In Praise of Four Enso

The Ensō is one of the most prevalent images of Zen art. It has been subject to a rich variety of interpretations—seen as everything from a rice cake to a symbol of infinity. But regardless of how it is understood, the ensō is above all an expression of the mind of the artist who brushes it. It is said that the state of the practitioner can be clearly read in his or her execution of the circle.

A very nice Enso at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

The poem to the left of the superb Enso above reads:

With a heart permeated with innocence, The virtuous dragon walks alone.

The first card in the Tarot is numbered O. The Fool.

"When a courier was sent to the Florentine painter Giotto (1266?–1337) to obtain an example of the painter’s work for Pope Benedict, the painter created a perfect circle in red ink. When the courier asked the painter if this was the only example of his work he was to receive, Giotto explained that the image was “enough and too much,” and asked that it be sent to the Pope to see if he would understand. The drawing was delivered, and the Pope immediately realized Giotto’s talent." -Yoshiko Seo, Enso

In the picture above an atom is depicted. The atoms that compose our bodies are mostly empty space. Empty space pervades the material world, and every sub-atomic particle is the excitation, or vibration, of an empty vacuum. The physicist Stephen Hawkings says "In the case of the whole universe, one can show that the negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy of the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero." Is the universe of modern quantum physics a giant Enso?

Minneapolis manhole cover/ Enso

"Be Funny."

News Flash:
Less Actually Is More.

Apparently the Buddah said it this way:

“When you speak, make sure you are improving on silence.”

Reason 1,148 why I am not the Buddah.
My policy in performance has always been “Always Leave Them Begging For Less.”
I like to go big and then see if I can justify my choices after.

Now I find myself performing in the circus.
Go bold or don’t go at all I say.
I like to make broad brushstrokes with my physicality in the theatre whenever possible, then find the inner world to support my choices.
Over thirty years this has served me reasonably well in the Theatre.
But the same laws of diminishing return apply with the audiences here under the blue and yellow spires of the Grande Chapeteau.

Scratching Your Head, Rubbing Your Belly

Physically I need to go big: Everything from exacting moments of frozen stupor to full body, supported gestures that stretch to the back row of a circus tent.
But vocally it needs to be as intimate and present as if I was doing it for a group of friends in the living room.

(Treating center stage as our very own living room is one of the elaborate tricks we clowns must play on ourselves mentally as we mine for the funny in performance.)

So even as the yawning space and the 2 thousand plus people out there and my well honed Outdoor (un miked) Shakespeare instincts clamor for me to match my movements vocally I must conquer my impulse to yell.

“The Buddah does not need to yell.” yelled the Buddah.

I must trust the four hundred dollar microphone clamped to my head and the hundreds of speakers tucked into every nook and cranny in the tent.

Crickets and Confetti

So the Body is showing 180% while the voice cruises along at 65.
Mind-bending Fun.
But this adjustment is crucial for the success of my character and the clown acts in our production.
This is not multi-tasking. This is doing two opposite things at the same time.
But it gets better:

Even though I am playing a Fool, a nincompoop King who doesn’t know where he is or what he’s doing most of the time, I must also be confidently under control underneath it all. Therefore I must remove any sense of vocal strain.
This actually sends a subliminal message down the synaptic highways of the audience that, goofy as I am, I am also in Buddah-like control. That we clowns will take care of our audience even as we make fun of /with them. In clowning signs of undue effort can kill the funny deader than a crushed cricket under a jack boot.

Nowhere is all this more crucially tested than when I close out the Cannon Chase/ High Wire Set Up near the end of our first act by crushing a cricket with my jack boot.

It is one of the earliest circus traditions to enlist the clowns to distract from the work the riggers must do to set up the next act. In Kooza we clowns cover for the High Wire set up with a confetti fueled chase through the audience.
A sudden burst of controlled insanity.
A kind of happy mayhem.

At the end of said shenanigans I have a moment alone with a recalcitrant cricket.
While mining for the funny with the (imaginary) insect, I must keep an eye on a cue light 200 feet away that will give me the go ahead to end the scene.

