Deranged Ramblings

A short but violent storm hit here yesterday, and while I was largely unaware of it in my dark little cubicle, it wreaked a bit of carnage outside. On the way home from work, I came to a very busy intersection of two major roads where the traffic lights had very recently gone out and there was not yet an officer on the scene to impose order. Behind my anxiety and eager desire to get home, I found the situation interesting on a conceptual level. What would happen, I was curious to know, in the absence of some kind of arbitration of order, without the presence of law? Last year an acquaintance of mine tried at great lengths to convince me that any kind of prescriptive law or governing body was by its very nature repressive and restrictive and that the only truly free and happy society would be found through anarchy. In the absence of these repressive orders, he argued, there would not be violent chaos but some kind of spontaneous and natural order that needed no enforcement by some kind ...

One grows accustomed to all surroundings, of course, but on the first day my fresh eye was drawn to the foreign, the strange, the slightly off – so that by lunchtime on Monday I felt unsettled by the nagging feeling that something was decidedly odd about my new place of temporary employment. It looked nice at first - high ceilings, marble floor in the lobby, ultramodern flourescent lighting, but upon closer inspection there were cracks in the façade. Many of the lights were broken or barely working, and a crack in one wall let in a stream of curious local bugs. Immediately on entry I noticed a sign: “No Smoking – No Weapons.” I was delighted by the implicit assumption behind the sign that these two rules were of equal importance and severity, and then immediately horrified by mental images of a cigarette-smoking gunman running rampant through the building. Then there were the doors, which are somewhat narrower than average yet very tall, reaching right up to the ceiling. Each one is id...

When I lived in Utah, I thought that I couldn’t wait to leave. I wanted to quit the state like a bad job, and leave the entire place behind me. Sure, I had many friends and loved ones who I would leave behind, but I was unsatisfied and restless and found myself growing more irritated with the land where I finally discovered what it was like to call one place home. I think, in retrospect, that it was merely the desire to move on to the next phase of life, the next step in my progression through life, that drove me away, and Utah itself was actually rather blameless. In fact, since my self-imposed exile began, I’ve only grown more fiercely attached to the state I still think of as home. After all, nothing increases your fondness for home like living someplace much, much worse. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ve been quite happy here in South Carolina, and have surrounded myself with good and inspiring people (many of whom actually were born and raised here). But it doesn’t compare. Seriously...

As I mentioned briefly in my last post, I had the distinct opportunity to create a solo performance and bring it to life. Here are some pictures from my show, "David & Jonathan":

My, this blog is certainly dusty. Anybody here? Hello? I really need to clean this place up. Maybe a change of curtains and a loveseat in the corner would make me want to be around the blog more often. We are nearing the end of my second year of graduate school, and hasn't the time just flown by. I played Romeo, wrote and performed a one-man show, and now I'm in a play set in 17th century France in which I hide for an entire act in a very small harpsichord. Fun stuff. It's looking like I'll stay here in Columbia for the summer and most of the fall. At some point around December I'll head up to Virginia to work for a regional theater as an intern. I'll play Romeo again in a touring, up-to-date, totally hip production that tours to high schools. And then I'll be graduated! Time really has gone by quickly. Not sure when I'll be back in Utah, but I miss all my friends and relations terribly. Oh, and one other thought: that thing you've always wanted to d...

So I actually found myself with a little free time today, and thought I would put something up here for anybody curious about what I am up to lately. It's a very busy semester! I'm in the process of rehearsing Romeo and Juliet, which has been taking up the bulk of my time. We open on February 22nd or something, and are running alternately with a production of the Tempest in the same space. Playing Romeo is nuts. I have notes in my journal from my time in London about the various actors I saw play the part over there, and I was very critical. Now that I'm in their shoes, I'm much more sympathetic. Of course, once there are some pictures I'll put them up here. The second show of the semester was supposed to be "The Inspector General" but it got canceled for reasons passing human understanding. Still no official word on what will take its place, so for now we are just not thinking about it. This semester we also have to prepare a showcase for theaters conside...

If you're in Utah, and it feels a little colder this evening than usual, there's a reason. I'm coming back. I'm home from tomorrow until the 7th of January. If anybody reading this is in the Provo/Orem area this Christmas, give me a ring!

Hello. Still alive here. Been really busy. I offer these pictures as proof. They show you a glimpse of the insanity that was "Oh, What a Lovely War." Here are some more pictures of stuff I did in class, first from our clown workshop, then from our rockstar imitations in which I performed as Axl Rose from Guns 'N Roses. Enjoy. (I promise most of what I do in grad school doesn't seem quite as trivial as these assignments. They were just the most photogenic).

