Education

Something to think about...

THE MAVEN - a poem written by my dad

THE MAVEN

(a poem that doesn’t ask the question: “Do mites have ears?”)

by

Severt Score

Once upon a dead mite’s ear was found a dozen dead bacteria,

Twelve microscopic corpses on that arachnid on the floor.

As I spied that dead arachnid I wondered what kind of whack did

Dispatch that tiny creature to the land beyond death’s door.

What sent that little mite on to the land beyond death’s door.

                         Tell me that, if nothing more.

Was it some miniscule mugger or a commercial de-bugger

That made that mite expire -- something he’d never done before?

Was it victim of a swatter? Did it die from lack of water?

Did it starve for lack of food because to buy it was too poor?

Was it victim of starvation because to buy it was too poor?

                         What dispatched it through death’s door?

Was it gout or was it dropsy? Should we ask for an autopsy?

Should some wise forensic wizard probe this mystery to the core?

Could some wise police detective help us gain the right perspective

In the matter of the demise of the mite upon the floor?

Could he find an explanation of that body on the floor?

                         At least that, if nothing more.

We went up to New Haven and retained an able maven.

(“Maven” is a Yiddish word for one who knows the score

And can go without confusion straight to the right conclusion.)

He had been solving mysteries for thirty years or more.

Expert in forensic medicine thirty years or more.

                         Oh, that maven knew the score!

Well, he came down to our city to pursue the nitty gritty

Details of the mystery that made our brains so sore.

He was persistent. He was thorough. He carefully turned each furrow

As he plowed through all the evidence -- o’er the facts did pore.

He left no stone unturned -- o’er all evidence did pore.

                         Oh, that maven knew the score!

Oh, whatever did that cop see? Naught was found in the autopsy

But the dozen ear borne corpses that we told about before.

All he found in the inspection was a petered out infection --

Just a dozen dead bacteria -- only that, and nothing more.

Only twelve deceased bacteria on the ear, and nothing more.

                         Just a dozen, three times four.

Well, it seems that each bacterium had succumbed to some strong serum,

But not before the arachnid was a corpse upon the floor.

Given sooner that same serum might have conquered each bacterium

In time to save their tiny host and snatch it from death’s door.

Given sooner might have saved it from passage through death’s door.

                         Now it’s dead upon the floor.

Or perhaps some stronger sera could have conquered the bacteria.

Some powerful medications might have held some hope in store.

But saddest words of tongue or pen, as the poet said, are “It might have been.”

And what might have been did not occur, so it hit the floor.

For want of stronger sera the arachnid hit the floor,

                         Stiffer than a two by four.

Can you tell us, clever sleuth, relentless stalker of the truth,

If you find this kind of germ when a mite’s ear you explore,

Does twelve seem an average count, or what’s the usual amount?

When a mite’s ear you explore, is it less or is it more?

Quoth the maven, “Never more. Sometimes less, but never more.”

                         Quoth the maven, “Never more.”

“To find none is always nice. I’ve found a dozen once or twice.

“The usual number I have found is in the range of three or four.

“Six or seven is not so strange, but three or four’s the usual range.

“I have found twelve but never more when a mite’s ear I explore.

“No arachnid has ever more when its ear I explore.”

                         Quoth the maven, “Never more.”

The view out Grandpa's window.... I'm so thankful for my dad's poetry, as it offers a means to glimpse the world through his eyes. I hope my children will come to cherish this heritage of humor and creativity.

Looking for more poetry by Severt Score?  

Check out the Norwegian epic, Gunder.

ON THE OPINION OF A WRITER

So, the viewing marathon is over and my ballot has been cast.

I'm looking forward to seeing which performances my peers will select as the best of the year in the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. I've been eligible to vote all 18 years. That's a lot of years of keeping my dues current even when I've not been acting, but I keep it up because I never officially quit acting -- I've just been on a very prolonged maternity leave.

For those who don't know my story, like so many other starry-eyed young girls, I came to Hollywood intending to act. My road to stardom, however, quickly became very bumpy. Literally. Bumpy. Within weeks of arriving, I contracted my first of five consecutive major bumps.

Concealing an ever-growing "Baby Bump" while running to call-backs for roles like one recurring character who was supposed to be a skinny model was one thing, but after the colicky child arrived making it to any audition, rehearsal, or performance became next to impossible. It had all happened too quickly. Without extended family or resources to pay for babysitters, I could not go on auditions, and without going on auditions one can not get cast, and thus, can not act. I'm not complaining. That derailment ended up bringing me back to an earlier love -- writing. That was something I could do at home and I didn't need to hire babysitters nearly as often.

