The Fool (returns to his chair)

good night, sweet fools

2007-10-17T20:30:00.001-07:00

The Fool HAS returned to the chair. So to speak. Many thanks to all of the brave audience members who risked squirting blood and flying crates to join us. Much love to all the fools. You know who you are.

Bam Bam Bam

2007-10-05T10:20:00.000-07:00

I broke my ankle the other day will participating in improvised african dance.

the picture here shows a new modification i have made to the standard idea of the telephone.

tesla was so much cooler than eddison. who did eddison think he was ?

Pics from Saturday 09.29.07

2007-10-01T06:46:00.000-07:00

Two more weeks to see all this, people. Get on it!

Reflections on being a State Park Fool

2007-09-25T17:26:00.001-07:00

(or, new ways to make friends and influence others)

Since this is the final week for the State Park Fools to perform, I figured I should reflect on the experiences I had, the sights I saw, the reactions I encountered and the like while taking part in The Fool (Returns to his Chair). This has been one of the most creative, random and inspiring things I've ever been involved with, for realsies.

Since this was really my first time doing anything remotely 'acting' in front of people (outside of this one time in college when I dressed in drag and played slide guitar and banjo for a production of Cabaret), I probably went into this being one of the greenest of the potential Fools! I figured I could draw on my performing experience with bands and other ensembles for my 'piece' – which led me to using the orange ukulele to perform some absurd songs a la Tiny Tim, all foolish in some way. I never thought I'd be complimented for singing 'Lovefool' or 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' in falsetto!

My task was a bit difficult though – after wracking my brain for ideas and using Kurt and John as sounding boards, a live goldfish was decided on as the basis for my task…until I had four different goldfish die on me within a week! Other ideas came and went until I simply got a deck of cards and tried my best to build a house out of them (sometimes using massive amounts of Scotch tape and plastic cups as aids), and/or playing various card games with silly rules, either by myself or with curious audience members. Alas, some of my other task ideas proved to be too complicated or large - such as rigging up an old reel to reel to create some delays around the room to disorient people or building an office cubicle in the middle of the State Park and fielding business calls on a toy phone, but maybe some other time, eh!

Now, I should really mention the influence the other State Park performers have had on each other! I think all of us have had a great time seeing what we've all come up with, egging each other on to see what crazy things we'd do on a whim, and even coming together to cause one giant fool spectacle in the middle of a performance on one occasion. (That's what all the stomping and the giant 'ole' was about that one legendary night!) Everyone's different contributions stick out in my mind, like Peter's redundant survey, Dina's cookies and introductions, Justin eating dog food in front of stunned patrons, Diane's coloring book letters, Berianne's karaoke with a fish, Dana chasing a rubber ball with a frying pan and many many more!

Big hugs and thanks to the Fool cast, the Neo-Futurists and everyone else for being so fun, supportive and for offering great advice, such as the tips I received on building a house of cards one night at the Edgewater!

Anyway, I had fun, everyone else had fun (as far as I could tell), the audiences looked visibly entertained, and now that it’s nearly through I’ll have to keep being a Fool somehow! I now have an urge to take a class or two and attempt things like ‘blocking’, lighting design and perhaps even writing! Dangerous.

Foolish Talk Back

2007-09-21T11:20:00.002-07:00

We had our first, out of two, talk-backs last night. I think it went pretty swell. The Audience seemed genuinely interested in how we proceeded to create this chaotic world. The one thing I'd like to do different the next time is try to get more of the audiences opinions of their experience. I don't quite know how to do that without sounding like that bad actor friend that stares you in the eyes after the show pleading silently "what did you think? What did you think?" Since I still want to pursue this type of theater, this type of image driven, emotional work predominantly staged from actual historical texts, I want to know how it worked for people. The cast seemed excited to talk about their process, in discovering a fool or having to discard a fool, and finding that that fool had still somehow seeped in. We talked about risk, and challenging ourselves in performance. We talked much about outcasts, failure, and darkness, and transformation. It helped me. Perhaps the cast talked too much, perhaps I made them talk too much, but it seems fitting for this show about overloads of information and imagery. It seemed fitting to add to that a discussion about the history of The Fool returns to his chair.

Extension

2007-09-19T01:01:00.000-07:00

The Fool is extending. Two weekends. Tell your Friends!!!!!!

Monty Python - International Philosophy

2007-09-17T15:41:00.001-07:00

This is much more important than a Fool's extension

An Angry White Guy in Chicago: REVIEW: The Fool (Returns to His Chair)

2007-09-17T14:48:00.000-07:00

An Angry White Guy in Chicago: REVIEW: The Fool (Returns to His Chair)

The Influence of Fools is imeasurable

2007-09-11T14:05:00.001-07:00

New audience

2007-09-09T08:15:00.000-07:00

Hey, apparently we've been mentioned in tarot.com

The audience demographic opens yet another door. Here come the mystics.

fools at fashion week

2007-09-08T11:25:00.001-07:00

This look was actually sent down the runway at New York Fashion Week just days ago by designer Thom Browne. Those of you who have seen of the show will realize this means that FOOLS is not only on the cutting edge of theatre but apparently fashion as well. Does our cultural moment know no bounds? And should Dean Evans consider a lawsuit?

F.I.A. - Fools in Action

2007-09-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

So you haven't seen The Fool (returns to his chair) and you really have no clue what you might be in for. Or you have seen it, but your friends simply do not believe the fantastical tales you brought back of the Milk Crate Metropolis. Well, be you among the uninitiated or those met with incredulity, I have got the visuals for you. New footage has been smuggled past the borders of Folly, providing new photographic evidence of the be-crated madness that lies within. Incredible as it seems these photos have not been doctored (they also haven't been properly named or tagged, but give it time). Check it.

The Valiant Fool in a Middling Crisis

2007-08-31T12:55:00.001-07:00

Barbara Vitello's thoughtful review

Web's support the neos review:

These are the reviews that have most affected me, caused me to think about my creations instead of protect them proudly or outright laugh at the complete misunderstandings.

And why is this? These reviews are middling, their feelings are lukewarm. Why does it bother me when I contrast that with audience and cast comments about its uniqueness, magic, its experimentation asking or even demanding change in neo futurist outlooks?

So on and on again, Why?

To begin with, these reviews, I respect, they actually are thoughtful, they do search, instead of just criticize. They tried to understand what they saw. They didn’t dismiss it. And I thank them for that. But I scratch my head in bewilderment as to why they walk away with statements like: “A pleasant diversion – entertaining diversion”, “excuse to fool around – that has to suffice”, “not as good as…”

Middling, right? Yes middling. A thoughtful middling review.

Why then is the fool ensemble and the neo futurist company so POSITIVE? I’ve been in middling shows before and they’ve never been this positive, this so convinced that what they are doing is “meaningful” and “important.” Why does Anthony get so upset at these misunderstandings attributed to a popular sensibilities inability to separate theater from film or TV? Why does he believe that his studying of the transformation fool allows him in life and in performance to support and both disappears? Why does the show make Ryan think about his relationship to his father and grandfather, in shape, in attitude, why does this kick him into grasping for the spontaneity in the show? Why am I obsessed with the Holy Fool who tries to guide by confusing and being contrary, who is not discovered till he is dead or until he is gone? Why is Chloe’s Fool for love bloody, wet, violent, yet contained, exotic,hopeful and isolated? Why is this experience so damn meaningful?

So again pops into my head, WHY? Why middling?
Lack of director? Maybe. Fragmentation confusing? Sure.

But Not Middling! My sensibility cannot be dismissive of this “middling”, this being “content” perhaps.

So I try to find the statements where I believe these gaps originate. And here is what I find:

“Once I stopped trying to uncover some profound meaning – I had a better time.”
“loosely connected vignettes”
“lacks narrative coherence”
“pleasant diversion.”
“plotless - evocation of the titular archetype”

Now “middling” makes sense. This is a Neo-Futurist production. If you try to enjoy our shows on purely a spectacle or as entertainment, of course it’s going to be middling. We show the strings. We attempt physical acts we are not good at and haven’t been trained to do. We take risks only when there is risk involved. We don’t show risk if there isn’t any to be had. We do things pedestrian – on the cheap. We glory in our low budgets and the necessary levels of lameness in our props, costumes, and less often lighting.
What raises the aforementioned elements to brilliance is: thought, spontaneity, meta-theatrics (the ability to comment and still be engaged), our abilities as diverse intelligent writers, our real emotion – our character/raw selves.

So is our Neo Futurist Fool’s illusions, or magic, middling? YES. Yes, because they are not illusions.

So by dismissing the above, by dismissing meaning, one is dismissing our Foolish show. Is our meaning too inaccessible? Yes and No.

This is what one audience member had to say, that hadn’t seen any rehearsals or previews prior to the opening night. I’ll admit that he is on our office staff, but he is a rough critic, and was definitely not given any inside information:

It had everything ¬ peril, tenderness, idiocy, menace, a scosh
(sp?) of pop culture-skewering, arresting stage pictures, enigmatic (vs.
unclear or confusing) action, dynamic & surprising relationships, crushing
loneliness, spectacle, humility, large-heartedness, generosity of spirit,
and on and on.

One can say he had to say something good. It’s his job. But his word choices are so damn accurate, they are words I had in my head while constructing images and sounds. Could it be inaccessible if someone has come up with the same abstract descriptions that I had while conceiving the piece? I really don’t think so. It may make the experience more individual, more empirical.

Is it History, is that where we went wrong. Is it history? Yes, but not a history lesson. It is not a documentary of Fools; it is not an encyclopedia Britannica paragraph about Holy Fools or the Bindle. It is history itself, put before you in images, sound, actions, misunderstood and simple words layered with weight and oddly appearing dark yet jovial. This is Foolish History.

It is a history of emotions, contrary images, combinations of these images. It is violent interruption. It is asking one to be on the inside and on the outside simultaneously, and it asks in an assaulting manner, “How does that feel? How does it feel to be a living breathing chaotic contradiction in a world of checks and balances, of interruptions of an irony that is humiliating and desensitizing?”
“How does it feel to be a fool?”

