Oh deary.
I'm going to need some help with accountability...
I'm definitely going to have to set some time limits
And I'm definitely enjoying using my new computer. =]
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1583526943&ref=name
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Richard III (A Review)
I've just gotten back from Torrey Theatre's production of Shakespeare's Richard III and (for what it's worth) here's my review:
It's the first time that Torrey has used this "space" as one cast member remarked and it certainly not the only thing that's new in this remarkable production. The production is ostensibly an adaptation of Shakespeare's original. I don't wish to spoil all the ways in which they present the play, but let's just say that they had no qualms about re-ordering the sequence and even who speaks which lines. The result is a very interesting work that feels more like a commentary than an actual performance. As always, there's no complaint here about the acting. Whatever else Torrey does, they have always been highly consistent in the quality which they present on stage. The production's stated aim is to take full advantage of the Theatre. As a cast member stated, "We wanted to take everything that is unique to theatre and capitalize on those aspects. For example, the use of the body, Theatre is one of the only art forms that uses the body so totally in order to communicate and we did our best to bring that out in this performance" (That was a paraphrase). Two things I found especially noteworthy, the use of space in this production is very unique. The Collegium in which the play is produced is actually Biola's commuter lounge. There is no raised stage and the actors get within inches of the audience. It's a much more immersive experience. Second, this is definitely a production where you have to know Richard III at least fairly well (Meaning you should have read the play at least twice). I recommend watching it, but with the caution that to fully appreciate it, you need to at least read the original because it really is an adaptation. Go watch it, and when you're done, let's talk.
It's the first time that Torrey has used this "space" as one cast member remarked and it certainly not the only thing that's new in this remarkable production. The production is ostensibly an adaptation of Shakespeare's original. I don't wish to spoil all the ways in which they present the play, but let's just say that they had no qualms about re-ordering the sequence and even who speaks which lines. The result is a very interesting work that feels more like a commentary than an actual performance. As always, there's no complaint here about the acting. Whatever else Torrey does, they have always been highly consistent in the quality which they present on stage. The production's stated aim is to take full advantage of the Theatre. As a cast member stated, "We wanted to take everything that is unique to theatre and capitalize on those aspects. For example, the use of the body, Theatre is one of the only art forms that uses the body so totally in order to communicate and we did our best to bring that out in this performance" (That was a paraphrase). Two things I found especially noteworthy, the use of space in this production is very unique. The Collegium in which the play is produced is actually Biola's commuter lounge. There is no raised stage and the actors get within inches of the audience. It's a much more immersive experience. Second, this is definitely a production where you have to know Richard III at least fairly well (Meaning you should have read the play at least twice). I recommend watching it, but with the caution that to fully appreciate it, you need to at least read the original because it really is an adaptation. Go watch it, and when you're done, let's talk.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Entertainment
Genius is always fun to watch.
Glenn Gould is hilarious...so is his collie. Wait for the part when he stands up! =]
Glenn Gould is hilarious...so is his collie. Wait for the part when he stands up! =]
Monday, March 23, 2009
A Discovery
Marginalia
Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.
Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -
"Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" -
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
why wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.
Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's.
Another notes the presence of "Irony"
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.
Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
"Absolutely," they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
"Yes." "Bull's-eye." "My man!"
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.
And if you have managed to graduate from college
without ever having written "Man vs. Nature"
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.
We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.
Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird signing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page-
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.
And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.
Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page
A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil-
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet-
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."
- Billy Collins
Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.
Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -
"Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" -
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
why wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.
Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's.
Another notes the presence of "Irony"
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.
Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
"Absolutely," they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
"Yes." "Bull's-eye." "My man!"
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.
And if you have managed to graduate from college
without ever having written "Man vs. Nature"
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.
We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.
Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird signing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page-
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.
And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.
Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page
A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil-
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet-
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."
- Billy Collins
Monday, March 9, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
This is Amusing...
Stereotypes...
Also, here's another chooism:
Dad: Son, you can be anything you want to be.
Me: Really?!
Dad: Sure! You can go into cardiology, ophthalmology, oncology, urology, you could be a pulmonologist…
>_< =P
When all the other children were learning where their eyes and noses were, I was learning where my carotid artery was. ;)
Also, here's another chooism:
Dad: Son, you can be anything you want to be.
Me: Really?!
Dad: Sure! You can go into cardiology, ophthalmology, oncology, urology, you could be a pulmonologist…
>_< =P
When all the other children were learning where their eyes and noses were, I was learning where my carotid artery was. ;)
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