Entries Tagged 'photos' ↓
June 21st, 2008 — photos, updates
Billy of Dark Mean Lays down a groove
Last night was a lot of fun. Constant K went well, and beforehand I realized that — now that I am no longer an actohr, I can hang out and watch the musicians play their sets before the shows. Dark Mean was completely great. I like their sound. It reminds me of The Ocean Blue, Radiohead, etc. Then, we wandered to the Spotted Pig pub in Hamilton, and hung out while a really excellent man named Ted regaled us with his tunes. Then he let us Play and sing, and then there was dancing and general good times… very nice.
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June 20th, 2008 — photos
My cat rocks. His little brother rocks too (but in a much more… blond… way). But Dexter is just awesome. This is one of his favorite things: snuggling under the blankets to cuddle with his humans. What kind of cat does that? :D This kind of affection almost negates his insane, neverending, house-destroying quest for food.
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June 19th, 2008 — photos, updates, webthings
Pic of the day: Three people and a muppet. for some reason.
I’m supposed to be working. Right this minute. But I’ve just spent an hour reading through the (for me) interesting back columns on Measure for Measure, the NYT’s (thankfully non-subscription) blog about songwriting, by songwriters. Okay, so i went there just for Suzanne Vega’s recent piece, but I ended up reading a whole bunch of stuff. Yay! Songwriting! I should do some more of that, someday… my songs are getting stale, like cookies left in the cupboard too long. And I should write about something other than the ups and downs of dating, since I no longer have any dating ups or downs. I do have a song about a dead possum. And some snarky songs about politics. I could become this generation’s roadkill/protest singer. I shall get right to work on that.
Anyway, as I was saying, I have lots of work to do. None of it (sadly; so sadly) has anything at all to do with writing, singing, or even listening to songs.
Sigh. I think I need some Suzanne Vega, now. Yay, MP3s!
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June 18th, 2008 — photos, thoughts
Totally unrelated to the photo: I was searching for wedding photos today, and I found one of the alternate texts for the wedding announcement Alex and I eventually sent out. Background: I was not very motivated to do any of the planning for the wedding, so my ever-ingenious wife did almost everything (not to slander Amanda, who also did almost everything). I am still not sure why we didn’t use this text for the official announcements. It’s pretty awesome, yo:
in the age of the apocalyptic weasels (foretold by our moms)
when the oceans are infested with large-eyed baby seals
when the sky turns a pale shade of mango
when the land is filled with people of no discernible moxy
when the moon’s cheese curdles diagonally
when the stars spin around as if seen through a drunken Viewmaster
that is when we know
there must be… a Reckonating
the woman who hails from the icificated lands of the North
who frightens children with tales of large noses and pyroclastic flow
who fills the stomachs of her friends with vegetable matter
who blogs like a class-12 mage
whose shoes know no structural integrity
whose prose is free of grammatical errors
who patiently seeks the ultimate chicken strips
the man who was born in a town that does not exist
who lives in the land of the eternal enchilada
who frightens students without telling them any tales at all
whose accent is feared in Quebec
who has no master but distractibility
who has no mistress who has not already been broken up with
who ponders the dark spaces behind his refrigerator
these will meet when the sun is all toasty
under the sign of the golden trumpet
to decide for the ages
who is smooched
and who is later also smooched
there will be refreshments
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June 17th, 2008 — photos, thoughts, webthings
Pic: A.J. Haygarth pondering the absurdity of The Constant K
The Constant K is an absurdist play. I gots no issues with that. It understands its own absurdity. Current U.S. politics, however, are a different matter. At times, it seems we’re supposed to pretend we don’t notice the absurdity of certain things happening around us. Here are some insane bits:
- An interesting graph of false statements made by the Bush administration, month by month, 2001 - 20003. Increasingly, as journalists wake from the daze they’ve been in for the last 7 years, they’re discovering that many of these false statements were probably made with a full understanding of their falsehood. And, of course, they were integral in shoring up public support for a war against a nation that had not seriously threatened the U.S.
- Kucinich introduces articles of impeachment, the mainstream media doesn’t seem to think this newsworthy.
- The major media outlets also don’t seem to think it’s very interesting that the Pentagon clearly colluded with the Bush Administration to manipulate analysis and coverage of the war effort, creating a machine that presented the administration’s talking points as if they were independent opinions by nonbiased individuals.
- My lovely government, pushed by huge wads of cash from failing media dinosaurs, apparently shoved a DMCA-style copyright law down Canada’s throat a few days ago, by threatening to make the border harder to cross if my adoptive nation didn’t appease the big labels.
- Finally–insanely–This document from 2001 suggests that the people who work to keep us safe have been taking Neurolinguistic Programming seriously! GAH! We might as well base our criminal justice policy on phrenology, with judges and juries using tarot cards in tie-breaker situations.
Sheesh. I’m done for today.