Why is there violence one moment and compassion the next. Why is Kurt suspended in the air suffocating with elegance and beauty while tied to a stick being pulled by Dean who is walking in place, skipping and whistling while pulling the wait? Why is this overlapped with Eliza popping out of a bag in a beautiful princess dress while talking about her relations to pop stars and coffee and tears and the unbearable?

These are they whys that gives it meaning. These are the whys that link these images. These are the whys that creates our own fucked up history in our own Crateville. There are no simple answers. There are no simple defenses. A fool doesn’t have answers that are acceptable to any majority. THAT is up to the society in which we create.

It is possible that we failed as performers to give this to you. But please contemplate the meaningfulness of this failure.

Keep Resilient

2007-08-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

I felt like reiterating this very early quote from the BLOG, as we all maintain our pains and illnesses and coughs and aches; seems appropriate as we start into the long run. Here it is:

"There is in the jester a quality of resilience that means that even when he is beaten it does not seem to injure him. It is a resilience of the spirit that might either complement the physical litheness often associated with the jester or offer a contrast to a deformity. He never seems particularly perturbed by a whip descending on him, never inveighing against the injustice or cruelty of his punishment or begging for mercy: 'Like the comic characters in the film cartoons who may be cut to shreds, smashed flat, riddled with holes, or stretched into a thin line, yet which suddenly spring back into their original form or are miraculously put back together, the clown always seems to survive.'" (pg. 135)

I think Ryan said after the show that this show is about surviving? THE RESEARCH APPLIES!!

awesome

John Pierson is famous

2007-08-27T10:09:00.000-07:00

Which you probably already knew.
Anyway, here's a link to a nice article about him in the Daily Herald last week:

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=22041

Also, come see this show. Really. Even cranky people like it.

The Fool (returns to his blur): A photo attempt of Opening Night

2007-08-26T11:46:00.000-07:00

Congrats to the cast on a stellar opening night performance. For those who missed it, here's what some of the show looked like through a shaky camera on a too slow shutter speed.

Crate Avalanche

A Fool's Date

Taking it in the Courser

Ummmm. A crate inferno?

Anthony fields the congratulatory call from the President

For you Fools photography fans, the plan is to actually set my camera up properly at one of the next few performances and take pics for real. However, looking at photos on the blog is no substitute for the real thing.

tattoos of an anchor on my arm

2007-08-24T21:24:00.000-07:00

I will be there on saturday. to see you.

in the chair i usually sit in.

you know. the one third from the slit in the stairs on the front row on the stage left side. thats my chair. i always sit in that chair. that chair is for me.
especially on saturday. no one sits in that chair like i do.

cant wait to see you folks

The Birth of a Timeline

2007-08-20T06:46:00.000-07:00

A Folly of One

2007-08-19T17:25:00.000-07:00

A Hastily Composed Teaser Behind the Scenes at the Nonlinear Timeline of Foolery

2007-08-19T09:05:00.000-07:00

In the State Park, see...

Creepy paintings of Fools!

Ships of Fools plunging into the void/onto the floor!

The Timeline that Barfed Up Foolish History!

And so much more.

Feast Of Fools

2007-08-16T21:03:00.000-07:00

Im not sure if someone has already posted about this , but here goes:

In context to the medieval secular theatrical events:
" During the Feast of Fools, young clergymen chose a bishop or pope of fools who was allowed to misuse his religious power; they sang and danced indecently, burlesqued sermons and services, and stage plays satirizing the church. The Festival of the Boy Bishop was a similar but more tame event"

Are pants really foolish ?
Italian theatre is sold on it.

pantalone- the foolish pedant who was always involved in his neighbors affairs.

Perhaps you hadnt heard

2007-08-15T17:34:00.000-07:00

that i am flying up to see fools. crossing the mason/dixon. leaving the confederacy.
away from the apple pies and tennessee volunteers. away from community theatre productions of steel magnolias. to chicago.

IM BACK !

but only for a weekend.

to see you folks.

trent

The Cynic

2007-08-14T22:48:00.000-07:00

Diogenes’ talent for undercutting social and religious conventions and subverting political power can tempt readers into viewing his position as merely negative. This would, however, be a mistake. Diogenes is clearly contentious, but he is so for the sake of promoting reason and virtue. In the end, for a human to be in accord with nature is to be rational, for it is in the nature of a human being to act in accord with reason. Diogenes has trouble finding such humans, and expresses his sentiments regarding his difficulty theatrically. Diogenes is reported to have “lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he went about, ‘I am searching for a human being’”

Foolish Timeline

2007-08-14T19:42:00.000-07:00

So, I'm working on the visual display for the State Park, which is to be a timeline of fools and foolishness throughout the ages.

As I said to John and Evan, my general vision for the installation is "Oh, look. A timeline barfed."

In more elegant terms, it will be a 2D single-strand timeline (on the wall) that then explodes into a 3D multi-strand chaos. Viewers will be still able to follow single strands of the timeline if they wish or just take it in as a whole. I suspect it will look like part-timeline, part-spiderweb.

The criscrossing strands of the timeline will eventually coalesce again into a sculptural form I'm referring to as the Tower of Babel (an event/object included in the paper timeline created by Evan, which is being used as inspiration for the visual counterpart). Here is a sketch of it (keep in mind the physical timeline is made out of black nylon rope):

The strands of the tower itself will be covered with posterboard-mounted cards on which there will be quotes, facts, and pictures (each strand in timeline chronological order); also 3D objects with similar text labels that stand in for paper description. For example, instead of having a timeline quote/date label pertaining to a specific court jester, there might be an actual jester's cap hanging on the line with a label. Instead of a person's death date, there might be a skull with the death date penciled on it. Get me?

Okay, here's another (bad) sketch with just cards:

AAAA! CHAOS!

Get me now?

No?

Well, to make it worse, in addition there will be some smaller subinstallations for each 3D thread of the timeline. One in particular that I have nailed down is the Ship of Fools, which will be a timeline-rope sculpted into a wave shape on which will be sailing little boats made out of the actual pictures in the Ship of Fools series:

It will most definitely look better than my careless rendering of the fleet of boats above.

Anyone who can picture this in their head wins a prize. Anyone who wants to pitch in at the build on Saturday (2pm-8pm) or Sunday (10am-5pm) wins a tongue-kiss.

And for good measure here's a picture of the biggest fool of all, who decided that the perfect place to repose was on my sketches:

Dorkus.

2007-08-10T19:09:00.000-07:00

So we are moving into our tech week and I find myself with no time to research or post. Right now I am in the office of the neo futurarium and I thought, "My brain is melting." Which is a quote from Symeon The Fool, I have used in the show. I looked up images on the web and for some reason these people's faces showed up. I don't feel like finding out why, I don't think I want to know why. I just think it's a bit funny right now.....

"Fellows in round jackets are not always fools."

2007-08-10T13:27:00.000-07:00

"Dear 'Floy':

"My dog Fido is dead. He was a splendid Newfoundland, black and shaggy; father gave $10 for him when he was a pup. We all loved him dearly. He was a prime dog, could swim like a fish. The other morning we found him lying motionless on the door-step. Somebody had poisoned poor Fido. I cried all the day, and didn't play marbles for a whole week. He is buried in the garden, and I want you to write a epithalamium about him. My brother John, who is looking over my shoulder, is laughing like everything; he says 'tis an epitaph, not an epithalamium that I want, just as if I don't know what I want? John is just home from college, and he thinks he knows everything. It is my dog, and I'll fix his tombstone just as I like. Fellows in round jackets are not always fools. Send it along quick, please, 'Floy'; the stone-cutter is at work now. What a funny way they cut marble, don't they? (with sand and water.) Johnny Weld and I go there every recess, to see how they get on with the tombstone. Don't stick in any Latin or Greek, now, in your epithalamium. Our John cannot call for a glass of water without lugging in one or the other of them; I'm sick as death of it. I wonder if I shall be such a fool when I go to college. You ought to be glad you are a woman, and don't have to go. Don't forget Fido, now. Remember, he was six years old, black, shaggy, with a white spot on his forehead, and rather a short-ish tail--a prime dog, I tell you.

Billy Sands"

From Ruth Hall, by Fanny Fern, published 1854.

I'll Be Your Bad Magician If You'll Be My Source of Income

2007-08-04T09:49:00.000-07:00

“Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it because you're not really looking. You don't really want to know the secret... You want to be fooled.”

Not to bring Hollywood into the picture, but the quote is from that movie “The Prestige,” featuring Wolverine and Batman and his butler.

I’ve always had the idea of a magic trick in my head while watching and working on this show. In the piece I’m working on, I conceived of it having elements of a magic trick. I wanted to elicit that specific “Ta-DAA!” response from an audience. Of course, I’m not a magician, so any trick I may have tried to pull ended up being a bad magic trick, which has it’s own flavor of wow-dom. Hopefully.

My favorite parts in this movie were when the tricks went horribly wrong. Right when the moment happens, when the birdcage collapses on the dove and the bullet blows off a piece of his hand, when the hat falls flatly and dissatisfying-ly to the ground because the look-a-like magician is slow on his cue, it’s that moment where the magician is so so wonderfully foolish.

Even more so when the trick goes correctly. All the bells and whistles, the coat-tails and hats and gorgeous models, and then a real-life elephant disappears (not in “The Prestige”), simply because a black drop is placed in front of it while the red curtain hides the action for a half-second (you’re watching it on a proscenium stage, you’d forgotten to take into account depth). *SPOILER WARNING: skip these last sentences in the paragraph if you care about seeing the movie.* Wolverine simply kills himself over and over again in order to sufficiently disappear. And you thought David Bowie had made a bonafide teleporter. Tsk tsk.

No, the simplicity of the solution is what makes it so jaw dropping and makes me feel so foolish.

The quote at the top, the one said by Austin Powers’ dad in “The Prestige,” regards the magician's audience. The theatre's audience equivalent is that “suspend your disbelief” stuff, right? I’m thinking about the difference between magic and theatre, what’s hidden and what’s shown. Two different perspective’s of a foolish audience, they sign a contract regarding what they’re going to look at, and what they’re going to ignore. Which one do I prefer to be?

Yeah, rent it. It’s a good movie. Jessica says there are too many guys, though, which I agree with. Maybe Catwoman will be in the sequel. They'll saw her in half.

