Revelations

I've stumbled upon some brilliant revelations this week.

#1: No matter how hard you try to break one, a curse is still a curse.

#2: The most major setback the theatre industry is facing is not the internet, lacking attention spans, rock musicals, stunt-casting, the melding of singer-dancer choruses, or 800 producers above the title.  It is, in fact, the audition studio.

Who decided it was a good idea to make performers sing in a concrete wooden-floored box?

I had the fortune to audition this week on a stage.  In a theatre (albeit the basement of a church, but that's practically the definition of off-Broadway these days).  Facing a rise of seats with the casting director and director occupying the house seats.

And I performed my a** off!  With 110% tonis (RIP, JPT)!

We're performers.  Not monkeys in a box.  We deserve to strut our stuff on a stage.  In a theatre.  It doesn't have to be under stage lights or on a set, but I think we truly have lost something from 50 years ago when you went to the Stage Door to audition.  When people booked their debuts on Broadway.... on Broadway!

People can be great auditioners and terrible performers.  Because moving the audition (or at least final callback) from the stage to the rehearsal room denegrates our technique and the energy of a performance to merely another interview.

Not that I can't work it in a box (don't get me wrong), I just think we deserve the chance to truly strut our stuff.

But who am I to tell producers how to spend their money?

#3.  Great friends and great conversation continue to challenge and excited me.  And through these great friends I'm aware what terrible trouble our society is in.  ("with a capital T and that rhymes with....")  As hate fills our hearts further and further every day in internet comments, where people hide behind the guise of anonymity on their couch and say things they would never dare to actually confront someone with, we slowly are turning the tables on ourselves.

People are fighting words and sound bytes and each other, instead of taking a stand for the true ethics of a gracious society.  Now that morality has replaced ethics, I wonder how hate became a form of currency.

#4.  Evan's coming to visit.

GRIN!

Subway Shoes

I love random subway encounters that surprise you in the most delightful of ways.

Tonight, after returning from the "romantic Tokyo bistro" izakaya Zenkichi in Williamsburg (which was delicious, by the way), I had to transfer trains at Union Square.  So I plopped my rear down in one of the wooden benches and began reading...

Next thing I realize is that three pairs of skateboarder-ish shoes and legs have stopped around me.  I'm not quite sure if these hoodlums are about to ask me for money or attack me, but I'm pretty sure this encounter will at least be uncomfortable.

Next thing I know, hoodlum one asks me, "Where'd you get those shoes?"

I pull up the tag and tell him they're Pumas.  He says, "I see, but where'd you get them?"

And I tell him in Japan, and his look bums over as he walks away.

And as he progresses down the platform, I hear him call back, "Those shoes are (some 2010 word that means the same thing as fly, sweet, awesome, or radical)!!"

And I smiled.

For all the looks I get for my fashion choices, the best are the myriad of reactions to anything from overseas, from love to hate.  And that one just made me smile.

You never know when stereotypes will come crashing down and surprise you.

Random Musings

To get back in the swing of things, here are some random thoughts I've had through the past week...

First, you should definitely check out pics of my Miyajima/Hiroshima trip by clicking here.

Secondly, Groundhog day hit HARD this week, and somedays it was all I could do to force myself out of bed and go to work. Guess that part of it makes it easier to head home... But it also meant that several nights this week I came home and was so braindead I couldn't even finish Christmas errands, respond to emails, or update this blog. Wow.

Third, I just figured out that the Japanese really have NO concept of Christmas the way we do. They enjoy the pretty decorations and the "season", but I realized today on the way to work that every store has a different slogan for the Christmas season and they all don't make much sense. Seriously... I remember these from today alone.

Precious Christmas

Brilliant Christmas

Happy Merry Christmas (my personal favorite)

Pure White Christmas

Glittering Christmas...

And the list goes on... WTF, Japan?

Fourth, things are getting a little out of control on the BBB stage sometimes. Seriously, I couldn't keep it together and stop laughing today when a baca fan was sitting Stage Right wearing a wedding dress/Harajuku girl/millions of yards of print cream fabric MUU MUU concoction. Seriously. That woman was crazy, looked crazy, and to add insult to injury was quite an overweight Japanese (which are rare here) with a short, mannish haircut and I just couldn't stop snickering. Oh, and who doesn't love it when Goofy knocks himself over with the Santa bag. I die.

