Why do I dislike theater, but not film?

    While we spoke via phone when she was still in Argentina, my wife Fernanda told me about the play that she had just seen there. When she returned, she told me more about it, adding that it was only a small, neighborhood production, but had been very good. She added that she wished that there were more like it here in San Francisco.

   Although she knows that I really don't care for theater, she relayed her feelings to me in a way that a person does when they have regrets about a thing. At least that's how it sounded to me. And while I am fully aware that I probably read that aspect into it, it still saddened me. I imagined too that she may also feel remorseful that she married someone that doesn't generally like plays as she does.
   These thoughts set me off me asking myself, yet again, why it is that I don't enjoy theater, but am liable to be moved by certain films, It seems to me to logically follow that if a person likes one, then shouldn't they also enjoy the other?
   In terms of how these two forms appear, how they present, there is something about the lack of border, really an end, that the finite space of a film frame is able to create and define in a clear way that theater does not. The play, whether on a stage or not, is for me too enacted, but not restrictive or discerned enough in a way that makes sense to me as the artifice that I see it as.
   While I often find in-between spaces, such as the difficult physical location that I see plays existing in, to offer a stretch of freedom for me as a viewer, the theatrical place instead leads me to feeling confined, and sometimes, even short of breath. I find that feeling often occurring in art museums, too.
   Perhaps because of this problematic area, the actions of the players in the productions often seem laughable to me. I actually am embarrassed at times for the actresses and actors, as they seem to be trying too hard to convince me of something (though I don't know what). It just looks ridiculous to me.
   In contrast, I rarely question the form of film, even when I don't like what I am seeing, because the artifice is pronounced in a way that I can enjoy without continually questioning it. The same is true for me of television. It seems that neither medium attempts to be anything besides artificial, and this approach is for me both refreshing and easy to consume.
   Of course, I have considered the idea that I have become more naturalized to the television (whose screen, though smaller, is not terribly unlike a movie theater screen), but I don't think that it is the resounding influence.
   Instead, it is more likely the rigidity of the screen's borders that allows me to float more freely as a consumer within the tale it depicts. The subsequent lightness allows me to interpret more freely, feeling less constrained and determined. And for me, to feel even a little less weighed down, is so wonderful.

Perceiving dimensions

   I became aware as I walked this morning my tendency to perceive the world in negative ways, and wondered what might happen if I were to try to comprehend things differently.  I was aware that thinking about things as I do makes me feel bad about others and myself.
   I decided to try a quick experiment, squinting my eyes as if I was nearly asleep or high on marijuana. As I propelled forward, I immediately realized that I had a qualitatively different sense of space. It was beautiful and unexpected.
   Instead of feeling that things around me were static, they seemed to be moving, somewhat like being looked at through a kaleidoscope. The trees moved as I moved.
   As I think about it now, I imagine that if someone were to tell me about the sense I had of those trees as if they had experienced them like that, I would figure that the person had themselves become rigid; the trees had appeared to bounce due to the movement of the individual's gait.
   But that's not how it seemed. Actually, I had perceived that myself and my world had become less rigid, and I had the impression that the less I fixed my view, the less my views were fixed. And although it was frightening to know that things could feel so much less rooted, there was also something wonderful about the fact that the world could seem so different, even for only that moment.
   

The smell of my gloves

   In the trunk of my car there are perhaps four or five pairs of gloves that I use during the (sometimes chilly) early morning walks that I take daily in Golden Gate Park. Although I wear the same old stained, Reebok sneakers daily, I do prefer to try to match my gloves in some manner to either my clothing, the weather, or both.
   The gloves that I generally wear on the more mild days are a neutral grey (one of which is shown below), and which I often notice have an odor which is at once familiar and murky. Although I'm not certain, and the association certainly may be misplaced, I believe that the smell reminds me of the blackberry and raspberry jelly candies that my Grandma Jean would have available for us kids when we would visit their home in Jamaica, Queens.
   I find it quite interesting that this fabric, which is made of an acrylic, nylon and wool blend, should remind me of these candies, and wonder if perhaps what I am reminded of is actually of that same grandma's basement (which had a lot of wool clothing, moth balls), one floor below the candies. It's certainly possible that I have attached the association to both levels.
   Whereas I normally write in these blogs to try to better understand my feelings and thoughts, sometimes, as now, I feel the need to elucidate for myself my associations only to give them possibilities. Rather than looking for answers, I find that these wonderful and often perplexing associative mental links make my existence richer. I write in part to understand some of these things better, and to hopefully, better realize the depths of these kinds of wonder.

If only you could smell it from there

Dog grandma

   There is a car that is sometimes see parked around Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park when I go walking there that has a sticker on it which read, Dog Grandma. Located just behind the gas tank cover, I have only recently noticed it, even though I have seen the car there for at least a year now. I believe that the sticker must be new, because knowing myself well (if only in this regard), I cannot imagine that I have not seen it before. I say this because of the impact it has on me now.
   I find the statement in the picture below interesting not only for what I see as its' ridiculousness, but because I find its' message is so difficult to tease out. Is the driver of this car someone that has three generations of dogs from the same family, and if so, how many dogs might she have? Maybe she is a grandmother to human beings, with one of them owning a dog. Or, perhaps she herself is a a dog and grandmother that is also able to drive a car?
   When I began writing this blog, I honestly couldn't wrap my head around what the sticker was referring to, but as I write, I realize that she must have a grandchild with a dog, but I love that the two words seemed, at least temporarily, so strange together as to bewilder me. I probably would benefit from more of that feeling.