Over the past 18 years, I've come to look at movies from a much more writerly perspective. While I love a great performance, it is usually the story that that I find myself analyzing and celebrating most when it is well done. (And I would argue that actors rarely win "Best Actor" awards alone, but rather in partnership with well-written scripts.) Because of this, I have to really slow myself down when faced with the question of which film to choose for the "Outstanding Performance by a Cast" award. I have to remind myself that this award is not about the story, it's about the acting. This is such a collaborative art that the dissection is not always as easy as it might seem.

Watching all of these great performances does give me the itch to get back into that form of creative expression again, but I may have to wait a bit longer to do that. I'm still overseeing the education of three of my kids, and dedicating a lot of time to writing. I want to be Superwoman and juggle it all at once, but the truth is, I'm not. For now, I'm a writer and mom (or perhaps I should say "mom and writer" -- priorities always affect perspective.) Acting and painting (and traveling the world, not to mention keeping a clean house) will have to remain on hold.

All that said, I view my SAG screeners as an actor, and I view them as a writer. And I celebrate when both sides are pleased. Although, I would say this was far from the best year I have seen for performances paired with stories that blow me away, there were several celebration-worthy nominees. The Help easily won my vote for "Outstanding Performance by a Cast" and is (not surprisingly) also a "Best Picture" Academy Award nominee.

Personally, I found The Artist delightful, and yet I heard one Hollywood outsider say, "Oh brother! Not another film about making films! How self-indulgent can these filmmakers be?" It's a worthy (and fiscally necessary) challenge to strive for objectivity and to try to see films as those who are not in the industry might see them.

Then there are all those films about characters who happen to be writers -- sometimes they work and sometimes they do seem self-indulgent. Is the writer only being lazy and writing about what he or she does in order to avoid research? I do find myself wondering what non-writers think of these movies.

Whether a person is in a "creative profession" or not, however, we all do create -- we create the lives we live and the environments we inhabit; some create fantasy worlds so elaborately detailed that they even deceive themselves; we create relationships and networks of relationships (and sometimes we destroy them); we create harmony and disharmony.... Because creativity is at the core of what all people do in the living of life, I think stories about writers and artists, if done well, can embody that creativity (which is rather abstract) in a metaphor that resonates well beyond the surface of the storyline of a certain character and his profession.

Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris was one of this year's films that did that well. The competition did not allow for me to cast my vote for it to get a SAG award, but I am glad to see that it received some Oscar nominations. It is a good story that I wouldn't mind watching again... and the writer in me absolutely loved this little exchange:

GIL: Would you read it?

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: Your novel?

GIL: Yeah, it's like 400 pages long and I'm just looking 

just for, you know, just an opinion. 

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: My opinion is I hate it. 

GIL: I mean, you haven't even read it. 

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: If it's bad I'll hate it because I hate 

bad writing. If it’s good, I'll be envious and hate it 

all the more. You don't want the opinion of another 

writer. 

(from Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, 2011)

Imagination Check

It's been a while.  I started out the year with good intentions of keeping up this blog, but alas, reality got a strangle-hold on me, and my writing became blocked.  Anyone who has known me very long, knows that I don't believe in writer's block, per se.  "Writer's Block," in my opinion, is not at condition in and of itself, but rather a symptom of other problems.

Writer's Block comes when a person is hiding something.  He could be hiding something from others or from himself.  The only way to alleviate the symptom is to deal with the root cause--to figure out what it is the writer is having difficulty being honest about.  You see, no matter what the subject, there is always an autobiographical element.  Be it ever-so-small, it is there nonetheless, revealing something about the writer himself.  It may just be the slightest dash of attitude, mood, or a prevailing world view, but the only way a writer can avoid revealing something of himself in his writing is by being utterly mechanical and dull.

Since my last blog entry in February, I've not been shrinking back from writing entirely.  I've written (and seen produced) a couple of short films, done a little revision on my novel, and started building the groundwork for another feature-length screenplay (a true story about someone else--not me).  It's been the blogging that has been difficult, because that's where I am most blatantly me.  As a professional, I cannot allow myself the luxury of wallowing in blockage, so, as with so many other maladies, I must exercise to break through.

Where do you exercise?  For physical exercise, some people have no problem going to a public gym or health club, but for a woman who is flabby and self-conscious, that is a difficult step to take.  She may not want to be seen in such a condition.  There's a time and a place for everything.  Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name . . .



. . . but other times--especially when breakthrough has been eluding you--quite the opposite is true.  You want to go where nobody knows your name . . . where you can disappear in anonymity.  My hiding place for such exercise, which I would recommend highly to struggling writers (as well as those wanting to practice self-therapy), is a private blog.  And that is where I have been prolific lately.  Has it worked as far as ushering in breakthrough?  I'd say that today is a success in that when I was inspired to write this message, the initial impulse was to stash it away in that place where nobody knows my name.  But then I realized there is no need to do so.  It may be a small, trivial message, but it is my babystep in working my way back to trusting.

