We got to see A.C.T.'s production of The Black Rider last night, and I'm still reeling.
The opening features a heartwrenchingly lit but very simple sort of kintetic sculpture which, if it were set in a gallery, I could watch all day. When Marianne Faithfull slithered into the scene it brought tears to the entire audience's eyes. Even mine. And I'm not really a fan. If you like Marianne Faithfull, you pretty much need to see this show. If you don't, you might afterwards.
And if you enjoy German Expressionism, dude, you are so there. Even if you only barely tolerate it, this is your show, and if you would rather tear your eyes from their sockets and stuff Jerusalem crickets in your ears than witness one more pretentiously taut gesture or cryptic hissing of lines, you still really, really need to catch this show, and here's why:
Nigel Richards: Best teeth gnashing since the Chatterer
Richard Strange: That's enough, really, right there. I spent half the intermission yammering about would-be rock star friends who looked and acted just like his Kano, back in the 80s, and how that got them a lot of girls, and then I finally read the program. Duh! It's Richard Effing Strange! He's not doing them, they were doing him!
Tom Waits: as the guy hiding in the back near the sound board.
William Burroughs' ghost: def. in attendance.
The lighting: barely hinted at in the official photos.
The Orchestra: we all went home to dream of someday playing in The Devil's Rhubato Band.
Every member of the shockingly accomplished cast outdid themselves, and the costumes perfectly magnified the very physical acting. The show is in town through Sept. 26; check the program for special "discussions with the cast" dates coming up soon.
The American trailer for Shaun Of The Dead is out, and all I have to say is "Dammit." Not only do they show some of the best jokes out of context and hence without proper timing so therefore they amount to horrific spoilers, but it looks like they actually localized the film. Lines have been changed, and references culturally shifted. I realize the U.S. market is only barely aware of Spaced and as such has lower expectations, but come on: replacing Dire Straits with "the Batman soundtrack" is not going to get you a broader audience. I hope they didn't ruin the entire movie. The original trailer was funnier.
"[...] no one anywhere is ever more than 3 feet away from a spider."
This one, right here is 10' from me, right now.
Is operationalizing a word? All the (two or three a week) job leads these days are with freakishly named dotcoms who fail to explain their business model in their longwinded company pitches, so I'm predisposed to thinking it's not.
negroplease: i don't even know how to approach operationalizing.
negroplease: the creation of operations?
xpariswestx: it sounds German
xpariswestx: the manifestation of operations?
negroplease: the opera of operations.
xpariswestx: antidisestablishmentarianoperationalizing.
negroplease: the act of vocalizing operations.
xpariswestx: it's a project director position. harmonizing operations?
xpariswestx: no, I think that's operationoperizing.
negroplease: hanging out with Liz from Operations.
30 pounds of scissors is really two pounds too many.
When the sheep were shown faces of sheep familiar to them, they... showed fewer signs of agitation than when they were shown goat faces or triangles.
Wasn't that an SPK show?
Did they even play The Farm?
Today's the day to deliver birthday wishes to the lovely and talented Mister Brendan Donohoe. Go!
Tony Blair seems to have grown a set of cojones.
Or at least boules .
Out of us no confirmation is offered since no tracking is available
but I take a photo at post office to prove it has been sent.
Dammit. When is this going to be available for real?
Not a Hooverville in Sight
Maybe not, but things are increasingly bad in Emeryville. Yesterday I eavesdropped on a conversation between disgruntled Ross workers whose schedules had all been cut: the ladies who had been their for four and five years saw their hours decimated to 16 and 16.5 per week, respectively, and were freaking out at the loss of their benefits. Their asst. manager has been there six years, and happily still has 20 hours in his weekly schedule - not enough to earn benefits, but just about enough to pay his rent. The girls expected he would quit over the outrage of having to regularly help out at 5 different stores while only clocking 20 hours, but he didn't take it personally. Every Ross store in Northern California has cut every worker's hours, across the board.
