Category: Uncategorized

This poster, just outside the library at the Asian University for Women, took up a lot of my time this afternoon as I tried to untangle the competing fonts. When I finally saw that it read “Embrace Ambiguity” I felt a bit hoodwinked. Annoyed, even. There I stood, flummoxed, doing the very thing the poster was imploring me not to do: I was losing my patience. Classic.

Even more karmically comical, I had just tried out some improv exercises with my psychology students, telling them (no lie) that I was “going to create some ambiguous situations” that would make them “uncomfortable,” but if they were willing to “be in the discomfort” they would “gain some insight” into how they could take some control over their reactions and “discover the opportunities in the moment.”

This is me, being in my discomfort, just before I read the admonishing poster and after a walk around sweaty, dripping Chittagong:

Despite my personality and the profound humidity, the psych/improv experience was a success. Because the course is Intro Psych, we spend about 45 minutes on each topic before swerving to the next one (history of psych; statistics; research design; neuropsych; childhood development; tears and blaming; exam one). This can lead to rapid-fire lecturing with everyone desperately trying to write down everything I say. It’s ridiculous, like those home renovation shows where the hosts have to knock down a non-load bearing wall, re-tile the backsplash, and be sure the marble for the open-concept kitchen island doesn’t crack because it all has to be done in three days or something arbitrarily awful will happen involving shame and disgrace. I hate feeling stampeded by time, both on TV and in my class.

So…instead of rushing through a lecture on the various functions of the hind-, mid-, and forebrain, we did a few exercises that evoked some panic (as improv does), required attention, involved our senses, taxed our memory, and insisted on human connection and collaboration. After all the running around (and the laughter…lots of laughter) we debriefed to identify which structures of the nervous system had been activated at various times in the game.

The students did a great job of discussing the fight-or-flight response, the hippocampus and memory, the frontal lobe and its role in deciding whom to zip-zap-or-zop. We talked about eye contact and vocal cues and how to listen with our mammalian bodies. We tried to describe what it felt like to be in an ambiguous, unfamiliar (oceanic?) situation and how when we didn’t allow ourselves to check out our bodies and brains reacted in surprising and adaptive ways.

It was fun.

Along with the laughter, improv also gave the students a stake in the class. They couldn’t be spectators and I couldn’t be the sole expert. A huge relief. We could actually converse because of this shared experience we had all created. Time flew. I think people learned.

While we were rummaging through the topic of research design we also considered the Dunning-Kruger effect and the dangers it presents (I looked this up on Wikipedia: “The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a certain type of a task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge”). I bring this up because I’m about to write about Bangladesh from the perspective of a person who has been teaching here for six whole days. Buckle up.

The traffic is impressive, seemingly free of road rage (although my Bangla consists of the numbers one through five and the word “shamosa,” which means problem, so I don’t know what the drivers are saying). “We are bad drivers!” a colleague in the university shuttle said to me on the way back to faculty housing. I disagree! Maybe it comes from living in one of the most densely populated places on earth (“Dunning, table for Kruger”), but Bangladeshi drivers’ and pedestrians’ spatial intelligence seems nothing short of genius.

Yesterday, during a break in the rain (northern Bangladesh has been hit, again, with catastrophic flooding; climate change is accelerating these historic events at a terrible rate), I walked around the university neighborhood. I love being here. Chittagong is green and fecund (it is) and filled with pockets of silence amidst the overwhelming noise and motion. Some photos:

I also love the aspirational names of the apartments:

And:

Some signs that gave me pause and hope:

And finally, this, from the AUW dining hall. I think each sign reinforces the other (and, just before taking this photo, I put a heaping table spoon of salt in my tea) (it wasn’t all that bad) (and it wasn’t all that good) (it wasn’t intentional) (“every direction is a possibility”).

I changed the title of this blog to “Yes, and… Islamabad (and Beyond)” because, well, I’m beyond at the moment. For the next month I’ll be teaching general psychology at the Asian University for Women in Chittagong, Bangladesh. My goal (ha!) is to make the course largely interactive, using what is now called “Applied Improvisation” (as opposed to Theoretical Improvisation?). Wherever possible I’m going to link the course material to improv exercises in hopes that the students’ rushes of adrenaline will seal the information into their long-term memory. Evidence suggests that emotional reactions provide visual and somatic cues to information acquired at the event. Unless, of course, our fight-or-flight response erases everything.

Classes begin in two days.

For now, however, I’m in my faculty housing, wondering why the key is so reluctant to open the front door and if I should keep wearing the compression socks that saw me through 36 hours of air travel. It’s glorious to be out in the world again. It’s also bewildering: the past two years of the pandemic upended everything–or many things–and the desire to retreat is strong. Maybe this is just age talking (I remembered my omeprazole but forgot my umbrella); when I was younger I’d rush around on the first day, trying to see as much as possible. Now I’m sitting on my bed tinkering with this blog.

In trying to remember how to post photos in this format I accidentally uploaded this quote from Howard Zinn, anti-fascist pacifist whose history texts threatened many a “patriotic” legislator. It’s been sitting on my desktop for much of the pandemic, largely ignored as I nurtured despair about the rise of cultish authoritarianism in the US. Zinn emphasizes the power of finding hope in the moment, that history (and life)(and improv!) is a series of moments, a series of opportunities. With resolve and practice, perhaps, we can direct our attention toward the generative and inclusive and redemptive and responsible. I decided to keep Howard Zinn’s words and imploring gaze here.

