Mea Culpa
Dear Theatre Blogosphere and especially Fellow Bloggers,
I may be stubborn and dense, but when enough people hit me in the head with 2 X 4s, eventually I get the point. While many of you had a hand in the process of getting through to me, the ones who pushed me over the tipping point were Allison and Isaac with a good assist from Joshua.
To cut to the chase: I was wrong.
I felt that I had figured out a way to remove a point from abstract theory and give it a dramatic, emotional life. I didn't expect that others would have such a sense of personal betrayal, and at first I thought expressions of this sense of betrayal were simply an attempt to shift the conversation away from my point. Such is the effect of tunnel vision.
And while I tried to maintain a sense of objective calm, I know that the personal insults made me dig in my heels even more, and defend myself from accusations that I thought were not only unjust, but really hurtful.
But this morning as I walked across campus, I realized that I was wrong.
I was wrong from the first post on. The blogosphere is not a place for social experiments, and you don't use Invisible Theatre on people who have come to trust you over a period of months. That is betrayal.
So I apologize to you all for behaving like a stubborn ass.
I may be stubborn and dense, but when enough people hit me in the head with 2 X 4s, eventually I get the point. While many of you had a hand in the process of getting through to me, the ones who pushed me over the tipping point were Allison and Isaac with a good assist from Joshua.
To cut to the chase: I was wrong.
I felt that I had figured out a way to remove a point from abstract theory and give it a dramatic, emotional life. I didn't expect that others would have such a sense of personal betrayal, and at first I thought expressions of this sense of betrayal were simply an attempt to shift the conversation away from my point. Such is the effect of tunnel vision.
And while I tried to maintain a sense of objective calm, I know that the personal insults made me dig in my heels even more, and defend myself from accusations that I thought were not only unjust, but really hurtful.
But this morning as I walked across campus, I realized that I was wrong.
I was wrong from the first post on. The blogosphere is not a place for social experiments, and you don't use Invisible Theatre on people who have come to trust you over a period of months. That is betrayal.
So I apologize to you all for behaving like a stubborn ass.
Comments
So, I'm note sure how wounded these folks should be. If you toyed with them, because you knew how they would take it, then yeah, ya kinda suck. Me, I say keep posting.
Also - sam shepard... made the History Books, but does that mean we should live in his shadow ? I'm not knocking Mr. Shepard, I'm just kinda going back to your "academics." Who decides what should go in the History Books that eventually educate us and inform us that "these are the guys that have set the bar."
How do we know that they aren't the lucky ones that the critics saw and the people went and saw because word of mouth. I wonder how many others missed out because Shepard got the lucky break ?
Buddha Cowboy - NYC
Many months ago, I indicated here
http://slowlearner.typepad.com/weblog/2005/10/monday_roundup.html
that I agreed with some of your ideas in the broadest strokes. I missed a lot of the ensuing months of conflict that I've been hearing about because I have been through an unusually (and unhealthily) busy year, but I suspect that I may share some of your beliefs about the urge to shock and the need to meet an audience halfway, if possible. Since I haven't read most of the conversation from earlier this year, I don't really know what everyone has written on this subject, but maybe after my current show closes I can go back and catch up. I'd love to become a real blogger again at some point.
I do understand your reticence about offering specific examples - it's a lot easier to discuss a play we all like, like "Buried Child" - but unfortunately if a conversation on this subject is to proceed productively, we have to have them. Otherwise, we should probably talk about something else.
Thank you for this. I have an answer up on my blog where I try to grapple with this last week and just what the hell happened to all of us. But let me just say, apology accepted and I myself apologize for my part in this whole malarkey.
Isaac
To think, George Hunka trying to launch a campaign to get you fired from your job! From YOUR JOB! Because of a blog post! What a jackass. It's not as if you were peddling kidie-porn! No, you just rocked the boat around here and made The Hunkster look a little foolish, so he had to whip out his dick and do what he could to slap you around with it. Careful Scotty, you mustn't anger Papa. It's like the fuckin' mafia around here.
I'm sorry to see you crumble under the pressure.
Marly
Marly
Marly
OK, let me try to lay it to rest:
1. Has anybody changed my mind about the value of provocation in the theatre? No.
2. Why did I apologize? Because how I approached illustrating my points was not fair to those who read my blog, and because the way I approached it was the catalyst for a brawl.
thought you should at least know what i said.
I simply took you off my blogroll for now and chose not to partake.
I need to confess though, I had sent your original post ( the first one which was fake) to the chairman of the theatre department of the school i went to. I don't email him very often and i thought he might want to read that post. then i had to write him and apologize for sending him a fake post . that was kind of embarassing. the man is busy and i felt like an ass, ,when you were the one who was being an ass.
the story is done.
but see, it did cause damage.
sometimes cheating once can indeed break trust in a marriage and break that marriage. i know this isn't a marriage but there was still breach of trust as far as i am concerned.
call me sensitive , but that's how i feel.
i'll still read you but it's gonna take me some time to trust you again and honestly i dont know right now if i ever will be able to .
that's just where i am. wanted to be honest with you.
Are you not tenured?
I for one felt the little experiment was far more revealing of the festering pit of vipers that apparently infects the grant sucking theater world. I thought theater people were open and broad minded?! Remind me never to get involved in theater professionally, I couldn't work surrounded by such knee-jerks. I'm an engineer by trade and we are required to accept criticism as a matter of routine review, but then again it's human lives at stake, not just the culture this country bathes in.