2 Men Talking

Miracle

2008-04-12T16:32:00.003-04:00

Last night during the performance it struck me that it's not only a coincidence that Murray and I re-connected in New York after not having seen one another since childhood, but what a miracle it is that any of us are alive at the same time. Any of us...and by that I mean me, and you! I can explain to you why the odds of our co-existing at this moment in time are far lower than the odds of winning the lottery. We could all be in a state of awe and wonder all the time, even on the subway each morning, we could be saying to one another "what a miracle that we are alive at the same moment, and that we've actually come into contact"....but we tend not to be present to that miracle, to say the least. We tend to take our lives for-granted. At least I do, most of the time.
Would love to write more, but am off to perform Two Men Talking.

Creating community through storytelling

2008-01-14T12:14:00.000-05:00

I am dashing out of the door to an interview on WBAI Radio, so I can't write much. But I wanted to create this heading on the blog, as a way of expressing what has emerged as a common theme in responses I've had about performances of Two Men Talking so far.
Its a simple premise. We create community through sharing stories with one another
In the particular we find the universal.
We see our humanity (the struggles, the joys, the triumphs) reflected in others.
The recognition if that commonality is the seed of building community. From there we can actually choose to support one another.
And the practice of doing Two Men Talking makes it abundantly self evident.
Two Men Talking exists in contradistinction to isolation - going it alone.

I've got to go. Maybe I'll carry on this line of thinking on the radio.

Listen in on 99.5 fm at 1.40pm
http://www.wbai.org/

Who is that person in the mirror?

2008-01-10T21:51:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow night we start a run of shows of Two Men Talking again. This time in New York City. I say "again" because we have done it in London this past summer (thirty times) in Edinburgh last summer (24 times) and many other times in between and before. So of course it's "again". And yet, it doesn't feel like again. I feel a sense of anticipation and anxiety. A feeling as if I have never done this before and have no idea how I will be able to do it. In fact it is of course not "again" because I am not the same person I was six months ago. So how could it possibly be the same experience as it was. That's a ludicrous notion. I am evolving. I didnt' stop evolving six months ago, or six hours ago, I am continually evolving, so are you, right now. Therefore if I am conscious of my own evolution, I perceive myself anew, Murray anew and the space between us feels unfamiliar and new.
Given this, Two Men Talking will be an unpredictable and unique conversation tomorrow and on subsequent days. Today I am present to this particular reality, the awareness of my own evolution, and am therefore not recognizing myself. Who is this person Paul Browde? I feel I should know him, after all I have lived in his experience for all of his life. You could say he is me. Yet, I don't really know him, and just as I think I do, he does things, unpredictable, unexpected, he feels things differently than he always has, or even stranger, he reacts on a visceral levels in new and unexpected ways, even to me. Can we really know anybody? Or when we do are we relating to an image, like a cache in a computer that stores images of websites that have long been changed? When we relate to ourselves or others as if we know them, is that similar to thinking we see the actual star, when what we are seeing is light that left the star millions of years before? Really being with someone, is to not know them. People are a mystery in every moment. I am. You are. Anything is possible. What are the implications of this for the world? Does history really have to repeat itself? do things really have to keep going the way they always have? or do we have the right and capacity to see things anew and thus create a new world every day?
For me, to prepare for tomorrow is to be curious about what might emerge. What is the conversation we will have? and what is the story that wants to be told. It's not for me to know. Just to show up and let it emerge. Stay tuned.

Re-membering Spalding Gray

2008-01-09T23:01:00.000-05:00

One of the cardinal principles of Two Men Talking is that there is a reciprocal relationship between listening and telling. They create one another in a circular-causal fashion. We actually believe that the listening of our audiences powerfully shapes our stories, which accounts for the fact our performances are never the same twice.

The odd thing about talking on radio or tv is that one has no clue who is listening, apart from the interviewer. Its like this huge invisible amorphous net of listening.

