Reverb12 Day Twelve: Unexpected Passion
From DailyAngst today…
What new hobby or interest piqued your passion this year? Or did you think about an old passion in a new way?
What was old was new again for me in 2012. I’m talking about baseball.
I hadn’t watched baseball with any regularity since I was 13 until the 2012 season. Local teams historically have been terrible, or masters of the choke or bad luck. It’s not like the Cubs around here, (Baltimore/Washington) but it’s pretty bad.
Yet early this year I got the idea to manage a small fantasy baseball league among a few friends. I’d done fantasy football the previous few seasons, and though I knew much more about football, and the players involved than I did baseball, I wanted to try something new. So I started the league.
As I engaged in practice drafts in the weeks leading up to the real thing I realized I had no clue who 98% of professional baseball players were. It was a total clean slate. A few names stuck out for having been in the regular news for their exploits over the previous few years, but that was it.
Once the league and my team (Which I dubbed The Maryland Curtain Calls) were set, I started paying some casual attention to spring training games here and there. (It turns out, I get the MLB Network. Who knew?)
As I followed some of the story lines during spring training, I began to follow up here and there during the first few weeks of the regular season, as I wanted to enjoy seeing my players do something. Nothing is more fun in fantasy sports than actually witnessing one of your players score for you. So I watched a game here and there.
I had at the start of the season one local player. Stephen Strawsburg of the Washington Nationals, so I would tune in when he pitched specifically.
Then something interesting happened. Once I had a tiny personal interest in games, I found myself interested in the sport again. Perhaps not in the same way as I am for football, but certainly a rekindled interest in watching what is a much slower, somewhat archaic game. (Reasons that kept me away from the game for years.) The new found interest developed into a near-daily watching of Nationals games. (Not Baltimore as when I was a child, because I owned no fantasy players from the Birds.)
The game watching was fueled, as I said by fantasy interests. But also by the fact that, to the shock of everyone in sport, both Baltimore and Washington were, out of nowhere, two of the best teams in all of baseball. Throw in Washington’s own rookie sensation Bryce Harper and suddenly I’m invested in local baseball again. Which in turn led to some investment in other televised games. (At least when my fantasy team was involved.) I even started to recognize which teams were in what division. (Though I still haven’t memorized all of them.)
If you know anything about baseball, you know the Nationals choked in major way in the playoffs this year. So much so that I threw away my Nationals t-shirt, and vowed I wouldn’t be wasting anymore time with them in the future. I can’t swear I didn’t mean it, because I think that I did, and I think there is a decent chance I still won’t watch them next season in wake of that disaster. But now that there is an investment in player personas, local broadcasting personalities with their quirks, and even the Presidents Race, I’d be lying if I said there was zero chance of me tuning in at least a few times a month.
And who knows? Maybe I could switch to watching Baltimore all the time. Maybe I will go back and forth each year? I was surprised to find myself with a passion for baseball at all this year, so I figure now, anything could happen with it.
Reverb12 Day Eleven: Music to My Ears
What was music to your ears in 2012, literally or metaphorically?
I have a friend that I’ve known for about ten years, though I have not seen her in about eight. For a time she was my closest friend, and she remains of great importance to me even now.
Back when we spoke nearly everyday she sent me a mix album of some of her favorite music for relaxing or reflective moods. We fell out of contact not long after she sent it, and though I had listened to it a few times, it kind of fell off of the radar. Then even once she and I were talking again, I wasn’t sure where I had put the actual CD. I was bummed about that for more than one reason.
However, just before the holiday season last year, I found it, and put the music onto my mp3 player. (I didn’t even have an mp3 player when she first sent me the CD.) Since then, I’ve been able to listen to that collection of songs more often, and with greater ease. I have it on during walks, or when I am gearing down at the end of the day. Most of the songs and artists on that album are ones I had not heard of until she sent me the original CD. And once I started listening to it on a regular basis this year, I realized just how suitable for my mood the selections often were.
The mix album is somewhat melancholy at times, and at others hopeful. There is some romance and some friendship. Lyrics of both pain and pleasure. Stirring ballads in minor keys that can act almost as a lullaby at times, and one or two songs one can almost tap a foot to. It’s more than a little spiritual. In other words a selection that is somewhat eclectic yet tied together in scope and attitude.
I won’t list all of the titles here, but I’d say my favorites from the collection is “Anyway” by Dynamite Hack, (the female version), and “Angel Without Wings” by Vertical Horizon.
I’m quite glad I found this album, after it being missing in action for a while. Not just for the sentimental value of it being a gift, but for the actual music on it. Most of the songs are just enough removed from my usual musical tastes that I’ve been inspired, relaxed and comforted by it at any given time since I rediscovered it. It was music to my ears in 2012.
Reverb12 Day Ten: Greatest Risk
Went back to this list of prompts for today.
What was the greatest risk you took in 2012? What was the outcome?
