pitch ¹ |pi ch |

noun

1.   the quality of a sound governed by the rate of vibrations producing it; the degree of highness or lowness of a tone : a car engine seems to change pitch downward as the vehicle passes you.

• a standard degree of highness or lowness used in performance : the guitars were strung and tuned to pitch. See also concert pitch . 

2.   the steepness of a slope, esp. of a roof.
• Climbing a section of a climb, esp. a steep one.
• the height to which a hawk soars before swooping on its prey. 

3.   [in sing. ] the level of intensity of something : he brought the machine to a high pitch of development.
• ( a pitch of) a very high degree of : rousing herself to a pitch of indignation.

4.   Baseball a legal delivery of the ball by the pitcher.
• (also pitch shot) Golf a high approach shot onto the green.
• Football short for pitchout sense 2 .

5.   Brit. a playing field.
• Cricket the strip of ground between the two sets of stumps. 

6.   a form of words used when trying to persuade someone to buy or accept something : a good sales pitch.

7.   a swaying or oscillation of a ship, aircraft, or vehicle around a horizontal axis perpendicular to the direction of motion.
• the degree of slope or angle, as of a roof.

8.   technical the distance between successive corresponding points or lines, e.g., between the teeth of a cogwheel.
• a measure of the angle of the blades of a screw propeller, equal to the distance forward a blade would move in one revolution if it exerted no thrust on the medium.
• the density of typed or printed characters on a line, typically expressed as numbers of characters per inch.

verb 

1.   [ trans. ] Baseball throw (the ball) for the batter to try to hit.
• Baseball assign (a player) to pitch.
• [ intrans. ] be a pitcher : she pitched in a minor-league game | [ trans. ] he pitched the entire game.
• Golf hit (the ball) onto the green with a pitch shot.
• [ intrans. ] Golf (of the ball) strike the ground in a particular spot.

2.   [ trans. ] throw or fling roughly or casually : he crumpled the page up and pitched it into the fireplace.
• [ intrans. ] fall heavily, esp. headlong : she pitched forward into blackness.

3.   [ trans. ] set (one's voice or a piece of music) at a particular pitch : you've pitched the melody very high.
• express at a particular level of difficulty : he should pitch his talk at a suitable level for the age group.
• aim (a product) at a particular section of the market : the machine is being pitched at banks.

4.   [ intrans. ] make a bid to obtain a contract or other business : they were pitching for an account.

5.   [ trans. ] set up and fix in a definite position : we pitched camp for the night.

6.   [ intrans. ] (of a moving ship, aircraft, or vehicle) rock or oscillate around a lateral axis, so that the front and back move up and down : the little steamer pressed on, pitching gently.
• (of a vehicle) move with a vigorous jogging motion : a jeep came pitching down the hill.

7.   [ trans. ] cause (a roof) to slope downward from the ridge : the roof was pitched at an angle of 75 degrees | [as adj. ] ( pitched) a pitched roof.
• [ intrans. ] slope downward : the ravine pitches down to the creek.

ORIGIN Middle English (as a verb in the senses [thrust (something pointed) into the ground] and [fall headlong] ): perhaps related to Old English picung [stigmata,] of unknown ultimate origin. The sense development is obscure.

pitch ² 

noun

a sticky resinous black or dark brown substance that is semiliquid when hot, hard when cold. It is obtained by distilling tar or petroleum and is used for waterproofing.

• any of various similar substances, such as asphalt or bitumen.

• a sticky resinous sap from a conifer.

verb [ trans. ]

cover, coat, or smear with pitch.

ORIGIN Old English pic (noun), pician (verb), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch pek and German Pech; based on Latin pix, pic-.

Festival d'Avignon 2

I try to arrive early, around 9 or 10 in the morning, before the chaos of the day sets in. I have breakfast in my civilian clothes (usually a dark suit and no tie) then I head across the river to a secluded shady spot on the Île de la Barthelasse where I stretch out and slowly change into the Bastard: black pants and suspenders, stripped shirt, stripped socks with garters, black boots, salt and pepper wig, and a bowler hat. This part is a bit of a ritual. When it's finished I ride back across the bridge and hit the streets.

I usually make at least one wide loop around the city and then I weave around the back streets for a while. A sortie like this can take a few hours, because I make stops along the way. Sometimes I just stop to catch my breath or eat a piece of fruit. Sometimes I take a look at my bike because it can act funny on occasion and I have to keep my eye on it. Other times I intercept passers by: I start with a question and often wind up spinning some yarn, cracking jokes, reciting a monologue...

