practice.

It was really nice to meet up with some friends of mine I hadn't seen for a while.  Meggan, Tasha, Eric and Suki who had been studying theatre in New York for the previous two months- and Carrie Colton who was

 about to set forth on her own adventure doing theatre in Hong Kong. 

We all talked about the thing we all love to talk about the most, that being theatre, and the plans & hopes we had for a theatre of our own unique workings.  A balance of art & spirit, which we have all believed to be one & the same.  My good friend Hye Soo brought up a point about what a good exercise it would be to try to write a monologue a day- just be working on some form of art a day.  Be it gathering monologues, my friend Chris Bodily (http://hatrobot.tumblr.com/) who's for the past year & a half or so has been doing a sketch journal.

So here it goes- nothing at all to that scale.  But you know.... practice.  

This is a situation that happened to me today- in a new segment I'm gonna call:

The art in Others...

1.  Theology @ a trainstop

I left work today and walked to the trax station and took a look @ my seating prospects.  Farthest seat away from me sat a larger grey haired man with a bit of a gut who was starring at me vs. two ladies nearest me with laugh lines.  I took the seat next to the women and quickly plugged

 in.  I had my iPod in as always and was plugged into whatever- it was on shuffle as I had no clue what I wanted to listen to.  A few moments later two older men came around the corner and joined the ladies, their wives obviously and so I scooted over towards Señor Stares-a-lot.  The elderly men take the seats graciously, one of them saying to me "May there be jewels in your crown."

I had never heard that expression before.  

Paul McCartney was playing at that time.  

"What are you listening to?"  asked Señor.

"Oh.... Paul McCartney.  Flaming Pie..."

He went on to talk about the fact that I didn't have an instrumental piece of Paul's.  A song that I guess played while the Berlin Wall was being torn down.  I didn't feel to uncomfortable surprisingly- he didn't intimidate me and I didn't feel too unsettled, even though I realized as he continued to talk to me he lacked a few social practices- but who am I to social practices?

He told me he was alien.  I said I was too, being resident alien.  He learned I was Canadian and that I was a dual citizen.  He said he was too- he was a citizen to the state & to the federal government- and that in truth I was a triple citizen. 

He told me he was alien and from a different universe- the universe of Kolob where God lives- and where we are all from.  

"Are you Mormon?"

"Yes."  I replied.

"Oh well then you know all about that."  He concluded.  

He told me about how a proper country should be run- with three figures.  Religion, Corporations & Government.  A woman in a purple dress was Religion- and there was some significance in the colour of her dress whether the cause/religion was just or not.  The beast was Government, an ox or bison or something like that..... I don't remember what Corporation was.

Then something he said struck me.

He said that "Everything man touches fails, and is not for good."

Without really thinking I replied.  "At least the intention for the most part is good, people try.  That's what counts I think."

He thought at that for a moment.... and continued on in his rantings.  That in revelations the first thing they saw coming out of the ground was sheep- sheep with two horns...

My mind began to wander about what he had said.  Lines from the movie Away We Go came to my mind:

  

"Everything's already broken, so why don't we just keep on breaking it again and again?"

He kept talking and I starred across the street. In front of Abravanel Hall there is a water fountain of a diagonal

jets spurting out water. A black & white dog was happily running through this fountain, snapping and biting each

of the jets streams in turn- each one more entertaining and taunting than the one before. His owner watched him,

resting in the shade with his bike. The dog ran back and fourth, biting, drinking and cooling off in the cold water.

You could tell the dog was having his idea of a perfect afternoon.

"Look at what fun that dog's having." I told the man. He looked at the dog for a moment, and continued on.

A korean woman holding two year old passed me at that moment, the elderly men to my right each got up and offered

the mother their seat. The woman sat appreciatively and the ladies quickly began playing & squeezing the boy. The mother looked grateful.

The man continued onward- ranting and stating matter-a-factly the failing case the world was. My optimism took

a point.

Things tend to be quite simple.