“Gimme The Controller!” “No! It’s My Turn!”

In case you were wondering, I always think it’s “my turn.” 

I like video games. All sorts. 

From a young age I enjoyed the many delights that Nintendo, Sega and eventually PlayStation offered my imaginative soul. I feasted on Mortal Kombat and Super Mario Bros., got my boots wet with some Duck Hunt, and rolled Sonic over every strange world I could speed towards. I delighted in the quirkiness of Rachet & Clank, Spyro, Jack & Daxter, and of course, Crash Bandicoot (hardest fucking game ever, I thought. How naive I was! ) And the classics like Twisted Metal II, CastleVania and Tomb Raider. Occasionally I’d pick up a racing game — SSX Tricky or Jet Moto…and once in a rare moon, I was playing as James Bond in: Everything or Nothing. 

Am I dating myself yet? 

I played for fun, or until I grew bored, or mostly because I reached level I couldn’t beat, got frustrated and gave up. Such is life. 

All that changed when I met Greg, the unequivocal love of my life, who introduced me to a whole other level of gaming. It had been a very long time, years in fact since I’d picked up a controller to embark into a world of digital wonder most fantastical. It was like finding a forgotten part of myself. But these were not silly games with minimal backstories or monotonous storylines. I was suddenly immersed into a genre of gaming that literally affected my life. 

I was thrown, tumbled, and tossed into the chaotic battles of Ancient Rome, the politics of the French Revolution, Egyptian & Nordic mythology, aliens and the Knights Templar!? The Assassins Creed Series was a visceral and unforgettable experience. And I was jumping half off the couch and having nightmares when Greg showed me horrific games like BioShock, Silent Hill and… *whimpers in terror* …Bloodborne…Shadow of Mordor… (plz send second breakfast, no hobbitses here)

At first, I was overwhelmed. I thought, what have I gotten myself into? How could I have played videos for a significant amount of my life and not experienced this type of gaming nirvana—it was a true revelation. 

But wait, wait, I have to make choices that will change the entire course of the game, possibly the course of history? Hold on, that dude is coming at me with a flaming sword and I have to activate ruins and slay him with magic? This was the burden I was to bear.

At the start of it all, I observed Greg as he played. I would comment and point things out. I was fascinated by the depth of the story-telling—like an interactive movie playing out before my eyes. I was transfixed. I remember the first time he handed me the controller and asked…

 “Do you want to try?” 

 

I nodded, carefully, lovingly taking the controller in my grasp and setting out on my first journey…with quite a bit of feigned hubris, might I add.  

Within three minutes, I was attacked by a swamp hag, screamed bloody murder and threw the controller across the room. 

Greg laughed.

I was hooked, though not ready for the gore, battle and worst of all, the psychological horrors that would plague my mind. So I continued to observe, and little by little I would interject: “I can do this part!” Like riding a horse through glorious countrysides, wheeling and dealing with shady merchants, or romancing the buxom wenches outside the local brothel. 

Greg could tell I was enamored so he decided to take my preferences into consideration and do what he does best—research and love me. Suddenly I was inundated with games like Frogwares’ Sherlock Holmes Series, The Wolf Among Us, The Uncharted Series, Life is Strange, and Murdered: Soul Suspect (Spoiler: This one is a little scary- um, maybe because the character you play dies in the first minute of the story!) These games gradually eased me onto the level that Greg was playing at. Believe me, he helped quite a bit along the way. Anytime a mission or quest would become too difficult or dangerous, he would step in and save the day (much like he does in real life.)

Honestly, I had a blast. I discovered things about writing and story arcs that hadn’t crossed my mind. I fell in love with characters, let them break my heart; it felt personal. The connection you create between this version of yourself and the choices you ultimately make, the relationships you cultivate, especially with yourself….it’s kind of like soul searching, a certain spark of self-awareness. You uncover things about yourself through a new and refreshing lens, things your mind might have previously overlooked. 

Side note: Greg also got me a few of the classics I reminisced about to him from childhood. Remastered, of course. 

Hint For Greg: I’m still waiting for a Tomb Raider game

 Slowly but surely I began to gain confidence in my skills, so I am happy to report that I have  completed The Witcher III: The Wild Hunt. And yes, do I mean COMPLETED (both DLCs included).

The ironic thing about this little anecdote was that Greg played the game years ago and at the time, I’d not been overly enthused, for whatever reason I still cannot fathom - only that it was supposed to turn out this way. Yes. Fate, my friends. Greg continued to tell me over the years that this would be the game to win over my heart. I would invest my soul into the story and characters because it had everything, and I mean he said EVERYTHING, that I love. 

Like it’s always my turn? Greg’s always right. 

So a few weeks ago, I took it upon myself to embark on this journey, for the most part, by myself. Though Greg sat by my side and consulted, even despite my snappy retorts. 

