Be the change you want to see.

I've been thinking for the last few years, that attention is the rent we pay for being in relationship, for being in community.

It was never such a privilege to pay attention as it was, many years ago, when I was teaching high school reading and drama classes, and became the advisor for the Improv Comedy Club. Thinking back, I marvel at the quick wit and facility with ideas, language and expression that these teenagers had. How fluent and adaptable they were to performance situations where anything could change (and did) with the drop of a word or addition of a new gesture!

Nick was a wiry, nervous Italian looking kid, earnest and new to the Improv team, often half-a-beat late with his responses, or just this side of awkward, in its own kind of funny. Mariel was a comic genius, with a rounded buxom figure, huge brown eyes and an impressive range of physical expression, and she could also get really LOUD in all the good ways. Tawd was clever, almost effortlessly funny both onstage and off, and a deceptively mellow, slow voice. He's the reason I acquired a nickname among the drama classes, and I remember him fondly for that. Aliza was slim, sly, sarcastic, with a drawling kind of vocal delivery that could quicksilver turn to something manic and panicked if the character called for it. Lucas was tall, with what his friends teased him was "emo kid hair", at that gangly teenage stage where his every gesture seemed floppy, but he sure knew how to use that puppety-ness to his advantage, like a Tim Burton character. Brandon was short and compact. He had a deep voice that belied his small frame, and an onstage poise and speed on the uptake that was nothing short of marvellous. Adam was blond, almost with ringlets, and our tech guy when he wasn't onstage. He was ridiculously silly and ridiculously smart, and I still remember one skit where he was spontaneously, slowly, somersaulting around the stage for no apparent reason.

They were all, every one of them, hilarious, but Parker felt like the ringleader. That kid... well. Damn, that kid was a force to be reckoned with. Sandy sort of dishwater brown hair (and I'm not just saying that because he had a positive TALENT for pissing me off), a nondescript sort of everyman face, and sleepy-looking hooded eyes, he was an absolute fucking chameleon onstage, with a rubber face and a skill at vocal characterization that reminded me of the young Jimmy Stewart. He's the one who I remember (with Mariel and Tawd) as starting the club and teaching the other kids all the improv games. He had a very strong personality, and he pushed hard to get the team members to practice all the different kinds of games and to get them in shape for competitive Improv Comedy events with other schools.

Parker was so funny and occasionally so bizarre... I remember how impressed I was with how much he knew about comedy and improvisation. I was brand new to the drama gig, and I don't mind at all saying that I learned virtually everything I know about improv and theater games from these kids. From Highway Patrol to New Choice, tongue-twisters and physical warmups, their speed and sarcasm and joy and silliness just delighted me. I would watch from the audience space and sometimes grade papers as they worked and played and tried new things, always new things, even with the old games they all knew well.

Building characters and scenes with zero stage props or maybe only hats or scarves or a couple of chairs from the audience is what made me think of them when I saw this week's prompt. These kids? I could imagine them EASILY getting a "confession from the chair." You'd be laughing at the one-sided conversation, imagining the chair's responses, and then cheering as the chair is dragged offstage. Of course, there'd be implications that a well-deserved beat-down will happen once the chair is in lockup.

It was a privilege to pay the rent there, to be on the sidelines watching the worldbuilding these kids could do in the blink of an eye. I got no call to be proud of them, I didn't teach them anything. They did it all themselves, but I'm proud of them nevertheless. It was a pleasure to know them.

I hope they are all still finding joy in words and connection and their own quick minds, making creative and subversive things in the world, and messing with people's heads.


This has been my entry for therealljidol . This week's prompt was, as I mentioned, "Confession from the Chair."

Here is a link to one place you can find short descriptions of improv comedy games, you can also google "theater games" or improv games if you would be interested in learning more. Also I recommend comedysportz san jose as an example of improv comedy as a hell of a lot of fun for an evening's entertainment. (hmmm, I need to get out and see that again sometime soon!)

Once upon a time, not in MY time, not in YOUR time, but in somebody's time...

I had a Guildmaster. His name was Bryn.

...actually his name still IS Bryn, though sadly he's not my Guildmaster anymore. The guild's name is Travellers Union, and we specialized in music and dancing at renaissance faires both small and large. He played mandolin, sang, and told really bad jokes on stage.

zindelo is Bryn's twin brother, a little taller, and a little quieter, usually playing guitar. gypsy_ritsa, always beautiful and beautifully dressed, played recorders and whistles, and sang. tshuma, my beloved Seester, also played recorder and sang, and often danced. samayam had a bodhran contraption (he'd added a cymbal to the wooden frame, if I recall correctly), toxgunn and bedpimp sang as well, and lots of the rest of us sang along, tagged into the band from time to time, danced or were set decoration. (tigman, sarabellae, miss_mimsy, willrabbit, dotarvi, foseelovechild, pushkie, parnasus and tara_bella, I am looking at y'all, among some others.) *grin*

Bryn told jokes in between songs. They were almost always horrible.

