Journal Entry 6: Kriya and Time Travel (Post by 5:00 PM Saturday, Feb 28)

For this week's journal post, do three things:

1. Look at Cameron's notion of the kriya ("spiritual emergency/surrender" [but see asterisk, below]) on page 81. Relate and discuss the story of some kind of kriya you or someone close to you experienced.*
2. Look at Task number 2 on page 89 (at the end of the "Week 4" chapter) about imagining yourself at age 80. What would you be like? What would 80-year-old you tell you at your present age?
3. Look at Task number 3 in the same section about imagining yourself at age 8. What would you tell your 8-year-old self?

Aim for 600 words (about a good paragraph for each of the three questions). Post by 5 on Saturday.

JF

* Actually, according to Wikipedia, kriya means "action" (specifically an accomplished or completed action), not "spiritual emergency." Julia Cameron may be a bit off on her Sanskrit. Still, the idea of a surrender in the sense she describes is useful.

Journal Entry 5: Shame Post by 5:00 Saturday, Feb 21

This week's reading from Julia Cameron is about recovering a sense of power, mainly by recognizing reasons why our sense of confidence and competence have been drained by criticism and shame.

I found this quote particularly useful:

"Shame is a controlling device. Shaming someone is an attempt to prevent that person from behaving in a way that embarrasses us" (67).

That struck home for me not so much because it reminds me when I've been shamed but when I myself have in word or deed attempted to shame someone else. I shame because someone else's behavior embarrasses me. Me saying, Shame on you! is really me saying Stop embarrassing me! It's about me rather than the other person.


What do you think? Does this notion of shame seem on-target? If so, how? If not, why not? Can you relate a time in your life (professional or personal) where either you shamed someone else or someone shamed you that exemplifies what you're arguing?

Finally--take a stance: is there a difference, as Brene Brown suggests, between shame ("You're bad!") and guilt ("You did this bad thing!")? If it is appropriate sometimes to guilt people rather than shame them (and you might disagree here), how do we know when one is going on versus the other?

Post by 5:00 on Saturday. Aim for 600 words.

JF

PS: Here's Brene Brown's TED Talk on Shame. It's great:

Journal Entry 4: Getting the Drama Out of Theatre/Film Post by 5:00 MONDAY February 16 5:00 PM

This week we talked about the crazymakers--people in our family, friend, or professional circles who consistently disrupt normal functions. Indeed, the mark of a crazymaker (in Julia Cameron's phrase) is that the social/family system warps itself around managing, suppressing--and therefore enabling--the crazymaker's dramas.

For this post, do two things:

First--in your experience, what are the most common kinds of crazymaker dynamics that exist in your professional life. That is, what kinds of crazymaking do theatre and film artists in particular need to be wary of? What strategies can help to forestall or tamp down the amount of disruption crazymakers can cause?

Second--what kind of dramas/crazymaking do you find in your outside-of-work life? What role do you usually find yourself either playing or at least being asked/expected to play? What do you do (either what do you do or what would you like to do) to remedy this situation?

Remember, we're aiming for 600 words or so (about 4 paragraphs).

I'm getting this prompt up late, so I'll give you until Monday to post.

I encourage you to go a step beyond just posting yourself; read your classmates' posts. They're illuminating and heartfelt.

Best,

JF

Journal Entry 3 Post by 5:00 PM Saturday, Feb 7: Censors and Critics

The chapter from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way we read for this week has to do with acknowledging and deactivating the internal voices that tell us we're no good, that we'll never succeed, that we should just quit, etc. She calls these the voice of the Censor. At times, Cameron warns, this Censor voice manifests as a real-life voice, a "monster" from our lives or our pasts who articulates the shaming messages we keep hearing from the Censor.

In class, though, we talked about how sometimes we can confuse this Censor voice with the voice of the Critic, the Editor, or even the Teacher. These voices often tell us messages that aren't "Hurrah, you! You're doing so well!" But unlike the Censor voices, these voices are essential to helping us grow as artists.

For me, as I mentioned, it can be very difficult to tell just what kind of message it is--Censor or Critic--in the moment. I often have to think about it, talk about it, reality-check with my friends and family, and finally decide for myself if the feedback I've gotten is fair, useful, or forgettable. 

For this post, then, I'd like you to do two things:

1. Relate a specific time in your life where you received some kind of message or feedback that rocked you, sent you reeling. Ideally I'm thinking of some message that was so stinging that at first you weren't sure whether this was a shame message (a Censorious monster) or a harsh-but-necessary Critic. How did you determine eventually what kind of message that was and/or what you were going to do in reaction to that message?
2. What's one piece of advice that you would give to underclassmen in this program about taking and giving feedback? Try to go beyond nice-but-vague answers like "be constructive." Give a really solid, specific piece of advice. If you have a particular phrase or tactic that's worked for you in the past, share that.

