Journal Entry 13: Surprising Yourself. Post by Wednesday, April 29

Two quick housekeeping notes:

1. I'm abominably late with this prompt, so let's say that the post is due by Wednesday of this week (4/29).
2. This is actually the last post I'll make you do in this online format. I've made the decision to have your finals week manifesto (which you'll bring and present/read Tuesday, May 5, from 12:30-2:30) count as two entries (40 points rather than the standard 20). I'll have a prompt up for that soon.

For this last online post, I'd like you to do three things:

First, think back to yourself at the start of this academic year (i.e., August 2014). If your self from back then could see and know your self now, what would she/he think? What about yourself now would most surprise yourself from back in August?

Second, think back to yourself at the start of your entire college career. Same questions: what would that past self think of your present, spring 2015 self? What would be the most surprising thing about you now?

Finally, look at yourself now, as your present self. I know this is a weird question, but, after spending a semester (in part) looking hard at yourself, your career, your education, your future, and your relationships, what if anything surprises you about yourself?

Last posting, y'all.

JF

Journal Entry 12: Magic Wand of Disappearing Pet Peeves--Post by 5:00 Sunday 4-19

I watched 28 short student films the other night as an adjudicator for the student film festival. My overall takeaway was hopeful and proud: we've gone from zero student films to more than 28. Every film had something wonderful in it, something that made me optimistic about the future of our film/TV program.

That said, I and the other adjudicators also noticed some repeated themes, images, or action patterns--tropes--that began to seem cliched or lazy simply because they're overused and less than original.

I see the same thing whenever I review scripts for Outworks. I read good scripts. I read bad scripts. But above all I start to read the same kind of script--or the same tropes, character types, plot twists, etc.--over and over and over again. Some of these work, but they're overused. Others are flatly offensive--but still awfully common.

So:

Wave a magic wand that would get rid of three annoying (overused, offensive, irksome, lazy, etc.) tendencies you see in either plays/musicals OR film/TV shows that get produced. These can be  tropes, genres, plot structures, or anything else. You may speak generally (film/plays produced anywhere and everywhere), or you can speak specifically about LSU.

Explain what your three "Get Rid of This, Please" things are. Explain why they're annoying to you (and/or bad for the field/craft). Explain how getting rid of them would help things. And finally, explain if and how anything we do at LSU can help to take a step toward fixing these problems.

JF

Journal Entry 11: Restoration. Post by Sunday at 5:00 (4/12/15)

If you're following Julia Cameron's Artist's Way, she asks you to do two things not otherwise mentioned in the chapters we read and the exercises she outlines. First, she wants you to do the morning pages. I'm still doing them, of only out of stubbornness, but I'm actually finding that they're helpful in thinking through some research stuff. Second, Cameron says you need to take a break every week, an "Artist Date" with your inner artist.

I haven't been so great about the artist date thing. I can usually break away for a little bit to do something fun with friends once or twice a week--a meal, a movie, a walk around the lake. But it's rare. Besides, Artist Dates are supposed to be about you alone. You're not supposed to do them with someone else.

Since it's Spring Break, however, now seems like a good time to reflect on just what I would do in order to rejuvenate or nurture myself. I don't just mean "something you like to do" (movies with friends does that). I mean "something that makes you more excited about your work," something (moreover) that you might not do on your own if not prompted to do it.

I was talking to a photographer, for example, whose day job involves assisting one of those Glamor Shots-type photographers. This guy's boss specializes in photoshopping pictures of your baby/child into clouds, something like this:

It's fine for them that like it, but my friend feels like this sort of work eats people's souls.

He recognizes that he needs do devote some time to his own kind of photography, things that Glamor Shots wouldn't like but which make him a better artist. His Artist Date might be taking in a photo exhibit, shopping for a new camera, taking more photography classes, or just carving out time to take/edit some of his own photos.

My question for you this week: what would your rejuvenating activity be? This doesn't have to be something you actually do or have done, and it shouldn't be just "some little thing I do regularly to cheer myself up." Talk about a specific thing to do that would rev up your artistic engine. Reflect on why you'd do this, what it would do, and why you haven't done it (or done it as often) as you need to.

Post by 5:00ish on Sunday.

See you Monday for the next Cameron chapter.

JF

Post 10: Interviewing yourself Post by Sunday evening 3/29

I'm taking a step back from Julia Cameron for this one.

This week, lord willing and the creek don't rise, you'll be submitting (and sharing) about your alumni interviews, where you found a theatre alumna/us and talked to them about their education. In particular, I asked you to quiz them about what kind of advice they'd give to current undergrads.

For this post, let me pose to you the same question: what advice would you give to the current LSU Theatre underclassmen? What life skills, attitudes, and habits do you see them (or did you see yourself) lacking that you think they need to gain? Your advice can be about curriculum, professional practice, personal work/life balance issues, or anything else (including "all of the above"). You may craft a manifesto, a letter, a list (with explanations)--what have you.

My one piece of advice: approach this with a sense of generosity to the future generation. Even if you feel you need to deliver some harsh truths to them, do so in a way that you would be able to listen to and absorb if you were in their place. Take into account the fact that they may be facing challenges you did not at their age. In other words, resist the urge to make this into a "you damn kids!" screed.

Aim, as always, for 600 words.

JF

Journal Entry 9: Alexander Techniques of the Soul (Post by Saturday at 5:00)

I've been thinking a lot about the mantra Cameron wants us to repeat to ourselves: treating myself as a precious object will make me stronger. That phrase challenges a lot of messages I was brought up believing about taking care not to be too egotistical, remembering it's not all about me, thinking of others first, and the like.

