2010.09.12 19:00 - Dramatic Universe

The Guardian for this meeting was Calvino Rabeni. The comments are by Calvino Rabeni.
This session had a good turnout and we discussed various perspectives on play, being, drama, and their psychological and cultural settings.  Some similar sessions include:

• So Many Books, So Little Time
• Conscious Embodiment

stevenaia Michinaga: hi Cal
Calvino Rabeni: Hi, steve, and Aphro and Mitzi :)
Aphrodite Macbain: Hey Cal.
Aphrodite Macbain: I thought I'd touch down for jsut a minute befoe I eat my ratatouille
stevenaia Michinaga: sounds delicious
Aphrodite Macbain: I've had a busy day gardening and I'm hungry
Aphrodite Macbain: dont get your feet wet Mitzi
Mitzi Mimistrobell: i enjoy making a dramatic entrance ...
Aphrodite Macbain: t's always quiet on Sunday evening
Aphrodite Macbain: except for dramatic entrances
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Hi aphro, nmnice to see you once again
Calvino Rabeni: That does sound good, Aphrodite. (Forgets exactly what ratatouille has in it?)
stevenaia Michinaga: nods, I used to do sunday 7:00 and thanks Cal for filling in
Aphrodite Macbain: Same. How are you Mitzi
Mitzi Mimistrobell: i'm well, thanks!
Mitzi Mimistrobell: I'm thinking - tomatoes, onions, herbs, zucchini or other squash item?
Aphrodite Macbain: Rt. has many good things: garlic, onions, green peppers, egg plant, and tomatoes. I add ground lamba,
Calvino Rabeni: YW, Steve- well it's the last session of the week, and I'm a procrastinator
stevenaia Michinaga: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratatouille
Aphrodite Macbain: yes and zucchini
stevenaia Michinaga: seems everything has a wiki page
Aphrodite Macbain: what are you procrastinating doing?
Aphrodite Macbain: the logs?
Aphrodite Macbain: I probabkly shouldn't say this but I enjoy editing them and making comments
Calvino Rabeni: Just a joke - when I signed up for a session, I took the last one of the week
Aphrodite Macbain: smart
Calvino Rabeni: Aphro, are you / have considered doing a scribe period?
stevenaia Michinaga: I comment sometimes, everybody has their own style :)
Calvino Rabeni: I like doing it too
Aphrodite Macbain: I'm not sure if I can say anything worth recording tonight. All I can think of is editing and rotating and stretching and rezzing
Aphrodite Macbain: I hesitate to take on anything more
Calvino Rabeni: Heheh - I like that physical part of it too
Aphrodite Macbain: Today was a big learning curve for me -I spent over 7 hours on line
Mitzi Mimistrobell: it''s always a yin and yang rhythm ... we feel the way we feel ...
stevenaia Michinaga: scribing is more like "Highlights" you jsut ahve to read a few logs to do it
Aphrodite Macbain: Oh
Aphrodite Macbain: I'm happy to do it if I'm not "obliged" to
Calvino Rabeni: Seven hours on PaB or something else, Aphro?
Aphrodite Macbain: When I get some me to read all the logs
Mitzi Mimistrobell: I would probably be the same way ... that's why I am not ready to Guardinate as of yet ...
Aphrodite Macbain: Mainly P@B Calvino
stevenaia Michinaga: hello Pila
Aphrodite Macbain: Hiya Pila
stevenaia Michinaga: thought they banned Emerald viewer?
Calvino Rabeni: That's the trick I found - originally wanted to do something for attraction, and then later obligation creeps in
Pila Mulligan: hi
Calvino Rabeni: I saw this happen with a group of people too recently
Calvino Rabeni: Hi Pila :)
Aphrodite Macbain: exactly. What is a duty becomes a drag
Aphrodite Macbain: I sound like a spoiled brat
stevenaia Michinaga: I used to do two session a week, eventually it caught up with me
Calvino Rabeni: And yet, there's some way to make it work
stevenaia Michinaga: took quite a few months
Calvino Rabeni: Sure steve, I'm tempted but concerned that might happen too
Aphrodite Macbain: I think if your RL isn't too demanding it helps. I'm also working 4-5 hrs a day working on a report
Aphrodite Macbain: Sore back
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Greetings Pila ( alhtough I don't see you your presence has become known)
Pila Mulligan: :)
--BELL--

Aphrodite Macbain: OK I'm afraid I must have OK I must leave you dear friends now. The ratatouille is calling me....
stevenaia Michinaga: bye Aphodite
Pila Mulligan: bye Aph
Calvino Rabeni: Take care, Aphrodite :)
Aphrodite Macbain: Bye bye
Mitzi Mimistrobell: see you again I hope

Leaping right into a topic...

