Part Two: GETTING ALONG WITH PEOPLE

Can a negative example be instructive? I'll throw myself on the sword, by showing you a letter I mailed today that very likely will have the opposite effect from the one I want. There is something that has been called 'The Will To Fail.' That was the title of one of the first of the modern 'self-help' books, published in the 1940s.  Choosing to not get along with people is probably, most of the time, a manifestation of the will to fail.

Earlier on this journal I wrote an entry about seeing a revival of a twenty year old music comedy stageplay  COLORED MUSEUM which I greatly enjoyed on Opening Night at a little theater in Los Angeles called Company of Angels. Before and since I've indulged fantasies of returning to little theater partly in conjunction with writing a play.

It seemed to my perhaps jaundiced view up close, that Company of Angels was adrift, as if in love with mediocrity and feeling close to the theater without actually producing anything themselves. The play I saw was written and rehearsed far, far away from that theater. Now, through bad management, that play is in performance to near empty houses and the theater's telephone announcement tells lies about it being held over to satisfy demand from excellent reviews. I doubt that theater is in fact reviewed anymore.  

So, I set out to make some whopping great weeping enemies via a sort of tough love. I know in advance it won't work, but an evil genie made me mad so I first tried to send an email, and when the email address I had was declared by AOL to be too long, I added to what I'd written and mailed it as a letter today. Can't wait to see what happens when I go to that theater again to buy a ticket. (They don't sell tickets, they write down your name and then lose their list of names.)

There are hundreds of little theaters in Los Angeles. That one however is only 4 miles away without my having to get on the freeway. So, I might forgive its sins if in return I can have an impact re efficiency, and resolve to produce something of their own. The guys I saw at thetheater need to toughen up, spend some time in the Army or serve in the Peace Corps or build a highway or SOMETHING.

In other words, yes, one can learn to get along with people, but, one can also, and simultaneously, deliberately risk alienating people to bring about a desired result.

Anyway, here's how NOT to get along with people:

March 15, 2005

Company of Angels;

The guy painting your wall today looks to me
subcontracted. Once again I'm disillusioned.
My fantasy was that all those dedicated thespians
painted and set-built as well as wrote their own
plays, and cast from your "Company," as well as
painted your menu on your two modest walls.
I've photographed your theater; it's cute. It seduced
me, setting off thoughts of what I'd still like to do.

Years ago I was at American Theater Arts, east of Vine,
on Hollywood Blvd. The theater building had been a mortuary.
Two stages were built. The theater had a 'Angel.' It is now
long gone. Well, they DID send two plays to Broadway
after shaping them. One was a vehicle for Jessica and Hume, and the other was a drama about Donner Pass. I had nothing to do with either. I taught there and I acted there (to good reviews). I directed two one-acts, Before Breakfast by E. O'Neill, and An adapted version of part of Vieux Carre, by Tennessee Williams. The double bill  was sold out every night for months, and every night the waiting list was longer than the capacitry of the house. When you get it right, and rehearse for real, lightning can strike. I acted and directed in college. I had phenomenal success with Ibsen's The Masterbuilder, with Richard Jordan in the lead. (Real name Robert Jordan.) His last movie, his last acting performance, was in Ted Turner's Gettysburg.  That production of Masterbuilder was held over into exam period and got the drama club out of debt for the first time in its history. (Now there's an actual theater, from money given by a Mister Loeb.)

I've been rereading LA little theater reviews after a very long
absence from doing that. I see going concerns get
$35 per ticket. Your tickets, says thatwriting on the
wall, are $10. What gives? So I was shocked that 'Museum'
cost $15 per ticket. Maybe I misunderstood you and the
tickets, which I never did receive (no tickets!?) cost $30
each, and I misunderstood. The sulky gorilla who admitted me, and my wife, on opening night, had no record of my having paid, three days earlier. Very, very upsetting, actually humiliating. since he was so dubious and sly with his insinuations.

Last time I looked your mail slot had still not been fixed.
The theater is in breakdown? or is it just content to be a
way station of the pony express? Temporary, a stage-for-rent?

How much do you charge to rent your theater? I might have a play.

Who's the main Honcho? You have a top 'Angel'?
Is there a consortium, or one eccentric, go-it-aloner who acts
as if organization is only for the petty minded?

I'm getting pissed. Maybe picketing is called for? <g>. Or pamphleteering?

Barry

This is a test.

A good rule of thumb might be to always sleep on a letter, or a post, before sending. Compelled to live dangerously, I mailed it already.

Barry

 

 

Getting Along With People

Getting along with people begins, obviously, in the family. Orphanages, or foster families being special cases. Another special case for the young person is being farmed out to relatives. The latter case is the subject of two of the greatest novels ever written, David Copperfield and Great Expectations both by Charles Dickens written 35 years apart in the 1800s. In the first, David must learn circumspection, to not be too quick to believe everyone.  In the second, Pip must get over being a little snob, and learn to embrace whatever harsh facts life brings to him. He fantasizes that his unknown benefactor is the rich guardian of the young woman he loves, but in fact it is an illegally returned convict whom Pip had helped escape capture many years before. Pip reaches happy maturity when he accepts the actual facts just as they are, and builds a life from the strength this achievement of acceptance brings.

