I toil with words and language, it's what I do. I write, I read, I arrange and rearrange the words looking for the combination which says "It" -- and "It" is always changing.
I'm often working to direct a play too, blending another writer's words with actors and other designers and artists in hopes of crafting a language of verbal and visual which an audience will enjoy on (hopefully) more than one level.
It's madness, really. The world around me provides fairly perplexed responses to such work. And it's work that's never really finished, I rewrite and refine always.
I've learned that being consumed with those constant word shufflings is fortunate in some ways - for instance, I've known since childhood the work I want to do. What drives me is not the approval of others, it's to connect clearly with those who read or listen, to share an experience.
But it is a kind of madness.
Currently, I'm working to direct 4 one-act plays for the Morristown Theatre Guild, and I am also acting in one of them, a play called "Universal Language" by David Ives. The plot of the tale is that I am attempting to con people into paying for learning a language which is total gibberish. My lines include such oddities as "gavotte kennedy doopferyu?" ... which roughly translates as "what can I do for you?"
The sounds and the intents of the words carry the meaning. And it's one of the toughest scripts I've ever tackled, and I often wonder if my brain is too rigid and old to accommodate such nonsense.
Like most folks, my brain is adjusting to text-speak and online language, which takes shortcuts and constantly creates new rules. The small notebook I always carry with me to jot down ideas and thoughts with pencil and paper seems deeply outdated. I carry a teeny computer device with me to also jot down ideas and search the worldwide web.
Madness.
Language and signs and symbols rise and converge and change and these threads of letters and words and ideas (hopefully) make some sensible cloth.
This blog and this post will likely make only a very small sound in the world of today and tomorrow. A squeak amid a cacophony. No matter. I'm stuck with who I am.
"Gavotte kennedy doopferyu?"