Editing Day

This is what I'm doing today. (I sadly do not own this mug, but probably should.)

I have a deadline tomorrow evening. And it's a deadline that nobody other than me would even know about if I did not say, "I have a deadline," because in the grand scheme of things, it affects no one other than me. I either submit the thing or I do not. After dancing around this for several days, I think I will submit the thing.

But the thing I have decided to submit is not at all the thing I thought I was going to submit in the first place. This is largely because of the aforementioned figurative dancing, wondering whether or not I was actually going to submit the thing. So now it's a different thing. It's a different thing to submit to the same place.

The fact that I am writing this blog entry about the thing rather than working on the thing should not be seen as destructive as I, in fact, needed a palate-cleanser before going from the first thing into the second thing. Like a cup of tea. Tea or something similar in a mug that I own, but does not resemble the mug in the photograph, except perhaps in use. I am done now with my palate-cleansing. As you were.

It's a wonder I get anything done at all.

planting (dream) seeds

Dream Seed

I have a number of friends traveling this week: one headed to Costa Rica, a second headed to Spain, and three dear ladies in Paris. I am sitting on my ass on a meditation cushion in Manhattan as my passport gathers dust. Don’t feel sorry for me. Okay, maybe feel sorry for me a bit. Saying no to “Is there no chance in hell you could come to Paris Feb. 4 - 8?” when I have frequent flier miles was kinda hard to do. 

If I’ve been focusing on budgets and such lately, it is not without reason. Things have been a little tight over here. If you’re a creative person with any intention at all of putting the fruits of your creativity out into the world, there are some start-up costs to be had. And if you’ve been pursuing the arts for a while, chances are you’ve managed to accrue some semblance of debt. So what I’ve been doing is paying myself forward…and finally, responsibly, paying myself backwards. And looking backwards at my finances is not unlike looking at a small town after it has been decimated by a tornado. The long and short of it: clean-up has begun, and there hasn’t been a lot of extra money in the budget for fun, much less travel, so apologies if anyone’s wondering where the heck I’ve been. 

In the interest of not becoming a complete shut-in, I’ve recently reinstituted the weekly practice of an artist’s date. If you’re familiar with The Artists’ Way and the work of Julia Cameron, the idea will be familiar to you. In a nutshell, what you do is you take yourself - just you, no friends, no significant others, just you and your happy self - for a small adventure. The goal is to treat yourself and your interests as if these things are a priority...because, you know, they should be.

The “date” can be simple or grandiose, expensive or free. Maybe you take yourself to the library and check out a book on ancient Mesopotamia, just for fun. You could go to the museum to see the dinosaurs, or drop into a knitting class for beginners, or go to a movie that you really want to see by yourself, or pick up an adult coloring book and some colored pencils, or check out a gallery reception and enjoy some free wine and cheese with your outsider art. It’s about making time for yourself. It’s about filling the well. 

My buddy Lisa - one of the aforementioned ladies in Paris - reached out to me before hopping on a plane bound for CDG this week, and asked if I’d like her ticket to an event at a yoga studio on 13th Street. I hate to see a ticket for any cultural event go to waste, so I said yes. This is how I found myself flat on my back, getting saged-and-feathered, at a shamanic sound-bath experience at The Integral Yoga Institute. 

The ritual in question was performed by Dream Seed of the Golden Drum community based in Brooklyn. Dream Seed is a loosely-formed band of students and musicians studying with an elder of the Taino tradition across the bridge - who knew. In a spoken introduction beforehand, one of the students performing made the point that, very often, people use music as an escape. He invited the participants to work with the music internally, as certain sounds and vibrations might stir up or activate some latent energy within us. At any rate, after 90-or-so minutes of experiencing wave after wave of live musical improvisation on instruments from all over the world, I stumbled out onto the sidewalk and into the night, relaxed and reeking of incense.

You can check out some sound samples of Dream Seed’s work here. My recommendation: close the bedroom door, light a candle or fire-up some incense, kill the lights, cue up some sounds, and treat yourself to a 20-minute savasana. It may not quite be Paris, but you can still tell yourself you’re at a hookah bar in Montparnasse.