Today in a terrific interview with Bonnie on WLIU Radio, I was asked which storytellers I admired most. My mind went blank for a moment before I started spewing out names. "Ingmar Bergman, and I'm currently reading The God of Small Things and I loved Love in the Time of Cholera". I was way off the point and the interviewer reeled me back in.
"But what about storytelling ... the kind you do?"
The first name that came to mind was Spalding Gray.

This is what I didn't think to say in the interview:

I have often described what Paul and I do as "Spalding Gray x 2".

He was a major influence when I first got to New York in 1990. I heard him at St Mark's Church at one of those marathon New Year's Day affairs. And then the Lincoln Center with Monster in a Box. The guy sat behind a table and held an entire Lincoln Center Audience spellbound with his personal stories.
I'd never seen that before. The theater I went to in South Africa during the 70's and 80's was political. It had to be. The theater was one of the only public venues for finding out what was really going on. There was no place for personal life stories. We weren't free enough.
One of the reasons I came to New York was to find a way to manifest -on stage - what I'd been hearing from my patients. But really, I wanted to, no needed to tell my own story.
So Spalding Gray blew my mind.
I have read and watched Swimming to Cambodia tens of times.
I love the way he does the South Africans.
And lately when I heard archive interviews with/ by Spalding on NPR, I was filled with sadness that he was gone.

When the interview was over, the producer Kathie Russo came back on the line and told me how happy she was that I'd mentioned Spalding. It was his wife. She'd been listening.

http://www.spaldinggray.com

Heaven - Nothing to write home about?

2008-01-09T00:45:00.000-05:00

Stories are a way of re-membering people.
According to the late great anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff, re-membering is distinct from
mere recollection. It is an intentional act, which is embodied in cultural practices such as storytelling.

Telling stories about the dead is a way of restoring their membership to the present.
As we begin preparing the storytelling space for our upcoming performances of Two Men Talking, I am reminded of the power of story to conjure the presences of people who have died or are far away. My grandparents, their families, my beloved nanny Paula Modisane. My father and mother who are still alive but geographically distant.

The preparation for Two Men Talking always affects my dream life too.

Last night I dreamed that I was visited by my friend Anneliese who died two years ago at the age of 95.
She was visiting from heaven.
Her hand was cold when I reached out to shake it.
And she looked pretty blue.
I asked how it was to be dead.
"Not very pleasant", she told me.
"How about heaven?", I wanted to know.
"There's nothing to do", she complained. "In fact there is nothing at all. Absolutely nothing.
"Basically", she said: "Its nothing to write home about".

Anyone got an alternative description of heaven?
Something to write home about?

I had a dream, a wonderful dream.

2007-06-27T16:07:00.000-04:00

I am sitting in my office waiting for a patient. I am a psychiatrist. I had a dream that for the past six weeks I lived the life of a perfomer, travelling around England and even performing on the stage of the West End in the middle of Trafalgar Square eight times a week. It's hard to believe it happened, and hard to understand that it's over. It was an amazing experience. I feel so proud and accomplished, and also very humbled by the whole thing. Proud that we did what we said we'd do, and that we gave our best, night after night. I watched as Murray and I each became more able to be "present" on the stage, and came to know that we really do what we say we do. Like the proverbial actors nightmare, each show, we stood in the wings, not knowing what was going to happen, no script in mind, and no blocking to remember. And then we went on and each time twomentalking did us...we didn't do it, it did us. Something emerged each time that was new and and a learning. It became an intimate experience for us and the audience. An audience member asked me if it was real, the feeling she felt, that we were very connected with each of them. And it was real. I felt a deep connection to my fellow human beings sitting in that theatre, aware of the heat they suffered (due to an antiquated air conditioning system); touched by their attentive listening, affected by their sometimes distress, warmed by their generous laughter and ultimately moved by the connection we all shared.
I was humbled by the craft of what it means to be an "actor". The discipline and rigor that it takes to give the best one can, night after night, in the heat or the cold, whether happy or sad, knowing that there is an audience out there and they deserve my best.
People ask me where we are going after the successful run in London. I can't say. I don't know. I think time and the gods will decide what's next. In the meantime I am back to being a therapist and psychiatrist, integrating what I have learned, and working at synthesizing these very different work lives that I love.

