|
|||||||||||
|
11.21.2009
5:54 PM
For all interested parties, here's a link to the full video of my class's student production of Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind. I wrote three of the plays and appeared in a few more. Fair warning: it's a big file - about 700 MB.
I'll be taking the video down in about two weeks for the sake of keeping space free on my server thingamabob.
11.19.2009
8:52 PM
My Too Much Light class had its first and last ever performance of 20 Plays in 40 Minutes last night. It went very well. Great crowd, both in terms of population and (more importantly) with regards to spirit and energy level. The wonderful thing about the TML-style show is that it becomes very easy to get the audience on your side. I guess it also helped that the crowd was made up almost entirely of people at least one of us knew.
Honestly, I haven't had this much fun doing a show since my last performance with The Baker's Dozen. Like the mime shows, TML succeeds in creating this sense of togetherness for both the audience and the performers. Everybody feels like they're a part of one group having a weird, goofy and fun as hell party. One last thing: one of the plays in our show was titled A Pointilist Portrait of Chicago. As you can guess it was meant to mimic the pointist style of painting - specifically of the sort seen in the painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Today I went to the Art Institute. In Humanities we have to each give a presentation regarding one of the paintings there, so I took this evening as an opportunity to try to figure out what one I wanted to do. While walking through the Impressionist wing of the building I ran into a girl who had just performed with me in the TML student show just the night before. We chatted, talked about how crazy the coincidence was. I mentioned something about uploading the show to the internet. A few things were said about the oddness that is the modern wing of the Art Institute. And then we said our see-you-laters. I walked into the next room and took a left. And there it was: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. The painting that inspired a play in our show just the night before. A play that the girl I'd just run into - no less than ten feet away from the painting - had just performed in. What an odd world we live in.
11.16.2009
6:39 PM
Some Links
Many of these are from my Twitter feed, but there's still some new stuff so as not to disappoint those of you who follow it.
11.15.2009
11:21 PM
Something that filled me with both a sense of wonder and melancholy: an imagining of an alternate history in which The Beatles get back together in the 1970s.
11.12.2009
11:06 PM
Just a couple of hours ago we did our first-ever real performance of Endgame for a number of folks. The show overall went well and got a great reception from the audience, but there was one goof. One of our actors forgot one of his lines, which resulted in a minute long pause. Because the script format would probably be a better venue of telling this story than that of narrative:
[MINUTE LONG PAUSE] AUBIN: Say something! [BEAT] MATT: There's nothing to say. [30 SECOND LONG PAUSE] All the while I was cooped up in a trashcan. I appreciated their replies to one another - they fit the context of the play very nicely - but damn if it wasn't the most helpless I've ever felt onstage. As I'd said, the audience really enjoyed the show. However there's something about the schmoozing process that tends to take place afterwards - we bow, the audience applauds, we go into the audience to chat with friends, everyone goes "good job" - that makes me feel terribly awkward. Often times after a performance I am very tired; often times there is nothing more I'd like than to lie down and take a nap. But I realize the importance of chatting with the audience afterwards. It's a far more meaningful way of saying thank you than the bow that takes place at curtain call. If only it wasn't so awkward for me.
11.10.2009
11:20 PM
Last night I didn't have rehearsal. That made it my first night off in what feels like a long, long time, even though it'd only probably been a week.
I spent that night doing pretty mundane things. I picked up a book from the library. I got groceries. I cleaned up the place. I scratched a few things off of my to-do list, which is piling up and piling up and piling up and is inevitably going to collapse like a tower of Jenga bricks if I don't manage to pull the right thing out at just the right time. And I felt really good that night. "Wow," I was thinking. "I have a night free to do all this stuff. Isn't this great?" And then the other part of my conscious stepped in. "No," it said. "It isn't great. You are enjoying doing some really tiresome stuff. Is this all you have to look forward to? Is this the 'peak' of your life?" There's that longstanding quote about the mind being a good servant but a terrible master that I've come to understand more and more as I mature. And the more I mature the more I realize when my mind is acting up on me - when what's going on in there might not have the validity that it thinks that it does. I think that was one of those moments. But still, I was concerned - was that going to be the peak of my day? - so I sat down and finished watching The State on DVD, something I've been meaning to do since August. That too was satisfying, albeit in a very different and far lazier sort of way. That moment - when I was enjoying myself whilst doing the most humdrum things - is probably the closest in my 20 years of living that I've ever felt like a grownup. Don't get me wrong; it wasn't like I had that moment and I went, "Woah! I'm a grownup!" - I doubt more and more every day that such an epiphany will ever come to me in a simple single lightbulb moment - but during that point in time that I think Csikszentmihalyi would call a flow state, I felt far older than I ever had before. Are moments like these the beginnings of adulthood in its most mundane sense? Or perhaps they're simply hindsight moments, as if the transition has already occurred and you're just beginning to notice it? Frankly I'm not sure if I feel like answering those questions now. I've still got a disc of The State to finish and their brand of immature humor is a perfect foil to these semi-existential moments.
