| Make it stop! Make it stop! |
[May. 11th, 2008|09:06 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Uno, dos, tres, ¡toca la pared!" | ] |
Greg and I watched "El Orfanato" (The Orphanage) on Saturday night.
"Uno, dos, tres, ¡toca la pared!"
There was this children's chant in the film that came up at the beginning and was used again somewhere near the end of the film.
"Uno, dos, tres, ¡toca la pared!"
The main problem with this stupid thing is that is is stuck in my head and refusing to go away.
"Uno, dos, tres, ¡toca la pared!"
I mean, I liked the movie and all. It was different, but not too different. Atmospheric, but not to the point of being horribly pretentious, and the actress playing the protagonist was absolutely fantastic. But, still, that chant haunts me.
"Uno, dos, tres, ¡toca la pared!"
AAAAAAAAAAGH! |
|
|
| Jeff's Rules for Acting #18 |
[May. 9th, 2008|02:30 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | acting | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | The Carpenters - We've Only Just Begun | ] |
18. A rehearsal is not a New Age self-help seminar.
I was talking to an actor friend and he told me that he once did a show where the actors were expected to have a Circle of Love before every rehearsal and show where they would hand invisible spheres of positive energy to each other and try to get psyched and amped for a great experience.
Now, if you're like me, you probably said, "Bleah!" at the very idea of having to do this. To me, it feels silly, unproductive, unnecessary and just plain obnoxious.
Folks, if you're directing, let the actors do their own thing to get ready. If you're acting, and you want a whole group to join you in your warm-up activity, get there early and tell people what you're doing. If they're interested, they'll show up. If they're not, don't complain. |
|
|
| The king of the mystery short story is dead |
[May. 8th, 2008|09:29 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sad | ] |
| [ | music |
| | The Carpenters - We've Only Just Begun | ] |
I was in Borders yesterday afternoon and caught the cover of the latest issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine which had a picture of Edward D. Hoch with the text "1930 - 2008" on it. He had apparently died in January, but this was the first I'd heard of it.
For those of you not familiar with Edward D. Hoch, he was a prolific short story writer in the mystery genre, with his published works capping out past 900 individual stories in multiple series. He had a short story in every issue of EQMM from May 1973 through this year, an unbroken run of 35 years and around 370 stories.
Out of all his characters, my favorites were Dr. Sam Hawthorne (a locked-room series), Michael Vlado (a gypsy king) and Nick Velvet (a thief for hire who specialized in stealing worthless items). Every time I got an issue of EQMM his story was the one I always read first, without fail.
Not many of his stories were collected in book form. The small press publisher Crippen & Landru bless them, put out six collections in the last ten years featuring Michael Vlado, Ben Snow, Dr. Sam Hawthorne, Nick Velvet and Jeffery Rand.
Good-bye, Mr. Hoch. You will be missed. |
|
|
| Bad shrimp! BAD! BAD! BAD! |
[May. 6th, 2008|10:14 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Eagles - One of These Nights | ] |
Every week I buy a half a pound of white shrimp or tiger shrimp which I then cook on Monday night. Monday is Shrimp Monday at our place.
Last night I unpacked the shrimp, and started to peel them. I then noticed that I seemed to have two different kinds of shrimp in the bag. A redder variety (almost the color of sakura ebi), and a darker blue variety. The darker blue shrimp hadn't been deveined, either, which is normally how I buy these things.
I dutifully deveined the shrimp (ick), washed them, then bent over to smell them. Instead of the faint shrimpy odor I normally get, it smelled more like dead critters on the beach. I recoiled, grabbed a towel to put under the colander and took it to Greg and had him smell it.
When he recoiled as well, I figured we'd be better off not trying to eat the shrimp. I put everything back in the bag and took it back to store before getting some take-out. Thankfully, the store was very nice about such things and someone went off to the meat department to go check the shrimp as I was leaving with my refund.
Man, what an awful odor. |
|
|
| WASH! CLEAN! DELETE! DELETE! DELETE! |
[May. 5th, 2008|04:13 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Tracey Ullman - They Don't Know | ] |
Sometimes, TV tie-in merchandise makes you blink and say, "Huh?"
