Loading the Chambers of IN & OF ITSELF (Patreon)

It began the same way it may begin for many of you: with the utter urging of a friend. I was visiting New York and my friend began urging, nay, borderline demanding that I go see this off-broadway show. I told them I didn’t know anything about it. They replied, “even better.” Thankfully, I am often one to take people up on the insistence (and even less of one to look a gift horse in the mouth). And so, on a cold night in December a few years ago I walked into Daryl Roth Theater in Union Square and was completely unsure of what I was about to behold.

I walked out even more unsure of how to talk about it.

Even trying describing In and Of Itself seems an oafish mistake. There were too many layers of context involved, such that even with the most plain-faced of facts and descriptors feel woefully inadequate. The only thing I could do was rabidly find other people who had seen it. To talk about it. To compare.  To wonder the hows and whys behind so many electric moments. And most of all, to talk about how much we were moved. Because that’s the real thing about the show. Wonderment and fun are one thing. But this was one of the most unexpectedly visceral and emotional experiences I had ever had in a theater. And so I wondered, “How? How could I explain what happened in that room?” So rather than write about it, the experience sat in my brain. It was this lingering thought, a happy memory, and a scar all at once.

Years later I heard that Derek DelGaudio’s stage show was going to be filmed for Hulu and I’ll be honest that my first response was fear. How would it ever translate to a filmed experience? So much of what made it special was about the energy in that room, the feeling of being stuck in the dark as the man directs your eye in all the right ways and comes up close to. Even logistically I thought, how the hell are they going to film this? Sure, it helps that the stage director and the film’s director are both the same person (the great Frank Oz), but even then… I still just had fear that the experience would not live up to the one in my memory… Well, it turns out the answer was that the show translates to film spectacularly. The version on Hulu absolutely captures the feeling of that show - and in some ways the ability to cut to multiple performances even adds to it.

So, I will now be that friend, like mine was to me, who utterly urges you to drop whatever else you were planning and watch this as soon as humanly possible. Don’t daddle. Don’t watch the trailer. Just watch the show. And then come back.

Because now, for those of us who have seen it and want to get into “spoilers” (a crude and strange word to use with a show such as this), it’s time to explore the meaning of each and every little detail of what happens, how they fit together, and our internal thoughts that run alongside them. This will not be simple. Because, just like the show...

We have six complex chambers to talk about.

1. “YOU ARE THE ROULETTISTA”

As you walk into the theater, all dark and draped with black, your eye is directed to a walk with little white cards. All of them feature a declarative statement: “I AM…” followed by a noun or adjective of some sort. You pick an answer and take that card for yourself. There’s no other instruction. It can be a joke. It can be serious. It can be anything. But you watch people taking cards. You debate a minute. You select one. And then you hand it to the stage hand on your way in. You have no idea the reason you are doing this. It merely seems a fun little lark.

The lights go down and then there is a man on stage. His name is Derek DelGaudio. He does not introduce himself as such. For the sake or poeticism, I will sometimes refer to him as “the man,” or “the man on stage.” At more familiar times, I will say his first name. And despite the vagueness of this introduction, you will soon learn a lot about this man. But at this moment all you know is what is happening right now.

From the onset, there is a kind of tension in the air - and yet there is no real fear of this man, either. His look is an exercise in duality. He is soft and yet sharp, organic and yet polished, seemingly exhausted and yet alert. He begins talking and it’s not just because you are seeing a show that you listen to him. It's because the manner in which he speaks to you that makes you rapt on his every word. His way of talking feels exactly how he looks. Something that is at once full of unassuming nonchalance and yet impossibly precise. And in these very first moments of the show you realize something: he is trying to relate to you. For he is talking about the strange process of selecting those cards on the wall. How it evokes the strangest of feelings when trying to decide “what you are.” You don’t realize it yet, but he’s setting you up for something very important that will come at the end. And while on the subject of identity, he does a thing he will largely be doing all night long…

He begins telling a story.

“I once met a man who told me who I was. And I knew he was right. I just didn’t know why.”

From here, Derek tells us a story of a time he met this man, only this man began telling him another story about a different man, a seemingly metaphorical sailor. A sailor who became a man without a war, who in turn became a man without purpose, which means he became a man lost. And with little else but the bottle, the sailor turned to the game of Russian Roullette in order to finish his spiral downward. The man on stage describes the game thusly: going into a dark room where people bet on “the value of the player’s life.” The appeal of the sailor doing this? Well, he makes it clear with a joke. If the gun doesn’t fire, you get paid enough that “all your troubles are over.” And if you kill yourself, well, “all your troubles are over.” The only reason this game exists is because for many, it is a horrible chance to take in a fit of utter desperation.

Behind Derek there are six “windows” on the stage filled with objects we do not understand. But now, in the upper left hand corner of the stage, there is a little bust of a figure who points a gun toward their head. And suddenly it makes a bit more sense. Soon they will make more sense. Soon all six chambers will be evoke the chambers of a revolver. But we do not know this yet. The man on stage continues the story. Because now it’s the sailor’s turn to play the game. He goes in. He pulls the trigger. Click. Empty. The sailor wins enough money to solve whatever problems he may have. Only that’s not the sailor’s problem at all. Because he is a man without a war. And what makes him different from everyone else who plays the game is that the sailor comes back the next night. And the next. And the next. And never does the gun go off. For this, the man gets the name “The Roulettista.” And soon he tempts fate by adding even more bullets to the chamber. He keeps going and going and soon, because he still hasn’t got what he is after, he opts for a completely loaded gun.

This story may be a haunting impossible thought for some, but to me, it is as clear a portrait of suicidal depression that is possible. People can only stare from the outside. For in the story there are now people who are going to watch “watch a man stand on stage and place a loaded gun to his head.” But that night there is a freak earthquake and it knocks the gun from the sailor’s hand. He takes it as a sign from god. Now, with more money than he knows what to do with, he gets married, has kids, has grandkids, and gets old in a big old house overlooking the town. Then one night in the distant future, a burglar enters his kitchen. The old man confronts him. The burglar turns and points his gun. The old man can barely believe it.

