The Huffington Post story was headlined, “NASA Discovers New Life:  Arsenic Bacteria With DNA Completely Alien From What We Know”

The words “completely alien” are incendiary, because anything alien is really degrees of differences in colors, or shades of grey.  After reading that story that NASA has discovered a new life form that is “unlike any other living lifeform on the planet – from the simplest plant to the most complex mammal”, I felt a great sense of hope.  I am not alone.  I am not just a black sheep after all.  This newly discovered lifeform survives off arsenic, known to be  toxic to all other life forms.  GFAJ-1 (a microbe that is a member of a common group of bacteria, the Gammaproteobacteria).

When I was a kid I loved eating the apple cores my mom threw out whenever she made pie.  Later on I learned that apple seeds and other stone pitted fruits (peach, nectarine and plum) have naturally occurring arsenic.  I still chew on the pit till it splits open and exposes its soft almond-tasting seed.   

This story brings to mind my Halloween costume.  I was Poison Fairy.  The idea of the costume literally was a bulb that turned on a half hour before going to work.  The incentive to dress up was a $100 VISA gift certificate.   The fun of it was to come up with an idea that would cost me nothing more than resourcefulness and imagination.  (The night before I had the idea of going as Woody Allen’s character in the movie Sleeper, but I couldn’t find a pair of “IRS” type glasses at the thrift store.  That costume would be fun to put together for next year.)

That morning I also had to make an emergency trip to the vet to havedog’s floppy ears drained of blood.  She had hematoma.  After a haranguing experience with a cab company I got home in time to shower.  “Hmmm… what to wear? what to wear?” I pondered as I shampooed and scrubbed away.  This meditative moment gave birth to nada.

I flung open my closet door and saw a sea of black clothes:  black t-shirts from rock concerts, black jeans, black or dark blue motorcycle gear.  I push to the back and saw this sparkly green ball gown.  “Oh this…”  I meant to tear it apart and use the material for curtains.  I pulled it out into the light.

Possibilities:  I have a shiny strappy silver high-heels and shimmery sequined purse.  I can go as a princess.  Nah… ho hum boring.  Then out of the blue a flash:  “Poison Fairy!”  I have a bottle of “Poison” (a la Christian Dior) and vase full of Thistle thorn flowers.  I slapped on some thick make up and got dressed. 

The gown was at a yard sale from a young English gal who was leaving LA to go home.  When I told her about my plan for the dress her pretty face fell to a sad expression, “Oh… Maybe you could try to tear it at the seams so it doesn’t ruin the dress, in case you decide to put it back together again.  I meant to wear it to a party as a fun thing, but there was never an occasion.”  I bought the dress for $2 and it hung once (intact in its form) against the window pane.  But after I got some proper sheers it got stuffed at the back of the closet.)  Now I wish I would’ve kept that woman’s email.  (Claire was her name.)  She would’ve been happy to know that the dress did find an occasion to go to.

At the costume judging event, I threatened to poison the judges if I didn’t win with a big squirt of “Poison”.  (We all know that a squirt of any perfume is enough to give almost anyone a headache.)  A stem of thistle served as my scepter.  (I even researched on the net if there is such a thing as Poison Fairy and indeed there was.)  How did my ancient brain come up with this idea?  I marvel at our imaginative capacity if when we allow ourselves to play and daydream.

As Poison Fairy I was 1^st runner up to Benjamin Franklin.  During the final judging I was dismissed by one of the judges.  She said she’s been poked with enough needles and poisoned with enough drugs from her radiation and chemo therapies that my ploy to “kill ‘em all if I didn’t win” did not scare her.

What’s poison to some is medicine for others.  I truly believe this.  Many people in our society is conditioned to believe that the traditional medicine manufactured by pharmaceutical companies that synthesizes the real thing can’t imagine to try something different prescribed by the doctors.  However, it’s sometimes not until someone is at the threshold of death that they might consider an alternative source of cure.   Pharmaceutical giants have acquired massive tracts of the Amazon Basin. There are in-depth considerations for citizens of this planet to find out the motives for this act.  (Too much to get into in this blog, and the seriousness of which takes the lightness away from my intention.  I need to lighten up!!) 

Thank you NASA!  My tax dollars are finally being put to good use for my own purpose.  Thanks for finding my family.  In the Huffington Post article the agency stated that with the discovery of the new life form “will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.”  (i.e. – there is a greater possibility that there is more of my kin out there and on this planet too.)  I’ll be making plans to drop in on family this coming holiday break.  I love arsenic opium-poppy cakes. 

And the moral of the story is… a whole apple a day keeps the imagination at play!

(Here’s a link to the Huffington Post article:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/02/nasa-new-life-arsenic-bacteria_n_791094.html)

December 1^st, 2010 is rent day and I wrote my last rent check for this year.  Seeing the date with the passing of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and beginning the preparations for December festivities and more time off, I reflected upon the events of the past year. 

On my desk is a picture I took of a special tree in Vancouver that I saw everyday for three years.  One day the tree looked different.  Its limbs were decorated with an assortment of clocks and watches.  It reminded me of the Pink Floyd’s song, “Time”:  the shrill of the alarm bell then the chimes and ticking seconds… “Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day…Fritter and wastes the hours in an offhand way.”

This picture is a reminder of how I fritter away the minutes in an hour; how readily I take for granted that the sun comes up and around everyday bringing in a new day, a new week and a new year.  During the reprieve from the routine of working in the office and doing chores to maintain life, I finally acted on a project I’ve been considering for sometime.  I started my “dream board”/”vision board”.

