And now a word from our Lindsay.

The following is a comment on this blog from Lindsay. In case you don't read comments, I have made it into a charcoally colour and posted it in the main body. Enjoy. Oh, and read my entry below too, in case you haven't already.

"As luck would have it days after deleting our blog i found something to write about. Being as it has an improv twist i imagine Shawn will be cool with me putting it here.

Today we wrote our english 30 diploma, the topic being "self-preservation in the face of internal and external pressures" or something to that effect. As per usual they gave us some poems/extracts/pictures to "inspire" (confuse) us, in this case a Frost poem, an exerpt from Mrs. Dalloway and a picture of a guy with a marionette. From this we were supposed to glean some insight as to the nature of the topic, but, after 20 minutes i came up with nothing. I finished the essay part and came back to the creative portion. I looked up and saw my friend Anne, and remembered when we wrote a scathing letter to grad council after they rejected our submission for grad theme (Leningrad, c'mon, that's gold.) That letter, though a joke, was one of the most articulate and persuasive things i've ever written and so it dawned on me, why not write a letter and load it up with dry humour and bad puns...but what to write on...aha! puppets!

And suddenly it all started to materialize, just like an improv sketch, all the elements were there. The puppeteer was writing to the big time promoter (characters) who had just offered him an extremely lucrative contract to take his show to Vagas (situation), 'n snazz it up a bit, sign some endorsement deals etc. The puppeteer, desperate for money and living out of his station wagon (puppetry not being the most lucrative business out there)(external pressure aka audience suggestion) though deeply commited to his art form, his passion, his raison d'etre (internal pressure, up those stakes). He also took issue with the changes the promoter had proposed, not seeing a place for laser shows, can-lines ar Cher in his humble show, and feared the inevitable creative differeces (mmm stakes). As a result the humble puppeteer graciously declined the offer, prefering to remain impoverished but true to his art and himself rather than selling out. He realized he had to pull alot of strings to get him that contract (throw in a bad pun), but had to decline in order to preserve his emotional and spiritaul integrity (reincorperation of suggestion to find solution.)

My point is that improv becomes pervasive, I'm writing a test worth 50% of my english mark and all I can think while writing is "up the stakes up the stakes," Stay commited to character" "reincorperate from whats there" "incorporate the suggestion" "find an end, ooh, lame pun, that'll do." I dont know how well it worked, hopefully whoever marks it has a sense of humour/flare for the bizarre/appreciation for something that isn't a mini-essay on the role of social expectations in Mrs Dalloway."