Photo from London

2007-06-16T05:50:00.000-04:00

With Frith Banbury

The West End

2007-06-16T05:11:00.000-04:00

It's hard to write about because it is still happening. It's not yet a story. It's an amazing experience to be in London, walk down St Martin's Lane, past Nelson's Column, cross the Mall, and into the Trafalgar Studios theatre, which feels like home for this brief time....Each day there is the opportunity to tell a story, to co-create an experience for a group of people. I have definitely become more comfortable telling stories, using space, using my voice and body, and yet can see how there is always room for improvement and growth. I have learned is that it's possible to be joyful in telling even the saddest stories. Joy is not the opposite of sadness. It is possible to access joy, and for performing this show, it makes all the difference to the experience. Some nights I find it hard to feel joyful and then its' still a "good show" but it's a different emotional experience for me. Performing Two Men Talking is an intense journey. I am happiest on the stage performing. The times between are liminal betwixt and between space, and sometimes feel long. I can't ever forget there's a show tonight, and can't escape the process even in sleep, as my dreams are filled with images and memories of the past. Last night I had a new memory about a story I have told hundreds of times, to be shared on the stage this afternoon (if I remember). Most nights there is someone in the audience whom I have not seen in many years. Someone from the past. And the re-connections and bringing these relationships into the present is a wonderful gift.
So that's it for now, London in June, and still in the midst of a life altering time, not sure where it's going to go, but remembering that my only job is to show up, and tell my story, the rest is not up to me.

Resanctifying the desanctified

2007-06-05T19:17:00.000-04:00

The theatre in which we perform in Colchester was once a church. There is a sign hanging on the wall saying "this building was once a church and is no longer one. One day it will be a ruin, in which case it will be the ruin of a church".
Colchester is one of the oldest towns in Britain, with an original Roman wall. The history of the place, and the beauty of the old building, with its vaulted ceilings and stained glass windows brought something to the performance, something of the ancient custom of storytelling, and a feeling of being in the realm of the sacred, and a feeling of the hundreds of lives that had been performed in that space in some capacity for centuries and centuries. For me it was a particularly moving experience having in the audience an old childhood friend and her husband who was a friend of mine at university, as well as my mother's cousin, someone I had never met, but with whom I share many well loved family members... These people and the personal history they brought to their listening, gave an immediacy and personal quality to my experience of telling that I will not forget. I am left feeling warm and tender towards Colchester.

Colchester, Manchester, Cambridge, Ipswich

2007-06-05T06:16:00.001-04:00

The blog has been suspended in Luton because we've been on the road. And there has been no time to document all those experiences. We get into a place, do our best to learn it, become familiar with the performance space, and off we go again. In our minivan whose carpets were dipped into a disgusting strawberry deodorizer such that cowshit was welcome relief. Now they all seem like dreams. The exquisite Colcheser Arts Center, The Lowry in Salford, the Mumford in Cambridge and The Pulse Festival in Ipswich.
Once these were unfamiliar names on our brochure. No longer.
The last place on our tour was Ipswich. The performance was interrupted by a fire alarm and we had to file out of the theatre along with the audience. Once outside, some of the audience joked that we should carry on there and then. Which is what we did. I can't quite describe the thrill of it - such is the ephemeral nature of live performance. But here are some photographs from the technical manager's cell phone.

Dan about to arrive. I've got to shower and get in a quick meditation. Opening night at the Trafalgar Studios tonight.