$5 at ALDI

If you're not familiar with ALDI, you're forgiven. The grocery store is relatively new here in the States, though you're probably familiar with a chain they own: Trader Joe's.

Now, it's not a perfect store - at least, by American sensibilities. They're not particularly convenient. (Case in point: the closest one to my Manhattan apartment is in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx.) They won't have everything you're looking for, though they'll have quite a bit. If you want to use a cart, you have to put down a 25-cent deposit (you get it back at check-out). You bag your own groceries, and provide your own bags. Oh, and no credit cards. Cash and pin-based debit cards only.

So why even bother? They have some organic produce, some gluten-free items, and some items similar to store brand items you'd find at the aforementioned Trader Joe's. But the real reason to go is their price-point. It's like shopping at Wal-Mart without dancing with the devil.

After reading yet another article about this store and what they bring to the table, I decided it was time I checked this place out for myself. I gave myself a challenge: to see how far I could get with $5. I walked out with two cans of beans, a dozen eggs, two bell peppers, and a box of mushrooms for a grand total of $4.91.

I put my bounty into my tote bag, tucked that nine cents in change back into my pocket, and managed to restrain myself from victoriously skipping all the way home. It was tempting, but would have jostled the eggs.

The Guardian loves THE HONEYCOMB TRILOGY

The Guardian just named The Honeycomb Trilogy as one of the Top 10 New York theatre experiences of 2015. It is such a treat to see our show short-listed with these amazing productions. Long live House Four!

tonight, we dine in Venice

It's that week. The one where I have no - and I do mean no - money, but there's two cans of sardines, a can of tomatoes, and some finely-ground cornmeal for polenta in the pantry, some dying basil near the window, a half dried-up nub of garlic on top of the microwave, and the remnants of some parm-reg in the fridge. 

A proper Italian will rage that I topped it with cheese, but the fish came out of a can, and they can get over it.  I'm Sicilian (among other things), and I do what I want. But mostly I give thanks every damned day that I was raised on the kitchen counter by good cooks, and that I know how to feed myself. 

Tonight, we dine in Venice.

Misty Copeland's breaking ground

I know Misty Copeland has been getting a lot of press lately for her recent (well-deserved) promotion to American Ballet Theatre.  That's a big deal, a huge deal, but it's not what I'm going to talk about here. What I'm currently clasping my hands in delight over is the fact that Copeland is making her Broadway debut and performing in ON THE TOWN at the Lyric Theater.

It makes sense, really. ON THE TOWN is dance (indeed, ballet) heavy for a musical, and she's a delightful choice for the part. To be fair, she's not really a singer. But does she really need to do everything when she does what she does so very well? (For that matter, do any of us? Could we all just own what we're really good at, and be enough for once?)

But the truly magical thing for me here is that, as an artist, she has bravely thrown herself headlong into a milieu that is not her forte. She didn't say, "Eh, you know what, I'm not really a trained singer. I don't know if I can pull off a Broadway musical. I think I'll pass." What she said, and what she's saying every night that she's out there on that stage, is Yes; let's do this. She's knocking the ball out of the park for what she's there to do, widening her creative reach, and allowing herself to play.

Here's to all of us doing a little more of that.

web series in progress: A Guy/Girl Walks Into a Bar

A few outtakes from my day on set for the comedy web series A Guy/Girl Walks Into a Bar. Such a fun day. We're hoping to have it online this fall; stay tuned for updates! Photos by permission of Wide Eyed Productions. 

Top and bottom shots by Kristin Skye Hoffmann

Middle shot by yours truly

what we make of it

On the lean days - and this is one of them - I am grateful for creative opportunities and the roof over my head, that I was taught how to cook, for the food on my plate, and the cheap (but not at all bad) wine in my glass.

Exciting news to come in the next couple of days. Onwards.

Last call: Boomerang Theatre Co's crowd-pleasing production of LICKSPITTLES!

A photo posted by @animasolaarts on May 11, 2015 at 8:12pm PDT

It's closing week for Boomerang Theatre Co.'s production of Johnna Adams' crowd-pleasing verse comedy! Get your $15 discount tickets with the promo code BOOM2015. Come play!