I do this twice a day, once in the morning and once in the late afternoon when the town cools off and begins to bustle. Between sorties or when the day is done I change back into my civilian clothes and do my best to pass incognito, a simple theater-goer. I have dinner and flirt with cute girls who stop at my table to advertise their plays and leave a flier; I see a show and chat afterwards about what I liked and what I didn't. I try different ways to answer the inevitable question of what I'm doing in Avignon: anywhere from "Oh I mainly came to see shows" to "Actually I'm here to audition for the Hamlet in the Palais des Papes." I also pull out ones like "I'm doing research pertaining to economic and artistic circumstances in the contemporary theater marketplace," but I usually reserve that one for moments when I feel like killing the conversation.

Sometimes I feel a bit like Clark Kent, but I'm not exactly sure which persona is me and which is my alter-ego.

Festival d'Avignon

Arrived several days ago and it's gone by quickly. It's taken me some time to get my bearings here; the marketplace always disorients me and I'm feeling a bit agoraphobic. And Avignon is a labyrinth. I spent the first few days just riding around and getting the lay of the land, establishing landmarks, working out a routine. There were also shows to see.

My first stop after arriving were the offices of the festival (and I mean the 'in' as opposed to the 'off', which is what they call Avignon's enormous fringe.) Most of the shows I wanted to see were sold out, including HAMLET directed by Thomas Ostermeyer. Also sold out were: Inferno by Romeo Castellucci; ANOTHER SLEEPY... by Jan Fabre, DAS SYSTEM by Stanislaus Nordey; SECRET by Johan le Guillerm, and a bunch of others I was interested in seeing. I bought tickets for ORDET directed by Arthur Nauzyciel, TRAGEDIES ROMAINES directed by Ivo van Hove, and PURGATORIO by Castellucci.

It has been interesting to observe how this marketplace functions. But I didn't come to Avignon just to see shows. In my next installment I'll write about the routine I've been establishing during my stay here.

F***ing Numbers

Research in Clown Technology

I made this presentation on May 21, 2008, at the end of a 2-week residency. What you see is a loosely structured movement improvisation built around a character's interaction with a series of objects. The sound you hear is being produced through the character's interaction with a complex sound environment.

To create this environment I worked with the composer Benedikt Schiefer. The goal was to create a highly reactive space wherein every sound or movement an actor makes has the potential to set off a unique series of events in sound, lighting and/or video.

Inside a space like this, a person might repeat the same movement or sound several times but the system would never respond in exactly same way twice. As a result, the actor can never know in advance the effect his actions will have. He must therefore strike an extremely delicate balance; on the one hand he must be highly present and aware of what's going on: listening, reacting, and adjusting to his environment as it changes; on the other hand he must be capable of disregarding his environment and not letting it distract or destabilize him.

Such a space can be thought of as a training environment designed to put the actor into a state of crisis and thus develop his ability to maintain his concentration and his detachment.

This residency period was dedicated to building and calibrating a working prototype. The next step is to develop the concept further, to work with this environment in such a way that it can begin to appear intelligent and represent a strange form of life.

Falling Lessons

The diving platforms at the olympic pool in Montreuil are only open to the public on Sunday mornings. They are very popular, especially with little kids. The platforms are at standard olympic levels: 3m, 5m, 7.8m and 10m. The kids themselves can be rather short, some less than a meter high. They get agitated waiting their turn: a throng of dripping kids, shivering or shoving, yapping or watching spellbound as the one above steps into the void and plunges down a few seconds later into the deep water.

A lifeguard comes at varying intervals to close off the lower levels and open the higher ones. The 3 meter diving board is open for the first hour, then the 5 meter platform. The 7.8 and 10 meter platforms are open together for the last half-hour. Some people prefer the lower levels and others prefer the higher ones, so the crowd changes throughout the morning and it also thins out. Still, that last half-hour goes by fast.

Last Sunday I made my first 10m jump into a pool. A few weeks back something drove me up to the 5 meter platform and last Sunday the same thing drove me up further. I jumped twice from 10 meters, the second time just to make sure the first one wasn't a fluke.