I ain't no hollaback girl!

2007-07-27T23:48:00.000-07:00

http://mp3.juno.co.uk/MP3/SF237360-01-01-01.mp3

I drew the picture above which has nothing to do with the show.
But follow the link about for song that just might make an appearance in the show.

Is Gossip Foolish?

2007-07-25T22:14:00.000-07:00

Heard About the Pastor Who...? Gossip as an Ethical Activity

by William Willimon

"Despite the possibilities for self-deception in our talk about other people, morality is dependent upon such talk. Many of us find the more refined gossip of the novel a greater help in seeing our lives accurately than the work of academic ethicists. Modern ethics has-sought to rise above the mundane level of everyday discourse in the pursuit of the universal and the objective, the great overarching principles whereby ethical decisions can be made. And what ethicist would want to be labeled as a gossip? Yet there may be some truth to the claim that Ann Landers is about as helpful in teaching me to live well as Stanley Hauerwas. Ethical reflection is dependent upon a range of ordinary and specific examples. I need to see morality lived out in real people’s lives and the results of decision as they are mirrored in the lives of people like me."

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=789

I don't completely disagree with this, but I think what makes "gossip" foolish is that much of the human instinct is hypocritical because it is wrapped tight in a layer of insecurity.

2007-07-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

baddass cupcakes

Great Moments in Fools Timeline History

2007-07-24T17:56:00.000-07:00

June 9, 1435 - The Council of Basel prohibits church-sanctioned Feasts of Fools

These Feasts, which had been previously banned in England, would not disappear entirely. They persisted, largely in France, well into the 1500s as secular carnivals. Aspects of them lasted well into the 1800s in celebrations such as St. Bartholomew's Fair in England. Interestingly, the banishment of fools and foolery from Church holiday festivals coincided with the start of the heyday of the European court jester.

[On not performing spectacles in churches] In some churches, during certain celebrations of the year, there are carried on various scandalous practices. Some people with mitre, crozier and pontifical vestments give blessings after the manner of bishops. Others are robed like kings and dukes; in some regions this is called the feast of fools or innocents, or of children. Some put on masked and theatrical comedies, others organize dances for men and women, attracting people to amusement and buffoonery. Others prepare meals and banquets there. This holy synod detests these abuses. It forbids ordinaries as well as deans and rectors of churches, under pain of being deprived of all ecclesiastical revenues for three months, to allow these and similar frivolities, or even markets and fairs, in churches, which ought to be houses of prayer, or even in cemeteries. They are to punish transgressors by ecclesiastical censures and other remedies of the law. The holy synod decrees that all customs, statutes and privileges which do not accord with these decrees, unless they add greater penalties, are null.

This Fool Won Big Time

2007-07-24T14:01:00.001-07:00

You know who I'm talking about...

Who is here ?

2007-07-24T12:51:00.000-07:00

Trent is here????
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Whats with all the question marks??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Is this foolish ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Have you looked at the Neofuturist myspace???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Do you think you should ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

What have i become ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Fools Road Trip

2007-07-23T05:24:00.000-07:00

How I spent my Saturday:

The Fools Compassion

2007-07-22T16:14:00.000-07:00

Oh God. The Blood!! The Blood!!

Chairs, chairs, and...more chairs!!

2007-07-19T10:51:00.000-07:00

I had to join the accessorizing of our Foolish site. I didn't search too hard for these pictures, but they struck me as I passed by them on Google. The first is supposed to be an advertisement for a chair, and because you can't tell it's a chair, they have photo-shopped in a very shadowy, translucent, ambiguous figure. Because of this figures see-thru nature it doesn't look like the chair is a comfort to him or her, but a restraint, a torture.

The second image is playful, and I want them!

cartoons come to life

2007-07-18T22:45:00.000-07:00

So here's a snap-shot (via phone--I'm sure that's just what Alexander Graham Bell intended) of our hot and HOTTTTT rehearsal tonight. It involved lots of slapping, noisy kissing, a huggy Kurt, and some molestation of crates that can not/should not properly be described with words. This photo shows Eliza learning how to slug Ryan. The mystery man looking on is the talented Matt of Factory Theatre who choreographed this animated (get it?) madness with grace and humor.
Fools run wild.

I see your chairs...

2007-07-18T20:55:00.000-07:00

...and I raise you some chairs!

from Tall Order Physical Theatre, Plymouth, UK.

Check This Out.

2007-07-18T13:49:00.000-07:00

That's a hell of a lot of chairs.

Those foolish Dutch.

2007-07-17T20:24:00.000-07:00

So, I may be thrashed soundly for revealing this information prematurely, but the BoyGirlBoyGirl ... um... boys and girls... decided on a source document for our new show, premiering at the Rhino Fest this October.

It is XV-XVI Century Northern Drawings from the Robert Lehman Collection, 1978, and it is exactly what it sounds like.

But that is not the point of this post.

The point is, we passed around said source document this evening and one of the drawings in it, by Rogier Van Weyden, has the odd and wonderful title "Men Shoveling Chairs."

It is exactly what it sounds like.

Perhaps someone can adopt this as their "random activity" in the State Park during the preshow?

On the Foolish Act of Falling Asleep.

2007-07-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

I do this a lot.

I'm in bed, I'm all cozy and comfy and drifty, and maybe it's because I'm relaxed--I'm not thinking about what I need to do or where I gotta go or any of the various deadline-driven entities that enter my brain at any given moment--so yes, it probably is because I'm relaxed: The ideas start flying. "Oh, that's great!" I think to myself in my cozy, comfy, drifty state between waking and sleeping. "I love that, I gotta do that." Or, more importantly, "Maybe I should write this down."

Last night I wrote a song in my head for Fools Pre-Show and did not write it down.

Do I know what that song is today? Of course not.

I NEVER write these things down. I'm too damn cozy, comfy and drifty to drag myself out of bed for it. Or, more importantly, too lazy.

On that note, though, I have been giving a lot of thought to Hank Williams and the foolishness of love. I think my Ellwood P. Dowd-inspired pleasantness and cookie-dispersing is coupled with a Hank Williams dark and bitter soundtrack. Jimmy Stewart's Ellwood P. and HW are from the same time, only how very different was their outlook on life.

2007-07-10T13:18:00.000-07:00

Chain of Fools - Aretha Franklin

2007-07-09T14:56:00.000-07:00

Chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain

Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools

Five long years I thought you were my man

But I found out I'm just a link in your chain

You got me where you want me

I ain't nothing but your fool

You treated me mean oh you treated me cruel

Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools

Every chain has got a weak link

I might be weak child, but I'll give you strength

You told me to leave you alone

My father said come on home

My doctor said take it easy

Whole bunch of lovin is much too strong I'm added to your chain, chain, chain

Chain, chain, chain, chain,

Chain, chain of fools

One of these mornings the chain is gonna break

But up until then, yeah, I'm gonna take all I can take

Chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain

Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools

academic foolery

2007-07-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

"To return to the chair, one could say that it is not merely a chair when used on the stage. What enables us to grasp it as such though is that even if the chair is distanced from its identity and function--to sit at a certain height from the floor--we will always be able to say about it: "Look, this is no longer a chair; as opposed to 'not a table' or 'not a man.'" The fact that even in negating its identity and function through language and its manipulations, the object in itself does not change, points at an important issue in the philosophy of language, because when we name the chair something else, it apparently seems to become two additional things: the object named and a non-chair."
--Freddie Rokem, "A chair is a Chair is a CHAIR: The Object as Sign in Theatrical Performance"

I think I actually agree with this. If I understand it. Which I probably don't.
What would Freddie Rokem make of the chair above?
It's the kind of thing that could end up in our show, I think.

Bugs Bunny in a Crate

2007-07-09T09:13:00.000-07:00

St. Symeone. AGAIN!!

2007-07-08T21:28:00.001-07:00

I haven't finished this whole article yet, but it is one of the more dynamic descriptions of St Symeon The Fool I have read yet. With descriptions live a maverick, wild and strange breed, and mocking the idiocy of the world it's hard for me not to be entertained and riveted:

http://ship-of-fools.com/Simeon/index.html

Podcast Holy Fool by "Catholic Under The Hood"

2007-07-08T15:45:00.001-07:00

Holy Fool Podcast

lip sunk (rehearsal sneak peek)

2007-07-08T14:19:00.001-07:00

Rehearsal Notes, secrets reaveled

2007-07-04T22:25:00.000-07:00

Here is the "script" of that one, in all its lewd and gritty detail, light cues and everything. Scandalous.
***

Castle of Crates and Fool With Big Bag

-------
“qA and qB” are “Quadrant A and Quadrant B,” in the hilarious words of Anthony (“KNOW YOUR QUADRANT!”)
-------

SHOWING 1:

LIGHTS UP qA
-- tableau – Anthony, hiding in crates, POPS UP, moves to qB. Kurt moves on.
LIGHTS DOWN qA

LIGHTS UP qB
-- tableau – Ryan on floor, buried, Chloe hunched over palm on Ryan’s crate-head, Eliza ready UR, Anthony ready UL

1. Ryan reaches arm up, ARRIVE, and FLOPS arm down on stomach crate, cueing…
2. Chloe begins patting crate-head, and Eliza moving crates…
-- x2 crates to Anthony
-- x1 to Kurt (thrown and dodged by Kurt)
-- x1 to Anthony
3. Eliza crouches to Ryan. Chloe stops movement. Anthony begins move back to qA, carrying three crates.
4. Kurt picks up discarded crate.
5. Anthony steps over empty space.
6. Kurt moves back to BIG SHEET
LIGHTS DOWN qB

LIGHTS UP qA
-- tableau – Anthony is seen putting crates down
LIGHTS DOWN qA

SHOWING 1 END

SHOWING 2:

LIGHTS UP qA
-- tableau – Anthony, hiding in crates, POPS UP, moves to qB. Kurt moves on.
LIGHTS DOWN qA

LIGHTS UP qB
-- tableau – Ryan on floor, buried, Chloe reclining with detached/idle feel (arms crossed?), Eliza ready UR, Anthony ready UL

1. Ryan reaches arms up, arrives, FLOPS down on stomach crate, cueing…
2. Chloe begins “scratching crate chin” (something to parallel the movement you had in the Showing 1), and Eliza moving crates…
-- x2 to Anthony
-- x1 to Kurt
-- x1 to Anthony
-- x1 to Kurt (2nd BANG is Ryan’s cue)
3. Eliza crouches to Ryan. Chloe stops movement.
4. Ryan WAITS a beat.
5. Kurt begins to pick up crates.
5. Ryan reaches again, in same manner as before, ARRIVE
6. Chloe takes Ryan’s hand, and folds into her lap.
7. Anthony begins to move back to qA, carrying three crates.
8. Kurt picks up crates, Anthony steps over empty space.
9. Kurt moves back to BIG SHEET.
LIGHTS DOWN qB

LIGHTS UP qA
-- tableau – Anthony is putting crates down.
LIGHTS DOWN qA

SHOWING 2 END

SHOWING 3:

LIGHTS UP qA
-- tableau – Anthony playing with crate-hair (strange). Kurt moves on.
LIGHTS DOWN qA

LIGHTS UP qB
-- tableau – Ryan, buried in giant wall with head US, feet sticking out, Eliza and Chloe smoking UL of wall.

