/* fivel rothberg */

if i can instruct noam, encourage him to get back on his skateboard after falling, how can i teach myself the same lesson? how can i remove the stigma surrounding “failure.” should i call “falling” failure at all?

Try. I just finished listening to Anna Deavere Smith’s book on CD Letters to a Young Artist: Straight-Up Advice on Making a Life in the Arts while driving to pick up noam. It’s a self-help survival manual written in the form of personal letters to a fictional reader named “B.Z.,” a high school-age painter who is struggling to gain support for an art program. The title is a play on Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet.

Deavere Smith’s Letters is a kick-in-the-ass. It is uplifting yet unafraid of grittiness. She encourages readers to get-going, practice practice practice, to exercise, concentrate, find mentors and press palms. On the other, it is written with a mentor’s parent-like tough love. At times, she releates conversations with people who she has connected with through her research for acting, play writing or social life. For instance, she quotes a bull rider whose determination astounds her. She feigns a rough, masculine voice and says, “you’ve got to ride with all the try you got.” Or something to that effect. Personally, I think her character acting voices ingratiating. It would, for me, be more effective if she spoke in her normal voice – which on its own sounds New Yorker, ex-smokery.

While the theater is her milieau, the book is equally appropriate for any type of artist trying to make it in the world. And to the author, “making it” does not have to mean monetarily. She shared a story about a long-time friend of hers who works half of the year at a fancy french restaurant and spends the rest of the time traveling around the world.

Artistically and professionally speaking, Deavere Smith herself is very successful on many levels. She is a well recognized performer, has taught at highly regarded universites, done speaking tours, started an organization called the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue. On top of all that she was granted a MacArthur “genius” award among other notable funding. Beyond that, she seems confident, super hard-working, and friendly but fierce. I’d love to sit-in on a class of hers, ’cause being that she teaches at NYU’s Tisch School, you know those courses cost an arm and a leg.

Ultimately the book is beneficial because I need the kind of encouragement that she offers. I think I should listen to it a second time.