#theunwatchedpot

[stirringtheunwatchedpot]

Clyde’s by Lynn Nottage

Okay so, the first scene of Clyde’s is insane because it has the entire plot inside of it. 

Beat by beat, we get:

How Clyde sees Montrellous and his philosophy 

Clyde’s aversion to negative emotions, as well information about her relationship with her mother

Clyde and Montrellous’s contention over sandwiches/food

Food as something sacred

Montrellous as an arbiter of some kind of spirituality

The setting of the show

That Montrellous is very in tune with his emotions

Clyde’s defensiveness 

generally, but also against compliments which introduces some of the discussions around her gender and her power

Clyde’s gambling debts

Montrellous’s belief that the diner could be something more and Clyde’s opposition to it

And then. Their final exchange in that first scene is--

CLYDE: You know that story you just told me? Now if it was me. You know what I would have done in your situation?

MONTRELLOUS: No. What. 

CLYDE: Walk the fuck away. 

MONTRELLOUS: (shaky) How could I? 

CLYDE: Easy! 

She puts a hand over his. 

CLYDE: Like this. 

And then something I don’t want to spoil but is very important and also comes back later happens.

But that’s it, that’s the thrust of the entire show in that one four minute scene and it’s beautiful and everyone should see or read this show once it’s available to read. It’s been incredibly helpful for structuring the hot mess I’m trying to write.

[stirringtheunwatchedpot]

Okay so Brecht

This is going to be. Insane.

This last week was one of the roughest tech weeks I’ve ever been through and I’m still recovering from it, so just. Bear with me y’all.

Brecht and Mother Courage and Her Children are interested in the questions of ‘what draws people to their destruction?’ and ‘what avoidable/mutable circumstances and systems breed immutable/unavoidable tragedy on an individual level?’

I’m also interested in these questions, but lord knows I do not have the energy to be that sad ever. I barely had the energy to finish the play-- maybe that was tech week, though.

Either way, one of the struggles I’m facing as I try and write The Unwatched Pot is the stupid circumstances I’ve set up versus personal agency. Right now, no one really knows the world is about to end-- and I’m worried that if they’re allowed to figure it out, the plot about love and community will get sidelined. Like my advisor said that it may frustrate an audience if no one is doing anything about the whole end of the world thing, but I worry it would be more frustrating to put so much focus on the romance if the characters are aware of how dire things are. The problem is that building community and allowing themselves to love and be loved is what is able to save them from the end of the world, but if they know the world is ending-- how would they ever be able to focus on nurturing those relationships?

Then, if I tell them that ‘love is the answer’ (lmao, cheesiest shit i’ve ever written) and they pursue that, does that taint the whole thing? Is that love or self preservation at that point? It’s radical enough to love and want to save yourself, but is that enough to save them??

The way that Brecht plays into this is that I think the structure of Mother Courage sets up the perfect balance between the circumstances exerting their will and Mother Courage exerting hers. The problem is that it’s a tragedy. Not to be horrifically pretentious, but a tragedy is easier for questions like this. Because all Mother Courage has to do is ask the question. At every turn the horrible thing feels inevitable and you’re always left asking how high do you need to go up to prevent something like this? The problem is war, the problem is poverty, the problem is complacency and capitulation and learning to survive with necessary courage that’s fetishized by the better off. The play hands you the problem in this really beautiful and gut wrenching way.

What the flying fornication is the solution?

Mother Courage want you to figure it out for yourself, and ideally I guess I’d like my audience to do that, too. But I think I’m more in the market of proposing a solution. I think I’m proposing that love-- specifically queer love, neurodiverse love, and platonic love-- is revolutionary and system breaking.

I just don’t know what balance to strike to propose that best.

[stirringtheunwatchedpot]

THE ABSOLUTE STATE OF THE UNION by The Narcissist Cookbook

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IX7ZgvZlGQ

Oops, I’m yelling about The Narcissist Cookbook again, oops.