1. Ryan reaches up, ARRIVE,
2. Kurt takes three crates off his chest, leaving one,
3. Ryan struggles, trying to sit himself up,
4. Chloe and Eliza plainly look over to him,
5. Kurt looks down at crates, over at Ryan, then back to crates and leaves,
6. Anthony replaces crates on Ryan’s chest,
7. Ryan is still.
LIGHTS DOWN qB

LIGHTS UP qA
-- tableau – Kurt looks around briefly, expectantly, and nothing. Moves on.
LIGHTS DOWN qA

SHOWING 3 END

SHOWING 4:

LIGHTS UP qA
-- tableau – Kurt looks around, expectantly, and nothing. Moves on.
LIGHTS DOWN qA

LIGHTS UP qB
-- tableau – all previous crates cleared away, Chloe pining Ryan, Anthony and Eliza US of them, facing each other, action begins immediately upon Kurt’s entrance.

1. Chloe slams Ryan’s crate-head into the ground three times,
2. Anthony spins Eliza’s crate-head in a wicked stage combat slap, and says SLAP loudly over and over,
3. Chloe gets off of Ryan after the three head slams,
4. Ryan sits up, prostrate, cueing…
5. Eliza steps over (Anthony still slapping, loudly), and kicks Ryan in the head,
6. Ryan falls, and folds into himself,
7. Anthony, continues slap movement with no sound.
8. Kurt grabs some crates and leaves.
LIGHTS DOWN qB

LIGHTS UP qA
-- tableau – Kurt races past, back to BIG SHEET.
LIGHTS DOWN qA

SHOWING 4 END

SHOWING 5:

LIGHTS UP qA
-- tableau – Kurt races past.
LIGHTS DOWN qA

LIGHTS UP qB
-- tableau – In a diagonal line, USR to DSL, Anthony, Eliza, Ryan (on floor, of course), and Chloe, facing audience, they all hold crates at ascending height, except Anthony.

1. Anthony, Eliza, and Chloe pivot toward Kurt, Ryan raises crate up,
2. Kurt takes crate from Eliza, then Ryan, then Chloe, creating a stack,
3. Kurt begins to return, but Anthony cuts him off,
4. Anthony gives Kurt the crate that has been resting on his crate-head the entire time.
5. Kurt moves to BIG SHEET.
LIGHTS DOWN qB

LIGHTS UP qA
-- tableau – Kurt races past.
LIGHTS DOWN qA

SHOWING 5 END

FINAL:

1. Kurt prepares giant bag,
2. Others creep into scene (crates off head?)
3. Kurt lifts bag, struggles,
4. Chloe fastens crate on Kurt’s head.
5. Kurt exits with giant insane crate bag.
6. Audience ERUPTS INTO RAVENOUS APPLAUSE.

end

More more foolish lyrics

2007-06-30T13:20:00.000-07:00

I don't mean to step on your clothes Chloe, but here are some more foolish lyrics; lyrics that are almost certainly less known, and considering the time period where most Foolish LoveSongs come from, maybe you wouldn't come across them in your initial studies-- but you probably would, because you're resourceful, you're aware, and you have at least one more library card than I do. If you get mad at me, you can post pictures of grocery store bag-boys doing their thing, and we'll call it even. Anyway --

This is a song by my most favorite rock and roll band, Superchunk, called "Like a Fool," from the album "Foolish." Imagine that. Although it's difficult to make out the words as he (Mac) sings, if you look it up on the InterWWW, this is what he's saying, allegedly--

I dreamt you chased down the car
waving a sign that made no sense
I drifted in and out
I read the sign out loud

like a fool

I held the letter stuck on the end
of a stick over the pool
and you dove in after
trusting me
trusting me

like a fool

Awesome. Oh, and in the spirit of foolishness, I decided to keep my typo at the top, where I apoligize for treading on Chloe's garments.

Toes. I meant "toes."

foolish crate love

2007-06-30T08:32:00.000-07:00

So in the spirit of using the blog as a repository of rehearsal notes, here are some snapshots of a work-in-progress that John and I are creating. I think it will be the second "fool in love" interlude, and the idea is that it's the foolish part of an old relationship. As opposed to showing the "fool-hardiness" of infatuation, it's an exploration of the foolish ways we act in a relationship whose rhythms are established and familiar.
Snapshot 1: Two people sit side by side in chairs, the man has a crate on his head, the woman does not.
Snapshot 2: The woman tried to rest her head on his shoulder. The crate is in the way.
Snapshot 3: The woman tries to get her head inside the man's crate. Fails.
Snapshot 4: The woman has another crate. She steps in it and inches it away from the man. Dances while her feet are stuck in the crate, trying to get his attention, more and more desperately and embarrassingly. The man stops her by pulling the crate--and her--back to him. She sits on the ground, lifts the crate with her feet, and puts it on her head. Struggles in it, as though she's stuck in a tunnel. Finds the light inside and turns it on. Moves towards the back wall, her light casting shadows through the crate. The woman faces the wall and puts her hand against it. The man's hand, in shadow, covers hers.

2007-06-29T20:08:00.001-07:00

And that guy wins the prize. Thanks for playing. (See next post if you don't know what's going on ("what game is this you speak of?")). And by knowing how to spell "Amontillado," I was able to scrap up these cool interweb images. Thanks for that, too.

Poe, and Hop_Frog

2007-06-28T13:14:00.000-07:00

I read this short story by Edgar Allen Poe when I was in third or fifth grade, maybe younger, some age where I could read relatively well. Regardless, it was the first really scary/disturbing story I ever read, and I still have the same images in my mind of the initial reading.

It involves jesters and foolery; specifically, a jester that is in love; more specifically, a jester that's in love and is a DWARF (I'm hitting some treaded territory here).

For brevity, here are the totally amazing concluding paragraphs. For the whole short story, click on the last word in this sentence.

" 'Ah, ha!' said at length the infuriated jester. 'Ah, ha! I begin to see who these people are now!' Here, pretending to scrutinize the king more closely, he held the flambeau to the flaxen coat which enveloped him, and which instantly burst into a sheet of vivid flame. In less than half a minute the whole eight ourang-outangs were blazing fiercely, amid the shrieks of the multitude who gazed at them from below, horror-stricken, and without the power to render them the slightest assistance.

"At length the flames, suddenly increasing in virulence, forced the jester to climb higher up the chain, to be out of their reach; and, as he made this movement, the crowd again sank, for a brief instant, into silence. The dwarf seized his opportunity, and once more spoke:

" 'I now see distinctly' he said, 'what manner of people these maskers are. They are a great king and his seven privy-councillors,–a king who does not scruple to strike a defenceless girl and his seven councillors who abet him in the outrage. As for myself, I am simply Hop-Frog, the jester–and this is my last jest.' "

Another Poe story with a jester, or at least a drunk man dressed as a jester, is the Cask of th...uhhh....can't remember. Something Italian, right? There's your trivia for the day. Look it up.

Socratic Foolishness

2007-06-27T12:23:00.000-07:00

The Greek idea that true wisdom may be hidden under the guise of stupidity was embodied in Socrates. Plato says:

"He spends all his life in teasing mankind, and hiding his true intent... His discourses...are ridiculous when you first hear them, they are enveloped in words and phrases...for his talk is of pack-asses and smiths and cabbies and couriers, and he is always repeating the same thing in the same words, so that any stupid or inexperienced person might feel disposed to laugh at him...But...they are the only words which have a meaning in them."

Old testament Prophets, Madmen and Fools

2007-06-27T12:11:00.001-07:00

"And a certain man of the sons of the prophets said to his neighbour by the word of the Lord, Smite me, I pray. And the man would not strike him. And he said unto him, Because thou hast not hearkened to the voice of the Lord, therefore, behold, as thou departest from me, a lion shall smite thee; and he departed from him, and a lion found him and smote him. And he finds another man, and says, Smite me, I pray thee. And the man smote him, and in smiting wounded him." (3 Kgdms. 21:35-7)

Like the holy fool, the true prophet is hard to distinguish from the false. Like the holy fool, he could be taken for a madman. I have just begun my search for historical figures similar to Holy Fools that are not christian. Many appear in Judaism under different names. My study is only beginning and time is short. If people have leads just let me know.

thanks
John, the Fool, Pierson

more foolish lyrics

2007-06-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

Aren't all these old song lyrics weird without music?:

Why do fools fall in love?
Frankie Lymon

oh wah, oh wah, oh wah, oh wah, oh wah, oh wah

Why do fools fall in love?
why do birds sing so gay?
And lovers await the break of day
Why do they fall in love?

Why does the rain fall from above?
Why do fools fall in love?
Why do they fall in love?

Love is a losing game
Love can ashame
I know of a fool
you see
for that fool is me

Tell me why, Whyyyy, Whyyy
Tell me why

Why do birds sing so gay?
And lovers await the break of day?
Why do they fall in love?

Why does my heart skip a crazy beat?
Before I know it will reach defeat!

Tell me why, Whyyyy, Whyy

Why do fools fall in love?

