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[E]vil comes from man’s urge to heroic victory over evil. The evil that troubles man most is his vulnerability; he seems impotent to guarantee the absolute meaning of his life, its significance in the cosmos. He assures a plenitude of evil, then, by trying to make closure on his cosmic heroism in this life and this world…all the intolerable sufferings of mankind result from man’s attempt to make the whole world of nature reflect his reality, his heroic victory; he thus tries to achieve a perfection on earth, a visible testimonial to his cosmic importance; but this testimonial can only be given conclusively by the beyond, by the source of creation itself which alone knows man’s value b/c it knows his task, the meaning of his life; man has confused two spheres, the visible and whatever is beyond, and this blindness has permitted him to undertake the impossible—to extend the values of his limited visible sphere over all the rest of creation, whatever forms it may take. The tragic evils of history, then, are a commensurate result of a blindness and impossibility of such magnitude” 136.
“Men cannot abandon the heroic…But groups of men can do what they have always done—argue about heroism, assess the costs of it, show that it is self-defeating, a fantasy, a dangerous illusion and not one that is life-enhancing and ennobling. As Paul Pruyser so well put it, ‘The great question is: If illusions are needed, how can we have those that are capable of correction, and how can we have those that will not deteriorate into delusions?’” 159. Men will continue living in myths; the best we can do is “argue for nondestructive myths”
The free flow of criticism, satire, art, and science is a continuous attack on the cultural fiction—which is why totalitarians from Plato to Mao have to control these things, as has been long known” 167.
On 8/12/2019 at 7:09 PM, Enrico_sw said:
Maybe she has something Polish in her, but she sounds really like a Parisian woman (in the way she behaves or speaks).
does she look french? I always thought her cheekbones were eastern european
7 minutes ago, Cult Icon said:
does she look french? I always thought her cheekbones were eastern european
Yes, there's something Slavonic in her, but when she speaks, I hear a French girl all the way, not just because of her accent.
She's half French anyway.
"Most comedy involves people having big reactions to little events. It’s a staple of situation comedies like Friends or Fawlty Towers that a trivial event like reading a book or hanging a picture will be the catalyst for an eventual hysterical outburst. Improvisers, unproductively, spend most of their time inventing ludicrous events to which they barely react at all. While this can be effective, it squanders the one thing an audience is really there for more than anything else—A changing B. "
""Most audiences are more interested in subjects that involve their activities than they are in humor that is all about you, your friends, your pets, and your bar buddies. From the very first day, humor writers are urged, figuratively of course, to throw away the capital letter I on their computer. It's true that greats like Ray Romano, Rita Rudner, and Woody Allen talk about themselves, but until you become the equiva¬ lent of Ray, Rita, or Woody, it's best to wait. More astute are performers like Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno, Chris Rock, and Billy Crystal, who fire round after round of observations of the audience's interests."
"You can't target an entire audience any more than you can shame the whole world. Humor is an attempt to challenge the status quo, but target¬ ing must reaffirm the audience's hostilities and prejudices. This means that humor is always unfair. Like editorial cartoons, jokes take a biased point of view. There's no room in one joke for a balanced argument or explanation. As H.L. Mencken put it, "My business is diagno¬ sis, not therapeutics.""
A neophyte writer often selects humor targets with limited appeal, such as a girlfriend or boyfriend. Here's the problem: Your companion may be the most bizarre or humorous person in the history of the human species, but no one else cares about your partner other than your family members (and even that is questionable). Unless members of the audi¬ ence can vicariously share your experiences, you might as well perform your material in a bathroom. It will be safer. Successful humorists select targets with universal appeal."
"Another common mistake when selecting a target is to use general top¬ ics rather than specific premises. For example, the way people drive is a broad subject that will not readily lend itself to humor. The target must be more specific, such as how women are able to multitask (put on makeup, talk on a cell phone, etc.) while driving. By narrowing a general target to a specific premise, you increase the likelihood of surprising the audience with the punchline."
