Tag: Life

​​Clown School Day 33: Milk, Movement, and Metatarsals

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero boils over, breaks down, and opens up.

I was milk.

Not your boring half-full breakfast glass:

I was milk on the stove that someone had forgotten about.

Warming gently, then rapidly, then dramatically.

I boiled, I foamed, I rose.

A glorious dairy geyser.

I was beautiful, exciting, energetic, light.

They loved me.

I was milking it for all it was worth.

And then I landed. Hard.

On the outside of my right foot.

The outermost digit rolled under the meat of the foot.

My milk, so recently ascendant, suddenly boiled over and ran down the sides of the pot.

Call it a turning point.

Or a turning-sour point.

Someone asked if I was hurt. I said no.

Classic milquetoast behavior.

They told me they loved my milk.

I felt genuinely glad: I’d worked hard yesterday—six hours improving myself, skimming off the emotional scum, clarifying my internal butter.

And today, between movement and improv, I stayed in the classroom to feel my feelings.

To laugh, to cry, to laugh-cry.

Just to be with myself.

A short personal pilgrimage to the Land of Milk and Honey.

No wonder my performance rose, like cream to the top.

Now I’m at the hospital.

I don’t think it’s broken.

I assume they’ll give me an X-ray, recommend some painkillers, and send me home.

A quick skim.

The triage nurse, Leo, asks if I’m a clown student.

The international ones usually are, he says.

Last year he had:

– a ruptured Australian Achilles (hi, A!)

– an American with a back problem, delivered via ambulance (hi, M!).

This year, he gets me: whole milk, 2% structurally compromised.

Leo asks where I’m from.

“California.”

He says “Alcatraz.”

I say I’ve never been.

He says it’s scary.

(It curdles his insides.)

Now I sit in the waiting room, surprisingly not souring.

Throughout this whole experience, I’ve actually felt my feelings pretty well—

and feeling them has made them less bad.

So much has to work in concert to enable walking, let alone clowning.

Bones, muscles, tendons:

a whole orchestra playing in tune.

Until suddenly the music sours
And my fifth metatarsal decides it has a bone to pick with me. (Alternate joke: “has beef with me”.)

The teacher who drove me here says I’m the first of the year.

The first!

The early bird. The early calf.

The first one to fall before the cows come home.

—

Diagnosis:

A fracture non-déplacée—a nondisplaced fracture of the 5th metatarsal.

Pain meds.

No weight on it.

Three weeks to heal.

A season put out to pasture.

Oddly, I’m calm.

It’s almost a relief to have a socially acceptable excuse for being bad at clowning.

(“Sorry, I should have been cream of the crop, but I was overwhipped/overbeaten and now I’ve split. Maybe I need to find butter things to do.”)

And despite the pain, I stayed with it—

full-fat presence.

—

I bought crutches, pain meds, and a boot from the pharmacy.

The pharmacist noted the challenge of carrying crutches while also needing crutches.

She asked where I live.

“Just across the street.”

She walked with me.

A small, wholesome kindness:

like a neighbor bringing over cookies and saying,

“Here, I brought you some warm milk for your soul.”

She knows my upstairs neighbor.

They have coffee together every day.

We bonded over our love for her cat, chausettes (“socks’ in french).

—

A surprising emotion: relief.

I told a friend about the injury and she asked how much of it might be emotional—

how sometimes a bone breaks when something else is begging to break.

She said when she broke a bone, it partly came from a life she didn’t love.

I get that.

My milk was already foaming over.

I wasn’t enjoying clown school.

I wasn’t doing it right.

I wasn’t satisfied personally either.

Then—splat.

Here comes God to shake it up.

And by God, I mean my own discoordination.

(Or the universe saying, “Time to churn.”)
As a friend sometimes describes about me: “Julian plans, and Julian laughs”.

So now I have a fracture.

And honestly… I don’t mind.

Sometimes the carton needs a dent.

—

My teacher offered to let me watch the rest of the course now and then take the actual course next year.

I’ll take them up on it.

The cows will come home eventually.

Perhaps it’s better that I watch this course.

I might have been trying too hard, mooving with too much vigor.

And at least—

miraculously—

I didn’t cry over spilled milk.

