A Sea of Troubles
A lot of great and delicious things have come out of Canada. Here’s another one:
Slings and Arrows is a Canadian hour long comedy/drama about a fictional Shakespeare festival theater near Toronto. The show features Rachel McAdams and Mark McKinney (from Kids in the Hall) and is excellent if you like Shakespeare or theater — both are integrated brilliantly into the show.
The first season deals with Hamlet and the second season with Macbeth; the loving way Hamlet is treated by this show actually made me read it again. I also like how they deal with Mac: “It’s an evil play! Evil! Full of blood blood blood and more blood!” Go rent it.
My new favorite Social Commentary Machine! It takes photos of The Veep, The Pope, Paris Hilton, and others and turns them into social commentary. I love!
Also, Kim showed me the way to this Bruce Lee screen test for the G. Hornet; man the guy had charisma. And even back then he was jocular about stereotypes, which is the right way to treat them.
Big Change
I went to the new Landmark last night to check out Sunshine.
The Landmark is a massive indy film multiplex built on the ashes of the pretty unpopular western half of the Westside Pavilion mall on Pico. This used to be an outdoor structure with a thriving Barnes and Noble; beyond that the most popular store was a place that sold walking shoes. So dropping a new Landmark there is a pretty major upgrade.
I got there an hour early so I could do some reading without anyone poking at my forehead. The place was packed for the 7:30/8 pm shows — a good sign since I want this place to stay in business. There’s assigned seating (some theaters with make-out couches!), a concession stand that sells Pocky and Korean-style frozen yogurt (albeit at movie theater prices), and a bar. With the B&N on the ground floor and art house theaters above, this facility adds up to a super hipster/liberal magnet. And indeed there were many rectangular-framed glasses wearers in the house!
Sunshine: Danny Boyle currently resides where David Fincher was for me right after doing Se7en — here is a guy to watch. Sunshine is a heckuva hard sci-fi movie, the kind of thing that will warp a 12 year-old mind and make him/her think about life and death and be fascinated with science fiction for the rest of forever. It paints space as being both searing hot and freezing, monolithically huge and also claustrophobic. Basically, the movie tells us that it’s a fucked up place to be and only fools and heroes venture out there. We get plenty of both in this piece.
I need to emphasize this here: This movie MUST be seen in a theater. Requirements are absolute darkness and great sound. I was pretty impressed with this one — this is why I go to see movies. The sound and imagery blows away your senses, and at the same time it all means something on an emotional and human level. It’s not just eye and ear candy. It’s brain candy, campfire storytelling with 100 decibel sound. Go see it.
Bloodless
I gave blood the other day because 1) The Blood & Platelet center kept emailing me to give because they’re low on O+, and 2) I needed to lose weight FAST! I’m ready for the beach!
My new favorite blog: Fake Steve. Namaste, people. My favorite posts so far: Amish people quitting their religion to buy iPhone and Best iTard Story So Far.
I needed a new non fiction to add to the mix, so I just ordered this from Amazon:
There’s a terrific article about this book here on Salon. There’s something about the rise and fall of civilizations that appeals to me. I am a Roman history freak — I think that’s part of it. Also, thinking in epic timescale terms is very interesting to me. One day the streets of Los Angeles might be a frozen battlefield with giant walking robots, a waterlogged warm-earth ocean with a coral reef developing downtown, or a radioactive ghoul-infested wonderland. Or it may be a utopia populated by beings made of pure energy like Toronto. Who knows — but it’s fun to speculate.
Album Covers
So a great thing that the iPhone does is display album covers of the song you’re listening to on its screen. The screen is large, colorful and has a high DPI so the image comes out crisp and neat.
I was a kid during the CD revolution — during that time album covers shrank and lost the prominence they had in the 70s. Vinyl gave a band a large canvas and a lot of room to play around with visuals. But by the time the 90s/21st century rolled around, covers were pretty much an afterthought. There were some iconic covers out there (Nirvana’s “Nevermind” for instance), but nothing you would want to stare at while listening to the music.
So I’ve been diligently collecting album cover art that my digital music collection is missing. Some of these covers are amazing — they complete the song. The two halves bring you back to specific times and places in your life. The whole thing becomes complete.
I spend a lot of time listening to music while doing something else — writing, walking somewhere, driving somewhere. I rarely just sit there and listen to the music, give it my full attention. I’ve got to start doing that more often. Just listen.
I made a recon tour of the Westwood Branch of the LA Library. The facility is brand new, has free wifi and power plugs everywhere, and is fairly cavernous inside.
I think this will be a good place to work this summer. The only caveat is that it closes at 8pm. But it should be fairly easy to move operations to Borders which is right down the street.
Giant Heads
The local Bruin and Fox theaters got a huge inflatable makeover in time for the Simpsons Movie:
Duelin’ Giant Homer Head and Giant Marge Head!
Attack Ships Burning Off the Shoulder of Orion
Currently reading:
And also finally:
The Murakami book is no surprise, but certain people have been telling me to read The Princess Bride for years now. We all loved the movie (with Andre the Giant!!!) and I am loving this book. The conversational style is like having Peter Falk tell you a story while you have a head cold. And somehow you’re also Fred Savage.
Cowboy Opens in Vancouver; San Francisco Shows Sold Out
One door closes, another opens. Cowboy Versus Samurai closes this weekend in San Francisco and opens tonight in Vancouver, BC.
San Francisco: Three shows are left; Saturday’s is sold out, tonight’s show is almost sold out, and there are still tickets for Sunday. If you still don’t have tickets, book them now.
Vancouver: Show opens tonight; shows every night except Monday until August 3rd. This is the play’s Canadian premiere!
Stay tuned for what’s coming up next…
Update: Added all the SF reviews to the Cowboy Vs. Samurai page!
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.
