Pink glitter makes life better

Digging through old texts I sent during the Non-Stop shoot, I found one that pretty succinctly sums up my view on life: When life gives you spilled nail polish, appreciate the extra splash of color in your day.

11-19-2012   10:19AM

A girl spilled her pink glitter nail polish all over my black boots, and wardrobe said it won’t come out.  She doesn’t understand why I’m not upset.  Maybe I'm just in a good mood, but I don’t know how pink glitter could possibly make anything worse.

11-19-2012   10:20AM

I could do this to a pair of boots and sell them for twice as much.  They’re so sparkly!!

As it turned out, the girl who spilled the nail polish also apparently shared my fondness for sparkles... and had a creative side.  Since we weren't always needed on set, we often had time to spare… and since Christmas was approaching, we made a lot of sparkly things over the next couple months.  Which is really the reason I wanted to post this.  Because it gives me an excuse to post Christmas pictures in July as I have my "Warm Holiday Welcome" candle burning when it's about 100 degrees and humid outside.

                                  

In which I write a post by writing about how I can't write a post about the subject on which I'm writing a post

There's a post I've been trying to write for months.  I write a paragraph that I like, and then I write three paragraphs that I hate and that are rambling, incohesive messes that don't accurately say what I'm trying to say, or they sound like I'm whining, so I throw it out and try again a month later... at which point I write another opening paragraph that I like and three more I hate and throw those out too.  The post I want to write is about connecting and making friends.  I have a hard time making friends.  When I was little, I remember it being ridiculously easy -- Me: "Hi, my name's Jessica.  What's your name, and do you want to be friends?"  Other kid: "Hi! I'm Emily! Yeah, let's be friends!"  Somewhere along the way, my 7-year-old-self's brilliant opening line stopped being appropriate and/or effective, and in an industry where I work very closely with a group of people for several months before we all move on to new projects and new "show families," I struggle with turning friendly acquaintances into lasting friendships.

So I wanted to write about the tendency adults have to overthink trying to connect with someone.  Children offer to share their sandbuckets on the playground with other kids who are complete strangers, and they can form a friendship in minutes, but adults tend to analyze possible interpretations and outcomes of their actions and just make it way more complicated.

My first attempt to write this elusive blog post began with

When I was little, I remember sometimes going up to other kids I liked and just asking if they wanted to be friends. Sometimes as an adult, I really wish turning acquaintances into friends was still as easy as saying, "Hey, I think you're really neat -- Can we be friends and climb to the top of the geodome together at recess?"  ....Kids totally have some skills mastered that adults just don't.

The second opened with a Woody Allen-esque rant:

You know when something amusing happens during your day, and you'd like to tell someone specific about it because you think they might get a kick out of it, but you're really not on a "randomly tell you a funny moment" basis with them, which I suppose is what the impersonal and not-demanding-of-a-response Facebook wall is for, but then you find they've deleted their Facebook account, which would mean that in order to tell them the by-now-so-not-worth-it anecdote, you'd have to text or e-mail them, and an e-mail is totally over-kill for it, and since you haven't talked to, let alone texted, them in a couple years, you just forget it, partially because you're already bored of thinking through whether it's worth recounting and if so which method of communication is appropriate, and partially because you're not even sure if it's actually amusing or just amusing in that "Facebook era of over-sharing" way that a recounting of someone's trip to the laundromat somehow now seems worth sharing? ......What has technology done to the way people interact with each other? I mean, it's exhausting.

About three more ineffectual attempts followed, and then today, in my newsfeed on Facebook, I saw that numerous theatre people shared a New Yorker article titled "Everything I Am Afraid Might Happen if I Ask New Acquaintances to Get Coffee."  I clicked on it and read the post that I have been trying to write.  So, one day maybe I'll figure out how to word the one I've been trying to write, but in the meantime... what she said: http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/everything-i-am-afraid-might-happen-if-i-ask-new-acquaintances-to-get-coffee

Selfies, dinosaurs, and an alternate dimension waterfall

On my flight back to NYC, the girl next to me was taking selfies of herself.  On an airplane.  By herself.  Not with an interesting window view as a backdrop or something -- no, just the grey seat.  As soon as we landed, she went on to Facebook and started posting them.  Is that what I'm supposed to be doing with social media?  I always have been slow to catch on to trends....  I didn't take any selfies to commemorate my trip, but I do have a picture of a dude playing a bagpipe on the beach at sunset.  And of a waterfall scavenger hunt where my parents and I found seven waterfalls in one day.  And of my parents on the beach together watching a beautiful sunset the week of their wedding anniversary. That's as good as a selfie, right?  .... But as I sat there in judgment, I realized I actually do take selfies -- they're just of a different kind.  My version of "selfies" are in the handful of "Notes" I write in my iPhone every day in the moment as something is happening, and in my play-by-play texts I send when I feel the need to share -- in numerous immediate details -- whatever I'm seeing or experiencing... like the 15 texts I sent to my mom on this flight about how selfie-girl was coughing so I turned away from her but the guy on my other side hadn't showered and stunk, and then the flight attendant announced our delay over the loudspeaker sounding like he was auditioning to be the voice of a serial killer on the phone in a horror film and then he farted when he gave me my snack....