Scene:

 Greg: Make sure you save the game before you go near that cliff, this isn’t Assassins Creed-

Emily: I KNOW! Stop telling me what to-  

*Emily falls off the cliff without saving game. Greg holds back laughter. Emily turns apocalyptic with rage* 

FIN.

I played 99% of the game. Funny enough, Greg was the one traipsing across the countryside, my chauffeur if you will, while I took five minute breaks to collect myself from a back alley brawl over elven rights followed by an unfavorable conversation with a couple of sorceresses.  

Greg watched in astonishment as I cut down foes, fearlessly charged into battle, upgraded weapons, got the best gear, wielded powerful magic, did every side quest, and took on all the monsters and bosses that turned my way (while helping every person I came across who was in need.)

I finally set the controller down. My heart was racing. I looked at Greg. He looked at me. 

“You beat the game You did so many side quests that you can play both expansion packs now. I never got a high enough XP level to do them before. You’re insane.” 

I smirked at him wickedly, “Well then, my dear Witcher, what say you? Shall we?” 

Of course, this was my plan all along. I was absolutely determined to beat the game plus the expansion packs when I saw a “notice” that I would be able to acquire a beautiful villa with acres of glorious, isolated countryside…

 On a motherfucking vineyard. 

I knew, in that moment, I would stop at nothing, no task would be too great, no maiden more desirable, than a perfect ending to my journey: me, sitting in my villa, drinking homemade wine. The elusive Witcher, the wanderer, the one who roamed for hundreds of years, searching for purpose and peace, would finally settle down; would finally have a home. 

Yes, best be assured, I acquired said vineyard and villa and land. Most importantly, Greg was able to the experience the continuing story he’d not been able to previously do. I’d like to think we inspire new thought in one another, and as artists and partners, this is so important. 

Bottom line: It was awesome. We had so much fun. We laughed, we yelled, I cried, I panicked, I raged, I…you get the point. 

I think Greg was a liiiiitttleeee impressed. 
 

So what does this have to do with art, Emily? I thought this was an “art” blog? Okay, well it is. Video games are 100 percent, absolutely, a form of art, of storytelling that I am so thrilled to have discovered (and if you don’t believe me, check out Ghost of Tsushima). 

Can’t you tell by how passionately I speak about them? Do you really think I would take the time to write this post if I didn’t believe in what I was saying? 

Video games have the same affect on me that a really good show or film does, even more so actually. I completely give myself over to the character I take on, not unlike performing. Gaming mirrors art perfectly, even life—the hardships, the journey, the discovery of self and ultimately the triumph of completing a performance, a goal. The emptiness I feel when I close a production is the same heartache that fills me when I finish a really good game. You artists know what I’m referring to…dun dun dun: the void!

Though I sometimes play on my own, I love it most when Greg and I play together. Not together as in a multiplayer game, though sometimes we do break out the old Mortal Kombat or Crash Teaming Racing, but together as in we will embark on a journey, as a team, splitting the game down the middle- he will battle and I will quest, he will quest, so I go to battle. Or he takes on anything that gives me anxiety and frustration—usually stealth missions infuriate me the most, I’m awful at being quiet. But I pick up the slack when he’s like “How did you see that?”  Or “What direction am I going in?” Simple as that. 

We switch off playing depending on what is happening in the story. Given most of the games we play require us to make choices, I realized I was actually learning things about him based on what route he would take in the game and vice versa. It became an obsessive activity, to fall into a world that we would be able to immerse ourselves in while also applying our own morals and values to our journey. I wonder if there are other couples out there who enjoy this. Its one of the most wonderful bonding experiences I’ve shared with another human in my life. I highly recommend it.  

I think what I like most about our strange little tradition is that it has brought us even closer together and allowed us to develop an understanding about how we would react in situations based on how the story is played out. I will scream at him if he makes a decision I most assuredly will regret and he will bellow at me to go left when I’m dead set on going right. But that is the beauty of it, forcing us to work together to complete the tasks. Even if we don’t always see eye to eye, we have the same end goal—to beat life. I uh, mean the game. Yeah, to beat the game!  

Gaming has not only been an excellent way to pass the nights of quarantine, but it has also been inspiration for my own writing. I am blown away by the story-arcs, absolutely thrilled with the characters that I love just as hard as I hate, and the visual appeal of discovering new worlds, both familiar and foreign, has given me countless ideas for my own work. 

If you haven’t given gaming a try, I highly suggest you do. Not only will you learn something about your partner, you might even discover something about yourself. For those who say video games are for kids, I say you’ve not found the right game for you. Keep searching. 

Fun Fact: I voraciously look forward to Greg’s birthday each year. It’s when he usually receives a slew of new games, an absolute treasure trove. 