​​Clown School Day 32: Fear & Loathing

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero gently invites his classmates to find pleasure in their fear.

[I wrote this earlier today, before a long and insightful conversation with my roommate. By the vacillations of clown school, I’m not sure how much I still endorse or will endorse tomorrow. How’s that for a cop-out? 🤡]

Another shit day at clown school. I should frighten other students more.

Listen:

Earlier today we were playing dodgeball. Someone on the opposing team had the ball and motioned toward me. I ran away, bumped into a teammate, and she let out a startled little yelp, plus an admonishment along the lines of “come on guys, it’s a game.”

Later in that same match, I leapt to grab a ball, robbing the opposing team of a catch, like stealing a home run but dodgeball-style. A player said, “Chill out.” The first person would probably call themselves unathletic. The second, not very competitive.

Okay.

Sure.

What of it?

Sidebar: clown school is populated far more by theatre nerds than athletes. I’m probably the best all-around athlete in my class—not the strongest or tallest, just the one with the most hunger to win and the actual ability to put that into reality. So why is it not showing up?

After her yelp, I shrank back. I became smaller, gentler, duller. I had less fun.

But realistically? A little bump between teammates in dodgeball is not a big deal. No one fell. No one got hurt. It was a collision between two moving bodies in a game whose entire premise is hurling projectiles at each other. 

The recent American neurosis of “don’t cause anyone fear ever” does not help me here. Hurting people would be bad. Frightening them? Not inherently. If two people bump into each other while playing dodgeball, the appropriate move is some sort of affectionate “eh, no worries love”. 

But I’ve been avoiding frightening people. And it’s getting in the way of my clowning.

The first time I truly succeeded on stage was when I FINALLY LET LOOSE. A demon burst out of my sternum and shat poop-colored rainbows across the stage.

The teacher told me to tone it down, apologize, and bring the same energy with more sensitivity.

The second time I started from a light, airy emotional place: gentle by nature, and the power followed.

Today the feedback is that I lack impulse. And the truth is: I felt it. In the afternoon class, I wasn’t powering with impulse at all. I was stuck in my head, nitpicking the pedagogy (correctly, but uselessly). I couldn’t find pleasure in anything.

I hate being in this oscillation space.

My roommate disagrees with my whole “frighten them more” instinct.
He thinks I’m conflating playing intensely with playing to win (and that playing to win will necessarily not maximize group pleasure).
He says I lack a lightness—a tiny joke kept in the back of my mind.

And maybe he’s right. On stage today, I lost the game. I forgot the game.
I played it well for a few minutes. Then I forgot it.

Never forget the game.

Look.

When I do have impulse, people get scared. That’s the truth. I’m intense. When I try to win at dodgeball, people get quiet and the light, floaty vibe evaporates. Today I had the ball, and an opponent squared up. I pump-faked twice. Then I whammed him.

During that exchange, the room went silent. The airy part of the game vanished.

Did it become another kind of fun?

Is it not fun to watch two gladiators square off? To see combatants toy with another in a spirit of agreed-upon play? Isn’t that a form of respect—acknowledging we both have power and we’re choosing to use it?

Maybe the audience wasn’t laughing. Maybe they were leaning in. I don’t know. Maybe I’m justifying. 

Maybe I should scale it: go hard against the skilled players, soften against the less-skilled. A consent-based approach to dodgeball. (Unless I’m the last one alive. Then it’s win, win, win.)

I don’t know whether it was pleasant to watch me whang that guy. I imagine it was.

I’m six feet tall, bearded, and frequently voracious. Of course people are scared of me. Underneath any coverings I add (silliness, friendliness, gentleness), they may always feel some amount of fear. 

But maybe their fear isn’t a reason for me to shrink.

Maybe their fear is something they get to deal with.

Because otherwise, I become small and boring. I lose my impulse. And that is absolutely not fun for me.

Fear without safety is fear. Fear with safety is exhilaration.

I guess I need to give people that safety.

To clearly show this is a joke.
This whole thing is silly.
Show them in a way that’s obvious to them: I’m not taking myself too seriously: the thing I’m doing is a joke.
And that way, when you fear me, you also feel safe around me.
And that way, even though you fear me; even though you respect me and my intensity, you love me.

