February 2006 Archives

lick it

February 28, 2006 12:02 AM | 17 Comments

I'm trying a new experiment.

It's called "Tasternet."

(See how I cleverly combined the words "taste" and "internet".)

This is how it works:

Lean forward.
Close your eyes.
Unroll your tongue.
Touch your tongue to your screen. I will place something there for you to taste. But I won't tell you what it is. Could be a sandwich. Could be a phone book. A strawberry. A dead cricket. A crayon. A boiled beet. A pen cap. A lightbulb. My neck.
Then open your eyes and tell me what you tasted. I'll tell you if you're right.

Ready?

LICK IT.
LICK IT.
LICK.

phew

February 27, 2006 12:38 PM | 9 Comments

In regards to the extended convo about nudity provoked by my previous post... Man, that was exhausting. Don't think I'll be doing THAT again any time soon...

Hey. I don't have ideas. I have plays. My plays speak for me far more articulately than I can speak for myself. In conversation I'm emotional, I react, then try to find ways of supporting my reactions. Which is not the best way of asserting a position, I understand... Which is why I don't normally talk about theatre publically. Which is why I won't from now on. Ta-da.

And anyway, people hear what they want to hear, not necessarily what is being said. Myself included.

BUT. Other people do it and do it well, and I will continue to watch and admire their conversations from afar. There is really some exciting chatter being dished about in the ol' sphere... allow me to direct you toward some of it:

Theatre Ideas: Scott Walters, outspoken drama prof at UNC in Asheville... chatty and provocative.
Superfluities: George Hunka's incredibly comprehensive and thoughtful meditation on the arts, culture, the blogosphere, and of course, theatre.
Theatre Notes: Aussie playwright/novelist/poet/critic Alison Croggon, a gal with wicked smarts and endless reams of energy. Fearless.
Freedom Spice in the New World: French theatre artist/ex-pat Dorothy Lemoult, whom many of you know... she has like 40 blogs.
Daily Dojo: Playwright, screenwriter, and martial artist Joshua James. A rabble-rouser with a kettleful of ire.
Parachute of a Playwright: Ben Ellis, another Aussie playwright, sending us the scoop from his current perch in Paris.
Theatre Conversation and Political Frustration: Matt Johnston, theatre grad student in Long Island. Adventurous-minded and self-reflective, AND scarily well-read.
On Theatre and Politics: Matthew Freeman, playwright and freelance journalist. Another rabble-rouser. Likes to push buttons, but they are good buttons.

AND... they all talk to each other in the comments!!! Sometimes the chats get very heated, which is often thrilling, often frustrating (especially when the talk becomes focused around what was heard rather than what was said), but they are always worth a browse.

Smart folks talking about important stuff!! Like Paris in the 20's. Without the absynthe and the sex.

Now, how to pull in more multi-national voices to the mix... hm.

nudity on stage pt. 2

February 24, 2006 7:42 AM | 24 Comments

I just heard an appalling rumor that Howard Kissel of the Daily News reviewed Lisa Joyce's breasts in his write-up of Red Light Winter... apparently he hated the play but adored her assets. This is so unspeakable that I almost don't want to find out... but after trawling the net I came up empty. Anyone else hear/read this?

ADDENDUM:
For those of you who don't read comments, the review can be found here: (thanks, Dr. B.). I also saved it as a PDF. I encourage all interested (or outraged) parties to email the Editor-In-Chief (Martin Dunn, mdunn@edit.nydailynews.com) or the critic himself (Howard Kissel, hkissel@edit.nydailynews.com). Or BOTH. Or you can write an official "letter to the editor", at voicers@edit.nydailynews.com.

Whatta dick.

words of wisdom

February 21, 2006 5:17 PM | 3 Comments

Ever try to ride a bike five miles uphill in the rain on a flat back tire before 8:30 am? Well I suuurrre don't recommend it. No sirree.

There's a dead squirrel lying in a patch of leaves a block away from my house. He's on his back with his arms and legs all stretched out, as though he became so tree-weary that he just flung his limbs open off the branch and shouted "ENOUGH!!" Someone put a few purple tulips on top of him. A quaint gesture, but what the squirrel really needed was some therapy like three months ago. Hindsight, as they say...

Hey. Who likes poopy? (This one's for you Tina... I hope you find it more delightful than forboding...)

the psychology of starvation

February 18, 2006 3:57 PM | 16 Comments

"I refuse to live in a body that disgusts me. I refuse to pretend to like being fat. I refuse to squeeze myself into the mold of 'large and in charge' or 'Fat and Happy'".

"I refuse to listen to those who will not hear me. I refuse to help anyone who thinks hunger is a bad thing."

"I refuse to accept compliments from insincere fat people who do nothing to better themselves. I refuse to take diet advice from hypocrites."

"Once we are at our goal, once we have much wisdom with the teachings of 'Ana', do we stop and linger upon our own accomplishments? I believe this lifestyle is not so small and limited a transformation that it does not proliferate and diversify towards other aspects of life.Look around you. Starving children. Vanishing vegetation. Abused animals. Pollution. It's simple, really. Half of the world gorges all the food supply in a second, greedily stuffing itself with unnecessary amounts of FAT while the other half suffers in silence until it is starved to death, with no chance in life and having no choice to begin with. This is an imbalance in distribution. Unless we are doing something about it, we are parasites who deserve to live in the sewers of shit and agony, in an undesirable environment such as the entrapping flabs of our bodies."