The Luton Seven

2007-05-27T04:35:00.000-04:00

The Hat Factory in Luton is a big old industrial warehouse replete with history. The space in which we performed had the capacity to hold eighty people, and was a simple yet beautiful black box space. We spent the afternoon walking around the town, getting to feel the environment, and to know the area. It's hard to know what we were seeing, as we only walked a few blocks in each direction, and most of what I saw was the product of globalization. Chain store after chain store, with virtually no independent vendors of any type. I saw a boy who couldn't have been more than thirteen sitting with his parents at the mall, smoking. We passed a massage parlor, a gay bar (which we went into and asked them if they knew about our performance and the woman there said she did and would "send people along"), and a very brightly coloured pink and orange merry-go-round, empty, spinning slowly to a loop of "The Grand Old Duke of York". We went back to the theatre, which by the time we'd done our walk, felt like a little oasis. We used the space to warm our voices, to feel comfortable in our bodies and to sing. At eight o'clock we walked on stage, and faced our audience of seven. Now the great thing and the difficult thing about twomentalking, is that we interact with the audience; not with their words, but with their listening. What this meant, was that there were nine points of contact for each telling, that is each audience member, Murray and Dan who was sitting in the fourth row.
I think audiences members, me included when I am one, feel invisible in the dark. In the dark as an audience member, I feel free to not react, to laugh internally, to daydream. Sometimes people reach into their bags, and even close their eyes. Usually this is not an issue, if there are enough points of contact, then those moments carry less weight. Last night, these seven people were our reason for telling, and I found it hard not to over analyze their body movements, their reaction or lack of reaction, and make meaning of these. The stories we tell are themselves vulnerable making, exposing and at times take me back to times of great isolation and fear. Being able to stand in my own story, without apology, without being distracted by other's reactions or my perception of other's reactions, is the task at hand. That is what leadership is about. Being able to trust my own truth even when others are not reflecting that back to me. Sometimes it's hard. Last night was one of those times.

The connectedness of all things

2007-05-25T08:23:00.000-04:00

Paul and I went into London yesterday, for an interview with a journalist. On the train, we re-visited (as we have done thousands of times before) the value of what we do. The value of two men talking. Not the name of our performance, that is, but of men actually talking to one another about all the things that are difficult to face or to deal with.
Somewhere along the line of being taught what to do and what not to do, I learned that there were four things one never talks about at a dinner party. Sex, religion, politics and money. Why? Because those are the areas where people are likely to have strong feelings and where there are bound to be disagreements. One thing that wasn't mentioned on the not to talk about at dinner parties list was death. Probably because that was not necessary. We are part of a cultural aversion to talking about death.
Well, in twomentalking we talk about it all -and we do it by telling stories to one another and to the audience. Although there are certain assumptions and opinions underlying the stories I tell, my focus when telling is to stick - as much as I possibly can - to my own persona experience. No-one can possibly disagree with my experience, if I simply tell what happened to me.
And when I am listening, to give my full attention to Paul's experience. Indeed, our cardinal principle in twomentalking is that there is a reciprocal relationship between listening and telling. We connect not only by talking, which is active and behaviorally observable, but also by listening, which is less obvious. What is difficult is not so much what one has to say, but rather being able to listen to what someone else has to say without going into a reactive state.
There is a lot of tough stuff we have to listen to these days, and it is hard, very hard. When 9/11 happened, it was such a perfect opportunity to stop and listen to what the state of things was in the world. But what did we do instead? We attacked.
Nature is speaking loudly too. Global warming. Ice caps melting. Have we stopped to listen? What will it take?
This is what I mean by connectedness - being able to truly listen to what is going on around us.
And to realize that we are all part of it all.
This state of connectedness is what I mean when I talk about the sacred space that twomentalking is. Before each performance, we look out into the audience. We do not do this to embarrass anyone, to pick on anyone or to suggest that we are going to ask anyone to do anything. Rather, it is a moment to express that we are all in this together. We are on the stage telling our stories. But it would not happen in this particular way without those specific people in the audience. I could go on, but we have a performance in Letchworth and Bernd will be here to pick us up in 15 minutes.