He looks at me with a devilish glint in his eye, “You know these are my games, right?” 

I nod demurely and let him think he’s won, little does he know he will be handing that controller over in no time. 

It’s a shared experience that has brought us closer together.  It’s a form of art that transcends not only observation and study, but actually allows you to become the game. It's your own personal story, a journey into yourself—there’s much to understand from that idea alone. 

I am utterly grateful for this learning experience filled with artistic enlightenment and will continue to quest to my own heart’s content. 

Thanks, Greg. You’ve opened my world and inspired me once again. 

With love & late nights,

E 

Stevie GB – The World’s Funniest Accountant Celebrates 30 years on Stage

The year was 1982. My new wife and I attended East Side Comedy Club in Huntington, NY. It was considered the premiere comedy club on Long Island. I don’t remember who the headliner was because I was focused on the feature act, sometimes known in comedy as the middle. It was a guy named Bobby Collins. As I watched in hysterics, I recall turning to my wife and saying “I want to do that someday”. Little did I know that 30 years later, I would be the opening comedian for Bobby multiple times. I think every performer has that one person that inspires them to make the big move. 

It took me 9 years after that 1982 show to actually take the plunge. However, it was not by choice, but rather a dare. I was out to lunch with my office co-workers at my accounting job at a place called The Juke Box Café in Hauppauge. A themed restaurant owned by WBAB DJ Bob Buchman. Meredith, from the office, pointed me to a poster on the wall and said, “Look at that!” It read: Talent Night. Singers, Comedians, Magicians, bring your talent every Wednesday. Win valuable prizes. 

“You should sign up,” Meredith continued.  

“Me? I can’t sing.” 

“No! Comedian! You’re hilarious. You can do jokes about where we work” 

(By the way, that never works). I didn’t say anything, but just stared at that poster. 

I was always funny; I got it from my dad. I watched comedy for years. I think it started when, at around the age of nine, my mother sat me down in front of the TV. “Watch this - it’s funny.” It was Duck Soup featuring The Marx Brothers. I had no idea what I was watching, but I was immediately drawn to Harpo since he was the slapstick a kid of nine would understand. It took many years before I understood the genius of Groucho Marx, one of my comedy heroes, who I had the honor to portray many times over the last 10 years.

At 10, I discovered making the bullies laugh stopped them from picking on me and making the girls laugh was fun, though it never really got me anywhere. I am pretty sure it was the acne that kept them away. Throughout school I would listen to all the classic comedy albums like George Carlin Class Clown, Robert Klein, Bill Cosby, etc. and repeat them verbatim in school the next day. I wasn’t just a fan of comedy; I was a student. 

By the time 1991 hit and Meredith showed me that poster, I was already a well-trained comedian, without setting foot on stage.  So, I signed up for the talent show.  They gave me 15-minute spot in between all musical acts. I was the sole comedian on the show. I didn’t know until years later that doing 15 minutes for the first time, in-between musical acts, equated to comedy suicide. As they say, you don’t know what you don’t know. I only had 6 days to prepare my 15-minute set. I wrote down every joke I ever heard from my dad and many observations I had thought about over the many years. I practiced over and over and I felt ready. I decided to use the moniker of “The World’s Funniest Accountant” since accountants are never thought of as funny. I threw on a bowtie and some suspenders and used an old nickname I had from the late 70’s. I was a punk rock fan and spent many nights at CBGB, the famous NYC club. I was there so often, one of my friends started calling me Stevie GB. I thought it had a nice ring to it. Hopefully easy to remember. Turns out, I was right. 

The night came and I was sweating bullets. My entire office staff came to watch me. Not sure if they were rooting for me or hoping to watch me crash and burn. I was not scared; I was in a state of euphoria. Now, this is the part of the story where I’m supposed to say I bombed horrifically. I didn’t. I don’t really remember much of it. It was an out of body experience. I ended up taking 3rd place in the contest and my valuable prizes were a t-shirt and a Bonnie Raitt cassette. More importantly, on my ride home, I discovered what I was meant to be. A comedian. I thought to myself, this was it. I should be famous in a couple of months. I’ll be on Letterman by Christmas and be able to quit that stupid job. It didn’t work out that way. Oh, glorious delusion. 

Over the last thirty years, I have been lied to, ignored, robbed, cheated, and insulted. I quit 3 times only to return because not doing it drove me crazy. 

I have never had a sitcom. I never made it to Letterman or any late-night show for that matter. But I have had many small successes along the way. I have written and produced three One-Man-Shows. I portrayed Groucho Marx in a play with The Marx Brothers to rave reviews, including a cover story in Newsday, selling out 23 consecutive shows around Long Island. I have written 12 One Act Plays, a full-length play and a musical, many which have been staged in various NYC theaters and festivals. I have opened for my comedy hero Bobby Collins eight times, and performed at Westbury Music Fair opening for Dion & The Belmonts in the full round sold out show of 3,000 people. I have performed at the 1,500 seat Paramount Theater in Huntington 10 times, opening for comedy greats such as Norm Macdonald, Dennis Miller, Rob Schneider, Louie Anderson, Bob Nelson and more.