Those are my selfies.  So before I go back to the world of Starbucks and delayed trains and noisy, stinky crowds, here is a literary selfie from my waterfall scavenger hunt with my parents in Canada: 

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Ever since I first saw Jurassic Park years ago, when I'm hiking I tend to like to pretend that I'm hiking in Jurassic Park with dinosaurs on the loose.... Totally dorky, I know, but that's just where my mind goes, despite the fact that there's obviously nothing at all to actually suggest the presence of dinosaurs.  But today, walking in the Canadian woods, my parents and I came across a pair of hiking boots scattered across the trail... just the boots.  Kinda weird, right?  Who loses their hiking boots while hiking?  My mom jokingly suggested that either a velociraptor or Indominus Rex had eaten someone and left only the shoes....  That explanation works for me.  Then about 50 feet later, we came across a giant pile of dung on the side of a trail -- far larger than that of a cow, a horse, or a bear.... And then later, carved in the dirt on the trail, were the words "LOOK UP."  I did, half expecting to see blood dripping from the leaves.  Fortunately, I saw nothing but treetops.

Then there was the couple we ran into on a trail coming from the direction in which we were headed (while in search of waterfall #7) who said they had walked for miles in that direction and had given up on finding the supposed waterfall....  We thanked them, and after looking for an alternate trail, we finally proceeded anyway in the direction from which they had come.... We walked about 50 feet before hearing the waterfall, and three minutes later, there it was.  WHAT ALTERNATE DIMENSION WERE THEY IN?!?!

I'm thinking this hike might have been more in the Blair Witch forest than in Jurassic Park.

Those pesky clichés

While in Canada, I saw Stratford Festival's Hamlet this past weekend.  The production and the actors were fantastic, especially Tom Rooney as Polonius and Robert King as Grave Digger #1, both of whom gave such nuanced and incredibly specific performances that I think I could have understood what they were saying even if they were speaking a foreign language.  Jonathan Goad as Hamlet was such a wonderfully physical Hamlet that the words seemed to live in his body as much as in his voice, and while some Hamlets come across as passive in their inaction, the sense that this Hamlet was constantly filled to the brim with conflicting impulses taking him in different directions, both physically and emotionally, underscored his conflict and made him seem more vividly alive than any Hamlet I've seen.  The decision to make the time setting of the play nebulous because "the story's relevance defies limitation to one era," with time, as the program notes state, "changeable and compressed, and the world begins to look more and more like our own," was a fascinating decision, but one that perhaps does not read effectively on stage without having read the program notes beforehand.  And maybe it is not necessary for that choice to read on stage for its impact to still be made, as long as the discrepancy in costume design throughout the play is not distracting.... 

All of these topics and more I could happily converse about for hours.  However none of these topics is what this blog post is about.  No, this blog post is about the complaint that the woman behind me had with the show.  When it was over, she haughtily and loudly complained to her companion, "They put in way too many clichés.  I thought that pretty early on, but by the time Gertrude said 'The lady doth protest too much, methinks,' that was really too much.  One or two might be okay, but the play was full of them.  It was a bad choice."

...Yeah, Shakespeare really used too many well-known phrases, huh?  I mean, what was he thinking when he put in "to thine own self be true" and "brevity is the soul of wit" and "to be or not to be: that is the question," and the other dozen famous lines in the play?  Gosh, he needs to come up with some original phrases....

A trip back in time, Part 4: The Garden of Life

Part 1: http://www.behindtheseen.me/2015/07/a-trip-back-in-time-part-1.html
Part 2: http://www.behindtheseen.me/2015/07/a-trip-back-in-time-part-2-dancing.html
Part 3: http://www.behindtheseen.me/2015/07/a-trip-back-in-time-part-3.html 

To conclude my four-part trip back to my 8th grade writing portfolio (at least for now… and at some point my treatment from when I was around seven for an adaptation of Beauty and the Beast called Beauty and the Martian -- which I suspect might have been for one of those living room plays with my brother -- might have to make an appearance on this blog….), another poem from my apparently brief time as a poet:

The Garden of Life

By Jessica Pollack

Life is like a perennial garden,

Where youthful shades of light mint share space

As they melt into deep kelly green…

Where, whether flower or weed, plants

Bathe joyfully in warm sunlight

Or gentle cool spring rain.