When my unemployment ran out, about a year ago, I would joke* to worried friends that if things got really bad, I could always work retail. But when a mammoth discount outlet chain cuts their entire staff's hours down to below what was once considered the minimum, well, I think some worry is probably valid. That, and the fact that most of my barely-contracting cohort still shops almost exclusively there or Ikea or Buffalo Exchange (I still carry my old Neiman Marcus card, though. It's perfect for jimmying locks.) strikes me as a pretty clear indication that the economy** still sucks.
Bid early, bid often on Hwa's Crap
This article on Ahnuld's selling out the Bay Area to Las Vegas interests mentions his anti-gambling campaign platform, and makes note of the already en-road-ragingly bad traffic, but doesn't even not all the nearby elementary schools. Two blocks from there was where I learned to roll the waistband of my plaid skirt, and that was when it was just a bowling alley. Heaven knows what kinds of trouble the country's third largest casino* will provide.
Thank heaven for the adorable door guys at Bootie, who swore I'd borrowed my older sister's ID. Otherwise I'd be feeling pretty old right now. After answering "34" to people who ask my age (which surprisingly frequent faux pas I take in the same spirit as being carded at the grocery store) for the past few months, in preparation, now that it's finally real I think it sounds kind of sexy.
Or at least a lot less Messianic.
Insertive or receptive, it's All Anal August!
August (is) "Anal Sex month" because, as spokeswoman Niki Khanna says, "the month has a lot of A's."
Acutally that'd be January. Maybe they should have made August urophilia month, instead.
Hie thee to gape at
Cardhouse's Compendium of Toys in Japan
Dear Brian:
Before you make a video depicting your own faked beheading as publicity for your run for SF city council, please be sure to shave your back. And move the computer off the floor, away from your creepy little bed that sits on on the creepy little rug on top of that godawful w/w carpet. Your fake death was bad; the life shown here is almost as disturbing.
Looks like Rick James is permanently high in the sky.
Steven Landsburg... suggests that one way to deal with the threat of terror at airports is to systematically search every Arab and then compensate him/her $100 for "oh, 15 minutes or so of answering questions."
Good heavens. 15 minutes? Of answering questions? Right.
$100? Even if there was a budget for these craven nationalists' "your skincolor freaks me out (and don't think we're letting you into the aircraft toilet, buddy)" payoffs, who would administer it, and how? It sounds like Stephen Landsburg's been drinking James "the country will look 'like one big Detroit'" Hart's Kool-Aid.
Ash has been shopping underground, and under pieces of rotting wood, for just the perfect gift to bring home to mommy and daddy. This is the third one this week. At least this one had all three body segments, and wasn't glued to the bedroom floor by the smear that had once been it's abdomen.
Thanks, Ash.
Good kitty.
Listen to David Hasselhof and Pingu Do the Pingu
Or, you know, don't.
No, do. Do it now.
The Speaker of the House will push for replacing the nation's current tax system with a national sales tax or a value added tax. "I say I think that's a great thing to do for future generations of [2% of] Americans," [said] Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. [,,,] these changes are critical to our economic vitality and our [wait for it] security abroad," Hastert declares in [his new book. woo.].
Went to a screening of The Village last night. I'm not sure I could be more annoyed even if we'd paid to see this annoying, arrogant, sloppily constructed, preposterously revealed oh-golly-a-twist-but-where-the-hell-is-the story blockbuster-ly cast piece of utter dreck. In all of Shyamalan's interviews he goes on and on about how clever he is, and how all of his work is about creating some twist then piecing together a story around that in order to dupe the rubes in the audience. The twist here is a meta-contrivance (it's artificial! it's manufactured! right there in the movie!) that's evident from the very first scene, and which is completely unsupportable if you waste three seconds trying to buy it as a premise. Even before its revelation the poor thing is kicked around and brutally mocked by stiff putrid dialogue, and the method of said reveal is so excruciatingly bad as to break the cardinal rule of filmmaking. We went to this free screening figuring we couldn't hate it that much, not with such a great cast and with what we'd heard was lovely photography. Turns out we could. I want my $0 back.