Ode to a Grecian Urn

One of the coolest things I saw at The Met whilst on vacation was also one of the first, in the first room I entered. It’s a vase (like an amphora? An urn? I don’t recall the term for the particular type) depicting Perseus’ decapitation of Medusa, and Pegasus emerging from the wound.

I mean, this is one of the most well known stories of all time. It’s been told and retold countless times; and even though you may not know the actual story of Perseus and Medusa, or the weird way Pegasus was born, you definitely know what a Pegasus is. You most likely also know very well that Medusa has snakes for hair and that her gaze’ll turn you to stone. There’s even a strong likelihood that you know (even if you didn’t remember the hero’s name) Perseus cut her head off by using his mirrored shield so he wouldn’t have to look directly at her, and that after her defeat he wielded her severed head as quite the effective weapon.

Like I was mentioning before about the window/mirror concept of stories, this is an example of how astonishing it is to look down a time tunnel so long: this vessel has that story depicted on it, clear as clay. And it’s, like, two thousand years old. And yet I can look at it and go, Oh yeah: that story. I know that story.

I have been a scholar of what I call by the collective noun Old Story for a very very long time. Most of my remembered life, in fact. In my teen years I discovered Joseph Campbell’s studies that came before mine, and his powerful works of synthesis (revolutionary for his time) excited me very much. Still does, actually, especially because I myself in my own works and studies thereon have expanded it beyond heterosexual masculinity in a way that honors Campbell’s work, doesn’t butcher it like so many feminists do whose scholarship isn’t as rigorous. But that’s a rant for another time. Don’t “at” me, c’mon: I’m a feminist myself. But just take two seconds to look up the actual etymology of the word “history” to understand why the current term “herstory” irks me so.

There are many reasons why I’m excited about the monomyth, and why it makes plenty of people uncomfortable. But it comes back to the way I always describe it, particularly to my writing students: we’re all skeletons underneath. Strip me of my clothes and flesh and do the same to the most different looking person to me, and stand our skeletons next to each other. Odds are you won’t see much of a difference, if any. Maybe one of us is a little taller, or if you know how to look at bones, you’ll notice our assigned sex might be different. But the differences are minuscule, really. Put our flesh and our skin and our hair and our clothing back on over them, and that’s where we’ll begin to show our differences. The base, though, the skeleton? Pretty much the same.

That’s what makes those old stories so potent, and (I would aver) is why we keep telling them, over and over. They’re our base and inner structure, our skeleton; they’re what keep us standing upright.

Did you know that there’s a version of Cinderella in every single culture on earth? Every one. No exception. Fun fact. And we haven’t stopped telling it.

Perseus and Medusa aren’t as pervasive, you say? So tell me: which of the My Little Ponies has wings? What was the main conflict in the second Harry Potter book? And isn’t there another YA series with Percy and a bunch of Greek gods?

The Greek gods are like the ultimate reality show, or soap opera whose drama never ends. And why should it? It’s what keeps us going. What keeps us standing.

Fish Heads n Tatts

I have a weekly tradition wherein I grab the latest paper issue of the Boulder Weekly and skim/read the whole thing, then end with the horoscopes. The horoscopes are written by one Rob Brezny, and I’ve long been delighted by their length and metaphorical quality.

The tradition concludes with me taking pictures of some of the horoscopes and sharing them via message to the select few people who are my regular recipients of same. That list includes the SO, his dad, a woman living in Arizona who we call the Raven Oracle, and a friend of mine I still call by her erstwhile burlesque name, Archimedes (what a cool burlesque name, amirite?). She’s on the cusp of Cancer and Gemini, so she gets both. The SO, too, is Gemini, and the rest of us are all Pisces.

My first tattoo I acquired in summer of 1995, in the middle of a booze-soaked, sweltering Shakespeare Festival season. I had just graduated with a BA and a BFA that December and had been living with my parents for that last semester, after two sets of roommates ended up bailing on me. So I figured, why not live for the summer in CSF housing? I was a full time employee of theirs (all year in fact, not just summer during the festival), so it was a perfect halfway house of sorts, till I could get into another, more independent housing situation.

