performance v. practice
DC small world story #1
A few months ago, chatting with other volunteers sorting clothing donations, I learned that “Jane” also went to my tiny high school; she graduated a year before I did. She remembered me, but I didn’t remember her.
That’s not the weird part.
Someone asked Jane where she lived. She said X Road. “Where on X Road?” I asked her. “At Y Street,” she said. I dropped what I was holding. “Uh, what corner?” She answered, “It’s the white house with the white fence.”
The same house one of my best friends — who also went to my high school — grew up in.
Maybe these kinds of coincidences happen to everyone and I shouldn’t be so surprised.
DC small world story #2
When a tennis friend (not from this area) told me she was really into Pilates, I told her I used to love mat classes, but they were harder to find now, especially when I refuse to go to some gross chain studio downtown.
My friend told me about a studio a mile away from me that has regular Pilates mat classes.
Turns out it’s owned by yet another person I knew in high school.
Practice not performance
One of the instructors at this studio opens each class with a reminder that “Pilates is a practice, not a performance.”
PREACH.
Because there’s always the super bendy b*tch who needs to show off, the one with the full face of makeup and the matching designer sports bra and leggings turning herself into a pretzel — performing on her yoga mat — while everyone else struggles through the moves, quietly hating their uncooperative bodies. It feels like middle school all over again.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between practice and performance in everyday life. How I’m often drawn to people who are “on,” the people who seem so magnetic and charming when they have an audience. But too often, behind that facade, there’s little else. Performing flattery only goes so far.
At the other extreme are the people who shy away from the spotlight and just work at something that brings them joy or satisfaction. Parenting, for example. Or going to therapy. Or building core strength. Or any kind of creative or artistic pursuit.
Once people get really good at something, should they share it with the world? Is it selfish to keep it to themselves and not perform?
And can performing be a legitimate part of practice? Most bands start out pretty terrible, but opening for bigger bands probably helps them get better, right?
Guessing all of this was probably answered in a philosophy class I never took in college.
Links
The playlist I started about cooking. (Spotify)
On the joy of other people’s children.(NYT)
A performance that shows tons of practice. (Instagram)
“A 33-year-old Brooklyn-based writer recalled being slapped by a sexual partner without consent, to which she responded by slapping him back.” Was casual sex always this bad? (The Cut)
Patton Oswalt on how the president sets the tone for pop culture. (Instagram)
A couple videos from the music festival I was at last weekend. These are of Laura Jane Grace and Catbite doing the entire Operation Ivy record, and I could write pages about how emotional that was for so many people, to hear it performed live for the first time. (Of the several thousand people there, maybe 3 or 4 had seen OpIvy live way back when.) People were crying. I saw one guy plyo-jump into a full trash can, jump back out of the trash can, and re-deposit all the trash he had displaced, piece by piece, all while maintaining eye contact with a (very confused) security guard, all while singing every lyric at the top of his lungs.(Punknews)
Finding humor in the Dave Grohl mess. (Twitter)
Hamstring Tantrums is my new band name. (Instagram)
My hero. (Twitter)