Green: All is set, you’re good to go.
Red: VAMP!

Ending the scene too early could have catastrophic consequences with the high wire artists waiting in the wings.
Welcome to the circus.

Dasha staring at me (again!)

So if you’re keeping score, my job:
Be a patient Buddha on the inside.
A Goofus on the outside.
Eyes- Hypersensitive, aware, available, OPEN!
Voice- Relaxed, intimate, crystalline.
Breathe.

And one more thing, as Andy, one of the riggers reminds me every night seconds before I go on for the “Wand Chase “ segment of the show:

“Be Funny.”

The Skeletons Are Out of the Closet- Playing Dominoes!

The Kooza newsletter published excerpts from this blog!
Click here.

Fantabulous Minneapolis in pictures

Ninnyapolis

Downtown Minneapolis. Great place to find echoes.


Appetizer.

Main Course.

Best place to pretend you're in a Hopper painting.

Rock On.

"Let's Do This", High Fives and The Capacity Test

Last week the company of Kooza was given their annual Capacity Tests.
Strange name, I know, but that’s what they call it.
A little daunting at first.
Capacity Test? Capacity for what? Pain?
Or are you measuring what I contain? (Multitudes, of course)

But no, it was just a series of physical tests designed to establish your overall conditioning for comparison next year or after injury.
So we do things like balance with our eyes closed on a spongy thing. (extremely difficult) and squeeze a contraption with a pressure gauge.

Squeeze me

Heart monitors are strapped to our chest and wrists and we step up on a box about a thousand times to the rhythm of a metronome.

Then there is the Vertical Jump Meter.
First you reach with your feet flat on the floor. (95 inches in my case) Then you see how high you can reach with a one step jump. The difference between the two measurements is your vertical leap. I scored 20 inches, which I thought was respectable until the Australian head of physical training (and extraordinary photographer) Brad Fernihough informed me that many in our company jump in the high 40’s.
This is when I realize I am working with Superhumans.

Vertical Jump Meter

Walking Amongst Superhumans

Since I was a little kid I’ve always enjoyed comic books. Now I’m living inside one.
With diligent training and dedication these men and women have turned themselves into Superhumans. And they daily do superhuman feats.

One of the Superhumans I work with is Angelo Lyerzhysky.
Apparently there is a tradition, started before my time here, in which moments before he steps onto the Wheel of Death, Angelo must bump knuckles and make eye contact and say “Let’s do this.” in unison with me, the King.

(Ganji, our gregarious acrobat with the Mongolian accent calls me “The Kink” which may indeed be my Superhero name.)

Peaceful Warrior Ganji

Let's Do This

Partly out of superstition and partly just adhering to a comforting routine, we do it every performance and it has become part of my routine as well.

Of course when Angelo says “Let’s do this.” He is referring to flying around on the inside (and outside) of a three story human hamster wheel. (Mind you no hamster would ever be brave enough to do what Angelo does on the Wheel of Death.) My “Let’s do this.” refers to getting as much laughter as possible out of my “passage” with a rat on a leash. Not quite the same level of risk, I know.

But for that tiny moment, when our knuckles touch and our eyes meet and we recite the “Let’s do this” mantra, I am one of them, walking amongst Superhumans. And that feels good.

High Five

Post Performance High Five's filmed from belly button cam.

Because so many languages and cultures are represented in our company there is a need for an international expression of good will and shared camaraderie that transcends language barriers. Enter the high five.
Since joining Cirque I have given (and received) more high fives than in all my years in theatre put together.
The crack of the occasional high five peppers the Artistic tent like popcorn in hot oil.

After every performance there is a high five after the Charivari. Another after the “Greeting of the Artists”. There are high fives in the dressing room and at “Area 51” where the techies (and the 2 dollar beers for after the show) hang out. There is a receiving line of high fives at the end of each show where technicians and performers clap hands in recognition of a job well done. As if to say “We did it.” And nobody got hurt.

The next day the Superhumans shall assemble again.

“Let’s do this.”

