charades
I had an unusual experience the other night. We were at 360, which is the Wednesday night youth thing. As you know, all youth events must have a number in them: ours is merely that number. It used to be 360 High, but now it's just 360. When I was a kid, church youth groups were suffused with acronyms. Kids went to B.A.S.I.C.S, were members of the STORMteam, and, in a nod to some first-century Greek youth director, the Wednesday thing was called ICHTHUS. But that's the past. Acronyms are yesterday. It's all numbers now.
So I was at 360. These days, I'm the speaker most evenings, as well as helping out with the worship band. I also teach every Sunday at Sunday school, which, amazingly, is actually called "Sunday school." (I think that's because everyone always called it that anyway, whether it was named "LOGIA" [by the ICHTHUS guy] or "Discovery Bible Study," or, recently, "Youth Bible Fellowship," the product, very obviously, of a committee.) What with this and that, these students are hearing an awful lot of me: about forty minutes a week, which is the length of a television show minus commercials.
Wednesdays, after a few songs, we stop and play a game or two, usually a quiz or contest of some kind. Tonight it was charades. One of the guys looked at the little slip of paper, smiled, and then started pacing around and gesticulating. Immediately, several people shouted, "Barry!" Yep, I was the charade.
What fascinated me was that I didn't see what the guy did to imitate me. It just looked like he was miming talking. But there was obviously something about his mannerisms that had people in gales of laughter. It was a good imitation, apparently, except that I couldn't see what it was he was imitating. They begged him to do more —– he's the guy in every group who's really great at that sort of thing, a natural performer —– and so he stood and drank from his imaginary coffee cup (which I do), and, free of the charade rules, spoke in a dramatic voice (as I do). But even then I still couldn't see what the details of his performance were.
It was a strange experience. After all, what is the set of mimickable traits that represents you to the world? I saw them right in front of me, and couldn't tell. I'll have to explore this more. Mimesis is a topic that's close to me, as an artist. How do you make music that's "tender," or "thunderous," or "suffused with longing," or that somehow expresses Tom Hanks's character? It's all very abstract, and yet people uniformly respond to these things. I'm always on the dishing-out end of that, though.
As I found out Wednesday, sometimes it is blessed to receive.
So I was at 360. These days, I'm the speaker most evenings, as well as helping out with the worship band. I also teach every Sunday at Sunday school, which, amazingly, is actually called "Sunday school." (I think that's because everyone always called it that anyway, whether it was named "LOGIA" [by the ICHTHUS guy] or "Discovery Bible Study," or, recently, "Youth Bible Fellowship," the product, very obviously, of a committee.) What with this and that, these students are hearing an awful lot of me: about forty minutes a week, which is the length of a television show minus commercials.
Wednesdays, after a few songs, we stop and play a game or two, usually a quiz or contest of some kind. Tonight it was charades. One of the guys looked at the little slip of paper, smiled, and then started pacing around and gesticulating. Immediately, several people shouted, "Barry!" Yep, I was the charade.
What fascinated me was that I didn't see what the guy did to imitate me. It just looked like he was miming talking. But there was obviously something about his mannerisms that had people in gales of laughter. It was a good imitation, apparently, except that I couldn't see what it was he was imitating. They begged him to do more —– he's the guy in every group who's really great at that sort of thing, a natural performer —– and so he stood and drank from his imaginary coffee cup (which I do), and, free of the charade rules, spoke in a dramatic voice (as I do). But even then I still couldn't see what the details of his performance were.
It was a strange experience. After all, what is the set of mimickable traits that represents you to the world? I saw them right in front of me, and couldn't tell. I'll have to explore this more. Mimesis is a topic that's close to me, as an artist. How do you make music that's "tender," or "thunderous," or "suffused with longing," or that somehow expresses Tom Hanks's character? It's all very abstract, and yet people uniformly respond to these things. I'm always on the dishing-out end of that, though.
As I found out Wednesday, sometimes it is blessed to receive.
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