Scrambled up in the Mind, I Guess
Tuesday 8 December 2009
People no longer ask where the ideas for what I write come from.They just assume that I am unhinged and that no further explanation is necessary. I don’t know where they come from, either, and I am less than certain about the popular theory.
I have learned that, whatever else, you must always trust your artistic instincts. They may make no sense - they may continue to make no sense for years - but they are never misleading and, in the end, they are all you have.
In the midst of the gigantic flurry of work over the past three months - research, writing market profiles, learning the recording system, learning the latest generation of microphones, shaking the rig down in the outdoors and in bug infested sheds, auditioning web-designers, drafting corporate profiles, activating new accounts and arranging to get this out of the way location hooked up and on-line - in the midst of all this, my instincts told me to return to an old and abandoned work. To write it, record it, and make it a free download as an introduction to the ‘post-modern Dreaming‘ side of my repertoire.
Note this: not an established work, not a piece that had been tested both on stage and in the broadcast studio, not a popular show with a recognisable title, but something brand new and for which I had nothing but a couple of half lines, a quote from Yeats, and another from The Quran. I also had two characters and a location, but no story, no lexical world and no precedent.
There is a technical term for this predicament, but it is improper to write it here.
To add insult to injury, the doctor with the needle (he has featured in earlier entries; he will also feature forever in a nasty place of my imagination) all but crippled me for a month. The drugs I was taking to cope with what was obviously an ill-advised experiment left me in perpetual danger of becoming really unhinged. And the pain (like in the song about the girl) was way beyond compare. But still, I wrote. I wanted a finished text and a demo for my web consultants. To achieve this, I had to have it to them by the Tuesday for a Wednesday meeting.
I finished writing on the Friday before, rehearsed on the Saturday, and recorded during high gales (in a shed) on the Sunday. This is a very stupid way to do things. I needed at least a week’s workshop time with the text - and I am now taking it - and more than just a hurried dash to record and mix.
The piece is called Tooborac (name of a little town in Victoria) and is best imagined as a cross between The Kangaroo Creek Gang, The Wild Colonial Boy and Mad Max - with a touch of Matthew chapter three thrown in. It should be available to download on March 1st next year.
I am available for download now, if anyone will have me. There is no point though; you will want to know where ideas come from, and your ultimate conclusions cannot be the same as mine.
Noël Christian
homestead:Theatre of Words
http://www.facebook.com/pages/homestead-Theatre-of-Words/195922452014?ref=ts
http://www.myspace.com/homesteadtheatre
I have learned that, whatever else, you must always trust your artistic instincts. They may make no sense - they may continue to make no sense for years - but they are never misleading and, in the end, they are all you have.
In the midst of the gigantic flurry of work over the past three months - research, writing market profiles, learning the recording system, learning the latest generation of microphones, shaking the rig down in the outdoors and in bug infested sheds, auditioning web-designers, drafting corporate profiles, activating new accounts and arranging to get this out of the way location hooked up and on-line - in the midst of all this, my instincts told me to return to an old and abandoned work. To write it, record it, and make it a free download as an introduction to the ‘post-modern Dreaming‘ side of my repertoire.
Note this: not an established work, not a piece that had been tested both on stage and in the broadcast studio, not a popular show with a recognisable title, but something brand new and for which I had nothing but a couple of half lines, a quote from Yeats, and another from The Quran. I also had two characters and a location, but no story, no lexical world and no precedent.
There is a technical term for this predicament, but it is improper to write it here.
To add insult to injury, the doctor with the needle (he has featured in earlier entries; he will also feature forever in a nasty place of my imagination) all but crippled me for a month. The drugs I was taking to cope with what was obviously an ill-advised experiment left me in perpetual danger of becoming really unhinged. And the pain (like in the song about the girl) was way beyond compare. But still, I wrote. I wanted a finished text and a demo for my web consultants. To achieve this, I had to have it to them by the Tuesday for a Wednesday meeting.
I finished writing on the Friday before, rehearsed on the Saturday, and recorded during high gales (in a shed) on the Sunday. This is a very stupid way to do things. I needed at least a week’s workshop time with the text - and I am now taking it - and more than just a hurried dash to record and mix.
The piece is called Tooborac (name of a little town in Victoria) and is best imagined as a cross between The Kangaroo Creek Gang, The Wild Colonial Boy and Mad Max - with a touch of Matthew chapter three thrown in. It should be available to download on March 1st next year.
I am available for download now, if anyone will have me. There is no point though; you will want to know where ideas come from, and your ultimate conclusions cannot be the same as mine.
Noël Christian
homestead:Theatre of Words
http://www.facebook.com/pages/homestead-Theatre-of-Words/195922452014?ref=ts
http://www.myspace.com/homesteadtheatre
More by Noel Christian
- A Wallaby, a Dingo and a Wild Pig All Walked On a Stage11 Jan 2010
- Apples Under the Earth5 Jan 2010
- Earning Wages Just to Put Them in a Bagful of Holes29 Dec 2009