Douglas H. Everett
I was thinking over quotations I like the
other day to get my lost boy name from the East of Kensington team (by
the way, if you have no idea what I'm talking about then check out "East of Kensington", and if you do then you should totally donate to them and get your own lost boy or girl name),
and this one came to mind. I ended up passing on it in favor of one
that I remembered more frequently, a quotation on the act of the good
deed that I tend to agree with and even live by. It was said by 'God' in
Futurama (if you know what I'm talking about now you're
awesome). But the more I thought on this other quotation, about blending
the dream world with the real world, the more I realized how much I
live by that too.
It's my goal in life. I've done it more than a
hundred times already. And I will forever make the effort to make our
mundane, often unpleasant world into a more magical, joyful one for both
myself and everyone around. Especially total strangers. Not to mention,
it's really fun getting to do what most people think is impossible.
People
always want to what the secret is and have things figured out.
Spectators continually guess how the trick is done. Guests at theme
parks tell its employees they already got it and it's okay to talk
about. Everyone is so proud of themselves for being too proud to just
accept what they are presented. Isn't it more fun to be astounded by the
suddenly appearing tiger, rather than to have "solved it"? In my
experience, the people who enjoyed Disney World the most were the people
who worked there, because they really knew, and more than anyone they
saw the magic. People don't seem to understand how special it was for me
to know Mickey Mouse personally, and how on my last day he thought up
the most tear-of-joy-jerking picture to take with him. Most parents
shove their kids forward into Mickey, snap the picture, and move on like
they're completely a scavenger hunt. I can tell you right now that
Mickey hates that. And he's not a hateful person. he wants those kids to
enjoy the experience and have a magical moment, and I'm sure a large
part of that is because by not getting to appreciate it, they'll grow
up, act the same way their parents did, try to figure out the trick, and
never be able to see the magic either. I also happen to know a magician
or two personally, and I should also let you know that for every way
you may have think you've solved the trick, there's at least two more
ways of doing it you haven't figured out. You're not gonna figure it out
so stop worrying about it and enjoy the show.
But I digress. This
wasn't meant to be a negative blog scolding people. This is just
something I wanted to point out about how great it is to blend the
fantasy with the reality. I prefer to look back on some of my own
memories in a more fantastic light. While I'm well aware that I didn't
actually flee lighting by seeking shelter in a wrecked pirate ship, I'm
also aware the human mind unconsciously alters one's memories, and I
might as well describe mine to others as awesomely as it felt. I'm not
sure that made sense, but the point is my life is all the more amazing
to me. And my favorite stories come from when I created a character for a
movie and gave him a MySpace page, enveloping people in the real world
to seek his advice. Or when I showed up to a rendezvous point in a
bloody shirt at 4am purely because common people agreed to meet me there
when I was pretending to be an archetypal mobster. And as an actor, the
whole point of my profession is to make people believe in fiction; to
make what they know to be play trick them into feeling as if it was
real. There's no better way to do that than by making that it real.
Turning the dream that someone thought up, and that I'm playing in, into
reality for someone else watching it.
I say my background in acting
is in interactive performance, something most people have never heard of
and don't understand once they do hear of it. It was introduced to me
by Jeff Wirth, a brilliant artist of a performer now trying to spread
his ground-breaking genre in New York. If you ever hear of him, I
suggest you look him up and volunteer when he asks for someone to play.
Anyway, with interactive performance the line between the real world and
the pretend world goes unnoticed. And the line between the actor and
the audience is gone. I've seen two people who aren't actors playing out
a dramatic scene, in character, without knowing the other wasn't
working from a script. Two people who were playing pretend, and they
were so invested in the story that in the time they were participating,
it was real to them. And to a degree, it was. They emotions they felt,
the plans they hatched, the efforts they made were totally real, created
by them. They could have turned down the offer to play along, and they
could've broken character and asked questions, or tried to find the
cameras watching them and call everyone out. But they didn't. They felt
how incredible and freeing the experience was for them, they saw the
temporary life they were presented, and they lived in it for a while. I
was there and it was awesome.
So the next time you go see a magic
act, let yourself be amazed! How often do you get the chance to see a
bird be born out of fire?! And next time you see Kermit the Frog, remind
yourself you are watching a talking frog! When was the last time you
saw a talking frog!? If you ever meet Superman, don't forget he's a
really busy guy and you may never get the chance to meet him again.
Don't rob yourself of these opportunities and wind up telling yourself
you never got to do something like seeing a talking frog. I'm tellin'
ya, I've met princesses and monsters, played tag with Peter Pan, sparred
with Darth Vader, sat in a Norse god's throne, had epic battles in
department stores, and have the ability to see magic. My life is
awesome.