Would you rather I be too much or too little?

Right now, at school, too much. They can work with too much. Too little just gets kicked off. 

In general: Dumb question. 

Nurture the fun.

Clown School Day 31: Absolution & Airflow

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero sleeps, sins, and seeks salvation.

At the end of this week, I’m a quarter of the way through this program. That’s wild. Three times as much left as what I’ve already done. No wonder it feels like I’ve lived six different emotional lifetimes.

I told my sister today about our daily Simon Says game. It’s brilliantly constructed. It’s also deranged.

Here’s how it works: when you make a mistake, you must seek absolution. You get to choose your method of redemption. The menu: 

  • Hug
  • Kiss
  • Swedish handshake
  • Nothing
  • Or… torture

If you choose “nothing,” nothing happens. If you choose “torture,” one of the teachers (or a friend, if you prefer) faux-tortures you in front of the class. If you choose one of the other options, you turn to a peer and ask, “Can I have a [hug/kiss/handshake]?”

If they say “yes,” you receive absolution.

If they say anything else—literally anything: “yep” is interpreted as “go to hell”—you get tortured.

My sister was horrified. Honestly, same. The first time we played, I felt like I’d accidentally joined a cult that prioritizes whimsy over human rights. And yet…it works. The faux-torture weirdly brings us together. There’s something intimate about placing your fate in someone else’s hands and trusting they’ll either help you or throw you to the wolves. (And, sometimes we just choose the torture directly: our Assistant Teacher is an exquisite tickler.)

My sister asked why people don’t always say “yes.”
Partially because we’re learning how to ask and receive asks well. So if you ask poorly (not loud enough; emotionally closed; selfish), your odds plummet.
And partially because, well, that’s the game.

—

Last night, for the first time in ages, I slept well. Deeply. My room traps CO₂, so I’ve been sleeping poorly. Last night I cracked open both the window and the shutters. Oxygen: acquired. Primitive problem, elegant solution.

I don’t have much to write about today. My energy feels softer, steadier.

One woman in class has been struggling to find a lower, more powerful voice. Our assistant teacher stood behind her and performed a kind of gentle, low Heimlich maneuver while she screamed “FUCK YOU, [Head Teacher]!” at full volume. It helped. Theatre is strange medicine.

We also explored two new “substances”: oil/petrol/gasoline and superglue. I’m tired of this exercise. Some classmates love it; I don’t. Maybe that’s the point: finding joy in an approach I don’t naturally love. I can learn it. I just don’t yet.

—

I found a partner for Friday’s scene. The task: play contrasting characters who always agree. Hot, fast, smoky oil in perfect harmony with gentle, falling snow: two beings that shouldn’t coexist and yet do.

It might be funny. It might be a disaster. That’s clown school.

—

My goal this week is simple and impossible: be sensitive, be open, be gentle: with my partners, with the audience, with myself. I’ll do the exercises, but the real work is internal.

Do I have pleasure?
If so, am I sharing it with the audience?
If so, am I sharing it with my partner?
Am I playing together, or am I playing alone?

Clown school is hard.
But at least I slept.
And maybe—just maybe—I’ve solved my CO₂ problem.

That would be nice. 👍

Clown School Day 30: Pleasure Under Duress

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero puts on his big boy pants.

Everyone received a mark of zero today. Every. Single. Student. A new record. Some people earned three zeroes; some two; some only one. I loved it.

The teacher says I sometimes laugh when no one else does. “When Julian laugh, he is alone.” Fair enough. Sometimes I’m not laughing at the thing itself, but at what the thing makes me think of. Like a few weeks ago: a group tried to play a game where they became “scared” whenever someone said a word with the sound boo in it. The game was stupid; the play was bad; and the gap between the silliness of the idea and the flatness of the execution made me laugh. It was like watching someone throw themselves at the ground and miss. Delightful.

I received a zero today. I enjoyed it. I don’t care about their grade. That’s just part of the game. I’m glad I succeeded in doing some new things well.

I had one moment onstage—maybe half a second—where it all clicked. Holding my hands in perfect blades (as I was a stick insect), I tried to open a soda bottle. I was having so much fun; I looked ridiculous in my all-gray outfit; the audience laughed. Then one of my partners stole the bottle away, stealing the game from me and thereby ending it.