I'd like to think (and please weigh in if you feel I'm mistaken) that Cameron would support some version of all of these "be humble" messages. What she's battling--what she's challenging us to battle--is mistaking self-deprecation for humility. Believing that I'm not the center of all things is healthy. Believing my desires and needs should by default always be put on the back burner? That's unhealthy. It de-selfs me. It deforms my soul. It creates a feedback loop in which I become smaller and less brave because I treat myself as second-class and unworthy of attention, which makes me smaller and less brave, which inspires me to treat myself as... You get the picture.

I'm reminded of my (meager) training in the Alexander Technique, a philosophy of posture and movement used by actors and other artists. Among other insights, the Technique teaches that many of our aches and tensions stem less from acute injuries and more from a mistaken internal image of our own anatomy. One of Alexander's exercises involves having people draw their own skeletons and musculature. Then people compare their drawings to actual anatomical models. The point isn't to criticize drawing ability; it's to show people how many of the ways we unconsciously think we move and sit and stand--where the pressure is, where the bend happens, how the rotation works--don't line up with how our bones and ligaments and tendons and muscles actually function. We put strain on our bodies by trying to, for instance, "bend from the waist," when anatomically we bend from the hips.

A lot of the Alexander Technique, then, is about recognizing and correcting internalized misconceptions about our own bodies.

Similarly, Cameron's "precious object" advice seems to be about recognizing and correcting internalized misconceptions about our self-worth.

For this week, reflect on your own perception of your self worth, your abilities. How does your take on your abilities line up with reality? How do you know that? What do you find yourself saying to yourself that reinforces your self-image? How might you improve the messages you give to yourself?

Post by Saturday at 5:00. We'll talk on Monday.

JF

Journal Entry 8: Bugs in the Software of our Lives POST by Sunday (3/15) at 5:00

The Julia Cameron chapter this last week had to do with our attitudes toward money, particularly how many of us carry around a set of beliefs about budgets. Namely: we're not worth spending money on. We also talked (from Cracked articles by John Cheese, for instance) about how our upbringing--especially if we were poor growing up--establishes habits of thinking and behaving about money and spending that prove to be trouble for us as adults.

I like to think of these bad habits and belief sets as bugs or flaws in the mental software that gets installed into our brains' operating systems as we grow up. Most of the time this software is helpful: here's how you interact with others; here's how you learn to recognize and respond appropriately to social cues; here's how you move through the world effectively, etc.

But sometimes, parts of this software--parts written by our culture, our families, or even our genetics--can prove faulty. We have to work as adults to un-write and re-write this software if we want to grow and flourish in the world.

Perhaps one of the biggest software flaws we all have relate to issues of identity and privilege. As a white male in 2015 USA, for example, I have a good bit of unconscious software installed and running that assures me that people who look like me (white, male--but also cisgender, middle class, Christian, non-disabled, English-speaking, etc.) are the "default" setting for humanity. This software predisposes me to be uncomfortable in or dismissive of situations and experiences in which non-white, non-male identities get attention and benefits I usually assume (again, on unconscious levels) are mine by right. This country's history and present culture, for the most part (I'm talking big-picture, not "every single individual ever"), has largely reinforced this software. White males still hold a disproportionate amount of economic, political, and cultural power in this country (sample data point: in the top 1500 large companies, there are more CEOs named "John" than there are CEOs who are female.)

I recognize that this is not the way things ought to be. Part of being a responsible adult, then, involves my noticing and trying to undo this programming that assumes that the world should revolve around white males. I mean, I haven't ever literally believed this on conscious levels. But I recognize that many of my unconscious beliefs still often operate according to this assumption. I have to fight my programming, change my habits of belief and thought.

This is an uncomfortable task for me. It involves making myself open to the possibility that many of my assumptions about The Way Things Are (or even The Way Things Have Always Been) are mistaken. It involves anticipating that there are times I'm going to feel personally threatened or blamed (realizing that casting myself as the Villain can also be a way of making things All About Me). It involves knowing I'm going to make some blunders and mistakes. It involves me being OK with sitting down and shutting up and listening to others' experiences without needing to respond, fix, defend, justify, etc. 

I'm trying to do all this software re-writing even as I'm hopeful that other people in society, namely heterosexuals, do similar work to re-write their assumptions and beliefs about what the good, beautiful, or natural default of human love and sexuality are. (To be honest, being gay doesn't mean that my own hetero-centric software magically disappears. I have to remind myself that I have a good bit of internalized "heterosexuality is best" that I have to re-write.)

It's a long process, but I can't not try to do it.

So. I'm curious about the kinds of mental/cultural software that you have installed and running that you are either trying to re-write, recognize you need to re-write, or would like to re-write. This can be childhood-installed beliefs about money, relationships, self-confidence, and the like. Or it can be about the Bigger Issues of race, gender, sexuality, religion, disability, etc. Write about that.

JF

Journal Entry 7: Short and Sweet and Synchronous (Post by 5:00 PM Sunday)

You all have a lot to do this week, so let's make this one short and sweet (only 300 or so words unless you feel moved to write more).

Cameron's chapter was all about having hope, focusing on the positive. Cameron suggests that artists have to cultivate a kind of wild faith in something that works with our efforts and in our best interests--God, the universe, reality, a fairy godmother, or something else. Sure, you prepare and strive and practice and toil; all your hard discipline is necessary. But so too, Cameron argues, is an element of the unexpected. We need--or at least we seem to experience--something beyond ourselves that seems almost like magic (or like a miracle), a something that creates or aligns opportunities so that a door opens to us just when we're ready to take advantage of it.

She calls these moments synchronicity.

For this post, relate a story of synchronicity as you have experienced it--some time when what seems like the perfect opportunity emerged at just the right time for you. How did you interpret it when it happened? How do you interpret it now? What wisdom might you share about these moments of synchronicity?

I look forward to reading what you have to say.

JF