I haven't posted in FOREVER

Because I am a failure and a terrible person. But I'm back on the wagon, folks. I have thoughts, and soon you'll get to hear them more regularly.

I don't usually post any pictures on this blog, particularly of anything personal or identifiable. But I'm going to bite the bullet and post this one, because it commemorated a truly amazing experience.



THAT IS EMMA THOMPSON, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. EMMA THOMPSON, AND ME, AND MY CLASSMATES.

Because, awesome.

More about the workshop, the experience, life in Britain, and, of course, Shakespeare and other literature, coming soon.

Ketchup and Mustard

Not really any mustard. Mostly ketchup, because like a failure I haven't written all summer.

So, in no particular order:

My mum visited! It was lovely. We saw shows, bought clothes and books, and got tattoos. You know, all the usual stuff.

I wrote my portfolio. Not, I'm sorry to say, my best work. Between various vacations and so forth, I left it quite late, and had a lot of trouble approaching the assignment. Still, it's in, it's done, and I am basking in my weeks of nothing-to-do until it's time to move to my fall dorm.

I visited Char, Ella, and their gorgeous new baby, whom I will call Topsy. So cute, my friends! It seems bizarre that people my age are parents, but they are, and Char and Ella are quite good ones. We saw Hadrian's Wall and enjoyed ourselves immensely.

And Sharkytart came to visit! Sharkytart and I went to high school together ages and ages ago, and have been living in different countries (or at least different states) pretty much ever since. But we stay in really good touch now, and she came out for nearly a month. We did London, and Amsterdam (there is a hilarious story there about our inability to get stoned therein), and came back so I could do my Troilus Redux. And then we stayed with Poppasmart for a few days and went to a castle and wandered around all day wearing Robin Hood hats. You see why these people are my friends.

All in all, a wonderfully relaxing and supportive summer. I got to spend a lot of time with friends, something I haven't done enough since I moved to this side of the pond. I went to fun places and saw many good shows (the Globe's Troilus and As You Like It were both marvelous this year). And through it all I of course read a great many books and watched a fair bit of TV. For TV, I must recommend Castle to all those who haven't seen it; it cracks me up on a regular basis. As for books, I've been on quite the mystery kick (thanks, MOM) and made it through the Sebastian St. Cyr books, the Lady Julia Grey books, the first two Roderick Alleyn books, and today I finished the first Dame Frevisse book. Also the Earthsea quartet, and The Time Traveler's Wife, and a couple more Peter Wimseys. And some other stuff that I don't remember. Quick reviews: Sebastian St. Cyr (by C.S. Harris) gets an A for plot and a C for writing, averaging to a B; Lady Julia Gray (Deanna Raybourn), also a B; Roderick Alleyn (Ngaio Marsh) C+; Dame Frevisse (Margaret Frazer) A-; Earthsea (Ursula Le Guin) B+; Time Traveler's Wife (Audrey Niffeneger) the same; Peter Wimsey (Dorothy Sayers) A-. The movie of Time Traveler's Wife gets a C-, though; that was not nearly as good as the book.

And that is what I did this summer. On the whole, delightfully refreshing, even if England couldn't work up a good day of sun since the end of May.

It's Re-lightful, It's Re-licious, It's Re-lovely

I have re-cast some of my Troilus.

Since we are taking it on the road and up to Student Area of Prestigious Theatre, and two of our actors couldn't make it, some shuffling had to take place. I have actually managed to round up three actors for two slots, which is fairly exciting, as less cast overlapping means a less confused audience. Slightly, anyway. That's the hope.

I haven't really done this before, that is, had a bonus performance. Or rather, I have, but not with a changed cast, completely changed locale, and a two month break. In one way, it's rather wonderful, as it's a second chance to fix some of the elements that I felt didn't really gel. I don't consider this project the be my best work, and I'm anxious to work on it until I can be more proud of the result.

On the other hand, I don't think its gelling problems necessarily came from casting, and I'm not sure they are solvable under the circumstances. Especially given that I have three days to introduce my new actors to the play, including the cast that is already set, and then three days to polish it up till it's fit for public consumption, and those two three-day sets are seven weeks apart.

I am not necessarily learning what I expected to learn in grad school, but I'm definitely learning things.

Thoughts After Watching The Wire

I started watching The Wire again this week, after thinking about watching it for the last six months and rejecting it as too intellectual when I'm trying to do school as well. Now I'm not doing school for the moment (except for that one paper) and I nabbed it from the library while the nabbing was good. I watched season 1 about a year ago, and had planned on watching it again before going to season 2, but it was checked out, and season 2 wasn't, so there you go. And now, I have thoughts.

1. Ziggy, you are too stupid to live. I'm sorry! But you are! You are a moron, and you are too much of a moron to realize that messing around with illegal shit is a stupid thing for a moron to do! You are going to get murdered, and it will not be my fault. I have tried to warn you repeatedly, and so has your friend who is probably also going to die but who I will miss because he is not a moron.

2. If I keep living in Britain and watching American TV, I am never, ever going to figure out where the driver's seat in the car goes. Ever.