Another Fool for Love

2007-06-25T17:24:00.000-07:00

From the very beginning of the Fools pool of ideas and interpretation, Laura Wingfield has been on my mind. She is to me the greatest fool for love, and her story is as tragic as the real lobotomized sister of Tennessee Williams.

For a time I got to play her every night, and every night I was introduced to a boy I had never stopped being in love with, and every night he coaxed me out of a shell I thought would never open. Confidence is a funny thing; many foolish people are very confident, because they don't know any better. Maybe that is what makes them powerful: they are not fully aware of the boundaries present. Laura found her feet by absorbing the contagious, boundary-free confidence of the gentleman caller, and for the first time she nodded in agreement when told that she could do anything. And in that dim light where everything looks beautiful and everything sounds beautiful, Jim foolishly loved Laura too.

I once had a friend come to a performance and she admitted to me that even though she knew how the play would end, she kept hoping that this time, it would be different. She sat in the audience when Jim kissed Laura and wanted the play to end right there, and even kept hoping when Jim admitted to Laura that he would not call on her again. That is why I treasure having done that play: it's a sucker punch every time. Everyone is the fool in the end: Laura for loving Jim, Jim for loving Laura, Amanda for hoping Jim would marry Laura, Tom for bringing Jim at all, and above all, the audience; those people like my friend who happily go in and pray that this time, it will be different, only to leave having gotten a sharp one in the gut.

As for me, I cried every night, and I didn't even have to try. It's that sad to me. Rose Williams was Laura Wingfield, and she never got married, but she did have several nervous breakdowns and was eventually institutionalized and subsequently lobotomized. The Glass Menagerie was Tennessee Williams' most personal play, and it only makes me wonder if the shock of being yanked out of the obscurity of foolish love made Rose forever lose any grasp she ever had on reality.

Tennessee and Rose

Foolish play and gestures of jesters for The Wind

2007-06-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

In rehearsal we toyed with roaming the space on a grid and strange interactions. I wanted to make a list of some of the actions that took place that seemed interesting to us, but I failed to do so. Please people list some that you saw. Here are some I remember liking:

1: Dean moving my arm and it affecting my other arm on Chloe's. the more he turned my arm the closer it got to his own face, until I strangled him.

2: Kurt leaving with the chair, and us as a mob chasing the chair turning into a monster.

3: One person saying Goodbye and then slowly being joined by others.

4: Trying to place someone in the chair but their body won't sit properly.

And also I had a great idea in the shower, of turning the While the Wind Breathes scene into more of a random fool. I was thinking of placing our faces onto tarrot cards and having the audience choose a card, and that fool has the card place on their crate and they are the one set into the chair and proceed to do that scene.

Ivan The Terrible and Sacred Violence

2007-06-21T11:56:00.000-07:00

"Ivan (the Terrible) reckoned that, just as pious laymen cannot judge the actions of a holy fool but must simply believe-despite the lack of any rational grounds for such a belief-that there is sanctity concealed behind his madness, so Ivan's subjects ought to submit to his God-given power regardless of the nature of his actions."
-Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond.

This is actually how I would like to approach the onslaught of violence in the section following the Holy Fool with his pants down. That there are repercussions and yet many submit fully to the abuse they will receive. Which can parallel The Romantic Fool willing to take abuse because of infatuation or other insecurities.

2007-06-21T11:25:00.000-07:00

Lastly he made a bindle in a plastic tarp of some cans of juice and cans of fruit and of vegetables and tied it with a chord and then he stripped out of his clothes and piled them among the goods he'd collected and went up onto the deck naked and slid down to the railing with the tarp and swung over the side and dropped into the gray and freezing sea.

-- The Road, Cormac McCarthy

A Fool For Love.

2007-06-13T22:24:00.000-07:00

It's not a huge leap, I know, but the first image that comes to mind when I think of a fool is one of a person dumbstruck by love.

The kind of love that makes fools out of us is the not "till death do us part" love; not the "I'd like you to meet my parents" kind of love. The kind of love that makes a person a fool belongs to the infatuation family. Perfectly intelligent, sane people turn foolish in the presence of desire. This kind of love burns brightly for a while, but rarely generates a long-standing committment. This love is more "grab," less "caress," more "booty call," less "joint checking account."

If you're looking for a fool, look for a person with a crush.

When we have crushes, we ignore reality. The object of our affection becomes perfect; they surely possess none of the heinous character defects our last lover possessed. They smell sweet, they make no mistakes, they always look devastating. As long as we desire them, they can do no wrong.

And that's foolish.

The person you desire is riddled with as many flaws as you are; it's probably one of the main reasons you're attracted to them in the first place. No one looks perfect all the time, no one smells good all the time, no one lives a faultless life. But when we desire, we (foolishly) forget.

It feels good.

We do it, again and again. Because even though it's brutal and ephemeral, there's something delicious about being a fool for that brand of love. There's something wonderful about writing bad poetry for a girl or dressing up for a chance encounter with the man you've been thinking about all week. It's foolish to live in a fantasy world when there are so many real-world moments that require your attention. When we're in the grip, though, nothing can be done for us.

I have walked miles for foolish love. I have betrayed myself for it. I have given in to it and lamented later, but would never trade a moment of the foolish behavior.

My name is Mary; I am a fool for love.

Foolish Master's degree projects

2007-06-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

While I was researching my paper, I read "In Comes I: Performance, Memory and Landscape" by Mike Pearson. The title comes from an old British folk play:

{Arrive at a house, the Fool knocks at the Door}

Fool:

In comes I the Fool,
I can't come in at the window, so I have to come in at the door.
I have several more lads outside,
Some can dance and some can sing,
By your consent they shall come in.

So there.

Of Too Much Care

2007-06-13T10:07:00.000-07:00

Here's the text accompanying the "Of Too Much Care" woodcut I posted earlier:

A fool is he who fain would bear
What's heavier than mortal share,
And who alone would do what three
Could not do with impunity,
Who takes the world upon his back
Will soon succumb beneath his pack.
They say 'twas Alexander's whim:
The world was far too small for him,
He sweated in it, I assume,
Because he had too little room,
Yet finally this monarch grand
Got only seven feet of land.
For death alone can show a man
How much of earth he needs may span;
A greater, mightier man than that,
Diogenes, had but a vat,
And nothing else he e'er possessed,
By no desire was he oppressed,
Had but the king not kept the sun
From lighting up his humble tun.
Who has ambitions bold and high
Must take a chance to do or die.
What profits it to win the earth
And yet to suffer want and dearth?
Why let the body ride on high,
While into hell the soul must fly?
Who'd furnish shoes, for geese's feet
And sweep all alleys, every street,
And level mountain off and vale,
He'll have no peace in any dale.
Nor care nor worries aught avail,
They make men haggard, lean, and pale
And those are fools who fret and falter
Because of things they cannot alter.

The Search for the Milk Crate Missing Link

2007-06-13T07:47:00.001-07:00

Here's one going back to 1916.

The Fool, The Code, the Journey, The Beauty.

2007-06-12T23:45:00.001-07:00

Why does the Journey of the Fool interest me? I just happened to be watching Secrets Of The Code. I try to rent all the specials about that book The Davinci Code, even though I cared very little for that book and even less for the movie. Why? Was it the lost feminine, the debunking of dogma, am I trying to find a place for Jesus in my life? Perhaps. But overriding any of these is the interest in the Holy Grail. I have had this interest since I was a small child. Is it because of the Knights, fighting, traveling on horses, journeying for a cause, although living alienated and only occasionally appearing at Arthur's table to disappear in the circle? Maybe, although I don't care much for fighting, or horses, or swords, or armor... I like damsels, but that passion finds it way into literature from other sources. Then it must be what the grail symbolizes. Whatever the the Grail actually was didn't matter to me as a child. What fascinated me was the tales about quests that lead back to where they had started, quests that revealed that the search for the item, or the answer, or the emotion could only be found if it was not the goal of the quest but a by-product of a more humane or self revealing search. A search that never ends because there is no ending. In the documentary a man said "we all dream of taking a journey in which we arrive, no one wants to take a journey in which they never arrive." My whole self, as Fool, does. My Fool is on a Journey in which there is no arrival sought. The Fool is searching for meaning but understanding that there is no place at the end that reveals the answer. It is the process not the product that reveals beauty. It is the chaos which manifests the calm.
This is my Fool who seeks a capricious, subtle, confusing creativity as his journey. A Fool who is sometimes blind, sometimes self centered, sometimes lonely and kind who is human and at times is just as guilty of calling other's who see things contrary, Fools.

More on Milk Crates

2007-06-12T14:23:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to KK's Mike for the Google Patent Search Engine. It's. Awesome. The 1950 Patent for a milk crate can be found here.

Two Versions of Basil Fool-for-Christ's Novgorod Miracle

2007-06-12T08:23:00.001-07:00

Version 1

"[Vassily] was a welcome gust wherever he went, be it a pauper’s hut or a royal palace. One day Vassily found himself at a feast in the Kremlin. Czar Ivan sent him a bowl of wine. Vassily took the bowl and emptied the contents onto the floor. The Czar sent out a second bowl, which was likewise emptied onto the ground, then another one… Seeing the third bowl being poured out, like the previous two, Ivan was infuriated… Vassily explained that the spilled wine was indeed the much-awaited rain that had put out a great fire devouring the city of Novgorod. To make sure, Czar Ivan dispatched a messenger to Novgorod. A few days later the messenger returned confirming that Novgorod Veliky (Novgorod the Great) had indeed caught fire the residents just could not put out no matter how hard they tried. Then, just as Ivan and his boyars were feasting in Moscow, there came a mighty downpour that quickly put out the raging flames… That’s how another of Vassily’s prophecies came true."

Version 2

"Tsar Ivan the Terrible loved and revered Vassily the Blessed. On one occasion, invited to a dinner to the Tsar's palace Vassily the Blessed thrice poured his wine out of the window saying that there was a fire in Novgorod - a city miles away from Moscow in the North of Russia. The story has it that later everybody learned that in reality there was a fire in Novgorod, however, it was stopped promptly. Many people said they had seen a strange man in ragged clothes, almost naked, who was the first to spot houses that caught fire and poured water on them. People from Novgorod who later came to Moscow identified that naked man as Vassily the Blessed."

