Tag: Inspired By Friends

how is musical theatre shifting?

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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.

intentional mistranslation in EEAAO

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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.

art as an opportunity for connection

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“To be honest, I don’t really remember the show, but I do remember that I held hands with my date!”

I think this might be how most people perceive art, most of the time—as an opportunity for connecting with others. Perhaps we can embrace the humility of letting our art be merely an occasion for people to cherish a person they love or get closer to someone new. Perhaps this is more than enough.

Thank you to Connie, Matt, and Anna for inspiring this post.

advice for writing lyrics, for beginners

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A friend recently asked me if I had any advice for writing lyrics. I’m not sure I have especially profound songwriting advice to share, as I still feel very much like a beginner myself, but here are a few thoughts on songwriting that I found helpful when I got started.
  • Look at and learn from songs you like! How the writer moves between ideas, uses structure, chooses words, etc. Lorde’s “Liability” is one that I’ve enjoyed studying this way.
  • It’s okay for lyrics to not feel right / up to your aesthetic standard in the first draft. Rewriting is very common and normal. Getting better at something over time is normal, too.
  • Many—most?—successful songs are about one core idea. Ideally, the core idea will develop or vary throughout the song so that it’s interesting for the listener. In typical song structures, the core idea is in the chorus, and the variation happens in the verse—but you can play with that. 
  • You don’t have to rhyme. Also, playing with “near rhymes” can be really fun. Jason Mraz’s “A Beautiful Mess” is one song I love that uses near rhymes in a neat way.
Getting stuck while writing a song is normal, too. Depending on the type of stuck-ness you are experiencing, different things might help:
  • Go back to the character. Who is singing this song? What’s happening in their lives, and what would they want to say about it? This is especially helpful for musical theatre lyrics.
  • Freewrite. Choose a topic or symbol in the song and write whatever comes to mind about it, just to get yourself expressing (however unartfully) about the song’s key ideas. Describing the five traditional senses (and the less traditional senses, too) as they relate to your idea/symbol can open up your writing. Sometimes, an interesting idea will pop up and you can capitalize on that.
  • Let your thesaurus & rhyming dictionary spark new ideas. Picking a few keywords and then roaming through a thesaurus or rhyming dictionary with them can generate unexpected ideas.
  • Ask other folks to read/listen. Though it’s often good to take folks’ advice with a grain of salt, folks tend to represent their own reflections fairly honestly, and you can use that information to influence your writing.

Thank you to Nathan for inspiring this post.

frameworks

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I love how good frameworks clarify confusing ideas. Although applying frameworks too rigidly can be harmful, I have found that a flexible and moderate approach to frameworks has added nuance and depth to the way I perceive the world.

Here are a few of my favorite frameworks.

Frameworks for Empathy

5 Love Languages
The 5 Love Languages framework was my first introduction to the power of frameworks in clarifying confusing relationship dynamics. It turns out that different people need different things to feel loved, and different people have different ways of expressing their love – so if we want to give and receive love, we need to be aware of the different “languages” that our loved ones may be using when they give and receive.

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Framework Source: 5 Love Languages
Graphic Source: Odyssey

9 Enneagram Personality Types
Like the 5 Love Languages, the Enneagram personality types give us a concrete way to think about how people are different. The Enneagram is especially helpful for understanding how other people may be fundamentally driven by different things.

EnneagramWheel-solid-middle
Framework Source: The Enneagram Institute
Graphic Source: Integrative Enneagram

Four Career Foci
This is a framework that one of my managers once discussed with me, and I haven’t been able to find online. The core premise is this: different individuals may be primarily motivated by company (winning and being successful), people (helping people around you grow and develop), society (making the world a better place), or growth (learning or getting promoted). It’s helpful to know what motivates the people you are working with.

Four Tendencies
This is the newest framework I’ve latched onto. It’s a way of thinking of how people are motivated, with a specific focus on how people respond to outer expectations and how people respond to inner expectations.

four-tendencies-graphic
Source: Gretchen Rubin

Frameworks for effectiveness

Important vs. Urgent
The classic prioritization matrix.

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Framework Source: Typically attributed to Eisenhower
Graphic Source: The Book of the Future

Likelihood of Success vs. Impact
A twist on prioritization that looks more closely at expected value (rather than immediacy).

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Framework & Graphic Source: First Round Review

Honesty vs. Kindness
When we are honest to others, we are sometimes brutal. When we are kind to others, we are sometimes not actually helping the other party. It’s okay for honesty to hurt, and it’s okay for kindness to be received – but there are ways to deliver honesty from a place that comes from love and care rather than meanness, and there are ways to be kind yet direct.

radical-candor-2x2.png
Framework & Graphic Source: Radical Candor

Difficult Conversations
Difficult conversations are often actually made of three separate conversations: What Happened? How do I feel? And what does this say about me? I’ve found that I’m usually least aware of this last conversation, of how what’s happening makes me feel about who I am. When I can’t figure out why something is bothering me, the identity question is often at the root.

how-to-handle-difficult-conversations-10-638
Framework Source: Difficult Conversations
Graphic Source: Deepak Babu

Thank you to Catherine, whose art post inspired me to look into the four tendencies framework, which in turn drove me to write this post.

value, money, and time

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While exploring my relationship with music this year, I’ve thought often about the alignment/misalignment of the value you create, the money you make by creating value for others, and the time you spend creating value.

In my teenage years, I was convinced that the optimal relationship among these three ideas was to specialize in creating one type of value for the world, to only choose a type of value that people would pay money for, and to spend all of your time devoted to creating that one type of value. My mother, a passionate venture capitalist, had taken such a route for her own life. She would often tell my brother and me how much she loved her work, and she encouraged us to pursue what we love and make that our life’s work.

