Min's Musings: On Awe and Perspective

Every quarter, I like to visit Grace Cathedral for a little self-check-in time. I call it my quarterly "pilgrimage," when, for a few hours, I get away from work, stay off the internet, and allow for reflection. On my pilgrimage earlier this week, I began to consider why I enjoyed performing this ritual so much. What was it that I gained that made the trek so worthwhile? Craning my neck up towards the high ceilings of the church, I recognized within myself a sensation that can only be described as awe. Awe is what brings me back to Grace, what entices me back to these more silent moments of thought. Truth is, I long for awe in my life.

Some might say that inner peace or clarity of mind is what is sought after in self-reflection. For me, these are actually the results of starting from a place of awe. Awe involves an encounter with something that is beyond myself. There is an element of befuddlement and wonder - a recognition that something is so big, vast, profound, complex or beyond knowing that I am left gaping or sighing without much to say. At face value, it might seem that the natural response to this is fear. If something is so unfathomable, it would make sense that people would steer clear of it. I think much of consumer culture is a series of attempts at turning away from that which would hold us in awe.

Many religious folk might say that when we are in awe, we are re-connecting with the divine love of God. Moments of awe are really moments of beholding God. And the fact that God Almighty, who is perhaps the most fearful being in the universe, would deign to let us ponder God Almighty is seen as a definition of grace. An awesome thought, indeed. And not necessarily one I disagree with.

But something that has bothered me about that line of thought is how packaged the whole thing comes out. Clearly defining the experience of awe with such unabashed certitude seems to... well, de-awe the whole thing. The emotional responses of love, hope and even fear seem to be what comes after awe. But what I wanted to know, sitting in the Cathedral as groups of tourists snapped photo after photo of the building's grandeur, was why was I drawn to awe itself? I recognize my need for love and hope, but those aren't the reasons why I go to Grace. I enjoy being in awe - but why?

Grace's latest environmental art installment. Isn't it awe-some?

The best answer I could find for myself that day was perspective. Awe is a moment of perspective revision. When I gaze upon the Cathedral, when I take in a view of the Grand Canyon, when I ponder God and existence, the common thread is that my perspective is shattered. Something that doesn't seem possible is, or something that once seemed so simple is inconceivable. In any case, awe occurs when my grasp on reality is disturbed. In the cases of nature or art, that disturbance is often delightfully surprising. But awe isn't always so kind. Awe can yield paralyzing fear and horror. But my point is that any awesome encounter, regardless of the emotional result, brings a new or wider perspective (even if it means a disorienting one). And as someone who loves the idea of continual growth and evolution through life, this perspective shift is what draws me to awe again and again.

Now let's get real. Am I always in this happy, fuzzy state where awe is always welcome? Of course not. I love mental distractions and simple thinking as much as any other person who watches Sailor Moon fanatically... Nor am I saying we should always be in awe, because quite frankly I don't think anything would get done in the world if we were in a constant state of getting our mind blown ("Double rainbow...What does it mean...?"). But every now and again, I think creating space for that awe to well up in me does me a great amount of good, keeping my perspective in check and reminding me of my size in the scheme of things. It's kinda awesome.

Creativity Quotation #2

“I will pass on the best advice that I have been given: Stay true to your instincts as a writer, because they are what make you unique. At every turn there will be ‘experts’ who offer their opinions and you will want to follow their advice, but in the end you have to be the final judge on what is right for you and your work.” - Neil Bartram

History & Heritage: My Day with Fred L. Schodt

Earlier this month, Fred Schodt (translator of The Four Immigrants Manga) guided me on a tour of Henry Kiyama's San Francisco. One of the most intriguing qualities of Henry Kiyama's The Four Immigrants Manga is how faithful he was in his portrayal of San Francisco (and beyond) as the backdrop for the comics. So Fred took me to see sights both familiar and new. The Call Building (now Central Tower), Cliff House & Seal Rock, the Golden Gate Park Bandshell are all portrayed in the book, and it was fun to consider what these locations meant to the city in Kiyama's day. We also stopped by locations that, while not depicted in the work, are important to the book's existence - places like Kiyama's publishing studio and the old location of the SF Art Institute where he studied. Fred was full of insight and stories all along the way, much more than I can recount here. He will be giving a talk about the book later this year, and I highly recommend you attend if you want to learn more about it!