"The Kink" and Angelo

Tired? At Cirque du Soleil? Naww.

Two high wire artists, an acrobat, a clown and a trickster between shows on our last day in New York. Next stop: Minneapolis

Coulrophobia and The Fusiform Gyrus

Twenty minutes to showtime.
I give myself ten minutes.
If it’s an eight o’clock show that means I am out in the audience at 7:40 doing clown work as the “House Manager”.
Shaking hands, getting giggles, generally letting my Id run amok.
I’m testing the waters, tiptoeing on the edge of inappropriateness.
Dipping my big toe into the pool of 2600 people. And wiggling it.

I always try to thank the people in wheel chairs for coming and tell the caregivers sitting next to them how beautiful they look.

The dynamic is delicious. They’re here to have a good time and I’m wearing a ton of (painstakingly applied) make up, a kind of striped clown zoot suit and a wig that looks like two hummingbirds have fought in it for nesting rights.

There can be no doubt by my appearance. I am a clown.

And like Lear’s “all licensed fool”, there is very little that is out of bounds for me.

(Though I did have one kid ask “Are you in the show?” I wanted to say “No kid, I just wear this fright wig and gobs of makeup to help people find their seats.”)

Two masterpieces, one by Picasso.

Coulrophobia

About ninety five percent of the kids out there connect with us clowns much more readily than they may with the amazing acrobats in this show because, well, we are like them: childish.

But there are certain kids, about 5%, who clearly have some very deep form of Coulrophobia. (fear of clowns) running through their viens. One look at my smiling face and they go hysterical.
But not in a good way.

“WAAAHH!!”

And it’s not like they had some traumatic experience with clowns in their young lives, some Stephen King engram branded on their psyche that sends them on a one way ticket to conniption city. Coulrophobia can be an innate, hard wired predisposition and it is quite a thing to behold, let alone cause.

The parents look at me with a look that says “Well that beats us, we just paid a hundred and twenty five dollars so you could traumatize our kid for life. We’ll probably be paying for his therapy for the next ten years. Thanks.”

But the fact remains: a majority of the kids love the clowns in Kooza, but some kids, after one waggle of my insanely arcing eyebrows, are sent into paroxysms of unadulterated terror. Ever cause a spontaneous tantrum in a 5 year old?

I have.

The Mask of Grease and Powder

There have been studies. A hospital in London had to repaint the children’s ward because the circus theme and bright clowny colors were freaking the kids out faster than you can pop a balloon animal with a fistful of thumbtacks.

Apparently there’s something deep seated here and us clowns are depicted as evil in this day and age more often than not.
Heath Ledger’s Joker, the band Insane Clown Posse, the clown spectre from Poltergeist notwithstanding, I wonder when clowns went from empathetic sometimes elegant innocents like Jean Louis Berrault in Les Enfants du Paradis to Tim Curry's malevolent creature in It.

That layer of make up, that fraction of an inch of grease and powder can be enough to curdle the disposition of an impressionable child faster than you can say John Wayne Gacy.

A U-turn on the Mind's Superhighway

Maybe it’s related to the fusiform gyrus.

The fusiform gyrus is the superhighway of the brain along which images from the eye are transmitted by the optic nerve to the visual cortex where the images are processed for perception. It is also described as playing a crucial role in face and body recognition.

The “mask” I wear as both the “House Manager” and the “King of the Clowns” clouds the perception, jangles the fusiform gyrus, plants the seed of fear in some kids. (and adults apparently)

People innately appreciate honesty I guess and when they are confronted with the lie of a false eyebrow or an enhanced leer there is a crack in the fusiform gyrus superhighway. And Coulrotrphobia fills the gap.

“WAAAHH!!”

The word Clown and the adjective Childish have gotten a bad rap. But indeed the role of the clown in society is a sacred office, a naive soothsayer in a complicated world.
Maybe fostering a little of the quality of childishness in our lives would go a long way towards creating a world where honesty is prized over deception. Invention over cynicism and “why not” wins out over “why”.