But what of Bangladesh? I’ll post more when my mind catches up to my jet-lagged body (and also when I have some actual experiences here). For now, here are some photographic moments from the trip, taken by this monoglot who, in seventh grade, told Mrs. Leonessa that Spanish was hard because “We don’t conjugate verbs in English,” which is to say that the Bangladeshis’ creative use of English puts my Spanish to shame:

Finally, this:

A fundraiser; a poem; a blog finally posted; and an interview with Shehzad Ghias. All at once.

The fundraiser for Theatre Wallay was a lot of fun…thanks to everyone who participated! And if you would like to contribute after the fact, here’s the GoFundMe link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-the-farm-tw?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=m_pd+share-sheet&fbclid=IwAR0ZADZ3oJQBbcbI7wpeC6Ku_nlrw_v-GWJeQOqz-MvA8RTgbFt288yEf-8

Dennis’ uncle Jim Curley was inspired by the workshop and wrote this poem. It’s beautiful:

Pakistan (by Jim Curley)

How can this be?
I attend a friend’s benefit program
for Theatre Walley in Islamabad, 
the capital of Pakistan. 
Of course,  it is on Zoom, 
as I haven’t traveled 
more than 150 miles 
from home all year.

It’s improv I’m after, so I 
Shuck the shorts and the message T-shirt 
that says  “I am the son of an immigrant,” 
as Trump is. I fancy up my gear.
I don a virtual tux and bowler hat,
like Laurel and Hardy, and
blow up a balloon. 
Catching a breeze and 
clutching the string tightly, 
I’m three feet off the ground, 
walk on air, then hover,

Improv comedy has a 
certain silliness about it.
Red Skelton’s shy “God bless,” 
always implied. 
A Good Humor truck that  
breaks down walls and 
brings people together. 
The Great Equalizer.
Subversive Smiles.
Acts of Kindness 
worthy of their own execution.
And I ask, 
How can this be?
A gift of one human to another;
freely given, gratefully accepted

I went back to Islamabad last December (before the quarantine; another life) to be a presenter at the Fulbright Pakistan alumni conference. Thanks to USEFP for hosting me. I wrote this after listening to Shehzad Ghias’ inspiring talk. Last month he agreed to talk with me on Zoom (he was in Karachi; I was in Minneapolis. Dennis Curley did the technical editing!). Here’s the blog from December:

It’s a chilly morning in Islamabad after a rainy weekend and a near-freezing night. Strange to be in the Fulbright House with space heaters in every corner and the gas elements on the stove burning just to keep the kitchen warm. The previous times I was here the goal was to find a cool place. Reminds me of California winters when the shake roofs would be covered with frost and the mountains were visible. I’m a Minnesotan now. I can’t stop talking about the weather.

Oh, and it’s wonderful to be back in Pakistan. The very gracious people at the United States Educational Foundation for Pakistan (USEFP) invited me here to give a talk and a workshop at the Fulbright Alumni Conference. I also got to coach the other (amazing) speakers on presentation skills, and so I was lucky enough to watch their talks on policy and politics and art and culture take shape. One of the speakers, a Pakistani comedian named Shehzad Ghias, did a stand-up set in Urdu and English and invited me up for three short improv scenes. My talk was about saying “yes” to bold declarations (more on that later), and so I had to/got to put my money where my mouth is (“avoid cliches,” I advised the speakers. Oh, well).

The improv scenes were mercifully short but had some punch; it’s hard to address colonialism and its ripple effects in a two-minute improv game unless you take the broader view and ask yourself why the lone white American is up on stage when there were 25 other local speakers whose humor and gravitas (and multilingualism) might more justly represent Pakistan. Our scenes did address geographical encroachment and unexamined privilege and the obtuse English speakers who get frustrated when the rest of the world doesn’t speak OUR language. Let’s just say that I’ve been funnier, but also that I tried not to fight back and defend my position, which is really about the least I could do. Hold your applause.

Shehzad Ghias’ stand-up set was funny, and it was a good prelude for his gripping talk entitled “The Toxicity in our Digital City.” He looked at ways the media has controlled our consumption of comedy, and his dissection of humor was cutting (pun intended) and absolutely necessary in our current global climate. He asked—commanded, really—the audience to “punch up” with their humor, to focus the satire and the jokes on those with power, those who HAVE power over others, those endowed by the status quo with money and muscle and the keys to the kingdom.

We talk about this a lot in The Theater of Public Policy in Minneapolis and I’ve always been proud that we can take on controversial topics and ideological speakers and not make fun of others who hold views on either side of the political spectrum. And when we do take aim we target the powerful and the power structures that make life harder on those without. Shehzad Ghias’ examples of punching up/punching down illustrated this approach to comedy. I’m paraphrasing, but he said it’s too easy to laugh at, for example, the transgender person who is begging for money on the street. That’s punching down. The person is already vulnerable and doesn’t have the means to defend himself or herself. But when we make fun of the societal belief that sexual minorities are worthy of our scorn simply because they are different, then we take some of the muscle out of the rulers’ brutality. We punch up. And, as Shehzad Ghias noted, we probably won’t defeat Goliath, but “we will bloody his nose.”

Good point. When I talked with him about the “punching down” that our current leaders do, I said, sanctimoniously, “and, of course, that’s not comedy.” Shehzad stopped me and said that there’s a particular danger in being the arbiter of taste as well. He’s right, of course. What’s comic to one person isn’t comic to another, but (speaking for myself) I don’t think the humor coming out of our leadership is funny. I wrote an angry paragraph about the constant punching down done at our leader’s rallies and the applause it garners from his supporters, but by the time I was done I felt sick and redundant. In the spirit of Orwellian word-salad, I’ll pay brief homage to these blood-thirsty events with some of the words I used in my (now) deleted screed: “mocked,” “mimicking,” “cruelty,” “obscene,” “cheap,” “small,” and “breathtaking.” Throw these words into any summary of a red-hat rally and add a proper noun and a sneering adjective. That’ll do.

