So, I watched the Budweiser commercial with the dog and horse high-fiving each other, and I think we are at a period in society, for whatever reason (and by “we” I mean my narrow class-subset of young highly educated people who watch too much imagery) where “we” are highly entertained by the idea of talking animals again. A history of this subject would be great, but more than writing the article, I really just want to make a very simple Youtube video with a dog and a cat in “conversation.” No attempt would be made to have them move their mouths or anything. We’d just show the camera on the two of them there, and have actors speak. They could read “Talk To Me Like the Rain And Let Me Listen.” They could have an ordinary conversation. Found text, staged written text, anything. Much like how LIFE IN HELL has the still images. I think, and I don’t quite know why I think this, but I think it would be superbly entertaining and would also tell us something about our selves in this particular moment in time.

Part of the trip I’ve done on myself the past four years is to de-academicize myself. I was brought up in the academy, by which I mean that education is the cardinal virtue of my family. And I’ve had to learn, in order to make theater, to – when I have impulses like this – to resist analyzing them until I have staged them. The staging of them is the analysis. Going in with too much of a theory about how it is supposed to work will make them not work as well as they could.

I have been tempted to veer back towards theory a bit this year. But I know that I won’t really understand why it is things ought to work until I make them work. This blog ought to be called Practice Makes Theory instead of Style Over Substance. Maybe I will rename it.