Perhaps the most poignant part of the day, though, was when we stopped by Fred's office and he showed me his original 1931 printing of The Four Immigrants Manga. I had been meaning to schedule a meeting with the Rare Books Librarian at UC Berkeley's East Asian Library in order to see their copy, but suddenly I didn't need to!  It was fascinating to flip through the eighty-year-old book and see the original handwritten Japanese characters. I began to imagine how Kiyama must have felt when the book went to press and he held his first copy. That, in turn, made me think what Fred might have felt when he held the finished translation for the first time. That, in turn, made me think what it might feel like when my musical adaptation finally gets produced.

This made me aware of a sort of writer's heritage that comes with adapting Four Immigrants for the stage. In some ways, this is the heritage that most deeply connects me to the project (moreso than the Asian-American connection, though that is by no means insignificant). The desire to capture a moment in a creative way and to share that with the world is something Kiyama, Fred and I all share. That is something I want to honor as I continue working on The Four Immigrants Manga musical project. I am thankful to Fred for taking the time that day to show me around Kiyama's San Francisco, and I am thankful to Henry Kiyama for his novel decision to create this incomparable, autobiographical comic book.

An original copy of The Four Immigrants Manga - beside a photo of Henry Kiyama and under a photo of Astro Boy. (Frederik L. Schodt is the translator of the English-version of the Astro Boy manga series.)

My Week at TheatreWorks

After college, when I was in the throes of the corporate world and when the thought of pursuing a career as a theatre writer/composer was merely a musing, I learned about a company called TheatreWorks. As far as I could tell, TheatreWorks was one of the few theatre companies in the Bay Area dedicated to the development of new musicals. Other companies were seeking new plays and might occasionally include a musical; some explicitly stated they weren't looking for musicals at all, thank you very much. TheatreWorks stood out like a bastion of hope for me in the Bay Area, an aspiring musical writer. I had no idea how it might happen, but I knew I wanted to work on a musical there.

So, when I got the invitation from TheatreWorks' Associate Artistic Director Leslie Martinson - who is also my mentor as a result of Theatre Bay Area's Titan Award - to work on The Four Immigrants Manga project at their week-long Writers Retreat, I may have squealed a little bit (of course, I waited until after I hung up the phone call with Leslie). And, not only was I going to have the privilege of spending a week at TheatreWorks, but I was also being given an impetus to start work on my next project.

The week started off with a lovely dinner on Monday where I got to meet my fellow retreaters, as well as the TheatreWorks staff who would be helping us out during the week. I had the opportunity to have a great conversation with Artistic Director Robert Kelley, discussing what TheatreWorks was about and what kinds of shows gets Kelley excited. (Tell the ten-years-younger me that I'd be discussing musicals with the Artistic Director of TheatreWorks, and I'm sure he would have laughed with disbelief in his all-too-corporate button-down shirt and tie.) I also had the fortune of sitting next to Alex Mandel, who was collaborating with playwright Lynne Kaufman on a musical about Norman Rockwell. Nerds of different stripes have heard Alex's work as musical director of public radio show Snap Judgement, and his songs for Disney/Pixar's Brave. Alex is an altogether friendly and personable fellow who, you can tell, is passionate about his work as a composer and musician. It was fun to check in with him occasionally during the week and share thoughts about our respective projects.

My creative den for the week.

Tuesday and Wednesday mainly consisted of my sitting alone in a room with a piano, my laptop, and my thoughts. After having done a decent amount of research, one of my goals for the week was to come away having solidified the tone and style of The Four Immigrants, as this would inform exactly what kind of show it was. People joked with me about cabin fever, but I didn't experience that at all. In fact, there were times when, after writing/thinking/plotting/mapping, I'd look at the time and wonder how it was already late afternoon. And then I'd realize I was hungry and then go treat myself to the unhealthiest food, telling myself that this was a "cheat-week" because I needed "thinking-fuel." (Rest assured, I am now trying to make up for my transgressions with better diet & physical activity)

The first two-and-a-half days would oscillate from exhilarating to disheartening as I toiled over whether the conceit I was pursuing for the show would actually work. So when I finally got to work with actors on Thursday afternoon, and saw that the play-universe I was constructing did indeed seem to hold up, I was on a high for a good hour-and-a-half afterwards. When the actors left, instead of plunging back into work-mode, I went for a nice celebration drive into the Belmont hills.

