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Is Trump Weaving Rambling, or Unraveling?
Wee Willie Keeler’s legendary hitting streak of 44 games (1894) was not broken until Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game streak 44 years later. Keeler’s secret for his mastery of hitting? “Keep your eye clear and hit 'em where they ain't.” The first part is sometimes quoted as: “keep your eye on the ball.”
The art of persuasion follows half of Keeler’s advice. Yes, to persuade your audience you must keep your eye clear and on the ball. You must know what the goal of your persuading is, what you want your audience to do. But persuasion flips the second half of Wee Willie’s script. In any kind of communication, however informal, you've got first to hit them where they are. You've got to know your audience, what their assumptions are and what their knowledge of issues is.
Immigration and Contingency: Choose Your Own Adventure
Remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books? Called branching-path narratives or gamebooks, these were meant for readers ages 9–12. They are improvisations in which the reader determines what happens next. They sold more than 250 million copies between 1979 and 1998, when they were superseded by electronic games. They still sell a million copies annually.
We think of ourselves as possessing an authentic identity which shapes the choices we make. The Choose books acknowledge that we possess multiple selves, each authentic in their own way, in the moment that they possess us.
Free Form vs. Rulebound: How Fair Needs Foul
My interest in behavior that is impromptu and free form means that strict, rulebound social behavior interests me almost as much. Even more interesting is when the two come together, fighting for dominance: will the perfect rightness or the just-as-perfect disruption of perfection win the day?
So Leonard Cohen thought, too. In “Anthem” on the 1992 album The Future he sings, "Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in."
Improv and the Problem of Free Will
Within a week, six friends sent me this brilliant New Yorker cartoon. Clearly my branding is set in stone. Randy, the improv guy.
I may be set but the cartoon’s humor gets some of its impact from its flexibility. Look at it through Randy’s lens and it morphs.
The cartoon’s premise: the Lord is worried that free will might engender improv. Ha! Ha! The hidden premise: fostering free will is improv’s far more likely result. Anxiety about the loss of free will has long plagued mankind...
Race and the Politics of Joy
Kamala’s sudden transformation from a — let’s admit it — somewhat disappointing vice president to a presidential candidate fully self-possessed displays all the marks of her African heritage. It is perfectly in tune with the Black Joy movement.
Of course the transition would look effortless, a sign of its deep authenticity. Like 8-year-old Louis at the Iroquois Theater, like Robert Johnson at the crossroads, Kamala has been touched by Eshu. With a laugh at once warm and cool — blessed by itutu — she rebuilds the Obama and Biden coalitions, and then some. Kamala’s community puts aside Trump’s fear mongering, embracing generosity and joy.
Harris’ Improvised Candidacy: Something New Under the Sun
The improvisation of Kamala Harris’s candidacy interweaves Hot and Cold Cognition. A campaign on a 15-week, not 3-year schedule calls for an unprecedented, norm-breaking political operation and demands improvisation moment by moment. But at its front stands a former prosecutor well-schooled in both evidence-based, reasoned narrative and quick response.
When Improv's Lies Become Bullshit
“Why give improvisation a bad name? It’s not a synonym for lies or bullshit!” So came a distinguished jazz historian’s immediate response to the email blast I circulated to promote a New Orleans Improv Conference panel I’d entitled “The Dark Side of Improv: Politics.”
I was stunned by his response. Improvisation may not be a synonym for “lies or bullshit.” But by December 2019 when we held the conference, it seemed to fit hand in improv’s glove well enough—unlike OJ’s—to convict. The Washington Post documented 30,000 lies during Trump’s tenure in the White House. How many lies does it take to turn alt-facts into just plain bullshit?
Guilty: When Cold Cognition Trumps Trickster’s Heat
Relying on Hot Cognition in a felony trial is like bringing a knife to a gunfight. In this case, 34 gunfights. Trusting in Hot Cognition, at best Trump ran true to form.
We long for more access to Hot Cognition in our lives. But when called to assess the authority of someone whose “gut knows more than many brains,” that’s when my Cold Cognition kicks in. Yours should, too.
Impromptu? The Goldilocks Problem
This is a question people often wonder, pushing back against improv’s claim of being composed in the moment of presentation. Then there are those who object that this or that improv is too improvised, too formless, lacking art. Such objections put me in mind of old Miss Goldilocks’s quest of the just right porridge, chair, and bed. Isn’t all writing and creativity a spontaneous act to some degree? Isn’t all writing and creativity a premeditated act to some degree?
Suddenly It’s Now
In the words of my friend Stephen Nachmanovich, improvisation is the Art of Is. It is the art of presence, of being here, now. The art of now is not about the pursuit of purpose but about “the dance.” Dance, which I once heard described a vertical expression of a horizontal inclination, is all about desire. Not purpose, not longing, pure desire, expressed here and now. That’s what the improviser pursues. Embracing embodied emotion, not denying desire, nor putting it off, the improviser finds the present moment. Perhaps it’s that theme which attracted me to one of my favorite Paul Spooner automata, “Suddenly It’s Now.”
Jon Batiste’s Call and Response at NYC’s Beacon
In Winging It, I quote New Orleans Jon Batiste’s reflections on the central role of “call and response” in the arts (and in comic improv’s “Yes, and…”). In speaking with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air, Jon remarked of a Bach Two-Part Invention:
Trickster Trump
Winging It makes the case that Trickster, that charming, charismatic troublemaker, is the engine and voice of improvisation.
One of Trickster’s incarnations is the African / African-American figure named Compère Lapin / Br’er (brother) Rabbit, a West African tale first recorded by Alcee Fortier at Laura Plantation in St. James Parish upriver from New Orleans.
Trickster is the original Energizer bunny. All the cartoon tricksters, from Bugs to Tom to the Roadrunner's Coyote, are relentless. They keep on coming. They operate on an endless supply of desire. Ever wonder at Trump's energy? Sleepy Don is now slipping out of character.