I remember when I was playing Buckminster Fuller in a one man show and asked a child I sat next to during a performance why humanity was having such a hard time seeing themselves as crew members on “Spaceship Earth”.
The six year old calmly replied “Because the world is run by adults.”
Everyone laughed.

Long live the Clowns.

Signs of Life in NYC

Just a few signs of life as we wrap up our stay in NYC...

Best sign that you've hit the Big (Top) Time.

Welcome to the 2nd Avenue subway construction. Sink or Swim.

Apparently there is a lot of danger in New York City.

Dasha and Natasha warming up.

Dima and Irina cooling down

.
Moonrise on Manhattan.

Heroes, Habits and Making It Crackle

Shiner sings my praises or is saying "NOOO!" I can't remember which.

The Crackle

As performers we all seek it.

It’s a sharpness.
An urgency.
A crispness of delivery.
The unguarded alacrity of thought.
It says “Pay attention audience. Or we will leave you in the dust.”
It’s not about pacing though.
It’s not rushed.
It breathes.
It's a living thing.

It can live in an excruciatingly long pause just as it can live in a flurry of words and action.
And to keep an audience riveted, it is essential.
My fellow clown Jimmy Slonina here at Cirque has a great word for it.
He calls it The Crackle.
And when our bits go well he says
“That was crackly!”

David Shiner worked with us clowns on a recent visit to insure The Crackle Factor was alive here at Kooza.

Heroes

I had spent the morning in the Bronx.

Cirque du Monde, Cirque du Soleil’s outreach program had a few of us out to Hunt’s Point for a break down cruise of perhaps the most environmentally toxic funnels of real estate in the United States where we toured one of the “little victories” these intrepid social worker/activist/clowns have carved out of this ravaged urban landscape.

Sandwiched between a reeking fertilizer factory and the burning smoke stacks of a waste management smelter is a park where kids laugh and play and learn circus skills.

Amid this Industrial wasteland the kids-
(70% of which have extreme cases of asthma from the diesel trucks that they must navigate around to get anywhere)
-spend a few hours after school dodging drive by bullets and the lure of drug dealers to, well, just be kids.The heroes of this story are these young clowns, jugglers and acrobats who come here every day and face the “cooler than thou” teens and pre teens to give them a taste of circus arts and the trust and teamwork these skills entail.

.

We can be heroes, just for one day.

The darkened circles under their eyes are the tell tales of a thousand “Why should I’s” and “I don’t wanna’s”

Then it’s back by dingy subway to the light of the Artistic Tent at Le Grand Chapeteau for my rehearsal with David Shiner.

Breaking Habits

As a director David Shiner can be mean.
In all the right ways.
Mean the way you want your director to be mean.
Like California Shakespeare Theatre director Jonathon Moscone, he cares deeply about the work enough to not be concerned about your perception of him. He wants you to succeed and it might not be all hearts and flowers and nurturing. There might be some deeply entrenched habits that need breaking and David is there to break them.
And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Nowhere was this better exemplified than when we watched a DVD of a previous performance of mine.
On the screen I make a kind of clever, facile and theatrical choice that may have served me well in the theatre world and David pauses the tape-

“No! No! No! No! NO!” he cries and stamps the ground with his foot.
“Why did you do that?”
“Well, I thought-“
“NOO! You’re supposed to be an idiot! You can’t think!”

Maddening as these contradictions seem, the upshot is that my character must always come back to simply being me.
Confused, addled, distractable, excitable, dictatorial, adorable but always coming back to me.

We rework the “Transformation” section of the act-
(The boxer now takes a knock out punch and I get to do a nice rag doll fall. See My Brain Is My Enemy)
–and somehow the work magically goes from replication to actual creation and a wonderful sense of ownership starts to form.
The next night, sweaty, exhilarated, I exit from our first scene and find Shiner exulting me in the tunnel: “That’s it! You rocked it!”

Jimmy and I keeping it crackly.

My job has suddenly become both easier and harder:

Easier because as long as I breathe and have fun and stay in the moment I can always come back to myself as the base character.