In childhood we learn to get along with people by following how our parents get along with people. From when I was four I can remember my mother entertaining a woman friend during the afternoon while my father was at work. I interrupted by bringing a bunch of flowers for the guest from the garden, immitating my mother, and when sent outside again, from the neighbor's yard. So, giving gifts we learn from parents. (Stealing flowers we learn all by ourselves).  My mother was fond of saying, "Honey catches more flies than vinegar." Sometimes 'being nice' is unfairly tagged as 'Sucking up' a characterization that worries me as it is on the rise, coupled with a general increase in cynicism and division.

So, the ability to get along with people is likely to become more and more important in future days. In team sports it's easy as there is an obvious common goal, but in private life not so easy. Koby Bryant handles getting along with his teammates just fine on the court, but when Karl Malone mildly flirted with his wife off the court, "getting along" broke down. (Koby's wife showed appalling bad judgment in relaying to her husband Karl's cliche remark.)

One can have a fine life not getting along with people: it is after all an option. Some people handle being alone just fine, while for others it is torture. People skills really can be learned. Someone I admire didn't like 'Sales.' He preferred the concept of offering people free choice.

Pretty exhausting subject: I think I'll quit, for now.

Barry

 

 

 

 

 

Winning Chess by Self-control

Computers have damaged, and helped, popular chess tournaments. Contradiction? Sure. The last word's not in. Postal chess still flourisdes and consulting a computer is no longer banned. LA Times Chess Columnist IM Jack Peters justifies this inevitability by pointing out that the human can make intuitive judgments that can beat the computer's judgment. He's a dear man, and I've always been fond of him, especially when I took chess lessons from him, but Jack, I can almost promise you, wishes the computer had never been applied to chess analysis. Some years ago, in  the same chess column he admitted that the computer had stunted attendance at weekend, popular tournaments. Maybe all chess players have swallowed the inevitable, and have collectively decided to play on.

World Champion, former Soviet player, Kasparov it has been announced in today's paper has retired from competition. He was a splendid popularizer of chess. He came on the David Letterman Show and later played a match with Letterman via telephone. Many jokes were cracked. I would like to think that Kasparov offered him a draw, Letterman refused (LOL!) and so Kasparov mated him. That could have happened. Former World Champion (1961) Mikhail Tal offered me a draw and I gobbled it before he could change his mind. Grandmasters sometimes offer wood pushers like me a draw in simultaneous exhibitions. I will perhaps post the score of that game. (I have to go to Word's stored files to find it.)

Kasparov lost to an IBM computer called Deep Blue. That was a huge shock to every chess player on the planet. Now, even that program has been much strengthened.

I have a chess program called Chessmaster 7000. It regularly eats me. To have an even contest I must confine it to one or two seconds per move, and give myself unlimited time. There are other ways to limit the computer's strength. It is sobering to be beaten over and over.

The other day however I won twice against the computer set at two seconds per move, but rated at 2206, just at 'Master' level. I didn't employ 'Mentor" once, not once. These wins are totally insignificant except for the fact that I could link up good humor, rest,optimism, patience, and willingness to work, as having been responsible for the change in playing success. Chess strength belongs to youth. Kasparov is only in his early 40s, yet he is retiring. I suspect that older players can play just as well given unlimited time (postal chess results might substantiate this guess) but canot keep themselves physically relaxed, and their emotions under control, to the same degree that young players have accomplished.

Playing chess is essentially a waste of time so I have to justify it by telling myself I'm learning self-control and physical relaxation, both very difficult to master under pressure, even in swimming races.

Barry

SIMULTANEOUS

LABATES INTERNATIONAL 03/13/88

White: Mikhail Tal (World Champion 1961)

Black: Barry Bartle

1. e4 g6

2. d4 Bg7

3. Nc3 c3

4. Bc4 d5

5. ed5 b5

6. Bb3 b4

7. Ne4 cxd5

8. Nc5 Nf6

9. Nf3 O-O

10. O-O Nbd7

11. Nd3 a5

12. a4 (a) Ba6

13. Re1 Rc8

14. Ne5 e6

15. Bg5 Qc7

16. Bf4 Qa7

17. Be3 Ne4

18. f3 Bd3

19. Qd3 Nec5

20. dxc5 Ne5

21. Qd2 Nc6

22. c3 Rb8

23. Bd1 Rfd8

24. Rac1 bxc3

25. bxc3 Bf8

26. Kh1 Bxc5 (b)

27. Bh6 Ba3

28. Rc2 Rb1 (c)

29. DRAW

Offered by White

(a) First non-book move. Correct, or 'Book,' is 12.a3

(b) Winning a pawn with no compensation for White.

