Astroturf
Recommended: The Life of Pi
I’m listening to the audio book of Pi while I run. I like everything this book says about religion and its tone that goes from lighthearted warmth to a troubled journey of survival. The first part of the book prepares you for the trials of the rest, and it makes a very good argument for the value of religion and faith.
I especially like what Martel says about atheism being like religious faith in that it requires a leap of faith in the end — and I also like Pi’s disdain for agnostics: Just pick something already!
My major complaint about organized religion has always been about its exclusiveness. Religion itself isn’t the problem — it’s the divisioning, self-segregation, and exclusion demanded by some of its followers. “Everyone will go to hell except for us, yay us!!” etc. etc. The need for righteousness and conflict.
Religion is at its best when it is inclusive. Instead of evangelizing loudly, it just leaves the door open and allows you to wander in. Jesus’s call to love your neighbor was a revolutionary statement in a world occupied by Rome, violence, and the cheapness of human life. Kindness and extended decency will always speak louder than judgemental screeching.
And as its examination of suffering goes, Pi is a good companion for running.
I Picked a Good Time to Start Drinking Again: British scientists grow human liver in a laboratory
Yeah, in Seattle I drank a beer. Then when I was back in LA having sashimi with a friend I was like, “Heh, I’ll drink another beer.” It had been quite a long time since I’ve been actively drinking, so it hits me quick and easy.
Now I can drink all I want and science will cure my ills. Yay science!
If technology keeps progressing at this rate, fingerless shop teachers and penis-less ex-husbands will soon be a thing of the past.
This Box is Sticky: True Porn Clerk Stories
I can’t believe I hadn’t mentioned this on here until now. There’s a very funny lady named Ali Davis who spent quite a while working at a porn-renting video store in Chicago. She puts her talents as an improv player and her wry observations to work in a blog titled True Porn Clerk Stories, which are all true tales about working with pornography and the customers who rent it. If you’ve got a spare couple of hours you gotta check it out.
Strange
The Unlikeliest of Double Features: Yesterday afternoon I went from watching The American President to watching Eraserhead, which is like going from having a nice lunch at an outdoor restaurant to having your face torn off by flying monkeys.
Both are interesting in their own ways, and you get something good out of seeing either. Watching Annette Benning date the President is pleasant. And last night I was haunted by nightmares of bleating deformed babies and giant baby heads flying through my bedroom, so David Lynch’s movie succeeded in its intended effect as well.
I was at LACMA today and they’re gearing up for a major Magritte exhibition starting on November 19th — it looks pretty kooky, so I’m waiting for this one with great expectation. Many derbies, green apples, and umbrellas will be involved.
Recommended: Porco Rosso
Porco Rosso is a pretty damn cool movie — it’s pretty underrated and under the radar for a Miyazaki film, and I highly recommend it.
Synopsis: The Adriatic Sea, 1929. Marco, a humanoid pig that was once human, is a freelance pilot battling sea plane pirates.
You read that right — he is a pig that flies a plane. And he is cool as hell.
The story concerns his journey from being a loner to gaining a family, and how he regains his humanity (possibly?) in the process. The excellent English dub features Michael Keaton (!) and Cary Elwes, and is probably among the best dubs of a Miyazaki movie that I have yet heard.
Even better is the French dub with Jean Reno (!!!). Go get it!
All in all it was a pretty productive weekend. Lots of movie watching, reading and writing accomplished. Keeping my head down, git’ing ‘er done.
The SiS Production of Cowboy Versus Samurai
SiS Productions is largely known for its long running Sex in Seattle romantic comedy stage series, which has had 13 episodes so far. This is an extremely popular series that I’m told has quite a following. So naturally Cowboy is a perfect fit for this company and this cast.
I’ve seen this play done a lot of times, read and performed by a lot of different people. And I gotta say, this is one on-the-nose production with some really tight timing and deeply dug moments. Director Miko Premo has really worked over the scenes and done her homework, and it shows. The role of the theatre director is often underappreciated — here she’s done a fine job.
Okay, now here’s the thing — this cast is really great. I’m told that they’ve worked together for a very long time on Sex in Seattle, so the natural bond and chemistry that comes from that is readily apparent. “The chemistry is amazing,” I whispered to my friend Ann Marie during the first act. I get the feeling that this bond will be a major strength of the company as they continue to do both the Sex in Seattle series and other shows.
A few specifics I want to mention: Ray Tagavilla plays an excellent Travis. As the Cyrano character, Travis is the glue that holds the story together — he’s also its emotional center, and a straight man to the quirkiness of the other characters. It’s a hard role to play, but this guy does a really good job doing it. Khanh Doan also adds this pluckiness to Veronica that I hadn’t seen before, and it works really well in this show.
If you’re in Seattle, and I’m seeing a lot of hits on this site from you guys right now, I highly recommend checking out this production. It’s a lot of fun. Bring a crew and see what kind of discussion it illicits afterwards.
Or if you have seen it, please spread the word and tell your friends about it — word of mouth has always been this play’s best friend.
And if you have any questions or comments about the play, please feel free to email me!
Also, a couple of miscellaneous things:
I really like this Flickr photoset called “Game Boy Around the World”. It features a stone-faced kid playing GBA and not caring much about landmarks such as Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.
My favorite pic is when the kid touches his GBA to the burial slab of Jesus in order to bless it.
I remember when, as a kid, my brother saved up all his nickles and dimes to buy a 1st generation Game Boy. So this kid’s facial expression is fairly familiar to me.
