how is musical theatre shifting?

e.

Q: What’s been the biggest shift in musical theater in the past few years?

A: I don’t know if i can identify the biggest shift, but here’s one: our direct awareness of stories.

We’ve gone meta. While we’re inside of a story, we’re also thinking about how that story is being told.

  • in Hamilton: “who lives, who dies, who tells your story?”
  • in Hadestown: “it’s a sad song, but we sing it anyway”
  • in the film Everything Everywhere All at Once: the active use of genre as a tool to tell stories; and the central question: with all these parallel universes and possible stories, how is it possible to choose the story you’re living right now?

Perhaps it’s not surprising, because in a world where we are blasted with so much information, there is increased pressure on the storytelling that each of us has to do about ourselves. We are so bombarded with other people’s stories, that it’s hard to create our own.

At the core, it’s a realization that the way we choose to tell our own life story, significantly affects our lives.

  • how might art help us tell our own stories?
  • what does it mean to see ourselves as heroes?
  • what does it mean to see ourselves, period?
  • what stories about love, actually help us find love?
  • how do find some sense of meaning and intention, when it feels like the world refuses to change?

I’m really excited about this development. With this increased awareness of how stories shape us, society is ready and excited for more complex stories. Truths that we once thought were black and white, we’re learning to see as a spectrum. We are ready to see each other as containing multitudes, and so we are ready for art that gives us greater empathy for each other.

In musical theatre in particular, we often treat music as the source of truth, so I find it so exciting when writers instead explore: when is music lying to us? At Here Lies Love, the audience was prompted with festive, pumping music to dance in celebration to for some people who have done very bad things. How do we reconcile our attraction to beauty, spectacle, longing, with our need to wrestle with the sometimes very ugly truth?

Thank you to Esme for inspiring this post.

artistic questions

e.

in the same way that scientific researchers will articulate their research questions, i’ve been working as an artist on articulating the artistic questions that i investigate in my work. here are the five themes that keep resurfacing in my work, that i can’t seem to get away from—all under the umbrella theme of deep caring.

[0] DEEP CARING

  • what do we care about deeply, and why?
  • what is worth tremendous sacrifice for, and why?
  • when do we “fail to care,” or fail to live in accordance with our values?

[1] TRANSCENDENCE

  • “significance” “meaning” “beauty” “the sublime”
  • how might we build connection with something larger than ourselves?

[2] TRUTH

  • why do we believe what we believe?
  • how do good people come to believe in such conflicting perspectives?
  • how might we build a more nuanced understanding of what is true, what is good?
  • and how might we do so without being overwhelmed, inundated?

[3] PRIVILEGE

  • how do we coexist, given the various privileges, injustices, and differences that we carry?
  • how does caring for others intersect with caring for ourselves?
  • what stories do we tell ourselves about our privilege?
  • how might we use the privilege we have?

[4] STORYTELLING

  • what makes a story satisfying is different from what makes real life satisfying. so, how might we create stories that help us face reality more than they let us escape it? how might we create stories that expand empathy more than they encourage crippling expectations?
  • how might created stories fit into a person’s total “information diet”?

[5] COMMUNITY

  • how do we meaningfully connect? how do we meaningfully gather?
  • how might we create spaces where people feel like they belong?
  • how might we navigate the tension between the vibrancy of individuals and the “sheepleness” necessary for collective action?

the joel and the clementine

e.

cf. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

“Are you the Joel or the Clementine in the relationship?”

After always being the Clementine for years and years, I wanted to experience what it was like to be the Joel for once. To have someone else sweep you away.

Turns out I hate being the Joel all the time. Not being able to trust your partner feels awful.

Ideally, we find partners who can be both the Joel and the Clementine, the stability and the spontaneity.

blog posts on career choice

e.

I often get asked how I’ve made the career decisions that I’ve made, and I recently realized that these two posts share a significant chunk of the ideas that have shaped my own perspective:

If you read these pieces, it may be helpful to keep in mind the actual careers that these folks have chosen—Paul as a computer scientist, entrepreneur, and cofounder of a startup accelerator; Tim as a “writer-ish guy”—as well as the privileges that may have allowed these folks to think in the way that they do. Some aspects of their thinking might feel more or less relevant to your circumstances.

intentional mistranslation in EEAAO

e.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of my favorite art experiences of all time, and the scenes between Evelyn and Waymond in the Wong Kar-wai-inspired parallel universe are my absolute favorite moments of the movie.