"
“It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we’re alive — to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a façade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.” — Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” — Marcus Aurelius
"Everyone’s life is a huge collection of experiences and knowledge, stored in old suitcases of memories in the attic of the brain, which are sometimes retrieved, sometimes left to moulder. When it comes to opening up the suitcases to use their contents for creative purposes, it’s important not to place qualitative judgement on those memories. All that stuff you’ve accumulated, whether you judge it to be happy or sad, triumphant or pathetic, fascinating or banal is useful. And all of it can be spun into Art. Or at least a funny scene.
In improvisation, we can use all the emotions, images, sensations, words, concepts and stories that we’ve stored and apply them in new ways with the help of our imaginations. We can use what we remember from sci-fi films, or quest narratives, or a holiday in Benidorm to go on an improvised trip anywhere we like. We can put ourselves in the shoes of a King or a pauper, at any stage in history, in any country, because we will have picked up masses of information about Kings and paupers, and how those roles work, whether we realise it or not. We can embark on a story about anything, because we have all heard, seen and lived a thousand stories, and understand on an unconscious level how they work. We can use our autobiographies and play out chunks of them in improv, bending or shaping the truth if we wish, perhaps starting with ‘real’ material and take it into surreal places. We can travel anywhere in time or space."
"Improvisation goes one better than imagination alone: it takes images out of the mind and into physical 3D reality."
Awesome:
We often make the mistake of believing that creativity is something that happens when you set aside time, sit in a chair and make yourself think very hard. This is especially unproductive at the beginning of a creative process, because the best ideas tend to come when the mind is not under pressure but is feeling free, such as when daydreaming on a long train journey. You may think I’m straying from the subject of improvisation here, but in my book, an improvised game or scene, though usually transitory, is as much a piece of art as any other, and the improviser’s mind benefits from idle thinking in just the same way as a novelist’s or a composer’s. The best ideas often come from out of left field, but an openness to the ideas coming, and withholding the tendency to censor or kill an idea as soon as it emerges are vital"
"
The Set-Up3*
This is the beginning of the story, when the players establish the world of the story, and the main characters. A good way to start is with a repetitive activity being carried out, and with a character expressing a goal or desire (the thwarting or achievement of which will give the story its plot). The ideal set-up is clear and economical, and if there is a genre being used, it needs to be there straight away. It’s possible to use a narrator, for clarity and to help the players begin, but don’t rely on this as a device too often.
"All those formulas for The Perfect Story will tell you that, after the set-up, you need a problem, a crisis, an obstacle, a confrontation, a conflict or a complication. "
Where’s the conflict?
Here’s a handy little list of oppositions which you can use to find conflict in your story:
• Human vs. Human
• Human vs. Nature
• Human vs. Supernatural
• Human vs. Society
• Human vs. Self
Once you have created a character or two, it’s possible to get a bit stuck about where they’re going. A great way to advance the action is to raise the stakes.
To raise the stakes means to increase the risk for the characters. It’s about making the events in the scene have greater consequences for them.
If you’re wondering how to end your story, the answer is to reincorporate material that was introduced earlier.
"Improvisation games and guidelines are meant for experimentation; improv is less an intellectual art than a feeling one, and when you’re in the midst of a scene, the answer to ‘What comes next?’ is more likely to come from your spontaneous instincts than your thinking brain.8*
Aim to let go of your need to control the audience’s response. We cannot decide how we want our stories to be understood. Striving for meaning makes for adull story. The best thing to do is be in the moment, watching and listening and enjoying creating. You will make ‘mistakes’, and if you do, you acknowledge them with a wink at the audience, and a laugh of complicity with your fellow players, then try to put the story back on track. Or you turn the ‘mistake’ into the next piece of content. If your narrative all crumbles apart in a mess of blocks, wimps, loose ends and boring material, have a laugh about it, pick yourselves up and try again."
"It would be really good fun to try and play a character like the Dalai Lama in improv but it probably wouldn’t be very interesting if he stayed serene and delightful for very long because, as we’ve seen, what we need to make good drama is for people to change."
"The story will only take off because we see character’s status in relation to others. And the truth about status in improv, as in life, is that we are all changing status constantly, depending on who we are talking to."
"What people never are is completely neutral."