Calvino Rabeni: I learned about a theatre method called "Theatre of the Oppressed" that stages public happenings with actors
Calvino Rabeni: They write the play, but there's no audience (called Invisible Theater)
stevenaia Michinaga: history?
Calvino Rabeni: Sometimes things go wrong...
Pila Mulligan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_the_Oppressed
Calvino Rabeni: History of the method? ?
Calvino Rabeni: Or maybe not wrong, but "work *too* well
Calvino Rabeni: Like they staged the idea of the Anonymous Other
stevenaia Michinaga: no, is the public happening they stage historical
Calvino Rabeni: no, it's socio / poitical
Calvino Rabeni: people with no faces
stevenaia Michinaga: awww
stevenaia Michinaga: what is a play w/o an audiance?
Fox Monacular: good evening everyone
Pila Mulligan: hi Fox
Calvino Rabeni: Hi Fox :)
Pila Mulligan: contemporaneous with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_theatre
Calvino Rabeni: And a bunch of kids came and followed them, and then started beating them
Calvino Rabeni: for quite a while actually - http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=TheSpartacat#p/u/14/7tHl8oPhc2w
Calvino Rabeni: and eventually they took off their Masks
Calvino Rabeni: and became people again
Calvino Rabeni: and were angry
Calvino Rabeni: And said - "What the hell do you think you're doing?!!"
Calvino Rabeni: The attackers just snapped out of it, shocked and surprised and crying.
Calvino Rabeni: Because suddenly it was "real people" to them
Calvino Rabeni: Because they saw the Face again
Calvino Rabeni: They had fallen into the invitation of the play, and out of control
Calvino Rabeni: Rather a good demonstration, but scary to all
Calvino Rabeni: A play without an audience - the theater company did "invisible theater"
Calvino Rabeni: And the people around just act natural (whatever that is)

Next step of the process ... responding to the discomfort of an awareness shock:

Mitzi Mimistrobell: That is depressing Calvino ... what significance do you take from this?
Calvino Rabeni: they aren't assigned roles
stevenaia Michinaga: he said oppressing
Calvino Rabeni: I was struck with it as an analogy or parallel
Calvino Rabeni: everyone has (or maybe many do?) a set of ideas of what is supposed to happen with others around them
Calvino Rabeni: and they don't give the playbook to the others
Calvino Rabeni: or maybe they all subscribe to different playbooks, perhaps
Calvino Rabeni: So there are some scripts, and some "secrecy" involved
stevenaia Michinaga: reminds of f artists or archtects who create works that cause discomfort
Calvino Rabeni: The idea of this theatre is somewhat political - to raise consciousness about social oppression themes
Calvino Rabeni: Perhaps, yes steve, there was an early theorist I heard, who had the idea it was supposed to have discomfort and pain
stevenaia Michinaga: a cemetery that makes you depressed, etc
stevenaia Michinaga: an awkward space
Calvino Rabeni: There's the assumption that change requires suffering to awaken
Calvino Rabeni: I personally don't agree with it, at least not fundamentally, not necessarily
stevenaia Michinaga: art too disturbing to look at
stevenaia Michinaga: I don't either
Calvino Rabeni: There are some therapies based on it,
Calvino Rabeni: and they're supposed to be cathartic
Calvino Rabeni: The idea seems to be to force the pain to the surface where it can be seen
stevenaia Michinaga: sounds like Buddhism and suffering though art
Fox Monacular: we probably also don't experience the same sufferng looking at, say, renaissance religious art, as was intended originally... so it's also interesting politically/socially
Pila Mulligan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Alinsky -- he had a similar but less demanding approach
Calvino Rabeni: Good evening, Lucinda :)
--BELL--

