily counter-narrative if done sloppily. when the theatre settings have allowed, we've also rearranged the theatre during the break so that when the audience returns it's now in the round, or just a thin catwalk. this show has rarely been a disappointment and usually is a huge success.
the avant garde is so freeing yet still keeps the performer and audience an active participant in creating the story. for me, avant garde is about letting the audience take what they get from the story. it is usually different for everyone. the goal in real surreal is to have most of the audience get the same that they got form the original longform. that's when it's the best. but, typically those who get something different have active story minds and would prefer to get something different anyway. any time you can put the audience in charge of enjoying the show at their mercy of their own brain, you've got them. most people want to enjoy it and therefore will. but i'm rambling.
the hybrid film idea is to do a staged, live longform just as normal, roundabout 35 or 40 minutes. then to film the story again out in the real world of sets and location shooting with costumes and such. this time doing the same story except in a surreal style. again, it really frees us up to do whatever the hell we want. and we have a greater control over that reproduction of emotion in the second piece due to editing and the fact that the story is already written having been improvised on stage. then, the DVD is just the live show followed by the surreal version of the same story. i think it could work out really sweetly. i'm pretty sure we'll be shooting the first story in Austin in a November 26 show at the hideout. the shooting and post production should have the thing done sometime early in the new year.

idea 2.
a one man show comprised completely of songs from my music collection that play out into a nice story that i act out silently on stage. could get boring early. but not if i mix in some video work that help to progress the story. not really an improv idea, but whatever.

idea 3.
to print a monthly improv newsletter on actual newspaper called "The Script"
and to disseminate it around chicago at various locations. it would be chock full of show listings, audition notices, feature articles, interviews with interesting improv people, and ads to help pay for the damn thing.
this will not be happening because i am leaving chicago in a matter of months. but i like the idea of it eventually happening somewhere. the only good resources for improv right now are in books (blech, who wants to read anything but the sunday comix while using the john?) and on the internet. while the internet sites devoted to improv are effective and informative, they're not always kept updated and sometimes the scope is too large, trying to cover national events and just doing a shoddy job. it would be cool to have a local paper that more people can pick up and hold on a montly basis. plus, the target demographic is relatively small, which might make selling ads easier.

and i'm tired of writing.

enjoy your bodies,
b

on a planet

it was getting cooler. the sun slipped slowly off to the west and i was leaning on a tree trunk. it was getting colder. on a planet things can get dicey. a blue worm tickles my toes but it doesn't bother me. he's the only soul i've seen in months. i kneel down to say hello. he bends his little wormy body up to look at me. when he blinks a gushy liquid comes from the corner of his eyes. he tilts his head like a dog and sings a familiar song to me.

Well you're my friend,
And can you see?
Many times we've been out drinking.
Many times we've shared our thoughts.
But did you ever, ever notice,
The kind of thoughts I got.
Well you know I have a love,
A love for everyone I know.

And you know I have a drive,
to live. I won't let go.
But can you see its opposition,
comes rising up sometimes.
And it's dreadful imposition,
comes blacking in my mind.

And then I see a darkness.
And then I see a darkness.
And then I see a darkness.
Did you know how much I love you?
Here's a hope that somehow you,
Can save me from this darkness.

All the time blinking and wetting his wormy torso. His voice is beautiful and warming. I look back to the horizon and the sun is gone. He trickles across my toes and disappears into the sand. I climb the tree because it reminds me of home. From the top of the tree I can see nothing but leaves below me and stars above.

I wonder where that worm is now.

b
songwriter

khronos projector

oddly unrelated to the khraigslist post below, this is the khronos projector.

the video takes a minute or so to download depending on your connection speed.
if your rockin' dial-up, don't even think about it. log off and call someone. that's what a phone line is for.

i want a khronos projector for chanukah.

b

khraigslist

this is hilarious. click on the khraigslist thing at the top.

my favorite is "for sale: ill dog. $15K"

b

Once, On This Island

Once, on this island I was listening to the waves lap at my knees.
The only thing I could think was where I left my calves and feet.

How would I run to you when the time finally came and you were there.
Theories on my situation swirled and from the goo came clumps of hair.

I foresaw a time when my calves and feet would wash up and reattach.
I would swim or run or float my retreat back and use your baby hatch.