No matter,

My garden is constantly growing,

Full of life.

One day, an aging flower may

Weep, sadly dropping faded-petal tears,

Whispering of lost times, secret wishes,

Goals not met, disappointments,

Hopes long gone, forever lost.

Yet soon a hidden blossom bursts

Forth in a rainbow of color,

And shouts aloud to me,

Scolding me for forgetting that

Other seeds breed new possibilities,

New growth, surprising bursts of color and joy.

So when one plant sickens or ages

Or is choked by weeks of neglect,

Or simply fades slowly and naturally into yesterday,

I can still wander through the recesses of my mind,

And find new seeds, plant new plants.

My garden is full of today,

And the promise of tomorrow.

A trip back in time, Part 3

Part 1: http://www.behindtheseen.me/2015/07/a-trip-back-in-time-part-1.html
Part 2: http://www.behindtheseen.me/2015/07/a-trip-back-in-time-part-2-dancing.html

Apparently, I was a poet in the 8th grade.  This is news to me.  I don't think I've written a poem since the last time a teacher gave me a poetry assignment in school.  But if I did write a poem today, it would be pretty much the exact same as the ones I wrote in the 8th grade.... From my 8th grade writing portfolio:

Growing Moods

By Jessica Pollack

I’m probably a lot of different people.

Sometimes I’m reserved, and quiet as a snowflake;

Sometimes I’m willful and strong as steel,

Stubborn and out-spoken as a blue jay.

Like the geode on my bureau,

I know I have, inside, some interesting facets.

Like a colorful flower,

I know I can (and do) bloom when I’m ready.

Like the waves, I sometimes feel full of

Perpetual motion, dancing to music,

Both real and only in my head.

It’s true I sometimes only sit and observe,

Still as a midnight moon,

But it’s also true I sometimes burst forth,

Like a racehorse charging for the wire.

It’s true I sometimes leave things unsaid,

But it’s also true I sometimes say too much,

And I can speak with a voice as strong as a gale wind,

Or as soft as an autumn leaf

As it whispers its way to the earth.

A trip back in time, Part 2: Dancing Memories

For Part 1, click here.

When I was little and my dad would take my brother and me for rides in the car on weekends, he would usually put on music as he drove.  And in my head, there would be ballerinas twirling and flying around to that music.  Chris De Burgh's "Lady In Red" was my favorite song to do this to, and my dad's compilation tape with that song was a knot of ribbon before too long.  But the Kingston Trio, Harry Chapin, and Peter, Paul, & Mary all had great ballets in my head too.  When I was eight or nine, those ballets started to venture out from my head and make their way into the rest of my body; I started putting on music and dancing to it in our large living room, just improvising.  The first album I remember doing this to was a Joan Baez compilation CD.  Before long, I was dancing my way through full-length musicals, with a preference for The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Cats, and Miss Saigon.  I would pick which character I was going to be for every song and dance their point of view, sometimes going back to switch parts, but rarely if ever stopping to write anything down -- until I was ten, when I fully choreographed my first piece.  From my 8th grade writing portfolio, here is my 13-year-old self writing about my 10-year-old self's first experience seriously choreographing a dance (and performing it).

Dancing Memories

Though I have many great memories, one of my favorites involves my first experience with original choreography.  It’s a memory that still gives me pleasure, and one I sometimes think about when I’m feeling a little blue or if I’m having trouble sleeping.

Every year, the school I used to attend staged a “Fine Arts Olympics,” a special event intended to spotlight art, music, and dance.  Although some students entered an art picture, and some played an instrument, I decided, when I was in the fifth grade, to do original choreography.  The music I chose was "Memory,” a piece from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats.

Using everything I’d learned, I worked on appropriate ballet movement, practicing jumps, leaps, and turns for endless hours in our living room.  The music I had chosen is an extremely emotional piece, and I did my very best to make the dance movements convey the deep emotion of the music.  Finally, I thought I had everything as perfect as I could make it.

The day before the performance, I was finally ready for a “dress rehearsal,” and I asked my mom to watch.  I danced as well as I ever had, and when I was done my mom gave me a compliment I’ll never forget.  “I’ve seen a lot of ballet,” she told me, “but you just made me feel something I’ve honestly never felt before from dance.  You sent chills up my spine.”  Together with the hug she gave me, that was just about the best compliment I’d ever gotten.

