Summer Vacation approaches...

I am really looking forward to my summer vacation. There was a time, just a few years back, that I could have taken a vacation or left it with no real thought. I spent most of my time focused on my work and my art and didn't even know how much healthier and happier I could be if I gave myself a real break, and I wouldn't have known how to relax enough to truly enjoy a break if I had it. Then came Mary and her calming affect on my life. She shows me daily how to think about life outside my organized life as a teacher and performer... She shows me how to love a fire in the hearth or a cup of hot soup. She will ask me to drive 15 minutes out of my way so she can show me this one really special tree that is in the prime of fall's color change. And so this year I know that it is coming. July will bring me 10 days on the beach building sandcastles, eating amazing meals and, most importantly, escaping the whole rest of the world. No laptop... no journal... no phone calls... no theatre planning or form creating or classes to be taught. Just me, Mary, my family of in-laws and a beautiful beach that needs nothing from me and offers the one thing I can't find anywhere else: Nothing.

Gottahaveit #1: Good old Dewalt

I want this particular Dewalt set very badly. It is powerful. It is cordless. It screws and it cuts and it is bright bright yellow. I need it for when I build the next section of the theatre, but I haven't scraped up the money to purchase it yet.

My technical director a few years back had a Dewalt cordless drill and I had a Mikita. He was always finished building a platform a solid 2 minutes before I was and he never broke a sweat doing it.

My cheap black and decker broke about 3 months ago and I have since needed it about 5 times. When you don't have what you need and you must use something as a cheap replacement it makes you want the very best, top of the line model even more!

You will be mine Dewalt cordless saw and drill! Oh yes! You will be mine!

Mona... Lisa...

I am sooooo proud of my niece Emma!!! She has come so far since I first met her. I was there on our summer vacation when she scribbled a little stick man on a magna doodle and we all thought "Hey! That actually kinda looks like a person!" And from there she has continued to impress me with her artistic achievements.

She recently won 3rd place in the state kindergarten art contest for Georgia. Every time I come to her house she makes sure that I get a little piece of paper filled with color and life, and I always make sure to post them in my cubilcle at work.

The picture to the left is her version of the Mona Lisa... Pretty great huh? Definitely happier than the original, and I think if the real Mona had a bow that big on her head, she would surely crumble under it's sheer magnitude.

If you are wondering why I am this excited (besides the fact that she is my niece) it is because when I was a kid I was a bit of a color placer on the pager myself. If I hadn't gotten into acting and improv I probably would still be drawing and animating.

I like this particular picture a lot. It makes me smile and for some reason stirs up and replinishes my hope. I won't over analyze that for fear that I'll break it and it' will be gone.

Go Emma! Keep on a-drawin' girl!

Man Crush: David Tennant

Ahh.... David Tennant. This guy knows how to take a role, make it his own and then proceed to play every line as a pure gem of comedic genius. I'm currently watching him as he was first introduced to me (before I realized he played Barty Crouch Jr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) in the new revival of BBC's Doctor Who series.

My friend Sacha Dzuba gave me an extremely hard sell into the Doctor Who world when he found out that I was a sci fi lover but that I wasn't into the new Doctor. He pressed two large stacks of DVD's on me and I watched them... liked them... almost let myself get distracted by them, until series 2 when David arrived on the scene.

If you want to see one of my favorite David Tennant/Doctor Who moments just watch the Series 2 episode titled The Christmas Invasion (here's a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Christmas_Invasion) and listen for "This New Hand? It's a Fightin Hand!!!"

So why is David a man crush? Well first, in case you don't know what a man crush is... UrbanDictionary.com defines it as "When a straight man has a "crush" on another man, not sexual but kind of idolizing him."

David gets my first Man Crush entry because he can play Geeky, Romantic, Enraged, Playful, Aggressive, Intelligent and egotistical all in the same 3 minutes of screen time. He can make more more out of a line of dialogue than most other actors and he can make more out of silence and a glance than most people.