I sat on a neighbor's cat this morning.


b

AIN bio up

AIN BIO

Here's my Appied Improv Network bio page. I'm officially a member and I didn't even have to lie to get in.

rejoice,
b

My Mailman Used "To Dance and Blow"

Talked with the mailman today. The very same aloof, blood-shot-eyed, well-meaning guy who lost a month's worth of my mail last April when I was out of the country. We've sinced patched things up and are cordial to each other. So, today he knocks on the door to give me a package. (Imposter ink cartridges that are about 1/3 the cost of the ones Epson makes.) Anyway, he's commented before on the numerous guitars and keyboards that are commonly strewn about the house as a couple musicians live here, myself not included.

So, he gives me the ink and says out of nowhere, "So, what, you play the drums or something?" I was thrown by the question, but soon realized that he was referring to the musically inclined folks. "What, the sythesizer then?" he continued.
"Uh, no, I don't really play anything." I started to creep back into the doorway.
"I used to blow you know, " he says proudly.
"Uh... like horns or..."
"I went to Grambling, yeah I used to play all kinds of brass."
I catch on. "Wow, sweet, you played in the Grambling band. That's sweet. They're like one of the most famous marching bands, right?"
At this point he got really excited and stopped sorting the mail meant for my upstairs and downstairs neighbors. "Aw, hell yeah. We used to dance and blow like nobody's business. We had a good time."
"Yeah I bet," I said running out of things to say but still surprised and genuinely impressed.
"Yeah, I just bought a new saxophone and they got those CDs now that come with the books so you can listen to what's in the books. I'm gonna start playing again. It's not that hard, ya know?" He said slowly retreating out of the entryway, seemingly forgetting about the rest of the mail.
I try to cap things off. "I guess since I can't play anything I'll have to start figuring out how to sing."
"Yeah, let it flow."

And with that, he hopped down the stoop to his little mailcart and scooted to the next house. Hmm, I thought, everyone has a story to tell. For the most part I'm glad to hear them, too. I never would have guessed a Grambling Marching Tiger was working every day to deliver my mail through rain, sleet, snow, and hail. Unless I'm in China, then he just throws it away. Nonetheless, he's a pretty cool guy. Even if his breakfast consists mainly of pot.

b
POSTAL POST

Best Return to Form

Click and scroll down to see what the improv people have Austin have accomplished . . .

BEST OF AUSTIN

b

impose

SUPER
b

presses

THE NORTH WIND article from October 6.
_________________________________________
Here's one on the Week in Weird Places published in The University of Illinois at Chicago's paper:

Scriptless In Chicago
Improv group takes show to the streets at Daley Plaza
By Celia Stevaux
Published: Monday, September 5, 2005