How do we engage with this stench and not become asphyxiated ourselves? Or ignore the way rage can be fueled by the thing we hate in ourselves? I think about some of the stuff I used to laugh at. I think about some of the stuff I laugh at now that, in ten years (god willing, etc), will make my face burn. A little bit of shame can be medicinal when we’re being sick. Shezhad’s talk got under my skin.

Why don’t I get invited to more parties? Huh. I have loved being here. The Pakistani alums were outspoken and inviting. The age range of the participants who took my first workshop was from 10 to 85, and there were fifty more people in between those numbers. I got to do amother two-hour presentation/workshop on improvisation and anxiety management (i.e. “irony”). I listened to talks about women’s emerging portrayals in Pakistani art; fermentation fuel systems that mirror digestive processes (some good fodder for funny there, but also really hopeful as a response to oil dependency); I was told by a much-respected academic that the best way to improvise was to be a “total a-hole” (“oh?”); I tried to figure out the time difference between here and home and kept calling my family before their alarms rang. I’ve eaten well, been protected, gotten to spend time with familiar faces in a country that fascinates me. I had dinner at the director’s house last night and listened to stories about expat life and had potatoes with yogurt (they were good) and I can see the Margalla Hills from my bedroom window just like I could see the San Bernardino mountains at home. The drivers keep trying to teach me Urdu and laugh at anything I say. I am so, so lucky.

And creeping around this good fortune is the constant awareness that, for all the good our country does (thank you, Fulbright, truly; thank you USEFP; thank you Fiona Hill and colleagues) it is being being compromised by someone who can’t take a joke and, in turn, takes that out on people he was elected to serve.

This is just my opinion.

As for my talk (“Yes, and…” Islamabad: the Power of the Improvisational Mindset”), it was well-received. The premise is that we, as improvisers, can make bold declarations that give energy to our scenes and sustenance to our scene partners. I talked about the improv I did here in 2018 and how everyone I worked with met me with openness and good will. I talked about creating resilient, dynamic, strategic peace one person at a time. I tried not to wander out of the camera frame. Some success. Much happiness.

Here’s the talk with Shehzad Ghias about improvisation. July 2020:

SATURDAY MORNING IMPROV CLASS AND A FUNDRAISER FOR THEATRE WALLAY!

Islamabad’s very own Theatre Wallay hosted me twice in 2018 with love, care, and enthusiasm!  We put on two hilarious improv shows at their wonderful performance space called The Farm. Covid-19 has hit theaters hard around the world and Theatre Wallay is no exception; they are in danger of losing The Farm and that would be a real blow to the Islamabad arts scene.  So…here are two ways you can support improvisers (and musicians and artists and actors and poets) around the world:

Take Jim Robinson’s virtual, hour-long SATURDAY MORNING IMPROV CLASS on Saturday, August 22 at 9:00 am Central Time. There’s no registration fee…instead, all participants can donate to the Theatre Wallay’s GoFundMe link as you see fit!

 
Here’s the link to Theatre Wallay’s GoFundMe page: https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-the-farm-tw?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=m_pd+share-sheet&fbclid=IwAR0NyBCvFVcgWByWDjiYlNnL1I06e3qWtFxSqTb-13qjEMCYmRgTjzavnKo

Then, on Saturday morning, August 22 at 9:00 Central Time, click the Zoom link below. Some improvisers from Islamabad will be joining us. It will be fun, low-stress, hopeful… 

Here’s the ZOOM link for the class: 
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89729581776?pwd=YzZFOG4xNVF5UTI5Qm5rZ2NwQ2dSdz09

If early-morning improv isn’t your cup of tea, feel free to donate anyway on Theatre Wallay’s GoFundMe page!

Feel free to share this email far and wide!

Thank you, thank you: Jim 

I’m in the transit lounge at the Abu Dhabi airport, watching people try to get comfortable on hard plastic chairs. Very sad leaving Islamabad today. Sikandar took me on a quick tour of places I had missed this time around and I’m grateful for his calm demeanor and encyclopedic knowledge. Here’s a condensed version of our condensed tour:

A goat (“buckree”) and I circled each other suspiciously at Said Pur Village:

I went to the Centaurus Mall and felt queasy at the glut of stuff.  I’m not a fan of malls in the States (although it can be tranquilizing to walk around Rosedale on a Tuesday morning when everyone seems kind of dazed) (I’m not endorsing this), but it was interesting to see a parallel universe to ours. There was cryptic wisdom on display as well:

And:

So strange to see traces of the west in Pakistan. I ate at an outdoor Chinese restaurant in Lahore that was next to a Crocs outlet. Sikandar bought me a samosa from a storefront that shared its parking lot with a Hardee’s drive-through. McDonald’s is sponsoring a “Keep Pakistan Clean and Green” campaign. I bought water at a Cinnabon here in Abu Dhabi.  Two days ago I wandered around the National Art Gallery in Islamabad and looked at the modern miniatures. They were beautiful and, in the case below, funny. Bugs Bunny holding up a nawab who is looking at an upside down world. Everything melds together:

I love this quote from Bashir Ahmad (the miniaturist, not the mixed-martial artist; they share the same name. I just found this out). Maybe “love” is the wrong word, because what he says is apocalyptic and fitting for the madness gripping our leaders and their followers right now.  The quote is below; the first line caught me: “Our lives are moving at a pace that our bodies disagree with.”  Everyone is exhausted, overwhelmed by stimuli that don’t add up to much. I see this in improv scenes: we’ll frantically try to keep a plot going, adding information without reacting to it, and soon there is no relationship, no gravity to the scene, nothing matters because everything has the same weight. It starts to feel meaningless and frustrating. Invariably the characters argue.  “How do they make it up so fast?” people will ask after a show, but in truth improv only works when people slow down and connect and trust what their bodies are saying.

