Spalding Gray: Reincarnation and Telling (and singing) Your Story
Posted on: June 21, 2012
I have such deep feelings for Spalding Gray. Having lived solo for years in NYC, his performances, recording and videos kept me company. He changed the way I looked at the world and he opened my eyes to the art of solo performance and the idea that one’s LIFE is one’s own work of art. These ideas changed my life.
Steven Soderbergh documentary, “And Everything Was Going Fine,” is absorbing and illuminating.
I’m very sorry that Spading Gray is gone, I’m sorry he was in pain and that life was not easy for him. He talked so much about his mother’s suicide and about death. I love what he said about reincarnation, which, in the filmed interview documentary segment, he says he does not believe, but that,
“…one of the ways to reincarnate is to tell your story. It’s like coming back. I get tremendous pleasure from that.”
Of course it all ties in, for me (as everything does), to singing songs. Cabaret, to me, is telling stories with songs (and the patter which before and after the song sets it up and creates a context). In many ways, Sing Books is also a form of cabaret for me. I get to share songs and tell what I know about them, what they mean to me and why I think they are important. As a result, the whole group of us become part of the song’s history and play our part in conveying musical heritage. We reincarnate the songs, for one thing. We reincarnate all those who carried the songs to us. We reincarnate ourselves by being part of it all.
Singing songs from picture books (or any other way anyone might choose to sing and share a song) may seem like something simple and mundane. But the truth is, doing so is profoundly meaningful and is nothing less than an act of reincarnation.
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Wow, Spalding Gray was one fine, fine Narrator in Thorton Wilder’s OUR TOWN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4B5c5xi8J8
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6/21/2012
Yesterday, I felt compelled to write a little something on Facebook about how Spalding Gray has inspired my “Sing Book” thinking. Ha ha, I’m quoting myself here, but since this blog is a collection of my own thoughts and experiences (“cabaret” comes to mind) as well as SPB findings and musical information…I figure, why not? …
Spalding Gray said that he believes telling your story is a way of reincarnating. And I believe that singing songs to children is a way of reincarnating…and not just myself, but the songs and the people who kept the songs alive before they got to me (and you and everyone else). And hopefully the children I get to sing with will do the same…
This is just to say right out loud that I think singing songs with children (and with anyone/everyone who joins in) is an important and wonderfully joyous thing to do.
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Web page for “And Everything Was Going Fine,”
http://www.spaldinggray.com/Fine.html
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More about Spalding Gray on his (and his Estate’s) official website:
http://www.spaldinggray.com/index.html
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June 21, 2012 at 2:09 pm
Thank you for mentioning the site. Criterion has just released on Blu Ray ‘And Everything is Going Fine’ with ‘Gray’s Anatomy’ included. There are other never released additions as well. There seems to be 2 releases and even I can’t keep track. However, ‘Personal History of the American Theater’ and ‘Sex and Death to the age14′ (both excellent) as well as interviews and such. The basic details are under Updates on the site. Thank you again.
jb, webmanager for the Estate of Spalding Gray
June 21, 2012 at 3:05 pm
Dear Mr. Boland, Thank you for your comment! It’s an honor to hear from you. And thank you for the info about the video releases. I look forward to seeing them! Best wishes, Emily Gleichenhaus