“Do you know who I am?

“No.”

BANG.

Derek looks from the stage and with deadpan amusement says, “that’s it, that’s the story.” We stifle a giggle. But his question to the man who told him this story is the same question we have for him: “why did you tell me this?” And the man replied:

“Because you are the Roulletista… I just thought you should know.”

The words ring in our ears. And I have sat here and described each and every part of the story because, to even try and talk about this show, you understand that every part ends up mattering. I cannot talk alongside it without you reminding you of every detail. And looking back this introductory parable is, of course, our metaphorical framing device, the first chamber in our proverbial gun. But there are more things that this first parable does. For one, it is a piece of tone setting. Not just in the startling seriousness of the content, but the method.

So often we tell stories about ourselves, but this is a story he experienced of someone telling us a story that someone else experienced. Here, we’re four levels deep, but that’s also the point. It’s literally the embodiment of the oral tradition. A process in which details often become obscured and feats become more glorified, and yet somehow they are more thematically true of their essence. It’s the path of mythmaking - part of the hypnotic nature of the story, the way of pulling you into a tale of man chasing death, and yet, no matter how late, hit with the shock of the bang that comes. He is telling us a story of metaphor, and yet, the man on stage is telling us something directly.

He is telling us how he feels.

The word seems trite in this context, but this story is capturing the feeling of abject depression. And depression is insidious because I can’t tell you how much of it exists in the world that is unseen and unrecognized. As many strides are made in the popular conversation, it’s still telling how often people can be like “just go for a walk!” or “Just enjoy things!” Because they can’t truly believe what they cannot feel. Or maybe cannot connect to the things they too are feeling. Or perhaps just feel differently. Either way, when you see people make creative expressions of depression, there is an indescribable way that their expression strikes you as true or not. Which means you can sense whether they are writing about depression from the outside of it or from the inside.

The thing is that man on stage is directly telling us how it feels - and he is doing so right in the text. He is The Roulettista. A man who wishes for death. Yes, I agree it isn’t to assume the one to one in a metaphor. So I don’t. But I know what I’m connecting to. And if you put a gun to my head and told me to pick one belief or another, like The Roulettista, I wouldn’t balk. I see a man talking from the inside of it. And others might not. But as we sit in the duality of that realization, my empathy begins to swell for the man telling us how he is feeling without really telling us. And as the thoughts continue to rumble around in my mind about the show I am seeing, they also drive to what more will come. And there is one thought that is louder than others…

What the hell is this show?

Almost as if on cue, the man on stage transitions to the same thought…

2. A SHIP IN A BOTTLE

“Do you think this is a performance?’

The question is meant to tackle the core concern of the show’s context. Because coming into this you might have heard Derek being described as “a sleight of hand artist” or, gulp, “a magician.” Which is a profession that comes with a lot of assumptions because a lot of magic is gaudy, showy, sexist, and a bunch of other holdovers from the 80’s (likely because there are so many local shows that still cater to such effect). It is a profession that is at war with your assumption. And some figures elevate beyond those assumptions and in the public eye become more than “magicians,” for it is ever a dirty word. The great ones become forces of nature. Try as I might to explain, this profile on Ricky Jay is still one of the best pieces of writing on the subject. Point is, Derek knows that WE know magician is a crass word with crass associations. And all the other words we can throw at him: illusionist, performer, and storyteller, somehow aren’t enough either. He doesn’t want to describe it. He doesn’t want to tell you this is a performance. He wants to show you what it is. Or might be.

And so, he reaches up to the second window to the right of the stage. The next chamber. He takes a bottle from a wooden block and sets it down. He also makes a little paper folded object and places it against a chair, which he in turn uses to make shadow puppets on the wall. Once again, we’re working in metaphor. And this one happens to be one of the oldest metaphors, going back to Plato’s “allegory and the cave.” The story of the light of truth and the shadow of lies. It is a piece of paper. And it is a chair. But on the stage we see a ship lost at sea. And maybe we can imagine the now familiar sailor of the story prior within it. But the man on stage tells us about this vagery as straight as he can, “it is difficult to see what this is. It is easy to lie on stage, even easier to lie on film.”

In essence, the man is accounting for a basic truth of filmmaking. We often take what is captured for it’s veracity and ability to make us feel, but film is manipulation. A combination of technical elements synthesized together into a series of images and sounds that are a bit more like a visual dream. It is a falsehood. As Godard said “when you cut, you lie.” Which is the point. Because illusions aren’t illusions without the lie. The only thing they require is that you have to believe some small part of them. Not because they are true. But because you can’t imagine an alternative than the power of your experience in the moment itself. Essentially, the man is trying to get us to understand the very impetus of what he does, and what he will be doing in the entire show:

“I do not expect you to believe me. Which is the only reason I’m going to tell you the truth.”

As he makes more shadow puppet manipulations, he takes the bottle and places it over the ship. On the wall behind him, it makes it look like a ship in a bottle. “Awww,” we think, a mere nicety before we realize we’ve been lulled into a sense of complacency. Because then the first “trick” arrives so subtly that you don’t realize you were in the pledge the whole time. And that turn comes when the paper now finds itself floating in the bottle. If it was any other show. We hear the oohs the ahhs that would come with the showy performance. But this is not that. Both the pledges and prestiges are more subtle, mere parts of the story he’s telling. And the turns? Mere points of comparison in the same story. The man on stage goes to put the bottle back and we get yet another turn - the holder is not wood, but dirt. He spreads it around and once again we understand: “things are not what you think.”

But this point isn’t really about playing a game of deception. No, the man on stage is interested in something else. And that would be your ability to hold two opposite competing thoughts in your head at once. With that in mind, he makes a loud announcement that would feel like part of new chamber, but actually a part of the same thought:

“I need someone to come back tomorrow.”