The Shakespeare fest peeps would affectionately call the apartment complex wherein we were crammed from May through early August: Camp Shakespeare Fest, and that it was. An adult camp, with the post-work activities ranging from boozy ragers to pool parties (also boozy) to epic RPG campaigns (were the gaming sessions boozy? I don’t remember. Probably). I learned to drink in college, lovely lurkers, being relatively clean living in high school, so by the time the summer of ‘95 rolled around, I’d been drinking Absolut Kurant by the multiple full pint glass while studying, and my cocktail making skills were bar none (see what I did there), and made me something slightly more than a nonentity to the bigtime actors who actually got cast. This skill also made the apartment where I was bunked (with three other box office buddies) the host condo for most of the ragers. I partied so much those few summers in the mid ‘90s, that it cost me a good friend. Not my fault, at least not entirely, but that’s a story for another day.

At one point, in the middle of a grand party, I cornered the brilliant actor who’d been playing Hamlet in both the eponymous Shakespeare play and in Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, in rep. In a brief moment of semi-mature awareness, I drunkenly asked him, “Hey Chris: how is it you can drink so much and yet still be able to act so well?!”

He was a tall young man with a mop of dark hair held in place with a bandanna (and I do mean “was”—he died in Seattle only a few years ago, not very much older than me). He stopped his swaying lumber across the partying room, turned to me, and in proper dramatic fashion, suitable for a Shakespearean actor, declared, “Like this:” and at that, he raised the full bottle of Cuervo he’d had dangling from his left hand to his lips. He stayed that way for an inordinately long time, until, lowering the significantly diminished bottle, repeated, “Like that.” And he sauntered, swaying only slightly, off to hobnob with a couple fellow cast members.

But I was talking about horoscopes, and first tattoos, and titling this post with fish. So my first sexual partner and college boyfriend’s name was Ricky. (This time I don’t mean “was” as he’s alive and well [as well as one can be with Crohn’s disease] with a beautiful wife and son in Pittsburgh and we’re still friends). He was a lovely willowy Gothy Puerto Rican, not much taller than me but much slimmer, that had such a gift of the pessimistic snark that one of our acting profs used to nickname him “Ricky Sunshine.” I can’t help but think, in retrospect, that I was substituting for the original snarkmaster in my world, Paul, since I had no idea where he was at the time. Or maybe it’s a much simpler matter of: that shit turns me on.

Side note re: Ricky Sunshine: After the first time we made love (which was my first time ever doing it), he made me Ghirardelli hot chocolate, made with milk, because he found the beverage to be a particularly sensual one, and therefore perfect for post-coital enjoyment. Isn’t that rather adorable?

Anyway: Ricky had bought me a pendant to wear: an antiqued steel thing, about the size of a silver dollar, of two fish swimming around each other in a yin-yang type circular shape. They had textured scales and looked like Japanese koi. I say “was,” because though I kept this necklace for a long time, my ex-husband ended up forcibly adopting it, and wearing it often until the leather strap broke. When I moved out of my ex’s place, he kept Ricky’s pendant.

But early that summer of 1995, I actually went and got my first tattoo. Keep in mind: this was just before the huge late-‘90s tattoo craze, till now pretty much everyone, professional or no, is inked. Back then, ink was still quite rare. I went in and had that pendant of the pair of fish tattooed on the smooth canvas of my right shoulder blade. Back then, it was still important to me to keep my ink relatively small and in a place that was easy to cover up. Yanno, because acting career. It ended up being a couple inches in diameter—bigger by far than the necklace, just because ink bleeds and it’d be impossible to make it any smaller. Though old, bluish, and smudged now, I still love it, and refuse to get it retouched.

That night of the day of the virgin tattooing was also one of the many big parties at our CSF apartment. Back then they didn’t just slap cling wrap over it and tell you to oil it in an hour or so: no, they bandaged it thoroughly, instructed you to use neosporin only, and to keep it covered for at least 5 hours before applying same. Obediently, I waited the allotted amount of time, then had the artistic unveiling at the party, right when everybody was in that particular phase of soused that I’m sure you can imagine. I had found a racer-back tank top just for the occasion, and whipped off the bandage to many oohs and aahs.

And then, one of my actor buddies lurched up to me, and, by way of celebration, chomped his teeth down directly onto the fresh ink. He basically bit the whole tattoo—it fit completely into his vodka soaked maw.