‘With status as the basis for comedy we laugh at two things: unexpected reversals of status or the status pattern of a character that continually heightens the repercussions of their own weaknesses. Put another way; your luck changes relative to someone else’s luck or you keep bringing the same kind of luck upon yourself because of personal flaws like hubris, cowardice, greed, perversion, or stupidity.’
Low-status characters in comedy or tragedy often represent Everyman or Everywoman: we can easily relate to them as they are buffeted by the winds of fortune. Sometimes, the low-status character is a scapegoat for us all, inspiring a ‘There but for the grace of God go I’ as they make mistakes that are exaggerated versions of our own, and render us wise in comparison. In comedies, the little man or woman has to be seen to win, or at least to bounce back from misfortune; in tragedies, the fate of the ordinary person depends on what sort of tragedy we are talking about.
Collins Dictionary defines tragedy in drama as ‘a play in which the protagonist, usually a man of importance and outstanding personal qualities, falls to disaster through the combination of a personal failing and circumstances with which he cannot deal.’ We can see the arc of this sort of tragedy most clearly in classical works, such as Greek or Shakespearian tragedies, written at a time when there were very big status gaps in society and, crucially, The People still felt respect for
those in high office (unlike today, when most people have a low opinion of most leaders). When a leader who was once noble and heroic loses power, and inevitably, their life, because of his or her hubris or ambition the story can fittingly be called a tragedy (Macbeth, King Lear). It is also a tragedy if a person of high status suffers because of a mistake (Oedipus Rex, Romeo and Juliet). It is not a tragedy if a brilliant, powerful person dies comfortably at a grand old age, loved by all.
Aristotle said that, over the course of a tragedy’s action, the audience feel ‘pity and fear’ and ultimately, ‘catharsis’, a purging of the emotions that leaves them feeling light and refreshed. Keith Johnstone thinks that the pleasure of seeing a tragic fall lies in the ousting of a high-status animal from the pack which means we all move up a step. I suspect that classic tragedies might have a different effect on modern audiences, and that what we take from them is the same as we would get from modern equivalents, such as the true story of a rock star dying young – either the schadenfreude we feel when another human reaches too far and fails, or more charitably, the empathy we would feel for any other human in trouble, class divisions now being so much murkier than of old (we don’t tend to think of high-status people as being ‘better’ than us anymore10*). In classic tragedies, the fate of the lower orders is of very little consequence.
We are more likely to define a tragedy in theatre, television or film today as a story about a broadly sympathetic character or group of characters, of low to middling social status, dying or having their lives circumscribed by the actions of higher status others or through their own human failings."
STATUS IN THE PERFORMER/AUDIENCE RELATIONSHIP
As a performer in an improvised show, you will sometimes be talking to the audience. When you’re being ‘yourself’ rather than a character, your status should always be higher than the audience – you need to embody authority so that the audience feels in safe hands. It’s a wise move to take in the whole audience with your eyes, not lingering long on any one individual but letting your eyes encompass the room – if someone in the audience feels they have been seen fleetingly, just once, they will be far more responsive to you than if your eyes never venture into their corner of the crowd. Open body language and distal gestures will help convey warmth and inclusiveness.
If someone decides to heckle, you can often ignore them once or twice if the venue is large and if what they say is indistinct, but if everyone can hear them, and you can see them, you’re going to have to respond or your status will slip. You must stay higher status than the heckler. High status happy is the best possible state to be – if you get angry, your status plummets (think of those teachers at school who shouted at you, and how little respect you’d give them as a result). You might not be able to think of a hilarious comeback of Oscar Wildean wit and pithiness (though you might, if you’ve been doing enough improv) but if you stay high status and yet cheerful, it’s as good as a suit of armour. "
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HOW TO FIND CHARACTERS
We have already seen how important status is in enabling you to find characters. We’ve also looked at physicality and the value in being experimental with your body. Another way to think about how to create a character is whether to make it from the inside out or the outside in.
Inside out: You dig into your memory and your emotions to find feelings which can give you material for a new character or inform a type of character you’ve decided to be. Once you inhabit a feeling, it can help to give you your physicality, your motivation and your attitude towards other characters.