I have also performed at firehouses, libraries, churches, backyard parties, block parties, private homes (including living rooms), and of course comedy clubs. I spent 2 years travelling on the road to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Ohio and I hated every minute of it. The road is not for me. I love Long Island and have very little trouble getting booked locally. It’s been an amazing journey filled with highs and lows and I’m not finished. 

During my time as a comedian, I have also performed as a stage actor in many community theatre productions. Mostly Neil Simon plays, portraying Felix Unger in The Odd Couple, Mel Edison in Prisoner of 2ndAve, and many more. 

I help out new comedians with joke structure, stage presence, and try to tell them about the pitfalls of the business, even though I am still trying to figure that part out myself. 

As I approach my 30th year, I have no idea where the time went. When I get down on myself because I haven’t “made it”, I look back at what I have accomplished and I can stand tall and say, I am a comedian. It’s not about fame and fortune. It’s about constructing solid jokes and stories and bringing that creativity to the people. The energy of the stage and the sound of the laughter from something I created is like a warm hug. 

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Stevie GB

Award-winning comedian, actor and playwright.

Stevie GB is an award-winning comedian, actor, and playwright. Known as the world's funniest accountant, Stevie has performed at Westbury Music Fair opening for Dion, and at the Paramount in Huntington opening for comedy giants like Dennis Miller, Louie Anderson, Rob Schneider, Norm Macdonald and many more. He has written and performed three one-man shows, 12 One-Act plays and a full length musical that appeared Off-Broadway. He has also performed as Groucho Marx to critical acclaim in Newsday. Featured on Amazon Prime and on News 12.

G&E In Motion does not necessarily agree with the opinions of our guest bloggers. That would be boring and counterproductive. We have simply found the author’s thoughts to be interesting, intelligent, unique, insightful, and/or important. We may not agree on the words but we surely agree on their right to express them and proudly present this platform as a means to do so. 

How to Successfully Design Costumes for Theatre and Dance

Costuming for theater is more than it seems. When costuming a production there is much to be considered.

Most audience members visually see the performers on stage and do not recognize to what extent costumes play a vital role in the execution of a story. A costume designer goes through several rigorous tasks to complete the process of creating a costume specific to a character based on a story.

On stage, a character appears and what they wear influences how they interact with other actors, set pieces, choreography and many other elements they encounter. Costume design is a fundamental part of each production as it is in any other department related to mounting a production. It is a collaborative work between the lighting designer choreographer, director, and the costume designer.

To achieve a successful costume design, a designer must understand all of the requirements of the character by reading the play and highlighting each necessary element to make the character come alive. 

Research is a very important feature in executing accuracy of each design. The costumer must understand shape, color, style, and form for each era of clothing. 

Rendering is the second phase after the design process. After sufficient research has been conducted, the costume designer sketches and paints what each costume would look like on the actor’s body and how it would move on the character. After rendering costumes sufficient for the production and being approved by the director, the costumer could now start acquiring pieces of costume either by making, fabricating, renting, or borrowing.

Clear renderings provided to shop managers and fabricators makes the design process a bit easier. Patterns on costumes may not always be exactly what is sketched by the costumer, but it must be approved if a variant is acquired elsewhere. Costumes may be acquired from other theater companies that have used similar pieces, or that have been made, drafted from flat patterns. 

Before starting the process of acquiring costumes, measurements must be taken for each actor. These must be taken accurately for a proper fitting. Several measurements, which are standard to the clothing industry, can be used to design a costume, or the costume designer can formulate their own set of measurements.  

With all the necessary measurements, the design crew can now acquire all the costume pieces required for the production. After the chief costume designer has approved each piece, fittings can be scheduled for the actors and actresses. If the costume designer has selected a piece that is appropriate for the character but does not fit the actor, then alterations can be made to adjust the piece so that the costume fits the actor appropriately. 

Once all the pieces are acquired by the shop crew and approved by the costume designer, a costume parade is scheduled to present the selected costumes to the director for their authorization. In this meeting, it is essential to have the lighting designer present so they can also have an idea how the light will cast upon the characters’ costumes.

Once the director, the lighting designer, and the costume designer have approved all pieces, costumes can now be placed for the performers access during the technical week ahead of opening. If there is a particular case where the actor needs a piece for rehearsal, a mock piece or rehearsal piece is provided. 