A volunteer, usually a local or someone on extended trip raises their hand and he selects them. We are then introduced the concept of “the ships log.” Where it was a sailors job to make a record of what happened on the day’s journey and where they now are. But since these ships used the stars to navigate, sometimes they ran into the obvious problems with cloudy skies. And so they continued to make records as they drifted in the unknown, guessing where they were, imagining the state of their journey. And when the skies cleared, they reorientated themselves. Thus, a ship's log was always composed of a journey both real and imagined. Derek then presents the volunteer, now dubbed “Mr. / Mrs. Tomorrow” with a ship’s log; a literal giant book of writing with a not so simple task: they must leave before the end of the show, write what they imagined happened at the end, then return the next day with the book and see the end.

Then, as the hair stands up on the edge of our neck, he tells us this is the scariest part of the show - because we realize what he is about to say. He asks if “Mr. / Mrs. Yesterday” is here. The tension sets in, but sure enough they have showed up (I have no idea if anyone ever missed it). And we marvel at this moment because we realize we are a part of a bigger story. One that has been happening for so long. Person Yesterday returns the book and he marvels because, “this only time I get to look at this.”

The thing is that this is an exercise that could seem gimmicky in another show. But the way Derek can lead the process is always understated - with both weight and touches of humor prevents it from ever, ever, ever seeming like this. As they go through the book and he talks through, but mostly talks about the duty of this. The need for trust. The scariness of depending on others to do this each and every show. For there is no “trick” here. This is a very real thing. He asking a person to return. And in watching the multiple versions of this within the film version, we see the way this moment permeates with all these possibilities. Regretfully, I can’t remember the specifics of the stage show I saw, just that it evoked my awe. For it is the act of realizing that we are part of a larger voyage - all links in a proverbial chain.

As Derek muses through the list of imagined endings, he posits the question: “What are you going to put on that blank page?” And then launches into the notion that we’re writing one another’s stories. It is an idea that has been brandied around thousands of times in thousands of ways, but often handled like a deadening thud. Because usually it stands as this basic post-modern insight into the vague allusion that “everything is unknowable.” But that is not what is happening here. The man on stage is not satisfied with pointing out a sophomoric adage and sitting back as if the work has been done. Because such observations are worthless if they do not actually mean anything to you and your experience. Which is why you have to remember the story that came just before. You have to remember the gun. You have to remember an extended metaphor of what we’re doing here.

Again, almost as if on cue with our own thoughts, we reach the next transition. For it is with the final “imagined ending” that we see a woman who links it back to the first chamber. She asks: “The Roulettista: Aren’t we all gambling pieces of ourselves daily? Don’t we all have things to lose? How do you know when you’re holding a loaded gun?” It is then perhaps, that you realize…

The real danger of what the man on stage is doing.

3. THE TIME BETWEEN DOG AND WOLF

“There is a light. This light happens every day.”

The man on stage begins to describe the time of sunset which comes right before twilight. It’s the time when you look toward the horizon and it is very hard to decipher what you are looking at (getting very strong echoes of Your Name). Thus, they call it “the time between dog and wolf.” It is a rather literal designation because it is the time it is hard to tell a dog from a wolf, meaning it is very hard to tell friend foe. As such, it was often used to scare children and convince them to get them home before dark. The man on stage reaches up to another window, another chamber, the one furthest to the left. He pulls a pack of cards from a wolf’s head. But like everything that’s come before, it’s taking the metaphor and bringing it into a new story…

Derek begins walking us into his childhood obsession with sleight of hand. Even early on, he learned it takes “eight years to learn how to hold a deck of cards right.” And to double down on how seriously he took it, he shows us one of the ways and then - beat by beat - goes through ALL the various ways to hold a deck of cards, which evolves into a kind of dry hilarity of how to do different shuffling tricks. It is still straight forward. More understatement, and yet getting at his intended effect. Because soon he gets to the point: “The more I shared with others. the more disillusioned I became.” Because they couldn’t appreciate what he appreciated. They couldn’t see what he saw.

Most professions are lonely.

That’s something I don’t think people think about a lot. Not just with the daily action of your job, the repetition, and the boredom. But that a lot of times you go through life and most people don’t understand your job. They don’t know the small details and why they matter. Or they assume certain things are really easy. Even in broader terms, they might cater to the conventional wisdom that every boss is evil and don’t know the stress of managing people where their behavior is completely outside of your control. Most people don’t know what is hard about what you do. But they know exactly about what is hard for them.

Make no mistake, I know my “jobs” are ridiculous. I know this more than anyone. But I also know what makes them hard and how it’s different from other kinds of hard. I know that spending all day thinking about how to fix a scene and staring at a wall is a certain kind of exhausting and harrowing in terms of pressure in a way that compares to little else. I know that part of me was happier and felt more accomplishment when I was cutting brush in forests, or shovelling shit for rows of corn, or mowing entire lawns along the side of a hill and looking out on the coastline of Cape Ann. And I know that going to see a movie you need to write about means, “you’re at work right now,” no matter how many others will not understand that boundary, because they see it as their passionate hobby or their break from life. But they will never understand it because they just have no frame of reference. And why would they? And so almost subconsciously you try to find the people who understand the thing the way you do. And as you think of this, like so often, the man on stage transitions to the same point: finding the people who understand.

The truth is that there is a predatory element to card tricks and this element inherently extends into gambling. It’s just right next door. And so he begins telling the story from a person who really taught him about cards. He tells us that this person was “a wolf.” But the wolf wasn’t always that way. We then hear audio of this man talking. Yet again, another story within a story within a story. The wolf tells us about the time he was a young man in a card game. Another man at the table ante’d up and just barely let his cards show. Just barely. And they were bad cards. And so the man telling the story smells blood in the water, using all the tricks to reel the guy in before pushing all in. The tricks work. But when the other man finally turns his bad cards over… they were different cards. And he had won. He gave the most devilish smile and it was right then that the young  prospective wolf realized that the other “was the devil, and I just wanted to be just like him.”