It was starting my own theatre company.
I studied theatre in college, and in the years since have appeared in many plays at various local community venues. I even get paid non-Union scale once in a great while. I blog about theatre at Always Off Book. I wrote a column for Showbizradio for four years. A Washington D.C. based news site even ran a short piece about me.
Point being, I’ve got a lot of experience in theatre, and know what I’m talking about. I’ve worked with many local people who, based on what they say at least, would agree with that self-assessment. So when a few years ago I started to become somewhat dissatisfied with the politics and type of vision of the local theatres at the time, the idea to start my own company was born.
My vision for a theatre company is not unique in the world. People do things similar to what I envisioned all over the place, I’m sure. But nobody was doing it around here, as far as I could tell. So after a year or so of pondering, and another year of writing up plans, thinking of bylaws and mission statements and giving quite a bit of time, energy, thought and passion to the idea, I announced during the first few weeks of this year, that I was ready to accept others into this project.
I know literally dozens of theatre-oriented people in this area, who in turn know many others in the local theatre scene I have not yet met. I don’t like asking for help, so that was a big part of the risk I was taking. But I did so for this project for a new kind of passionately simple theatre company that would travel the area doing maybe a single show a year. Possibly two at most.
The Facebook page I set up was updated weekly with the things I was doing, how the company’s vision was different, and requests for help and introductions. Seven months of weekly updates in fact. Each update coming from a place within me that was still not comfortable, (after years of attempts) to market my own project, but nonetheless believed in it enough to take the chance to do so, despite the slight discomfort.
In addition to the Facebook page, I’d explore various local arts boards. I even placed a few calls for volunteers on Craigslist. (I have been told people find volunteers quite frequently there, and audition notices are often posted in same.)
The email address for the company was set up. Bold plans were laid. I put myself out there.
And failed. In the most miserable, gut wrenching, disappointing (though sadly quite familiar for me) manner, I totally failed.
All of that effort eventually yielded the following:
-One generous offer from a colleague to help me rent a local venue for the first performance once the foundation for the company was laid.
-25 or so “Likes” on Facebook. (Which isn’t even enough to activate the analytics.)
-An email of interest from a local actress. An email to which I responded, though I never heard from her again.
That’s it. That was the result of this large personal and artistic risk I took in 2012.
A few months ago, after the updates on the Facebook page began to wane, I posted one more…announcing the project dead.
It stung. It was disappointing, deflating, and mind boggling given the network, the planning and the passion I tried to bring to the idea. Yet to be honest, each of those feelings, (and more, like anger) were somewhat blunted this time. That’s because it wasn’t the first time over the years I have invested that much of myself in spearheading a project that went nowhere due to lack of interest from other people. In fact, it wasn’t even the only one this year to end this way.
My talents and knowledge are sometimes highly sought after in service to the projects and dreams of others in this general area, and I often agree to help. I receive accolades for doing so. But my talents don’t inspire a reciprocity, by and large. I’ve gotten used to that and somewhat numb to this sort of thing. Generally in fact, it has been so inevitable and ubiquitous that I have taken fewer and fewer risks as time goes on. They just never pan out enough to make it worth it.
We’re supposed to assess failure and glean a lesson from it. Truth be told, however, I’m don’t think I learned any thing particular from this failure. Nothing, that is, that hasn’t already been learned from the accumulative body of failed endeavors with my name on them.
To begin with, as I already mentioned, I learned I can’t expect a great deal of reciprocity. As a result I won’t be attempting to launch anything that requires the help of others for a while. I have in fact already begun to alter my future artistic plans to better suit solo efforts of various kinds. Those that require the help of maybe a single person, or nobody at all. (Perhaps that was meant to be? Perhaps that is the greatest lesson of them all…to go solo artistically. I’ll find out.)
For I’ve learned that while my talents and knowledge are at times appreciated locally, my personality and my vision is not. I lack the charisma and appropriate vision to move others on the scale to which I have been referring. I’m a decent guy, but not an inspiring one, it would appear.
And I know a lot of decent people around here. If they were not decent, moral people they wouldn’t be my friends. Yet even friends fail to gel in certain ways, and I am starting to learn that many of my local friends and I don’t gel artistically as much as I used to think we did.
Another thing I have not learned, (since I can’t be certain of it yet) but I have considered is that the location prevents me from finding artists and clients of like mind for my own projects. Is it possible that if I lived elsewhere I’d have a better chance of meeting and befriending people willing to follow my lead on at least something? I suppose of course that is possible. It’s a huge country, after all. Truth be told I suspect some of my friends with whom I would be most compatible artistically are the one that live the furthest away.
There are others, I would guess. Yet right now, I wouldn’t know where to find such people. So until then, (and until I can afford to move to such a place) I have to accept what little authority to shape the future I have here.