Available Cupholders held an hour-long improv session outside the Daley Center.
A group of people forms around a cluster of indiscriminate young men at the base of the red Picasso horse that sits famously outside the Daley Center at 50 W. Washington St. on Saturday, August 27, for the final installment of "A Week In Weird Places," a series of improvised comedy shows performed in unusual places.
They then spend the next hour creating a montage of life snippets through acted scenes. They are the Available Cupholders, and in their final episode of "A Week In Weird Places," they touch upon myriad subjects between prosthetic third arms (now sold in possessed form) to the secret of the universe (duct tape). The entire hour is completely unscripted, and their props are not restricted to just their bodies; they incorporate passersby, the sculpture, and even a nearby fountain into their scenes.
The Available Cupholders is an improv troupe seeking to tweak and expand improvisational comedy. Their show isn't the short-form type made popular by the British TV show "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" Rather, they performed a long-form show wherein troupe members build off each other's lines and physical positions to transition smoothly from scene to scene. It gives the show a distinctly evolutionary feel as the audience can see the development of comedy unfold before its very eyes.
Comprised of Ace Manning, Bill Stern, Jeremy Lamb, Jon Benner, and Michael Joplin, the Cupholders have known each other since high school, where they met and began their foray into the world of improvised comedy in Austin, Texas. All of the members of the Cupholders are between the ages of 22 and 26 (and each a year apart). Most of the boys have had theatrical experience; a couple of them have even been in other troupes. They always come back to each other, though, and while acting with other people, Jeremy would help his friends by taking back what he had learned from other troupes.
When they couldn't get booked at an indoor venue a few years ago, the Available Cuphoders took matters into their own hands, and the random-location show was born. They asked themselves, Lamb recounts, "Why do we even have to be in a theatre?" Since then, the Available Cupholders have put on shows on city buses, in vans, and even in a river. "They are extremely fun," Manning says of the outdoor improv shows. Just as he finishes speaking, an ambulance flies down Dearborn Street, lights flashing and sirens wailing. Lamb gestures and shrugs, adding, "And challenging!" Ace continues, saying, "Out here, you get amazing gifts-freakish things happen."
The most uncommon place at which the troupe had performed was a when they performed a show in a river. "There was a duck behind us, swimming," Lamb said. "Suddenly, another duck swooped down and we realized it was trying to have sex with it...everyone just spent the next five minutes watching the ducks because we just could not do anything funnier than watch ducks have sex." The guys laugh, and Joplin offers a major difference between "normal" stage improv and the outdoor shows: "In a theatre, on a stage, a lot of it is much more subtle...simple facial expressions [do a lot more] in a theatre." Adding to that, Benner quickly says, "It's good training for us, though."
The boys all enjoy attending other troupes' shows and events; though Available Cupholders tours campuses across the nation performing shows, they are ever-ready to learn from others. Among the Chicago locales they enjoy attending are The Globe on Irving Park Rd, the Improv Kitchen, the Improv Olympic, and the Chicago Improv Festival, which takes place in late April. Manning says they especially love going to improv festivals. "[We] pick up so much stuff from being around other people." Stern adds, "There are tons of classes to take if you're interested in doing improv," "Yeah," says Benner, "Chicago is a hotbed of where you go to get schooled [in improv]."
Some of the things the guys suggest for a beginning improv performer is to "get back in touch with your imagination. That's the starting point...[you have to] not feel silly about it. Little kids use their imagination all the time." Lamb emphasizes a need to be fearless; saying that one of the most important things is, "not being afraid to fail...[even if I mess up,] I have to ignore the fact that I failed."
All five Cupholders live in the Chicago area and supplement their improv habits with part-time jobs.

___________________________________________

And here's an article I've been meaning to put in the blog for a while. It was written by my friend Rachel for her hometown paper, The Port Aransas South Jetty.

Chicago, Illinois is vast. The people and the subway and the city all sprawl out in a big unbroken grid of busy sidewalks and brownstone houses. You can get on the train at the center of the city, and it takes you forty minutes to careen out to the suburbs where the O’Hare airport lies. The neighborhoods all seem like replicas of each other, three-story brownstone houses one after the other, only with different shrubbery and different colors of people. Skyscrapers loom everywhere, and at night their lit-up windows are like rows of teeth.
I like the vastness here. There is lots of room for eccentricity. My friend Jeremy lives, for example, in a gay/Swedish neighborhood. I thought that meant there were a lot of gay Swedes around, but in fact it means that there are a lot of gay people and a lot of Swedish people. I guess there must be at least one gay Swede, but I didn’t find him.
I was just up for a weekend, staying in the house where Jeremy lives with the rest of the guys from the improvisational theatre troupe he directs. The troupe, the Available Cupholders, moved from Austin to Chicago to hit the big time, and they make most of their money now touring the country doing improv. (They are not gay Swedes.)
In addition to doing improv, they hold strange part-time jobs. Jeremy has been a laundry delivery-man and a valet and a waiter and a beer-hawker at Cubs games. Most of his energy goes into the Cupholders.
Their improv works like this: the five of them get up in front of an audience and act, making up the play as they go along. It’s usually funny. They’re all guys, for one thing, and most of them are sort of hairy and angular, so it’s funny to see them play women.
And because the whole show is improvised, crazy great stuff can happen. I have seen them defend an imaginary ranch from imaginary wolves, bicker about their yachts, search for the gypsy king, and travel into the belly of a whale and eat at the ghost restaurant there.
Their improv makes you feel better about the world. “My god,” you think, “I have gone so long without even knowing that there was a ghost restaurant here in the belly of this whale, which I was also unaware of.” It is the kind of rigorous silliness that people need, I think, in order to stay generally amazed.
I watched one of their shows this weekend at a plaza in the middle of Chicago, in front of a huge iron statue by Pablo Picasso. Before the show, there were kids skateboarding on the statue and people sitting on it. There were also some cops on bicycles chasing around the kids on skateboards.
When the Cupholders started, a crowd gathered and sat on the statue, watching. The sun set and neon lights came up all around us. The actors had to shout over the sounds of buses and cars and the gonging of the bells in a great big crenellated church behind us.
In the show, Mike lost the rights to his waterfront property in a duel. Ace delivered Bill’s baby. Jeremy revealed that the secret of duct work is duct tape. John jumped in the fountain. And in the middle of this big smoky city with all its cracks and alleyways and rattling trains, thirty people sat still for an hour, wanting nothing more than to laugh and to feel a little better about the world.
(You can check out the troupe at www.availablecupholders.com.)

