if . . .

"After Stanislavsky, acting was changed; after Meyerhold, directing; after Brecht, playwriting. But after Grotowski?" - Richard Schechner Life is acting. Do we understand that ? Do we want to understand that . But what, in us, questions life is acting? What disputes that , despite everything? That we think thought is life. The most important thing is that our experiences reveal we are acting all the time. That when we feel we do not act we do not live. That we want nothing more than to live. We act. But we do not know that we act. We do not live. But we do not know that we do not live. Actors train to act. Actors keep the life of wanting to act. Of wanting to be in the living action. But how do we act? And why do we care about acting? Somehow, we have a real relationship to questions on acting, of living. Somehow, those questions mean something to all of us. We do not know what acting means.We experience not acting but the impossibili...

There once was an actor who was different from all other actors. Unlike them, there wasn't a consciousness of acting. The character thing-in-itself was as unknowable on stage as it was unknowable in the phenomenal world. The moment other actors entered the contours of a character it was as though they would test a possession and leave the limits of empirical knowing. Then when they exited they would return to a state of self consciousness as though they were who they lived to occupy. But this particular actor had no awareness of a playing self-possession, no awareness of a living presence, of exiting and entering and Instead would play each and every moment in a single life occupying stream. So for a long time when entering the character everything would simply move in a stronger current, and then, in what seemed like the next moment, would return to a slower flow with little idea of what had happened other than this intense sense of dispossession and unknowing because o...

North of Sleep At night,  my body is a compass swinging to every direction: past borderlands,  the ruins of unknown,  empty streets  en route  to elsewhere, slipping into rooms  where bearings  jolt me to a  wakefulness of frigid air and dormant train tracks  wait to halt traffic  twice a day. By morning,  I approach nausea, relentless calls  to speak some truth, a light with no shadow  but a heaviness.  The howl, dragged  from northern lights I couldn’t even understand. I stop, let my soul  go on ahead. Show me. (Shouting now.) Show me. (Frightened now.) The flaked ceiling points  to a bitten fingernail scratch   throwing grief across the back as a one perfect window  diffuses time. Noodles & coffee:  in a fractal tell a  haunting dirty knot  of restless  grime & eyes  bleed...

:: Note ::  ... anniversery ...

:: Note :: ... a  gentle soul was my uncle ... a thoughtful, caring individual who seemed to always be of service to the other ... my last image was of him talking to my son on a visit to Ottawa ... he had discovered Stefan's passion for history and listened to this teenager with attentiveness and respect ... before we left he gifted a book from his library ... other than his intense compassion & devotion to his family this was his deepest love - books: reading, researching, contemplating, collecting, challenging & most importantly sharing ... he was a bit of what I imagined 'a man of letters' and  wrote letters to my mother which she treasured more than any jewlery ... she will miss those words in meticulous handwriting ... we will miss his gentle caring soul ... in our thoughts we will receive his letters as he writes them from another place than the place of actuality ...