A dream board is a collage of images and phrases/words that represents a visual map of your goals and dreams.  Sunday, I sat on the living room floor, and it was a patchwork of pictures, captions and words I had cut out from magazines and other periodicals.   I started late in the afternoon and thought I’d be finished by the time I got to bed.   That was 3 days ago, and I’ve been up early yesterday and today putting together my dream board.  It’s not as simple a task as I had thought.  Once I got my heart and imagination into it I was immersed in more possibilities than I originally started out with; and also further introspection and clarity on what it is I really want to create.

I don’t have nearly enough pictures to express my dreams, and I’m still collecting catalogues, and I have asked the mailroom guy at the office to recycle the old magazines my way.  As I flip through pages of advertising, articles and cartoons of magazines I’ve developed a keener sense of screening what magazines best reflect who I think I am and where I want to be.  An hour intended for collecting pictures is not enough.  I am building, taking down, re-shaping and molding my dream board.

This morning I woke up at 1 o’clock in the morning, put on some coffee and thought of putting an hour into the dream board.  By the time I’ve exhausted my resources of pictures and my being it was already 5 o’clock and the phone alarm goes off in a half hour.  I set it forward to 7:30.  I rested and felt elated.  My half-sleep state brought up more rich images.  I got up again and got through my day with surprisingly little fatigue and I look forward to going back to building more layers to my dream board.

I love the work.  It engages every fiber of my being down to my core and provokes me to poke the smoking embers of the fire within to a flame.  When the flame is exhausted I know I will be empty like that feeling after a long 8 hour hike – summiting and coming down.  Ah…I did it and how much I saw and learned.   

I created a dream board for a character I was playing in one of my acting classes.  It was shortcut way of getting to know this imaginary character.  The exercise opened up images, in a visceral sense, the dreams, fears, hope, joy sorrows and inspirations of that human being that was a part of me too.  It really stretched and strengthened the “empathetic heart”.

The dream board communicates the words and thoughts of our visions, and it’s an effective tool for planting the seeds of change in our subconscious.  By the way, I put the picture of that tree with the clocks and watches in the middle of my dream board.

In closing I want to quote a visionary…

“Carefully watch your thoughts, for they become your words. Manage and watch your words, for they will become your actions. Consider and judge your actions, for they have become your habits. Acknowledge and watch your habits, for they shall become your values. Understand and embrace your values, for they become your destiny.”

Mahatma Gandhi

Recently I was looking through the guidelines for a play contest. Play running 90 minutes. Check.

Actors must play only one character. Ouch. That hurt. One of my aesthetic pleasures of theatre is watching actors play multiple characters. It’s like watching a trapeze artist go from bar to bar. First, he’s a butler, then he’s a doctor, then he’s an undertaker. Watch him hurl himself from one role to another role and another and another.

Okay, so I wouldn’t be entering this contest.

Then, the final requirement for the play was: The play must exist in reality.

Don’t all plays exist in reality? There’s a reality called a stage. It’s the place where actors come out, do stuff and create. That reality could be centuries before now or centuries after now. It could be another country, or it could just be a reality never seen before. 

Nowadays I feel that with everything being filmed and videotaped and photographed, we are becoming too literal about reality and losing our collective imagination. What is our reality these days? 

Yes, I am not totally naïve. Obviously the theatre company is looking for kitchen sink naturalism.

I recently wrote a kitchen sink play. The kitchen sink spoke. It said some interesting stuff.

And on that note, it’s been a pleasure blogging this week, and I’ll see you all next year.

Jen

Today is Black Friday in States. This is the day where all the good little consumers get out and spend, spend, spend in order to keep the economy afloat one more year.

I thought this playwriting quote would be appropriate for today.

Recently in a room full of playwrights and directors, a wise old playwright stood up and said this:

I don’t like my plays to be called material because I’m not a tailor. I’m a playwright. I write plays. 

This led to a round of applause from the playwrights in the room. A few directors looked baffled. 

Please directors, it’s a play. It’s not material. You’re not making a dress. I made the dress. Now, you get to style it. 

I might be a material girl, but my play is not a material world. 

Gosh I love the old school Madonna references. HeeHee!

On this Thanksgiving day, I want to say a public thank you to my playwriting mentor. 

Yes, I have a playwriting mentor. We’ve known each other for years, and I still go to him for advice. He still gives me books to read. He was reading my work when no one else was. 

I won’t embarrass him by giving out his name. I’ll just call him The Coyote (not Coyote—that’s a Joni Mitchell song—The Coyote). I hope he gets a kick out of being called The Coyote. It reminds me of a 1960s British spy thriller. Beware The Coyote.

Back when I was a young playwright learning to walk, I gave my first play to The Coyote. This was the play that blew it all open for me artistically. I threw everything I had into the play. A week later, The Coyote told me he had read the play several times, but he didn’t have much to say about it.

–You should get it produced, Jen. He said.

–But what about the ending? And the beginning? And the middle? I asked.

I had questions. Lots of questions. I was young. I was supposed to have questions.

–No Jen. GET IT PRODUCED. The Coyote howled.

The play was produced, and The Coyote was right. All my questions were answered in rehearsal.

Fast forward to now. Or this past June. I mentored a young playwright for the Young Playwrights Festival at the Blank Theatre.

I read her beautiful play over and over again. I had no notes for her. We needed to get it into rehearsal. I spoke with the playwright on the phone and asked her where her play came from. She sounded older than her years as she talked about her inspiration. She knew what she was doing. In fact, she could teach me a few things about playwriting.

Still, I felt like I was a bad mentor. I supposed to help her. I was supposed to give her guidance. I was supposed. . .

Then I remembered The Coyote.

Sometimes mentors mentor by not mentoring at all.

And I hope the Coyote gets to eat plenty of turkey today.