During the summer course, I heard the head clown teacher say something like “You have found a problem. That is a very special thing for a clown. If you solve it, you will need to find a new problem and that is not always so easy.”

Still, for that instant, I succeeded. 😀

During talkbacks, Head Teacher said: “And this guy [me]. At least he is finally covering his legs.” (I usually wear shorts.) So I raised one pant leg—just a small, innocent reveal. She laughed and looked away, maybe a little embarrassed. I did the same with the other leg. She laughed again. Light, gentle, generous, giving. Success! You’re not only performing when you’re on stage. You’re always performing. [And, well, I was still standing on the stage.]

Today I took the whole class as a joke. A game. A silly thing we’re all doing together. That shift alone made everything feel lighter. It made me more receptive and open.

I found the fun and the games in her comments. I felt lightness all the way through. (Except for the time when she said I laugh alone. I felt hurt and sad and lonely for a moment there. And then I found the lightness and pleasure again 🙂

Monday was my most painful Clown School day yet. On Tuesday, I started to recover. Today, I find the whole exercise funny. Our teacher literally started class with vocal exercises of her pronouncing the word “zero”. After people performed, she sometimes said “[X person] had a good entrance…” and sometimes said “[Y person was a] total catastrophe” yet still gave everyone in that group the same mark: zero. A farcical grading system! A curve with a mean of zero and a standard deviation of also zero! Only needing one number card to hold up! How droll. What a deeply silly ritual.

One student had a few little flashes of something—tiny moments, not the whole piece—and I told her after the show. She lit up, said it was nice of me to say (and said it in the way that people do when they’re authentically touched). We’re all in this together, and a glimpse of success counts.

Somehow, when we’re in rough waters, I find the pleasure more easily than when we’re sailing smooth seas. On Monday, right after everyone’s big triumphs of last Friday, I was the lowest of the low. Perhaps this is part of why I laugh alone. I suppose there’s fun in that discrepancy too.

“What’s funny about suffering?” you may ask.

What isn’t?

—

I think we’re being trained to find pleasure under duress. A clown’s job is to bring pleasure to the audience, they have to mine that pleasure from their own world, and share it. And the world isn’t always gentle: political trouble, personal strife, illness, rough crowds. If I can find pleasure when things go well and also when things go poorly: that’s a kind of success.

They’re training us to be successful clowns. If you’re going to be a truly successful clown, you need more than one safe trick. One peak of pleasure isn’t enough. To find higher peaks and fill your bag with more tricks, you have to explore: try things, fail, fall into valleys, climb out again. Failure is how you map where the fun actually lives. The teachers are training us to fail well so we can explore more freely. The more I flop, the more terrain I get to see. And I better entertain the audience along the way.

Right now, this stick insect finds more pleasure during the poor times.

What a funny thing to be.

P.S. I watched the second-year clown students today. They were also harangued more aggressively than usual. I’m almost certain this is intentional. I approve. When something works, push it to the extreme.

Clown School Day 28: Boring and Dumb

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In which Our Hero learns to befriend his flops.

Americans are pushies.
Not sensitive. Not gentle.
We want it, so we push it.

It’s not attractive. It’s not sensitive. It’s not connected.

—

Today, I was boring. A cause for celebration.

I entered the stage as a mangy, rabid coyote. I loved it. Head Teacher even said I was full of delight and pleasure—but that my pleasure wasn’t reaching the audience.

So she began to chant:
“Boring! Boring! Buh-buh-buh-boring!”

The class joined in. Then I joined in.
And when I joined, they loved me.

I danced; we chanted; I escalated to “…and dumb!” They loved that too. Real humility—not performance, not irony. I was boring! I was dumb! I was ugly. And we loved that together.

We love someone who makes fun of themselves.

After Head Teacher called out a fellow student for pushing too hard, the student offered to jump out the window. The audience laughed. The assistant teacher helped him open it. We laughed again. Excellent pedagogy. Also: improves student-teacher ratio. 

—

After class, I decided to catch the train to Paris. I had four minutes to pack my bag. Then I thought:
Why am I rushing?
This isn’t fun.

