May 25th, 2008
Mwahahahaha! Just had to let the cosmic laughter resonate, no, reverberate in my body…
Everything is grace! Even when shit happens… Divine piss, holy shit!
I have always been wary of spirituality/religiosity that denied/denigrated the body. Non summus angeli! (We’re no angels!)
May 14th, 2008
The awareness of the shamanic aspect of acting (the actor as an agent of positive change in society) is one of the things that I liked in “The King of Masks.”
Society has always been ambivalent to actors.
On the one hand, people are fascinated by the magical, yes, shamanic capacity of the actor to become other than what and who he is. Acting was first done by priests/shamans. There has always been that mystical/divine/spiritual/religious aspect to acting.
And yet, because of that possibility of entering into the nature of “things,” actors themselves can be waylaid and thrown off, especially by the dark daemonic qualities of persons and things. This is what probably scares a lot of people. Actors get to cross boundaries and societal taboos with some measure of impunity – anyway they’re just fulfilling their roles. But when the iconoclasm breaks through from art to real life… uhuh… that’s where it becomes dangerous and suspicious.
Thus actors too were regarded as immoral people, lumped with the gypsies and criminal elements.
May 7th, 2008
“The King of Masks” (by Wu Tianming), a heart-warming (if a bit melodramatic and, according to a friend, emotionally manipulative) Chinese film with English subtitles.
Loved it. And am recommending that you take the time to watch it.
Reasons to watch it:
) It features a monkey.
2) It has nudity. (Extreme close-up!) Hahaha!
3) It has the “Living Bodhisattva” in it.
4) It underscores the “non-essentiality”/accidentality of some of our societal masks (like gender, for instance) in what truly matters.
5) It’s about having passion and developing compassion.
6) It’s about the interweaving of life, art, and love.
Don’t miss it, especially if you’re an actor/performer.
Best regards,
thesp-ian