Gas isn’t cheap yet.

Originally uploaded by M. Bivins.

More found camera art.

Palak paneer.

Originally uploaded by M. Bivins.

This is my brother at an indian restaurant.

I’ve been cast in a local play here in Charleston, with my favorite theatre company, the Pure Theatre. Rehearsals are going well, the show opens the first weekend in September. At first I was a bit overwhelmed; this role is easily the largest one I’ve ever taken on, and certainly the longest in a good long while. The play is called ‘36 Views’ and is about an art dealer and an art historian who discover what they think is a Japanese pillow book, and try to find out whether it is authentic. “Their search becomes a game of greed, love, and mental hide-and-seek as they play explores the relationships between feelings and words, objects and photos of objects, antiques and perfect copies, and a woman’s heritage and her physical features”. I’m not sure about that last bit, but it’s very well written and should entertain.

At first I felt a bit out of my league there at the Pure, but I feel pretty good about performing. I may not have “technique” or really know what method acting is, but I’ve been reading a book that has made me feel a lot more confident about my lack of academic experience: ‘True or False’, by play and screenwriter David Mamet. It’s a feisty little easy to read series of essays on what Mamet feels about the acting industry, and acting schools, and actors themselves. He writes a lot of sense to me. He’s very against the very popular and widely taught “the System”, which is the basis for the method acting school of thought, that was created by Konstantin Stanislavski in the late ninteenth century, and then promoted primarily by the early teachers at the Actors Studio in NYC. Mamet doesn’t believe that acting can truly be taught in schools; he says that the only way to learn is to actually perform in front of an audience, and your only “affective memory” is the experience you have on the stage, by reading lines written by a competant playwright and with the help of a few well-planned directions from a director. I may not have had much experience with being directed or learning lines, but I don’t that I could have squeezed in any more performance time in my 30ish years.
It’s probably not a very widely accepted argument. I wouldn’t know, because I don’t really know much about “the System”, either. But not all of the book is inflammatory… it also has a lot of great words of wisdom for any artist, in any profession. Mamet believes that if you have “something to fall back on” you definitely will. He thinks that if you want to make money, and be secure, and make art in your spare time, you should. But if you are truly driven to create, to act, you will find a way to survive, and doing anything else is a huge waste of time.

I’ve lived my life with that in mind for years and years. And I can vouch that it works. Although I feel blessed that I currently might just have the best day job in the entire world, I still know that I can’t keep it forever. It’s the principle of the matter, and I have to agree with Mr. Mamet. If you have something else to do, you’ll do it. I can see both sides, for sure, but I know that currently I miss the days of being able to focus on my artistic pursuits without any other distractions. But I’ve already posted on that topic.
He also gives really sage advice on how to handle the more miserable elements of the theatre/music/dance/etc. business… the “Business” of being an artist. It all rings with a fantastic element of simple truth to me, and even though I consider David Mamet to be an international success, I can tell by his turn of phrase that he’s been where I have been, and made it through the worst parts of it, and moved on. It’s inspiring.

I don’t know whether I’ll ever want to call myself an Actor. There is a lot about the craft of acting that I enjoy, and there is a good bit that I don’t. To me, for now, it’s all a means to an end; it’s just the End that I’m not quite sure of, yet. But I think that trying on all these hats will push me in the right direction.

By the way, those of you that want to come and see some “old fashioned” non-film acting, in a legitimate “black box” theatre, like, live, and everything, we’re running the show for four weekends in September. Just go to puretheatre.org for more details!

I do love that David Bowie song, Five Years. There is something about it that really makes me feel OK.

It’s the fifth year anniversary of my father’s death, today. For some reason I’m feeling his absence more than I have in a long time. I’m not one for keeping track of anniversaries. I’m terrible at remembering birthdays, or “this is the day we first met!” days. If it weren’t for online calendars I really doubt that anyone would ever get a birthday wish from me.

But this year for some reason today just stood out. I don’t want to think too much about why. Maybe I thought I’d be somewhere else five years ago without Dad around… married, or internationally famous, or maybe even a father, myself. I don’t wish for any of those things now, though, so I’m not sure what it’s all about. Perhaps the things that I am proud of are things that I wish I could share with him now.