The Origin of the Milk Crate

2007-06-11T14:20:00.000-07:00

I am really interested in the origin of the milk crate. How did it come to be? How and when was it created? Who was the guy (or woman) who said, "It's really important that I get several of these milk jugs, eggs, etc. from Point A to Point B in a small amount of time. How can I make that happen? I know, I'll build a crate!" and through my conversation with JP: the evolution of milk crate to soapbox from which to stand and declare ideas, anarchy, visions of God. I really really want to know, so I started searching and have yet to find any real answers. If you know of any, post 'em. In my searches, however, I did manage to find the guy who created the Collapsa Crate. A plastic milk crate that collapses into itself for easy storage. It's good for grocery stores because it saves money on "lost" milk crates. The learn more about the Collapsa Crate and its inventor, go here.

Addendum: Okay, I thought it would be really awesome to post a picture of the Collapsa Crate, so I did a Google Image search. The image in this post is what came up. Only dozens and dozens of times, all different pages from the same book, all in Latin, and from this website. Weeeiiirrd.

2007-06-10T08:19:00.001-07:00

From a search on the things fools carried. This one wouldn't quite fit inside a bindle.

Of Too Much Care - Woodcut from the 1497 version of Ship of Fools

2007-06-01T13:52:00.000-07:00

...And how are you, Mr. Wilson?

Elwood P. Dowd: "Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this world, Elwood, you must be" - she always called me Elwood - "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me. "

One of my favorite movies (and the classic Pulitzer Prize winning play) "Harvey" is a lovely study in foolishness. Elwood P. Dowd's best friend is a six foot tall rabbit named Harvey (a Pooka) whom only Elwood can see. From the perspective of his family, Elwood is a fool--a crazy, sweet, lovable fool. But who is the real fool? Is it Elwood, because he talks to an entity no one can see? Because he chooses it is best to live simply for simple pleasures rather than muck it up in reality? Or is it his loved ones, who refuse to believe in a mythical giant white rabbit?

Wilson: [reading from an encyclopedia] "P O O K A - Pooka - from old Celtic mythology - a fairy spirit in animal form - always very large. The pooka appears here and there - now and then - to this one and that one - a benign but mischievous creature - very fond of rumpots, crackpots, and how are you, Mr. Wilson?" "How are you, Mr. Wilson?" Who in the encyclopedia wants to know? "

Find out more about the Pooka here.

2007-06-01T13:31:00.001-07:00

The Holy Fool is a person who pretends that he is mad in order to save his own soul and the souls of others. They become spiritual symbols--strange and almost disgusting in appearance, but tragic and attractive from a spiritual point of view. The holy fools' disgraceful behavior carried the message of judgment. Those who understood the message started to cry; those who did not laughed at the fools and threw stones at them. - Byzantium and Beyond

Democritus (c. 460 - c. 370 B.C.) and Heraclitus (c. 540 - c. 475 B.C.) are known as the 'laughing and crying philosophers.'

Democritus, a Greek philosopher, born at Abdera in Thrace, was known as the laughing philosopher because he found amusement in the folly of mankind. (The citizens of Abdera were proverbially stupid.) His philosophic system was contrasted with that of the earlier Heraclitus of Ephesus, who was known as the 'Dark' or 'Obscure' and was reputed to be melancholic. They were linked as a contrasting pair by Seneca, by Juvenal and others. Florentine humanists, to whom such classical texts were well-known used the pair to support the view that a cheerful demeanour was proper to a philosopher.

2007-06-01T12:50:00.000-07:00

"Love and Folly" - Jean de la Fontaine (1625-1691)

Everything to do with love is mystery. Cupid's arrows, his quiver, his torch, his boyhood: it is more than a day's work to exhaust this science. I make no pretence here of explaining everything. My object is merely to relate to you, in my own way, how the blind little god was deprived of his sight, and what consequences followed this evil which perchance was a blessing after all. On the latter point I will decide nothing, but will leave it to lovers to judge upon.

One day as Folly and Love were playing together, before the boy had lost his vision, a dispute arose. To settle this matter Love wished to lay his cause before a council of the gods; but Folly, losing her patience, dealt him a furious blow upon the brow. From that moment and for ever the light of heaven was gone from his eyes.

Venus demanded redress and revenge, the mother and the wife in her asserting themselves in a way which I leave you to imagine. She deafened the gods with her cries, appealing to Jupiter, Nemesis, the judges from Hades, in fact all who would be importuned. She represented the seriousness of the case, pointing out that her son could now not make a step without a stick. No punishment, she urged, was heavy enough for so dire a crime, and she demanded that the damage should be repaired.

When the gods had each well considered the public interest on the one hand and the complainant's demands upon the other, the supreme court gave as its verdict that Folly was condemned for ever more to serve as a guide for the footsteps of Love.

2007-06-01T12:26:00.000-07:00

Bakhtin on "The Feast of the Ass"

"The feast of fools is one of the most colorful and genuine expressions of medieval festive laughter near the precincts of the church. Another of its expressions is "the feast of the ass" commemorating Mary's flight to Egypt with the infant Jesus. The center of this feast is neither Mary nor Jesus, although a young girl with an infant takes part in it. The central protagonist is the ass and its braying. Special "asinine masses" were celebrated....Each part of the mass was accompanied by the comic braying, "hinham!" At the end of the service, instead of the usual blessing, the priest repeated the braying three times, and the final Amen was replaced by the same cry."

- Rabelais and His World, p. 78

2007-05-31T16:50:00.000-07:00

"There's a gale from the southwest today. The air in the square is swirling about. The tip of the Town Hall is teetering in small circles. All this agitation should be controlled. Every window pane is rattling and the lamp posts are bending like bamboos. The very robe of the Virgin Mary on her column is fluttering and the stormy wind is snatching at it. Is no one aware of this? The ladies and gentlemen who should be walking on the paving stones are driving along. When the wind slackens, they come to a stop, exchange a few words and bow to each other, but when the wind blows again they can't help themselves, all their feet leave the ground at the same moment. They have to hold on to their hats, of course, but their eyes twinkle merrily as if there were only a gentle breeze. No one's afraid but me.' "

-- Conversation With the Supplicant by Franz Kafka

2007-05-28T12:34:00.001-07:00

"I have often heard it said in a vulgar proverb, the wise man may be instructed by a fool. Seeing the answers and responses of sage and judicious men have in no manner of way satisfied you, take advice of some fool, and possibly by doing so you may come to get that counsel which will be agreeable to your own heart's desire and contentment. You know how by the advice and counsel and prediction of fools, many kings, princes, states, and commonwealths have been preserved, several battles gained, and divers doubts of the most perplexed intricacy resolved.

2007-05-27T15:50:00.000-07:00

"The gait of the vidusaka [a stock fool character in Sanskrit drama] has three comical properties...his corporeal defects (and movements), his talk and because of his costume and make-up. He has protruding teeth, is bald-headed, hunchbacked and lame and has a distorted face. When he makes his entrance in such a way, the laughter is due to his 'limbs.' When, however, he walks like a bird, looking up and down, he is also, owing to his excessively wide strides, laughable due to his limbs. Laughter due to words is the effect of incoherent talk." -- The Natyasastra, quoted in Fools Are Everywhere

2007-05-27T11:22:00.000-07:00

"Wherever he may be, the Holy Fool exposes the artifices of the worldly structures which serve as guarantors of the divine order"
- Holy Fools and Beyond

"Embracing a form of non-illusory theater in order to present our lives and ideas as directly as possible. All our plays are set on the stage in front of the audience. All our characters are ourselves. All our stories really happened. All our tasks are actual challenges. We do not aim to "suspend the audience's disbelief," but to create a world where the stage is a continuation of daily life."
- Neo Futurist Statement of Purpose

2007-05-24T08:49:00.000-07:00

"And he gave me such a box on the eare, that stroke me cleane through three chambers, downe foure paire of staires, fell ore five barrels, into the bottome of the seller, and if I had not well lickard my selfe there, I had never liv'd after it."

2007-05-10T09:07:00.000-07:00

Hey fools -

I am trying to do systematic searches to collect images of fools and fool-related antics and episodes. If you've come across anything fantastically foolish could you either post a link in the comments or otherwise get the image to me for the growing fool archive.

- evan

2007-05-08T16:07:00.000-07:00

The Fools need crates and old functioning tape recorders. If you have access to either of these please let us know. johnp@neofuturists.org.

Also the ensemble in rehearsals is playing with foolish social scenerios in order to generate ideas for the show. A few days ago I was carrying a crate on the CTA Bus. I sat in the back where all the new buses have people sitting pretty close together facing each other, which should be good for generating conversation, but in Chicago only makes all parties feel self-conscious and invaded. While I was sitting back there a man began laughing under his breath. Over the next 5 minutes it grew intense, heavy guffaws. He was looking at a xeroxed copy of a book, so perhaps he just found a passage that was extremely funny. But he continued laughing off and on, mostly on, for the entire ride (35 minutes) taking in loud choke-like breathes and laughing, snickering, and of course guffawing. It seemed obvious that he had some kind of social anxiety and this was his way of dealing with it, but the affect it had on the passengers and me,holding a crate in my hand, was almost more fascinating than his social defense. I felt like we were all cogs in a communal foolish producing machine. We ignored him, we looked up occasionally and snickered with him, and to ourselves, we exchanged glances that somehow soothed our own anxieties for moments. Are started thinking irrational thoughts. "Maybe he's laughing at me." "Maybe he knows something I don't, prophetic humor, maybe we are all laughable, ridiculous humans packed in this moving machine." Also, like the work of the Holy Fools, something in his actions made me feel responsible for his anxiety, and yet I had a stronger need to try to ignore him. It seemed a perfect scenereo for our study about "who is the Fool".

So now I open up the conversation for anyone; ensemble, friends and strangers to please share similar scenereos with us, so that we have more variety to play with while in rehearsals. Short or long but any personal experience where who was foolish seemed to be in question.

Thanks

The Management.