These basic steps can assist with executing a proper costume design for a production. There are a lot of different elements to take into consideration when designing costumes. How they move on the performer, how they appear onstage under lights and how they fit performers are all elements to a successful design. Research, rendering, measuring, acquiring, and fittings must be done for every production. If all these steps are followed and fit within the budget of the production, you will have a successful costume design.

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Avelon Ragoonanan

Artistic designer with over 20 years in the performing arts from Trinidad and Tobago

Avelon Ragoonanan is an artistic designer with over 20 years experience in the performing arts. He is from Trinidad and Tobago. Avelon has designed productions in the Caribbean and the United States. He has worked with Pacific Lutheran University, Act 1 Theatre Productions, Cirque Du Soleil and many other theatres on several design elements including scenic design, costume design and construction. Avelon has designed for shows Off Broadway and on US tours for productions such as Dance Ensemble (2011-2015), Macbeth, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Almost Maine, Our Town, Empowered, Mrs. Packard, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Steel Magnolias, Inspecting Carol, Kiss Me Kate, Mother Courage, Three Sisters, and Into the Woods. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre and has won several awards for designing, acting, dancing, choreography and directing. Avelon has also had the honor to perform for the President of the Unites States in the Summit of the Americas in 2009. 

G&E In Motion does not necessarily agree with the opinions of our guest bloggers. That would be boring and counterproductive. We have simply found the author’s thoughts to be interesting, intelligent, unique, insightful, and/or important. We may not agree on the words but we surely agree on their right to express them and proudly present this platform as a means to do so. 

La Vita Quotidiana: The Artist and Daily Life

The phrase “la vita quotidiana” never hit me so hard as it did during COVID-19, when a dystopian reality hit the world in a wave, like 80,000 fans at Yankee Stadium moving as one amoeba, rising falling and watching the wave move through the stands.  I saw COVID-19 coming, like everyone. I had the privilege of a door to close to keep the virus out, human contact out, and money enough to get food and medicine delivered right to my door.

Here’s my artist’s daily life now without la vita quotidiana.  I wake up I check my handheld screen, make espresso and it’s never as good as if I was in Napoli, but it’s a placeholder for la vita quotidiana I am not living.  I drink the espresso and look at my gallon of Sicilian olive oil on the counter with the picture of the carrozzella, another placeholder for the trees my grandparents harvested as youth field workers, landless peasants.  I open another screen, type on a keyboard, conscious to keep my fingers and neck from stiffening.  Hours and hours dissolve while my brain works almost not attached to a body.  I turn to the piano keyboard, working on the lead sheet of “Fly Me to the Moon.”  I take a break to eat.  I go into my audio cave—two walls where I glued soundproofing to the walls and threw a sleeping bag over a makeshift lean-to. I can’t explain the architecture of how I rigged this, but I can try—I zip gunned a framed canvass to the underside of a corner shelf, and stuck a four-foot length of scrap wood under it as a leg.  I didn’t bother to measure or cut the leg, so it’s on a diagonal.  However it fits.  Perfect. Sturdy.  Holds the roof up.  Over the top goes the sleeping bag.  This is my audio cave. 

I record podcasts in there.  Yes, I talk to the walls.  As a kid in the Bronx this was the ultimate nightmare: once you start talking to the walls, you know you’re in trouble.  The people in the white coats are “coming to take you away.”  That was a popular song lyric in my youth. “They’re coming to take you away hah hah, they’re coming to take you away.” Maybe you remember it, you baby-boomers out there. I’m aiming for a hundred stories, a Decameron, because that one Giovanni B. did something admirable with his plague.  So, why can’t I?

I survived 2020 with a stack of N95 masks. How I got them is a story in and of itself--an under the table deal, what we used to call on the street--a racket. March 3rd, 2020 another fellow actor friend in NYC told me, “Annie I know a guy who sees what’s coming. He’s warehoused N95 masks, hand sanitizer, and packets of alcohol wipes.  Meet me on the corner of 13th and 6th and I’ll hook you up.”  Like a drug deal, my buddy, let’s call him Adam, jumped into my car without me even pulling over, as I drove eastbound on West 12th. He directed me to an undisclosed location. Take a right here, the next left, pull over, wait here, I’ll be right back.  I gave him some cash, and he brought me double what I paid for.  “You’re gonna need this,” he kept saying. “You above all.”  I didn’t know I wouldn’t see him for over a year from that moment.  We were all going, into effect, underground.  Back to our caves to face whatever home life we’d created or failed to.  Adam saved my life. Spleenless and immunocompromised with lungs already with fibrosis from radiation from a teenage bout with Hodgkin’s Disease, I was not slated to do well if I came in contact with this mysterious virus with its protein spiked crown, each sure to mutate.

I telephoned my old doctor, the hero who saved me in 1981 at Sloan-Kettering.   “I’m just calling to say hi,” I said, “I don’t have COVID.”

