Today's Muse: Blessed hum and whir and trudge

After a scary couple of days the laptop appears to be working again. Nearly peed meself in terror at the prospect of all the documents and videos gone.

Bloody cat, knocking it into its end.



Yesterday, during Scene Prep we tried something very different from what we usually do in class. Just discussed what we thought goes into a good and riveting scene.

Irksome: argument for the sake of it. Nnngh.

Was divided into smaller groups. Had to come up with a scene, keeping in mind what happened before it and what was to happen after (motivation).

Whenever tasked with something like this, I tend to start gibbering. But that's good; spewing nonsensical phrases which the group might take and bounce off from there. Stuff like: Monkeys. Before the white flag. No gravity. Talking to superheroes in your head. Subway mob. Kittypillars. Ka-boosh.

Then, as a group, we just start improvising. We jump straight into the scene, and see what happens. And it's both great fun and incredibly liberating - usually we come up with loads of ideas and peel back to get the final product (Which, isn't really final until after we've performed it).

Once, when the group was stuck, I wandered around and pulled a school desk over, and jumped on it like a monkey. Almost at once another member threw himself in front of the desk, and mined death throes. And the others joined in, and we were off.

Improv. Sitting down and talking about it - no. I'm very fond of saying, "Lets just try it and see what happens.", as one lovely pointed out.

With Scene Prep, we started out with a girl simply talking to two imagined people, weirding a bystander out. And with each improv, the story evolved - the imagined people became the personifications of the girl's more extreme personality traits; the bystander became a writer looking for an interesting case; the girl had just come from a humiliating experience...

But even as we performed it, it was still evolving. The writer became an awkward fellow. I played him, and it seemed, at that point, so very natural to keep my hands in my pockets and fiddle with my collar. I didn't have to think about stumbling over my words; it came easily. The oversized shirt I used as a jacket suddenly became a way to hide myself - but as the conversation with the girl progressed, it was allowed to fall open.

I'm not quite sure what it was. As I think about it now, I'm not quite sure if I was simply showing the character or being him. Or just being myself.

Matt, the teach, asked us why we cross-gendered. We hadn't really thought about it, to tell the truth. The one guy in the group, played the frightened, child-like personification at first. As part of the improv process he switched roles and played the writer for a bit, before concluding that, hey, his reactions to the girl seemed more along the lines of the child. So, he went back. I'm being terribly vague.

I guess, we cross-gendered because it felt like it would work well like that.

Matt said it worked for him, and I think the class concurred. That was nice, feeling like you've really done good in that class, after the first couple of presentations you did being so... not good.



Today, Marium and I raided the SGST FLEE! Market. I found lovelies galore, going for so very little. Glee.

The highlight of that little escapade, I think, was finding the suede clutch going for just three dollars. Blood red, and superb lining.

I'm easy pleased, I am.