I apologize for the somewhat bitter tone of this post. I don’t rage about these things, but they do leave a, well, bitter taste in my mouth at times. In general risk taking leaves that taste in fact, not merely this risk. Compared to years ago, I have no qualms about confessing that I am more risk adverse these days, and getting more so with every passing year.
That is one thing about some of these prompts for Reverb. At times they seem directed towards or conceived by people who through their many adventures big and small are able to explore, evolve, create, experience and process the wonders of life, through meals, books, movies, art, risks, rewards, love, passion and pain. I find myself at times to have “underlived” in 2012 as in relation to the spirit of the prompts and hence must approach some of them from a somewhat different angle.
But stay tuned in 2013 for a bit more information on some solo endeavors I’m thinking of pursuing.
Reverb12 Day Nine: Taking Care of Yourself
It has been said that you must learn to take care of yourself before you can be effective at taking care of others. How did you take care of yourself in 2012? How will you take care of yourself in 2013?
So many actions and thoughts go into taking care of oneself. With few exceptions, I find that the first step is to be authentic to who one is. Honoring our strengths, accepting our weaknesses and embracing the totality of who we are as being worthy of life and love.
Not much else matters in the end if we find ourselves to be unacceptable.
I’m aware of that finest of lines between accepting our weaknesses and ignoring those aspects of ourselves that require improvement. I have no prescription for the perfect approach to the balance. I can only say that it is a balance towards which we must always aspire. For we can neither ignore those parts of us that are less developed, nor can we berate ourselves each day for our shortcomings.
That, in essence, is how I have tried to take care of myself in 2012. I’ve made a conscious effort to strike that healthy median. Through reflection and meditation, trial and error, consideration and doing as much with my life as I can on any given day, I seek to find that golden ratio wherein my endeavors at self correction lead to a better me without impeding the ability to accept myself as I am.
2013 will continue on this course, i think, as I seek now to not merely balance discipline with acceptance, but also to discern between traits and tendencies that are negatives, and those that simply are. Those traits which on the surface may seem like flaws, but do not in fact require either an apology nor acceptance. Rather personality traits about myself that far from being detrimental to my progress as a human may in fact,m if I learn to accept them, enhance that journey. Act as guides or catalysts for a change in myself and/or my situation which will give rise to the better me.
Yes. I think I’ll see more of me as characteristic, and less of me as problematic. That’s one way I’ll try to take care of myself in 2013.
Reverb12: Moved by Art
I’m going to stay with the DailyAngst list today.
What was the most moving piece of art that you saw/experienced this year? This could mean a painting or a sculpture, or a performance you took in, or even a book that you read – tell us about the kind of art you encountered, and the way that it moved you.
The Canadian television show, Slings and Arrows.
The program, which I discovered this spring through Netflix suggestions, is from several years ago. It takes place in a fictitious professional theatre company. Each of the three six-episode seasons focuses mostly on the company’s misadventures as they mount a specific Shakespearean play, while trying to retain relevance and solvency. All the while the ghost of the former artistic director of the place haunts his replacement and one-time friend.
Ostensibly it’s a comedy. Without a doubt there are many laughs within the show. But looking deeper into its dynamic one finds a stirring, intelligent, multi-layered examination of art, the artists who create it, and why they do so. (The good reasons, as well as the poor ones.) Produced, written and acted with such obvious passion for the subject matter, the resultant series can be called art itself.
As someone who has been involved in theatre for years, I recognized in just about every character in this show someone that I have either known or worked with in the 30 or so productions I have appeared in over the years. Also familiar were the particular vocabularies and obstacles of theatrical life. This familiarity with the world and the people of the stories being told made this well crafted piece of television art all the more moving to me. (Especially the first season, which by far is the best.)
There is more to it than familiarity, though. Part of the brilliance of Slings and Arrows is that the familiar aspects of theatre life are just the harmony and not the melody. A bonus for those of us in the know that’s anchored by a main story line about love, friendship, passion, dreams and creativity. A base story line that thoughtful people from many walks of life will find moving as well as humorous.
Watching it for the first time was more than mere entertainment to me. Though I was highly entertained as well, watching this program unfold was at times almost as though the language of my deepest passions aspirations and dreams had coalesced into a cogent structure for a time, and were speaking directly to me. A striking sense of being there in that show and knowing those people. Or at least having been there and known these people at some point in the past. Some episodes were not stories, but projections from within me.
That is one of the true characteristics of the best art, is it not? An exciting newness blended with a transcendent familiarity. Almost as though you knew the work of art in some way before you first saw it. There is a degree of inevitability in the best art. Best of all, different works strike different people in the way I’m describing. Sometimes it’s a painting. Sometimes a movie. A play or novel. Television. Perhaps a novel about a painting. A movie about a novel. Or in my case this time, a television show about a play(s). The possibilities of what art speaks to us and why are endless. Which is why we must try to consume as much of it as we can.
Ty Unglebower 