One of the things I’m talking about in my theory of media is a call to belief. And this is what I mean, haha. There’s this one part:

“Ask yourself: What personal qualities do we encourage in this society? To clarify, I don't mean: What do we teach our children? To share and be kind I mean: What qualities do we actively reward in reality? The only way we can with... power... and money

Dishonesty Exploitation Above all, a pathological lack of empathy These are the traits our society fosters We stop just short of selectively breeding for them And the people who truly embody these values The people most willing to lie or take advantage of others are the ones who rise to the top By virtue of their willingness to seize and protect that power By doing what others will not, they become the people who run our institutions The people who plot our trajectories They start our wars and they write our laws And, not coincidentally, these are the people whom we enshrine in history These are the people we erect statues of “

To tie that into my theory of media, we write stories excusing these behaviors. I want to write stories condemning them and the way they come up in systems.

[stirringtheunwatchedpot]

a Castle of Rats by The Narcissist Cookbook

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFeMM-YBSR8

This song I actually did get to see live!!

It made me weep.

I love thinking about how one of the problems with the way that ‘Self Care™’ has taken off in mainstream culture is that it’s like another one of those commercials from the 50s that’s trying to convince you that something is wrong with you.

Something is wrong with You specifically and it is Your Job to fix it. You will never be perfect, but shouldn’t you try? Are you doing enough?

Another song The Narcissist Cookbook talks about that in is “Cognitive Dissonance Blues.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0tBgQxur3g

Nine and a half minutes of insane truth.

[stirringtheunwatchedpot]

Gendering Teddy by The Narcissist Cookbook

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPH8TeZo0fo

This song eight minute monster of a song is so incredible. I love The Narcissist Cookbook, I have for so long. Every once and a while, they will do something-- put out a song-- and I will look in the mirror and realize that I am not alone. This is one of those songs.

I had the privilege of seeing them live recently and it was honestly life changing. He didn’t perform this song, but he did perform some of his songs that are closest to my heart.

Things this song makes me think of:

Decolonizing the Mind by Ngugi wa Thiong’o and the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Both talk about how language is essential to one’s humanity, their roots, their culture, their being. And how the goal of the oppressor is to restrict and strip that away.

Part of what I want to do with my art is give people language to know themselves if I can.

[stirringtheunwatchedpot]

OMG! An Opening!

Unwatched Pot Opening Demo CW: Glitching sounds, glitched voices Best With Headphones

Here’s an audio demo of The Unwatched Pot’s opening scene! 

There’s been a mountain of revisions and this scene is very different now. Perhaps a new demo is on the horizon.

[stirringtheunwatchedpot]

Fixations and Imagining Sisyphus Happy

This week in my thesis seminar, we’re reading Danielle Evans, author of a brilliant short story collection called Office of Historical Corrections. In a few of her interviews, she talks about how one of her craft obsessions is how to play with time in narrative, which got me thinking about what my craft fixations are.

And I couldn’t really think of much.

But I could think of a ton of narrative obsessions that I have.

I will not shut up about monstrosity as an indicator of what is or isn’t acceptable on a societal level. What do you do with the knowledge that a lot of monsters come from fears of queerness, ethnic diversity, and disability. If you’re creating a monster-- what does the system around you deem scary? As someone with a very intersectional existence, how can I reclaim the traits that I have that have been historically considered monstrous?

Also had to reread Waiting for Godot this week... And I personally... hate that play, not gonna lie. I don’t have anything against it, it just makes me tired in a very unenjoyable way.

I do kind of like thinking about Absurdism, though. Especially as someone who constantly wonders about things like Last Thursdayism (the idea that the universe only began last Thursday and every memory you have is implanted), simulations, and dreamscapes. My overactive imagination can spiral a lot around stuff like that, but Absurdism can offer a nice excuse to say “so what?” Doesn’t have to mean anything, doesn’t have to be ‘real’ in any other sense than what I’m experiencing. This rock is heavy as hell, but I like to look at the patterns on it.