Reporting from Hatfield

2007-05-23T18:29:00.000-04:00

We arrived at the University of Hertfordshire, a four year new, campus, to find our performance space, the 450 seat expansive Weston auditorium that resembles an upside down football helmet. We spent the afternoon drinking instant coffee in the campus library and trying to get comfortable in the enormous space. At 7:30 the audience arrived - 75 people loosely spread throughout the auditorium. Dan our director was there, and our stage manager Bernd who will be with us for the whole tour as well as at Trafalgar Studios. The performance began and after about five minutes a couple of people walked out. We told our stories, using the large stage, and I certainly felt the divide between the large stage and the audience, especially as they were audibly and noticably silent throughout. Stories that in the past have elicited laughter, elicited none. For me the process became about trusting my own inner sense of purpose, trusting that what I was doing was worth doing, and that silence did not neccessarily mean contempt. We kept going, laughing, sharing our little hearts out, and learning (certainly for me this was the learning) how to generate enthusiasm from within. I think about that, what is the difference between enthusiasm, passion and excitement and how can one generate these from an inner place, rather than relying on outside stimulation to precipitate or ignite them? The performance ended and there was a very warm applause. Afterwards we came out to meet people who may have stayed behind to chat, but there was nobody there. This left the learning in place. The only feedback I got was as we left the organizer told me that a couple told her afterwards that she had "absolutely loved it" and it "wasn't his thing". On we go, this week to Letchworth, Luton and Colchester.

Writing from Heaven

2007-05-19T04:50:00.000-04:00

Hemel Hempstead. May 19, 2007. 9am. First performance last night in the Hemel Hempstead Town Hall. About 45 attended, which was more than expected. The audience was warm, receptive, responsive. Hemel - in Afrikaans - means heaven. Last night I understood in a whole new way the "cost" of doing Two Men Talking. Evoking the past is a way of invoking the past. Feelings long forgotten or buried are summoned, and there is a brand new opportunity to let go. Story is very powerful. Much more powerful than I realize sometimes - in its capacity to transport ourselves and the audience to another place. While we are talking about the past, the stories are happening right there in the moment. In the here and now, never to happen again in this way, with these people. I wouldn't know how to evaluate the performance. Afterwards, in the bar, I had the feeling that people were moved - in the sense that something had been stirred, energized. Its the oddest thing: while the stories are so intensely personal, what happens through the telling of them is a common experience. And that's where the magic lives.

But this morning, as I sit in this holiday apartment, looking out at a sign that says MP Tully Scaffolding, and the Soviet style Kodak building (apparently abandoned by Kodak) I am aware of life back to usual. The magic not gone, but suspended, until the next show. Which will be altogether different. For one thing, it will not be in Heaven. It will be at the University of Herts

sticks and stones can break your bones

2007-02-25T00:15:00.000-05:00

But words can never harm you.
I never believed this, because it wasn't true. Still isn't. Words do hurt. In 2005 - at the Western Wall in Jerusalem - a "holy" man said to me- when I told him that I was gay - that I was an abomination against G*d, and no better than an animal. Did those words hurt? Yes! They were like a knife in the gut.
A definitive moment in the "story" of two men talking is about the power of words to hurt, and later to heal. Language not only expresses human experience. It shapes it.
But what about thoughts? What is the effect of thoughts on experience?
Can thoughts harm the way words do? Can one's destructive or negative thoughts harm others or do they only harm us? And if so, how does one change one's thoughts so that they don't cause harm?
The first time I ever met the Venerable Khenpos (www.padmasambhava.org), they told me that I think too much. And they were right. I am utterly addicted to thinking. And entrenched in the habit of trying to think my way out of anything! The Khenpos suggested that I relax my mind.

This is sometimes possible in the practice of two men talking. When I am in it, particularly when I am on stage performing, the thoughts are quiet for a while. Telling stories - sticking to the "what happened" rather than thoughts about what happened is a way of disciplining the mind. And paradoxically relaxing the mind.

Please feel free to share your thoughts about any of this.

Am I an exhibitionist?