I'm afraid to show you where this came from.

can someone tell me...

February 16, 2006 10:18 PM | 9 Comments

... where all the entertaining overweight older black women are? Are they hiding? Have they been coralled onto a small patch of land in some midwestern town with no access to media? Or is a strange pandemic disease that the government is keeping under wraps wiping them all away?

Well, someone find them quick and set them free so that Tyler Perry and Martin Lawrence can go back to their lives as regular men. Poor things...

tallahasshole

February 14, 2006 9:34 PM | 4 Comments

After a brief but frantic interlude in snowy NYC, I'm back down in Northern Florida at zee teaching gig. Back in the land of strip malls and no sidewalks. And southern accents. And no high-speed access. And no TV. And zero human contact outside of my students. I joined a gym for two months just to get cable and have someone smile at me.

Down here things are a *wee* bit difficult. No automobile. No civilization within a three mile radius of home (save neighbors and their smug little dogs). A five mile bike ride to school every morning in the bitter cold. And then back home in the sweaty heat. One HUGE lung-shattering hill along the way. Scary commuter traffic at all hours. And a *cough* chest cold.

To shop for groceries I ride my bike to Albertsons, stock up on as much non-perishable crap as possible, and then call a cab. The cabbie shoves my bike into the trunk and we drive back home at 2 miles an hour, with the trunk smashing down onto the bike's frame at every bump. Each little scratch lowers the resale value of that sucker...

At night I'm under lockdown because it's too dark to ride my bike anywhere. I suffer through a predictable panic attack every single night at around 8pm, to the tune of "I AM ALONE HERE WITH MY MIND AND IT IS TRYING TO KILL ME".

Though truth be told, the house I'm staying at is pretty swank. A porch, a fireplace, a jacuzzi, and a beautiful woodsy backyard. I really can't complain about the digs. But I'd have been totally cool with a grungier pad closer to campus... in walking distance from, like, anything...

And for some reason I'm having difficulty writing down here. I think I need the buzz of humanity around me in order to feel sufficiently fueled for productivity.

In other words... Exercise + free time + jacuzzi + nice home + clean woodsy air = CREATIVE DEATH.

(Note to self: you are doomed.)

22 inches

February 12, 2006 3:19 PM | 5 Comments

... so they say...

who needs a sweater?

February 8, 2006 1:09 AM | 6 Comments

It's cold out there... So why not "bead yourself a shimmering dance"? Why not "show some love for the dazzel"? These are FOR SALE, ladies... On the menu? Queen of the Ocean. Brown Bear Looking Glass. Gum Drop Canyon. Blue Bells Paradise. Fireworks Freedom Dance. So go "simmer that sweater feather", you fools.

Okay they aren't really for sale. They are part of a collection amassed by this plump 24-year-old art student from Iowa who also makes videos of herself in her gem sweaters. And does live shows. And has a hip-hop band. And yes, there is fan art. *sigh*

I'm feeling slightly suffocated in that airless space between irony and earnestness. I think this means I'm old.

i never told you...

February 6, 2006 9:27 PM | 8 Comments

... about the time I went down to Tijuana with my now corporate-lawyer friend. Back then she was two years from law school and thought she was a poet. We drove down from LA, parked in a lot close to the border, and strolled right into Mexico. We passed several cripsy men selling colorful blankets and cheap toys. We walked too far, got out asses and breasts groped by the merchants. I punched one guy in the chest as hard as I could but he just laughed. We weren't drunk just yet, but I had a flask of bourbon I had gotten as a gift tucked into my back pocket. I offered some to the one vendor who wasn't laughing. In return he gave me a gun. It was cheap-looking, but it was real. We tried to fire it into the ground. It wouldn't shoot. But I liked holding it.

We found our way to a bus stop. We were the only ones there. It started pouring rain. We stood on the corner in our leather sandals and felt our feet sinking into the dirty mud as we waited for the bus. I kept the gun in the front pocket of my jean-shorts. It poked out a little, but the handle was fake-snakeskin and it looked like a wallet. My friend was also armed. She was carrying a little knife with a purple handle in her purse but we both knew she'd never pull it out.

We waited for 45 minutes for the bus. It was already night. By the time the bus came we were very drunk. We sat on the plastic seats of the bus and our thighs were wet and sticking to the seats, and our toes were caked in mud. My friend was Egyptian and the skin on her feet was very dark, so her toes did not look nearly as dirty as mine did. We stared at each other's toes and laughed through our noses. Our make-up was already running. At some point she leaned over in a drunken way and breathed into my face, and said something I wish I could remember, something sexual. She had a pink tank-top on.

Our evening revolved around two woody bars, a pack of drunk but kind frat boys, a moldy-smelling hotel room and a jerky car ride back to LA, with several unplanned stops along the way for passengers to vomit along the side of the road.

I lost the gun.

a rough day for Sherpie

February 4, 2006 5:41 PM | No Comments

Let's all let out a collective "awww" for our hapless Bostonian pal... along with the solemn acknowledgement that our own day could have begun much worse...

pop quiz

February 1, 2006 11:33 AM | 20 Comments

To celebrate this first day of the wonderful month of February, answer me the following question: What is the weirdest thing you've ever done with milk? It can be skim, whole, soy, coconut, chocolate, rice, goat, breast.

I'll tell you mine in the comments.

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