Disconcerting. I’m at the gate in Paris waiting for my plane to Chicago. My body is disagreeing with the pace of this travel (I won’t go into it), but I do love moving about like this. None of it makes sense.  Much like this blog.

My last two days in Islamabad were wonderful.  I did two workshops, one with the advising staff at USEFP and the other with high school students. They were all enthusiastic and committed and I didn’t want to leave when the time came. Maybe this picture will capture how I felt:

This may be surprising, but I loved the quiet in Pakistan. The parks in Lahore were serene. The grounds of the USEFP office reminded me of home and my grandparents’ house.  I know there’s turmoil and violence underneath–we have that, too, in the States–but it was wonderful to focus on teaching and pare everything down for a few weeks.  Thank you, Fulbright. I loved being here.

A few more images:

The big silence, after:

What I loved:

People I met who are doing courageous, compelling, INCLUSIVE theater work:

And, for now, this:

Flying to Chicago and then home–

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll start in the middle of this very busy, very fulfilling week. I’m in Lahore, happy to be working with therapists and actors and even a banker and a lawyer. I got to drive down here from Islamabad with the director of Fulbright in Pakistan and her husband. She played Bob Dylan as we descended (dramatically) from Islamabad and the plateau that reminds me of the chaparral around Riverside into the steamy Punjabi plains.  I loved every minute of it. We stopped at a rest area at the bottom of the descent and ate at a McDonald’s.  I’m in Pakistan.  I’m in Pakistan. We did not eat at the Dunkin’ Donuts. I’m in Pakistan. The times, they have a-changed.

And before I could get too high-horsey about eating at a McDonald’s in Pakistan, it was pointed out that fast food restaurants are one of the few places that hire teenaged girls for decent jobs. All right!

By the time Tuesday rolled around I, myself, was on a roll.  I’d made a speech-of-sorts at an alumni event at the Islamabad club; I’d taught improv to middle-schoolers; Theatre Wallay had put on their second improv show (“The Next Unusual Thing”) which was even more impressive than the first one in April. I’d gone to a party and out to dinner and walked around a tiny park by a  Western-themed restaurant called “Howdy” with a friend from Minnesota. I had momentum. Here’s proof:

And then this happened:

Followed by this:

Meanwhile:

I also did three workshops in three days in Lahore.  Wonderful students, exciting possibilities, gracious hosts. I know how lucky I am.

In the midst of this exhilaration–and it has been rejuvenating to work with these groups–my momentum hit a snag, although in improvisation terms, I could say I received a gift that I’m still not sure how to celebrate. I want to get this one observation out of the way because it has been gnawing at me like a patron on a burger at Howdy! This may seem arbitrary, but I’ve decided to give this one experience only FIVE sentences.  Just five. Whether it deserves more or not, I can’t say, but I’m going to limit the energy I give to exceptions to the rule. And I’m going to discuss this in improv terms. And now I’ve used up three sentences, but this is context, and isn’t context everything? Here goes.

I walked right into a power struggle with one of my (funny, imposing, commanding, imperious and impervious) students at one of the many workshops I conducted in Pakistan this week. The group was amazing, but he had no desire to be part of the ensemble and toward the end of the day he embodied this by sitting in the middle of the circle, texting on his cell phone while the rest of us debriefed after an exercise. I had spent four-and-a-half hours emphasizing the power of saying “yes, and” along with the benefits of grounding ourselves in the moment so we can discover the gifts of each situation. I did not want to surrender the last 50 minutes of the workshop to him, did not want to pamper him and cajole him and coax him back into the group, and I didn’t want to shame him by pointing out his behavior and, then, diluting the truly joyful atmosphere our group had created. And so the discussion continued around him and I never acknowledged his crystal-clear declaration: he was not going to treat the other improvisers as equals, and he was not going to give himself over to the group or to my leadership.

That’s five sentences right there. Two (or three) more:  We ended on a high note with everyone laughing and talking about the connections between improv and psychology, and for that I am glad.  Again, I loved working with this group and was impressed with their candor and their commitment. Maybe the way to deflate a (mild) bully is to stop feeding the (mildly) outrageous behavior.  And, again, I didn’t think we had time to work out whatever deeper issues were at work here (we were the two oldest men in the room; we both were used to having professor-power; it’s a lot to expect a collection of strangers to make themselves vulnerable at the request of an interloper; no doubt there were cultural issues around power and respect and expectations that I couldn’t see, although I’ve had nothing but responsive, committed participants here in Pakistan, more so than in the United States). But–in improv terms–I didn’t acknowledge the moment. Instead, I tried to manage the situation, and that feels, well, cowardly on my part and a bit disrespectful to the players I’d asked to be brave and vulnerable.  Rats.

It could also be that I over-thought this. Maybe I over-thought this. I still have a point, but I over-thought this.  Improviser, heal thyself.