2006-12-21T18:35:00.000-05:00

Doing the performance 24 days in a row in Edinburgh was a life changing experience. I hadthe opportunity to tell my story over and over and over again every day to an audience. And some days I really didn't feel like it and did it anyway. Those days, I felt exhibitionistic. Can telling my story be a form of prostitution? Other days I couldn't get enough of it, it felt grounded and I was clear about why I was doing it. Since Edinburgh I have felt a reaction to that kind of "expose". I have found myself reluctant to talk about myself too much, except in very private settings. I need to realize that "exposing" myself is a choice. I do wonder about this tendency, maybe even desire to be an exhibitionist, and wonder whether it is the healthiest path for me. On the other hand, I know the value I always receive when people share their lives openly, and I am so grateful to them for that. The other day I read an article in the New York Times about the Broadway star Raul Esparza. He was so open about himself in this article, about his sexuality, his difficulties, his ambivalence. I felt inspired and thankful to him for being willing to be open. It encouraged me to keep talking. However, the part of me that checks in on myself has also grown. The part of me that checks into whether I am being gratuitously exhibitionistic, or whether in every moment I am truly choosing to say what I say is more alive and present. So as more performances of Two Men approach, this new "watchful" part of me, will be present, and may have something to say on stage, either out loud, or to me silently, something like "you really don't need to tell them that, that's yours and it's okay to keep it that way" or something like "tell them that baby, go for it!"...time will tell.

Radical Truth Telling - Paul's story

2006-09-23T19:27:00.000-04:00

Having returned from Edinburgh, I recognize that no matter how self-expressed I am, there remain many ways in which I still try to describe myself in ways that are respectable, acceptable, palatable and socially appropriate. Performing 2 Men Talking every day for a month has led me to see how harmful it is for me to leave parts of myself out as I present who I am in the world. So here is my latest attempt to describe the work that I do, and my place in Narativ, in Two Men Talking and in life. Please comment!

What would you do if you were told you had only two years to live?
I know what I did. I was 24 years old and was given a diagnosis that was pretty damn scary. So I finished medical school and left my home in South Africa to go to Drama School in England. I had always wanted to go to Drama School, and so I chose to spend my last days doing that….

But I didn’t die.

So once again I asked myself, now what? What if you only live another two years, what do you want to do?
I have always been fascinated with the human mind. In fact my interest in acting was mainly an interest in the minds of the characters. What motivates them? What makes them tick?
So I decided to spend my last years doing a residency training in psychiatry. Learning about the mind.

And still I didn’t die.

In fact it looked suddenly like I might live for a long, long…….long…time.
Uh Oh!! A long life.

Probably a better question. What do you do if you know you are going to live for a LONG LONG time?
I know what I did.
I took a job, with sensible benefits, and a decent salary. I suffered through meeting after boring meeting, because it’s part of the job. I told nobody at work what was really going on in my life, because the story in my head told me that if anyone knew my secret, my career, my job, my life would be doomed.

However, secrets have effects, and boy did I learn them. I had panic attacks driving home, so that I had to stop the car, and thinking my blood sugar was low, downed a whole coke and a packet of peanuts…. I avoided bridges….always sat on the aisle in the movies…

Pretty damn scary!!!

And then I told my story:
I came out publicly about the diagnosis I had been given. Suddenly it was no longer a secret.

and at this moment in time, now in 2006, I choose not to name it. I am currently exploring the effect that public disclosure has on me. Even though it is not a secret, today I choose the illusion that it is private. I have a choice as to when and how I reveal its exact nature. Today, I do not choose to name it, other than at that time it was a life threatening condition.

And so Murray and I tell our story together. How I encouraged him to tell a story at age 12, and how I bullied him, and later apologized, how he encouraged me to tell mine, and how we go around performing this friendship to audiences.

What is Two Men Talking?
It is friendship.
It is listening.
It is sharing the space in as non-competitive a way as possible.
It is acknowledging feelings.
It is connecting one person to another through story.
It connects to an audience.
It is about apology and forgiveness and hatred and love.
It is about fear and death and courage and life.

And so in Narativ, we bring ourselves, and this ever evolving ever shifting storytelling work to you….
To you the individual.
To you the organization.
To you the family.
To you the group.

We bring our whole selves with our whole lived experience to you.
And we ask you to imagine what is possible.

We have devised a way of sharing our storytelling methodology.
We know how to create safe space.
We know how to listen, and can teach you how to listen.
We know that stories are vessels for shifting stuck energy, for inspiring and moving ourselves and others,…

A word of warning: our conversations are not ordinary every day ones. We talk about subjects that are painful, embarrassing or shameful. We do this with great respect and first hand knowledge of what it feels like to be vulnerable, and we have worked for years on creating safe spaces, listening environments, in which anything can be said., and listened to.