3. I finally know what a stevedore is. (I had only heard it in... um... the wrong context, before.)

4. YAY! Freamon! And Daniels! Yay! Love them so, so much. Also Omar. Yay, Omar!

5. One of the best lines on TV, ever:
Stringer Bell: I need you to be subtle with this shit. You know what subtle means?
Random Dealer Guy: When you all laid-back and shit.
It was the delivery. The delivery was awesome.

6. I remembered how intellectual the show is, and how it doesn't hand-hold and expects you to keep up. But I forgot that it's also often funny and always interesting, and that if you do pay attention it rewards you a lot. In short, I remembered that it was "good," but forgot why I thought so. Nothing will ever take the place of Doctor Who in my affections, but damn, The Wire is some good shit.

7. Also, I swear a lot more when I'm watching it. Clearly. Sorry, Grammy.

I HAD to share this...

I couldn't help it. This link is my own personal brand of heroin.

*snerf*

Les Anglaises

Once again, I must apologize for real life getting in the way of the much more important realm of blogging. I had a major deadline for a project last week, and as such spent most of my waking minutes trying to make my project not suck. (It didn't, but I still felt I could have done better - making my thesis for my portfolio on said project basically write itself.)

Another of the side effects of said project was to immerse me in British culture in a way that 6 months living here couldn't match. Since 88% of my course is made up of either American or Canadian students, and our professors, though British, make allowances for that, and since my life outside the university is primarily restricted to business transactions, several sides of British life have become clear to me only in the last couple weeks.

Such as... what the hell is up with British schools and youth and whatnot? I'm not complaining about the curricula, of which I know very little; nor do I want the damn kids to get off my lawn. I'm just completely flabbergasted by the pastimes of British youth. For background, please remember that although I was a fairly straight-edged kid, I did go to school in Berkeley, where clouds of pot smoke would hang over the park where we gathered for lunch -- the park that was across the street not only from the high school but also the police station and City Hall. So it's not like I think teenagers are angels.

But when I was young, we did not set people on fire in order to wake them up. Nor was it cool to trick someone into drinking your urine. There may have been one knife fight at my school that I remember, but racial slurs shouted in the halls really weren't tolerated, and the authorities were not shy about expelling students who threatened death and dire bodily harm on other students. Or who wrecked school buildings. In the UK, however, these things were apparently a matter of course. But they're less violent than the states, because they carry knives instead of guns. I guess. I... I don't know. Don't look at me, I just live here.

I read The Anglo Files before I got out here, and it's tremendous, and I recommend it to everyone. But I really am waiting for the author to write a sequel covering violence in schools, pantos, the appeal of getting drunk at ten in the morning, why the British complain about having to pay for their prescriptions, and why they can't share the effing sidewalk.

Overheard

"See, I know my own come-dine-with-me-theory a lot better than you do!"

A syllogism about this post:

Summer leads to open windows.
Open windows allow me to hear drunk people coming home.
Drunk people coming home are hilarious.

Mawwidge is wat bwings uss togeffur today...

Normally I try to refrain from boldly stating my opinion about things I know nothing about. I state my opinion less boldly instead. But a bunch of things together are leading me to say something about marriage.

Namely, shut up, people who want to control other people's marriage in any way, shape, or form.

I'm not just talking about the whole Prop 8 debacle in California. I mean marriage is the decision and prerogative of the participants, but you'd never know it, the way other people won't shut up about it. Unmarried teen mothers! Reality shows! Gay people! Commitmentphobes! Your kids!

Shut up, reality shows! (My favorite of which is discussed here.) If the damn people want to get married, let 'em. If they don't, say it with me here, it is none of your business. None! At all! Doesn't affect you in the slightest! There may have been stigma about it back in the fifties, but it's 2009 now and nobody fucking cares! Except you! Who needs to shut up and mind your own damn beeswax already!

Shut up, science fiction! How many times must you re-use the plotline that it's just hilarious and, you know, terrifying, when they land on a planet of some sort, the locals throw them a party, one of our Heroes (never our Heroines) gets drunk, wakes up the next morning, and found he has been tricked into getting married! Hyuk hyuk hyuk! It's every heterosexual man's worst nightmare! He will HAVE to leave his wife and become a deadbeat, because she left him NO CHOICE. Shut up while I barf. I'm looking at you, Stargate, Enterprise, Firefly (and honestly, Joss, I expect better from you). Listen up, straight men of the world: you get married by going to a church and saying vows. If you don't want to get married, don't fucking do that. If your girlfriend is riding on you so hard that you are miserable and/or worried that she's going to roofie your drink and drag you to the altar, follow these simple instructions: 1) get the hell over yourself, 2) man up and either a) dump her ass or b) get over it and marry her ass. But this supposed fear that all women are altar-happy harpies is so tired that it passed out ten years ago and has been on assisted respiration ever since.

And yes, finally, shut up, people who don't want gay people to get married. Whose choice is it? Theirs. How does it affect you? It doesn't.

Grow up, people. Marriage is no longer a business transaction, an ownership deal, a death sentence (or even a life sentence), a hard-and-fast rule of living, a necessity, a job description, or any of your business! It's two people who want to hang out together and get a phone call and visiting rights if one of them gets cancer. Move on and grow up, and let's talk about something else.