So I slowed down. Decided to take the next train. Stopped by the café instead. And since I was going, I figured I might as well bring a cake for my classmates.

I texted the group chat and showed up with cake.
They were so grateful—
—or at least they would have been if any of them had been there.

The café was entirely bereft of clowns. Oops.

I sat outside and chuckled at myself. A homeless man approached. I waved him away out of habit… then called him back and offered cake.

He asked if I had a knife to cut it in two. I didn’t. So he broke it with his hands.

It brought me joy that he stumbled away without saying merci.
It gave me delight to share cake with someone who wanted cake.
It was joyful to see him divide it in half—
—he’s not greedy, after all.

Sometimes your flops are kinder than your successes.
If you stay open, good things arrive.
Clowns don’t need cake; hungry (and drunk?) homeless people do.

—

Another homeless man later refused my cake, saying, “If I ate cake, I would die.”

Good to know the homeless are still French.

—

As I write this, I’ve arrived in Paris to buy makeup and a gray shirt. On Friday, I’ll be a stick bug. For camouflage, I’ve chosen gray: dignified, dull, affectionately geriatric.

At dinner, the woman beside me asked what I do. When I said I study clown, she told me I have a kind and happy aura.

The couple who sat down after her asked what brought me to Paris… and then invited me for Shabbat dinner in New York.

The woman in the makeup shop gave me her number as she wants to go for a walk with me. 

Clearly, I’m doing something right.

—

What’s the lesson from today’s class?
Something about having good humor, laughing at myself, not taking life—or art—too seriously?

Beats me: I’m boring and dumb.

Clown School Day 26: Something is Rotten in the State of Julian

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero wants to run away from joining the circus

Fuck all you hoes. (Get a grip, motherfucker.)

I don’t feel connected. I don’t feel like I belong. I don’t feel… part of anyone’s anything. Is that them? Is it me? Did I watch too much TV? Is that a hint of accusation in your eyes?

Mondays after class, everyone mills around forming groups for Friday’s performance. And every Monday, I feel like I’m picked last in gym. It’s not that anyone is doing anything wrong. It’s that my internal meter flips into nobody wants you. Even though I have no idea whether that’s true or not.

In Movement class, too, I somehow end up in the group of three more often than not. (“Everyone in pairs, one group of three.) Some part of me takes this as evidence. Evidence of what? That I don’t fit. That I’m the odd one out. That I’m in the wrong place even when I want to be here more than anything.

None of this is rational.
It just feels real.

I’ve asked people a few times to grab dinner or go for a walk, and the responses have been mixed. That should be normal. It is normal. But this week, the rejections land harder than they should. My brain turns each one into a thesis on exile.

And so I keep circling the same questions:

  • Is it that I don’t like them?
  • Is it that they don’t like me?
  • Or am I simply struggling to be open?

Is this why I can’t clown? Is this the same issue: some belief that if they saw me, they wouldn’t like me → so I don’t show them myself?

Head Teacher once said that even if I don’t want to perform with others, I still have to perform for the audience—to give. I keep wondering if she can see the part of me that prefers single-player games. The part that only trusts what I can control.

So yeah—Friday requires groups of 3 or 5. I still don’t have a group. I posted in the group chat. And a small, childish part of me wants to take my ball and go home.
Fuck this.
I don’t need this.
Except… I clearly do.

—

After class, someone asked how I was.
“I’ve been better.”
She tried to give me a hug. Kind, if a little awkward. I walked away still feeling disconnected, but I guess appreciating the attempt? That’s the weird part: even gestures of care glance off me this week.

What the fuck is going on?

They say you’ll see sadness in the eyes of a clown.
Is that because clowning attracts people searching for joy? Who else dedicates themselves to fun except those who’ve had to hunt for it? It’s the old question: Who is the clown for the clown?

For me, the work is spiritual. The connection, the nakedness, the earnestness. And right now, all of that feels out of reach.

I sobbed three separate times today. Is that sensitive enough for you, Head Teacher?

The first time was after class, when groups were forming. Historically, I’ve had terrible luck picking groups—worse than random probability—so now I let randomness decide. There’s also the small practical matter: I came here to learn to work with whoever shows up.

But still: no group. Again.

