Mandarino

Day 9, hold up wait, do you mind?

I'm gonna let Doc. Scott run it back one more time

Knowledge enshrined thorough a college tested grind

Polish his dime, pennies for these thoughts of mine

I swear this is a fiesta

Crumble the roof like frescoes from Piero della Francesa

Don't start the vino, or start the vino

I know that you'll agree

Do what i say Arlequinno

We know, yes indeed, we know

I'm Frank and Patrick's Dino, Godfathers amongst bambinos

The body is an instrument with which you compose

So grab the staff and pencil in dozens of notes

Strike a pose, open not closed

Communicate your status without your voice or your clothes

You have to be neutral

Because every little motion you commit is very crucial

Now shift your belt, then your chest and your neck

Then move your head to put your tension all in check

Pay attention and give professors respect

Take some notes so you can re-quote from the text

Save that info, keep all of your haters vexed

The money's on you once Lady Luck has made her bets

All my dogs with me, none of my favorite pets

Tu mo si l'ammore Bella mia at it's best

Italian Soundtrack by C.A pt. 9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I8-pU40hMI

The lesson for today is body awareness. As people, we rely on sight too heavily; the other senses, particularly touch, can be utilized to a much higher degree. Mr. Fabio calls this "magic." I call it chi, a kind of warmth that if you focus upon, can be used to communicate a multitude of information. Consider the body as an instrument.  

This aforementioned  Mr. Fabio, is Fabio Mangolini, an accomplished Commedia practitioner and teacher. We worked through many basic exercises to increase body awareness but my favorite is something i recall as the "Nutella" exercise. The group and I walked around the room normally until we were told to walk as if we were moving through air. we proceeded from water to yogurt to Jell-O and finally to Nutella. The trick comes when the pattern is broken up and you must quickly adapt your movement to accommodate the delicious atmosphere. This was particularly useful to me once I got back to the U.S, as I was cast in a production of the Fantasticks as Henry, an old, former thespian. This consciousness of weight throughout the body was something that helped me express the character's age more authentically. We also worked with a neutral mask. That ended up being much trickier than the concept leads you to believe. Every motion is crucial. The lesson of the exercise was the absence of something being itself and entity, like the concept of zero. Needless to say, it was also a lesson in failing to learn by learning to fail. But it's not like Thomas Edison gave up after the fourth light-bulb.

The second part of our day was spent in more lecture with Dr.Scott. In this class, we went over the Renaissance specifically. 

Nearly every culture has belief they've fallen from a Golden Age. Christians from Garden of Eden, Romans from Greeks, Aztecs from Toltecs.

 The Scientific revolution defined modern as superior, people believed that they were living in one of these "Golden" eras. Quantity becomes more important than quality as times viewed as "perfect." Progress not towards something but progress for progress itself. 

People adopted the Greek vision-that man is a quality-less being. Meaning they can create themselves. Fire from Prometheus becomes man's quality. This insinuates that since man's only quality is external from themselves, man distinguishes himself by how he manipulates the world around him. They also viewed the character of man as a changing(think modern dependence on technology). They quantified this change as an uncontrollable element i.e, stain of Original Sin, Oedipus complex, genetics.

Rockefeller center's Prometheus



    Nearly every culture has a belief in in the separation of sacred space i.e a church, and profane space i.e anything outside the church's floor-plan. With the Law of Inertia Galileo postulates that some laws that govern profane world, govern the divine world. This, not Heliocentricity was why the Church messed with him. After newton follows this up, the special aura-divinity-of art is eliminated. Rational thinking quantifies art, gives it price tag and pricelessness is eliminated. Universal truth becomes the value of money, not life, death, etc.
We then discussed Capitalism st great length, so here are the highlights

Capitalism creates sense of false scarcity. Dependence on keeping working class needy and on edge of poverty. Capitalism posits source of wealth in labor-they pay you, so you can go pay someone. Technology begins expelling labor leading to poorer people. Think Willy Wonka; Charlie's dad losing his job on the assembly line. Capitalist growth is unsustainable, it's doubled every 15 years since 1750. The Occupy Movement has a hint of the Renaissance.

Here's a story:
An Indian ruler asked a very renowned intellectual to make him a game with which he could ease his boredom. This Dude, as we shall call him, invented chess. The Ruler was greatly pleased with his invention, so he said he'd grant any request. Dude said: "Put one grain of rice in a square and double it for each successive square, until there is rice in every square. The Ruler laughed and gladly granted this request. Unfortunately, there isn't enough rice in the world to do that. This story exemplifies the concept of unsustainable growth, the crux of the capitalist dilemma.