I had been admonished to keep the new artwork clean, to avoid touching it, etc., and so I was convinced this fucker had ruined my new milestone with one bite. “I’m so sorry!!” He groveled when I lit into him, “I didn’t realize it was so new! I’m sorry! It still looks fine…” to which one of my other friends pointed out that with all the alcohol in our dude’s mouth, the bite was certainly sterilized to some degree.

It was indeed, as my biting friend observed, fine. And healed fine, and is aging beautifully (fuzzy blue, as I mentioned, as tattoos do).

My horoscope the week I write this is all about an undefeated samurai. Which of course makes me think of all kinds of new tattoo ideas. Anyway, I can’t afford another one anytime soon, though I have plans for three and an addiction-like desire for a new one as soon as I can. Ah well. We’ll see.

The all-powerful samurai is a good image for me right now, though, because I’ve been feeling powerless. Like my efforts into things are for naught. So thanks to Brezny for that totem to keep in front of me, like a wiggling lure, for motivation & inspiration. And that’s not fishy.

Shikin haramitsu dai komyo. And cheers to Camp Shakespeare Fest–that real big fish tale from my youth.

P.S. I know I have a picture of that night with my fresh, sharp tatt on my shoulder, a drunk friend pointing at it for the camera like a Price Is Right model. But I can’t for the life of me find it. Sorry bout that.

Problematic Toxic Masculinity Tropes #2: Grow a Pair

The second installment of the PTMTs is live on Writers’ HQ! Do tell me what you think, lovely lurkers.

PTMT #2: Grow a Pair

Reflections of New York

I don’t know where to start, exactly, except that I have very recently returned from my first ever trip to New York. I’m gobsmacked by my experience and really don’t know what to say. It’ll be a little word-vomit-y, for that reason, since when I wrote this I was foggy and tired from travel, and time changes, and the redeye flight, and such.

I had always thought I’d like New York, though when I graduated with my acting degree and everyone was like, so are you moving to LA or NYC? I was like, no. But I did feel amazingly comfortable there in that urban environment, and loved the sights I saw.

I realized that I would have to be quite a bit more monied if I were to live there (or even indeed to travel there again). The SO was our gleeful sponsor for the whole 3-day trip, and knew where to take me and what to show me. But that’s kind of a life theme, not specifically a New York one. I mean after all, I could say the same thing about Boulder.

No, the theme for New York, for all the things we did (beyond the bare basic fact that it was a *vacation;* a trip purely for pleasure, something neither of us do very often at all) is the image of a window and a mirror. I’ll explain:

When I teach children’s lit, we go through all the major genres of fiction in detail. Realistic fiction is described in that way: designed as either a window into another real person’s life, or a mirror which reflects your own back at you. That’s what this trip did (to both of us, I believe): it showed us this other kind of urban life, making us appreciate it, and by doing so we came to appreciate our own life choices much more than when we’re face down in the shuffle, work blinders on, and etc. Just to relax and look around was a much needed pause, and it didn’t stop our home stress momentum as much as change the points and divert it into a new direction.

(Now that I’ve used a train metaphor, I needs must relate that we actually saw a big rat in the subway. So. I mean, yanno? Other than the Statue, how much more of a New York sight could you ask for?)

Self reflection without disparaging self judgment is unusual in my world, and two things did it for me, beyond the active reflective conversations at the super cool Irish pub. One was seeing the World Trade Center memorial—as all memorials do, it makes you think. Makes you reflect on not only the lives lost, but life itself too. As they’re built to.

The other event that smacked me silly into self reflection was meeting one Emily Flake. She’s successfully doing all these things I want to be doing, and I guess am to a much smaller degree. But she’s a contributor to the New Yorker—how cool is that? And her little daughter is completely in love with

The KGB Room, and Nightmares Show. Immensely entertaining.

Paul, too, which was delightful to witness. It was great getting to know Emily, first simply because she’s an interesting person. But seeing the show she co-hosts and specifically talking about art and being an artist with her afterwards was pretty life changing. It’s like: this amazing person doing famous and amazing things is just like me. And Paul. Doing cool entertaining things with copious amounts of both talent and self-deprecation. And as much as my ego always enjoys the stroking of a person exclaiming, “Whoa!! You are fascinating!” it was more than that when Emily said it. It was deep, meeting her and her family. I haven’t made a fan, I’ve made a friend. Which is big, for me. The island of brilliant misfit toys is a lot bigger than I realized. (And it’s got some really cool suspension bridges leading to it).