I still tell them.

One. My favorite short musician joke: How do you define perfect pitch? It's when you chuck the accordion across the stage. and it lands perfectly on the (bagpipes, banjo, insert your favorite horrible instrument here) and they both explode into splinters.

Two. My ex husband fools_and_irish learned his favorite shaggy-dog musician joke from Bryn: A session musician dies and goes to heaven, St. Peter gives him a rock-star tour of heaven, whereupon the musician, flabbergasted and flattered at first, eventually gets suspicious. Peter takes him off to one side, checks exaggeratedly for eavesdroppers, and confides, "yes, we need you to head up the band, because... (select the text below to read the answer)
God? Yeah... He has a girlfriend. And... he thinks she can sing."

Three. My favorite horrible joke OF ALL TIME was the one we all tried to con the audience into believing was good, with wide eyes, eager faces, and full attention on Bryn.
"What's Brown... (long pause) and Sticky?"
(select text below for answer)
"A... STICK!"


I know it's horrible. But I can't help but laugh Every. Single. Time.

Maybe you did have to be there. But maybe it was the joy of wearing the costumes, being in a playful mood, listening to good live music, and new friends working together to entertain. Maybe it didn't matter how corny we were.

Because I'm still over here smiling, and that was sixteen years ago.

Today went very very smoothly. The teacher has a routine of the students practicing their work at the OH projector, then they do their own work in pairs or independently.

Bathroom rule is pretty standard: 5 minutes maximum out of class.

Fair enough. One kid, the last period I was working(fifth) decided to "go to the bathroom" but was gone for 15 minutes. The students were debating whether he'd gone to Starbucks or Panda Express. I was being quietly amused at how aware they were of this particular student's, um, proclivities.

Then one kid (I have to hand it to him for carpe-ing the diem) says, mischievously, "Hey, we should call him, put him on speaker phone, be really quiet, and ask him where he is." Eyes go slideways toward me.

I thought for a second, was even more amused, said, "Sure, let's see what he has to say for himself." The kids were delighted, the call proceeded, the kid outed himself in front of the whole class. He says how he went home for chocolate then realized he wanted his ipod for after school sports practice...

O.M.G. I was (silently) laughing so hard I took my glasses off and was wiping tears out of my eyes. Now, it wasn't mean-natured or anything, it was just, he did something goofus, now we've busted him and we're gonna laugh a little.

Kid moseys into class a few minutes later. Avoids eye contact. Slides, maybe slinks out the door when the period ends. Probably thought he got away with it, too.

He didn't. I let Ms. Woods, the sub-scheduling secretary, know what went down. She LOL'd as well, and then I happened to mention this kid had been seeming disconnected and avoidant and not-grounded, or floaty, "kind of like a stoner", I said, "though I'm not implying I believe he is one"... Ms. Woods says, "Well, if you even THINK he might be doing something like that, we want to know about it."

A good day. I got a whole Waldorf lecture read and annotated while the kids were working today, connected the dots for it by doing some artwork (boy, I'm glad I thought to bring my homework to do!!), and got a damn fine bellylaugh out of the deal as well.

I love that his peers totally punk'd him.

If you saw me in the back seat of a police car, what would you think I got arrested for?


Anonymous commenting okay. (comments also screened)

Imagine mac-n-cheese. Remember when you were a kid, you had a comfort food?
Mac-n-cheese was a common one, or some variation thereof... (my mom's tuna casserole, mmm cheesy goodness.)

so now imagine you're grown up,
and y'know, you like some spices with your meal,
and a decent glass of wine,
but you're lazy.

So you throw some rotini pasta in the pan, boil it up,
go get some thyme from the plant in your backyard,
pour a glass of Bogle Old Vine Zinfandel,
(now the pasta's about done)
scoop pasta out of pan into a bowl with a triple-pinch of thyme, some cracked pepper and garlic salt,
and because you're really lazy, use the slotted spoon to cut some butter into the bowl,
(keep stirring while the pasta's still hot)
cut a bit of cream cheese in there
(keep stirring)
and go sit down on the couch with candles lit, your glass of wine, and your damn laptop, because you're going to brag about it on your Livejournal.

HAH!

(cos DAY-UM, this is some fine dinner I got me here!)
(sips wine)

Drinking Leather is the only thing I think I don't wanna do on this list.

Heh.