LICKSPITTLES Returns: May 1-17 at Teatro Circulo MainStage

Boomerang Theatre Company's production of Johnna Adams' verse comedy Lickspittles, Buttonholers, and Damned Pernicious Go-Betweens returns for a limited run May 1-17 at Teatro Circulo MainStage, 64 East 4th Street (between Bowery and 2nd Avenue). I'll be back playing the duel roles of the heartbroken Sestine and everyone's favorite royal shopoholic, Empress Josephine. (Check out the press release goodness here.)

It's a heck of a good time. Get your $15 early-bird discount tickets with the promo code BOOM2015. 

the lion(ess) sleeps tonight

Rest in peace, Judith Malina.


Love and Politics - Official Trailer from Azad Jafarian on Vimeo.

Flora & Fauna Report: Spring 2015

Central Park, yesterday afternoon

The vernal equinox has finally hit New York, and not a moment too soon. It was a rough winter. Spring is fresh; it is new. As the pile of snow on the corner subsides, it reminds you to look at the steep pile of clothes that has taken up residence in the corner and address it. Well, maybe it doesn’t do that to you, but it does that to me. There are dusty things in my life that are just taking up space at this point, and all of it needs to go.

Everyone's favorite question these days seems to be, "So, what are you working on right now?" I'll get to the good stuff in a minute, but what I've really been up to is a lot of mental and physical housekeeping. I've been working with a health coach for the last couple of months (one of the perks of my day job), and said health coach has been putting me through my paces in terms of getting my mind-body initiative back on track.

In the last week alone, I’ve been to kickboxing, a Bollywood dance class, a trampoline tabata class, spinning, vinyasa yoga, and Bikram. If you, like me, need a class to get your rear in gear and prefer studios to the gym, I cannot recommend Classpass enough. It has even brought dance back into my day-to-day life, and that alone makes me so damned happy, I hardly have the words to express it.

Trampolines & dance barres! I am five years old.

I’m also on something (not at all) fun called the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) for four weeks. I hesitate to call it a cleanse, because cleanses are trendy. My Celiac diagnosis - an autoimmune disease, for those keeping score at home - was not something I'd equate to dancing after midnight with bottle service in the Meatpacking District. That said, I’ve been experiencing some ongoing health issues, and the AIP is a paleo-heavy elimination diet which serves as a kind of divining rod in terms of determining what foods might be triggering certain adverse body responses (the details of which I will spare you).

At the end of four weeks, we will begin the process of slowly reintroducing certain food groups back into my diet, one at a time, to see how my body responds. In the meantime, I’m off coffee, sugar, alcohol, dairy, nightshades, seeds, nuts, grains, legumes, and gluten (obviously). I’m drinking bone broth and juicing for breakfast, eating sauerkraut voluntarily, and brewing my own kombucha.

This is the closest I'm getting to Seamless.

This would probably not be the month to ask me to dinner. But in four weeks, you may buy me either a coffee or a G&T.

In other (arts-related) news:

• I just wrapped up a three-week on-camera class with casting director James Calleri. Highly recommended.
• I just completed a three-week screenwriting intensive with writer/director Imelda O’Reilly. Also highly recommended.
• I recently started working with renowned dialect and accent coach Amy Stoller, and she is fantastic.
• I'm back in rehearsals with director John Hurley for the stage reprisal of Boomerang Theatre Company’s production of Johnna Adams’ verse play LICKSPITTLES, BUTTONHOLERS, AND DAMNED PERNICIOUS GO-BETWEENS. The first production resulted in my being inducted into the Indie Theater Hall of Fame in 2013. This will be a limited run, so mark your calendars now for May 1-17, 2015.

