Bob Wiseman

I am reading so many things for school it doesn't make sense to try fitting in something unrelated for pleasure but what a pleasure it is to start The Master and Margarita and how interesting it is that Bulgakov like Bach and Van Gogh shouldn't live to know the world would eventually embrace the genius of this work. Like Freddie Stone said, forget about the audience, it's the kindest thing you can do.

Sometime around 1995 I was scoring the show Twitch City for CBC made by Don McKellar and Bruce MacDonald. It was only 13 episodes which was too bad because it was so much fun to work on especially the episodes with Tracy Wright where she played a strange catwoman who is abducted in a feline takeover of the world a la Planet of The Apes. They imprisoned her and put her on trial but a rebel human force staged a daring rescue and broke into the courtroom where she was held beh...ind bars. After successfully battling with security cats, they started to free her and with a crane raised the jail cell. As Tracy's character grasped the revolution and nascent freedom she cheered on the rebels exclaiming the following words, very slowly like someone struggling to remember a poem. I didn't understand what she meant until the third or forth time and was then spectacularly amused, "rise up, rise up, oh rise and show your power, rise up rise up, we're dancing into the sun, rise up rise up, it's time for celebration, rise up rise up spirit time has come". See more

found out fellow students in one of my last classes, unhappy with their mark, complained and got their mark raised. what then should one do if willing to accept their mark but later learn complaining increases things in your favour? if the bigger picture is that the gatekeepers for entry into desirable positions base their decisions upon final marks, then isn't it wise to complain whether or not one's heart is there legitimately? what's more concerning - allowing a system to ...exist where one can complain or allowing a system to exist where one can manipulate the outcome simply by moaning. if the club owner gave you a guarantee for $1000 to do the show and you were counting on that when you organized the tour, the cost of gas, places to stay, food etc. but not enough people came to the show. should the club owner honour the agreement or ask you to accept a lower amount? Or is the question actually what do you do when people change the rules? Or is the real question since people always change the rules, even after saying these are the rules, shouldn't you just expect bullshit to be the norm and try to deal from there? See more

ran into a friend who is also doing a phd, he has many similar experiences on being an older student and whats peculiar about fellow students or teachers who embrace the academic world. one thing I like about ageing is how long it takes to get something right. made soy yogurt and soy milk, looking now for a soy guitar and a soy pick. wrote a song yesterday about bad news, about how it completes a cycle that is endless, through the computer news or the paper/ radio news or the... announcements of internal disappointment. It isn't a new observation but it's fun to sing about all the same. a new course I started this week on devised theatre and the teacher, judith thompson, referenced examples of others who are established, many of whom I looked up this evening like theatre ex machina, anna devour smith, theatre complicite. wish someone pointed me towards these materials a few years ago when I asked theatre friends how theatre creates what it creates, but then I wouldn't have something to complain about and then I wouldn't feel so good about this new song about people perpetuating the acquisition of bad news. See more

Last year I heard a singer at an open stage explain the next song was about a life or death encounter he had climbing a mountain in Nepal, although he was an experienced climber he lost his footing, fell down a rockside and broke his leg in two places, then found himself at the mercy of others who rescued him. I wondered what he would sing in the verses, how he would position the story into lyrical ideas if he would be poetic or literal but it turned out to be an instrumental... piece of music. Later, sitting around with other songwriters, I liked best the moment when someone told him they understood exactly what he went through by the way he strummed G minor to Eflat major. Sort of similar experience yesterday returning to studies when a member of my class told us about a teacher some years ago, who for reasons she didn't understand held a vendetta against her. She said he probably was racist because she wore an outward religious symbol and he gave her the lowest mark in the class. We were concerned about the story and the toxic teacher. English isn't her first language, it's possible some of the nuance of the details were missed in the retelling. Later, we asked questions, mine was what was the low mark he gave you specifically? B minus she answered. See more