In the midst of all this improvising and over-thinking, a lot of my students were curious about political developments in the United States.  They were as glued to the Kavanaugh hearings as we were, and their questions about the midterm elections and the electoral college and the 25th amendment indicated that they are watching us with hawk eyes. Questions arose.  What’s the proper approach here? Speak out and harden the hard-liners? Try to manipulate the chaos? Despair when the powerful deride the vulnerable?  A man I met at a gathering told me how much he had loved being in the States and how he had real affection for Americans. And then he said, “the beacon has dimmed,” and that broke my heart.

Again, again: This is what I love about improv when it’s at its most vital: we jump into whatever moment is happening–good, bad, confusing, disappointing, exciting, loving, genuine–and we support one another. We don’t protect each other from the reality of the moment. We don’t turn on each other with blame and derision.  We live it together. I still haven’t figured out on stage how to respond when another improviser railroads a scene, when other players are just pawns in his or her drama. Obviously, it’s a struggle in real life as well.  We have rotten role models at the moment.  I would like to become more like Hubert Humphrey. Be happy in the skirmish. I bet he was a great improviser.

Here’s some Judy Collins.  As we go marching, marching…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was going to title this entry “Why I Love Pakistan,” but I thought that was too sweeping a sentiment for someone who is still in the first blush of a romance. I know if I lived here for a long time I’d see sides of this country that, for now, are hidden to me.  I imagine I’d develop complicated feelings for Islamabad just as I have developed (a few) complicated feelings for Saint Paul.  I know I’d be challenged and I’d get frustrated and I’d say things in the heat of the moment that I do NOT want chiseled on my tombstone. My actual self would take up residence here and I’d fall into routines and I’d worry about running out of dental floss and I’d take life in Islamabad for granted. I’d send sardonic emails. So, for now, I’m swooning a bit.  Thank you, Pakistan.  Here’s why:

I get to work with wonderful, engaged, earnest, funny students.  I’ve taught classes for the past five days and it has been exhilarating.  Theatre Wallay has hosted me for three train-the-trainer workshops as a way for them to take improv into the community here in Islamabad.  Last night we worked on an Improv and Mental Health class; we were in the courtyard of the theater while huge flashes of lightning crept closer and closer to Bani Gala, the suburb of Islamabad where Theatre Wallay keeps its performance space.   The previous night I had coffee and almond cake with three cast members at a fancy nearby restaurant and they said, “why don’t we do some scenes in Urdu?”  Huh. Why not?  And so we did.

I conducted an improvised directed story in Urdu called “The Shy Mango,” a tale that was, I learned in an after-the-fact translation, about a mango with limited social skills and a wide-ranging libido. It got some good laughs.  In a directed story, the host (me) sits in front of the performers and gestures to them when it’s each person’s turn to continue the narrative. It’s fun to break up sentences mid-word and to let each improviser have his or her turn at exploding the plot, but in this case I had no idea what the performers were saying and so I had to rely on my linguistic intuition, which, it seems, is lacking.  Urdu, to my western ears, sounds staccato and endlessly emphatic.  I had no idea when a sentence or a thought or an emotion had run its course.  And so I kept changing narrators in the middle of a syllable and the performers got more and more frantic as they tried to finish a word before I interrupted.  From what I gathered, this accelerated pace caused the shy mango to cover a tremendous amount of romantic ground in a few short minutes, and that was why the story was such a success. The shy mango, as one might say, even in Urdu, was all that and then some AND he had it going on, as it were.

I love this about improv: the impediment usually becomes the ingredient that makes the scenes surprising and genuine and vital.  I may have butchered the language, but the performers (and the shy mango) rose to the occasion.

We also played a warm-up called “In-Out” where the words (in, out, up, down, diagonal) don’t match the actions we’re using.  It’s a mind-annihilator in a native tongue, but we played this game in Punjabi, a language that none of us spoke with ease.  I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.  Again, this is what can be so liberating about improv: we were all struggling, but we were also saying “yes” to the moment and to each other, and so our ensemble was united in its quest to destroy both the game and the foreign language.  All joking aside, it’s hard to focus on differences when everyone is laughing WITH each other.

I was invited to teach at two other schools during the day, both of them training centers for psychologists.  One of these events was supposed to be at the school itself, but because of security issues (nothing dramatic; there was no way to monitor who took the class) the six-hour workshop was moved to the Fulbright office at the last minute.  I freaked out a bit, but the students handled it with equanimity, as if they were seasoned improvisers who didn’t really need a six-hour workshop.  Fulbright fed us the spiciest pizza I’ve ever eaten (“are you okay?” was the most common question of the entire afternoon, followed by “are you sure you’re okay?” and “honestly, are you really okay?”) and provided an air-conditioned space where we had a wonderful time. I’m wary of coming up with facile explanations, but it seems that the Pakistanis I’ve worked with have a unique ability to process and apply psychological theory.  I wonder if this ability to articulate emotional nuance has to do with a more guarded sensibility.  I’ve always felt welcome here, and I’ve also felt appraised. Our societies have fostered a lot of mutual mistrust, and  there are understandable reasons why this marauding American may be met with a healthy dose of curiosity mingled with skepticism.  I am, after all, asking them to tell stories about a shy but randy mango.  But this also could be cultural. Maybe Pakistanis have to learn to read subtleties in ways that many Americans don’t. We like to “tell it like it is,” or at least we might aspire to that. Much of Pakistan is, literally, covered.