“If you had it, this would be a goodbye phone call,” he said to me.  “Ten or fifteen years from now it’ll be discussed how the hemoglobin structure of Italians made them more susceptible.  We look at malaria now, we see how people with variant hemoglobin structures are differentially affected.  But you, you’re from Bari, your bloodline is really Constantinopolitan.  You’re not really Italian.  I don’t mean that as an insult.  I mean it in terms of hemoglobin structure.  That might actually be protecting you from the path of the pathogen.”

I face-timed Rome every day.  Friends. Friends like family with a newborn baby who wouldn’t see the face of strangers the whole first year of his life.  I wondered about these babies of 2020, without interaction with other babies, without the sounds and smells of the cities around them, without faces except the ones they lived with in confinement.  Sheltering-in-place. In Rome and all over Italy, my friends and family were in “la zona rosa”—red zones; they couldn’t leave the house without a reason or written permit.  There was no passeggiata.  La vita quotidiana had come to a halt; la dolce vita,--on stop.  I’m thinking of emergency brakes, I’m thinking of those old cassette deck players, a simple square was the icon for “stop” and someone’s thick finger just pressed it, pressed it hard.  Stop.   Italy was two weeks ahead of New York in terms of the COVID wave so talking to my friends I knew what was coming ahead of time to New York.  I braced myself.  Stocked up on any food available for delivery. Dove deep into writing and painting still lifes of lemons.  I thought about the long de-evolution of humans in society; As kids we studied the local communal living in Iroquois longhouses where extended families and communities cooperated to survive and held ritual for spiritual awakeness and healing.  How did humans devolve in post-colonial capitalist society to believe that each human being needs to pull themselves up by their bootstraps?  As President Obama once pointed out --What if you don’t have boots?  How did we acquiesce into living apart in “apart”ments, literally naming the trend?  How did we isolate and warehouse and medicate our elders into zombies in “old age homes?”  And how do these words not stick in our throats as they writhe out of our mouths?  How are humans praising whatever deity on one hand and not caring for elders on the other?  How do companies have individuals each paying a couple of bucks a month for invisible “cloud” space, the intellectual closet space and $12 bucks for this, $18 bucks for that, for audio files, website files, and then poof, one “php” change and it all evaporates like a Buddhist’s “I told you so.”  

The other day I took an N95 masked walk on City Island with another fellow actor.  A City Island elder hippie wise woman stopped me in the street: 

            “What’s your birthday?” she accosted me in a friendly “I see through you” way. 

            “Six-one” I told her, “Marilyn Monroe.”  

            “Ahh yes,” she said, “That’s right.  What year?”   

            “63,” I told her.  

            “Ahh, yes that was a good year.”  She nodded putting it all together and getting to the root of my soul:  “You don’t know the difference between what’s real and what’s not.  That will be a lifelong struggle. And constant creative ideas.  You can’t turn it off.”

            “Yes, thanks,” I said.  “I’ll take all the free advice I can get.”

            And so, in search and hope for la vita quotidiana and la dolce vita once again, this one artist signs off for now, going to pop a croissant in the toaster, and dream of la cornetta di crema and the daily flow of a life in community with human touch I once knew, as I stare at screens of light, cup my hands over my eyes to give darkness as a gift to my brain, and keep breathing knowing full well every breath is a privilege while I have it.  One day, one day, the breath will fly free.  For now it stays with me, comes back home.

THANKS:

Annie first gives thanks and abbracci forti to Greg Cioffi and Emily Dinova who Annie claims she was the first to see them fall in love, love at first site, while overlapping in the costume shop in Manhattan Plaza.  Like all memories this one has a few puzzle pieces: the audition where Greg showed off his chest hair, then the costume room where Annie overlapped with Greg, and a minute later spotted Emily in the crosswalk on her way there.  BAM, it was a cosmic event.  Crosswalks are the place of city cosmos.  Greg and Emily were cast as lovers in Tony n’ Tina’s wedding.  Annie was cast as Grandma.  The rest is artistic history.  Here we are.   Annie celebrates la vita quotidiana that Emily and Greg have so artfully woven together. Graziemille to Adam Feingold, Emily Jordan Agnes Kunkel, and Sanford Kempin.

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Annie Rachele Lanzillotto

Author, poet, performance-artist, actor, director, songwriter, and activist

Author, poet, performance-artist, actor, director, songwriter, and activist, Annie Rachele Lanzillotto is a consummate cantastoria, one who sings epic tales in the piazza and walks with a big stick.  She has promoted audience participation in hundreds of performances everywhere from the Arthur Avenue Retail Market to the Guggenheim Museum to the Napoli Città Libro festival.   While sheltering-in-place alone, she embarked on a solo Decameron, with a nod to Boccaccio, to tell one hundred original stories, in her podcast, "Annie's Story Cave” which can be heard everywhere. 