I would love to be David for the shooting of just one Doctor Who episode... What a guy... What a... Man Crush.

300 Lost Words

A word count didn't even occur to me today when I wrote my article entitled "Good Question."  And so I find myself home after work and teaching class franticly pounding out 300+ words before I fall below my goal after only the 2nd day of this project.

My mind on the way home was focused on the premiere of the next season of my favorite tv show "LOST" which my wife and I have been patiently (and sometimes impatiently) waiting for since last year.  I don't have a whole lot of tv shows that I am really into right now and LOST has been out of my life for a while now... I was a bit worried that I would lose touch... that I wouldn't care when it finally returned... that the tension that they built up for last season wouldn't sustain me through to the new shows many months later.  I was wrong. I am incredibly jazzed. But why? Why is LOST able to bring me back from a tv coma and still have me dying to see the next episode when I normally would be cold and abandoned. The answer is "Specifics and Unanswered Questions."  The world is clear and vibrant and every time they reveal a secret truth they either make it a part of a greater secret truth or create an additional secret truth.  This is a hard balance to keep... too many secrets and you lose your audience, but reveal too many and you lose your audience's interest.

And so tomorrow night I return home to my friends Jack, Locke, Mr. Eko, Kate, Sawyer and all the rest.  Congratulations writers of LOST! You've done the impossible.  I'll be back and I want answers!!!

Ask Jim #2 - Good Question!

Today's question comes from an anonymous member of the JaCKPie community.(Goodness... everyone is so secretive!)

They write: "I hear different things about asking questions in a scene. Some people say you should never do it. Some people say it is ok... which is right? When is it ok to ask questions in a scene?"

Good Question! My answer to this is less about WHEN it is ok to ask a question and more about how to ask a good question in a scene. There are a couple of factors that affect the use of questions in scenes and if you are aware of them and how they tend to affect scenes then you should technically be able to ask questions all day long in a scene and it will be just as solid as any other scene.

In the beginning of a scene and for each line of dialogue or action on stage we are looking for information, heightening, wants and emotions. Simple questions that do not accomplish any of these 4 things when they are done at the very start of the scene and simply volly the focus, creative work and pressure back onto the other person or seem to have a right or wrong answer implied are the types of questions that I find to lack a real use to the scene... HOWEVER after the scene is established and it is a true character reaction to ask a simple question then it functions in the environment quite well...

Ask Jim #1 - The Non-stop talking scene partner

My very first "Ask Jim" question comes from an anonymous member of the JaCKPie community. They write "What should you do if your scene partner never stops talking? What if they wont let you say anything?! What should you do?"

Great question! Why is it such a good question for me in particular? Because I used to be a motormouth in scenes! Later on in this article I'll give some background on my history as a motormouth but for now I will roll up my sleeves and tackle the question at hand.

My first impulse in any situation where my scene partner is talking but not listening or is listening but won't allow two words in edgewise is to ask myself the question "WHY?" or more clearly "WHY is my scene partner motoring through this scene?" If I take a moment and watch/listen and I can discern the why behind their motoring then I will be able to help make my partner look brilliant and bring the scene itself to a place of balanced discovery.As everyone who takes level 1 at JaCKPie knows, our golden rule is to make our scene partner look like gold. So if my partner is talking in non-stop run-on sentences, my first job here is to make them look brilliant for doing this… If I can at the same time stop them from diatribing and get them connected, then I have done 2 jobs at the same time. But first I must be able to recognize the intent. Most times this is easy because I know and have workshopped with the scene partner in question. Sometimes I have not had that luxoury and must make an assesment on the fly...

1000 words....

Tomorrow I begin my 1000 word per day writing journey... I will need lots of love and support. If you are at student or alumni of JaCKPie and you have a question for "Ask Jim" please email me and I'll incorporate it here!

Thanks as always to everyone... wish me luck!