Walking around The Met on our third and final day there, the SO and I were both struck by especially the Roman statuary—the busts of people we’d heard of like philosophers and emperors and semi-deity warriors. But there were also a lot of unnamed men, women, and children portrayed too. And two Byzantine portraits in paint that hit us for the same reasons.To look through that window, to have a clear look at a regular person, from that far back in time, is extraordinary. It’s awesome, in the most literal sense of that word. To look into the eyes (and it often really felt that way) of a human being that lived thousands of years ago. We’re really no different. And there are such a lot of us.

It’s rather paradoxical that I feel much bigger and more powerful in my life today, by being made to feel so small. Not really small, just. One of many. To feel my uniqueness by seeing the larger population I belong to. Paul too. The tribe of talented weirdos. It’s like family. Chosen family, though. That’s something else. Something more than the obligation of the biological kind.

I feel like I’m rambling and I also feel like I’m not equipped with the language to describe what I’m attempting to. So I’ll conclude my reflective ramblings with a description:

Post-museum, Paul & I found this French bistro with a window seat. We relaxed there with a bottle of excellent rioja and people-watched, reflecting on the art we’d just soaked in. There was a moment when an older couple, each of them strange like a pair of mismatched socks, ambled right up to the window and pressed their noses to the glass to look in. They were close enough almost to kiss us through the glass, but I don’t know if they saw us. Made us catch each other’s eye and snicker.

That’ll have to do, to conclude. And I did see Lady Liberty and was actually unironically moved. Which I can’t begin to understand, so I’ll just leave it at that.

Aesthetics

The two screens facing me side by side at the sports bar are showing hockey and figure skating, respectively, in parallel. Both, obviously, feature ice skating and scoring points. But other than that, they couldn’t be more different sports.

In fact, I’d question the calling of figure skating a sport. There’s an appealing aesthetic to both movements I see on both screens, but only one of them is actually being scored on the beauty of the movements as well as the difficulty of the execution of same.

Costume differences aside (sexist, if you look at both the male and female requirements of such in figure skating), the hockey is aesthetically pleasing because of the concision and focus of the moves involved. Also if you happen to enjoy watching combative arts—the fights involved in hockey have a particular aesthetic appeal. But the points scored in hockey (and dings on the teams) have everything to do with getting the puck in the opposing team’s net. The spareness and quickness and speed and difficulty level of the moves in hockey that are so pleasing to the eye are all focused on this. (Well I mean maybe the fights aren’t that focused on that one goal, but. You get my point.)

The figure skaters also get points, though they’re competing solo. A big part of how they score points is on their difficulty level and array of big trick moves of various kinds, whether they execute them correctly, land on their feet not their asses out of them, etc. But another good sized chunk of how they score points is how beautifully they skate.

What does that mean, though? It’s not only technical prowess—the judges are looking for certain requirements done technically correctly, sure, but doing them *well*? That’s a whole ‘nother monster.

Many people, when interrogating me on my current profession, ask how I can grade all these kids on their artistic works, when they’re still learning and young and isn’t it all subjective anyway.

It is subjective, art. But I still give grades to my students.

Part of this is basic: do they have their lines memorized, did they write to the assignment requirements, did they spell shit correctly, etc. but that’s all the easy part. That’s all technique. That’s getting the puck in the net. I also grade them on how good they are, though.

Of course I take all kinds of things into account when doing so: how old are they, how much experience do they have, etc. I mean, two 18 year olds attempting to perform scenes from 1775 restoration comedy The Rivals aren’t going to cut it to the same level as highly trained 30-somethings in a professional troupe. But.

There’s still an aesthetic standard I hold the 18 year olds to, and it isn’t any different than what the 30something professionals are doing. But I have to give the 18 year olds a grade. And I really am grading them on how good the art is they’ve presented.

Postmodernists and hippy tribalists will call this unfair. Who am I, they whine, who is any one (especially white) person to dictate what art is “good?” For that matter, what is “art,” anyway, man?

I recently wrote a rant (called “Actually, Don’t“) wherein I ranted about this type of thing. I know you’re never supposed to read the comments but I did on a friend’s reshare. What I wrote rubbed a lot of people wrong, and they called me pedantic, an asshole, and how can you judge real art, man?

