Before landing on this page, you and I were only separated by a mere three degrees. Now we can be one on the web. That's not the definition of technological singularity but it should be.
With this tumblog, I promise kittens and balls of yarn for the kittens to play with. There will be some making out and a lot of hand-holding. I hope that when you are lonely and lost on the outmost corners of the interweb, you can come here and find yrself and feel the good vibrations. You are special and no one can touch that!
Your Pal Mal
The Basic Training of Pavlov’s Dog
As both a performer and a party story collector, being relatable and accessible is probably the most important part of the delivery. Despite being more social than usual, I’ve also felt more insular and as a result have been both writing and performing less. Cutting these activities out of my diet makes me feel even less human and so the cycle continues. Today, though, I came across an old interview with Al Pacino that made me realize sometimes the drive to deliver can come from not relating to people at all. I pulled this quote from a NYTimes article regarding a 1970s run of “The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel”:
“One night during a performance I found myself relating to a pair of eyes in the audience,” Mr. Pacino recalled. ”Which was something unusual for me. I’d heard other actors talk about it, but I’d never done that. And I found I was gearing my performance to that section of the audience. By the time the curtain call came, I had to see, I had to find out who it was. And sitting there, of course, was a seeing eye dog.”