So if you are interested, we are excited to work with you. We trust that when you approach us, it is because you already get a sense of who we are.

Freedom at last and the nature of memory

2006-08-23T06:23:00.000-04:00

Yesterday during Two Men Talking I experienced Freedom!! We have now performed 18 times. And though we have permission (our own, who else's) to keep changing the stories, to have no particular order or script, it had started to happen that we were telling stories in a particular order. I was starting to feel like I was in a play, and even had moments of boredom at my own stories. And then yesterday, nothing was as ever before. It truly felt as though we were telling stories from our lives to a group of people in our living room. We had fun, we got lost and I even sang songs that I never dreamed I'd sing in public...I went on a bit, till Murray said to me "Paul this is TWO men talking". I had real embarrassment. We had real laughter and it was energizing and stimulating of memories. What I have realized is that the rigor of eighteen days in a row, has given the foundation of safety in basic storytelling to an audience. I have the confidence to know that I can tell a personal story to an audience, using my body, voice while moving around the space, and making contact with the audience and with Murray...After eighteen performances, I also know that Murray and I can co-create a story. We have proven that to ourselves over and over again. So with a music analogy, we have been practicing scales, and now we are allowing ourselves to play jazz....As for the nature of memory. I have told these stories so many times that I cannot anymore remember the original incident. I now remember the telling of the incident. I think. I also have the sensation of "remembering" Murray's history. I wasn't there, but if you ask me, I can't quite tell the difference between my own "memories" and my "memories" of Murray's stories. The only difference is that my conscious mind knows that I was not present for his so they are not true memories. History is re-written through storying. For example, my early years at King David High School were lonely. But having excavated that history so deeply together with Murray, though in reality we were not friends then, my experience of my history has shifted, such that I know feel as if I had a comrade, a friend....such is the power of story.

Double listening - what do you think

2006-08-13T14:44:00.000-04:00

I have felt this compulsion - from time to time - to be issuing a travelogue about Edinburgh. The castle, the fireworks at night, the old town, the new town and etcetera. But this is not really an external journey.
And Lonely Planet does a much better job than I do when it comes to describing beautiful Edinburgh

This is an inner journey. Which gets externalized on the stage everyday in the form of a performance. I went to a wonderful circus performance last night [called IMMORTAL]. There was a tight rope walker. 2MT feels a bit like tightrope walking.
Straddling internality and externality. Too internal and it becomes self indulgent. Too external.- may as well read Lonely Planet or whatever. Today we dealt with the complicated feelings of being Jewish. The history, the legacy of victimization, the pride.
The question: Can we ever be free of narratives of persecution

Yesterday I wrote that the ear is an external organ But it isn't only. Its also internal. The inner ear.
We are learning to listen with an outer ear and an inner ear.
Its like double listening. Listening in stereo.

Your refections please.

Lots of stimulus

2006-08-12T13:34:00.000-04:00

The challenge of listening continues. Because there is SO much going on. Hundreds and hundreds of plays and thousands of people in the streets. Between going to see
plays (Girl Blog, Fine Noble Gases, Tick my Box, Cooped, Saint or Sinha - to name but a few)and walking into The Assembly Rooms every day, to the posters and crowds and reviews and negotiating the masses along Princes Street, I still have to be there each day with fresh listening and the energy to tell a good story.
That takes preparation - both physical and mental: running, swimming , Alexander Technique, and endless hours of conversation with Paul and Dan.
Listening to another is a powerful template for learning how to listen to myself.
Because the ear is an external organ, I often think of listening as something that pertains to OUTSIDE of myself. But how do I clear my listening to what is going on internally.

