Your Travalanche Daily Digest for October 27, 2026
16 hours ago
Saturday, July 31, 2010
"Christopher Nolan does not shit solid gold. Like most people, he shits shit. Inception, for example."
Some other highlights:
Just an example here, to give you an idea of how original the bones of this film are: Nolan wrote, then reviewed, considered, and retained the following line: “I just need this one last job.” You might have thought this line would be banned from heist films forever, but no.
between creating visual spectacle, teasing along the cheap emotion, and having his cast awkwardly explain what could have been confusing plot points, there’s very little time to make things cohere.
Even when his story is little more than 10th-grade psychology wrapped around 8th-grade science, Nolan treats it as if it’s Einstein giving a college lecture on Jung
My sentiments EXACTLY. Can you say SOPHOMORIC?
There was one really great actor in Inception. But who was it? Put your cards on the table in the comments, and in a few days I'll say who it was. (hint: it's not Leo: he's up to his usual tricks in this movie)
Thursday, July 29, 2010
why acting matters
I am a passionate reader of political blogs, liberal political blogs in particular (the other kind not being good for my blood pressure ;) ). Earlier this month I read a piece at Digby's Hullabaloo which has been knocking around in my brain, and I think offers some valuable insight into the precise way in which what it is that we do is such a precious asset in our world, or can be.
Digby quotes a Boston Globe article:
Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.
And of course that is only the beginning:
...it appears that misinformed people often have some of the strongest political opinions. A striking recent example was a study done in the year 2000, led by James Kuklinski of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He led an influential experiment in which more than 1,000 Illinois residents were asked questions about welfare — the percentage of the federal budget spent on welfare, the number of people enrolled in the program, the percentage of enrollees who are black, and the average payout. More than half indicated that they were confident that their answers were correct — but in fact only 3 percent of the people got more than half of the questions right. Perhaps more disturbingly, the ones who were the most confident they were right were by and large the ones who knew the least about the topic. (Most of these participants expressed views that suggested a strong antiwelfare bias.)
People generally don't change their minds over salient political issues through rational argumentation. And I think that's where the (really good) actor comes in.
A really good actor can arouse not only sympathy for the character's plight: he can actually arouse empathy. The people sitting there watching can experience the character as an extension of themselves. In other words, the barrier between the self of the actor and the self of the observer can be temporarily dissolved. Plato was so worried about this possibility that he proposed that the dramatic poets should be banished from his imaginary republic. The threat to people's rational capacities seemed to him to be just too great; people could entirely lose track of the distinctions between themselves and others. This possibility of forging an empathic bond between the actor and spectator is rare enough that most people haven't actually experienced it, but important enough that striving to fulfill this promise and keep this possibility alive is, to my mind, among the most legitimate and worthy of pursuits. Lucky thing, since I teach acting.
I think this possibility of empathic bonding is one of the ways in which people might be brought to revise their views of situations in the larger society. Not by being told that what they believe is wrong, but by getting that the other guy dreams, the other guy hurts. That the other guy's dreams and hurts are our own dreams and hurts, the differences are superficial. Not by being told this, but by getting it, getting it because some actor embodied that dreaming and that hurting in a compelling and undeniable way. In a way that lets you see something in the other guy's eyes that you've never been able to see before.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
what not to do at an audition
come audition for my show!
I know I have been quiet for a while, but I am back in the saddle now. I hope you didn't miss me TOO much!
Announcing (Drum Roll Please!)
Custom Made Theatre Company is holding auditions for their upcoming production of Spalding Gray: Stories Left to tell, directed by Andrew Utter. We are looking for 2 Men and 2 Women of any age and ethnicity.
Synopsis
SPALDING GRAY: Stories Left to Tell catapults the audience into the hilarious, heartbreaking, and ultimately remarkable life of one of the most irreverent and revered storytellers of our time. A five person ensemble perform the beloved classics and never-before-heard stories that embrace the wit and wisdom found in the words of Spalding Gray.
Audition Dates: 14th or 15th
Audition Times Between: 12-3p on Saturday 8/14 and 2-5p on Sunday 8/15 (5 minute slot)
Audition Location: 1620 Gough Street, San Francisco at the Next Stage
To schedule an audition go to: https://instant-scheduling.com/sch.php?kn=360707
Sides will be sent once your appointment has been confirmed.
For the audition, you should plan to do one or two contemporary monologues, 1 min each. You can either do monologues you already have, or you can choose among the sides sent when you sign up.
Rehearsals Start: Mid-November
Tech. Period: January 14-20
Previews: January 21, 22, 23
Opens: January 25 (Tues.)
Performance Schedule after Opening: Thurs. – Sat., 8:00 p.m.; Sun., 7:00 p.m.
Scheduled Close: February 19
Possible extension close: February 26
Stipend: $150-$200
For questions, Contact Daunielle Rasmussen at drasmussen@custommade.org.
Hope to see you there!
Sunday, July 11, 2010
rethinking "motivation" with Sebastian Junger and Rachel Maddow
MADDOW: Sebastian, let me follow-up with you on that. You have said that you don‘t think society understands war very well. Obviously, you have a book out now called “War” that‘s based on your time with these soldiers as well.
You said, “If society is going to solve the human problem of war, they have to figure out what it is about combat that attracts young men so much that they‘re willing to risk their lives to go back out there to get it.”
After spending all of those months with second platoon out in the Korengal Valley, do you feel like you‘re any closer to figuring that out?
In the terms of my acting class, Rachel is asking for the underlying objective of the soldiers, the Stanislavsky 2.0 version of the old concept of "motivation". She wants to know what it is that they need so badly that they will volunteer for multiple dangerous tours of duty in the treacherous terrain of war-torn Afghandistan.
Junger's answer is good:
JUNGER: You know, I think I am. We were at a very remote outpost on this hilltop that we were getting attacked three or four times a day sometimes. The guys - you know, when they come back, they often - they want to back - when they come back to society, how can they want to return to that hilltop into combat?
Society thinks - often, people think that it‘s a question of adrenaline - an adrenaline addiction. I think what they‘re really addicted to essentially is brotherhood, an otherwise very healthy impulse that is taking place in a very unhealthy place.
And I think if society understands that, they won‘t - it won‘t be pathologized(ph) so much and be understood on its own terms. And maybe society can provide that sense of inclusion and brotherhood here rather than in combat.
Got that? Brotherhood. Not adventure. Not patriotism. Not money. The soldiers are seeking a particular kind of connection or belonging with other soldiers, that they apparently see as most obtainable on the front lines of war. In the class, we are constantly in the process of peeling back the layers of the more superficial accounts of human motivation to get to a particular, immediate expression of the human need to form meaningful and lasting ties to others.
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