Forthcoming are two memoir essays: “The Wallmakers / I Muratori,”  (KGB Bar Lit Mag online) edited by Pat Zumhagen; and “Another Spring” in the anthology “Talking to the Girls, Personal Reflections on The Triangle Factory Fire” (New Village Press), edited by Edvige Giunta and Mary Anne Trasciatti.  Lanzillotto’s books include the double flip book: Hard Candy: Caregiving, Mourning, and Stage Light; and Pitch Roll Yaw, (Guernica World Editions), L is for Lion: an italian bronx butch freedom memoir (SUNY Press; finalist for the LAMBDA Literary Award), and Schistsong (Bordighera Press.) Her original albums include: Blue Pill; Never Argue With a Jackass; Swampjuice: Yankee with a Southern Peasant Soul.  Lanzillotto was on the founding board of the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition.  She is the Artistic Director of Street Cry Inc.  Member of Theatre 68.  All love and thanks and in memory of the ancestors.

LINKS to Annie’s work: 

·      Podcast: “Annie’s Story Cave” is on every platform and: StreetCryInc.org. 

·      Books: order through any bookstore, or here http://www.annielanzillotto.com

·      Audiobooks: https://www.audible.com/author/Annie-Rachele-Lanzillotto/B00APRVO9E

·      Original albums: annielanzillotto.bandcamp.com

·      Paintings: https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/annie-lanzillotto

·      Icewoman Performance Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3FimguzDxs

G&E In Motion does not necessarily agree with the opinions of our guest bloggers. That would be boring and counterproductive. We have simply found the author’s thoughts to be interesting, intelligent, unique, insightful, and/or important. We may not agree on the words but we surely agree on their right to express them and proudly present this platform as a means to do so. 

The Storytelling Celebrant

Mike and Lauren met by an accident that was no accident as far as the universe was concerned. Kris and Sabrina read each other’s minds and finish each other’s sentences.

Molly and Nick overcame what they perceived to be a mixed-faith marriage—they were two different kinds of Protestant. Matt and Suchitra, on the other hand, blended Hindu and Jewish traditions with rom-com references and gifts all around.

April and Pat first met as kids, when the minor gap in their ages yawned endlessly between them. Elaine and Stuart fell in love at college, broke up around graduation, and then found each other again after their marriages ended and their kids were grown. Ben and Leigh’s life together began with a hilarious knee-deep slog through snow—and ended only a short time later, due to cancer. Ben’s family became Leigh’s family, and neither was left entirely alone, but at the end there was no tidy bow, there was only grief. 

These are true stories. 

I know because I was their storytelling celebrant. 

My job simultaneously does and does not reflect what you might read in the “Modern Love” section of the New York Times. Every set of clients I’ve worked with has a story that is theirs alone. They live out a drama or a symphony or rap song or a hard rock fable and it’s my job to put it to words. Finding their story is thrilling. Watching them recognize themselves in the mirror I’ve made is deeply satisfying. 

A storytelling celebrant builds ceremony around the client’s larger story—the narrative that led to the life-changing moment before them. I talk to my clients about their childhoods, their lives now, their friends and family, and work and play. I encourage them to talk about their dreams for the future. And then I connect the dots to create a narrative that shows how the milestone event in their lives, whether a wedding, memorial, baby blessing, birthday or healing ceremony, fits their journey in life. 

I tell the story in my own words, tempered by the client’s vocabulary and style so that if feels like their words. I tell it in readings and quotes that comment on a trajectory or state of being like theirs. And I tell it in rituals, which are ceremonies within the ceremony to enact the transition or commemoration underway. Ritual sounds occult, but it’s not. I look for and create rituals that are as specific as possible to my clients.

But the job doesn’t begin or end with telling stories, or it would just be another way to monetize writing skill and charisma. What makes it different is what makes it special, even sacred: I hold their lives in my hands. 

In some ways, it’s not so unusual. We hand over our lives, or parts of them, on a daily basis to doctors, dentists, chefs and line cooks, Uber drivers, and random others who might or might not stop at red lights. But to me, it’s a big deal. People hand over their love lives to me provisionally and temporarily. After looking into my eyes or at my website, or both, they decide they can trust me enough to share details they’ve never told anyone.

I make the commitment to be worthy of that trust and then dive into their lives. I feel their love, or their loss—touch it, smell it, taste it, roll it around in my own heart until I understand it as something that had to happen, something the universe yearned for. And then I share their story in a way that contextualizes their lives for guests who have come to be witnesses and participants in the big moments at hand. 

* * *

I didn’t know I was doing it, it but I was preparing to become a celebrant all my life. When I was a Catholic schoolgirl, I wanted nothing more than to be a saint—and more than a saint: a martyr. I wanted to live for others, to put their lives before my own, to live a life of devotion to what I conceived at the time to be God. 