Pila Mulligan: change resulting for self-interest instead of discomfort
Pila Mulligan: hi Lucinda
Lucinda Lavender: good evening all:)
Fox Monacular: Hi Lucinda and Druth
Pila Mulligan: hi Druth
Calvino Rabeni: The idea of "internalized oppression" is interesting - it seems kind of half- sensible to me
stevenaia Michinaga: are you saying self oppression?
Calvino Rabeni: It means, people "take on" or have forced upon them, oppressions from society, then they become their own oppressors
Calvino Rabeni: (Sorry, I'm using a new viewer - didn't see the pause)
Fox Monacular: that's how the foucault's prison societies functiona dn self-replicate
Calvino Rabeni: The thing that seems half-right is the implication that without society, people might be naturally free and happy, but human woes are due to conditioning
Calvino Rabeni: I know that's just the fundamentalist version of it though
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Hi fox, Cinda ... lots of people about this evening! How nice.
Calvino Rabeni: If it works both ways, that could be a valid component, but not the whole story
Lucinda Lavender: :)
Fox Monacular: it may not be the whole story, but still useful in revealing cetain 'hidden' or implicit values/enforced behaviors
Calvino Rabeni: I agree with that part of it
Fox Monacular: me too:)
Calvino Rabeni: I've been noticing how many different philosophies have their fundamentalist versions and their open versions
Calvino Rabeni: Where the fundamentalist ones say "only this"
Calvino Rabeni: but have a valid point otherwise
Fox Monacular: yes, fundamentalist versions are easier to learn in school:) because they have a 'clear ' thesis
Calvino Rabeni: And they have to compete with other theories
Calvino Rabeni: So they say - forget that other way, this is the one that works
Fox Monacular: and then we internalize that... so it becomes harder to relate to the open alternatibes... takes a lot of unlearning
Calvino Rabeni: Yes
druth Vlodovic: politics vs spirituality, fundamentalists seek to use the religion as a power base, rather than a method of enlightenment
Fox Monacular: not only a religion, a philosophy or science too
Calvino Rabeni: But in its favor, well, it's just hard for any person to learn an integral approach, with out learning one-sided approaches first
Fox Monacular: yes, for sure
Fox Monacular: point format please
Calvino Rabeni: Maybe it's just necessary to divide up the huge job of understanding reality, into complementaty parts
Mitzi Mimistrobell: so ... how can one gently open up the topic with one who seems to be "fundamentalist" in their view ? Quite possibly they don't really feel that way and it could be a communication style issue
Fox Monacular: thesis-antithesis-synthesis
Calvino Rabeni: True, Fox, maybe a dialectic needs to be trans-personal
druth Vlodovic: first you'd need to remove or mitigate fear
Calvino Rabeni: @mitzi, I have a friend who wrote a book on that question of how-to
Calvino Rabeni: http://www.amazon.com/Communicating-Across-Divides-Everyday-Lives/dp/0615342175/
Mitzi Mimistrobell: We shouldn't rush to judge another ... we all have limited pieces of the puzzle. How to get us all to bring our pieces of the puzle to the puzzle able and start trying to fit them all together in some way
Calvino Rabeni: Getting inside the view of another, empathic insight, and above all, maintaining humanness
Fox Monacular: a trans-personal dialectic can be something like this: state your point of view, listen to their counterpart, try to combine:) sounds a little utopic, but perhaps possible at least in some cases
Calvino Rabeni: not becoming the faceless other like the ones who were beaten in the invisible play episode
stevenaia Michinaga: quietly slips away, night
Pila Mulligan: bye Steve
Fox Monacular: bye Steve
Calvino Rabeni: If someone wanted to apply dialectic to social change, they'd have to write the script (design) for players who were partially "in the dark"
Calvino Rabeni: Bye Steve thanks for stopping in :)
druth Vlodovic: small children mitigate fear by repetition, simplification and trust. when these methods are abused it becomes hard to open oneself
Mitzi Mimistrobell: yes, that's right, feeling the humanness in the other
Fox Monacular: although one might argue that this approach is also dependent on certain values and informed by some philosophical agenda
Mitzi Mimistrobell: slip away ... slip away ...
Calvino Rabeni: True, Fox
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Fox, I was thinking the same thing...
Fox Monacular: we need something like Bakhtin's dialogic approach... realizing that everything is revealed through a dialogue, never a monologue
Fox Monacular: (:))
--BELL--