b

waking epiphanie

Man, sometimes dreams have the best theatre. There's so much great drama in a dream and you buy into it so much because it's about you and your brain is really digging the story your creating for yourself. You're the ultimate theatre experience in a dream. You're the director, performer, scenic designer, and the sole audience member.
That's really sweet.

b

i could watch this all day

make sure you hold-click on him to toss him around at your whim.

georgie

b

when you've got a great idea

when you've got a great idea and all that you need to execute it, it feels so damn good to put it into motion. i get great ideas for restaurants, novels, and experimental space travel projects. of course, i don't have the means or even the desire to pursue these. but when i get what seems like a good idea for an improv show, implementing it is just about one of the greatest feelings in the world.

just sent this out to Austin Press people:

"FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - October 10, 2005

Available Cupholders Return to Austin to Take Out the Trash
Two Shows in Two Installments

Fri - Sat, November 4 - 5, 2005
The Hideout, 617 Congress Ave.
10:30pm
Admission: $7 for Females, $6 for Males
http://www.availablecupholders.com

Friday, Available Cupholders bring the usual comedy juice back to their hometown from whirlwind touring throughout the US. Director and performer Jeremy Lamb will be getting eye surgery earlier in the day and unable to appear in the flesh. Just a warning.

Saturday, The Available Cupholders challenge local "improv group" Girls Girls Girls to a Battle of the Sexes Improv Match

The Available Cupholders love women. Probably more than the average man. Women are great, but let's face it, they just aren't funny. Take a look at who hosts late night talk shows, who produces the best stand-up comedy material, and who improvises with the best of ease and frivolity. Everyone knows it, but the Cupholders are the only ones with the guts to say it. Nobody wants to see women on stage trying to be funny. It's painful and boring. Female improvisers are merely a novelty, whose show's serve as a masturbatory attempt at equality. So as a public service to Austin we are going to put an end to this funny-lady-business and show Girls Girls Girls a thing or two about what it means to be talented and successful.
We challenge Girls Girls Girls to A Battle of the Sexes Improv Match to settle this once and for all and get them off the stage and back into nursing school or the kitchen or wherever the hell they came from -- just stay out of the comedy clubs! Come watch the all-male Available Cupholders cast hand Girls Girls Girls their collective hot, little ass.

Thank You,
Jeremy Lamb
Man
Available Cupholders Improv Comedy"

