For instance – my last manifesto was all about doing it yourself and not fetishizing teachers into gurus and just getting on with it and learning stuff. DARE TO BE A PIECE OF CRAP, I believe I said.
And the example I used was how I was going to learn how to play piano on the old keyboard I found in my basement.
Yeah. Well here’s the thing: as it turns out it’s really HARD to learn piano that way. And I’ve been plunking away every morning for 5-10 minutes and then I go do something else. Which is fine. But it’s become clear to me that I’m never really going to learn piano that way.
So daring to be a piece of crap isn’t the best mantra for me to use if I want to dare to learn piano. Maybe DARE TO GET YOUR ASS IN MOTION AND FIND A TEACHER would be a better one.
Anyway. As for the items in my first manifesto:
- Still don’t want to work for anyone, but my unemployment runs out in a month or so and with it my noble intentions. I’m hoping I can hold out for a boss who isn’t insane.
- Still think we shouldn’t make excuses for Roman Polanski just because he’s a great artist. Though I have to admit I’ve moved a little into Michael Jackson territory with Roman: I’m not making excuses for his appalling behavior, but I can’t help feeling sorry for him. I don’t know if this makes me a good empathetic humanist or a bad feminist. Or both?
- Still love beets with every fiber of my being. In fact: I have developed a variation on my beloved Beet Blast: so you’re boiling the beets along with some carrots, celery and onion in a big pot of water, right? Well after 45 minutes you can remove the beets, chop them up and eat them with the broth! Or by themselves! I always thought they were too mushy after that much boiling but I suddenly realized – hey wait a minute, beets take a long time to cook. So 45 minutes of simmering and you’ve got a beautiful bright red broth, AND beautiful tender beets!
Also speaking of beets (I should have a weekly post devoted solely to beets), I just remembered this opening passage from Jitterbug Perfume which I have always loved, even before I had tasted a beet:
The beet is the most intense of vegetables.
The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.
- Back to the manifesti: still a cryer. That is never going to change. In fact I’ve been thinking more and more about how useful & cathartic crying can be. Case in point: back in October we were rehearsing Everyone Who Looks Like You two weeks before opening, which is to say we were madly swooping and careening and wheeling in circles. I was trying to write a song based on screaming (oh, I see I’ve mentioned this before) and I’d gone through at least three distinct versions and every time people didn’t quite like it and I was getting more and more frustrated and in the middle of rehearsal I just burst into tears, cried out I’M SORRY THAT’S THE BEST I CAN DO and ran into the bathroom. It was so embarrassing. I stayed in the bathroom for a while, not sure what to do, and then walked back out expecting horrified silence. But instead everyone came up to me one by one and gave me a hug and apologized! And they hadn’t even done anything! Somehow by letting people see I was overwhelmed, we were able to let go of the tension that had built up around that stupid song, and I was able to see that in fact the pressure wasn’t coming from anyone except me (and after that we figured out how to fix the song, so it was a win win all around).
Of course, if I cried every rehearsal, that would be a problem. But once in a while, it’s a good idea to let your feelings roll over you, come what may.
So that’s where I stand. Looks like half of my convictions still hold water, and the rest have run out of steam (to mix my metaphors). Stay tuned for NEW random passionate declarations, coming soon.
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