Lucinda Lavender: There is a book I tried to read...The Fundementalist Mind...
Lucinda Lavender: did not make it the whole way through sorry to say:)
Fox Monacular: (sorry, brb)
Mitzi Mimistrobell: what was the gist?
Lucinda Lavender: wish I could remember...
Lucinda Lavender: from 2007...Stephen Larsen
Lucinda Lavender: how polarized thinking is a problem...
Pila Mulligan: http://books.google.com/books?id=3tGNTcQIMZwC&dq=The+Fundamentalist+Mind
Calvino Rabeni: Hopefully that book is written in a way that gives empathic insight
Calvino Rabeni: into the phenomenon of fundamentalism
Calvino Rabeni: otherwise it would be just more polarizing
Calvino Rabeni: Fundamentalism is something within each of us (is a general idea that makes sense to me)
Lucinda Lavender: I bought the book to explore the "neurobiology of belief"
Mitzi Mimistrobell: The best approach is to see how we ALL could open up our thinking process and have a way to healthily question things we usually never question
Lucinda Lavender: the chapter is there
Lucinda Lavender: ah
Calvino Rabeni: That makes good sense Mitzi
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Usually those hidden assumptions are invisible to us ... while another can see them as glaringly obvious
Lucinda Lavender: nodding
Mitzi Mimistrobell: But, it's risky territory ... easy to offend someone. There would need to be an agreement on etiquette for such things
Calvino Rabeni: There seem to be more books focused on "understand and get rid of the Problem" than on cultivating conditions of solutions ... both are important I think
Calvino Rabeni: I agree, Mitzi
Lucinda Lavender: brb chickens need to go in...
Calvino Rabeni: It's not a matter of "being positive" but of working in a whole different realm, the realm of source rather than problem
druth Vlodovic: we are conditioned to think that limiting one's worldview is bad, this colours our attempts to cope with it
Calvino Rabeni: I'm reading a book on this called "The Power of Collective Wisdom" ...
Calvino Rabeni: Say more, druth?
Mitzi Mimistrobell: druth ... hmmm
Fox Monacular: back and reading
Calvino Rabeni: Interesting ....
--BELL--

Pila Mulligan slips away also -- bye for now, friends :)
Calvino Rabeni: Bye Pila, see you later :)
Fox Monacular: we need to find and cultivate the groundless ground...
Mitzi Mimistrobell: c u
Fox Monacular: bye Pila, take care
druth Vlodovic: I did write an answer but I'm afraid it sounds pretty political :)
Lucinda Lavender: good night Pila:)
Fox Monacular: almost everything is to some extent political:) bring it on, druth:)
druth Vlodovic: as you insist :)
Calvino Rabeni: I think political and spiritual are complementary and overlapping perspectives
Calvino Rabeni: Or could be ....
druth Vlodovic: if humans live in a defensive zone, where survival is at stake, then things that weaken our ability to survive are bad. collective action is a powerful force, capable of overcoming many obstacles, fundamentalism is a powerful tool for collective action and the anithesis of free thought and speculation, thus free thought and speculation are a threat to the body collective and survival
Calvino Rabeni: I can see that as one of the important dynamics
Fox Monacular: a stabilizing one too
Calvino Rabeni: But it also explains why artificially cultivating a climate of fear would be a political strategy
Calvino Rabeni: To make people think survival is at stake
druth Vlodovic: and why it would be readily accepted even by those who understand it
Calvino Rabeni: If you want more fundamentalism, that would be a recipe
Calvino Rabeni: Yes
Calvino Rabeni: controlled by emotions and unexamined emotional assumptions
Fox Monacular: that's how totalitarian regimes function and why they can be very sucessful for long periods of time
Calvino Rabeni: true
druth Vlodovic: so trying to "open someone's mind" is to threaten their survival, and that of their family
Calvino Rabeni: The idea of Play relabels reality so that survival is not at stake
Calvino Rabeni: Which also explains some of the reasons that Play would be oppressed
Fox Monacular: if you think that formation of that internal oppression starts at the early childhood, then the return to the fundamental ideas and stable worldviews are also comforting on a personal level, and opening up to endless possibilities is pretty much as threatening as adolescence when one realizes that he is actually alone for the rest of the life
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Aha. We protect ourselves here by masquerading as something light and probably trivial ... insofar as all these survival mechanisms
Calvino Rabeni: That's a powerful binding force for fundamentalism - or maybe for any world view
Fox Monacular: interesitng point about play - non threatening, justified and 'not-quite-real- way of exploring reality
Mitzi Mimistrobell: If the powers that be realized what we are really up to here in this innocuous seeming virtual reality ... well!
Lucinda Lavender: I like the play idea...
Calvino Rabeni: With all those emotions and social forces, it's easy to see why people might assume that raising consciousness only comes with crisis, that require pain and struggle
Calvino Rabeni: Play is subversive in a lot of ways
Fox Monacular: and liberating
Calvino Rabeni: Not the least in that it might de-polarize
Calvino Rabeni: yes
Fox Monacular: But every play has its rules too...
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, necessarily perhaps ?
Lucinda Lavender: curious the kinds of play you remember from childhood that were the favorites...
Fox Monacular: yes, I don't think it is really possible to be totally open and ungrounded... we need these limits
Calvino Rabeni: I think of it like - there's no such thing as a disembodied mind - to act, and have a perspective, is to have a place to stand and a base, and a place to push against and also from
--BELL--

