*SHUCK!* A New Impulse! A New Life!

Today was all about flirting!

We started with an exercise in which we had to dance with a partner, and flirt. Sounds easy. But to flirt is a delicate thing! It's not with the pure intention to fuck ("we could, but not for now...") - it's in between friends and lovers. 

I danced with Claudia...GOODBYE! Then with Sam...GOODBYE! Then with Maria-Luisa (who is back again!) and we were chosen to do the next part of the exercise. Which was for the woman to look at the man, and then walk forwards with the intention of getting the man to follow her. And then the woman, with the knowledge and feeling of the man following her, recites a recipe of a cake. "The trick to making a good moist chocolate brownie is..."

= A way of finding pleasure and fun (the joy of life) in otherwise unexciting text.

~

Then the men had a go at an exercise in which a husband/writer gets out of his house, escaping his horrible wife of 20 years (who he's sick of), and meets a young 'fresh' woman who he instantly falls for. They flirt. (This is the bones of a scene in The Seagull between Nina & Trigorin).

I got up first (as I was trying to get the ball rolling for the class to get up more - it worked - today was much better) but was too small and didn't risk anything. Boring. Goodbye.

Later I had another go in which I spoke to Maria-Luisa as the young woman. I was playing a bit awkward and nervous. A bumbling fool. Like Hugh Grant does so well.

I thought it was going okay. I was alive and the conversation was fun. But Philippe made it clear that I looked stupid - "He looks intelligent? Or like a Pharmacist from Sceaux?". I didn't really get what he meant at first, although I could tell it was to do with the way I was standing and what I was doing with my hands. But later I realised I needed to be much more grounded and simple. You don't have to say much at all. Philippe demonstrated this with Franck, who he got to slowly open a packet of cigarettes...

...and then pull one out, put it in his mouth, light it, breath it in, and then say some simple text, with lots of room around it. I was bla bla bla. Not super attractive. Not super electricity.

Again it's a fine line with flirting. As well as an idiot, it's easy to come across like a criminal, or a pimp too!

~

Philippe wanted to see the moment of change. Of decision. Of everything shifting.

"We don't have *SHUCK!* a new impulse! A new life!"

"I don't feel *SHUCK!* ... you need her for your work."

It doesn't matter what you talk about. You can talk about anything. But when you talk we need: "Ah! We see something special."

"Chekhov is like this. They open the window and see the snow and *SHUCK!*... Let's go to Moscow!"

~

Watched the Barcelona VS Real Madrid tonight with Thomas and Hadleigh - a friend from NZ who's in Paris at the moment as one of many stops on a massive round the world trip. Barcelona won 2-0! Messi scored 2 goals! Didn't know anything about him before, but he's brilliant!