And in my writing, I like to think about that, too, I guess. I’m starting to realize that I have a sort of Absurdist approach to the magic of friendship/love tropes.

I am also such a big fan of the the Existentialist, Leap of Faith, though. I’ll probably talk more about how both relate to The Unwatched Pot at another date, though.

[stirringtheunwatchedpot]

Self-Care by Faylita Hicks

A poem that made me need to lie down and the text version

In their “About This Poem” statement Hicks says that as a person with marginalized identities, “It is radical for me to care for myself as a whole and complex being in this country, which actively legislates against my right to do so.”

And that’s something I really want to get at in the stuff I write.

In class, while discussing politics and theatre in a break out room, we were talking about how it doesn’t always need to be Mother Courage and Her Children, sometimes it can be Mamma Mia. And I think that’s what I wanna do. Propose a radical look at what love and community can be in the silliest way possible.

[stirringtheunwatchedpot]

What is “The Unwatched Pot?”

It’s the creative writing half of my thesis. I’m writing it as you read this, probably. It’s gonna be an audiodrama-- hopefully it’ll be on Spotify and YouTube and all that jazz.

Here’s the pitch, as boiled down as I can get it:

Server XXXX is scheduled for termination in 31 days. In a last ditch effort by its creators to get it to yield favorable results, they’re shutting off observation for the next 30 days, and praying the old adage, “the watched pot never boils,” will come through.

Spoiler alert.

It does.

“The observer effect is the fact that observing a situation or phenomenon necessarily changes it. Observer effects are especially prominent in physics where observation and uncertainty are fundamental aspects of modern quantum mechanic.”

You’ll be hearing a ton about that, sorry not sorry. There will be lots of great quotes from my friend, The Physicist, about all that stuff. I like quantum physics. Do I understand it? No. Do I think it’s a silly and game-breaking subject? Yes.

So, I’m keeping it. It’s mine-- I saw this quote:

“Nothing that is observed is unaffected by the observer.”

And it was over for me! I’ve had ‘The Observer’ as a character in this thing since 2021.

[stirringtheunwatchedpot]

What’s Going On Over Here??

Howdy! If you’re reading this, chances are, you’re among an elite few (classmates, professors, or associates) with special clearance to this highly protected site (you got the link from the forum post/I sent it to you).

If not... stick along for the ride? I guess?? Whatever floats your boat, king, just don’t be a dick.

What is this blog?

I’m using this silly little blog to collect the stuff that inspires me as an artist-- and is helping me write my thesis: The Unwatched Pot. (It’s going to be so embarrassing in two weeks when I change the name to something completely different-- I just wanted you to know why I picked the url.)

By the end of the semester/by the time the thesis is done, it’s supposed to be a manifesto of what I stand for as an artist.

I think what I stand for is what feels good.

Art doesn’t always have to hurt you to be good.

Maybe it does, but maybe it can also tell you that things are going to be okay.

We’ll see where we stand by the end of this lil’ journey we’re all taking. This semester is already insane, so.

What’s the point, fellas?

Everyday, I wake up. And I think about this word that this one dead greek guy talked about this one time.

The word is “Telos.”

A (classics major) friend of mine gave me this functional definition.

“end, purpose or goal. There are telos that are subordinate to other telos, as all activities have their own, respective goals. These subordinate telos can become the means to achieve more fundamental telos.”

As my time in undergrad draws to a close, I’m inundated with two streams of thoughts.

All the shit I have to get done/want to do

What the hell was/is it all for?

By the end of the semester, I’d like to figure that one out a little.

I want to have found my Telos. (For art making at least.)

I have bits and pieces of it, it’d just be nice to be able to articulate it clearly.

I’m a big enjoyer of threads.

Each of these posts is probably going to tie back into one of the threads of my telos, whatever that is-- and when we’re done we’ll have a beautiful tapestry to look at together!

Thanks for coming along for the ride!