Fox Monacular: yes, and a strong core is important, a basis for a healthy personaltiy
druth Vlodovic: without a base you can have no motivation for pushing
Calvino Rabeni: Or any grounding or thing to push "from"
Calvino Rabeni: just free floating
druth Vlodovic: the base also provides a starting point to evaluate everything else, my one hesitation in the "put down what you have" exercise
Fox Monacular: yes, bring us back to the possibility (?) of the groundless ground for motivated action
Calvino Rabeni: I understand that hesitation, druth
Calvino Rabeni: I think the idea is - if you CAN'T drop it, it is part of your base, an essential
druth Vlodovic: to explore one's base is necessary, but I think it is good to make it a place to come back to, for safety's sake
Fox Monacular: I feel that too... I just sort of use this exersice to see what is it that I cannot drop:)
Calvino Rabeni: It's otherwise kind of arbitrary the difference between "what I have" and "what I AM"
Calvino Rabeni: Safety - yes
Lucinda Lavender: hmmm thinking about what I love...
Mitzi Mimistrobell: "drop what you have to see what you are: - could be also construed as an invitation to continually take a fresh look at our underpinnings and experiment with dropping and re=acquiring them ...
Calvino Rabeni: I also want to mention the idea of "nostalgia" pointing to an emotional relationship to one's "home" or base.
Fox Monacular: yes, usually when someone asks 'who are you?; you would tlak about your job, position, activities... all these things that qualify as 'have' we refer to as "am"
Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... not ncessarily a push to drop as much as possible ... although that's a valid interpretation as well
Fox Monacular: nostalgia, yes, and that early separation anxiety
Calvino Rabeni: Well of course mitzi, the dropping is not meant to be permanent, not even a recipe for "how to be"
Calvino Rabeni: Not a prescription
Calvino Rabeni: but an awareness experiment
Mitzi Mimistrobell: sure ... but some could interpret it as such anyway...
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, but that is fundamentalism in another guise
Fox Monacular: fundamentalism as in when you discover a spiritual teaching that attracts you you feel right away that it is impoerant to practce 'all the way'... thesort of a middle way understanding comes later, after many reality checks
Calvino Rabeni: Yes Yes Fox
Calvino Rabeni: (Sorry can't type so well on this viewer :)
Fox Monacular: (I can't type at his hour either)
Calvino Rabeni: The middle way is a result of dialectic / experience
Calvino Rabeni: I don't think it can be "gotten" otherwise
Fox Monacular: and a certain maturity in understanding of the thing in question
druth Vlodovic: the difference between a spiritual teaching and a cult is the purpose of the leaders
Calvino Rabeni: Purpose of the leaders, but also, whether the followers are going in the direction of freedom, I think
Fox Monacular: losing excitement, grounding it
Calvino Rabeni: @Fox, that's legitimate and important
Calvino Rabeni: one word is Sacrifice
Calvino Rabeni: and trusting that more energy will come to replace it
Fox Monacular: yes trust is crucial
Fox Monacular: and a more general trust in life
Lucinda Lavender: quietly I will say good evening...
Fox Monacular: good night,, Lucinda
Mitzi Mimistrobell: the problem in all this though is that we ourselves may not be conscously aware of a fundamental element in our perspetive ... or we might be ...
Calvino Rabeni quietly says, good evening and sweet dreams
Fox Monacular: and I must go as well
Fox Monacular: take care everyone
Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... good evening! Lucinda
Lucinda Lavender: the same for you all...
druth Vlodovic: bye :)
Calvino Rabeni: Good to see you Fox, good night
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Bye, Fox hope to see you again.
druth Vlodovic: ah, I'm off as well
druth Vlodovic: take care all
Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... so if we are not aware of our own grounding ... we cannot speak clearly about our own perspective ... we are subject to being offended or feeling misunderstood
Calvino Rabeni: Druth, take care, good to see you as always
druth Vlodovic: ty :)
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Good evening ... bye druth!
--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: RIght, as you mentioned another time Mitzi, being offended can bring understanding of one's base and perspective if we let it do so
Mitzi Mimistrobell: yes ... it's so hard to see oneself as others see us. So we might have to invite such observations strongly ...
Mitzi Mimistrobell: ...or maybe provoke people so strongly that they tell us off - trick them into giving one some outside view of oneself
Calvino Rabeni: Drama and conflict in relationships - "acting out" - as an attempt to gain insight through letting other people take a role in one's process
Mitzi Mimistrobell: yes! some perspectives would asert that acting out always has such a purpose, unconscous to the perpetrator
Calvino Rabeni: Indeed
Calvino Rabeni: Yet some seem to work to open things up ... others seem to dig people in deeper
Calvino Rabeni: Psychodrama vs. "dramatizing" or trauma-repetition
Calvino Rabeni: The repetition doesn't work for healing - needs to be interrupted if learning is to occur
Calvino Rabeni: Because there's no "conscious energy"
Mitzi Mimistrobell: they may work to digg people in deeper ... but that would be because of the lack of skilled people about to use the situation skillfully to open the situation up ...
Calvino Rabeni: It's all sensitive and mechanical
Calvino Rabeni: Well if there's a facilitator or therapist they can supply the conscious energy
Calvino Rabeni: Else it won't "open up"
Calvino Rabeni: Because of survival concerns - too much at stake
Mitzi Mimistrobell: the survival protection mechanisms get latched onto an image or ego aspect of ourselves - identified - then we ight to defe3nd our idea or statements as if we were fighting for our life ... otherwise we'd be able to say, hmm, you make an interesting oint - I'll have to look into that, thanks!
Calvino Rabeni: RIght - one of the defining characteristics of "identification"
Calvino Rabeni: And indirectly of "faith"
Mitzi Mimistrobell: When I was in Europe in the 70s, the people I met - brainy Dutch spiritual hippies - it seemed to be the social convention that you ALWAYS MUST be indentified with defending your position, else risk social humiliation.
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Discussions were mock battle - not mutual exploration. I didn't feel comforgtable in that milieu.
Calvino Rabeni: I second that
Calvino Rabeni: Sounds like part of the academic social contract
--BELL--