I planned to be a priest. But celibacy didn’t attract me. Nor did solitude. I did like the nearly all-black outfits, but I’d seen better. What attracted me to the idea of priesthood, though, was the call to stand in a sacred space, to hold the moment still and let meaning open up inside of it, or encourage meaning to express itself, or drag meaning out of its hiding place so that people who were starved for it could find some nourishment for what we call their souls.

Later, finding a hair shirt hard to come by, I softened my stance upon learning that the Catholic Church wouldn't let women become priests (as if the crucifer isn’t phallic enough for all of us). I went into a good long funk. What followed was a more delicious rebellion against all organizations and then another dream for touching the singular moment. I focused on the dream of working as an actor.

Acting had been a parallel dream anyway. Like Walt Whitman and most kids, I contained multitudes and I saw the world contained multitudes too. Most of the occupations I knew of came from TV. So I considered the dream of following the law, but in my world that meant putting people in jail or keeping them out, and that seemed like an awfully limited life.

I didn’t want to be just a doctor, detective, or spy; as an actor, I thought, I could be them all. 

This was a dream my parents were hesitant to nurture, probably because they didn’t want me dead on Mulholland drive, but it was a dream that fit. It felt eerily familiar to the priesthood, because like the priesthood, it was another dream of standing in sacred space. As an actor, I could inhabit the moments of a character’s life and let that character live. Express that character’s struggles. Drag that character out of imagination and into a four-dimensional existence. Wait a lot of tables. Wait for calls and callbacks. For lighting to be set. For my cue.

Sheri as an Active Ensemble Member of The Neo-Futurists circa 1989

I supplemented the waiting with writing—monologues, performance art, poems, textbooks, stories and articles for kids and adults—until the writing became my primary form of expression and performance became its accent. If my life were a song, performing became the occasional syncopation in the melodic line.

Still, I was intrigued and drawn in by the sacred. So I supplemented the waiting and the writing with a stint in the Unitarian Universalist seminary, where I discovered a host of brilliant creative thinkers who were not so much about themselves as . . . whatever it is that is bigger than all of us.  I was still allergic to organizations—to clubs—but seminary affirmed for me the connection we all have to each other, to the earth, and to existence itself. 

After I left seminary, I stumbled on the Celebrant Foundation and Institute, where I continued exploring the importance of myth, ritual, and celebration. I found echoes of myth in the stories of my own life and I decided to help locate and express them in the stories of others.

About ten years ago, when storytelling blossomed in Chicago, I happened to be right there, with redbud petals falling beautifully on my shoulders and magnolia blossoms smashing grossly underfoot. I found ways to use story to express both the melody and the syncopated beat of my life—your life—anybody’s life.

My biggest and most delightful challenge, now, is to respect and observe the fact that not everyone wants their life told outright. Some of my clients tell me they only want their stories, their secrets, close enough to hold. They want to share their story with each other, not the whole world. So I give them their story, and then I excise it from their ceremony. I find and read sacred texts, profane texts, and texts I pull out of my own brain to express the truths behind their story. 

And I encode their story inside their vows to one another.

And I help them enact their story—by having them set on fire all the reasons they shouldn’t marry. Or by having their guests make sacred vows to support their union. Or by helping them weave an unbreakable rope of the values or experiences that tie them to each other. Or by a myriad of other actions that symbolize the moment before them. Together, we tease meaning out into the open. We share it in a way that feels safe and true. We get to inhabit the romantic and/or funny and/or sad and always the sacred. 

I get to live on inside those moments, albeit as a minor, even forgotten character. But more importantly and more joyously, I get to make that moment eternal for them. It's a privilege my childhood self could never have dreamed up. 

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Sheri Reda

Writer, performer, and storytelling celebrant.

Sheri Reda, who is a certified master life-cycle celebrant, lives and works out of Chicago and will travel almost anywhere. Sheri was a member of Julie Laffin’s performance collective The Trancesisters, and remains a Neofuturist as well as a poet, storyteller, and performer. 

She’s a regular participant in Lifeline Theatre’s Fillet of Solo and has performed at Story Sessions, This Much is True, Essay Fiesta, and various other juried events. She also facilitates Narrative Medicine and Jungian introspection. Sheri’s communications firm is called Flow and Moment, LLC. Her celebrancy practice is Flow Ceremonies. She can be reached at sheri.a.reda@gmail.com. Sheri’s most recent stories have been published in The Examined Life Journal and in the anthology entitled Chicago Storytellers, Stage to Page.

G&E In Motion does not necessarily agree with the opinions of our guest bloggers. That would be boring and counterproductive. We have simply found the author’s thoughts to be interesting, intelligent, unique, insightful, and/or important. We may not agree on the words but we surely agree on their right to express them and proudly present this platform as a means to do so.