This is Derek’s way of telling us that he wanted the same exact thing. The problem? Derek wasn’t like these wolves. With all his little card flourishes, he was a dog, and “dogs like to please people.” So now, he’s gotta learn to be invisible. And Derek begins walking us through more things about the dark side of cards. Where it’s not the flourishes, but things like being invisible, doing your job, and most importantly, knowing that even though they are watching your hands, “they don’t know what you’re doing, because they don’t know it exists.” This little detail is actually the heart of illusion itself, but also, you know, paramount to the ability to rig and cheat at cards. And to further understand this is not about pleasing people. It is “accepting now they’re going to get upset. Because you just took all their money.” And even then, the winners will always insist you give them a better hand. And we sit and watch, rapt with every word.

Gambling is fascinating because it’s gambling.

Stories of hustlers and card sharks all have a certain allure. Because the real dream behind hustling is the dream of control over randomness, the ability to take away chance, and in doing so, prove that “you’re a winner” and that there is no house that can beat you. This is only part of the reason why the world of gambling is full of lore, language, and legend. It feeds the appetite. Derek knows this. And so he brings us more and more into the world of wolves and tells many things we may not know. Like how most wolves aren’t experts in everything, but “the best in the world at one thing.” All the while, he is manipulating Kings around a deck of cards. And nd in turn it becomes the story of how he became a wolf and learned all he could.

For instance, he tells us he “went to Denver Colorado to see a man about one thing.” As a storyteller, it’s all the PERFECT use of vague language and knowing when to be specific and when to be vague (and it’s a skill that the man on stage displays the entire special). The point of this story is about another lesson learned: while Derek was admiring his work, looking at his own hands, the man had pulled a gun on him. Not to punish, but to teach a lesson about the pains of just that: admiring your own work. And as Derek walks us through more of the lessons he learned, he tells us that you can’t do the one thing all the time, nor should you even try. It’s about knowing the right time to deploy the one thing, because then you can make more than the rest of the hands combined.

It is just one of the many ways he is telling us upfront about his approach to magic (and the very show we are watching). After all, there’s only a handful of real “tricks” even happening in the 90 minutes of the show. You only need a few good ones to punctuate your point. Which is what he does when he reaches the end of this nestled story within a story. For the final “trick,” Derek uses the wolf’s favorite game bridge to show how to mess with card placement. And yes, bridge is the best game ever. I played it all through college (though not super well) and it is a game of clockwork that is almost always going to come down the slightest moves and manipulations. Why? Because everyone knows what’s happening and the initial rounds of deception and bidding are just as much a part of the meta as the subtleties of the game itself.

So he begins showing you how to run up a hand of bridge. Something he does blindfolded to show you that sight, the things you can see, have no part of this. It is only the things you can’t.

Now, in bridge, you want as many cards of the same suit as possible. So he takes this deck that he’s been shuffling again and again and tries to get as many spades as possible. It plays out in this one long unbroken shot as the hand-held camera stays close. But there’s no misdirect here. He tells you exactly what he wants to do. Because people play these games “hoping the deals can be fair, but it’s the shuffles that are crooked” (which itself is a larger metaphor for institutions / elite schools that have “fair” hiring, but everything that built that talent pool in terms of privilege is crooked). From there, Derek hits mind blowing manipulation after manipulation after manipulation. There is very little focus on the prestige. Just the evolving story. And it’s here we realize it is not just the story of how much he went from a dog to a wolf, but something else…

So. I haven’t talked a lot about gambling and there’s a reason for that.

It’s because I like gambling. I like playing poker, specifically. The thing is the online poker boom of the 2000s and the world series attention led to an entire cottage industry around people who want the feeling of being a wolf, but, you know, aren’t actually wolves (and there are financial consequences to that). To be clear, I am not a wolf. Nor am I actually all that great at gambling. And if I was, I wouldn’t tell you. More importantly, no one is good at gambling. Because it’s a thing that’s fucking designed to be fun and thrilling and to take your money. That and that alone. So the thing about wolves is that they are not gambling. They are making situations where the chance is removed.

What I will say is that, and what Derek alluded to, is that I know one thing. And that one thing is strange to embody. Because part of that one thing is sometimes you have to act like you are good at gambling. That’s so if you get a good hand early you can play bully and strike quick. Or you can act like you’re not good. You can play quiet. Then you get your first really good hand (not your first good hand) and then you can press on the gas and clean out. Either way, when it happens, it happens quick. And the second you clean out, you walk from the table. I don’t know much else, but I know about this one thing. And I can recognize when someone is doing it to me. I know this.

Just as I know that people think gambling is about being a big shot.

Again, this is by design.

It is the design of people who want to take your money. The house is best at this. Which is fine. They’re supposed to win. If you want to beat the house then you are challenging the Greek fates. You will lose. Yet, the big shot design wants people to chase that. They even sell the lore of “bringing down the house” and making everyone want to THINK they’re shark and THINK they can count cards (while also not realizing that book was really about the cultural racism that allowed them to be sharks). The truth is there is no room for glitz. Nor glam. Good gambling is not only about removing the gambling part, it is also the story of immeasurable patience. It’s sticking to outrageously conservative systems and waiting. It’s knowing little pieces of information, like the fact that there was a Vegas casino that had an absurd low to high ratio on a limit table (yes, I said a limit table), which meant you had to spend outrageously little on antes. So if you went and played super conservative and waited for unbeatable hands, well, then made it near impossible NOT to walk out with money. These things aren’t hard. They take no deck manipulation. You don’t have to count cards. They’re just boring. Also, counting cards isn’t hard, either. It’s just even more boring. No one wants to be and adding and subtracting all night if it isn’t absurdly natural to them. Especially when they could be getting drunk, having fun, and pretending they are a rockstar.

There is nothing really fun about these wolf-like things. I learned some of them because I thought they would be fun. But they aren’t. Even talking about them is drenched with this show off-y nonsense, which is all part of thinly-veiled mix of allure and threat. And it’s that last part that lingers distastefully on the tongue. Because most of all, they are predatory. Because all you are really doing is taking away the joy of some dad on vacation who has one night away from his family and wants to know what it’s like at a real Vegas poker table. He is handing over his money to people who will take it. But he doesn’t see that part. And that’s the real key, isn’t it?