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June 16th, 2008 — photos, thoughts, webthings
Pic: Steel plant in Hamilton Harbour, with Deadly Aura of Darkness
We did the nose… and the hat. But she’s still a witch! Yeah, I darkened the sky a bit. It was a very nondescript pale blue, before. And this photo is more germane to my topic, which is…
POLITICS!!!!11!1!!
Okay, so if you’ve read any of my politics posts lately, you know that I’m highly disillusioned with the Republicans, but not much more fond of the Democrats. The whole partisan system is deeply flawed. But there is fun, exciting light on the horizon. This interesting and contentious race might (you know, slim possibility) lead to…
Last-minute Republican Candidate Switch!
Good for America? Probably not. Entertaining? Hell, yes! Sadly, some pundits’ predictions of a major split in the Democratic party will probably not play out, now that things have been resolved (relatively) peacefully. But I can still hope. This country needs a viable, enduring third party that can repeatedly threaten the power bases of the existing two. Maybe Ron Paul and his buddies can get something started with their Constitutionalness, but numbers-wise, they’re looking a little like Ross Perot a few elections ago. So, I was excited at the thought of the Democrats splitting down the middle, in a year when they were on top of the presidential race.
alas, it is not to be. Sigh.
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June 15th, 2008 — photos, updates
Alex’s latest play, The Constant K… etc. was housed in an awesome old 3-story building with an art gallery on the ground floor, a theater on the second floor, and a gorgeous massive loft on the top. The building is called “The Pearl Company.” I recently found out why. It used to be a jewelry factory. These pictures show leftover pearls still embedded between the floorboards in the art gallery. (one more photo after the cut). Continue reading →
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June 13th, 2008 — photos, thoughts, updates
Picture: Jeff Santa Barbara, Constant K Director, looks pleased, despite his dark and gloomy surroundings.
The Constant K Determines the Ultimate Fate of the Universe opened last night. It was rough in some places, but overall a success. It will just get better across performances, too :) I discovered that I am no longer the boy who could not get enough stage time, back in my early 20s: I was nothing but relieved when my 5 minutes of fame was over.
In other news, it occurred to me that we need a glossary for the show (no, I’m serious), so here it is.
- Altruism
- Performing a helpful act without any selfish motivations; helping purely to help the individual in need, or for helping’s sake alone.
- Comet
- (See Meteor/Meteorite, Tumbleweed)
- Dawkins, Richard
- Popular ethologist and evolutionary biologist, originally prominent for his book The Selfish Gene, a seminal text for sociobiology, and for developing and popularizing the theory memes. Although he was originally known for his scientific contributions, he is lately more famous for using his considerable intelligence and education to browbeat and humiliate less-educated religious people in public forums.
Continue reading →
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June 12th, 2008 — photos
Michael with Blindfold
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June 6th, 2008 — photos, thoughts, updates
Rakhee Totally rocks… not that you can tell from this picture.
Alex’s first play this summer is Lee Blessing’s Two rooms. It’s painfully, heart-wrenchingly horribly sad. It’s the story of a husband and wife. He is blindfolded, handcuffed and regularly beaten by his Lebanese terrorist captors. She, back home, lives in self-imposed isolation and austerity, to share the experience with him, since she can’t get him released.
Rakhee Sapra (above) plays the wife. Alex plays the State Department worker assigned to manage her. There are only four actors, but it’s very powerful. That means people (possibly including me… I admit nothing) cry. Last night, the show got a standing ovation. Yay! I didn’t even start it! Yay!
I must say that all four actors are outstanding, my wife most wholeheartedly included.
Sadly, the show right before it (it’s been double-billed) is, in my opinion, not so good. It’s an interesting effort by a student writer, but it seems to boil down to all the sexual, scatological and drug content of shows like Up in Smoke and Clerks, without any of the original or socially redeeming bits.
On the plus side, the people who aren’t frightened away by that tend to really appreciate something substantial and satisfying right afterward.
Go Alex!
Addendum: after a sort of creepy anonymous comment on this post (hinting at the possibility of negative social consequences of my negative statements), I have decided to expand my review of the play preceding Two Rooms. I wouldn’t want people to think I just hated it, flat out. In fact, the first play had some strong points. There were several chuckles and a few belly laughs yanked from my abdomen, and some of the physical acting and comedic timing was especially humorous. The actors, most of the time, put forth solid efforts. Unfortunately, the writing seemed to me, as I have mentioned, a collection of clichéd comedic elements from a style of movies that have become ubiquitous and played-out in recent years. I had the distinct impression that the shock-value-humor element was overdone in the context of the other elements, leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth and insufficient justification for having acquired it. Part of this bad taste involved a little gratuitous sexual prejudice and some probably-unintentional-but-still-problematic victim blaming and/or misogyny. However, I am still impressed by the fact that an undergrad wrote this. It flows nicely from moment to moment, it has coherent plotting, it has reasonably well-defined characters, and (as I said before), there are some genuinely funny moments. By the standards of professional scripts, it would not fare well, but by the standards of undergraduate work, I suspect it shines quite respectably.