Here’s an example of what I mean: we ended the (sweaty, for me) workshop with a game called “Convergence,” a word game where two participants count to three and then say the first word that comes to mind.  From that point on the group continues this process (“one, two, three,  first word!”) until two people say the same word at the same time (this morning we began with “bread” and “potato” and, ten minutes later, converged on “Hamlet” by way of “werewolf” and “galaxy.” Perhaps you had to be there).  There’s always a moment of happy catharsis when the group FINALLY converges on the same word, and I use this as a chance to talk about tolerating ambiguity and trusting the process and supporting one another through chaotic times.  I love this game. My Pakistani therapists must have loved it too, because they talked about “Convergence” in minute and discerning detail for nearly 20 minutes.

Their discussion of “Convergence” looked at the subtle ways therapists and clients will often be at cross-purposes and how identifying these points of contention in the therapeutic setting can be fodder for growth, how these points of contention that arise between therapist and client also must arise in the client’s other significant relationships. They had no problem extending this metaphor and finding ways to apply the improv game to outside circumstances, about how circling around a difficult issue was necessary if we’re trying to make “werewolf” and “galaxy” converge. They seemed particularly adept at deciphering coded interactions in other exercises, in this case ones that were contained in an improv game (“it’s like we’re being x-rayed” someone said. “You can find out so much about someone by how they play the game!”).

I did have an uncomfortable moment, one that did justice to the underlying tensions of being an American in Pakistan. An administrator came in to greet me.  He was direct and gracious, and then he said to me, “look at these students.  Not a terrorist among them.” Everyone laughed, but I could feel myself grimace. He chided me about the negative coverage of Pakistan on CNN and Fox News, and then he asked me, “is this what Pakistan is like? Has this been your experience?”

Of course it hasn’t been. The Pakistanis I’ve met are warm and humane and trying, like all of us, to balance the contradictory demands of life (school and family; expectations and personal desires; imposed stereotypes and national pride…the list goes on). Yes, there is violence and nationalism and fundamentalism here. It’s real. I’d be (even more) naive to say that these things don’t, in part, shape the way people live here, specifically here. But the United States, a place I love and have very complicated feelings for, is not entirely the place the Pakistanis hear about through their media, either. I hold my breath when I’m asked about gun violence and bigotry and the jokes (some of) our leaders make at the expense of women who have come forward about sexual assault. Being an American means living with these realities, finding a way to acknowledge these sick elements without denying our responsibility or letting them override our decency. If I can access my inner-Pakistani and extend this metaphor perhaps to the breaking point, Americans (and Pakistanis) can only converge for a second before all our contradictions demand that we jump back into the chaos and try to work it out, over and over and over.

Truly, it’s fascinating to hear these students talk about improv games and their connections to Gestalt therapy and neuroscience and Irvin Yalom and the limitations of the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator, all in one discussion and largely unprompted by me.  Humbling.

This sounds like I’ve had an entirely rarified experience here. Maybe that’s true.  But I also have spent a lot of time with Adeel, one of the Fulbright drivers, and he has convinced me we should form a crime-stopping cinematic duo called “Boot and Bonnet” after the trunk and the hood of the car (this idea came to the both of us when the guards at the Fulbright office–who have to check under the chassis, the hood, and the trunk whenever anyone enters or leaves the compound–were a bit gruff with Adeel’s car. “They are bad to my boot and bonnet,” he said, and movie history was born). Now we begin each trip with Adeel saying, “Let’s roll!” and end each trip with a fist bump.  Here’s a copy of a text I sent Adeel that will work its way into our screenplay; it will give you an idea of the tone we want to pursue:

Adeel wants Mel Gibson to direct (see: Hamlet; see: Convergence) and Nicolas Cage to be the villain. Fine with me.  I also spent most of the day with a Joan Jett song stuck in my head, so while Adeel was scripting our fight scenes I couldn’t stop hearing “I love rock-‘n’-roll, so put another dime in the jukebox, baby.” I don’t particularly like this song, but it was lodged in my brain while I rode shotgun with my vigilante partner, Adeel the Boot.

A few more reasons why I love being in Pakistan.  The food is great. I had “lobia,” a variation of red beans and rice with ginger and turmeric (?) twice today. Incredible. Every morning I get apples and grapes mixed in yogurt. We had rice with walnut gravy and dumplings on Monday night.  Heaven.

USEFP (United States Educational Foundation for Pakistan) had a buffet on the lawn for some visitors the other night.  They covered the front yard with a bunch of huge carpets and then put lights in all the trees and served dinner outside. I was in rehearsal, but made it home in time to eat with the staff. The air was warm and smelled like flowers and diesel fumes and saag paneer and roti.  Not bad.

We had a slow down on the Kashmir Highway (heading south, away from Kashmir) (much less romantic than it sounds) on the way to school today.  A donkey cart was in the fast lane. Everyone took this in stride.

One of my students tried to explain the rules of cricket to me.  He may as well have  been speaking Urdu.

There are cryptic messages everywhere:

Good night.

 

 

Remember on Jeopardy when there would be a catch-all category called “Potpourri”?  That’s this entry.  Lots of things have happened and my mind can’t find some satisfying, unifying theme.  “The answer is: because I’m going to be really busy and might not have time to write this for a few days.” You can provide the question (“why bother to write an entry, then?”).  All of this is to say it’s been beautiful here in Islamabad–huge downpour yesterday and now it feels like northern New Mexico–and I’ve had two workshops at Theatre Wallay that give me all sorts of hope.  I’m going to drop the Jeopardy theme.  Here’s some stuff:

I love this place.  Theatre Wallay is a converted poultry farm that is one of the most creative theater spaces I’ve seen.  They do plays (currently rehearsing a Brecht piece they’ve translated into Urdu), host stand-up comedians, have music nights (both live and karaoke), show classic movies outdoors, create open-air shows about important issues, and–this coming Saturday–will present an all-improvised evening for local audiences.  If today’s rehearsal was any indication (and I believe it was), the show should be strange and hilarious in equal measure.

