EXTRA CRITICUM

The Weight and Force of a Simple Black Book Given with Love

I was treading water through one of the darkest times of my life when I really didn't know if I would ever make anything again. And my ex-boyfriend Andrew Altenburg bought me a present for no reason other than a desire to simply remind me that I was loved.

The gift was this simple black notebook, beautifully bound inside a black vinyl cover, about 100 pages of loosely ruled paper. 

No big whoop, right?

Au contraire!

The gifts we're given in life are always wrapped in one way or t'other and Andrew's gift of this notebook (or journal, as some would call it) was wrapped in his explanation of its purpose. I paraphrase:

I'm giving you this book of blank pages so that you will have one place in which to jot down all your dreams for the future. Any time you have an idea for a project you might someday like to undertake, jot down your thoughts right here.

Jennifer Garner Social Media Controversy Should Be Heard as an Alarm. A Mass DeCoupling is Long Overdue

My InBox lit up with this eye-catching headline from Medium yesterday::

Jennifer Garner Can Fuck Right Off

Normalize Calling Out Child Abuse Even When Hot People Do It

The piece goes on to attack Jennifer Garner for the recent revelation that she does not allow any of her three children to be on social media. The author labels Garner's embargo as "child abuse" which I think is a bit over-the-top. I mean, even if you disagree with the parenting choice, it feels like calling it "child abuse" is a stretch.

By this logic, would we then call Mormon parents who forbid their children from drinking alcohol and caffeine child abusers by virtue of the fact that they've cut their kids out of a life experience commonly shared by everyone else they'll meet when they go to college? Is the parent who decides that their kid will not be joining all the other kids on a Spring Break trip to Florida because she doesn't want her children to set foot in that state also a child abuser?

The Difference Between a Consumer and an Audience Member

A friend who is a Tony voter (Yes, I'm that old.) recently sent me a curious text. It read:

Want to see a Tony show June 1?
Trust me. You'll love it cause I'll choose it.

After a brief impulse to press her to reveal which show she was inviting me to, it occurred to me that if I could set aside my ego and my pride which whisper meaningless nothings like: 

You are too important a person with limited hours
in the day to waste an entire evening on
some sub-par work! What if it's something empty and
 heartless and tedious? You'll never get those hours back!

On the other hand...

If I thought about it differently, it is a unique kind of openness we feel when we sit in the growing darkness as the house lights fade and the show is about to begin. Blissfully ignorant of what this thing we're going to witness is about or possibly even what its title might be...

Name America's No. 1 Underwriter of the Arts

At last night's session of this year's Self-Production Boot Camp (for members of the Dramatists Guild of America), I posed a loaded question I never tire of asking because the responses I get always offer new insights into the current state of our culture.

We were in the middle of a session on fundraising when I interrupted the flow to pose a question that I don't think enough of us have ever even considered. 

Who is the greatest subsidizer of the Arts in the United States?

The Zoom room echoed with the sounds of stunned (stumped) silence. So, put another way:

From which sector does the mother lode of Arts underwriting come from?

One of the things that's most thrilling about teaching Self-Production Boot Camp is that I get to swim in the current of where the newest work is taking shape these days. The motivated, focused and endlessly inventive creative artists who are drawn to even consider the possibility that they could (or maybe even should?) produce their next new work give me hope for a better future. 

And so when Wednesday comes around I always look forward to those 90 minutes when I get to absorb as much of their optimism and ambition as I wish.