Seeing what you are actually in.

Because there are a million games I could walk into with people who really know what they are doing. And I would never dare. You have to see the pecking order around you with crystal clarity. Which is something you usually learn the hard way. I remember one time I was talking to a wolf and was enjoying all their amazing stories and I said we should play to see where I stand. He gave me the kindest, most hilarious side smile. Because it was absurd for me to even suggest this. I realized that immediately. And because he wanted to be friends, this was not on the table. Because playing cards with friends when you are wolfing makes them no longer your friends. Because going into the wolves den is to be part of endless possible manipulations, fronts, half truths which only help manipulate yourself further. Which is fitting, because after this entire chamber we have a leather loaded question..

Is Derek’s story true? I don’t know. He’s a wolf. And the not knowing is part of it. You have to be unsure for it to work and tempt both sides of the possibility. And you can only do this during the time between dog and wolf. But far more importantly to the show, I believe I know how Derek feels about all of it. Because as he reaches the prestige moment, he’s not reaching for applause. No, it is the stark admission that “I still have a whole lot of wolf in me.” And this ability scares him. This realization is something I get intensely. Maybe we all have elements we fear about ourselves. Maybe we all have part wolf. But I know mine can stretch deeper and further than most. I hate that I can see angles. I hate that I can contort myself. I hate that part of me so very much. And I’ve spent so long working to exorcise it from myself. Because It scares me. And I imagine it scares him, too. So even as he stands on a stage and you see him wrestling with all that guilt and perhaps, we can ask a deeper question: What makes us want to be a dog? What makes us want to be a wolf? What makes us end up being both?

And as the questions bounce around in our heads, once again, we get another transition that is designed to answer them. Because as he says, if you were in the time between dog and wolf and “turn your back on the sun, then everything else is illuminated.”

4. A BRICK THROUGH A WINDOW

As usual, he tells you the metaphor of the new chamber right at the very start: “Every secret has a unique weight to it.”

Then, in a show that has been playing with manipulation and half-truth, it suddenly turns headlong to the deeply biographical, complete with home video footage. For Derek tells us a story about his mom, a single mom, who, like many, was working her butt off to make ends meet. And then, late one night when he was a child, he saw his mother kissing another woman. And that’s how he learned how his mother was gay along with the “nuances of love between two human beings.” Despite the fears and sadness of all the things he thought he would be missing, he quickly realized how much happiness and comfort there was with his new nuclear family. And then one day, he innocently told another child about his mother’s girlfriend. And that meant that his friend could no longer come over to play. And as horrible things do, they build from there. Soon young Derek learns words like “faggot, queer, dyke, and all three of those words mean the same thing: mom” And how it eventually led to someone through a brick through a window, prompting them to move.

This taught him how to keep a secret. In part, it is the very practical fear for her life. But it is also a personal, social fear. A fear of estrangement from people and a life he wants to be a part of. A fear of losing more friends. And so he tells us anecdotes of hiding pride flags and indigo girl CDs before people come over. As he puts it like a dagger, he was “hiding all the evidence of my mother’s pride.” And yet the truth always seemed to come out anyway. And one day he went from wondering “how did everyone find my secret?” To embracing the “fuck you” out of sheer exhaustion. But that’s how it happens. Because every secret has a unique weight to it. And one day you get tired of carrying it… It’s clear that brick has a weight. Yes, it’s just a brick. But as he points out, everyone in that room now knows what the brick represents.

I cannot overstate the power with which this story hit me. I’ve talked a bit about this before, but I remember being attracted to men for, oh, about as early as I can remember. Which means I also began lying about being attracted to men as early as I can remember, too. Because I also also cannot remember a time when my culture was not steeped in homophobia. And I internalized all of it. Because in the 80’s and early 90’s, literally everything about bullying and the culture of toxic male toughness was codified in homophobia. The word fag was omnipresent. I remember a kid wearing a knock-off Trix shirt that read: “silly faggot, dicks are for chicks,” and parents laughing. It was so normal and yet I remember it all feeling suffocating. But the worst part is I was just a kid. Which means I didn’t understand why I felt this way.

I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand… I just didn’t.

Looking back, I didn’t know “what I was.” But I knew what I feared I was. I feared I was gay. And to be that thing. To be attracted to men. Was death. It was that simple. Sure, my parents probably would have been more understanding than most. But we never talked about it. So how the fuck would I know. All I had to answer that question was the culture around me. And I internalized all of it. This went on so so so so so long. Even in high school in the late 90’s, the news of Matthew Shepard was met with jokes. Again, it was death. And I cannot explain how long it took me to peel back all those layers. How much I bargained with that. How much I wrestled with the idea I was only attracted to women because society taught me to be. How I would joke with my jock friends about moving to New York to become gay and they laughed it off because that idea was impossible and I was simply trying to build some kind of safe idea. People literally wrote about those jokes in my yearbook. “Can’t wait til you’re gay! Lol.” It was not lol. I just didn’t understand.

Coming to understand what I was a process that’s still in process, honestly. Sure, even in high school, I knew what the word “bisexual” was, but like most people, I made assumptions about what that mean. I didn’t realize it was the word for everything that I was feeling. And the second I started edging into that world was confirmation of what I felt. But I kept hiding and hiding. And never really talking about it ANYONE ever. The scars last so long. Even now, when I hear the word “fag.” I don’t hear the cadence or intention of the person saying it. I hear the five hundred thousand times that I heard it before as a kid. And like the brick through the window, I hear how much it made me hide that part of myself.