For example, Cyberman Bubble Bath as of course, one thinks of Cybermen when one wants to luxiriate in bubbly water.
Telos! Take me away! |
|
|
| I think she smells fish |
[May. 5th, 2008|08:12 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Sara Bareilles - Love Song | ] |
I was doing the weekly grocery shopping yesterday and while I was in the meat counter area buying some shrimp, a man and two kids strolled past me. I assumed that the two young girls (looking to be about 7 and 5) were the guy's kids.
I paid them no further heed until the younger of the two girls stopped dead in the middle of the meat section, turned in a circle, then said loudly, "I smell fish!"
Now, smelling fish in a meat market, especially one with a large seafood area is not exactly unheard of, and her father didn't seem to think much of her outburst, so the little girl stamped her foot and shouted, "I SMELL FISH!"
Her dad put something into his basket and waved at the little girl to come along as he was presumably heading away from the meat counter. This made the girl pout and she yelled, louder this time, "I! SMELL! FIIIIIIIIIIIISH!" Her dad came over, grabbed her by the hand and led her away.
It was one of those moments that could win you $10,000 on "America's Funniest Home Videos" had one had a camera going at that exact moment. |
|
|
| Look what popped up on YouTube! |
[Apr. 29th, 2008|02:42 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Urinetown - Cop Song | ] |
From what's going on there (and the fact that I have white socks on), this footage has to be from the April 3rd performance. That was the only night I screwed up and forgot to bring a pair of dark socks to the show and the only night that Lockstock screwed up the choreography. |
|
|
| Cooking up a storm |
[Apr. 29th, 2008|10:29 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sleepy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Angela Aki - Sakura Iro | ] |
Last night after rehearsal I got home and did some cooking for today. After I made a breakfast bento for Greg (scrambled egg with cheese, bacon, sliced strawberries), I used my new mandoline slicer to julienne some carrots thinly and made some carrot kinpira for Greg's lunch. I used this recipe and omitted the pepper flakes. If you've never had carrot kinpira, it's nice. I then packed it in a box along with some leftover shrimp jambalaya.
While the carrots were sauteeing, I made curry rice for my lunch using sliced carrots, tofu cubes and cubed Yukon Gold potato. The curry was a Vermont Curry roux block. I'm not so skilled to make my own Japanese curry from scratch. I then packed my Don Don Lunch Box with the result and put everything in the fridge.
Mmm. Curry rice. |
|
|
| Some holidays crafts require advance preparation, but not this one |
[Apr. 24th, 2008|08:33 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sick | ] |
I was at Costco recently, pushing my cart around the bakery section and looking at the cheesecake because I'm a sucker for cheesecake. Never had Costco cheesecake, and I imagine it isn't as good as it looks, but hey, it's nice to look at.
Anyway, as I left the bakery behind I saw several decorated chocolate cakes on a table. Some of them were the usual "Happy Birthday!" with sprinkles and stuff, but a few caught my eye because they said, "Happy Mother's Day."
Oooh, that was a must buy! Because nothing says Happy Mother's Day like weeks-old cake from Costco. Really! I understand that cardmakers, and knitters, and other kinds of crafts will take some advance prep, but why buy a cake now for Mother's Day? |
|
|
| Got $1300 just lying around? |
[Apr. 22nd, 2008|09:59 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  okay | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Angela Aki - 孤独のカケラ | ] |
Then you can buy one of these.
Decorative and functional all in one! |
|
|
| Jeff's Rules for Acting #17 |
[Apr. 21st, 2008|02:32 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | acting | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  blah | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Gilbert O'Sullivan - Alone Again (Naturally) | ] |
17. Ad-libbing is a privilege, not a right.
Or, to put it another way, just because you can doesn't mean you should.
I did a show where the ensemble was told multiple times to knock off the ad-libs because they were covering up the actual lines and making the show hard to follow (see Rule #4: Do not make the director give you the same note twice). What was happening was someone would say something that got a huge laugh as an ad-lib, so someone else wanted to try and get a bigger laugh, and yet someone else would try and get a bigger laugh (see Rule #1: No show is all about you - EVER).