Sun!

It's my final day of a three-day weekend -- I know, technically Monday is a holiday, but I'm making my goslings work on Monday since none of them could work over the weekend, and so I took Friday off instead, and cleaned.

And yesterday, I read a romance novel about mermaids, instead of actually doing anything. And today, I'm going to go outside, into the brilliant 65-degree weather, and just relax as God intended. Even God rests on Sundays, people. (Okay, so actually God rests on Saturdays, but I rested yesterday, I just rested indoors. Today, God has given us sunlight, so He clearly expects me to rest some more. Maybe with ice cream, or a cold coffee.)

In other news, my play is getting more and more feminist, and I've gotta curb that impulse a little before it becomes a PSA about assault instead of a piece of theater. Because PSAs are boring and transparent, and theater is engaging and subtle. It would help if I had an assistant. But bah! I need no assistant. The whole point of this project is that I am to be marked on my brilliance, not my assistant's brilliance. So sooner or later I'll have to come up with something brilliant.

A Treat for All of You

Because I can't read this without sharing. It wouldn't be right.

From a link on another blog, I found a blog that copies out one-star reviews of classics of Western culture - music, films, and novels. Not old, boring classics -- we can't all love Aristotle -- but modern, interesting, thought-provoking classics. But here you can learn that:

The Godfather "was so violent I couldn't believe it! On a scale of 1 to 10 of the violence in this movie I would give it a 9!"

The Diary of Anne Frank "was really really boring. Its about some girl and her life- who cares!?! It is a total girly-girl book. Too dull to even care. I couldnt even pay attention to what happened to her, why it was so awful. Oh Well, NEXT…"

Abbey Road "is a really horrible album with a few of the most horrible tracks in here comes the sun. Don’t buy this awful album. go buy any joe walsh, dire straits, foreigner, guns n’ roses, green day, or nirvana insted."

The Princess Bride "is about two guys who are in a book and they’re fighting over a princess named Buttercup. But the problem is that one of them is a pirate and the other one is a giant! I know it’s supposed to be fictional…but come on! Even my suspension of disbelief is not that good, and I work with children!"

.... right. I ... don't think there's really anything I can add to that.

And with these I have not scratched the surface. After reading Huck Finn, one reader hopes that Mark Twain "doesn't plan on writing anything else." Another says Citizen Kane is "just like The Blair Witch Project." And did you know that Ingrid Bergman is "no Maryland Monroe"?

People have a perfect right to like or dislike whatever suits them, and I get that. About half the classics featured I've either never read or hated with a passion. But not with an ungrammatical or misspelled passion.

I know it's wrong to laugh at stupid people. But sometimes it's wicked easy.

Troilus and Cressida and Zombies

Troilus and Cressida being the lesser known Shakespeare I'm working on at the moment, and the zombie being me.

Honestly, I haven't been writing first because I went home, and had many more social engagements, many fewer minutes of free time, and very limited computer exposure. And since I've been back? It's mostly been stress.

(And the difficulty of beginning to write again after one hasn't for awhile.)

Part of me thought everything would be okay once I started directing again, but this is my first time working with "real" drama students, several of whom are more educated in drama than I am. And since I'm the only one getting graded on this project, I find it sort of thematically difficult to figure out how gung-ho I am allowed to be. All of which is a roundabout way of saying I'm really insecure about this whole thing, and wish I had as much confidence as I have ideas.

I do however have the benefit of a really interesting script (since it's edited by me) and a so far stellar cast. I mean, it's not performance time yet, but so far they've been lovely, both as actors and as people. Still I am insecure. Which makes me insecure about feeling insecure in the first place, and determined not to show my insecurity, which makes me more insecure.

Whee!

So when not rehearsing, (and we're really not rehearsing very often yet) I've been mostly in my room, reading and watching old episodes of Stargate. (Allette described it thusly: "It has a cast of four: one woman, and three hot men" and so I decided to check it out. The writing is pretty bad, but I have kept watching anyway.) My reading has been mostly well-written, however. I've been rereading Austen lately, and heard that for those who wish she'd written more than six novels, a good second option is Emily Eden, and so I've started her Semi-Detached Couple. At chapter ten, I can't make any sweeping generalizations about plot, but so far her dialogue is pretty excellent.

Also, I must recommend to all and sundry that you scamper off and get your hands on Peter Beagle's latest, We Never Talk About My Brother. Go on, scamper. It's worth it, I promise. His writing is rich as custard, but since it's a book of short stories, when you get overwhelmed by it you can always put it down. And it's really just shimmeringly beautiful stuff.

So that has been my life recently: books, television, abject fear.

All is not lost, however. Who just made it to round 4x on Bubble Spinner? Who just got a score of 2177? That's right, bitches. Boo-yah.

Take heart, my challengers. (I didn't realize I had challengers till I got home, and people were all asking what my top score was.) In losing this challenge you have actually won. Are you depressed and finding it difficult to do anything productive in your life for more than twenty minutes at a time? No? Because that's what makes ME play Bubble Spinner for like three hours at a stretch.