(c) Threatening to double Rooks

 

 

 

Pictorial Art / Painting

In my twenties a young woman I was interested in told me that a male friend had taken her to the Metropolitan Art Museum on Fifth ave., NYC. I like to remember this fact to remind me what a rube from the Outback I was even in my twenties, en route to college, late. Take a girl to a museum? remember, way back in the 60s (?) the first new wave strident Feminist was an Australian woman, later a Professor of Philosophy at Oxford or Cambridge. In her history making book, she wrote (for drama IMO) "In Australia women go barefoot and walk three paces behind." She was ambitious. (<g>).

From then on, for life, I visited Museums, Which are an excellent, excellent place to meet women, and not just the Met, but literally all over the world; Most excitingly when I was crew on an American merchant ship berthed in Genoa, Italy, when I made a beeline for the train station and a ride to the Uffizi in Florence (Firenzi) a distance of 150 miles. I was about 24, and still in college, returned from two years in the US Army in Korea. I'd taken two art history courses in college, one on 17th century Dutch painting, and one on the Rennaisance. I enjoyed the former the most, by far.

What I find most moving in art (painting) is humanity depicted with humility and love: Rembrandt, Vemeer, Hals, Van Gogh (thought of as French, but he paid homage to Rembrandt, even in his use of the brush, finger nail and brush wrong end!)

None of this would be permanently important to me if I couldn't find merit in present day painting using precepts I learned from studying painting from medieval times to the present. On my wall is a large reproduction of a present day painting signed by David Poole. (I'd Google him but my computer might lose what I've already written here, and when that happens it's utterly sickening, as I hope you have never experienced.) I'm sure my ignorance is showing but I've never heard of David Poole. He's a great artist. I had to live with his painting, which I bought for less than $10 at Goodwill, in reproduction, and very nicely framed, for quite a while before I grasped all its virtues.  

I lack the hardware at the moment to post it here. I ask you to 'see' the painting through my description. It is a beach scene at the height of summer: a deep blue sky, brilliant light, several (3) bicycles on the sand leaning against a high wall. Over the wall, mostly hidden from us are about ten beach umbrellas. In two places in the line of umbrellas we can see the deep blue ocean. There is not a cloud. We are peeking at a scene we can not see very much of. It is as if we are backstage.

How, one might think, can theatricality be sneaked into this ordinary scene? Easy! Add a female figure, lithe, nearly nude, carrying another, red umbrella higher than all the other multicolored umbrellas as she runs, or dances, standing tall on one foot, along the very high wall, the one that cuts off our vision. She is utterly self-assured, balancing perfectly. This is about the power one feels from joy, pure unalloyed innocent joy. David Poole I love you whoever, and wherever you are.

Barry

   

Freud

Could it be true that young people today know next to nothing about Freud? You could truthfully say I know next to nothing about him, but still alive is my wish to know everything about him, warts an' all. I've read more about him, than read his actual works. At one time Freud was an American cultural icon. Movies, the Hitchcock thriller with Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck was consciously, and with relish, shot psychoanalytically, as a series of self-discoveries about the past, leading to freedom of the will.

I read the sadest journal entry I've ever read this morning. A writer who attributes their agony and creative blocks to not being inspired enough by the writing of writers who came before her. The truth, according to the tenets of the education culture in which I grew up, is that creative blocks are a result of an unexamined life. Freud argued most persuasively that creative freedom is a result of being fully cognisant of the minutia of our entire life.

So, I have a new reading goal: the actual works of Freud. Even his most merciless critics agree that Freud wrote extremely well. On that ground alone I look forward to the task. 

Barry

 

Children

When you have small children you get a lot of silent or not so silent supervision, surveillance, by neighbors and other strangers. The other day while driving with my nine year old son alongside me in the passenger seat, I gave the finger to an errant, bullying driver. Stopped at a light he got out of his SUV (SUV drivers are convinced they rule the highway so I pray daily for their demise, especially the drivers of black SUVs that look like a hearse) and started to walk toward me. Not anxious to engage in fisticuffs, abandoning my vehicle at a red light, I rolled up my window. He retreated. Not done yet the driver caught up with me and yelled at me from the passenger side that he was going to follow me and break off my finger in front of my son. I told my son to yell at him that his gas tank was open, which it was, flapping in the breeze and me with no lit cigarette to flip into the aperture. That seemed to sober him up and there was no further confrontation.

You do not, I trust, need me to explicate the Freudian overtones in this everyday highway incident? If you would, perchance, be amused by my take on it I'd be happy to oblige. More than happy.

Barry

 

Writing About Writing

Writing without pictures, that is, with an alphabet, is very young. Not sure how young. I'd like to know what China's plans are for making a keyboard unattached to picture writing.

Writing, my writing here, is gonna stay without pictures. Every once in a while I think of posting a photo to prove I'm not "Pontifical" ha ha as the Journal HOST ValGal states. But I won't give in. To communicate she'll just have to learn to write in the 'new' manner.

I've decided also to stop reading posts, journal entries  festooned with pictures. This is not an Egytian tomb. I reserve the right to change my mind at the drop of a hat.

Barry