Harder because doing that is a very vulnerable and naked way to work.

No artifice.
No theatrical slight of hand.
No display of technique.
No cleverness.
Just me.
Breathing.
Having fun as The King of the Clowns,
In the moment
And making it Crackle.

Nine shows a week.

Victim Work

They call it Victim Work.

It’s when you pull someone out of their comfy seat in the audience, yank them out of anonymity, disorient them with stage light and the attention of an audience and then use them as fodder for comedy.

It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it.

The clowns.

Jimmy and I make nice nice with a victim.

Casting at 100 mph.

Selecting a victim is an art.
It’s basically a form of instant psychology.
Casting at 100 mph.

In Kooza I must select a victim with very little preliminary interaction. (see Clown vs. Man and the Animation Barometer) so I have to make some split second decisions that are based on very little information.
And who you select has a lot to do with what you want them to do (or not do) in the act.

For one of the victims in Kooza we need to have someone really normal, even slightly reticent. A kind of everyman.
So a quick profiling checklist goes through my mind in the instant I have to troll the audience for a suitable victim.

Who is he with?

(A dad with wife and kids is more likely to behave than a jock with a date he’s trying to impress.)

What is he wearing?

Unfamiliar footwear and he might not speak English. Is he wearing a jacket? I can use that for a bit.

Is he too enthusiastic?

I have seconds to gage this person and predict his behavior. If he’s too pumped up or too extroverted he could kill the act.
He’s no longer a victim. He’s a fellow performer. I cast him.
And I can fire him. If he’s too crazily enthusiastic as we step onstage I immediately fire him (with a joke) and go for my second choice.

Is he capable of doing what I’m going to ask of him in the act?

I pulled a victim on last Sundays matinee.
(After firing my first choice when he pumped his fist in the air.)
We were doing the duo version of the “Clown Magic” act.
At one point Jimmy Slonina and I are skipping around the perimeter of the stage with the victim between us. The audience couldn’t hear it but I distinctly heard the victim say “You’re killing me. You’re killing me.”
Apparently he had a bad back and clearly was not going to be able to lie down as is required of this particular victim. That’s lousy casting.

Like anything it’s a practice.

I had plenty practice at it at Teatro Zinzanni as Chef Cecile B. DeGrille where I would pull victims into some of the wild scenarios I developed with comedy mastermind Stefan Haves.
Sometimes, as in the Samurai sketch I used to introduce the salad, or the bullfighter bit I used for the main course, I’d have three victims working at the same time, each with their own specific casting parameters.

At both Kooza and Zinzanni you have the possibility that your victim is too drunk to follow simple orders. At Zinzanni you have the added factor that the person you plan to use has gone to the bathroom and you have to quickly go with your second choice.
(No chance of that at Kooza, the show is simply too consistently electrifying for anyone to get up and go.)

Clown prince Christian Fitzharris and master pick-pocket Lee Thompson actually keep logs on the victims to hone their craft. (and remember the crazy highlights.)

Human Sacrifice

Victim work is a form of Group Schadenfreude.
Clown Crime perpetrated in plain sight.
As I reach down and clasp his hand, my other hand imperceptibly controlling his elbow, I watch one person gulp with fear while 2,599 others giggle with relief that it’s not them.

Last Thursday I was pulling up a victim who resisted, saying “I can’t. I have asthma.” I felt like saying “I have asthma too buddy and I’m the one pulling you up here!” but I let him go. Better to move on to some other lucky victim.

So a Thank You to all my victims. I realize they may never have been onstage in front of 2600 people and it may be a bit discomfiting to be thrust into the sharp glare of the follow spot, but when you see their families greet them when they return to their seats you know you’ve given that family a memory they may never forget. They saw a loved one thrust up onto the Alter of Comedy. Sacrificed for the funny.

With me.

Clown vs. Man and the Animation Barometer

They call it Animation.

Fifteen minutes before Kooza starts several members of our company mingle, provoke, spill popcorn on, greet and gambol with the expectant audience during a segment we call Animation.