And while I was at the Hugo House in Seattle I bought some very nice Gumball Poetry from a machine for 50 cents.
The poem and the artwork that popped out were worth far more than the 50 cents. I would reproduce it here but that would be piracy.
It even came with some gum, which was not so good. But I was in it for the poetry anyway.
Seattle’s Best
This past weekend I had a great time in a great town, wandering up to the Pacific Northwest. Saw yelling fishmongers, space needles, and one of the places where Sleepless was shot. Saw a really great opening night production of Cowboy Versus Samurai, and got to talk back to a really wonderful audience. They asked great questions and I supplied hopefully-adequate answers. Much fun was had!
I think of Seattle as a mix between San Francisco and Minneapolis, with a lot of trees thrown in. The people are really nice and the local style is definitely a little granola — the city contains the largest REI I’ve ever seen, featuring its own monolithic climbing rock. Unlike San Francisco, Seattle isn’t exactly a coastal city — it’s nestled deep inside Puget Sound, so there are a lot of inlets and islands and beaches.
There are so many coastlines that views of the water are abundant; and from Alki, west of the city, you can see that its skyline is a grouping of modern buildings punctuated by the Space Needle like an exclamation point at the end of a Japanese sentence.
We checked out the views from a lot of different angles, sampled the local food, carefully examined a devil themed coffee place on Queen Anne. You can look in any direction and see trees and natural beauty, which provided a great escape for the weekend from L.A..
Seattleites, I really like your city. It has the homegrown friendliness of Minneapolis, the style of San Francisco, and being there reminds me of when I was a counselor for Unicamp. I’ll be coming back sometime soon.
I will devote the whole of my next post to SiS Productions’ production of Cowboy Versus Samurai; right now I gotta go to Ralph’s because my apartment is out of food.
Ulaan Bataar
Recommended: The Story of the Weeping Camel
We recently saw a trailer for a film called Cave of the Yellow Dog made by a director named Byambasuren Davaa. This looked really interesting so I checked out her earlier film, Weeping Camel.
Synopsis: A Mongolian family lives in the Gobi desert, herding goats and camels. A white camel colt is born but its mother rejects it, so the family sends their two young sons to retrieve a violinist so they can enact a ritual to get the mother to accept her colt.
This is a wonderful, visually rich film that joins documentary filmmaking with a narrative — they shot a real family living on the steppes and the events of the camel’s birth, then later shot scenes to fill in a story that ties the real events together. The result is candid andcontains some really amazing visuals and details about life in a very alien place. It’s the kind of life whose simplicity definitely has its appeal.
I wish I had an evil minion — someone to wash my car and do my laundry in only the most evil of ways. Instead of using Armor-All he would use the salty tears of a cherub. Instead of Tide, ground up unicorn horn.
I’m aiming to have a smooth rest of the week — keep my head down, play the newly released Bully, drift into Seattle and ride on a DUCK. Drink beer, watch the sun go down.
I think in my next life I would like to be reincarnated as someone who rides a camel with big eye lashes.
Mysteries / The Blue Box
I hadn’t seen Mulholland Drive in a long time so I watched it once, read some analyses online, and watched it again.
The Salon Analysis seems to be regarded as the most accurate analysis of the movie, although even it admits that there are some things that don’t fit into its theory. But it at least provides a foundation that allows you to figure out bits and pieces of the film and make them work in your mind.
I have one thing to add in my own analysis of the movie — the first 3/4ths are essentially a dream that Diane Selwyn is experiencing. We flash forward and backward through her fantasies and re-imaginings of reality.
The thing I want to add is this: Someone told me once that in a dream, the various characters around us are really manifestations of ourselves. A person that is bullying you is a facet of yourself; people and the way that they act are facets of your personality and perhaps methods of behavior that you wish you could indulge in.
So I think that the monster, the cowboy, the man at Winkie’s telling his psychiatrist the story over lunch — all of these characters are facets of Diane’s personality in this dream world. They seem isolated from the rest of the story but are hidden little pinpricks of it — like how a dream will often change scenes but not their context, and the mind just goes along with the logic.
Basically, I’m saying that there’s a point when it becomes impossible to be too logical about Mulholland Drive, and that’s what makes it so alluring and interesting to think about. It’s like a perpetual puzzle, funny and disturbing and not necessarily something that needs to be solved.
So I’m trying to figure out some mysteries that have been eluding me for a while. A better understanding of Mulholland Drive, a really excellent recipe for pesto, etc..
I’m going to try to read James Joyce’s Ulysses again. I’ve tried several times before but failed. This time I have a pretty good dictionary and I will take notes. Also I will be wearing an eyepatch under my glasses.
Various News & World Views
Cowboy Vs. Samurai Opening Weekend Coming Up: In a couple of weeks I will be at SiS’s opening weekend of Cowboy Vs. Samurai in Seattle — I’ll be there for opening night on October 20th and for a post-show discussion after the show on the 21st.
Tell your friends! If you can’t make it that opening weekend, there’s no need to fret — it runs for five full weeks. More information available here, and more updates coming soon.
Plus I wanna give a shout out to the Pork Filled Players who will be running a late-night sketch show at the same time as the SiS production. Come for the cowboy, stay for the pork!
Summer of the Samurai in San Francisco: Big News — Cowboy comes to San Francisco this summer starting in July — a full production with 15 shows! Yes, the Yay Area, my home town!
More updates as they develop…
My Work in Print
Year Zero
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.com
Cowboy Versus Samurai
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.comFor a complete list of books containing my work, please click here.