Granted, being bisexual makes it easy to hide. I know this. I can’t say what it is like to be gay. I couldn’t pretend to know, nor ever compare. I just know my experience. And I know that experience makes me have empathy ten million times over. And I’m still unpacking the fear and the hiding. I’m still learning how to be with a version of myself that isn’t half guarded. Even now, decades later, it manifests now with a million things people don’t think about. Like what it’s like to be in your 30’s and trying to date men and suddenly feel like your 15 again BECAUSE YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING. Or the fact that people will ask you nothing or a million blunt questions, like “what percent of men are attracted to? What about women?” And every question comes with the loaded cadence of “prove it.” And often, the bluntest questions will come from people who are on a date with. But you try to answer as you are learning the answers yourself. And more importantly, learning that you really don’t need to justify yourself at all. And it’s part of the reason you make friends that are just like you (because they see the details that you see). And you don’t have to explain a thing. And all the while, you will see people make jokes on twitter about what you are and how that can be true in “straight relationships” and you’ll see some of your favorite people in the universe like it.

And it will make you want to hide again.

And when you have that feeling, suddenly you will want to hide the fact that you still have shame, too. Hide because it’s so hard to explain again and again and again and again. And even you realize what you are will only way it makes sense in *their brain* if you are literally in a relationship with a man and woman at the exact same time, that even then, they won’t understand. It is finally here, that you think: who are you trying to please? What are you trying to do? You can let others skepticism sink like a brick in your gut, or let it turn into two very necessary middle fingers. And more importantly, realize if you’re writing about this experience, you are writing it for the people who share your experience. You are writing because when you talk about this, people who are sharing your experience reach out. Because they can talk to you without fear. And then, you feel less alone.

Together, you don’t let the brick sink you.

And as all this races through your mind, the man on stage begins stacking cards around the brick from the window, now sitting on a table. And then, he makes the brick disappear.

Yes, magicians have been making things disappear for as long as you can remember. You have seen it a million times over. But this now means so much more than that. As Derek said: “this is just a brick. but it’s going to be very difficult for you to see anything else” And it’s true. The sudden power of this illustrates exactly why metaphor matters so much in our society. It’s how we lend weight and import to each and every thing in the world itself. And why, we often have to take those sinking metaphors and turn it into something else.

Through audience participation, they name a random cross street in the city that will now be where the brick will be located. And yes, let’s get real, likely some poor intern or crewmember likely had to schlep the brick there, but this detail is unimportant. Because this is part of the boring diligence of magic. And more importantly, such acknowledgments of crewmember doesn’t take away the power of the gesture. In fact, the very commitment to the act is the thing that upholds it. Because more than discovering the “how,” we simply have to change the brick. We have to transform the violence into a thing that can be passed by without a second thought. Many will think it’s just a brick, which it is. And we know what it really is. And what it means to let it go. Because so many people can only carry the weight within them for so long.

The brick through the window is a deeply personal story. It is a source of trauma. But Derek brought us to the brick in order to open up. To understand the source of hiding, along with the shame that goes with it. And after the first three chambers, I never expected the story of the man on stage to go that deep and that personal. But it does. And it will go deeper.

Because this time, he is going to bring us with him.

5. LETTERS TO A REFLECTION

Once again, we nestle the story of the fifth chamber within a parable. The man on stage tells us the anecdote of six blind men walking up to an animal. They begin touching different parts of its body and thus each person thinks it’s a different animal. What they don’t know is that it is an elephant. And what they really don’t know is they just have to learn to communicate, which is the moral of the parable as it is known. Fittingly, the man on stage is not interested in that part, but another. Because “there isn’t a single version of the story that takes into consideration the perspective of the elephant.” What it is like to be handled like that, dissected, and told what you are (instantly, we think back to the man who told him he was The Roulletista). An important question then follows: what if they were just convinced it was an elephant? They were blind, after all. What if it really was something else?

When I think back to the stage show, I wish I had better memory of the specifics of the following, but I can’t remember the “I am” designation of the person who was randomly selected to come on stage at this point of the show. I didn’t know it would matter so much. But in the film, Derek randomly flips through the “I AM” cards and the first person called up was “I am a reflection.” And this choice feels more than apt. The woman stands on stage and Derek tells us “this is what a reflection looks like.” We applaud. But only because we think this is a lark. But little do we know, that’s when the trick secretly starts. Derek walks up to the upper right window of the stage and seemingly selects a random grouping of letters. He hands them to a person on stage and asks them to open one at random. And they open it…

It turns out to be a deeply personal letter written from someone they know.

Like so many tricks of illusion, I imagine there would be the possibility to speculate on how this was achieved. How the person actually wasn’t selected from the cards randomly. And how ticket information was used and they found a family member. And then used the power of suggestion to pick a certain letter. But even as you speculate, you realize how many things need to go right for the trick to work, along with how many contingency plans have to go along with it. And yet, it doesn’t matter. Because I’m not speculating then. We don’t care because we are in the moment. And in that moment, we get to watch them read a letter. To see the person react in real time. I thought this was the singular nature of the stage show, being there in the moment you shared with these strangers. But it was compounded by the power of the film getting to show this happen again and again in every show. As you see these people shake, cry, and be moved, you realize so much of the magic is not in the “how” the trick was achieved.

The real magic is just getting a letter from a loved one.

That’s it. Yes, you can talk about the notion of this act being put on stage, but sometimes the public nature just heightens the emotion and part of being caught off guard. But it’s not even that. Letters mean something. They feel personal in a way that is almost indescribable from any other kind of interaction. If you grew up religious and got sent on retreats, you may know this. I grew up Boston Irish Catholic and on one such retreat, the kids were surprised one night by letters from parents. If you know the cold, distant anger of much Boston Catholicism, you would know this was a strange sensation. Upon reading and talking about it, many kids confessed it was the only time ever heard from parents that they were proud of them. One even said it was the only time their father told them that they loved them. It’s a grim portrait, yes. But the letter compels the act of saying the unsaid.

So it’s not the trick. It’s the letters themselves. And the meaning of the relationships behind them. It is here, finally, that the man on stage brings it back to the elephant parable that that may not seem to fit. But that’s when it gets tied together. Because maybe it wasn’t an elephant. Maybe they had just convinced a magical creature it was just an elephant. But even then, nothing is just an elephant.

So as one man finishes a letter from his son, Derek tells us he “no longer sees a fighter, I see a father.” Just as we got to see the daughter behind the reflection. In knowing these people’s stories, we get to see so much more than what they see of themselves.