Sergei Polunin, "Take Me to Church" by Hozier, Directed by David LaChapelle

valentine

what if I move the bed 

and make room for you

and throw out all the underpins with holes and things unraveling

what if I fix the drawers that have long gone off their tracks

and buy new sheets

and turn the goddamned mattress

what if I vacuum

and peer beneath the box springs

to find who-even-knows what

something I’d forgotten

something I’d thought I’d lost

what if I throw wide the curtains 

and let in enough light so that you can see

me in all my hideous imagined disfigurement

if I moved my pile of clothes from the chair

to make room for yours

would you still want this   still want me   

would you forgive the remnants of past lives

and scars from old loves

and my ineffective housekeeping

what if I move the bed

and break up all my patterns

what if I’m unable to sleep

© AL Pearsall, 2015

filling the well, or the sweet side of introversion

French Toast English Muffins with Cinnamon
Marmalade Ricotta

There was an article that popped up on Huffington Post not too long ago on 10 Ways Introverts Interact Differently with the World, and in reading it, I felt very much as if someone had been watching me as a test subject. I realize that handing out hard copies of the article before social functions might not be a great idea, so check out the link above. In any regard, it's a good primer.

The biggest take away from it for me - aside from the fact that, yes, I hate the phone, do well in a performance capacity but not so great at the after party, am generally rotten at small talk, and need to run like hell from full rooms of people after a certain amount of time - no matter how much I may love those people in that room -  is exactly how much downtime I require between periods of prolonged creativity to refill the proverbial well.

You know the question: What are you working on right now?  I told a good friend of mine earlier this week, I'm washing my socks and organizing my spice rack, and that's about as far as I can think as my creative stores replete themselves. Projects are going to start taking off in March, and I'll get into that soon. In the meantime, I'm generally nesting in my apartment as much as I am able, before I get too busy and it gets too hot to even bear turning on the oven.

I've been trying to make sure that I have (as close to) one full day at home a week to recharge. Sweats get pulled on, candles get lit, music gets played, the bathroom gets cleaned, soup gets made, tea gets brewed. And in the case of this morning, there is Sunday breakfast. And I say that with no regrets, because I've been kicking my ass at the gym four times a week (I'll tell you about that later). I may be working on getting back into fighting shape, but a girl still has to eat.

French Toast English Muffins with Cinnamon Marmalade Ricotta 

one serving - double as necessary

1 English muffin, split in half (gluten-free, as necessary)

1 egg, beaten

1/4 cup milk
1/4 tsp vanilla

pinch cinnamon
1 tbsp butter

1/3 cup ricotta cheese

1 tbsp orange marmalade (extra points if it has fresh ginger)
another pinch cinnamon

maple syrup (the real deal)

Take your English muffin halves and prick both sides in several places with the tines of a fork, so that liquid will be able to soak into the bread a bit easier. Combine egg, milk, vanilla and cinnamon in a shallow dish that will also fit both halves of your English muffin, cut side down, and nestle your muffin halves down into the liquid. After about a minute, turn your muffin halves over in the egg mixture. You want as much of that liquid to be absorbed into the English muffin halves as possible without them totally disintegrating.

In a separate bowl, combine ricotta cheese with marmalade and cinnamon, and stir well. Set aside.

In a griddle or large, flat-bottomed skillet, heat about 1 tbsp of butter over medium heat till it melts and starts to bubble, coating the bottom of the pan, and add your two English muffin halves to the pan to brown to golden. After a couple of minutes, flip the muffin halves over with a spatula and brown the other sides. Transfer to a plate.  Serve with cinnamon marmalade ricotta and real maple syrup. 

A New Year, and Italian Sausage with Lentils

Italian Sausage with Lentils

So we're well into 2015 at this point, and this post is late. I made a promise to myself to try to post at least once a week this year. I've been trying to bend time to my will and the damned stuff just keeps seeping from between my fingers. Better late than never, I guess.

I'm going to kick things off with a recipe as I've been cooking a lot lately, and I'm starting with sausage and lentils because I'm jonesing for the south of France. Someone please cast me in something that's going to give me a good excuse to go to Cannes. Mama needs a working Mediterranean vacation. 

Until then, I'm living vicariously with a bowl of comfort food that doubles as protein fitness fuel. Sausage and lentils is also a popular dish around the dawning of the new year, as lentils are said to symbolize coins (i.e., wealth). Since everyone wants a little more abundance in our lives, where better to begin that pipeline than the digestive tract? When it tastes as good as this does, you may as well bow to tradition and make some. 