I’m clearly struggling with the social part of clown school. And it stings, because this is the place people come when they feel misaligned with the “normal” world. The circus is for the outsiders. But what happens when you feel like an outsider inside the circus?

So today, when I tried being an ostrich and got one laugh before retreating into my shell, I felt that same old instinct: run, hide, disappear.

Maybe that’s part of the training. They apply pressure and see what cracks, what softens, what finally opens.

In my case, the message I keep hearing from the teachers is:
They don’t love you because you’re not showing them you.

And fuck, that’s hard. It’s hard to show yourself when you already feel unwanted.

Anyway—
I still lack a group.
So that. Really. Hurts.

P.S. Head Teacher said my clothing looked like broccoli vomit. I believe she’s suggesting I dress differently. So tomorrow, I will. Change.

Clown School Weekend 5.2: Good at Games, Bad at Play

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In which Our Hero muses on play

Do I like play?

For someone who has historically liked games—loved games, spent thousands of hours inside them—it’s a surprising question to ask.

There’s no question I like games. And play is what we do in games. So I suppose I like play?

This explanation feels insufficient.

I like lighthearted engagement in low-stakes, real-world-mimicking activities. In that sense, I like playing.

But often when others play with me, I generally don’t experience it as mutual play. And often when I try to play with others, they don’t experience it as playing together. (They sometimes experience it as me playing at them or against them, which has its own problems compared to us playing with each other.) It’s rare for me to find someone with whom play becomes mutually satisfying.

This isn’t necessarily about my love of play. It may be about my skill at play.

Eight or so years ago, a friend told me I didn’t know how to play. It was one of those moments you remember: if not for the bluntness of the comment, then for the proximity of his anger to a fist arriving at your face.

Learning to play requires paying attention to others. It’s a feedback loop: you stoke their fires, they stoke yours. And with rare exception, I’m not interested in stoking fires. The pool of people I like is small; my interest in socializing outside that pool is also small. So perhaps I simply have less experience in social play—either from lack of historical interest or poor methodology.

This, to be clear, is about social play.

Only two (three?) weeks ago did I first play a game to play rather than to win.

Historically, my engagement with games has been more optimization than play. Perhaps that’s why my win rate is high: if most people play, the one who optimizes will win. I analyze, comprehend, break down, and rebuild. These are fun for me, thus part of my play. But how many people do you know who approach a casual board-game night like this? And how many people want to rejoin someone who plays a board game night like this?

My clown teachers say I need sensitivity. I think they mean gentleness, and sensitivity is one route to gentleness. Sensitivity is letting experiences permeate you. Those who know me—family especially—would say I’m already very high in sensitivity (i.e. sensing the world around me, including the experiences of others). My teachers may mean a specific flavor: gentle sensitivity with lighthearted reactions. Not that I lack sensitivity, but that I lack lightness of spirit and gentleness of response. 

Yesterday at 4 a.m., a bird flew into my apartment window. I learned this at 11 a.m., when my roommate showed me the box he’d put it in. We called French animal rescues; none were helpful. I made a joke about how the French might simply eat this sort of injured bird. He said (paraphrasing), “Come on. This is an opportunity to be sensitive, man!”

As a classmate, he knows I’m working on this skill. What he might mean is that the joke felt heartless. Some people don’t like dark humor; some don’t like cultural humor. Perhaps what they really mean is: give what your audience wants.

I used this skill when running sales at my previous company: give them what they want; say less—always less—as less is more.

And perhaps my teachers are saying that almost no one wants me without gentleness.

In competitive games, my strategy is often to use my strength against the opponent’s weakness. It’s a good way to win. But it only attracts people who love competition.

So if I want cooperative relationships,
I’ll have to learn to play.

(Closing the loop on that earlier story: I have never been punched in the face. I’ve only been punched once, by someone experiencing a very different reality. I have, however, been threatened with face-punching roughly five times. I’d like to keep that streak—and ideally reduce the threats.)

—

Today I watched a clown show. Afterward, I left the theater to go home. And upon stepping outside, I realized that part of sensitivity is patience. So I went back, stood outside, and let myself be sensitive. Two people I enjoy talking with emerged, and we walked to the train together. It was lovely.

+1 for sensitivity and patience.