The next day, I was happy with my performance at the “Fine Arts Olympics.”  What made the day really special, though, was a compliment I received after the performance.  In the school’s foyer, as we were preparing to leave, my Language Arts teacher came up to me, gave me a hug, and said in her soft Southern accent, “Jessica, that was incredible…. Watching you dance just sent chills up my spine.”  I looked at my mom, and we both smiled.

I treasure those twin-echo compliments as a memory of my first solo choreography.  No matter how or when or where I might ever dance, I think that the greatest compliment I could ever receive will be that I really emotionally touched my audience… and sent chills up their spines.

A trip back in time: Part 1

I'm home at my parents' house, where I grew up, and I walked into my bedroom to discover that my mom had found and set aside for me a bunch of my writing from school, including a portfolio I had put together at the end of the 8th grade of some of my work from that school year.  What really struck me about it was that I haven't changed much since the 8th grade....  So, I'm taking the "from the archives" posts I do on this blog to a new level, and I will be posting a few of my favorite pieces from that portfolio... starting with the opening pages of my auto-biography... as written by my 13-year-old, 8th-grade self.
 

Early Memories

  

Usually, I only hear my full name, Jessica Nicole, when my mother is trying to get my complete attention.  With a smile, she tells me that, even before I was born, she talked to me using the name she and my dad had chosen, and she knew I must like it because, though I was normally calm, I always started kicking in delight.  More seriously, my parents have told me that they chose my name because they thought Jessica Nicole sounded musical and euphonious, but also strong.  Though my name has no formal meaning, I’ve always liked it tremendously, and I think it fits me well, for the very reasons my parents chose it.

One of my favorite memories from when I was very small was “doing plays” with my brother.  Actually, this activity involved several steps.  First, of course, we had to sit and talk for some time about plot and characters.  Sometimes, we’d choose to perform a variation of a known story, like Cinderella.  More often, though, we’d pick some imaginary occurrence, like a space journey or time travel, and let the play grow from our imaginations.

After we had decided on a plot, we’d frequently write a “script” with help from my mom.  (I’m not sure why we wrote anything down, since we always improvised when we were ready to actually stage the play.)  Sometimes (especially if there were many characters), the final performance would use puppets as actors above a cardboard frame we’d devised from boxes.  Other times, Ben and I would be the actors and use the whole family room as a stage to act out parts.

One of the things I loved most about “doing plays” was that, when we acted out the parts, I could dress up by choosing outfits from the large collection of play clothes my mother had amassed in our “costume box.”  The more parts I got to act out, of course, the more costumes I got to wear.  Also, as a co-author, I could always make sure that at least one of my characters could be a dancer.  When our great productions were ready for an audience, we performed these plays for our parents, relatives, or a neighborhood friend.  As we got older and started videotaping our efforts, we even employed real “special effects.”  For example, if we needed a tornado, we’d turn on a fan.  If we needed to suggest cold, we’d use a few ice cubes or confetti for snow.  If we needed a spacecraft, the card table turned on its side was perfect.  Finally, we even learned how to use the video camera to make objects (or people) seem to appear or disappear.

Although we never won any Oscars for our productions, we had great fun and wonderful times with the incredible power of pretend.

What happens when we don't introduce ourselves with "Hi, what's your name, and do you like sparkles and Disney?"

Stage managing an event in a theater where there's a currently running show, I spent time in that stage manager's booth, which is a lot like being a house guest: You see all the items the stage manager can't spend two hours without, the notes and pictures they use as inspiration to stay calm and focused and cheerful, their organizational style....  This particular SM's booth looked so much like mine (down to the same cartoon strips posted on the walls) and was so delightful to me that I texted another stage manager saying how much I like this SM, whose name I didn't even know, that I'm sure we'd be instant besties, and asking if they knew who it was.  And along comes the reply laughing at me and telling me it's someone I've worked with whom I couldn't stand (based not on anything she did to me but on some very selfish decisions she made that hurt people so she could get ahead in the business)....  Not sure what to think about that, except that it would be fun to meet the people we dislike under different circumstances, where our memories are wiped of the previous experiences that made us dislike them....  Would I have cut her some slack if I'd gotten to know her first?  Would I have looked for and found extenuating circumstances that would have kept me from condemning what I perceived as her picking someone up to carry them 15 miles to a bus they weren't anywhere near and then throwing them under it when they were unconscious and driving over them repeatedly?  Or, no matter the introduction, or the mutual love of sparkles and the same cartoon characters, would people inevitably, eventually, wind up coming to the same conclusion about others?