Thing is, you can. Thing is, you should. We should. Who gets to? Qualified people. People who know what goes into an art, and can judge based on many factors, including (but not limited to) their own (erstwhile or current) prowess in same.

Beauty is a formula: Technique plus passion. Have the one alone, you only get a certain number of points, but not a perfect 10. Have only the other, you can’t even execute your art—can’t even get it done.

Anyway, both screens are pretty.

No Rest For the Wicked

Holy schnikies, lovely lurkers, am I about to be busy as a whole hive of bees with spectacular gigs aplenty! I mean, wow. I haven’t written anything here in quite some time, so I am going to do two things for you, to make you happy and ameliorate my wretched posting frequency here. The first thing I’m going to do is to start posting here some of the more interesting and apropos musings from my blogs under my pen name. That should be a fun way to get more of my memoir-style writing out there, much to my immense discomfort. I’d love your feedback on any of those, too, lovely lurkers, so I can continue to improve in a writing style/genre I’m unfamiliar with.

The other thing I’m going to do is go down the list of stuff that’s up and coming with me, so you can be amazed and also come to see some of this stuff if you are or will be local. So. Ahem. Here goes (in a somewhat though not totally accurate chronological order):

• BLUE DIME CABARET has a one-year anniversary show coming up on April 5th (wow, can you believe it’s been a whole year since we’ve been doing this? Wut), which consists of some of the best acts we’ve had the pleasure to include in shows from the past 12 months. We also have dates for new shows set for June, August, October, and January, so we’ll continue to be a regular font of fun for Boulder peeps for the rest of the year and beyond. Find the dime pieces on our website or on Facebook (where we’re most active).
• I am just next week finishing up the insane pile of battles and dances and dance battles for Red Rocks Community College‘s production of She Kills Monsters. This is a very fight heavy show and I also did the dance choreography for it, so it’ll have my marks all over the stage. That goes up in late April. Directly afterwards, I’ll be helping with a brief fight scene at another college, MSU Denv
• er this time–they’re doing Machinal this Spring and want help with a slap in the round (which ain’t easy. But I’m on it). Then in September I’ll be back at RRCC for their production of Macbeth.
• Speaking of stage combat, an ex of mine is directing an all-female production of Richard III this summer, and I’m on board to do the fights for that exciting sounding project. I admit, I am considering auditioning (I mean, how often will I get the chance to play dream role Richard III??) but you’ve heard me lament about the time suck that all live theatre is, and I don’t know if I want to subject myself to that. So there’s that.
• Before that, though, I’ll be cheerfully sharing my Your Body Tells Your Story workshop with the fine folks attending Boulder Startup Week. I’m very much looking forward to helping Boulder’s finest businesspeople find their most effective presentational personas, for anything they need to pitch or present. That will take place during finals week, in mid-May.
• Then in the last weekend of May/first weekend of June, I’m frickin
• g STARRING in Denver Pop Culture Con (formerly Denver Comic Con)!! Think I’m exaggerating? Well I’m actually not. Page 23, the academic branch of DPCC, is having me talk about Intimacy Coordination in my talk called “Sex and/or Violence.” Then! DPCC proper is having me present THREE different things!!! They’re bringing back “The Fight is the Story,” and “Three Rules For Protagonists.” And this time, they’re having me present on the Problematic Badass Female Tropes as well. Can you believe this craziness? Four presentations! FOUR.
• Oh, and I’m going to Goth Prom again with the SO. That’s right in the thick of DPCC, so that’ll be quite the exciting weekend for me.
• Finally, I caved and am yet again traipsing to Longmont to teach stage combat to the kid bunheads at the Longmont Dance Academy. I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and though they drain the very life out of me, they also adore me. And, yeah, the feeling is mutual.

Other than that? The current semester ends mid-May and the summer one begins in June. I visited New York City for the first time last week. I’ve finally gotten the paperwork filed and started for the divorce that’s been percolating for a couple years now (guuhhh that’s a long time coming but thank goodness it’s finally in the actual

process), and I may be starting at Community College of Denver this Fall as an English Prof.

We shall see.

Holy good goddamn that’s a lot. I mean, I knew it was a lot before

but now I’ve written it all down? Sheeeeeeez.

Don’t applaud, just send wine.

And coffee. Lots of coffee.

Sketch of the Day

“Shakespearean tengu”