Weedwacker

It has occurred to me that when I use my electric razor, I am in fact mowing my face.

Small Victories

I've almost finished my first "year" as a youth theatre instructor. I started back in September and my last class is on Friday--it's been a real challenge at times but it's also turned out to be an intensely rich and rewarding experience.
I teach two classes: One for first through third grade, and one for fourth through sixth.

I really had a hard time at first with my older class because I was stepping in as a pseudo replacement teacher--I say pseudo because I wasn't really replacing him per se, he was still around but only came by to teach once or twice during the first semester.
This did not sit well with the kids. They loved him! (and for good reason too, he is a fantastic teacher and is super good with the kids) In their eyes I could never possibly measure up.
At first I was just pissed. I had at least three kids come up to me every class and ask "where was Josh?", and "when was he coming back?" On the exterior I was cool as a cucumber as I would tell them that I did not know, but that perhaps next week he would be there. On the inside I was a little hurt to be honest that these kids didn't seem to want to give me a chance.
Then came the "That's not how Josh did it" and "Josh would have let us do this" etc.

In any case, the transition was perhaps most difficult for a child that for the sake of anonymity we'll just call "John".
Let me back up, John wasn't in class during my first week of teaching and I thought
"Wow, this class is great! They are so well behaved! This is going to be easier than I thought!"
The second week, John shows up and all hell breaks loose.
It was like throwing a firecracker in to a barrel of gunpowder. This kid was a serious instigator of chaos. He would crack inappropriate jokes in the middle of our lessons and send the class into hysterics. Sometimes he would refuse to participate in class activities or exercises, preferring instead to lie on the ground in the middle of the room or yell out distracting comments. Often, he'd make snide or downright mean remarks about other kids in front of everyone else and cause some real commotion. Not conducive to a good learning environment especially when the kids are learning to put themselves on the line as performers.
And to make mattters worse, John made it very clear to me that he did not respect me and was just waiting until Josh came back.

Long story short, I've worked really hard all year to try to make each child in the class feel like they are valued. I've tried my best to be patient and be sensitive to the individual needs of each child. And I think it's paid off!

It helped immensely that Josh came back to co-teach during the second semester. He is great to work with and it helped the kids to see that we were really all on the same page and on the same team.

Our final show of the year was tonight, and after the performance, John came and found me and gave me a hug. That meant a lot to me.

He is a great kid who I think faces some unique challenges, but has a lot of great talent and underneath he's got a heart of gold. I think we've come to understand and respect one another over the course of the year and I would love to have him in my class again. I never thought I'd say that. I think we've both grown a lot.

It's the little things like that that make me wonder if I shouldn't go in to teaching.

Second Chances

I think the real appeal of reincarnation lies not in the prospect of endless lives, but in second chances.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating a change of religions, but I can definitely see the draw.
Who hasn't wanted a second chance at one point or another?

Review: Three Euros and a Yankee

Va Savoir (or Who Knows?)
I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this movie--the box labeled it as a "farce" and "fiercely comical" while also claiming to be an intellectual romantic comedy.
Turns out it was very little, if any, of those things.
Camille is an actress in Ugo's struggling theatre troupe. They are performing a series of Italian plays in Paris. Ugo meets Do, a gorgeous blond, while searching for a lost play manuscript by the deceased author of the plays they are performing.
Meanwhile, Camille visits Pierre, her former lover, who invites both Ugo and Camille over for dinner with his wife, Sonia.
Turns out Do's brother Arthur is having an affair with Pierre's wife Sonia while Pierre decides that he wants Camille back in his life...
It gets even more convoluted from there, and I'll spare you the confusing details so you can see it for yourself if you like--but realize that you're really going to have to read very carefully while watching this film to get a grip on what's going on.
The acting was really wonderful, everything you'd expect from Director Jacques Rivette, who allows his actors to explore and improvise on set. There were moments so organic and fluid that I forgot I was watching actors--the subtitles became unnecessary because everything that needed to be communicated in the moment came across beautifully.
On the flip side, this movie was far from what it claimed to be--perhaps some of the humor was lost in translation? Some of the situations were quite clever and amusing, but overall, this was not a laugh out loud funny film. Maybe I should learn French?
Another thing that sets this movie apart was the fact that it went almost entirely without a soundtrack. That's difficult work for a director and more importantly, the audience. A soundtrack helps cue us in on how we should feel and react to what's going on and what we should expect. A good soundtrack can also help immensely with the timing and flow of the film. At well over two hours, (154 min.) this film could have benefited a lot from a good score. The quiet, sometimes nearly dialog-free scenes were wonderfully naturalistic, but I would have loved the addition of a score to help keep and direct my attention.
Final verdict: Va Savoir definitely had some wonderful moments and intriguing characters, but failed to really capture my full attention for the full length of the film. I've also got bones with the ending, but you'll have to decide how you feel about that for yourself.