And there is one step further to go.

6. BALANCING THE SCALES

For the final chamber, Derek walks to the stage and puts all the cards into the window on the bottom right. There is a scale. He sets all of the “I AM” cards down and the scale tips, pushing it all the way down. Soon, he sets his own card down. One against many. And yet, the scales equal. This is not to weigh the heart of selfishness. This is the realization that perhaps this is the relationship every individual has the world around them. The self and the selfless. The inside and the out. The yin and the yang. Pick whatever duality you wish.

Then, Derek stands back, all six windows light up. Because it is time to bring all the stories of each chamber together. And now that we have established the cards are but a sliver of ourselves, he still asks “if you believe the card you selected is really indicative of what you are, please stand up.” Many people do this. And then, in a way that starts so stealthily, Derek somehow, someway, begins telling each and every single person the card they selected. But really, he is telling them “who they are.”

Again, it is a feat of magic that brings endless speculation over the “how.” But again, I don’t not give a single solitary shit. Because even if it is a play on those words, this is not a simple trick of “ooooh, I selected your card.” This is so much more. This is about the moment. The moment where he stands in front of you and looks at you and tells you who you are, just as the man told him he was the Roulettista. This is about the tension of that moment. This is about the emotional connection with everyone in that audience as it happens. When I saw the show in person, this experience was transcendent. And I couldn’t imagine how it would translate to anyone on the outside.

But of course, the film handles it the same and maybe even better. Because there’s the cheap, tactile thrill of getting to see what famous people chose for themselves. Tim Gunn thinks he’s a good samaritan. Deray views himself as a visionary. Larry Wilmore, an oracle. Bill Gates, a leader. Perhaps if there’s anything to note it’s that, for better or worse, these successful people believe in themselves in a way that hasn’t been drenched with the need to hide or be self-effacing. But worth far more is the look on their face as they process the moment he calls it out. Tim Gunn nearly breaks down in tears, a mix of so many emotions it’s hard to really say what he’s processing as he thinks of himself in such a way. Maybe he feels like a sham? Maybe it’s shame? Maybe it’s just the hope of what he tries to be? Whatever it is, it is left to his own internal emotional journey.

The emotional sweep of this moment stretches beyond mere logic and into connection. There’s the way it all lingers on a man in tears who chose “I am nobody,” which again, is a thing he stood up for because he really believes. But I think about the kindness of Derek’s commentary that comes along with so many moments like this. When someone says they are an immigrant, Derek says “welcome.” He tells another woman “you’re like me, an accident,” showing kinship and empathy. Just like when he nods to a single mother because he knows what that means. And then things become even more personal. I was already crying by the time my friend Annamaria came on screen. But I was hit even harder when he revealed the ones that were personal to him. He uses the word “my.” He looks at a man and says: “my teacher.”  He looks at a vulnerable, crying David Blaine and says, “my brother,” perhaps because they are two people in the rare space of what they do… meaning they see the things no one else sees. And of course, few words are as powerful as the following:

“Hi mom.”

After all, we know the unique weight of a brick.

The overwhelming emotion of this sequence hits in such a deeply profound way. It’s not that he was able to get the card of each and every single person in the room. It’s not wondering about the how. It’s the power of the moment in and of itself. There’s a reason he’s crying along with us. Not as a trick, but because the feeling was true. And as he goes back to stage, we are hit with the last declaration from someone in that room…

“And I am The Roulettista.”

But now we understand with the full weight of caveat that follows, “because that’s how he saw me.” Derek has tells us the ways that this is true. It is true because he stands in a dark room with strangers and attempts to defy odds with seemingly impossible tricks. But it is also a declaration that can’t help but feel hollow. We’ve seen too much now. We know he is more than that, and again, as if on cue: “But I also know that I’m a son. And I am an orphan. I am a sailor. It’s inconceivable that I am a dog or a wolf, but both. I am defined by all the things you will never see.” And this is how we balance the scales of selfhood, seeing all the great and terrible parts within, and merely accepting them, processing them, and changing them for the better. With the full weight of understanding that it is largely a journey within one’s own mind.

And then, in the final moment, the windows that Derek had interacted with all show long, suddenly fall to the ground as mere posters. It was a moment that elicited sudden, impossible gasps from the audience I saw it with.

And with that, the show, if you can call it a show, ends.

If we were being crass, we would call this final moment “a trick” because we never saw the change. But just like calling this “a show by a sleight of hand magician,” these are all terrible words. He is not accomplishing six “magic tricks,” but instead imbuing these thematic moments with the most weight possible. He does this by telling them as stories. And like stories, there is an arc and sequence to the thematic idea being presented.

With that understood, let’s go over the chambers again.

1. Here’s what I’m going to do - a pledge / the tone setting core metaphor that establishes tension and abject seriousness of the story that is to follow. One that directly challenges the very identity of the man on stage. But it might be hard to understand this so…

2. Here’s how you have to think to process the story - I.E. I’m going to tell you how to hold two competing sides at once and I’m going to put it to the test because…

3. Here are the two radically different sides of me, the one that wants to please, and the one that wants to be the wolf. But understand that is something I struggle with because I am a human being and…

4. Here is the incredible true story that is the source of that duality. And in telling this deeply real, personal story, I can show you the way to think about the bricks in the world around us, the ones with you - and how to change them. For example...

5. Here is a way to change how you think about a random person in the audience, by doing something just as real and meaningful and connective. And with this understanding...

6. Here is a question directed toward you - one directly meant to get you to reflect on the labels you call yourself and also understand that you are so much more than them, too.

I look over it and I realize in simplest terms, “this is an essay,” because it really is just an argument. I know this because it is the way I’ve written every essay I’ve ever composed. In fact, it is the standard methodology for changing how people think. Because it is a method of guiding people through the process of understanding - no, not saying what you think, but helping unveil what they really think. And even with all these massive Russian nesting dolls of personal stories that Derek tells, so much is clear: the goal was always you. The real prestige is not a feat of posters falling, nor the applause follows. It is a personal one or realization inside your heart. It is the capacity for your own revelation. And so, as I sat in that theater, just as I sat on my couch as the credits rolled…

I was left with endless thoughts about who and what I am.