Post by 5:00 PM on Saturday.

JF

Journal entry 2--post by 5:00 Saturday, Jan 31 (extra day!)

Heads up to the Sundance folk--we've moved some things around this week due to your absence (check Moodle). We've missed you, but we've had some good conversations nonetheless. I've appreciated those of you who have sent me sparks/thoughts on the readings from afar.

Last week's journal entry was about anger. (Have you read your classmates' thoughts? Click on the links to the right. You'll be glad you did.) This week, in light of readings on job prospects and future stories, is about fear. The main question has two parts: (1) How does fear affect your career/identity as an artist?; and (2) How do you deal with that fear?

I would say, first and foremost, to acknowledge and move past the tendency you may feel to dismiss, minimize, or deny your fear (e.g., I don't get afraid; I get active). Fear, like anger, is an emotion, a signal of danger to command our attention. We all feel it sometimes. Indeed, not ever feeling fear is a problem. That being said, being stuck in fear, paralyzed with it--that's no good.

The fear you talk about can be your own worries--will I make it? Am I any good? Am I really a designer/filmmaker/actor/dancer? Many of the readings we've done this week address such concerns. Are there some that resonated particularly with you? Are there other personal fears (career/vocation-related fears, not necessarily fear of spiders or zombies) that we haven't discussed yet?

But "fear" could also refer to the worries of those around you: friends, significant others, parents, siblings, children. What is she doing with her life? Why is she majoring in that? What is she going to do when she finds out that there's no money in that? It is of course beyond your power to change what another person thinks or feels all by yourself. But you can control how you respond (or don't respond) to the fears of others. Have you found any particularly useful tactics for dealing with others' fears? (Alternately, do you see yourself repeating unhelpful or exhausting patterns of managing other people's fears?)

I suppose you could even talk about fear in a grander sense: what makes society fear art? For all the scorn popular culture and materialistic common sense heaps on the arts and humanities, few things seem as capable of shocking or undermining culture and sense as art. There's an argument to be made, in other words, that Art (capital-A Art, Art in general) frightens society. Do you see that fear inflecting your own life and work?

Post by Saturday evening. 600 words or so. I look forward to reading what you have to say/write.

Journal Entry 1 Prompt--Post by 5:00 PM Saturday, January 24

Here's the seed: what's your relationship with anger?  

You may address this broad question in any way you like (in at least 600 words).

One possible tactic would be to split the question up to two levels:

First, what's your relationship with anger on a personal level? What were you taught about anger growing up? What models for how to be angry (or not be angry) did you grow up with? Was there a turning point or other experience that shaped how anger works for/on you? What about now? How do you handle anger or disappointment today? Is that different than you used to? Are you pleased with how you handle anger? If you could change something about your relationship with anger, what might it be?

Second, what's your relationship with anger in terms of your artistic history or process? What role has anger (or anger management, anger avoidance, anger sublimation) played in your experience of doing film and/or theatre, especially here at LSU? What lessons have you been taught about anger? What models have you seen in action? How do you handle disagreements in rehearsals or on site (recognizing that how you do handle disagreements may differ from how you should handle them)? How should anger work in artistic processes? Is there a difference between how artists relate to anger versus how non-artists relate to anger?

These more specific questions are just suggestions. You are welcome to go in a totally different direction--tell a story, write a manifesto, engage in an angry rant, compose a letter to someone who made you angry (remembering that this will be posted publicly unless you restrict readership).

Contact me if you have questions or concerns.

JF

Welcome to the Blog/Journal Site for THTR 4900 Senior Capstone Spring 2015

Hi, all--

Hopefully you've found your way here from the Moodle site for THTR 4900 (Senior Capstone). As part of our class, you will keep a weekly, online journal on a Blogger.com. Each entry you make will be in response to a weekly prompt posted on this site. I (Dr. Fletcher) will make most prompts.

Before you do anything else--and definitely before next Wednesday, January 21, I want you to do the following:

• Subscribe to/follow this blog by entering your e-mail address in the space provided above (just under the blog title) and/or by clicking the "subscribe to Dr. Fletcher's Blog" button to the right.
• Register with Blogger.com (this may require you to create a free Google account)
• Create a blog dedicated to this class. You may call it whatever you wish.
• Send an e-mail to drjohnfletcher@gmail.com telling me you've created your blog and letting me know what your blog's URL is. The URL is what's in the address bar of your browser when hit "view blog." It should be http://whatevernameyouchoseforyourblog.blogspot.com.

Contact me if you have any questions/concerns.

Your first blog posting will be due by Friday, January 23, at 5:00 PM.

Best,

JF