No, really, just make some.

Italian Sausage with Lentils

1 1/2 cups dried French lentils
     (not to be confused with brown lentils, another beast entirely - get the French)

1 cup diced carrot

1 cup diced onion

1 clove minced garlic

2 1/2 cups diced fennel bulbs

6 Italian sausage (mild or spicy, your choice)

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup white wine (if not using wine, use 1/4 cup additional water or broth)

1/8 cup chopped fennel fronds

1/4 cup chopped parsley

olive oil

salt 

pepper

Sort through the lentils quickly (nobody likes rocks in their lentils), and give them a quick rinse under the faucet before adding them to a saucepan. Cover generously with cold water (about 5 cups should do it) and add about 1/2 tsp salt to the pan before bringing to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, partially cover the pot, and cook the lentils until they are al dente. Drain lentils and set aside.

In a large skillet or dutch oven, add your sausage links to about 1 tbsp of olive oil and brown on all sides. Remove once brown - it does not have to be cooked all the way through. Cut the sausages into coins and set aside. 

In the same pan you just used, saute your onion, carrots, chopped fennel bulbs and garlic in an additional 1 tbsp of olive oil. Add about 1/2 tsp of salt and 1/4 tsp of cracked black pepper, your wine to deglaze the pan, and your 1/2 cup of water. 

Add your sausage coins back into the vegetables, and turn the heat up to a gentle boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cover the pot. Once the sausage looks like it has cooked all the way through, remove the lid, add the lentils to the pan, and stir to combine. 

Allow the flavors to come together at a low simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add parsley, fennel fronds, additional salt, pepper, and olive oil (if desired) to taste, and give it another stir before serving.

DEAD SPECIAL CRABS: previews begin November 7

Post by Amy Lee Pearsall.

the mighty acorn

From Christina Katz's "The Writer's Workout." Kind of loving it.

walking the walk

Thoughts from "Meditations from the Mat" by Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison. Highly recommended.

Burning Down the House

The end of summer has always felt downright magical to me. When I was a kid, we actually had three months of summer vacation, and those days of late August bleeding into September were heavenly. The air seemed thicker, the cicadas louder, days spent in the neighbor’s pool more frequent. There was the anticipation of new teachers and classmates, shopping for clothes and school supplies, and a birthday cake right there, in the center of it all.

I've always loved to learn, though there were some subjects I was better at than others. These days, “school” is working with a financial adviser to face my bad monetary self in the mirror. It’s not been easy for me. It’s like taking economics and bookkeeping, both of which I blissfully managed to skirt during my formal education. But still – progress.

It’s also birthday time over here. Well, it will be shortly. For me, it’s not about candles (wait, that's a lie - I love candles), or even about age. It's my personal New Year’s Day, and it’s kind of sacred. This year, it feels even more so. Whatever your feelings on astrological juju, this past Monday was the new moon in Virgo: a period of reckoning and new beginnings, if you’re into that sort of thing (I’m not particularly, but if the moon can affect tides and my mood, I may as well use it to my advantage). I sussed out my top goals for the year to come, and decided how it is that I want to feel every day. (How important is that, you ask? Really damned important.)

And in keeping with the theme of new beginnings and clearing the decks, tonight marks the 90^th anniversary of the burning of Zozobra in Santa Fe. If you’re not familiar, Zozobra is a 50-or-so-foot-tall effigy of “Old Man Gloom” that gets burned to the ground. (Lest anyone think this is a rip off of Burning Man, Burning Man started in 1986, and is all sound and fury, but no soul, sort of like Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome –1985, thank you very much – with all the great costumes, but sadly without Tina Turner. Sorry, Nevada; you lose.) 

I can’t be in my native high desert tonight – indeed, vacations are off the table for a while until I get these checks and balances in order – but through the glory of the Internet, I can live vicariously. SantaFe.com will be live streaming the event, and I've got some piñon and sage incense around here somewhere. Good things are coming. Out with the old.