* * *

The longer this goes on, the less I understand it.

Let’s start with basics. When I walked into the theater I looked at the tags on the wall. I saw “I am a writer.” It would make sense to pick this. But I didn’t pick it. I don’t know why. Actually, I wrote that reflexively. I do know why. It’s because I didn't feel right picking it up and that’s probably because I didn’t feel like I was the one deserving of it. It was almost like I was half expecting Richard Price or the ghost of Anne Bronte to walk in and be like “uh, that’s mine, THANK YOU.” But am I not a writer? I mean, that’s the listed occupation on my income taxes. It is my profession. I even care about it deeply. More than most other things in this entire world. But I didn’t pick it. Instead, I picked “I am a film buff,” which is a term I actually kind of hate. For one, to describe oneself as a “buff” of anything feels so eternally strange. But I think I picked it because it was safer. Because it shows I am merely a fan of something else, an appreciator of things more deserving of attention, the passion for something… that is not yourself.

But when I think about the term “a film buff” and really scrutinize the choice, I realize something kind of horrible: it’s what people in my hometown called me when I was growing up. I was the kid who liked movies. It was something that defined me. In some ways, this was lucky. Because where some people are never told they can do what they want, I was encouraged. But like everything, it can have it’s own kind of toxicity. In extreme forms, there are people who walk around like it’s their destiny to go to Harvard or something. And usually bad things happen when you believe you are destined to be something. I’m probably no different. After all, there are people infinitely more deserving than another white guy who was always told they could (along with there are a million other reasons I’m utterly undeserving). But either way, there in that room…

I chose what all those other people said I was.

I chose what I had been told.

So when Derek came over and looked at me, what with the purpose to peel away the fear and open you up to what you thought you were… It felt like eons. Sure, I knew he’d get it right. That wasn’t what I was thinking about. It’s that I didn’t want to be that.

I wanted to be something else.

I cannot tell you much I’ve struggled with identity my entire life. It’s probably easy when you’re growing up in a house full of lies and people hiding things, where such things are like water and your grasp on your own reality is fluid. Such things are terrifying. Which is why I was terrified all the time. I seriously can’t tell you how shy I was and how hard it was to try and be a person. But I tried. Which means I can’t tell you how many versions of myself have existed, all because I was trying to find a way to fit. Along the way, I can’t tell you how much I don’t remember. Entire years. Blank. And while I can see those other kids with pitch-perfect clarity, I don’t remember what the letter from my parents said on my retreat. It’s the part of the memory that’s blank. Maybe I was too busy watching everyone else. Maybe I was too afraid of whatever emotion the letter might be touched. Either way, my life is a ship’s log, both real and imagined, and perhaps far, far more than most. This is true in some ways that I’m ashamed of. And in other ways where I recognize the origin of duality and how it happened. Because I know the ways I hid the truth of what should have been my pride. I know the ways I was taught to be both a wolf and dog. I know what it means to be riddled with guilt, along with the desire to be a person who points a loaded gun at their head and pulls the trigger. These are the things I know. They’re all part of the one thing I know, really.

And when I talk about it, I don’t talk about it for empathy, nor self-pity, nor because I feel they will ingrain me to some larger cause. No, those games are over. I do not want any of that. No, I say them so that they may be of use. Because I want people to understand things about themselves that it took me far, far longer to realize… And I so worry that I am failing.

It is said that writing is about using words to give voice to feelings.

And I am sitting here with a feeling so large and encompassing that it is hard to convey. Breaking down the symbolism of Mulholland Drive? That’s kinda easy if you know some shit about semiotics. No, it is here with In & Of Itself that I can barely scratch the surface. Perhaps it is because I am writing about something that is inherently designed to provoke your own reflection. Perhaps it is because it is written in a language that I am only now learning how to speak. Even then, the one thing I can tell you is that it is not the artist's intention to get lost in sea of the unknowable and say “nothing is true, haha, isn’t that fucked?”

Instead, it is sailing into those unknown waters to unpack the damaging assumptions we have constructed for ourselves. And it isn’t doing so with cerebral dryness. It is doing so with the thrill of the tension that comes with that. And more importantly, the strength and power of what is human and real despite the illusion that surrounds all of it. Because this is the most human I have ever felt while taking part in the artistic expression of the unknowable. It didn’t make me feel curious. It made me feel naked and terrified.

Because he was a man, standing before us, telling us who we were. But in that you realize that he wasn’t trying to do that at all. He is going on stage each and every night to strip away the label we had given ourselves. And to affirm a person in his wholeness. And he is doing it because we are all running out of time.

“How do you know when you’re holding a loaded gun?”

We are all holding one from the moment we are born. That shot is going to go off. You will die. It could be soon when you are an infant child. It could be suddenly as an adult. It could be on a bed with old age and nothing but time to think about how you spent it. The time bargaining. The times with depression unseen. The times with the things you held to make you feel alive. But death was always coming. And every second of your life is an empty chamber of a revolver that hasn’t yet fired. It is a paradox both invigorating and paralyzing. And here we have man on a stage and a show around him that embodies this duality in the least cerebral way possible. Instead, it gives you the most visceral one. Because there is nothing else one can do but emerge with complicated and directly opposing feelings: the feelings of wonder and horror. It is weirdly something that grounds you in your dumb stupid body. But because the best parts of the show largely take place in your imagination, it also makes you feel isolated and in your head. In short, you feel everything. You think everything. And you always end up in the same place: a blank page, much like a blank chamber of your own. You can stare at it with reckless abandon. But regardless of what you do, the next page will be that, too. And the next. And the next. You feel that in its fury, in it’s soft forgiveness, along with the crushing finality of beginning ever on and on and on until…

BANG.

It ends.

And it is all of that, both in and of itself.

But it is not magic. It is not a trick. It is not even an illusion.

It is just a story, ever nestled within others.

<3HULK