2007-05-08T08:22:00.000-07:00

This is the book
Monkey: A Journey to the West
The Classic Chinese Tale of Pilgrimage and Adventure
retold by David Kherdian

2007-05-02T13:45:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos to inspire foolery:

2007-04-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

This was sent to us fools from a fellow fool in Yugoslavia, perhaps some day we will visit her or she will visit us.

Fool:

Here's a bit about jesters from a chapter called "Stateless societies and the maintenance of order" by Max Gluckman (he was actually buddies with Victor Turner):

"It is probably in some such light that we should analyse the manner in which the court jester operated as a privileged arbiter of morals, given licence to gibe at king and courtiers, or lord of the manor. Jesters were usually men of low class - sometimes on the continent of Europe they were priests - who clearly moved out of their usual estate. Normally they were entitled to mock at anyone in the midst of their tales and jokes, and even in some countries play practical jokes on their betters, perhaps by spilling food on them. Seemingly those who were gibed at or maybe rebuked for faults could not protest. In Shakespeare's King Lear and other of his plays the jesters mix with their fooling acute commentaries on the foolishness and foibles of their employers, and even on their evil-doings; reminders of mortality and religious duty were set in a stream of witticisms. These dramatic representations do seem to reflect the actual situation of many of these court-jesters. If we look on the relation of jester and employer as a kind of joking relationship, it is possible to suggest that here there was a standardized pattern of fooling and smart repartee, aimed at amusing the employer, and at which he could not take offence. After all, was not it for this purpose that he employed the jester? Then if the jester mingled into these baseless gibes pointed rebukes, still cast in obscuring witty form, to draw attention to tyrannies and oppressions, any protest from the employer would show that he recognized the point of the attack, and in a sense would be admitting his fault. For it was the job of the jester to gibe. In a system where it was difficult for others to rebuke the head of a political unit, we might have here an institutionalized joker, operating at the highest point of the unit - a joker able to express feelings of outraged morality. Biographies of jesters of monarchs show that they often in this way obtained great influence..."

I hope you find this useful. I thought that the idea of court jesters (or fools) gaining influence was intriguing. It's like, in a way, being a fool and being recognized as one gives you freedom, or better - freedomS that are out of the reach of other, "normal" , ordinary people. And maybe there's some kind of link between that special kind of freedom (or freedoms) and the fact that most mythological tricksters (or jokers or fools) are also shapeshifters, free even from the boundaries of a single physical form...
Cheers!
S.

2007-04-16T11:08:00.000-07:00

"And now you shall hear from me an extemportaneous speech, unlabored, but so much the truer for all that. I should not want you to think it is made to show off my wit, as is done by the common run or orators. They, as you know so well, when they bring out a speech they have been working on for thirty whole years, and sometimes not their own at all, will swear it was written in three days, for pastime, or even that they merely dictated it. For my part, it has always been most satisfactory to speak 'whatever pops into my head.' "

-- from The Praise of Folly

2007-04-03T15:41:00.000-07:00

So I am interested in a VERY IMPORTANT fool in history. The fool for love. To that end, I offer this, the lyrics to Ike and Tina Turner's hit, "Fool in Love." Creepy even without the backstory. The idea of being a 'fool for love' sanitizes a painful and familiar state. Though hopefully, most of us will avoid the physical scars.
Fool in Love, Tina Turner

There’s something on my mind
Wont somebody please, please tell me what’s wrong

You’re just a fool, you know you’re in love
You’ve got to face it to live in this world
You take the good along with the bad
Sometimes you’re happy and sometimes you’re sad
You know you love him, you can’t understand
Why he treats you like he do when he’s such a good man

He’s got me smiling when I should be ashamed
Got me laughing when my heart is in pain
Oh no, I must be a fool
Cause I do anything you ask me to

Without my man I don’t wanna live
You think I’m lying but I’m telling you like it is
He’s got my nose open and that’s no lie
And I, I’m gonna keep him satisfied

A wave of action speaks louder than words
The truest thing that I ever heard
I trust my man and all that he do
And I, and I do anything you ask me to

Two free tickets and a kiss from Ryan Walters to the first person who can tell me what "He's got my nose open and that's no lie" means. Ryan, you don't mind, do you?

2007-04-02T14:41:00.000-07:00

Just Add Water: Make Your Own FOOL!

"The popularity of dwarfs was so great that in Europe and South America the pratice of artificially stunting children arose to keep up with the demand [of using dwarfs and hunchbacks as court jesters].... According to a miscellany of 1670, dwarfs could be created by anointing babies' spines with the grease of bats, moles, and dormice, while more palatable prescriptions used drugs such as the aptly named dwarf elder, knotgrass, and daisy juice and roots mixed with milk to stunt growth. Children were kidnapped or bought to be turned into artificial dwarfs, and it was in Italy and Spain that the pratice was most common, its perpetrators in Spain being called comprachicos, or 'child-buyers.' The practice was clearly known in England, as Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream testifies: 'Get you gone, you dwarf; / You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made; / You bead, you acorn!' "

Creepy.

This passage reminded me of Ryan's image of the Ship of Fools ganging up on an unsuspecting individual and making them deformed (is that how you described it?)

Yeah. Creepy.

2007-04-01T21:22:00.000-07:00

The Third Member Of The Triad

"After some time musing on the concept of Goddess/God that is common in Wiccan (and most Neo-Pagan groups) and seeing the common theme of "things come in threes" in these belief systems, I fell to wondering "Why only the God and Goddess? If all things come in threes, where is the Third Aspect that should be there?"
So what is this Third Aspect? I feel it is the Holy Fool; the Prometheus who is the Trickster, the God (neuter) that rolls the dice."

"As most things, the Fool is Personified in three basic Aspects that (of course) overlap with each other and with the God and Goddess. The first is that of the Saviour God, the Prometheus, the Culture Hero, who brings Knowledge (and -occasionally- Wisdom) to Mankind. This Aspect loves Mankind with all His Being, and only wishes Good. His Good Intentions sometimes fall short of His (or Mankind's) expectations, however."

"The second is that of the Clown, the Nerd, the Jerk, that teaches by his own mistakes (and who usually comes out ahead because of His own Innocence.) This Aspect is mostly neutral, and is how He seems to mostly manifest Himself.
But let us not forget the third, and darker, side of the Fool, best exemplified by Jack Nicholson's portrayal of The Joker in the film version of "Batman." Just as the Goddess has Her Dark side (the Crone, the Morrigan, &c) and the God has His (Odin as Death-God) so does the Fool have a terrifying Aspect (at least, from the human point of view): Chaos Personified."

"This is not an Aspect to invoke, as It does not care. Period. It is the ultimate psychopath, the ultimate Spoiled Brat, the quintessence of Ego-centric self-love. In some circles, it could be quite nicely named Ahriman, or Shaitan, or Satan, because it fits all concepts of that Middle-Eastern deity except one: It does not care if Man worships It or not. It is not in -conflict- with the God and/or Goddess, It is -not- on the kind of power-trip that the Judeo-Christian Satan is represented as having, it just -is-. It should be considered as neither "good" nor "evil," though it can personify both or either or neither! This is confusing, but with a little thought the concept will (hopefully) come clear."

-From: the Bardat Samhain, 1990 CE

full article at:
http://www.paganlibrary.com/reference/holy_fool.php

2007-03-31T17:09:00.000-07:00

"The cultural construction of folly, of course, is dependent upon a society's ideas about what constitutes earnestness, seriousness, responsibility, and dignity. To reverse these traits is to create folly - the work of the fool....Wherever humans have wandered, the fool, a perennial transcultural type, is found performing, an entertaining oddity to her audience. The fool's appearance sets up a social tension of ambivalence; the boundaries of propriety blur, fantasy and reality oscillate, and one's cognitive control over the environment recedes. As Welsford notes, 'The Fool by his mere presence dissolves events, evades issues, and throws doubt on the finality of fact.'"

- from William Mitchell, Clowning as Critical Practice:
Performance Humor in the South Pacific (p. 15)

2007-03-24T14:01:00.000-07:00

What's in a Title?

Kurt's post on Chinese jester names and Luke's subsequent observation concerning negative connotations got me thinking a bit about the titles given to fools cross-culturally. In the West it certainly seems that The Fool and his related characters (there does also seem to be a gender bias in the archetype, doesn't there?) are labeled negatively. Fools, idiots, tricksters, clowns, etc. don't seem to have many positive linguistic associations, even if the role they play is itself valued. The jester, for instance, served an important function of being able to criticize the powers that be, while enjoying the relative protections of those same powers. Nevertheless, are jesters given names of esteem? Ummm. Not really.

In Russia, there is the Holy Fool or yurodivy. Surely some saw these people insane or vagrants. From the point of view of language, however, thirty-six yurodivy were elevated to Saints in the Russian Orthodox Church and many were referred to as Blazhenny or "blessed."

Upon poking around the wondrous Interweb a little more, I stumbled upon Nasreddin, a fool/trickster figure in Middle Eastern literature. Like Saint Basil in Russia, Nasreddin was an actual historical figure. He lived in the 13th century in Eastern Persia (maybe - Wikipedia states that he is claimed as a native son by Afghans, Persians, Turks, Uzbeks, and Arabs) and is regarded as "populist philosopher."

Nasreddin's fool-ness is evident visually (he is often pictured riding backwards on a donkey) and in the folklore texts themselves. In a series of short stories he is a central figure who's internally logical, but distinctively idiosyncratic way of looking at the world humorously points out the foibles of everyday life. By way of a super-brief example, "Two Sides of a River":

Nasreddin sat on a river bank when someone shouted to him from the opposite side:
- "Hey! how do I get across?"
- "You are across!" Nasreddin shouted back. The man on the other side sat puzzled.

For some reason, this kind of misunderstanding due to perspective reminds me of Edith Bunker. That's neither here nor there. The point is that, from the Western point of view, this person might be labeled an idiot. Yet, in Middle East, Nasreddin is often given honorifics reserved for sages and rulers. Titles such as effendi and mullah are bestowed upon him. His name even means "Victory of the Faith."

How this contrast could be translated visually into the show is unclear to me at the moment, but certainly the fact that one culture's fool is an idiot, while another's fool is a philosopher is a telling gauge of how societies make sense of people who embody violations of accepted and ingrained logic and mores.

