Falling.

Today in my rigging class, we climbed a very narrow metal spiral staircase with a low, open railing up to the grid at the top of the theater's fly space over the stage to look at the rigging system up close. I knew this would be part of the class, and though I dreaded it I looked forward to it because it has become one of my pet projects in my middle age to challenge my fear of heights. I don't think I will conquer it in the sense of making it go away, but I try whenever I can to ignore the signals and push ahead. I try to experience it as a thrill, as ecstasy instead of terror and panic. Physically they're very similar, so it kind of works. To a point.

Well, this today was hard core.The way up was bad enough, just staring straight ahead at the steps in front of me. The teacher had told us that if we really didn't want to go up, we didn't have to and halfway up when I started to get really scared, I considered stopping and going back down. I guess my vanity helped me out, because I kept thinking, "If I stop, everyone behind me on the stairs is going to have to go back down and then up again and I'm going to look like a fool in front of the whole class," and that kept me forging ahead. But the way down was absolutely terrifying because the only choices you had were to either look down (unthinkable) or look straight out into the wide open space, which made my legs feel wobbly and my eyes tear up. I took it slow, and I made it.

I thought actually being up there would be the worst part of it -- and it was pretty intense standing on a grid of steel pipes with 4 or 5 inch spaces between them looking straight down 65 feet to the stage floor -- but the walk up and down were far worse. It's one thing to stand still and involuntarily contemplate, over and over feeling it in your bones every time, falling, but there's something altogether more difficult about forcing yourself to put one foot in front of the other when every nerve and muscle in your body is telling you that to move means death.

Me, Today.

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. The beginning of the semester always brings this feeling. I look at the syllabuses (I refuse to say "syllabi" -- for some reason it's annoying to me how people in academia insist on using Latin plurals) all together and start thinking, oh my god, there's no way I can do all of this stuff -- read 2 dozen books, write several papers, take all those tests, learn all that stuff! -- for some reason forgetting that I don't have to do it all right this second.

And then there's math. I don't even have a math class this semester (I'm putting off my one and only math class until the last possible moment, this summer), but my stage rigging class involves some math, and my anthropology class involves a lot of math. Who knew? Not me, for sure. The anthropology class is hard core -- it's called Human Evolution, extremely interesting stuff, but seriously hard. Chemistry (fossil dating), statistics (classifying fossil bones), and taxonomy up the wazoo.

And there's some great stuff happening with Lizzie Borden in New York. They're doing a showcase production in February to try out the new book and songs, slightly more staged than the reading we did last spring, but still short of the full production which is planned for next fall. I couldn't be there for the auditions, but they had a big open call and from what I heard they saw lots of great people and have a strong cast. I'll miss most of the rehearsals, but I'm flying there for the show in 3 weeks. Maybe another reason I'm feeling stressed out is that it's all happening without me.

I dropped out of school 3 times because working as an artist was more compelling to me than school (well, to be honest, the third time I dropped out it was because of a man), so I'm determined to finish this degree this time. Besides, I couldn't just move to New York for this show. I don't have a paid role in the production, so it wouldn't have any way to make a living there. But god I hate missing this!

Today in Austin.

3 For 3.

Actually, 4, if you count Revolutionary Road, which we saw a week or two ago.

J and I saw The Wrestler last night. If you're planning to see The Wrestler and you're as neurotic as I am about not hearing anything positive or negative about a film before you see it, stop reading this now.

I hate being disappointed by a movie. It's like rejection; it's hard to shake. I don't read reviews before I see movies but often will read them afterwords to check my impressions against writers whose opinions I admire (or find interesting, anyway), so I read some reviews of The Wrestler this morning and realized that all the fuss really was about Mickey Rourke and not so much the film itself. Mickey Rourke is good in it, but he's so disfigured that it's hard to look at him after a while, and a lot of the film -- steroid monsters in seriously ugly clothes beating the shit out of each other -- is hard to look at, which I'm sure is intentional. But I'm not sure what it adds up to.