Not known

   I walked by the object in the picture below twice before taking a picture of it, thirty five minutes or so later. I had difficulty making out what it was as I first walked past it, and the second time seemed to add nothing to my understanding. I now believe that it might have taken me as long as it did to stop and take this picture, at least partially, because I did not want to have a record of it to examine more closely.
   It seems that often times, knowledge of things ruins their allure for me.
   I have written quite a bit in these blogs about what I find mysterious, and what I will call here the unknown, hard to know, and not known, even though they may describe essentially the same thing. Still, I continue to write on the subject because I feel so alive when I do, finding so much wonder and freedom in the what I fail to capture adequately. Perhaps this failure is part of what I find most beautiful.
   Just as I seemed to initially, and continue to lack the desire to better understand what is shown in the picture below, I often relish in the fact that the words that I choose, perhaps all words, cannot do better than to point to my own lack of knowledge.

Seeking silence

  One of the things that I enjoy so much about my early morning walks in Golden Gate Park is how quiet it is when I arrive. This environment helps me to focus on what is going on inside, rather than outside out of me.
    Although complete silence is not necessary for me being able to have a clear vision of my thoughts, jarring and difficult to predict sounds do tend to seriously challenge my feeling at ease. If there are sounds, those with a kind of all over quality usually lead me back to the feel of quiet.
    I italicized the word feel above because I find sounds of all kind to create more of a state than a particular volume or cadence that can be measured, though these can influence the senses I have of them.
   For example, the rustle of leaves in the wind, or the tapping of light rain falling on concrete, I find quite relaxing. Mechanical sounds too, such as air conditioners or some car engines running also can help to create a pleasant environment.
   As I think more about the early mornings in Golden Gate Park, it becomes apparent that places like it allow me to think and feel more clearly because I find the stimulation more manageable. When this is the case, I am better able to focus, connecting me more to the outside.
   The key then becomes how to carry these states within me when the world feels loud and blaring.

Company and security

   This morning I had some time before an appointment, so I decided to take a short walk to the ATM to get some cash. Although it was about eight thirty, the Pacific Heights neighborhood I was in was still bustling with morning rush hour activity. As I passed three young adults waiting for a bus (or some other transportation), I noticed that they were all standing, on this beautiful spring morning, heads down and seemingly transfixed by their phone screens.
   It almost never fails to make me wonder what people could possibly be looking at so often and long on their devices. Sometimes, seeing them do so makes me long for the interactive street life I grew up with.
   Let me add here that I'm  not trying to idealize these reminsences, as there were many times that these experiences felt both hostile and frightening; still, people did tend to look at each other, instead of elsewhere.
   After my stop at the bank, I walked up the hill on Fillmore Street, continuing to see people with their phones out, but noticed that many of them were simply carrying them; I immediately thought of baby blankets, and the comfort they provided.
   I want to be clear that I am not meaning to infer anything condescending, or to imply that these people were like babies emotionally, but it made me a little sad. It reminded me of how difficult and scary being in the world can be, and for how many years I tried to numb and avoid these feelings through various methods.
   I felt good this morning, aware of myself and my body, which helped me to see others with compassion rather than judgment.
   I wondered a bit more about these people, their phones, and myself, and my thoughts turned to the notion of companionship. It occured to me that these screens, and the information they contained, could perhaps help one to access past positive experiences to assist in the negotiation of the potentially terrifying streets of the present.
   I realized at that moment that these people's aims were probably not very different from mine, though I personally find it more necessary and satisfying to look for that similar sense of connection within myself and my actual surroundings, in that order. I felt proud at that moment to be as bare to the world as I was.

Adam Cooperstein

   Adam Cooperstein.
   Like my own body, my name is something that I was born with, and have needed to more or less accept. Until recently, I really haven't thought that deeply aboout it, but just seem to have become accustomed to it. When I use the word accustomed here, I mean it more in the sense of indoctrinated.
   For many years I felt quite ashamed of my name, especially the surname, as I wished that it sounded somehow less ethnic.
   When I was growing up, I wished I had a last name like Jones or Smith, and while I no longer feel so uncomfortable at the sound of it, trying to getting a better sense of my association with it, and how I represent it (or vice versa) has taken regular and deep looking at it on my part.

   By employing different methods to loosen my own conditioning to the words Adam Cooperstein has been helpful, and I've found that photographing it, as written by myself and by others, has been particularly useful. Taking pictures seems to give me a kind of objective distance that is sometimes difficult to achieve otherwise.