Clown School Day 25: Successful Elements

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In which Our Hero’s class sets records.

Today, our class succeeded. Five of us earned fives, two earned sixes, and many of the rest pulled in strong marks. Even I received a “not bad” for one of my two performances. (The other got a zero.)

Why did today work so well? 

  • First, we were all pulling for each other. Cheers before and after each performance. We didn’t previously do this. It’s very helpful to your peers. 
  • Second, the exercise was fundamentally fun: embody an element (earth, fire, water, air). Enjoyable to do, and powerful enough to allow for layering the text gently atop. 
  • Third, the exercise was simple. Embody an element. Low stakes.

My first element was fire. One line in, I lost the text. They kicked me off for it: six hours of memorization, gone. The takeaway: start memorizing on Monday. Use sleep cycles for the memorizing. Earlier, lighter memorization beats late, intense memorization. 

My fire received these notes: 

  • “This is not fire. This is fire with petrol.” 
  • “When he starts to speak, we see something. He is sensitive. I think, ‘Ah, something is coming.’”

My second element was snow.

I began with the same image as yesterday. I watched it. I barely moved. I started saying the text (the same text as we used for fire). The teacher yelled: “Shut up!” then “Move!” then “Snow falling down from the sky!”, then repeated these three over and over. (Said one friend: “It seems funny to me that you’re asked to memorize lines but then she doesn’t actually want you to say them”.)

My favorite part was that she said “Shut up” and “You talk too much!” after nearly every sound I made—and several times when I wasn’t speaking. She’s freakishly skilled at spotting when I’m reciting text in my head. This is an impressive superpower. I need a big, strong, vivid image to overpower my love of text. Or maybe to make myself brilliant enough to be dumb: know the text well enough to forget it, but still have it when I need… #writerproblems

A few notes from the day:

  • The exercise that gives you the breakthrough isn’t necessarily the one you should perform. (I possibly should have done Earth, not Snow.)
  • When the rhythm of the lines matches the rhythm of the movement, it becomes boring.
  • What I like doesn’t always matter. The audience tells me what they like.

Head Teacher’s comments on my snow: 

  • “Not bad, but this is not snow.”
  • “You need good humor always. Something funny in your mind.”
  • “Even when you aren’t speaking, we see you speaking text.”
  • “You were sensitive.”

Teacher comments to others (because they’re funny):

  • “This is ‘theater de mi cajones.’ You know what it means? It means theater of my balls.”
  • “It’s a good image but it doesn’t arrive to us because of your shitty voice.”

Memorizing the lines isn’t actually that important. Being able to say the lines is. If you only know the first three, you can still earn great marks if you perform them well (*cough* one of my roommates *cough*).

I over-invested in learning the lines. I under-invested in being able to do the lines while doing the exercise. That’s the part I should have practiced. Or visualized. Or practiced and visualized.

Just because the assignment involved memorizing lines does not mean the assignment is to share the lines you memorized. Ain’t clowning great? 

My goal this week was sensitivity/openness/gentleness. Today showed more glimpses (I opened briefly during Fire, and on-and-off during snow). I’ll keep working on this. For now, it’s nice to be landing it more often. 

I received a zero and a “not bad.” The zero came with a comment that I was sensitive and open. Win. The “not bad” came with the same comment. I’m improving at this key trait. 

Intensity: check. Voice: powerful. Game: reliable. Impulse: alive.

Sensitivity/gentleness/openness/giving: getting there, if only Our Hero would shut up.

Clown School Day 23: Everybody Wants a Little Slice

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In which Our Hero measures how much to give.

For a good time, bring a cake to a gathering of friends. Cut slices for each person. Ask how big they want. Invariably, they’ll say “Just a small slice,” or “Just a little one.”

Then, if you move the knife slowly and ask them to “say when,” you’ll find each person’s little slice is different. In some cases, it’s twice the size of someone else’s small slice.

When they say, “Just a small slice,” for whom are they speaking?

They’re not communicating in your language. If they were, small would mean the same thing.
Instead, they’re saying something like: “I’m signaling that I’m not greedy.”
Or: “I’m allowing myself pleasure, but a restrained version of it.”