Mitzi Mimistrobell: Yes, that could be - the culture of academia at that place and time, that those individuals were immersed in, conditioned by.
Calvino Rabeni: A requirement for group membership, an expected role to play in the script of jousting and wherever that was supposed to "go"
Mitzi Mimistrobell: uh huh.
Mitzi Mimistrobell: I think there's something like that in British pub talk, too. People debate for hours with great energy, with their pals.
Mitzi Mimistrobell: rhetoric as competitive sport!
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Tibetan monks have something liek that as well, a public competition
Calvino Rabeni: It makes sense to have it in the toolkit of perspectives
Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... to realize one has stumbled onto a battlefield, as an innocent!
Calvino Rabeni: But... I'm terrible at it ... if you want an Argument, sorry, that's down the hall, Room 29. :)
Mitzi Mimistrobell: But anyway ... where did we branch off of?
Calvino Rabeni: The book I mentioned earlier on collective wisdom has a quote from Jacob Needleman that makes me think of PaB and similar "experiments"

I [believe] that the group is the art form of the future ... In our present culture the main need is for a form that can enable human beings to share their perceptions and attention and, through that sharing, to become a conduit for the appearance of spiritual intelligence. - Jacob Needleman http://www.amazon.com/Power-Collective-Wisdom-Trap-Folly/dp/1576754456

