ten

meet the writers (7/10) : kendra

1. your favorite way to spark a conversation with a relative stranger

Shared experience.  Nothing ties you together with someone you’ve never met like, “Did you just see that?!”

2. one revolution you want to start

The letter writing revolution. Snail mail love letters, yo.  Absolutely nothing is better.

3. favorite joke and/or cheesy pick-up line 

How do you tell the difference between grapes and an alligator? If you jump on it, and it doesn’t make grape juice, it’s an alligator.

4. if you could do something dangerous just once with no risk, what would you do?

OH. OH. I would body surf an enormous wave.  Like the huge huge 100 foot ones in Hawaii.  If I knew nothing bad could happen, I would just ride that baby to the beach.

5. what do you love to talk about most?

What tattoo people would get and where if they had to get one right that second.

6. what are you afraid of talking about most/what conversations make you feel most vulnerable?

I’m a pretty open person, I can’t think of anything that I would be afraid to talk about.  But conversations about loss make me the most vulnerable. 

7. in 140 characters or less, what charges you?

Music you can’t not dance to, words that taste and look beautiful, dinner parties, night swimming, moments of unspoken understanding

8. cats or dogs

Both.  I love them both.  I want a ferociously brave feline that wants to play when I live in a small space, and a big dog that loves me and wants to protect me but also go on runs and sleep in my bed occasionally when I live in a big place.

9. what would you title your life story?

CRAP! I Have Nothing To Wear 

10. if your 10 year old self could meet you now, would he/she be impressed or disappointed?

She’d probably be bummed out that I wasn’t better at sports, but overall I think she’d be down with growing up to be me. 

meet the writers (5/10): Philip

1. your favorite way to spark a conversation with a relative stranger?

Recently I’ve really enjoyed having people over for tea. I go to an open mike every Wednesday, and often afterwards I’ll talk to interesting poets who have performed and invite some of them over for tea sometimes. Then, we usually end up sitting on the porch for a couple of hours, reading poems back and forth, and discussing whatever other nonsense we end up discussing. I am a strong believer in ritual, I think it’s very healthy to have, and having tea has become a bit of a personal ritual which I enjoy inviting other people in to. Nothing like a warm drink, on a cold night, talking to someone I just met about poetry.

2. one revolution you want to start

Oh but there are so, so many. But what I think I am working on with my life, in the longest run of all the things I am working on, is revolutionizing theatre. I want to bring a radical change in the way theatre is performed and perceived; both bringing back the respect and holiness of historical theatre, and bringing in a new level of connectivity with the audience. I think we live in a time with so many educated people, with so much information at their fingers, that our version of storytelling has to change in some radical way. One of my hero’s, Julian Beck, once said, “I do not like the Broadway theatre because it does not know how to say ‘hello.’” I want to make theatre that not only says ‘hello,’ but grabs the audience by the neck and pulls them in to a world that they have no choice but to become invested in.
As a strong supporter of radical theatre, it is my belief that revolutionizing theatre will lead to theatre that can help start revolutions.

3. favorite joke and/or cheesy pick-up line

So two peanuts are walking down the street. And one is assaulted.

4. if you could do something dangerous just once with no risk what would you do?

I would love to disappear for a while. This has been a recent obsession for me; but I think it would be wonderful to hop on a train and just see what happens. I was talking to someone the other night (over tea, no less), and we were discussing the beauty of not knowing where you are going. However, I am also a very nervous person, and (as I’ve been told virgos tend to be), somewhat plan oriented. So although the idea of traveling cross country with no destination set appeals to me, I think I would always be a little too scared to do it.
I was going to say skydive, but I don’t think I would actually be brave enough to do it even if there was no risk at all.

5. what do you love to talk about most?

Anything I share a passion with a person with. Radical theatre and poetry specifically. There is something electric about having someone explain to you an emotion you have always felt and never articulated, especially when you are both jumping out of your seats and waving your arms like a lunatic.

6. what are you afraid of talking about most/what conversations make you feel most vulnerable?

I am really, really bad at telling people my emotions about them to their faces. Which is to say, I asked out my last two girlfriends via text message. So yea, probably that.

7. in 140 characters or less, what charges you??

Julian Beck: “to make something useful, nothing else is interesting”, finding/looking for love, poetry, theatre, the potential to do good with poetry and theatre

8. cats or dogs?

As a person who lives with a cat, the answer is obviously dogs. (Seriously.)

9. what would you title your life story?

Damn. I had an answer to this a week ago and it’s slipped my mind. One of my favorite chapbooks is titled, “The Man Suit,” and I wish that weren’t already taken. Right now, If I Were a Train. Possibly, 100 New Ways to Say “Taint.” Maybe, 1 of 1,000,000 Potential Universes in Which I am a Version of Philip Schaffer. I don’t know if I think my life is funny or serious enough to warrant a funny or serious title just yet.