My dad sold chicken wire to poultry farms.  I like to think he’d be amused that I’ve come full circle. I do wish he were around so I could talk about Pakistan with him. He was adventurous.

Went back to Saeed Book Bank, an incredible bookstore by any standard.  Adeel drove me there (I can’t go out unaccompanied) and waited in the car while I ran around. The selection is huge.  The people I’ve met here talk very casually and knowledgeably about history and philosophy and literature. Don’t want to generalize–the literacy rate outside of Islamabad is low–but I think it says a lot about this (micro?) culture here in the capital that it can support such an exciting “book bank.” The (very successful) Barnes and Noble in my neighborhood closed down two years ago and was replaced by a vicious and unfeeling mini-Target, so I was doubly happy to be in a genuine bookstore.  Here are some of the books I bought (and almost bought):

This book seemed provocative.  And then:

There was a graphic guide to existentialism, but I chose not to buy it and I take responsibility for not doing so.  Not that it mattered.

I love Mohsin Hamid’s books (thanks Barbara Becker for introducing me to them).  Dennis and I watched the movie version of “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” a few months ago and it really didn’t do the book justice. So many of Hamid’s books are about the ambiguous benefits of modern life, about how no stance on any issue is simple or pure (and how “purity” and violence go hand-in-hand), that it was frustrating to watch a movie that couldn’t let the viewer be uncertain. The Pakistan he describes is remote to me because of the restrictions on my movement (and because of my nationality and my non-existent Urdu) (I have learned to say some words in Urdu. More on that later).  And I’ve never set foot in that mini-Target.  Moving on.

Fulbright got me three boxes of these very nice business cards.  I’m happy to have them and wish, for all sorts of reasons, that I could be here long enough to give them all away.  It’s good that the card is honest, too.  I’m doing an improv workshop at a local therapy training center tomorrow; my face is on a poster for it, followed by the words “Head of Fulbright USA.”   This ended up on Facebook.  I’m having trouble saying “yes, and…” to this experience.  I feel more than a little fraudulent.  I spoke to the staff at the training center and they said they’d change my title.  I hope I don’t get promoted to a cabinet position.  Seems like a dubious enterprise, lately.

This was on the table at breakfast:

The apple nectar was surprisingly good.  I suppose it’s too much to expect it to help me emotionally, but the promise made me laugh.  And that’s enough. This guy in the Sunday magazine cracked me up, too:

I can’t get too smug about English translations here.  Today in class I made a reference to an American actress whose last name, when translated into Urdu, means a very specific intimate act.  Good thing I’m not Head of Fulbright USA.

Two more things before I go.  Here’s a sign in the rehearsal space at Theatre Wallay.

Absolutely.  I leave here in 12 days.  Time is going too quickly.  I’m lucky to be here.

Finally, more Joni Mitchell.  She could have written this song last week. Can’t get it out of my head:

 

 

 

 

I looked it up: George Bernard Shaw is the person who said, “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”  (And Woody Allen added, “and those who can’t teach, teach gym”) (funny).   Woody Allen may not be the best person to quote today, however.  Due to jet lag and chronic, low-level despair I was up at 3:30 a.m. watching the Kavanaugh hearings.  We men have a long, long, long way to go before we appreciate the dangerous power we wield, and we have an even longer way to go before we stop damaging those who call us to account.

And Woody Allen’s wrong about gym teachers, as well as boundary violations: I learned a lot about decency from Coach Valverde and Coach Hunt at Gage Junior High.  They did not tolerate bullying, which was remarkable in 1971.  Same with Coach Almquist at Riverside Polytechnic High School.  I was lucky.

These power dynamics are thick at the moment and it feels callow to ignore them.  They undergird everything.

But back to the quote.  I start teaching in earnest tomorrow.  I’ll be teaching the “Improvisation and Mental Health” workshops at three different places and, as always happens before I start a new class, I feel like my head is empty.  I have a syllabus. We’re going to focus on the ways improvisation defies the future-oriented dread that fuels anxiety.  We’re going to practice stepping into controlled chaos and, using curiosity and non-judgment, experience the (positive) power at our disposal when we focus on the task in front of us and not on our limiting thoughts (see the first paragraph or two of this entry). We’re going to explore how an ensemble approach to living–how listening intently to each other–is crucial to creating an atmosphere of respect and, sometimes, fun.

But how can an anxious person with partisan insomnia ask students to do the thing he can’t?  I dunno.  We’ll find out tomorrow.  Experts are the worst teachers, apparently.

Did I mention I’m in Pakistan?  In this moment?  It’s wonderful to be back.  Be here, now (I initially typed “be her now,” which would create some badly needed empathy).  Here’s some stuff from my first 48 hours, and a HUGE thank you to USEFP (United Stated Educational Foundation in Pakistan) for hosting me:

The enormous crows start to go nuts around 5:00 in the morning and, since I’ve been awake already, I’ve been walking out on the terrace and watching the sun rise.