11.08.2009
5:40 PM
Over the past few days I've discovered a wonderful punk-pioneer turned sorta-kinda-folk-singer named Jonathan Richman. Unfortunately no time to do a full post about how awesome this guy is, but if you'd like a good glimpse at his style, check out one of his earlier songs called I'm A Little Dinosaur and another song of his about a life-changing experience he had in Bermuda. It's great stuff - funny without being jokey or annoying, and it totally bears repeat listens.
11.03.2009
3:26 PM
A brief post for you: I made another video for YouTube. This time I added subtitles to a pre-existing video.
11.02.2009
9:15 PM
For the past two months I've been saying to myself: "I am going to do NaNoWriMo. I am going to do NaNoWriMo." I've outlined some of the plot elements I'd like to touch upon; I've calculated how many words I'd have to write per day to meet 50,000 words by the end of the month; I've read a few books and articles that basically amount to pep-talks for writers. And you know what? I don't think I'm going to do it this November.
There's just way too much stuff going on. I would really like to do it, yeah; but I like to keep my writing mostly enjoyable. (Note that operative word: mostly. I realize that there's at least one point in the writing process where everything is frustrating at the least and damn near apocalyptic at the worst.) If I were to do NaNoWriMo this month, I'm pretty sure that the part of my brain that regulates how stressed I am would overheat. With Shimer, Endgame, and my class with the Neos - not to mention the beginnings of my mandatory semester project - my cup already runneth over. But I'm not saying that I'm not going to do NaNoWriMo at all. All I said was: "I don't think I'm going to do it this November." I'm feeling like attempting to write a novel in a month's time might be a task better suited for winter break.
11.01.2009
2:03 PM
Just discovered that another family member passed away this year. My aunt - Auntie Em - died sometime recently. I realize that sounds rather vague, "sometime recently," but I think that this post goes on, you'll come to realize that vagueness and unclarity is one of the major tenants of this particular story.
Before I go any further, let me make clear that I'm referring to an aunt of mine that I'm relatively certain none of my peers have met. I know that a few of you know Aunt Debbie, an aunt on my mom's side, and I feel like it'd probably be a good idea to make it clear that she's alive and well. In fact, she may be reading this blog right now. Hi, Aunt Debbie! Just letting the world know you're not dead. Anyway, I'm glad I got that out of the way. The story goes like this: in the months leading up to her death, Auntie Em was in the process of getting divorced from my uncle. During this time two things happened: 1) she moved into a relative's house, and 2) she was diagnosed with cancer. The former was made public while the latter was not. Most of us got news of her cancer not long after she died. "Most of us" includes my uncle, whom she did not officially get divorced from before dying. This throws a whole new legal wrench into the proceedings that I can't really fathom the consequences of. Because Auntie Em lived in Florida, I was never terribly close to her. I can say a few things I know about her, though. She used to be a high school special ed teacher. I think that's how she met my uncle, who used to be a science teacher. She really liked to read. I'm not sure whether she wanted us to call her Auntie Em or if it was something my parents thought would be cute. For a long time I didn't realize her name was an homage to The Wizard of Oz. For a longer time I thought her name was actually Anteeyem, just one word, no space in between the two. I didn't know her very well. My mom expressed a similar sentiment when she called me this weekend to let me know what'd happened. "I was just thinking to myself, 'I haven't talked to her in a while - I ought to send her a note.'" A few days later she got the news that made that notion somewhat irrelevant. Typically when someone you know says that a friend or relative of theirs died, you say something like, "I'm so sorry." And then they reply, "Thanks." But if you were to say the same thing to me - "I'm so sorry," I would probably furrow my brow and think about it. And I think I'd probably go, "Yeah, me too."
10.29.2009
5:32 PM
I didn't go to class today. In other colleges this wouldn't be terribly notable, but thanks to Shimer's heavy emphasis on discussion our attendance policy works a little differently. Students are permitted to miss no more than four classes; if a student misses more than four, they're probably going to be dropped from the course.
So this marks the first time I've missed these two particular classes. I needed today as a mental health/catch-up day. With my class with the Neo-Futurists, my school's play and my school's school, I've gotten a little bogged down. I think I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I was trying my best to use an organizational method known as Getting Things Done; unfortunately my ability to actually do things after listing them out is still lacking. Of course as the day's progressed I've managed to actually do stuff, which has made me feel better and better - if that weren't the case, I probably wouldn't be writing this post write now, since I find it kind of difficult to post when I'm in a not-so-great mood. But as stressful as these days can be they have a tendency to work as a wake-up call - an unpleasant wake-up call, true, but a wake-up call nonetheless.