10. if your 10 year old self could meet you now, would he/she be impressed or disappointed?

Oh man. I wrote a poem once to myself at thirteen, and there’s a whole bunch I wish I could tell me then, and other stuff I wish my 13 year old self could remind me of. My ten year old self would be shocked at the person I am. This is 5 piercings, a hair cut that can best be described as “home-made,” and half my life later. I suppose in some ways, he would be disappointed in that I am no longer pursuing acting, because for the longest time that was what I wanted to do with my life. On the other hand, and I’m not saying I think I’m cool by any means, but 10 year old me would find 20 year old me damn cool. Actually, now that I think about it, as someone who didn’t really go through too rebellious of a teenage phase, in a lot of ways I am currently living out my 10 year old dreams. So there’s that too, which I think he would be happy with.

meet the writers (3/10): rachel

1. your favorite way to spark a conversation with a relative stranger?

i like to impose myself into their conversations. as in, if a stranger is next to me shopping and they ask their shopping companion their opinion of a dress or shirt…i’ll answer. it works. sometimes.

2. one revolution you want to start

i vote we let five year olds make the decisions for a day, perhaps the third thursday of every month. i swear, we’ll be so happy that day. we’ll run and play and read and learn and sing and laugh and fall down and cry and tell jokes and eat grilled cheese and chocolate chip cookies. it would be once a month heaven.

3. favorite joke and/or cheesy pick-up line

it’s a tie between, why couldn’t helen keller get a license? (because she’s a woman.) and why’d the monkey fall out of the tree? (because he was dead.) i don’t like pick up lines in general.

4. if you could do something dangerous just once with no risk what would you do?

say exactly what i’m thinking at all times.

5. what do you love to talk about most?

my family. things that annoy me. books. music. television. funny things kids say. what i love about my job. funny things kids do. what i dreamt about the night before.

6. what are you afraid of talking about most/what conversations make you feel most vulnerable?

conversations that arise out of something i’ve done wrong.

7. in 140 characters or less, what charges you??

people (whom i agree with) who speak their mind articulately. people (whom i disagree with) who speak their mind inarticulately.

8. cats or dogs? 

neither, i prefer mammals of the human persuasion.

9. what would you title your life story?

for all intensive purposes.

10. if your 10 year old self could meet you now, would he/she be impressed or disappointed?

my ten year old self wasn’t easily impressed. but if she met me now, i’d like to think she’d worry a little less about the future. though, she probably wouldn’t. because she’s me.

emma meets no one at all

you have a power over me and I give it to you freely and I’m really not in the mood for another existential crisis.

what is inside your trader joe’s bag? I really don’t want to know. It will only make this worse. It looks like it is not too heavy so that makes this better. I never walk on the south side of 2^nd street. but look at me, here I am, following you.

I think you are 75 years old. that is my best guess and I think it is a really good guess.

you are 75 and carrying a trader joe’s bag filled with unknown not-so-heavy objects and you have power over me that I gave you freely.

you walk much slower than me, which is actually the only problem I have with you. I want to pass you but that makes me really uncomfortable. It feels disrespectful to pass you. just the thought of passing you makes me feel naïve and selfish. I don’t want to look at your face. I can’t keep walking really slowly behind you. this feels creepy and I don’t want to creep you out I don’t even want to disrespect you. I have to pass you.

I have a photo of you on my phone now but I have no idea what your face looks like or if you are in fact 75 or what the hell you are carrying in that bag.

you caught up to me at the light and I let you pass me again because I am having an existential crisis and I may need you to stick through this with me.

you make me afraid of my young age. which is ridiculous but that’s ok. I mean, it’s not ok, but it’s happening and none of this is actually your fault. 

this is all happening, and i don’t blame you:

•  I really need to call my papa. I should also call ray and virginia. I don’t talk to the people that matter as often as I should. and I know it’s because I would rather get used to not talking to them now than have to deal with the sadness of it when they are gone or I have left.
• when I get old what am I going to regret most? what are the “big mistakes”? am I making them right now?
• where is your family? your granddaughter/great-niece really owes you a phone call. she doesn’t talk to the people that matter as often as she should. she’s really invested in her own self-preservation.
• you may be a really grumpy old man with a really terrible or terrific past. you probably broke someone’s heart and I’m sure yours still hurts from time to time. maybe you have animals, maybe you don’t. I don’t really care I just can’t believe that I am walking on the south side of 2^nd street.
• I miss home so much it hurts sometimes. I never say this because I really like when people think I am strong and sometimes I really need people to believe that I am emotionless.
• when I was 19 and I moved to south america I thought I was invincible. I thought I was invincible and I thought I was free. I was because I believed it and I really wonder where that person went and I really need her to come back.
• maybe her coming back is the “big mistake” and one day I will be like you and I will be walking down the south side of 2^nd street with a not-so-heavy bag as a girl dances around me in a creepy sort of way. and she will wonder if I am alone because I have spent my whole life wanting the whole world all at once instead of being with the people I should have spent all those years with and called as often as I could because they were, in fact, the whole world.
• if I choose the life that I assume you want me to I will probably still be here, walking on the south side of 2^nd street when I am 75 thinking about all of the great adventure I missed. I will be happy but it will be a kind of happy that sounds like some kind of sacrifice “I chose my family and I have a wonderful family and I love my job and it was all worth it”. I will still have that tattoo on my right ring finger that I got when I was 19 and invincible in south america and wanted to signify my life in the phrase “never stop exploring” which sometimes translates into some sappy avett brothers song about disappearing and love and loss. 
• my mom has never seen a firefly—this is sad too.
• I know what my mistake will be and I choose it tenderly and completely. but I also know that I will always want the other thing. which is ridiculous but that’s ok. I mean, it’s not ok, but it’s happening and none of this is actually your fault.

you turn left down bowery and I keep walking on 2^nd street but I move to the north side. I watch you for a while to make sure that you’re ok and that the bag is not too heavy and I wonder if you will ever know that you didn’t meet me at all.

meet the writers (2/10): tracey philomena lillis

first and foremost: this is now technically two days late. i wish i could tell you i was cliff-diving in the maldives or solidifying a soul and testing its chemical eccentricities but i was just completing midterms and drinking far too much whiskey. but can you ever have too much whiskey? no, i say! so let us commence:

1. your favorite way to spark a conversation with a relative stranger?

sustained eye contact. If you look someone dead in the eye for long enough they’ll wonder what’s on your mind and they will spark the conversation. two words, my dear friends: passive. aggression.

2. one revolution you want to start

i would most certainly second Overall Tuesdays. so, I guess that’s officially a thing now. But one revolution I would start myself? The Let’s All Get Along And Stop Shooting Each Other For The Sake of Borders Drawn Arbitrarily On Mother Earth’s Loving Face. LAGAASSEOFTSOBDAOMELF for short. (Sidenote: I just read that aloud to myself and it sounded like: Like a soft sob, damn elf. Which basically sums up our collective existence).

3. favorite joke and/or cheesy pick-up line

joke:

vonnegut:  See, every successful joke — the ones you’re going to get a belly laugh with — starts as a threat to someone or something. There was a salesman. His car broke down. He found a farmhouse nearby, and asked if he could spend the night there. The farmer says, “Yes, but you’ll have to sleep with my daughter.” See, that’s just the set-up. But it gets peoples’ endocrine systems. It’s just a few words, but all kinds of things are happening.

pick up line:

hey, wanna come down to the pub with me to watch the world cup? (hey - it’s the only one that ever worked on me)

4. if you could do something dangerous just once with no risk what would you do?

spelunking

5. what do you love to talk about most?

topic isn’t as important to me as audience. for example: I could and would (and often do) discuss absolutely everything with my boyfriend. If a person’s ears aren’t open, your words just slide down their earlobes and onto their shoulders and you give them conversation-dandruff. Isn’t it bad enough already that they’re boring? I refuse to also coat their shoulders with my unheard words. 

6. what are you afraid of talking about most/what conversations make you feel most vulnerable?

the future. Dearest Reader (you have made it to question six; you must be deserving of my affection) do not ever ask me what I plan to do with my life. I have a few distant ports in mind, but the ocean is covered in mist and who knows what murky or crystalline waters will meet the prow of my vessel next? (Obviously, however, I plan to make a lot of dreamy sea-metaphors). 

7. in 140 characters or less, what charges you??

gene, half-doors, hens, pints, conversation, wit, colored pencils, rain-wet hair, gut laughter, happiness tears, words like: craggy, stellar

8. cats or dogs? 

hens are the optimal pet: soft and affectionate, make lovely comforting sounds, peck small and annoying children, provide you with a money-making scheme (eggs=$), and most importantly: directly descended from dinosaurs. case closed.

9. what would you title your life story?

narrowback. (urban dictionary it)

10. if your 10 year old self could meet you now, would he/she be impressed or disappointed?

I think if given the opportunity I would flake out, get her drunk and convince her I was only a figment of her imagination and - GOOD GOD, I CAN TIME TRAVEL.