Stakes and Steaks

    Sometimes in things like theatre, literature, and movies, I feel a little about stakes, the way vegetarians feel about steaks. I wonder just how necessary they are to my art diet. I feel more nourished sometimes by the open-ended and the subtle and by the accumulation of mistakes. I like to watch something isolated, like a laugh with a pause on each side. I like to look at what longing looks like in a human. Beauty in an unexpected place and experiments with time are welcome too and talking that makes me think about what talking even means. I love a story that coheres, and I do abhor the impenetrable, but often story is just the scaffolding and not every story has to be a war. Once, I forgot to put stakes in my tent and a strong wind came and blew it right across a field. Clumsy, pretty somersaults ensued and I was glad for it.