We have a Cabaret Kiki show next week. Dad would have really really loved the Cabaret. In fact, so much of him is in our show. I like to say that the show wouldn’t exist without everything I learned from my mother (who will be able to come and see, for the first time!), but the truth is that my character, Jonny Panick, couldn’t possibly do and say the things he does if I didn’t have John Bivins for inspiration. His sense of humor. His love of the dark and dirty, racy and ribauld. The melodramatic selfishness. And most importantly, his subversive nature. He was indie long before indie was cool. Or ironic. Whatever.

That’s it. It’s hard. Five years later, it’s much easier. But it’s never going to be gone, that ache. I’m not asking it to… don’t get me wrong. It’s fuel, and I use it up. He certainly did, and I don’t want to disappoint. But gosh I wish he was still here, sometimes.

Feets.

Originally uploaded by M. Bivins.

Whose feets?

Regina Spektor

Originally uploaded by Chase Allgood.

I have been listening to this girl. Her name is Regina Spektor. I bought her first album, and it took me a long time to like it. But for some reason I stuck with it. That’s not something I usually do with music… multiple listens. Maybe because before now, I was tainted by the music industry and their ridiculous obsession with finding a “hit” that would “catch” a listener upon first listen. So I stopped listening.

She sings weird. She writes very silly lyrics, sometimes. But I really love Regina Spektor, right now. Her new album, ‘Begin to Hope’, is even better than the one before, “Soviet Kitsch”. It IS more “accessible”, which I admit to liking, but it’s still odd enough to be an aquired taste, if that’s your thing.

Thanks to iTunes little “You MIght LIke This Person if you Bought This Album” business, I just got the new Arcade Fire album, attracted by a review that warned that the album was a slow burn, but worth the work. So far, they’re right. It’s awful indie rock for me. But I promise to hang in, there. It’s an album that speaks of recently passed loved ones, and this month I’m kind of into that.

Also, Wolfmother is pretty neat. For lots of noise. And echoes of Jethro Tull, towards the end of the album. Again, not really my thing, but I’m trying to expand.

Then I start thinking, “what IS my thing, exactly?” Well, there’s not much to it.

Matt’s Top Five Favorite Songs for a Good Long While:
Losing My Religion, by R.E.M.
the Luckiest, Ben Folds
Almond Kisses, Spacehog
the Origin of Love, Steven Trask/John Cameron Mitchell
Words of Wisdom, Evan Bivins

The top five are only placed there because those songs continue to invoke an emotional response in me when I hear them… due to the nature of the lyrics, or the nature of the sense memories they call up in my brain. I have been accused recently of being someone that likes pop songs, and I did not in any way deny this. And what’s worse is that I feel completely validated by my love of pop, due to the fact that for many years I was a part of a group that wrote all kinds of music, most of it with pop sensibility but sometimes not. My favorite Jump songs were the poppier ones, of course. For someone that tends to complicate things in his life, I sure do like a simple tune.

So I am sure that there are some suggestions for me. Though I can’t promise to be as good as Zach Braff about checking out groups that people recommend, I’m certainly in the market for things to listen to. Thanks in advance!

I really hate myspace. It’s a messy, ugly hunk of code that everyone except me seems to be ok with.  But maybe I’m just not hip enough to the concept of “social netwerking”. Today was my first attempt at making myspace my bitch. I followed the clear and easy road set by Mike Davidson. Not any less ugly, but the future is a little less generic, at least. myspace.com/matthewbivins.

My new phone has a much better camera on it. The only thing I don’t like about it is the little camera button, located on the outside of the phone. It’s very sensitive, and is always activating the camera when I don’t want it to. And from there all you have to do is hit the button again to take a picture. So I have a large collection of incredibly pointless but oftentimes interesting accidental photos. Some of them resemble art. I thought that perhaps it might be nice to use this blog to collect this “art” so it doesn’t fill up my phone’s memory. Today’s piece is entitled “Coffee and Creeps” and has a nice, slightly over-caffeinated composition to it. Wholly unremarkable, but perhaps a portent of something more sinister?

Originally uploaded by M. Bivins.