2007-03-21T14:37:00.000-07:00

Chinese to English

A List of ancient Chinese jesters (or youren, paiyou, lingren), and their cool-sounding English translation names, often sounding like second rate superheroes...

Fitting New Bridle (An Peixin)
Truly Assisting Uprightness (Cheng Fuduan)
Balding Chunyu (Chunyu Kun)
Ever Upright (Heng Zhi)
In Full Streamer (Huang Fanchuo)
Scorching Virtue (Jiao De)
Newly Polished Mirror (Jing Xinmo)
Gradually Stretching Taller (Shen Jiangao)
Moving Bucket (Shi Dongtong)
Wild Pig (Shi Yezhu)
Many Grandsons (Sunzi Duo)
Openly Flawless Jade (Wang Gongjin)
Jester Don't (You Mo)
Jester Twisty Pole (You Zhan)
Going Round In Circles (Zhou Za)
Upright Fellow Wish (Zhu Hunzhen)

I wonder what it must have been like to have a dude named "Wild Pig" yammering in your ear all day about what you've been doing wrong.

2007-03-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

Fool's Tools redux

As I mentioned in a comment, I was trying to save that last post as a draft so it is woefully incomplete.

I left off thinking of the tramp as one of our modern day fools. And just as the medieval fool costume was a comment on those in power, so too is the tramp's wardrobe... a shoddy, ill-fitting suit. Chaplin's flexi-cane too seems like a sight gag based on a prop usually used to communicate respectability...

And then I lost my train of thought... but I thought about this:

And wondered: who is the fool in this scenario?

2007-03-17T10:21:00.001-07:00

Fool's Tools

I was wondering where those cap n' bells came from on court jesters and learned that it is a sort of upgrade from a full-on donkey/ass costume... the three pointed hat standing in for the two ears and tail. And then I remembered the fool's... what? Wand? Cane? Scepter? I wasn't sure and then found it described as a marotte, or mock scepter. This of course standing in ludicrous contrast to the king's actual scepter.

In the absence of feudalism and kings, we have tramps

2007-03-15T15:40:00.000-07:00

The Holy Fool's Laughter is a reflection: the holy fool becomes a mirror for those who mock poverty and impotence, and as such he mocks poverty and impotence. The laughter of the holy fool is the laughter of a world which is horrified by its own reflections in the mirror.

2007-03-14T09:24:00.000-07:00

Resilience

The book I'm currently working with, Fools Are Everywhere, by Beatrice K. Otto, has a great chapter in it called "Overstepping the Mark." This chapter stands out because there is an emphasis on physical detail (of the court jester, mostly), describing incidents in history where a court fool will go a bit too far with h/er criticisms of the master, finding h/erself on a chopping block, in a noose, or at least in shackles, because "Telling a joke is more interesting when you can be put in jail for it."

Here's a good quote, with references to the cartoon-y nature of fools:

"There is in the jester a quality of resilience that means that even when he is beaten it does not seem to injure him. It is a resilience of the spirit that might either complement the physical litheness often associated with the jester or offer a contrast to a deformity. He never seems particularly perturbed by a whip decending on him, never inveighing against the injustice or cruelty of his punishment or begging for mercy: 'Like the comic characters in the film cartoons who may be cut to shreds, smashed flat, riddled with holes, or stretched into a thin line, yet which suddenly spring back into their original form or are miraculously put back together, the clown always seems to survive.'" (pg. 135)

2007-03-14T09:20:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A fool can refer to:

A foolish person
A court jester or clown
Motley Fool, a commercial website about stocks, investing, and personal finance
A fruit fool, a dish made with cooked fruit
The Fool, a 1960s design collective
The Fool (Zero), the only numberless major arcana card of the tarot
Fools (play), a 1981 play by Neil Simon
"Foolish", a song by R&B singer Ashanti
"Fool," a song from the 2003 Cat Power album You Are Free
"Fools", a song by Deep Purple from their 1971 album Fireball
"Fool", a song by Roxette from their 2001 album Room Service
Fool, in Mexican American speech, a friend or buddy, e.g. "Hey fool, what up?"
"Fool", a song by Shakira
"I pity the fool" the catchphrase of Mr.T's character "Clubber Lang" from Rocky III
"Foolish Games", a song by Jewel

2007-03-09T02:48:00.000-08:00

I have found many references that have brought me back to the strange concept of "returning to a chair" The original play I did in Too Much Light, where this title comes from was called: While the Wind Breathes in an Endless Sea of Hearts the Fool Returns to His Chair. I sat in a chair with a noose around my neck, a ball rolls on, I pick it up and toss it back to the person who rolls it on, they walk off, I return to the chair, a woman walks by and drops her handkerchief I give it back, bow, and by the time I bend back up she is gone, as I return to my chair a man stands behind the chair, I nod my head, he nods his head. I sit and he half points the gun at me (the gesture is ambiguous, he neither points nor offers the gun, it is just a gesture of putting ones arm out and having an object that is a gun sitting in that hand), I reach for my wallet, he takes it and hands me the gun, he leaves, I sit back down and the ball rolls back on. It is an endless cycle of distant encounters with objects of death increasing each time the fool returns to his chair.

So, all and all a pretty pathos filled short scene. But with it I bring into this prime time show a sense of an alienated Fool, compassionate but out of touch. And the Sea, water, has returned many times in my studies. A journey back, or forward to where the Fool already stands. And I also seem to have a fascination of dunking my head in water and then being slapped silly, I'm sure that will creep up in the show.

I'll end this with a line I found in an essay that debates the relations between an American Holy Idiot and the Russian Holy Fool:

"In the American Idiot there exists something that is innocent and destructive, sacred and dangerous. The idiot is one in whom opposite forces join together, in whom contrary forces come home to rest." - Dana Heller

John Pierson

2007-03-01T15:41:00.000-08:00

FOOL TALENT SEARCH: The "NATURAL" (with geese)

Concerning the beginning of a fool's career (italics added)...

"Claus Nar (Fool), one of Germany's most famous and long-serving jesters, was tending geese when he was recruited.... One day when the first of his patrons, Elector Ernst, was traveling through Ranstadt with a lot of horses and wagons, Claus became curious about all the commotion and went to see what was happening. Worried that his geese would be stolen, he secured the goslings by putting their necks through his belt [ultimately strangling them] while he carried the older geese in his arms. When Ernst saw him he laughed at his simplicity and decided he was a born jester."

The book pictures a deranged and smiling Claus with six geese throttled by a belt around his waist and wringing two more by the neck with a clenched fist. In effect, he resembles a kind of particolored suicide-bomber.

also...

"...Jamie Fleeman, the Scottish jester...complemented his jesting duties with those of cowherd and goose guardian, and when he one day grew irritated by the geese wandering willy-nilly, he twisted some straw rope around their necks and started walking home, unaware that they were being throttled one by one. By the time he realized it was too late, and since it was a rare breed of geese, he would have been in big trouble. So he dragged the corpses into the poultry yard and stuffed their throats with food. When asked whether the geese were safe and sound, he replied cheerfully, "Safe! they're gobble, gobble, gobblin' as if they had nae seen meat for a twalmonth! Safe! Ise warran' they're safe [enough], if they hae nae choked themsells."

2007-02-28T06:22:00.000-08:00

"But water adds to this the dark mass of its own values; it carries off, but it does more: it purifies. Navigation delivers man to the uncertainty of fate, on water, each of us is in the hands of his own destiny; each embarkation is, potentially, the last. It is for the other world that the madman sets sail in his fools' boat; it is from the other world that he comes when he disembarks."

- Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization (p. 11)

2007-02-27T13:00:00.000-08:00

Contemporary Fools...And a little of the self-referential thrown in

I was thinking over the last few days about who our modern fools are. I am not wholly convinced that we have lost something of the pure fool in today’s genres, let alone everyday life. The jester seems to have been replaced by the stand-up comic, but the best and most critical stand-up comics have an entirely different status and tone, closer to Mel Brooks' character of “stand-up philosopher” than a court jester.

Literature has its classic archetypes. Medieval writings have numerous instances of jesters or inversion rituals where the carnivalesque was used to safely mock the ruling class and nobility (cf. Bakhtin's Rabelais and His World, or for that matter see Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel). Pondering modern American fools, I kept getting stuck on three people/characters:

Kramer - A clownish physical comedic character who constantly flouts convention with a twisted sense of propriety and value. Yet, he constantly hatches schemes with their own internal logic which we find funny because there is a speck of genius amid, what my grandmother would refer to as, his mishagoss.
The Tick – Here is a superhero who is blind to everything except justice and the fight between good and evil. (“Like a great blue salmon of Justice, the mighty Tick courses upstream to the very spawning ground of evil.”) The Tick was a dumbass who was mighty. He spouted pseudo-philosophy and flowery soliloquies on that eternal fight of good v. evil.
George W. Bush – Without politicizing the example too much, W. has lived multiple fools’ lives during his presidency: Is he just a simpleton puppet who thinks he’s right and has the power to impose his simpleton’s will on others? Is he something of an Innocent who can only see in the world black and white, good and evil (not unlike The Tick, but less endearing)? Or is he the country bumpkin whose folk wisdom actually reveals the foolishness of the hapless, self-appointed and urbane (read: stereotypical liberal) intelligentsia? It depends on who you ask I suppose. He’s been cast into those different narratives by parties with different agendas.

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As an aside, in the course of a little web perusing, I was delighted to find that at least one person thinks that I, your humble dramaturg, fits into one fool tradition, the jester. From "The Dramaturg: Modern Day Court Jester"

“A Dramaturg is many things rolled into one. They are part educator and part editor. They act as a supportive muse to the Artistic Director, and as a mischievous court jester. They are the theatre's internal critic, and their resident historian…Where the Business Manager will sit on one shoulder of the Artistic Director, cautioning and using monetary figures to promote the familiar, the Dramaturg impishly sits on the other, cajoling and gesturing to the stars.”

I don’t know if I buy his claims, but I’ll take them.

2007-02-22T13:57:00.000-08:00

Basil was a Saint

This Saint was a Fool

A Fool needs to eat

- Foolagysms #1