Not for the faint of heart, the trailer for my new show: I've never been so proud of my work.

Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead

Yeah I know I'm a lazy bum. My blog has received no love in the last couple of months, and I think I can now safely say that the only time I'll be able to post anything on here is when I have pictures to show you of the various plays I'm involved in. I just finished up an independent summer project with some other grad students called "Funeral Wedding: The Alvin Play." I played an imaginary clown. Take a look at these photos:

Matt Dyes His Hair to Drop Dead Sexy Blonde: Matt Rocks Out In Early Rehearsals of "Hedwig" - The audio is a bit lacking on these videos. Sounds much better in real life!

"The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost." -- the fortune cookie that changed my life

Are here . Enjoy!

It is to be all made of sighs and tears; It is to be all made of faith and service; It is to be all made of fantasy, All made of passion and all made of wishes, All adoration, duty, and observance, All humbleness, all patience and impatience, All purity, all trial, all observance; If this be so, why blame you me to love you? William Shakespeare - "As You Like It"

This is just for me, so I always have a reminder: "The rhythm of life in modern civilization is characterized by pace, tension, a feeling of doom, the wish to hide our personal motives and the assumption of a variety of roles and masks in life (different ones with our family, at work, amongst friends or in community life, etc.) We like to be "scientific" by which we mean discursive and cerebral, since this attitude is dictated by the course of civilization. But we also want to pay tribute to our biological selves, to what we might call physiological pleasures. We do not want to be restricted in this sphere. Therefore we play a double game of intellect and instinct, thought and emotion; we try to divide ourselves artificially into body and soul . When we try to liberate ourselves from it all we start to shout and stamp, we convulse to the rhythm of the music. In our search for liberation we reach biological chaos. We suffer most from a lack of totality, throwing ourselve...

Upon reflection with my friends Michael and Liesl Downey that the last Harry Potter book ("Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows") has a rather disappointing name: Harry Potter and the Apocalypse Harry Potter and the Bearded Lizard.... Dragon Harry Potter and the Tumbly Wumbly Snazzleberry Harry Potter and Boobs Harry Potter BOOZE! Harry Potter and the Itemized Deduction Form 7-B Harry Potter and a Pound of Bacon Harry Potter and the Weapons of Mass Destruction Harry Potter and a Cobra Wrapped Around a Budweiser Harry Potter and the Lost Luggage Harry Potter and the Plan of Salvation Harry Potter on a Hot Tin Roof Harry Potter and the Missing Prostate Harry Potter Go To Space! Harry Potter and the Cat Harry Potter and the World AIDS Crisis

You know those times where you ever sit and think, "Man, everybody I know really sucks. Someplace somewhere there has got to be somebody so completely awesome that it literally would blow my socks off and make milk come out my nose just to be near him." Yeah, I hear you. We all feel that way sometimes. Well, not me. I know that guy. He's my best friend. He is a man of many names. Master of a Thousand Voices. King of Random Hats. The Golden Prince of Cheese. Lord of Catan. Kingpin of Kool-Aid. Viceroy of Vice. Grand Chancellor of Wild. Prime Minister of Pie. Savant of Nerdy Trivia. Impromptu Film Director. Emperor of the Eclectic. Avatar of Apple Martinis. Friend of Beasts. Duke of the Dance Floor. Protector of Awkward Comedy of Days Gone By. He is always there for you, with a smile, a laugh, or a drunken kiss, whatever the need may be. His door and his heart are always open, and he'll always let you pet his dog, sleep on his couch, or flirt with his wife. He is kind a...

My stories from this spring break are too numerous to tell here. I'll not bother to explain how I found myself stuck in Atlanta, Georgia for longer than anticipated, or tell you about bleeding all over myself some thirty thousand feet above what I think must have been Pennsylvania, or about how I wound up mostly naked in the back of a rented mini-van somewhere in New Jersey. These are all stories you'll have to get from me in person. Let's just say this: despite a week of warm weather, the northwest (including Newark International Airport) was suddenly visited by a horrible sleet storm on Friday, when a whole host of people (including yours truly) were supposed to be flying out that day. Here's a record of my woes: 10:00 AM, Friday, March 16 I arrive at the Newark Airport with plenty of time to spare. This morning on the news they said the weather was going to get bad and that there would probably be delays and cancellations, but not until later this afternoon. I can on...