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It's About Us, Here, Now.

Charles Dickens wrote to change England.

(If you don't want to read, just check out the video trailer to my next show.)

And he did, many times, in many ways, with many stories. He wrote truth to power — felling abusive institutions and unkind traditions.

A Christmas Carol, for example, changed employers' denial of a day off for a major holiday. The wealthy industrialists of mid-19th century England stood on the backs of a working poor. And those poor, those who were fortunate enough to be working, were working endless hours for sub-poverty wages.

But This Isn't About Them Back Then.
Dickens cared for his British society, but — for us, here, now — that's merely a quaint moment in history.

When we hear the title, "A Christmas Carol," we smilingly recall the characters — Scrooge, Cratchit, and Tiny Tim — and the story of the three ghosts. But the story is stuck in its time: coated with 150+ years of literary dust and bestowed our deserving love and respect.   

But Dickens didn't write A Christmas Carol to be an old story. He wrote it to change England.

So, Can We Use It To Change Us, Here, Now?
Frankly, A Christmas Carol isn't — as I see it — really about Christmas. It's about being human, including developing the ability to engage with others.

It's like the Bible: old stories about them, back then. They become powerful only when we relate to those stories. We have to make them about us, here, now. 

This is the secret to the Passover Seder, and possibly the reason Jews do disproportionately well in Hollywood. We have learned to tell an old story — Exodus — to our children every year at Passover in a way that it is newly relevent to us, so that we address our own bondage (to wealth, to work, to whatever) and the bondage of those around us — and cause our own redemption.

We tell Exodus as if it is about us, here, now.

And That's What We're Doing With A Christmas Carol
The playwrights and actors (I'm one of both) recognize that our friends and neighbors are all too often disappointed with the year-end holidays. Why is that? Are expectations not met?

Or is it because we disengage with our true, current passions during the holidays — as we try to recreate the passions of our past.

We seek — with this show — to encourage audiences, upon leaving the theatre, to approach the holidays mindfully, with intention: to engage with others, to teach our children, to know who we are.

No matter what holiday we each choose to embrace. 

The basics: Riffe Center's Studio Two Theatre for five days only starting December 8th. Details about the show (tickets, times, dates) are at XMASwithArtie.com. 

In the meantime, enjoy this brief video trailer which shows scenes from last year's premiere. (Last year's audiences made many suggestions — and the play is, as a result, about 25% new). 

 

Co-written by Matt Slaybaugh, Sean Christopher Lewis and me. Directed by Matt Slaybaugh.

Showtimes, ticketing and other show details are here: XMASwithArtie.com. Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Going Below The Rim

Greetings from Tucson, Arizona.

Today, we finish our provisioning and packing. Tomorrow, we'll drive six hours to the South Rim. Monday, we'll hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and, finally, sleep on the Canyon floor amid the daunting wilderness.

Geologically, it's the bottom of the earth. I so look forward to returning there.

As Bart Giamatti said, welcoming the Class of 1982 to Yale when he was arriving to become president and we were arriving as freshmen: "The worm of apprehension bit deep in the bud of anticipation."

I hope to feel panic.
Not the psychological panic we feel when overwhelmed with work or crammed into airplanes. But the panic of the original meaning of the word:

"...from Gk. panikon, lit. "pertaining to Pan," in sense of "panic, fright" short for panikon deima, from neut. of Panikos "of Pan," the god of woods and fields who was the source of mysterious sounds that caused contagious, groundless fear in herds and crowds, or in people in lonely spots. [from etymonline.com]

It's the anxious feeling of walking through the woods and sensing the overwhelming presence of nature in the chirping and hooting overhead, and the crunching underfoot.

I'll be thinking of you.
Our time together is precious to me. Thank you for sharing these moments.

At the bottom of the earth, amid Pan's mysterious sounds, I will express a quiet wish for your well being and joy.

"No Problem."

I've been spending too much — or not enough — time with humans lately.

Or maybe I'm becoming older faster than I'm becoming wiser.

In any case: dang.

"No Problem!"
I just can't get my arms around the way people talk these days.

My biggest bugaboo of the moment is "no problem" in reply to "thank you."

I know it is said humbly, but it dismisses the original act of kindness. It's a smaller version of telling someone who is bereaved, "No big deal."

I first heard "no problem" in reply to "thank you" in Jamaica. It was part of longer sentence. The longer sentence (in its entirety): "No problem, mon."

Cool running. 

What A Crank I Am
As if you needed more proof of my crankiness, here's a letter I recently sent a favorite banker: 

David,

I was in your fine bank this morning. The teller was expert and kind. The transaction was swift and accurate. I was grateful.

In fact, I was grateful enough to say, "Thank you."

The teller's reply? "No problem." Maybe it was: "It's no problem."

No problem? Whatever does that mean? I know that's what many people say, but what does it mean? It means: "I did so little for you that it was nary a gnat in my day." Maybe it means: "We are so devoted to our clients that we don't see their business as problems." Even so, it doesn't seem very professional.

Isn't the proper reply: "You're welcome"? And isn't that what the teller meant to say? That I am — as a customer — welcome to the teller's services?

Etiquette instructs fine waiters to reply: "yes, sir" or "yes, ma'am," because they are not the diner's peer and therefore unable to accept thanks. (I'm not asking my tellers to bow and curtsey. We are peers.)

Perhaps a reply might be: "It's my pleasure." Or: "Thank YOU." Or: "We are very glad to have your business." Or: "Come back anytime." Or: "We are here for you." Or: "Is there anything else we can do for you?"

But: "No problem?"

Puh-leeze,

-- Artie

Now David and I waste our time counting how often we say "yeah" and how often others say "no problem."

The Final Word
This lovely video from the great actor and intellect Stephen Fry helps put my bugaboo into perspective.

It reminds me of the famous test offered from 1878 until this year by All Souls College at Oxford. The college's applicants were offered a single word. (For more on this, see "Oxford Tradition Comes to This: 'Death' (Expound)" in the Times.)

Fry's video is an apt response to the prompt: "language." And it's a caution to me to not be a pedant.

I hope you enjoy it. More than that, I hope you "bubble and froth and slobber and cream."

 

 

Creativity In Your Life

A couple weeks ago, I enjoyed spending the day talking with 300 people at the Columbus Museum of Art about creativity. The program — called Creativity In Your Life — was about just that.

It was an exhilarating day for me: more than five hours of instruction and discussion on the basic truths — really just a collection of my opinions and experiences — about creative sources and methods.

Here's the first hour, a presentation on how to live to keep our brains sharp. It starts with an introduction to the day from Nannette Maciejunes, the executive director of the Columbus Museum of Art. I'm indebted to her — and Jeff Sims and Cindy Meyers Foley of the Museum's education department who joyously and expertly crafted the day with me.