Fifth, I miss real sausage. I just can't always take the weird weiners they have here. Some Jimmy Dean and a pepperoni pizza. Yeah. The Japanese can cook just about anything. Except that.

Sixth, I think that Japanese Disney only has 5 Christmas songs in their catalog. I never thought I'd freak out when I heard Mannheim Steamroller in Tomorrowland. But I did. Even worse, there isn't a show or parade or place in Maihama that doesn't have some version of "Jingle Bells". They have seriously worn that tune to death. Wtf, Japan? Learn some new music. I know it doesn't mean anything to you, but come on!

And finally, today I miss my family. I love them, it's the holidays, and I want to be with them. All of them. Friends too.

So until tomorrow, sweet dreams.

Story Time

"Souvenir!" the Japanese man said. "Souvenir for you!"

In reply, I stood there perplexed but decided to hold out my palm and the 60 yen in it anway.

And the Japanese man dropped two little seed pods in my palm on his way out of the park.

Whilst Evan and I stood there dumbfounded.

Actually, I think I shriek-laughed a few seconds later and the Japanese man may have turned back to look at me frozen there in shock and delight.

So I literally didn't MOVE and made Evan get my camera out my bag and take a picture. And here it is for your delight.

I FINALLY had my first random act of bizarre kindness from a Japanese person that everyone else seems to have on a regular basis. Seriously, a man just walked up to me, said "Souvenir" and dumped some seed pods into my hand. Like I had ANY CLUE what he was doing or why he was doing it.

I think the only thing more bizarre than that today was when we stopped outside the ATM before jumping on the train at the station. This man just kind of came up right beside me, stared, and was like, "Hello."

Naturally, my first instinct was that a fan was stalking me (they do that here), because, in the very strange Japanese way, he sidled right up beside me and then stopped and stared at my face.

Of course, it took me a moment to realize that this was not a crazy man, but one of our stage supervisors from work. Now basically that means when I see this man, he's in a suit and tie at my stage and he's usually delivering some sort of information (aka bad news). So I was not quite expecting this man in a baseball cap, sunglasses, and jeans to be my supervisor coming up to me at the ATM. And I certainly wasn't expecting to meet his stunning (and awkward in that first-time-meeting-you Japanese way) wife.

And I REALLY wasn't expecting to talk to them about our day, and figure out halfway through the conversation that my supervisor's wife actually speaks far more English than he does and that she would be acting as translator. Nor was I expecting a "Why are you going there?" filled with scorn and derision when I mentioned we'd be heading to Shinjuku Gyo-en for the day.

So I explained that we would be seeing the chrysanthemums that are on display in early November, and boy did chrysanthemums we see!

The park not only has beautifully landscaped flower beds, but it also had a beautiful Japanese garden with traditional teahouses and this, the Kyu-Goryo-Tei (Taiwan Pavilion).

And in an area usually "Not Open to the Public" (as listed on our map) they had a treasure trove of flowers on display. (Boy, I am glad we used our BGP and didn't listen to the map, since we were absolutely allowed to walk through the exhibit).

There also happens to be a beautiful French formal garden with long lanes of deciduous and rose beds. We took in the smell and the sight instead of taking pictures, but all it really made me long for was a Paris vacation and my mother's rosebed back on Everett Street.

There also is an "English Landscape Garden" which really cracks me up because the "landscaping" means basically that it is a giant open lawn with some trees on the side. And somebody got paid to "landscape" that. HA!

We did see some really giant Chestnut and Maple trees, but of course, my picture here won't quite do justice to their size and grandeur.

And that, my friends was how I had a lovely and most random day in Shinjuku, even if I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and couldn't quite be bothered about much of anything today.

In the end, I did manage to figure out that the seed pods had a little significance in that the giant ravens all over the park were eating them for the lunch. Which means that little Japanese man's souvenirs were actually a raven's lunch. Which I now have.

But hey. Who'd really turn down a free souvenir?