Outside in: You adopt the physicality of the character you want to be, and the feelings follow. Or you put on a hat, makeup, costume or a mask and the feelings follow. Or you build a character by hot-seating"
"Improvisation often leads to comedy, and in comedy we often play exaggerated characters. There is a tendency for improvisers to become so used to playing caricatures of humanity – doing funny walks, using expansive gestures and gurning – that they forget they also have the option of playing things for real. "
Acting out personal stories to find their theatricality
• Practising playing multiple characters
• Working up monologues
“There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt. It's true that there are only two primary emotions, love and fear. But it's more accurate to say that there is only love or fear, for we cannot feel these two emotions together, at exactly the same time. They're opposites. If we're in fear, we are not in a place of love. When we're in a place of love, we cannot be in a place of fear.”
we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear.”
― Dr Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
“Is war perhaps nothing else but a need to face death, to conquer and master it, to come out of it alive -- a peculiar form of denial of our mortality?”
“Today, in our “shut up, get over it, and move on” mentality, our society misses so much, it’s no wonder we are a generation that longs to tell our stories.”
“We do things hopefully because they add life to our living, but not with the illusion they will help us escape death when our time comes.”
“Dying is something we human beings do continuously, not just at the end of our physical lives on this earth.”
― Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
“When we recognize that, just like the glass, our body is already broken, that indeed we are already dead, then life becomes precious, and we open to it just as it is, in the moment it is occurring. When we understand that all our loved ones are already dead — our children, our mates, our friends — how precious they become. How little fear can interpose; how little doubt can estrange us. When you live your life as though you're already dead, life takes on new meaning. Each moment becomes a whole lifetime, a universe unto itself.
When we realize we are already dead, our priorities change, our heart opens, and our mind begins to clear of the fog of old holdings and pretendings. We watch all life in transit, and what matters becomes instantly apparent: the transmission of love; the letting go of obstacles to understanding; the relinquishment of our grasping, of our hiding from ourselves. Seeing the mercilessness of our self-strangulation, we begin to come gently into the light we share with all beings. If we take each teaching, each loss, each gain, each fear, each joy as it arises and experience it fully, life becomes workable. We are no longer a "victim of life." And then every experience, even the loss of our dearest one, becomes another opportunity for awakening.
If our only spiritual practice were to live as though we were already dead, relating to all we meet, to all we do, as though it were our final moments in the world, what time would there be for old games or falsehoods or posturing? If we lived our life as though we were already dead, as though our children were already dead, how much time would there be for self-protection and the re-creation of ancient mirages? Only love would be appropriate, only the truth.”
― Stephen Levine, Who Dies?
“What we describe as “our life” is not the sum total of what has passed through our hands but what has passed through our minds. Our life isn’t only a collection of people and places, it is a continuum of the ever-changing feelings they engender. It isn’t only what you’ve touched, it’s what you’ve felt of what you touched.”
“According to the philosopher Andre Comte-Sponville: The wise man has nothing left to expect or to hope for. Because he is entirely happy, he needs nothing. Because he needs nothing, he is entirely happy.”
― Matthieu Ricard
“As long as a sense of self-importance rules your being, you will never know lasting peace.”
“In pity, sadness comes first. I am sad that the other is suffering, but I don’t really love him. In compassion, love comes first.”
“Thus, little by little, through training the mind, you can change your habitual way of being.”
“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh
“Ask any number of people to describe a moment of “perfect” happiness. Some will talk about moments of deep peace experienced in a harmonious natural setting, of a forest dappled in sunshine, of a mountain summit looking out across a vast horizon, of the shores of a tranquil lake, of a night walk through snow under a starry sky, and so on. Others will refer to a long-awaited event: an exam they’ve aced, a sporting victory, meeting someone they’ve longed to meet, the birth of a child. Still others will speak of a moment of peaceful intimacy with their family or a loved one, or of having made someone else happy. The common factor to all of these experiences would seem to be the momentary disappearance of inner conflicts. The person feels in harmony with the world and with herself. Someone enjoying such an experience, such as walking through a serene wilderness, has no particular expectations beyond the simple act of walking. She simply is, here and now, free and open. For just a few moments, thoughts of the past are suppressed, the mind is not burdened with plans for the future, and the present moment is liberated from all mental constructs. This moment of respite, from which all sense of emotional urgency has vanished, is experienced as one of profound peace.”