b

i'm an adult; a transition story

what is it about me that is trying to hold onto the days of yore when i had nothing to do? when being bored was a great sigh of relief. when the parents paid for dinner, groceries, and rent. when i could come home from school and do whatever i wanted for about seven hours with no foreseeable consequence. when i was just biding my time and wasting hours dying to grow up and enter the world.
well, i have entered the world. i turned 26 last tuesday and i feel like i'm still hanging on to making things easy for myself. i started my own business to afford myself lots of free time for important things like video games, eating really slowly, and traveling. and with the business acheiving minimal success i find i am short on cash and short on motivation to seek a part time job to fill time and my wallet. i scrape by with the money i make from the company which is ridiculously low, supplemented by short term part-time gigs that fall in my lap. some of which pay very well. so, i've been able to keep my wits about me, relaxing perhaps more than i should, sleeping in til 11 every day, and doing small art and theatre projects. i really like my life situation right now. of course, there are things i am missing, but for the most part i'm moving in the right direction, holding on to leisure and foresaking the 40 hour work week.
BUT, a change has come. the weeked before my 26th birthday i attended a conference at the behest of a friend and colleague in Ohio. i didn't know what to expect. the conference was put on by AIN, The Applied Improvisation Network. They're a collective of business people and improvisers who have managed to carve themselves a nice little niche in the world of corporate training. It's around 85 or so people who refer to each other for advice and jobs. It's a community of professionals who like to have fun.
I had my doubts going into the conference. I had no idea what to expect and the people who had been there years previously couldn't give me an adequate explanation of what it would be. It reminded me of trying to track down what a Harold was. No one who was performing the Harold or had seen it could give me an accurate description of how it went down. Upon finally figuring it out for myself here at the home of the Harold, Chicago, I was let down. Perhaps from frustration. The point is, I was not let down by the AIN conference. It's really what I needed to introduce me to a completely foreign world; the corporate world.
Surrounded by people an average of ten years my senior was a great way for me to see how this business works. Poeple were artfully making connections, giving their business schpeil for the thirtieth time to a new friend without the slightest grimace (people do love to talk about themselves.) I just watched most of the time trying to figure things out. Once I was able to approach people I found it very easy to spill my story, the one about the kid with no experience in the field whatsoever, who was looking for guidance.
On the first day, the whole conference did an exercise where around a hundred pictures were laid out on the floor and we were asked to walk around and pick up the picture that represented what we wanted to get out of the conference. looking around at everyone, i wasn't sure what i wanted. i just knew i had no experience and i felt kind of lost. so we walked around and i laughed to myself when i found my picture. it was a baby being fed from a bottle. i picked it up.
the structure of the conference was really what led to me having an amazing time the whole weekend. it's a new forum called "open space." on the first day all the conference participants gathered around in a circle of chairs and we were asked what we wanted to learn from the conference. with sheets of paper and markers in the center of the circle we could go up and describe a session that we wanted to convene. we would write down the title and then slap it up on a huge grid that corresponded to a time and a board room in the hotel. after those who wanted to stand and describe their session had done so, the course of the conference had been laid out. you could attend any session for as long as you wanted. there were no requirements for participation, no rules within the sessions other than you should be where you need to be. if you need to be napping, go somewhere and nap. that is where you'll serve the conference the best. it's a great format for opening the lines of communication and in a sense improvising the conference. it kept alive the spirit that everyone at the conference is accustomed to; the spontaneity and immediacy of improv. nothing felt forced all weekend. it only felt laid back and open.
i sat in on a discussion about being experienced and cynical. for the people at the discussion, it was about how they were not enjoying their jobs. they had had enough of the corporate world and probably enough of running the same exercise over and over. for me, it was more about my experience in performing. i've been doing improv for around ten years, and for a while i've felt as though i've reached some kind of plateau. they were having issues with their work as i was having issues with my art. it was nice to air emotions about that.
i semi-led a contact improv jam that proved to be a very moving experience for myself and the other participants. i just put on some music and we floated around the room for an hour doing nonverbal improv through body contact. i felt very close to the other people afterwards, having learned so much about them, without even knowing their names. it was transcendant and a great meditation that didn't require being alone.
it was odd to be in settings where people ten or twenty years older than me were cursing. as the conference went on, these folks who were older than me would just curse whenever. in a classroom setting leading a session. in a bar hanging out. these people have always been the same amount older than me and ten years ago, they probably wouldn't have sworn at will in front of me. it made me feel closer to them and further from teenagers knowing it didn't bother anyone for them be free around me. kind of strange.
at the end of the conference we all reconvened at the big circle of chairs by the big grid. we self-reflected about what we had experienced the whole weekend and then one at a time we came to the center of the circle and talked about it. i can't even begin to describe what it was like. people were crying, baring their souls' troubles and conquerings. it was an extremely personal spilling of emotions between people who for the most part don't know each other at all. some of them knew some of the others, but for me only knowing really three or four other people previously, was not a stopping point. i felt as though i had been welcomed into a great new group of friends and associates, a community of people with common goals and artistic endeavours. it was really amazing.
so now i'm a member of the association and we're in the process of getting my little headshot up on the web site. i think maybe i don't really belong there reading everyone else's biographies. i've never led a team-building workshop for IBM or a conflict resolution session for Motorola. but i want to get where they are. i think i know a little better now what it means to be an adult just from observing people so similar to me. i can be an adult and still have time for sleeping in, improvising, and just doing nothing.

i can be an adult.

b

comcast

comcast makes it hard for me to spew my thoughts into the ether.
internet down and out in the native hood.
i am at kinko's.

comcast boo!

b