Why have I been having trouble with trust?  Like so many other things in life, it may be one of the very traits that drives me to create in the first place that also causes me to shy back.  One of those mixed bags, blessings bound to a curse, ying and yang, Cheech and Chong, Donny and Marie . . .



Okay, bad example, but I think you know what I mean.  (And yes, that was probably an avoidance technique to stall for time . . .  and since Donny and Marie numbers never end, what a  l o n g  stall indeed!)

Imagination.  Imagination is of utmost importance to the writer, true, but it must be kept in check.  The very creative imagination that provides a wealth of material for us to work with can also work against us on a personal level.  My imagination can run so wild that it practically destroys me--especially since it has a tendency to run to the dark side.  Creative types have to be careful to sort out the fiction from the reality in their own lives.  That's largely what I've been doing lately, sorting through the memoir material to figure out where I have been lying to myself about myself.  My theory being that the less I lie to myself, the more my creativity will flow freely without blockage.

You've heard people speak of needing a "reality check," well I would propose that we also need an occasional "imagination check."  I think I had one today.  I try to walk two miles a day (although I've been falling short on that quite a bit lately).  Sometimes I do it on the track at the park, sometimes on the treadmill, and lately I've been trying to do it in my neighborhood more often than not.

On my route through the neighborhood, right around the 1.5 mile point, I pass a huge grassy yard that backs up to the sidewalk along a busy street, separated only by a chain-link fence.  This is a rarity in southern California where most people like their privacy and six-foot high wood or block fences encase most back yards.  I always look forward to passing this yard, not because I get to peek in and be a snoop, but because of the way it triggers my imagination.

Before I even reach the place on the sidewalk where I can peer into this private world, my senses are filled with the wondrous scent of gardenias and lavender, and glorious music, pouring out across the grass on loud speakers.  It's not the typical rock or rap music that people are most likely to see fit to inflict on helpless audiences, but rather a mixture of grand classical, swing, and big band type fare.  Coupled with the white linens often fluttering on the clothes lines, I'm always taken to places like the grand lawns F. Scott Fitzgerald peopled with handsome men and beautiful women in flamboyant garb.  I almost expect vintage cars to pull up, tooting their horns, and gloved hands to wave gracefully--one might even say "gaily."

The thing that makes it even stranger is the fact that I've never seen anyone in that yard, ever . . . until today.  I have imagined who might live there.  I've even thought of going around the block to the front of the house and knocking on the door so I can meet this specter of my imagination.  Often I've said it was populated by the ghosts of The Great Gatsby. And when I wasn't letting my literary imagination run to the supernatural and fictitious realm . . . I'd tell myself an elderly actress--retired and now wheel-chair bound--was gazing out a window, tracing with her fading eyes every contour of her lawn, recollecting the parties she threw back in the day when she was a star and the belle of every ball.  I imagined that the only gentlemen who ever set foot in that yard were the suitors in white tuxedos who only existed in her memory now.

All that was until today. 

Today the same floral scents captivated me, the same music made me want to dance and twirl and then collapse onto a settee, chilled cocktail in hand, fringe on my flapper gown swaying like the linens flapping in the breeze.  My imagination soared . . . until . . . I saw . . .

Him.

There in the yard, in the middle of the yard, a man was lounging belly down on a lounge chair flattened out like a stretcher.  He was not wearing a white tuxedo, nor gloves, nor smart hat . . . It didn't look like he had cut, or even combed, his hair in the past few months.  His clothes were dingy.  His head planted so concretely face-down on the chair that it was likely a pool of drool might be irrigating it.  This was about as far from the image I had dreamed of as you could possibly get.  What?  Was the plumber taking a break in the midst of unclogging the kitchen sink?  No, his limbs draped so comfortably, albeit not gracefully, toward the ground that he exuded a sense of belonging.  This was his home.

Ruined!  I thought.  My image was totally ruined!  But the music played on, washing over this motionless body that I wouldn't have thought out of place by a freeway off-ramp, holding out a tin can to passers-by.  As the notes swelled and waned and circled every inch of the luscious lawn and beyond, it dawned on me that the image was not ruined, but rather it had been expanded.  Had the occupant of this property been more elegant, there would have been no story worth repeating, but the very contrast of the expected and the revealed was beautiful: a reminder to look for the extraordinary in ordinary places, to look for the magnificent in the apparently mundane, and to believe--always believe--that the world is worth exploring because it is full of surprise, full of things we can't figure out with feeble logic and sluggish imagination.