Watching the film for the second time yesterday, however, I was surprised to discover what I would call a critical mistranslation in my favorite scene. Here is what Waymond tells Evelyn:

English SubtitlesSpoken ChineseDirect Translation of Spoken Chinese
I wanted to say…我想告诉你……I want to tell you…
In another life,如果有来生，if there were another life,
I would have really liked…我还是会选择和你一起，I still would have chosen to be with you,
just doing laundry…保税，doing taxes,
and taxes with you.开洗衣店。opening a laundry.

This feels like a critical difference!? “I would have liked” carries very different meaning than “I would have chosen.” And for a movie with such specificity in every detail, I can’t help but feel that this mistranslation must be deeply intentional, perhaps tapping into some subtle cultural sensitivities.

I’m reminded of a conversation that I had with a friend about anime voice acting, and how one of the reasons why viewers often prefer subtitles over dubbed voices is that voice actors seem able to express an authentic emotional intensity in Japanese that feels exaggerated when translated into and expressed in English. I wonder if something similar underlies this translation—a recognition that in English, or in English-speaking cultures, something as intense as “I still would have chosen to be with you” wouldn’t be as deeply felt as “I would have really liked.”

Thank you to Bill, Jack, and Sam for inspiring this post.

auditory illusions

e.

In Grapefruit, Yoko Ono writes the following instructional poem:

OVERTONE PIECE

Make music only with overtones.

1964 Spring

Though most likely intended as conceptual art, I’ve wondered whether it’s possible to create OVERTONE PIECE. When a physical instrument creates a pitched sound, the fundamental tone has to exist in order for the overtones to exist. But with digital technology on our side, could we subtract the fundamental tone from a sound? For example, by using phase inversion or a very sharp EQ cut?

After some unfruitful research and experimentation, I stumbled onto the auditory illusion of the missing fundamental. It turns out that even when the fundamental frequency itself is missing, if the overtones imply a fundamental frequency, then we perceive the fundamental frequency to be there. (!)

Indeed, this auditory illusion is what makes it possible for crappy speakers without a real low end to “produce” low bass sounds: if you leave out the actual low bass fundamental frequencies but leave in the higher overtone frequencies of that same low bass, when you listen to the track, you’ll hear the illusion of a low bass. That’s right: the speaker plays no actual low frequencies, but because we hear the higher overtone frequencies, our brains act like those low frequencies exist. Wild, right?

So, if we try to make music only with overtones, our brain goes ahead and perceives those fundamental tones anyway. Which means that music only with overtones probably wouldn’t sound that novel…more an intellectual experience than a felt one.

But why not venture down the rabbit hole of auditory illusions! My favorites are now the Shepard-Risset glissando (an infinitely descending glissando), the Risset rhythmic effect (an infinitely accelerating breakbeat), and the Deutsch’s scale illusion (where what seem like two series of unconnected notes played to separate ears combine into a single recognizable idea). Shepard tones already flow through the musical culture, from The Beatles’s “I Am the Walrus” to Super Mario 64‘s never-ending stairs to The Dark Knight‘s Batpod motorcycle. Perhaps one of these new favorite auditory illusions shall lead to musical fruit.

a long time apart

e.

As a wedding gift, a sister-of-the-bride organized a letter project for which loved ones could send the happy couple letters for various shared milestones of their marriage. As someone who has weathered two different long-term relationships that contained significant periods of long-distance and has been able to learn from her failures and move them toward successes, I wrote them a letter for their “First Long Time Apart.”

I’ve recently realized that some of this advice might be useful for others as well—so I’m sharing pieces of that letter with you here. Note: What helped me might be unhelpful or unnecessary for you!

  • Don’t underestimate the challenge of a long time apart

    Most folks I’ve talked to say that experiencing long distance is more difficult than they expected. Indeed, maintaining and growing your relationship in these new circumstances will likely require immense effort, empathy, and generosity from each of you.

    That said, a long time apart is also an opportunity to strengthen your relationship. If you both feel like you’re contributing more than your “fair share” of the work, you will build the reserves to deal with unexpected vicissitudes. If you communicate with honesty, proactiveness, and kindness, your mutual trust will grow.

  • Give each other space to grow as individuals, and ask clearly for what you need

    One of the joys of being apart is that you have more time and energy to absorb and respond to the world outside your relationship. Indeed, that separate growth can make your shared relationship even stronger. I’m reminded of how when my friend Karen and her husband hosted parties together, they would split up and talk to different people; then, after the party was over, they would do dishes together while sharing their separate conversations, so they could both grow from each other’s individual experiences.