Animation is clowning at its most naked and unadorned. And a lot of it is one on one, interpersonal encounters.

Clown vs. Man.

And it’s one of my favorite parts of doing Kooza and the show hasn’t even started yet.

The word Animation comes from the Latin root animatio, which literally means “a bestowing of life.”

Animation is a lot like pushing the roller coaster up the steep part of the track so the audience can spend the next two and a half hours going “Whee!”

Animation is the time we use to infect the audience with the antic spirit. In which we preload a camaraderie of silliness one person at a time.

Animation is when we inoculate the patrons from the drudgery of their daily lives, awaken their inner child and nudge their funny bones.

And while we do this we are working.

While we mine for comic ore in plain site with no fanfare we are sussing the sensibilities and shopping.

Shopping for future victims.

(Often just touching a shoulder or shaking a hand gives you all the information you need to make a selection for later on.)

Fitzharris, me, Slonina and Gatto prepare to Animate.

There is little hoopla in Animation. We just go out there under the glare of the houselights. Well, maybe a little help from our friends up on the “masts” manning the follow spots doesn’t hurt.

We take with us a few props.
Among them,
A jack hammer,
An air blower,
Balloons,
A wig,
A bull horn,
Hair spray
And a constantly malfunctioning remote control.
These are enlisted not only to warm the audience up but to gauge their temperature as well.

Our Trickster Mike Tyus uses their reaction to my opening announcement in Animation as a barometer of what this particular audience is going to be like. And most nights how Animation goes is a good indication of the unique character of that particular audience. And every audience, like every individual out there, is different.

Next: Victim Work

Behind the Bataclan

There are plenty of ways to get distracted around here...

Caught in a calm reflective moment Behind the Bataclan.

Caution: Men On Wire. Swordfighting.

Heather Wrangles Rodents.

Julie hangs out.

Anthony Gatto checks messages in "The Fart Parlor."

My Office.

A Rare Mis-Steak

Any actor will tell you.

It’s a cardinal rule.

It’s right up there with “Know your lines” and “Don’t bump into the furniture.”

I think it’s even before “Make sure your zippers up.”

Jimmy Stewart famously added “Wear your own shoes and speak the truth."

But all actors agree one of the most fundamental rules is “Always check your props.”

I guess I was distracted.

In Kooza I use what looks like a big T-bone steak as a slapstick to keep the other two clowns in check. In the early “Clown Magic” sequence the steak is put into service to slap not only my madcap sidekicks but also is given to a Volunteer/Victim from the audience to hit me myself.

The slaps are accompanied by a fantastic sound effect that sounds like a punch from one of those early kung fu movies. Our bandleader Seth Stachowski and his near clairvoyant timing ensures each hit is supported with a resounding “Krunck!”


But if you forget the steak…

I imagine the look on my face as I reached into my “Butt Pouch” for the steak and found nothing could only be described as “Blanched.”

Talk about Pointe Fixe!

With no steak I went with what was handy: My Hand.
(It was doing nothing there on the end of my arm so I figured why not?)

This worked well enough- and Seth was right on it as usual but then it came time to hand the weapon- which was supposed to be a steak but was now my hand- to the Victim.

Houston, we have a problem.

Normally I hand the steak to the Victim and say “My turn!” and she slaps me with it. Too far in now to abort, I placed her hand around my wrist and hit myself in the face!

Have you heard the sound of 2600 people cocking their heads in confusion?

I have.

Apparently word of my gaff spread through the big top like a wildfire on speed. By the time I made it backstage I had already heard:

“Don’t worry, Ronnie. It’s a rare mis- steak!”

“Where’s the beef?”

“We’re just ribbing you!”

While waiting behind a curtain before my next entrance a technician emerged out of the darkness and asked “Are you a vegetarian?”

At lunch between shows (They were of course serving steak) Riccardo, one of the culinary geniuses who prepare our meals came over to ask if I needed any more helpings, giggling his way back to the kitchen.

Forgetting to check my props is far from a common thing with me. I must have been just too distracted by all that is going on back here behind the Bataclan. At least that’s the excuse I’m using.