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June 2nd, 2008 — photos
Fun with Alex, b&w, and a laser pointer :)
(2 more under the cut)
Continue reading →
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May 31st, 2008 — photos
wait… eye boogers.
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May 29th, 2008 — photos
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May 27th, 2008 — photos
King Lear on Michigan Avenue, Chicago
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May 14th, 2008 — photos, updates
a) this is a real sign just south of where I live. Is it not glorious?
b) in a few hours I go to see Alex. I get to stay there (probably) for the whole summer (at least most of it, even in the worst case assessment). This is a very good thing. I am even tentatively confident that I may have gotten nearly everything done to make this trip feasible. Yay. (?). And I am going to see my wif. Yay!!! (!).
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May 11th, 2008 — photos, thoughts, webthings
Grackle trapped in Houston Hobby, far out of my reach
Recent report of a woman who remembers everything. Every detail of her life for every day, every hour, every minute. Sound like a useful trick? It’s also extremely unpleasant, apparently:
“But I also recall every bad decision, insult and excruciating embarrassment. Over the years it has eaten me up. It has kind of paralysed me.”
“Most have called it a gift. But I call it a burden. I run my entire life through my head every day and it drives me crazy!”
A few individuals with similar conditions have been studied through the decades (e.g., the Soviet neuroscientist Aleksandr Luria’s patient “S“, detailed in The Mind of a Mnemonist), and they generally find ways to use their memory powers for some kind of benefit. But they also tend to report unpleasant side effects, one of which is an inability to “filter” memories. This is Not a Good Thing.
Our long-term memory systems are massively self-organizing, and reducing the probability of recall for certain items is a key part of the organizational strategy. In other words, forgetting is very important. Also, apparently, it makes you happier.
Perhaps I’ll get started on some forgetting, right now. There are some past incidents I would dearly love to become less aware of.
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May 10th, 2008 — photos, thoughts, updates
I’m ready for my close-up now, Mr. Fiend
I love this photo, though it’s perhaps a little silly. I think Alex doesn’t like it much. She’s not a prima donna, I promise. There was context to this shot: she was getting makeup put on for her role as Lady MacBeth. That’s just how she has to have her face so the makeup person can do her thang.
In other news, our friends Craig and Melinda are likely going North before I get back from Canada. This saddens me greatly. I will miss them.
In other other news, a dream job opened up just last week at University of Waterloo. I’ve applied, and will be very, very fortunate if I get an interview (which I really don’t think is likely; I have a couple of strikes against me). However, if I get the job, then the travel/relocation crisis in our marriage shifts from the necessity of Alex leaving her home to the necessity of me leaving mine. Sigh.
Perversely, compromise doesn’t work in this situation. If we met each other halfway, we’d have to live here. And we’d both have to leave our homes and comfort zones. Nobody wins. Relashunships iz hard.
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May 9th, 2008 — photos, updates
Weeeed in the wiiiiind…
well, not exactly, but I have spent a buttload of time on this stupid proposal. I mean the Department of Homeland Security proposal. After a furious re-submission period over the last few weeks (occupying lots and lots of time I would have preferred to spend doing other things), just this morning we were informed that funding had been “delayed.” For at least two years. So, feel free to do the research if you like, but on your own dime.
To recap:
Spring 2007 - Original proposal
Summer 2007 - Tweaking, re-submitting, etc.
Fall 2007 - see “Summer 2007″
February 2007 - Awarded $300,000 per year, for 6 years
March 2007 - Psych! Suckers! No money for you.
March 2007 - Re-awarded $75,000 per year for 3 years
April 2007 - Lots more frantic writing, rescaling projects to the smaller amount
May 2007 - Award reduced to $75,000 per year for 2 years
May 2007 - Award “delayed” until 2010
May 2007 - DHS can bite me
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May 8th, 2008 — photos
redheaded kid catching air @ Skate Park
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May 5th, 2008 — photos, thoughts
El Pipe (Insert Phallic Symbol Comment Here) I just finished reading an
article about immigration (in
Contexts) by Robert J. Sampson, a Harvard sociologist. It is amazing how strongly we, as a nation, resist knowing any of the facts in this area.
The more I learn about immigration, the more incomprehensible the standard conservative–and occasionally liberal–talking points become. Immigrants are criminals. Immigration is bad for the U.S. Immigration breaks down “family values.” Fred Thompson vocalized the most paranoid claims at the Prescott Bush Awards Dinner (in 2007, I think): “Twelve million illegal immigrants later, we are now living in a nation that is beset by people who are suicidal maniacs and want to kill countless innocent men, women, and children around the world.” Continue reading →
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