Accidental Art

I love it when art happens by accident. I love this cameraphone pic though it isn't at all what I intended to happen. It is of my parents chatting away in their kitchen, but it went all fuzzy on me (most likely because it is a *CAMERA PHONE*)

This is currently the background on my cell phone because it is both fun and a good memory...

Microblog: Back to Twitter & My first blog subscriber

•  Have been focusing so much on getting my blog ready that I haven't been using Twitter. Now it is time to find a balance. #

@rileymccarthy just became my first subscriber to my new blog! Hooray! I'm official! #

Magnetix competition at work...

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Originally uploaded by Jim Karwisch

I asked for a set of Magnetix building "blocks" for Christmas and now my entire department is sharing in the fun. My co-worker Vickie made this sail boad which I thought was pretty cool.

Any challenges? I'll pass them along to the guys here at work...

17 Journals to 1

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Originally uploaded by Jim Karwisch

Right before I got married I started to consolidate all of our possesions which included our over abundance of books. Going through all the stacks and shelves led me to finding all of my journals from the time I was in high school through my return to Atlanta in 2001. I found there were 17 journals total of varying shapes and sizes. Now before you go thinking that I was some incredible journaler from a young age, you should know that I have a terrible habit of buying new journals and not using the whole thing. And so... there I stood staring at all of these journals that took up an entire shelf on the bookcase. I knew that only 1/10th of each was used and I estimated that they would probably condense down to just one hefty sized journal if I were to compile them. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but I broke the spines of all 17 journals, extracted the pages, ordered them chronologically and bound them with a big red rubber band. At that moment, something amazing happened! I started to read my journal entries again... because they were all together I could flip through years and years of notes without carrying around a giant stack of journals.

Today I went through again and was amazed at my journey and the change in my maturity and confidence over the years... I even found a list of all of the cities I visited during my 3 years on theatre tour... Sometimes just a small change can affect the usability of something you've had forever.

Vader - 12 Weeks

No we didn't get a puppy! This is a picture of a co-worker's dog that just made my day. Since I have not yet started posting improv articles as planned (that will start on Saturday) I thought I would at least post a few things that made me smile.

If you are a Star Wars fan you will appreciate that the puppy's name is Vader. They also have a dog named Chewi.

Microblog: Simple problems

Reading old journal entries from high school. Marveling at how simple my problems were. #

Quality v.s. Capturing the moment

I am a bit of a photo snob. I really don't like the quality of pictures that are produced on a cell phone camera... on the other hand, sometimes when you want to capture a beautiful moment in your life, you aren't within reach of your camera...For some people this would sound like a simple matter of fact. For me it is a step toward not needing to be such a perfectionist. Looking at and loving a badly lit and extremely pixelated photo and not being completely distracted by the flaws is a great thing.

Here is a moment in my life that I have captured. It isn't perfect, but exists and it will take me back to that moment just as well as a perfect picture would.

I love growth, revelations and relaxing a bit into life.

Microblog: Doctor Who screaming!

• Getting my new blog ready for its official departure at www.jackpie.com/karwisch #


• Looking at: "David Tennant: Doctor who screaming!" http://tinyurl.com/36otqr #

What is Long-form improv?

From our perspective at JaCKPie,  long-form improvisation is based on the free play of imagination, solid character work and relationships.

The improvisers journey with the audience through an intellectually stimulating, emotionally accessible, and yes... often humorous experience.

Within the experience each improviser may play several different roles, characters may reappear, roles may switch, scenes may change, space and time may be manipulated, scenes may be light, funny, sad, painful, dark or all of the above.

Microblog: Twitter Blocked & rememberthemilk.com

• WORK JUST BLOCKED TWITTER!!! Well I guess it is perfect timing that I just set up my wordpress blog to allow me to tweet from my blog... #


• Organizing my life with rememberthemilk.com. Using David Allen's "getting things done" from within... working well so far. #