Motobécane

I've recently gotten back to riding my bike with my hands off the handlebars. I'm starting to feel comfortable with it. Now I can turn corners, I can weave in and out of pedestrian traffic, and I can climb relatively steep inclines without having to use my hands to correct my course. I do have to use my hands sometimes: when I get scared, when a car passes close on my left, or when the potholes on the road become too pronounced. Or when I have to brake.

I started getting serious about this a little over a month ago, in May, when I suddenly discovered I was able to do it again. It had been years since I was able to ride with no hands. I used to do it all the time when I was a kid, but at some point I discovered that couldn't pull it off anymore. This happened sometime when I was in my 20s. I remember one day letting go of the handlebars, like when I was 14, and immediately feeling the front wheel go out of control. I had to snatch back the handlebars to keep myself from careening out of control. I thought maybe something was wrong with the bike but I soon realized I had simply lost my touch.

That was a long time ago.

 

In May, a bit over a month ago, I suddenly got it back. It happened in the Parc de la Villette, on a particularly sunny afternoon. I'd been holed up for almost a week, rehearsing alone in a sweltering circus tent. My concentration was shot and I decided to take a spin around the park till my brain cooled.

The roadway along the Canal de l'Ourcq is paved with cobblestones, and there's a very narrow strip of smooth steel running down the middle, covering a central gutter. The cobblestones are rough, to the point that any cyclist who rides over them could wonder whether Bernard Tschumi, the architect of the park, was just being an asshole or whether he was trying to invent a game. For a variety of reasons I was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, so I'd been playing his game since December, trying to navigate the thin strip of steel to avoid the rattle of the cobblestones. I wasn't the only one playing. Every day I noticed other cyclists riding on that particular roadway trying to do the same as me.

It's actually not very easy. The metal strip is extremely narrow, something like 6 cm wide, and for people who ride on racing tires like me, deep grooves on either side of the strip raise the stakes. It's very easy to wipe out, and almost impossible not to careen off the smooth strip onto the jarring surface of the cobblestones.

But I had been working at it since December. At first my tendency was to keep my eyes on the strip and to try to keep myself straight using the handlebars. That didn't work. I kept straying off the line. After a while I started working on a new approach. Instead of steering with the handlebars I taught myself how to steer with the saddle, by moving my pelvis from side to side and adjusting my center of gravity. By the same technique, I was learning how to stabilize my center and keep it moving in a straight line relative to the ground.

By the time that day in May rolled around I was nailing the straight line without a problem. With my hands barely touching the handlebars, just the lightest caress with the tips of my fingers, my legs drove the pedals, my head pulled my spine upwards and my pelvis glided forward in a straight line through space. I made a loop of the park that way, fingertips on the handlebars when I was on smooth surface and hands gripping on when I had no choice but to cross the uneven cobblestones. 

After a little while like that I started feeling frisky. I was on the other side Cité des Sciènces et l'Industrie now, where a wide expanse of uninterrupted cobblestones slopes gently downward towards a smooth sidewalk at the edge of the park. I'm not exactly sure what came over me, and I'm not sure I was entirely aware of what I was doing, but I felt myself picking up speed and barreling towards the cobblestones as fast as I could. At the same time, I sat upright and tucked my legs into the bike frame, then stretched my arms out like wings. The wheels skated onto the rough surface and the bike was rattling like crazy. But somehow the handlebars kept going straight ahead. I watched myself going forward like that, arms outstretched and my bike rattling and jostling like over the cobblestones like it was about to fall into pieces, and I felt like I was flying.

Since that day I've developed hands-free riding into a regular practice. I work on my 12-speed Motobecane racing bike, which isn't the ideal piece of equipment for my purposes; what I need is a single-speed freewheel with backpedal braking so I can slow myself and stop with no hands as well. Eventually I plan to build that bike. But for now the 12-speed keeps me going.

I train on the street and in the parks of Paris. I spend a lot of time working on things like my breathing and my posture, on keeping my feet and hands relaxed while I pedal, and on isolating my upper body from my lower body. I work on keeping my focus very wide, opening myself and my attention to the space all around me: in front, behind, above, below. I pay no particular attention to the pedestrians with whom I cross paths: I see them and I give them the right of way.

At some point earlier this month I started using my voice while riding. It came out quite spontaneously: singing, reciting sonnets or Shakespearean monologues. It feels somehow like an eruption, like the vibrations from the road well up through my body and out through my voice. It's an intense sensation; pleasant but at the same time a little frightening because I know I can't really control it. That's when I have to be careful because in those moments I could easily get carried away and do something dangerous.