I met with some professors from the psychology department at NUST (National University of Sciences and Technology) to schedule some workshops.  I love visiting schools. They always feel hopeful to me, even with the regimentation and the air of impatience (“will I ever finish?”). The psychology staff was gracious and welcoming (“come back!” “Shouldn’t you see how this goes before extending another invitation?”).  Every meeting here involves coffee or tea (sometimes both) and cookies and more tea.  I can’t sleep.  Hmmm.

The security around the campus is imposing.  As with the Fulbright House, there are armed guards at the entrance, and the entrance itself is nearly a mile from the campus.  Maybe that’s why this building in the next photo gave me pause:

Again, hopeful. Or cynical.  I suppose it’s a choice. Cynicism seems like an easy default position.

Here I am with one of the guards at the Fulbright House.  I did get to leave the area and go to Taxila with Sikandar from USEFP and Imran and Zainab from Theatre Wallay.  Really exciting to get out of Islamabad and see more of this country and spend time with these wonderful hosts. We wandered through a British-era museum and saw excavated art from the area. Evidence that the Greeks, the Persians, the Chinese, and the Indians had all made a home in Taxila. Some photos below:

And:

Tomorrow I begin classes at Theatre Wallay. I’m teaching them how to teach improv.  I hope I’ll disprove Shaw’s quote.

There’s a new cook at the Fulbright House, too.  He’s really good. Last night I had broccoli soup and Pakistani spaghetti.  Delicious, but there were left-overs:

This was the chorus to the song the little Australian girl sang on the flight from Dublin to Abu Dhabi (“abudhabiabudhabiabudhabi!”).  Her commitment was impressive, and I admired her persistence even when her mom, who laughed at first, asked her to stop.  Maybe her mom didn’t have faith in the fact that something that is repeated to the point of irritation will, eventually, become funny again on a whole new level.  The Abu Dhabi song did come to an end, but we’ll never know if it had the legs to emerge as a fully embodied bit, one of those jokes that never ends and only become funny because of its endlessness.  Oh, well.

Now I’m waiting for the flight to Islamabad.  A theme emerged over the course of the flight.  Here are two illustrations:

And this:

The Bob Woodward book speaks for itself.  I’ve heard more than a few people call our current president an “improviser.” He refers to himself as such.  It’s clear from all accounts that he is impulsive.  He is not, however, an improviser. I’ve said this before: improvisers serve the scene and aspire to make each other look good.  They accept the gifts of the moment.  They try to keep their egos in check because their focus is on discovering and exploring relationships.   And, yes, most of us feel fear on stage–or before we step out on stage–but if we’re decent improvisers (in all senses of the word) we don’t use fear to intimidate our scene partners and to dominate the show.  Intimidation is a fearful stance.  It kills most possibilities.  It’s violent and depressing.  Enough.

Here’s the second theme, posted again because words can’t do it justice:

This is an ad for a “Nuclear-Hardened Bunker [offering] Full Luxury Resort Living”  that was in the Etihad flight magazine. There seems to be a problem with priorities here.  I laughed, grimly, but after reading Fear with all its revelations of tweet-jousting and crass indifference to a nuclear holocaust this didn’t seem all that funny. The constant drumbeat of aggression and grievance and retaliation is exhausting. Naturally, I thought of Joni Mitchell and her prophetic song “The Three Great Stimulants.”  Some lyrics from the chorus:

Call for the three great stimulants of the exhausted ones/Artifice, Brutality, and Innocence.

This may be a stretch, but I did think about improv and these three stimulants, how each contributes to sickly and shallow scenes. One of the wonders of improvising is that we get to discover alternate realities in the moment (I’m too-often a pirate in scenes, but in real life I get sea sick quickly).  It is “artificial.” Our scenes do require artifice if we’re going to step out of our daily lives.  But improv isn’t based on lies.  I had a beginning student who was a good  improviser and always said, “I love to come to class because I get to lie.”  This rankled me because I don’t see real improv as “lying,” and I had a hard time convincing her that good improv is based on being truthful.  You have to be true to the moment, true to the emotions that emerge from the relationship, true to the game.  This isn’t just hair-splitting.  When we “pretend” on stage it comes across as false and embarrassing. Everyone knows we don’t mean what we’re saying, and to ask people to swallow lies is insulting. The audience may laugh at us, but they won’t laugh with us, and so we’re just creating more separation, more division, more exhaustion. We need to honor the emotion that is happening in that moment, just like the Australian three-year-old who committed to the Abu Dhabi song. It’s a real experience.

Improv isn’t about hoodwinking your audience or your scene partner. If you want to do that, you may as well apply for a position at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

As for “brutality” and “innocence,” well, this came to mind: leave your violence and disrespect at the door.  Improv can be a projective test on stage.  What we’re dealing with in our personal lives tends to inform what we do in our scenes (again,  not artifice).  I’m sure I’ve taken out my anger on a scene mate or two (or three) in the 29 years I’ve been improvising, and I’m ashamed of this. One of the reasons I keep the improvisational mindset at the forefront of my classes and (I hope) in my performances is that this mindset diffuses brutality.  The improv mindset is based on curiosity and deep listening, being with another person in as supportive a way as possible.  We’re responsible for what we bring to the stage, for being deeply present, and if we proclaim innocence (thank you, Joni Mitchell) as a way to bully our cast mates and get away with bad behavior, then we’re missing the point entirely.

This is ponderous.  Look!

And now I’m back in Islamabad, happy to be here and feeling excited (and fearful) about the upcoming workshops I’ll be conducting.   This headline greeted me when I stumbled downstairs for breakfast.  I hope it’s not prophetic like Joni Mitchell.  Time will tell.