The Lives of Others
This is one I've really wanted to see for a long time and it didn't disappoint. The cinematography was beautiful--subtle lighting schemes and well placed framing gave the story a wonderful canvas. The actors were really well cast I thought, and projected their characters' nuanced inner struggles masterfully.
I was immediately drawn into the world of the story--East Germany before the Wall fell, and the dangers and tensions that existed in this world. This setting was convincingly brought to life in every painstakingly realistic detail and acting performance on screen. I was touched by what the movie had to say about humanity and the fragility of individuals in a larger system, but also the power of a single individual to effect change.
Overall, this movie was brilliantly written. The story was flawlessly told in a way that was accessible, believable, and artful--everything that a good movie should be.


Goodbye, Lenin
Another one I've been meaning to pick up, and perhaps my favorite out of these four. Films about East Germany in the eighties are two for two. So good!
I actually ended up watching this one twice before returning it, and was glad that I did--I caught a lot more the second time around. The film says a lot about isolation--both national and emotional. It explores the fine lines between white lies, propaganda, and outright deception and the various motives behind each.
I loved the way the movie was framed from Alex's point of view; Goodbye, Lenin would have made a wonderful novel that could have easily been written by Jonathan Safran Foer. The characters were delightfully quirky and original but still maintained a gripping sense of realism.
The art direction was impeccable and manifest beautifully in every detail from the yellow wallpaper in the mother's room, to the distinct clothing and fashions specific to the time and place. The cinematography was sumptuous--rich color palattes and saturated processing produced compositions that were filled with depth and gravity.
Some of the scenes in this film contained a real magic, an almost tangible sense of wonder. I was delighted again and again by the juxtaposition of grief and hope, of love and remorse.
I loved the short scene where Alex and Laura discover the abandoned apartment building--haven't we all wanted to find our own place just open and waiting to be claimed?
Also the scene where Alex's mother wanders out into the street only to be confronted by a giant flying Vladimir Lenin half dissembled and suspended from a Helicopter gliding into the sun--riveting.
Other notable scenes were the revelation at the cabin, Alex's trip with former cosmonaut Sigmund Jahn the taxi driver, and his meeting with his father. All beautifully written and filmed. Just magical--no other words will do.
I think it's rare to find a movie that encompasses the full range of human emotion, and Goodbye, Lenin shows that this is possible in any language and in any time and under any circumstances. Definitely recommend you pick this one up ASAP.


There Will Be Blood
I was a little bit disheartened after watching all of these foreign films about the beauty and strength of the human spirit to see this distinctly American film about how heartless man can be.
I was totally blown away by Daniel Day Lewis performance as a ruthless turn of the century oil man. I was totally convinced that he WAS Daniel Plainview. Everything from his physicality--the slight limp in his right leg, to his complete ease with the American Western drawl (Lewis is an Irishman), and his no-holds-barred commitment to the emotion of the character sold me on his performance.
I heard raves about Paul Dano's performance as well, and while I like him and thought it was good, I was not blown away. He had only four days to prepare for the role after stepping in as a replacement for another actor and I think it shows in spots. He's wonderfully committed, but I think his choices lacked the depth and nuance that showed through so clearly with Lewis.
The sheer size and magnitude of this picture and the skill with which it was executed are monumental and definitely qualify the picture for the shower of accolades it has received. I was impressed with the not only the epic scope of the film, but also the minute attention to detail that was more than evident in every moment of the movie.
Cinematography was of course beautiful. I especially loved the long tracking shots and carefully planned camera moves that seamlessly blended actors with the environment.
But for all the great skill that was poured into this movie, I didn't love it. It was at times cold and dark and uninviting.
When the credits finally rolled, I was relieved that I did not have to linger any longer in Daniel Plainview's dark and opulent mansion.