Calvino Rabeni: .. that was one "branch off" I remember from earlier
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Oh, yes, very nice!
Calvino Rabeni: Collective wisdom as opportunity, or as folly, depending on whether it's conscious or not
Calvino Rabeni: I like that quote too as a clear high level idea
Mitzi Mimistrobell: if it's folly then it wouldn't be wisdom then wouldn't it!
Calvino Rabeni: There's a certain perspective taken in books like that about conflict and its management, however, I'm not necessarily comfortable with
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Well, this group (Play as Being) would be right there in the territory. A form of performance art perhaps! LOL
Calvino Rabeni: Indeed :)
Mitzi Mimistrobell: A good topic for your all to get into ... different forms of the group as art work.
Calvino Rabeni imagines a session of PaB in Union Square in San Francisco, that draws in the bystanders
Calvino Rabeni: I like that idea, maybe Bleu could get into it ....
Mitzi Mimistrobell: in RL Union Square, or is there a SL version?
Calvino Rabeni: As a form of the PaB Art of Being project ...
Calvino Rabeni: RL Union Square
Mitzi Mimistrobell: How would you draw in the bstanders?
Calvino Rabeni: just imagining ... there was a RL retreat there and it came up as a fantasy during the planning
Calvino Rabeni: Not sure - there would have to be some dramatic hooks
Calvino Rabeni: Interesting ....
Calvino Rabeni: Someone could proclaim a steretypical and entrenched perspective
Calvino Rabeni: and then somehow show it being "dropped" to some good emotional effect
Calvino Rabeni: There would have to be some juice to it I think
Mitzi Mimistrobell: A large screen - and a number of workstations with ready made avatars that bystanders could step into with minimal fuss, then see themselves up on the screen. Could be very fun actually!
--BELL--

Mitzi Mimistrobell: Some engaging content - accessible -
Mitzi Mimistrobell: A celebrity perhaps? ha ha
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, and also, the human bodies are our avatars on the "screen" of RL
Calvino Rabeni: A celebrity - of any kind - is an avatar for people's positive shadow personas - if that makes any sense
Calvino Rabeni: Insofar as people understand drama by identification
Calvino Rabeni: Drama is useful for "dropping" or at least loosening identifications - one might say -
Calvino Rabeni: if it externalizes them - gets some critical distance for the observer
Mitzi Mimistrobell: A play within a play, as in Hamlet?
Calvino Rabeni: But the contrary view of course is drama-as-propaganda
Calvino Rabeni: Like doing Rambo over and over, or the victims in some programming
Calvino Rabeni: There are the channels that victims as background for the foreground heros
Calvino Rabeni: and channels that have victims as the main characters to identify with.
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Yes, all true ... but that gets boring ... people want different plots and characters in their draas
Calvino Rabeni: The play-within-a-play is a great technique.
Calvino Rabeni: Dunno, Mitzi, the characters seem to be committed to their types - archetypes
Calvino Rabeni: you just get new settings and angles
Calvino Rabeni: same archetypes
Calvino Rabeni: to keep it fresh, but not much change the structure
Calvino Rabeni: except .... I've noticed popular drama *slowly* evolving - have you?
Calvino Rabeni: Slowly being the operational word
Mitzi Mimistrobell: yes, I just started watching "Madmen" - the first 3 episodes of the first season ... this weekend
Mitzi Mimistrobell: really really good, very interesting characterizations and themes
Mitzi Mimistrobell: And, since I'm in the advertising business in a way professionally, very interesting in that way as well.
Calvino Rabeni: The interesting thing is the slowly evolving archetypal structures
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Oh don't get me started! I notice about 10 years ago how there was a sudden spate of TV dramas featuring a cool, detached female paired with an emotional, intuitive male
Calvino Rabeni: Calvino Rabeni: Freud said dreams were a road to the unconscious .. that goes for popular drama certainly, to see them as the collective dreams of the sleeping public "mind"
Calvino Rabeni: Well, don't get *me* started either ! :)
Calvino Rabeni: Let's make a deal - I won't start you if you don't start me :)
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Some examples - Scully and Mulder in the X-Files; Jack and (Amanda) in Stargate SG1;
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Oops! ha ha!
Calvino Rabeni: Yes of course, a gender archetype reversal piqued peoples interests
Calvino Rabeni: Too late here we go ...
Mitzi Mimistrobell: And now, Castle - Castle and Nicki ... I could go on but I won't because I rally have to sign off about now!
Calvino Rabeni: And now I noticed it about the idea of intelligence / mind, and what constitutes consciousness!
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Whew, saved by the bell...
Calvino Rabeni: Yeah (wipes forehead)
--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: Well, it's been great talking to you, Mitzi, as always :))
Mitzi Mimistrobell: OK I must be off before I put my foot in my mouth any further...!
Calvino Rabeni: Not at all, mitzi :)
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Very cute, Calvino ...
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Thanks for a great session, Will come by again next week
Calvino Rabeni: TY, have a great week Mitzi, bye :))