   Yesterday morning, as I thought about these things, I wondered about my father, and if he too had ever thought about these things. Was he ever embarrassed about it, or wonder if it accurately stood for what he felt himself to be?
   It is a kind of cultural given that parents are proud (I assume to varying degrees) of their offspring, but I wonder to what extent they think about the surname aspect of this connection. For example, is it ordinary for a man to look past the pride of passing on his own name, and think about the fact that this new person will now be tied to it?
   Although growing up without a name would surely make some forms of identification quite difficult for a young person, I wonder if it could help one to figure out who they are for themselves, without having to adapt to something that they've been branded with.
   While I'm aware, probably for the first time in a very concrete way, that I am free to change my name, as well as my body, it just seems like I would be supplanting one older definition for a newer one. Still, I would in a sense  represent or be represented by that word or words.
   Although difficult and frightening, might it not be wonderful to be that much less defined in the world?

Penny on the ledge

   It had been unseasonably warm here in San Francisco, and I had stuck my head out of one of our living room windows, as I sometimes do, to feel the temperature and see what was going on outside my one bedroom apartment.

     

   Looking straight, and then down, I noticed that there was a penny perched on our window ledge, which is shown above (the penny was no longer there when I took the picture). Somehow lodged on that thin ledge, I wondered how it could have gotten there, and if it had been thrown, how it had managed to stay. It seemed to me that it could only have been placed there gently, which could only have been done from our window, which neither my wife nor I had done.
   It was quite a wonderful feeling that I experienced at that moment, and it supplanted the self-critical thoughts that I had had from an earlier naptime dream. This fantastic experience gave me pause to clear that fear and replace it with something of mystery.

Thoughts on caffeine, doing without, and other things.

   At the time that I began writing this blog, I had decided to try to kick caffeine, and had gone roughly thirty six hours without drinking coffee (and it was rough). About halfway through that second day, I drank a long espresso, and that ended that experiment. Although short lived, it was the first time that I can remember going without caffeine as an adult,
   Before making the conscious decision to drink that cup, I had been back-and forth over whether or not to do so, considering both the potential benefits and drawbacks. Unusually for me, this difficulty in deciding didn't feel particularly stressful or anxiety producing. I'm glad I realize this aspect.
   Towards the end of my ruminations, I suddenly remembered how many emotions had surfaced when I stopped smoking cigarettes all of those years ago, and how difficult that aspect of it in particular had been to deal with (aside from the nicotine addiction). Eventually, I got a bit more used to having such a wide breadth of feelings. Still, it's only a bit.
   I have come to realize over the years that there's a lot to be considered when it comes to changing my habits. Of course, the idea of having more control of my body and desires feels empowering, but it doesn't avoid this particular problem; are the potential outcomes worth the freedoms sacrificed in the process?
   I'd like to imagine that there is a way to not feel the need to look at things in this way, but at this point in time, I cannot fathom it significantly differently. I don't know if it's cynicism, a cultural "ism", or just the way the world is, but it seems to me that something has to be lost for something else to be gained.

Writing about anything

   Thinking about what to write in this blog, I often have trouble coming up with ideas.
   As a matter of practice, I try not to think too hard when trying to figure out what I want to say, as I believe that, for the most part, the creative ideas I have are thought of in a pretty simple way. This is not to say that the execution of these things should be, or is simple, only that the things that I find most satisfying flow from me easily, when I my mind is quiet, and I am not concerned with how they might end up or appear to others.

   The other day, as I tried to think of something to write, I decided quite intentionally to give up, suddenly remembering that writing about anything was what was really important to me. I realized that this is, in essence, what I do anyway, and that a topic may just be my way of giving myself permission to do so.

Seeing art where it is made

   I have been thinking a lot about my attitudes to art recently, especially modern art, and am currently in the process of noting them in my visually attempting blog (though it may remain forever in draft mode). The things that I have been writing about there, focused mostly on what I don't like about much of the art that I see, have given rise to thoughts about what I do like, and what moves me in it.
   Pondering the time that I studied fine arts in school and in the years following, I discovered something of vital importance to me; in almost all cases, it was a qualitatively better experience for me when I viewed art where it was made.
   Recalling the times that I spent visiting artists in their studios, I realized that the difference between seeing art in this way, as opposed to an institutional setting like an art gallery, was the human component. In the artist's workspace, I sensed a connection to a person. It is people, living things in general, that move.
   In those years, most studios I saw were of friends who had asked me for my input. But I also visited people that were only acquaintances, and even with relative strangers, I usually felt this connection.              
   Really, I believe it is a relation, and I realized that this correlation could also be felt, though not as strongly, if the artist was not there at the time. There was a presence of life which animated the work for me. This was true even when I didn't particularly care for what I was looking at.
   I haven't given too much time or thought to figuring out how to fully address this absence in the work that I sometimes attempt to produce myself, nor how to find better ways to see others work so I can more fully appreciate it. This disturbs me, because I can at times be very moved by art, even when seen in an environment that I don't find conducive for its' successful reception.
   I can't think of a time where I have not felt it a bit difficult to breathe after being in a museum or art gellery for more than fifteen minutes, usually chalking this sensation up to claustrophobia. More to the point, it seems that museums and art galleries feel just too lifeless to me.
   I don't think it's death that I fear, rather the absence of the living.