With time and different life experiences, I’ve realized that this framework doesn’t fit the place where I currently am in life. For one, I have learned that I want to create multiple types of value – I want to do work that makes a difference, and I want to support and enjoy time with the people I love, and I like having hobbies outside of my primary work. For another, I’ve learned that value and money are not always simultaneous, and that it’s possible to create significant value without making huge profits.

In the music industry, the contrast is stark. I’ve been moved to tears time and again by powerful songs and pieces, indicating just how powerful the value of music can be, yet I candidly don’t pay for most of my music, because most of it is available for free online. (I do contribute to specific artists, but the number is few, and the bar is high.)

Nine months into this exploration, I know for sure that there is something in the space of music, stories, and people that is the value I want to create. I also know that my technical academic background and work experience is in high demand and low supply, and that using those skills is a much straighter path to supporting myself financially, at least until I grow my creative skills further. So it looks like the value I create, the money I make, and the time I spend will continue to be misaligned for awhile.

Thank you to Nick for introducing me to Dana Fonteneau’s work and perspective, which inspired me to write this post.

pride in your choices

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transcript

It’s harder to be kind than clever.
Cleverness is a gift. kindness is a choice.
Gifts are easy. Choices can be hard.

Will you take pride in your gifts or pride in your choices?

Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?

We are our choices. Build yourself a great story.

Thank you to Tanay for inspiring this post.

EDIT (2023-03-20): It’s interesting to revisit this post knowing what I know now about how Bezos has chosen to use his power and personal fortune. I still resonate deeply with the questions he has posed, but have to keep in mind that perhaps Bezos himself has not lived up to his own original intentions.

being, but an ear

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As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear…
— Emily Dickinson

“Listening is something you receive,” my conducting teacher said, recalling this poem as I practiced conducting the beginning of Wagner’s Prelude from Tristan und Isolde. Fitting, now that I spend much of my days listening to and learning to create music. Fitting, too, that I am now rereading Difficult Conversations.

Thank you to Mark for inspiring this post.

the relationship ratchet

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A ratchet is a mechanism that allows for motion in one direction only. (Here’s a video that demonstrates how this works.)

Why is it so difficult to dial back an already deep relationship?

  • When we want to deepen a relationship, we make ourselves vulnerable, because we will hurt if we learn that we care more about someone than they care about us. We celebrate conquering this fear. We accept that love requires a leap of faith. We believe it’s healthy to build our rejection stamina.
  • When we want to dial back a relationship, we make them vulnerable, because they may hurt if they learn that we care less about them than they care about us. We denounce people who take advantage of other people’s vulnerabilities as manipulative and mean.

Naturally, there’s the anguish of breaking up with a significant other, as well as the pain of severing ties with one’s family. When it comes to friendships, however, we’re seldom explicit about dialing them back – perhaps because the commitment we make to each other as friends is often less well-defined.

Instead, we let our friendships peter out, dwindle away. We tell ourselves that we do this because it might be less painful to the other party if the change is gradual. Realistically, that’s often true, but alas – it’s usually least true when it matters most.

Thank you to Albert for inspiring this post.

kilimanjaro

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8636e615-fdd2-4278-86f8-62f5fac5545d.png
Mawenzi, Kilimanjaro’s the second-highest volcanic cone, as seen from Kibo, its highest peak. Photograph taken by the author, January 2018.

Preparations

  • Select a route. We chose the 8-day Lemosho route in order to avoid altitude sickness and optimize for summit success rate.
  • Shape up. For true mountaineers, Kilimanjaro isn’t a difficult climb, as it doesn’t require much specialized training, technique, or gear. For a “person of average fitness,” the climb is doable, but certainly not easy.
  • Altitude. The main challenge – aside from the sheer determination needed to keep your body moving through a cold and snowy summit night – is the altitude. Kilimanjaro’s summit is 19,341 feet high, or about two thirds as high as Everest. Up top there’s only about half as much oxygen as there would be at sea level. Take medicine (Diamox) to help with acclimatization, but otherwise all you(r guide) can do is climb slowly and control your elevation carefully so your body can naturally adjust to the lower oxygen content.
  • Contrasting climates. Over the course of a week, you’ll progress past farms and forests, up through heather & moorland, across highland desert, and into arctic conditions. And then you’ll come all the way back down.
  • Meditation. Altitude trekking for the unacclimatized is slow, plodding, and ultimately meditative. Bring mental spaces you’d like to mull over.

Humble pie

  • Tempo. The speed record for a summit and return is 8 hours. (Compare that with 8 days.)
  • Competence. A group of 6 climbers warrants 23 staff – 1 head guide, 2 assistant guides, 2 cooks, and the rest porters, who carry everything that isn’t in your daypack: your bags, the sleeping tents, a mess tent + table + chairs, food + cooking gas + equipment, a toilet. The staff travel at least twice as quickly while carrying at least twice as much. (We asked one of our guides if there was any training or physical exam to be a porter, and he laughed. “They are African,” he told us. It seems that most folks there grow up carrying heavy loads on their heads, developing that kind of physical stamina as part of the natural course of life.)
  • Energy. A couple of the porters are “summit porters” who go with you and the guides to the summit, so that there are enough people to carry down any emergency evacuees. When your energy starts to fade, they sing and clap the energy back into you.

Learning

  • Endurance. You can keep going much further than you think you can.
  • Community. Trustworthy guides and caring compatriots share their strength.
 Thank you to my mom for making this climb with me.