All in the Family

Theatre has a younger sister. She's a bastard child named Cinema and she came from a short lived affair between Father Storytelling and that hussy Photography. (they haven't spoken since)
She's beautiful and lusty and manages to seduce all the good artists in town sooner or later, but really she's all about the money and leaves them one after another high and dry in the end.
She's a real bitch but I love her anyway.

They also have a sister named Opera, but no one likes her anymore because she's gotten old and dowdy. She makes brief public appearances every now and again, but most of her lovers are dead and gone. Those few that are left remember her in all her glory and splendour--they carry around wallet-sized black and white portraits of a buxom young ingenue who was the talk of the town. Too bad all her sugar daddies died and left her penniless.
She did have one child though--Musical. Sometimes Musical gets along with her uncle Theatre, but more often than not it's a tenuous relationship. Theatre tried for awhile to adopt Musical, but in the end, she just moved out on her own. Theatre feels like his niece has sold out, and in a lot of ways, she has.

Good riddance I say, that hoebag was trashy anyway.

Sometimes Musical even dresses up like her uncle and pretends to be Theatre when really she's just screwing around pimping washed-up seventies artists catalogs into Broadway whoredoms. (Broadway is in fact a red-light district for Theatre, he rarely goes there because he knows he could get into a lot of trouble...)

Theatre, I know you may have fallen on hard times, but as far as I'm concerned, you are still the man of the house around here.



ps--I'm really sorry they made you change your name from 'Theatre' to 'Theater' when you moved to America. That was a real drag.

5.04.08-1

"and we breathed the breath of life into the vacuum"
(and the vacuum breathes us in)

anthropomorficus antithicus
--dehumanization of a species.
How are we not ourselves?
How are we not the things we seetouch smelltaste feel want?
Hear (here) ?

How are we not the things that we do
and make
and think? are we?
we?

and
whenit come
s
down to it
Howcouldwe
beanything BUT
our
selves ?

whatwewant
(what we surround ourselves with)
we become.

My mother once told me to be careful
about whatIwishedfor (because)
"People get what they really want..."

the opposite: assigning no meaning
to thingsIsurroundmySelfwith
no mean ing
to what I want.

the cycle:
we are created
we create
we are defined by what we create

res/as/ins -piration
breath es
has a life of it's own:

things
we are
breathing
arebreathingUs
(into being)

Breathing Underwater

Last night I had a dream that I could breathe underwater.
I know this because I was sitting at the bottom of a deep, silty bend in the Provo river with some friends watching sharks swim downstream.

Director's Note:

This is my Director's Note from the Rabbit Hole program:

"Becca: So somewhere out there, there’s a version of me—what?—making pancakes?

This play is about a giant elephant named Danny. It’s just as much about what is being said in the room, as what isn’t being said.

Becca: And so this is just the sad version of us?

This is a play about loss. About the holes left in our lives and the ways that they are filled and left empty.

Becca: But there are other versions where everything goes our way.

It’s about family. Relationships. People struggling to connect, to understand one another and themselves.

Becca: And those other versions exist. They’re not hypothetical, they’re actual, real people.

This play is about parallel lives and universes. It’s about wondering what could have been and what will be. It’s about coming to terms with what is.

Becca: Well that’s a nice thought. That somewhere out there I’m having a good time.

Somewhere out there, this play is a comedy. Howie and Becca and Danny live out their lives uninterrupted.

But the play you see tonight is not that play.

This is a play about Howie and Becca Corbett after the death of their son, Danny."




The show opened last night and was well recieved! If you haven't seen it yet, Please come! Two more performances...