break/brake

It has been weeks now with few to no words... at least in this here forum... but I have been writing-- I assure you, that abstract-ether YOU-- I have been writing up a storm!

a few weeks ago I put up a show called Tunnel to Bang as part of LA's EdgeFest. the best part about the 'festival' was the space it was in-- the Regent Theater, in downtown LA. The Regent used to be a movie house in the 1920s and 1930s, then in the 80s got busy as an 'adult' movie house, then like many theaters in downtown districts, the space fell into a boozy cycle of special events/parties followed by extended periods of idleness and disrepair. Shattered shuttered dreams.

I'm doing a screenwriting class too-- my first! Like all firsts-- kisses, cities, languages ... everything seems so simple in the beginning. And the language of the class feels sweetly like just the language, the lens, that might be the right match for me with the world. In my experience though, with Latin and French and Spanish, later on the many and complicated rules came, and as you get to know a language, a mode, a city, or a person, longer-- you feel you owe them something. A certain level of respect and deference as you have in some way (sometimes simply through the passing of time), shown some commitment to them, and to yourself in your passion. Thus, later on, it grows increasingly difficult to find the simplicity you felt when the word for flower was enough to describe the picture in the stoy, and a kiss was just a kiss, nothing loaded, nothing waged or worried over... I think that is why when a person's ability to use language, whether it be spoken, or action, as it is more in the realm of 'loving' a person, when that fails them, forgetting the words, or how to act, is such a disorienting feeling. Not only for the listener, or the 'loved' ... but for the one attempting to communicate.
anyway, at present I am learning new words for the ride I go on during the course of a movie. New terms, and the possibility of bringing them to life in my own head and heart and hand. Three act structure. Seven act structure. Inciting incident. Catalyst. Climax. Characters. Character development. I got a character development worksheet with so many qustions I am not even sure I could answer the worksheet for myself-- much less someone else! Is it easier to know a made-up person or a real one? Is the process of really knowing someone just creating the version of them that suits your particular loves and fancy most?
I keep trying new languages
1. love (familial)
1b. nature
2. ballet
3. music (flute)
4. choreography
5. writing (poems, short stories)
5b. acting (theater)
6. love (romantic)
7. fiction (reading)
8. cities / travel (NY, Paris, Peru)
9. film (watching)
10.altered states
11. laughing
12. writing (plays, screenplays)

a long process of finding the ways to use the ones that feel right


also: Paris Je T'Aime, the movie of 18 shorts celebrating Paris, and cinema, and love... made for Cannes. It was great. Shorts are fragmented and disjointed back to back sometimes but it all came together in the end. Like all good things.