10.23.2009
12:58 PM
Two Things That Have Happened In Monolithic Chain Establishments That I'm Kind Of Ashamed to Patronize But Still Occasionally Do Nonetheless
1. McDonalds Two guys are sitting at a table not too far away from me. There's nothing particularly outlandish about either of them, but together they have a penchant for hilarious conversation. The best part is that they don't seem to be aware of how funny they actually are. Examples: "What texting plan you got?" "Unlimited, but I'm almost out." and: "You know, if I like a girl and she likes me, I'm gonna date her." "Funny how that works out." 2. Starbucks I've been stopping by the Starbucks on Berwyn before every class I've had with the Neo-Futurists. Every time I grab a coffee there there's this short white-haired man in big round cokebottle glasses that make his eyes look comically larger than they actually are. The collar he wears indicates that he's a priest or something of the kind. The last time I was there I was waiting for the restroom to open up. The restrooms are single occupancy, so there's almost always a wait. So I'm standing in front of the door for the men's restroom when I hear a flush. And from out of the women's restroom walks the priest. I look at him and involuntarily cock my head. "Sure," he replies. "I do it. Everybody else does it." And with that he walks off. I realize what the heck, they are individual restrooms, it doesn't matter, and decide to use the women's restroom. I realize that it is in no way different from the guys' room.
10.20.2009
4:30 PM
Tuesdays are supposed to be productive days but they seem to end up being lazy days. See, on Tuesdays I don't have class, which ideally is a wonderful thing. Nothing to do but to catch up on all the things I have to do, right?
Nope. Inevitably I think to myself Monday night, "Hey! No class tomorrow," and end up staying up late, which leads to waking up late the next day, which results in me feeling lazy, which results in me not doing anything until later in the day (which is already late to begin with), which results in me not having a lot of time to do the things I need to do...you get the idea. Right now I have two papers I need to be rewriting. They are due tomorrow. I could (and should) be doing them right now but my energy level is nowhere near where it needs to be. I'm sure that'll change as the clock ticks further and I realize more and more, "Shit! This has to get done!" but for now I'm having a very hard time actually doing those rewrites. As of late I've been playing with a method of getting things done known as Getting Things Done, which is a sort of a zen-like approach to squaring away all of the stuff that you need to do. One of GTD's big focuses (foci? but I dislike the word) is making sure you write down everything you need to do the moment it crosses your mind. Then you take all of those little things you've written down and compile them in a more organized fashion. It doesn't seem like too drastic of a strategy but I find it super helpful. Just having an outline of what I have to get done helps out a lot. And now I can cross one thing off of my list. "Write blog post." And that wasn't even due until tomorrow.
10.04.2009
7:27 PM
Here's a super rushed post for you because I spent about an hour today working on a paper for class and I still have reading to do and my brain kind of feels like one's legs might after running a marathon: This is where Scribblenauts comes in. The game was shown off at E3 (sort of like the World's Fair for videogames) not too long ago and was a surprise hit. Like the three things I listed above it's not graphically impressive; instead its selling point was some really innovative gameplay. Here was Scribblenauts' promise: think of a noun - any noun - and write it on the touchscreen. Boom: said noun appears onscreen. It sounds awesome in concept, but the big question is: does it actually work? I'm happy to say yes, yes it does. According to some enterprising players there are over 22,000 words one can write down in the game and use to help them solve various puzzles. The vocabulary is huge, folks. Interesting objects I've managed to come across include:
among many others. But there's something even more impressive than the vocabulary: the fact that all of these objects interact with one another in really amazing of-course-that-should happen sort of ways. I mean, there are some bog standard interactions that take place - write "dog" and "cat" and you can bet your bottom that the prior will chase the latter - but some are truly remarkable or particularly clever/hilarious. For instance: in one level your objective is to "Give Santa something that will make him happy." Cookie works - as does present, reindeer, Mrs. Claus or (don't take this the wrong way) child. Or also maybe the one time when I wrote "God" and "philosopher" only to find the philosopher was scared shitless by God. Of course there are flaws, though. The controls can be a little wonky every here and there; you control your main avatar, Maxwell, via the touch screen, which just so happens to also be the way that you interact with objects onscreen. So occasionally when you're just trying to tap on, say, a doughnut, Maxwell might think that you want him to go to where you just tapped on the screen and thus he'll fall to his doom. Also kind of a bummer is the fact that interacting with humanoid objects isn't really an option. It's too bad that, despite the fact that objects interact so impressively with one another, they're usually more or less apathetic to your presence. But I'm super happy to say that Scribblenauts works and it works damn well. 5th Cell, the developers of the game, deserve to be commended for even trying to make this game, and they deserve ten times the more congratulations for actually making it work.
9.30.2009
12:40 PM
One Half of An Argument Regarding The War In Iraq That I Overheard On The Red Line
"No, man. You don't understand. Listen: I had two motherfuckers over there. Two motherfuckers. Those motherfuckers died. They're never gonna be able to go home and see their families. Their families are never gonna be able to see them. Look. Listen. Goddamnit, listen. My friends - those motherfuckers - died. Do you know what dying is? I don't care! I don't care! Fuck you. FUCK you. You know what? You can suck the left side of my dick." |
| ||||||||||