The story is full of the worst eye-roll inducing cliches, which can work for me if there's something to grab onto, but this movie just hits the marks -- big sweet lug who's not very bright but his heart is in the right place, stripper with a heart of gold who falls in love with a customer, daughter who hates her father because he was never there for her -- without giving the characters' lives any of the depth and complexity that would let you believe the big sentimental moments.

On the way home, J and I were talking about the world of professional wrestling, which neither of us really understands, and J said something along the lines of "We're supposed to feel sorry for these guys?" I think that sums up my reaction to the movie. The central character was not sympathetic and the supporting characters were not credible.

If you're in love with the "resurrection of Mickey Rourke" narrative that the marketing of The Wrestler is pushing, you'll probably like this movie more than I did. For me, morbid fascination only went so far.

Revolutionary Road wasn't as bad, but it fell into all the pitfalls of a film adapted from a novel. It feels schematic and jumpy, like they went through the book and highlighted all the scenes they wanted to include in the movie. The setup of the relationship and marriage is way too quick for me to care later (not enough later is my point) when everything goes sour.

I think what I hate most about my disappointment in films like these is that they have spent a shitload of money and time and creative energy making a film yet they didn't address basic, solvable problems in the writing. They didn't do their work, and I feel cheated.

This Is The End.

Print this checklist and put it on your wall. From everything I've read, it looks like most of what this guy predicts comes true. Our society is so diseased, I find the doom and gloom predictions kind of exhilarating, bracing. The end of suburbia? car culture? consumerism? What's the problem?

Expectations.

One of my favorite movies is an obscure film called Girl in the Cafe, which I think was made for TV. The story is simple yet full of surprises; it's a quiet film with understated performances, and genuinely moving. It was written by the guy who wrote and directed Love Actually, which I seem to remember getting a lot of attention when it came out a few years ago. Lots of friends have recommended it. So, J and M and I watched it last night.

It's dreadful. I enjoyed parts of it, the cast is a treat: Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Bill Nighy (great actor, who was also in Girl in the Cafe), and lots of other really fine actors. But the accumulation of syrupy-sweet triumph of love moments was just too much and in the end rang false.

What really put me over the top was one particular storyline (there are about 10 interwoven stories in the film) featuring Liam Nissan as a single father whose wife has recently died, leaving him to raise an unnaturally articulate little boy, who confesses to his father one day that he is "in love." The boy learns to play drums so he can play in a school concert where his beloved is the featured singer (of course, she has that weird, forced but very popular these days little girl voice like a cross between Andrea McCardle, Whitney Houston, and the sound of letting the air out of a balloon slowly), and after the concert he chases her to the airport where she is getting on a plane to somewhere. I don't think they ever say where she is going, but that's not important. What's important is getting the movie to the airport -- airports are very dramatic, you know.

Basically their story consists of the father pushing the boy (who is all of about 8) to pursue a sexualized relationship with the girl, which he, the father, can enjoy vicariously because his wife is dead and he regrets that he never adequately professed his love to her. Is this a normal way for fathers to interact with their prepubescent children? I found it very creepy.

Maybe my expectations were too high, since this was one of those movies that are "supposed to be good." I was also disappointed after seeing Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of The Magic Flute earlier this week. I loved his films of Frankenstein and Hamlet and Henry V. The Magic Flute was fun, sort of, but I guess I expected it to be thrilling (because the music is) and it wasn't. The biggest hindrance to my enjoyment I think was the fact that it didn't make any sense. Is the whole thing a dream? Is the story as bizarre and impenetrable in the original, or did Branagh make it that way? And what exactly is magic about the flute?

Another Scared Little Man.

There was an article in the New York Times yesterday about this Mark Driscoll character, who strikes me as an asshole of the highest order. I read the article straight through, fascinated and horrified, then looked at some youtube videos of him (the one above is especially charming -- his poor children).

It's a nice slap in the face. Just when I was feeling all sunny, after the election, about the so-called Millenials and their comfort with diversity, their so-what attitude about sexual deviance etc., this article appears to let me know that religious authoritarianism thrives in the pierced generation.

All the press on this guy refers to him as a new Calvinist, which of course he is not. (Not that Calvinism was so great the first time.) Here's some perspective on that, from one of my favorite blogs.