    While it’s beautiful to celebrate each other’s independent growth, it’s also very much okay to feel envious, jealous, or lonely due to the time and space spent with other people. The trick may be figuring out how to ask clearly for what you need—perhaps as simple as, “I’m so happy that you’re getting to thrive in xyz way, but I miss you and would love to spend more time with you too”—even if it feels embarrassing or weak or unsupportive to say so. You can both honor your own needs and celebrate each other’s individual growth.

  • Discuss hypothetical issues before they happen

    It’s hard to have difficult conversations when you’re emotionally stressed, and it’s even harder when you’re not physically together, because you’re missing context like body language that might shape how you communicate. While you’re together in person or in a good mood, it might help to brainstorm what hypothetical problems or challenges might come up when you’re apart, and how you’d want to resolve them. What are your expectations for how often you’ll communicate, how often you’ll visit, how emotionally present you’ll be when you connect? What are ways that you might accidentally hurt each other, how might distance exacerbate that, and how might you heal afterward?

  • Remember that you may respond differently to the same things

    There’s a Leonard Cohen lyric that says, “The duty of lovers is to tarnish the golden rule.” Your needs and ways of communication are different; what one says or does might not match what the other receives. Loving someone is in part a process of learning what makes them unique.

    Some books that have helped me with communication include Difficult Conversations by Stone, Patton, and Heen and Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg. These books each have their assets and flaws, but more than anything else encourage honesty, empathy, and love, even during challenging emotional conversations.

  • Continue to plan shared experiences that you can both look forward to

    Whether this means visiting each other in person during your long time apart, or experiencing new art together while apart, have dates on the calendar that you can both look forward to.

    Also, remember that after your long time apart, it may take an adjustment process to be together again! You will have both grown—a beautiful thing!—and you may need some patient time to relearn how to be together now that you have both grown.

Thank you to Sam, Anna, and Juliette for inspiring this post.

cultivating inspiration as a long path

e.

A few posts ago, I talked about the skill of chasing inspiration—how there are concrete things that we as artists can do in order to find things that “juice” us and plant the seeds for future creativity. I’ve been thinking lately about how good ideas come about and wanted to share a few stories and reflections about how the path toward exciting ideas can be long.

The Triangle. The creator of one of my favorite musicals once told me that the show was born from a triangle of three key moments, moments that happened months apart. First, he had a conversation with a close collaborator in which they discovered that they both loved the same Greek tragedy. Second, he happened to meet an incredible performer who totally stunned him, for whom he passionately wanted to write. Third, a family member who had just moved to a new location gifted him a book with one line about a particular historical figure—one whose life corresponded closely with the main character of the Greek tragedy, and whom the incredible performer could star as. With that third moment, suddenly the triangle came together, and the first song was born. Months of conversation and experiences, some in unintentional and unrelated places, gave birth to the core idea of an amazing work of theatre and art.

Jelly Time. An artist once shared that every day, she gifts herself “jelly time,” a time when she follows her curiosity and lets it ooze freely. For me, my jelly time manifests as reading articles or books that sound interesting even though they don’t help with what I’m working on at the moment, listening to new music others have shared with me, playing or analyzing music I love to understand how it works, and composing either without an end goal or with the freedom to wander away from the end goal as I explore.

Sometimes there is no output, immediately or with time. But other times, this process bears sweet fruit. For example, a month ago, I loosely searched for inspiration gems from Central and Eastern European culture, and I let myself be distracted by the idea of Bulgarian dance rhythms. At the time, I was desperately trying to finish two songs, neither of which needed such rhythms, and I worried that this delightful excursion had been an indulgent waste of time. Earlier this week, however, I needed to quickly write several transformations of a musical theme, and with a particular Bulgarian dance rhythm in mind, I was able to come up with a really cool transformation in a short time. Even when I am able to work quickly, I feel that I am often most successful at this when I am leaning into ideas that have come up during jelly time.

Nebula Time. Nebulas are the birthplaces of stars! And most mornings, I gift myself “nebula time,” a time when I give myself space to reflect on what matters to me, what I’m proud of, what I’m grateful for, and what I hope for that day. My nebula time sometimes naturally spins into jelly time. I might write more about nebula time in a separate post.

a map of political beliefs

e.

After watching this video about the history of fascism, I was surprised to read that people disagreed about whether the Democratic or Republican party is closer to fascism. I realized that we easily confuse these terms, and after some online research, I made this diagram to help me understand how various political terms relate to each other:

TL;DR — Fascism and communism are two vastly opposed forms of authoritarian rule. Republicans are probably closer to fascism, but Democrats are probably closer to communism.

I’d be curious to know how my understanding matches up with yours.