Laboratory for Ego

2006-08-09T07:22:00.000-04:00

Two Men Talking is an intimate exchange with an audience of people and between me and Murray. Every day, I have to allow myself to be a vessel for the conversation and stories that arise. This requires relaxation and openness, allowing vulnerability and emotions. So what would be the perfect laboratory for this process? a place where ego is constantly aroused? The Edinburgh festival!! We are in the midst of thousands of shows, posters, reviews, trying to drum up audiences, competition, and constantly witenssing the work of other artists....the sea we are swimming in is one of evaluation, assessment, and comparison. It's very exciting and very energizing at the same time, it makes the task of being true to the Two Men Talking process a rigourous one. I am off to the gym now, to run and clear my mind, and even writing this blog is an act of consciousness. I am privileged and grateful for this opportunity - and it is taking something, a huge amount of concentration, energy and discipline. Audiences are so inspiring and I invite all readers and audience members to exchange energy via this blog!!
Thanks.
Paul

Is the past always changing?

2006-08-06T12:57:00.000-04:00

On Friday we had our first performance. It has been quite a ramp up to the moment of finally being in front of an audience.
We've spent nine days letting Edinburgh seep into our veins. Dan's work with us is so much about experiencing the spaces we're in. Getting to know the city: walking the streets, eating the food, looking down from high places, looking up at the sky.
Noticing where we are. Who we are. Who we are becoming. Because it is all constantly changing. I've known Paul for 33 years. I keep on thinking I REALLY KNOW him. Only to be suddenly surprised when he does or says something I wasn't expecting/
Or when he comes up with a new story or a new telling of an old story.
Then- of course - there is my relationship with my own past. Given this whole
new circumstance of being in Edinburgh, new memories, ideas and connections bubble up to the surface.
The unfamiliar becomes familiar and vice versa. Today I was running on a path through Dean Village, alongside a river. I was overcome by the beauty of it. I was - at once - in the moment and back to age 6, remembering the green library truck which had come to our newly developed suburb of Dewetshof. Whose streets were named after famous explorers. Ours was Dias Street after Bartholomew Dias.

After the performance many audience members asked if the show truly changes every time. Sometimes I wonder about that too. Will we come to a point where it is just the same as it was the day before? That is impossible. We are constantly evolving.
If I am present to that fact, it is all, always new.

Is being BUSY and ADDICTION?

2006-08-02T19:17:00.000-04:00

I do not have any of the usual distractions that occupy me in New York City. I am not currently going to a daily workplace, not sorting through mail, not taking phone calls, not checking e mail very often, and not around most of the people in life with whom I have ongoing and intense relationships....I have lots of time, to prepare myself for the performances, to exercise, walk around Edinburgh, eat, and just be....sounds like heaven does it? well I can tell you, it's been a little hard. Being busy in New York distracts me from myself. Here I am constantly having to face myself moment to moment and that is sometimes tough. Sometimes I notice my mind saying "everything is going far too well, what sort of problems can I conjure?" I am working hard on learning to tolerate and even enjoy being happy, and being LESS busy....anyone relate to this??
Please comment

In Edinburgh

2006-07-29T17:05:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about this blog ever since I arrived here four days ago.
I keep wondering who I'm writing for. Who's listening?
In all our storytelling work, we've got this cardinal rule: that there's a reciprocal relationship between telling and listening. Which is all very well when you're talking to someone. Its easy - then - to see the ways in which the listening is shaping the talking.
But what about writing on a blog? Its a bit like talking to oneself (which I was taught at a young age to be a sign of madness). Does one listen to oneself? Or does one always have internalized listeners? Who do I have in my mind as the person or people listening? So if you're reading this, which is the textual version of listening, thank you.

Anyhow, this is just me breaking the ice. I've never shared my daily journals with anyone, and blogging is a bit similar to that. Private thoughts. Made public.

Preparing for Edinburgh

2006-06-21T09:49:00.000-04:00

Murray and I, the performers in Two Men Talking, are currently preparing for Edinburgh. We are working with our director Dan Milne who has come from London, in New York City. I am currently investigating what it means to be the son of a mother as distinct from the son of a father. Also the role of gay men as fathers in our communities. Meaning the archetypal fathering role, whether or not we have our own biological children. Perhaps Two Men Talking is an exercise in fathering? Every performance cycle is different and Edinburgh raises new questions and new territories to be explored. I am excited.