Friday and Saturday involved more work with actors, especially as we approached the Sunday presentation. Now, the point of the retreat is by no means simply to do a presentation. But the endpoint of a public performance of one's work is a great motivator to get somewhere on one's project, especially if there was nothing written down prior to the retreat week. With the help of the actors - both their brilliant work and insightful feedback, I was able to forge the opening moments of the show which consists of a prologue, an opening number, and a scene of dialogue. By Saturday afternoon, I felt like I had accomplished my goal of getting a tone set for the show, and I was ready for Sunday's showcase.

Rehearsal for the first-ever live-anything of The Four Immigrants.

Sunday whizzed by in somewhat of a blur. There was excitement in the air among the writers and the actors as we rehearsed prior to the presentation. And before I knew it, the presentation had begun! As the different performances unfolded I was struck by two things. First, each project had such a unique personality and voice, and I could truly see each one having a future life on-stage. Second, I was captivated by how the actors were so adept at transforming themselves to fit the world of each piece.

It was a somewhat sad moment when I handed in "my" keys and emptied "my" room that Sunday. But overall, I came away from the week deeply grateful to have been given the opportunity to etch away at this new work. The future-life of The Four Immigrants is uncertain, and I enter back into a murky phase of development. But the show has now moved from existing in a vague cloud of ideas to having a new-found direction. Thanks to TheatreWorks for a week of letting me play and sketch and try, and for helping me to find the personality of my next musical.

Meeting the Four Immigrants & Fred Schodt

Some time last Fall, while I was browsing through a used-book store in Berkeley, the title of a certain comic book caught my attention: The Four Immigrants Manga. I grabbed what I thought would be a 21st-century graphic novel. Turns out, it was a 20th-century graphic novel. Four Immigrants was written and drawn by Henry Yoshitaka Kiyama in the early 1900s, and it chronicles the adventures and mishaps of the author and his three friends after their arrival from Japan to the San Francisco Bay Area. They live through major historical events like the 1906 Earthquake, World War I, the 1915 World's Fair and Prohibition, all of which are captured in American comic-strip style. What amazed me most about the book is that Kiyama's four characters - Henry, Charlie, Frank & Fred - each arrive in San Francisco with different aspirations, and they each encounter a unique experience with life in the United States. That sounded like the set-up of a great musical if I ever heard one.

I wanted to pursue the path of adapting this work in the right way, so I e-mailed the translator of Four Immigrants, Frederik L. Schodt, who just so happens to live in the Bay Area himself. I invited him to watch my show The Song of the Nightingale so he could get a sense of what kind of writing I do. After he attended the show, we met up for some ramen (how appropriate) in downtown Oakland. Fred turned out to be a very warm and friendly individual. He said he was impressed by my work on Nightingale, and that he felt Four Immigrants could translate well on-stage. He also talked about his own path to finding Kiyama's work, and how he had ended up actually meeting the artist's surviving family in Japan. He encouraged me to pursue writing a first draft, and suggested that once it was complete, we could meet up again and continue the conversation from that point forward.

Now, as with any creative venture, there's no way of telling what the life of this project will be. But I'm excited to dive into the work, and have been in serious research-mode, learning as much as I can about a variety of related topics like Japanese immigration at the turn of the 20th, San Francisco history, comic books, theatrical and musical styles of the time period, and even Japanese wood block prints. At the end of April, I will be participating in a writer's retreat at TheatreWorks, which will give me time to start constructing the basic shape of the show to see whether it can grow into something that stands on its own.

In some weird way, I feel like I am walking in Kiyama's footsteps. In the first episode of Four Immigrants, Kiyama portrays himself as a young man who would like "to study art, to eventually contribute to the art world back home in Asia. Now, the US is my home, and I am not a visual artist, but I feel a certain kinship to what Kiyama accomplished through Four Immigrants. I want to honor both the complicated history and the simple, tongue-in-cheek humor Kiyama has captured in the work. By doing so, I hope my musical adaptation of the work will bring more people to learn of the fascinating Henry Yoshitaka Kiyama, as well as become its own contribution to the art world here in the States.