You can see where this is going, can't you? Eventually, the ad-libs took over from the script and the audience started to lose the story because it kept getting lost amidst all the ad-libs.
If your show came with an actual script and you paid someone for the rights to do it, then it's not improv. Don't try and make it improv. The playwright wrote a story, and you're being paid to tell that story, not show off what a brilliant improviser you are. |
|
|
| Wow, such a talent |
[Apr. 21st, 2008|01:53 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Rupert Holmes - Escape (The Piña Colada Song) | ] |
Have you ever seen a cat play a theramin?
You will. |
|
|
| Pesach goes high-tech |
[Apr. 17th, 2008|10:08 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
Did you know you can sell your chametz on-line? I'm not sure why I found that so darned funny tonight, but I did.
I also want some matzoh ball soup. Like now. |
|
|
| Go us! |
[Apr. 17th, 2008|02:14 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | not too bad, really | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Rupert Holmes - Escape (The Piña Colada Song) | ] |
"Urinetown" got a mostly positive review from the Seattle Times. The Times rarely comes over to Redmond to review theater, so it was a double bonus.
Two weekends left! Ticket info is here.
And Dan? The review has the words "rampant consumerism" in it, so I thought I'd warn you. |
|
|
| A sentence you have not read before |
[Apr. 16th, 2008|10:51 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | miss manners | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Phil Collins - Take Me Home | ] |
Bless you, Miss Manners, for coming up with beautiful sentences that I have never read before and probably will never read again:"What could be more decorous than a grandmother and grandson fighting over leftover booze?" |
|
|
| Jeff's Rules for Acting #16 |
[Apr. 14th, 2008|09:06 pm] |
16. There are times and places to kid around during the rehearsal process. When you're actually rehearsing isn't one of them.
I worked with an actor who, during blocking rehearsals, would amuse himself by changing words in the lines in order to make jokes or to make the other actors laugh. This, while funny, is completely inappropriate behavior. It's not only rude, it also makes you look as though you don't care about the show. If I were directing, I'd wonder if that particular actor really wanted to be there in the first place.
Crack jokes during breaks. Write song parodies from the show and sing them after you're done for the day. But when you're actually rehearsing, rehearse. Again, this is a job and a career, treat it like one. |
|
|
| If you drink, don't go to a musical |
[Apr. 13th, 2008|05:40 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
During the performance of "Urinetown" last night, there were some folks in the front row who were pretty obviously slightly inebriated when the show started. During the first act, when one of the actresses in the show hiked up her skirt slightly, one of the first row folks suggested rather loudly that she should take it all off.
Later, after the second act had been going for a few minutes, the group of them stumbled into the front door of the theater (where I was waiting for an entrance) and said, "Oh, crap! You started again? Jeesh, I guess ten minutes means ten minutes!" They had just come back from the bar down the way from the theater where apparently they had knocked back a few more.
They managed to sneak back inside (a real feat during this show, let me tell you), and act two turned into drunken commentary as these folks kept up a rapid patter all the way through. When one of the characters died in act two, one of the front row folks started guffawing rather loudly, then shouted, "CASUALTY!!!"
Ah, the joys of live theater. |
|
|
| Estoy pensando en español |
[Apr. 8th, 2008|09:25 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Alizée - J'en ai marre | ] |
Y estoy escuchando a un canción en frances.
No hay ingles en mi vida en ese momento, y pienso que es muy chistoso. |
|
|
| Flattened by incense |
[Apr. 2nd, 2008|01:40 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Angela Aki - Sakura Iro | ] |
Recently I was in a location where there was a local independent bookstore/café and when I got close to the doors I was pummeled by the scent of incense. It was your regular incense odor, but then again, I can't really tell the difference between gardenia and patchouli, it all smells about the same to me.
Still, it was so strong that it was like hitting an invisible wall and I was unable to move forward. I can't describe it any other way. It was so unpleasant that it was like customer repellent.
Now, I couldn't tell if the smell was coming from somewhere outside the store or from the inside, but still, it was pretty darned bad. I briefly wondered how anybody was able to eat in there if the scent was as strong inside as outside. |
|
|
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
jhitchin's journal