“The search for happiness is not about looking at life through rose-colored glasses or blinding oneself to the pain and imperfections of the world. Nor is happiness a state of exaltation to be perpetuated at all costs; it is the purging of mental toxins, such as hatred and obsession, that literally poison the mind. It is also about learning how to put things in perspective and reduce the gap between appearances and reality. To that end we must acquire a better knowledge of how the mind works and a more accurate insight into the nature of things, for in its deepest sense, suffering is intimately linked to a misapprehension of the nature of reality.”
― Matthieu Ricard
“We define empathy here as the ability to enter into affective resonance with the other’s feelings and to become cognitively aware of his situation. Empathy alerts us in particular to the nature and intensity of the sufferings experienced by the other. One could say that it catalyzes the transformation of altruistic love into compassion.”
“A storm may be raging at the surface, but the depths remain calm. The wise man always remains connected to the depths. On the other hand, he who knows only the surface and is unaware of the depths is lost when he is buffeted by the waves of suffering.”
the Four Noble Truths. The first is the truth of suffering—not only the kind of suffering that is obvious to the eye, but also the kind, as we have seen, that exists in subtler forms. The second is the truth of the causes of suffering—ignorance that engenders craving, malice, pride, and many other thoughts that poison our lives and those of others. Since these mental poisons can be eliminated, an end to suffering—the third truth—is therefore possible. The fourth truth is the path that turns that potential into reality. The path is the process of using all available means to eliminate the fundamental causes of suffering. In brief, we must: Recognize suffering, Eliminate its source, End it By practicing the path.”"
"“What strange hesitancy, fear, or apathy stops us from looking within ourselves, from trying to grasp the true essence of joy and sadness, desire and hatred? Fear of the unknown prevails, and the courage to explore that inner world fails at the frontier of our mind. "
"“If we transform our way of perceiving things, we transform the quality of our lives. It is this kind of transformation that is brought about by the form of mindtraining known as meditation.”
“The happiest man is he who has no trace of malice in his soul. PLATO”
“How do we dispel this basic ignorance? The only way is through honesty and sincere introspection. There are two ways we can undertake this: analysis and contemplation. Analysis consists of a candid and systematic evaluation of every aspect of our own suffering and of the suffering we inflict on others. It involves understanding which thoughts, words, and actions inevitably lead to pain and which contribute to well-being. Of course, such an approach requires that we first come to see that something is not quite right with our way of being and acting. We then need to feel a burning desire to change.”
“change, even a tiny one, in the way we manage our thoughts and perceive and interpret the world can significantly change our existence”
“Anyone who enjoys inner peace is no more broken by failure than he is inflated by success. He is able to fully live his experiences in the context of a vast and profound serenity, since he understands that experiences are ephemeral and that it is useless to cling to them. There will be no “hard fall” when things turn bad and he is confronted with adversity. He does not sink into depression, since his happiness rests on a solid foundation. "
"“To imagine happiness as the achievement of all our wishes and passions is to confuse the legitimate aspiration to inner fulfillment with a utopia that inevitably leads to frustration.”
“At the collective level, pride is expressed in the conviction of being superior to others as a nation or a race, of being the guardian of the true values of civilization, and of the need to impose this dominant “model” on “ignorant” peoples by any means available. This attitude often serves as a pretext for “developing” the resources of underdeveloped countries. The conquistadors and their bishops burned the vast Mayan and Aztec libraries of Mexico, of which barely a dozen volumes survive. Chinese textbooks and media continue to describe Tibetans as backward barbarians and the Dalai Lama as a monster. It was pride, above all, that allowed the Chinese to ignore the hundreds of thousands of volumes of philosophy housed in Tibetan monasteries before they demolished six thousand of those centers of learning.”
― Matthieu Ricard