Always check your props.

Take a Load Off, Your Highness

Finally on the throne.

The Double Dark

They talk about it with reverent tones here at Cirque.
The Double Dark.
At first I thought it was some snazzy gourmet chocolate bar.
(People talk about chocolate in these same hushed tones nowadays. Simple pleasures I guess)
At Cirque Double Dark is the magical code word for not one but two days off. In a row. Imagine.

With one day off all you have time for is laundry, an Epsom salt bath and a quiet evening of rest and recuperation. Two days off and you might even be able to see a little of the city you’re in.
Double Darks are rare at Cirque. But much appreciated.

I tried to squeeze the most out of my Double Dark by seeing two Broadway shows (from the rafters) and went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where I spent four blissful hours of pure gawk.
(I did not do my laundry. Maybe next Monday.)

After paying five dollars to get in- (I affected my best Serbo-Croatian accent and said “Enough, this?” and offered a crumpled fiver. The bored kid at the ticket counter rolled his bespectacled eyes and said “Sure.” And I was in. He may or may not have heard me when, not three paces away, I asked a kindly docent in perfect English “Would you be so kind as to direct me to the Japanese Armaments?”

I live for Danger.

And it did say “suggested” in fine print under the ticket prices.

An Actual Twitter

Brittle Mystery

For the next four hours I floated amongst the masterworks, my body a pedestal for the squishy sculpture that is my brain

"Come back! I'll knee you to death!"

A strange dance is under way here at the Met on this quiet Tuesday afternoon. People are distractedly swirling about the art in eddies of quiet, willful confusion.
And I noticed something interesting. Not about the art. But about the way people look at art. What it does to their bodies.

Why do people cock their heads to one side like a cocker spaniel puppy hearing a harmonica for the first time?

Is it to help the sweet honey of the golden mean pour into their being?
Are they trying to angle themselves to better receive the brittle mystery of beauty as it spills off these masterpieces?

Why do I see so many people stand with their hips cocked, one toe poised and lower lips bit in consternation?

And when we look at art is the art looking back at us?

Is that why we tilt our heads just so?

Hmmm.

They say the greatest gift you can give another human being is your attention.

Is the same true of art?

The Man Who Understands by Klee

The Prison

While we ogle away, are the paintings busy envying our three dimensionality?

Do the Etruscan dancers tire of endlessly circling the urn like goldfish in a bowl?

Immortals from the Han Dynasty, partying.

Does that elegant katana long for battle with the Celtic sword crucified across the hallway, only a couple of layers of plexiglass separating them. Forever.
(Or until the exhibit changes.)

Perpetual Grin Lock

In the Oceania wing I watch NYU students lose staring contests with Whale Masks. On the second floor Caravaggios are pointing out stigmatas to a woman in a wheel chair and Modiglianis mope and look down their impossibly long noses at Dutch tourists. I swear a Burgher of Calais winked at me as I passed.

I stroll past all this drama in a state of engorged bliss, knowing each masterpiece may indeed represent the work of a lifetime. Or two. Or three.
Lifetimes distilled into an object.

Immortal.

Human hands carved this wood grain into gossamer, forged that steel into filigree.

To walk these halls is to be a witness to a kind of alchemy. The alchemy of turning marble into muscle, pigment into flesh.

Welcome to the Met.
A prison where immortals hunch on pedestals and hang on walls, where the admission price is only suggested and visiting hours are six days a week.

Tilt your head.

Picasso's The Actor
"I do so to have an ass."

The Jaw Grind Disposition and Some Accidental Masterpieces

New York, New York
I won't go back
Indelible reminder of the steel I lack
I gave you seven years
What did you give me back?
A jaw-grind disposition to a panic attack.

Mike Doughty of the band Soul Coughing wrote these lyrics and they always resonated with my relationship with the Big Apple. But Manhattan was on her best behavior Monday and I got some shots.

Accidental Motherwell

The King of fire hydrants

Accidental DeKooning

Accidental Rothko

Wanted: Very small crew.