Maybe I’ve always found moments like this confusing. Maybe because I’m autistic. Maybe because I never learned the unwritten grammar of appetite and permission. Maybe because the cultural norm to be small and not enjoy yourself is dumb.

On stage, the same puzzle repeats.
How much of myself is the right-sized slice to offer?

I have a great and powerful energy in me. I can give a lot. I have given a lot. My teammates, my teachers, and I all agree: when I was fire today, I burned.

But still—I didn’t burn for them.

Fuck.

I have so, so much pleasure. So much deep, physical intensity.
And goddamn it, how do I transmit this to you? So far, I’ve tried: 

  1. Give it directly. Too pushy.
  2. Increase my own pleasure. Too self-contained.
  3. Recommendation from friends: play with oscillation—me-pleasure, then share; me-pleasure, then share again.

Complicating factors:
(1) I can’t see on stage (I can’t wear my glasses with the neutral mask).
(2) I don’t find myself beautiful.

The teacher’s aid begrudgingly gave me her speculation today (directness like this isn’t really part of the pedagogy). She said she senses that I have beliefs about how I’m perceived, and that my behavior on stage is an attempt to offer those perceptions, then shatter them. Which isn’t the same as showing myself—it’s showing my idea of myself, or how I imagine others see me.

Maybe she’s right.
When I was beautiful, they loved me. Subtle. Gentle. Open.
I remember it dimly: tears streaming, face unguarded, giving.

I want to find that again.
Tomorrow, I’ll try.

When the Head Teacher told me I was insufficiently sensitive, she began with: “Not bad.”
And when I raised my hand to ask a question, she added:
“When you have done something good, it is better not to ask questions, no? It is better to think about what you have done.”

Maybe I’m harder on myself than they are.
Or, as a friend put it:
“It’s nice to know you’re harder on yourself than the teachers are.
It’s nice to know you’re not just failing over and over.
Or at least that you’re failing over and over—but it’s working.”

Tomorrow, instead of trying so hard to give that I push,
I’ll try so hard to open that I break.
And I’ll give that to the audience.
Maybe they’ll love it.

Clown School Day 22: Storm Warning

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In which Our Hero mistakes force for generosity.

Today I was a storm. A mighty tempest, raging.
I had INTENSITY. I had GIVING.
But… I was pushing.

Well, shit. I keep hearing this feedback, don’t I?
One classmate keeps being told he looks like a gorilla who needs a banana, so at least my comment wasn’t that.
But still: pushing.

Yes, pushing. Pushing. PUSHING!!!
The thing I do in all too many areas of life.
I want X to happen, so I force it into existence.
I want to avoid Y, so I shove it away.
I don’t really nurture things. I don’t calmly cultivate.

And when I perform with such intensity—without either (A) checking in with the audience, or (B) easing up enough to wink that it’s all a game—people find it frightening.

Maybe that’s the problem.
My performance curve—intensity vs. time—starts high and just stays there.
But it should breathe: rise, relax to dip slightly, rise higher, dip again.
We don’t want someone who punches full-force out of the gate.
We want someone who plays with us, gently escalating.

I demonstrate competence, but not alignment.
And that feels familiar.
Maybe I’m just not well-aligned.

I don’t like authority.
I don’t trust institutions.
I rarely side with the masses.
So people don’t trust me?
Am I fundamentally out of sync?

It’s odd to feel both like a lump of clay being molded, and an alien dropped into a land with a new language.

Clown school does weird things to your psychology.
I’m doubting a lot—really a lot.
Questioning my preferences, my desires.
Wondering where my heart and my head line up.

I’m not used to being part of a group.
After decades of being ostracized from them—since kindergarten—I now both crave belonging and violently resist it.

Here, I must give to the group.
I chose performance as a solitary act: me and the audience, a controlled parasocial exchange.
Turns out: no.

Clowning is about relation. Taking and giving.
And I’m trying to give so hard.
I just want them to like me.

But I’m not actually likable when I’m like that.
Because a truly likable person doesn’t need to be liked.
They simply are kind, generous, and light.
They offer themselves, and we like them for it.

It’s telling that my first thought was, “I should do an impression of that kind of person.”
Because underneath it all… I don’t think I am one.

Maybe that’s the real problem.

“Hey, therapist: I’ve got a topic for us!”