Thursday, March 09, 2006

Funny Thing, That . . .

I've started rehearsals for The Swan. Boy, oh, boy, this is gonna be an interesting one. This may be one of those scripts that's more interesting to actors than to audience, but then again . . . Well, all I can say is, it fuses pathos, violence, humor, eroticism and surreal fantasy more pointedly and unabashedly into beauty and poetry than anything in which I've performed recently. So I'm pretty damn excited.

Other than that, all I've got are some little observations:

When you try to cut down on the number of weekdays on which you drink coffee, the weekdays on which you do drink coffee find you experiencing more pointedly the drug-like effects of the beverage.

Losing weight because I wanted to appear helpless (as in Edmond) seemed to happen a lot more easily than losing weight because I'm going to be naked onstage and don't want love handles (as with The Swan). You'd think the powers that be could throw my vain-insecurity/insecure-vanity a little bone. Geez.

My ankles hurt for how "on-our-toes" our finances, a patchwork of my many hours of low pay and 'Stine's many hours of indefinitely delayed pay applied to mountains of debt so outstanding I frequently forget who all needs to get paid, keep us.

Talking to Mormon visiting teachers after drinking a pitcher of stout with a friend at Six Arms is pretty amusing. Trying to execute a handstand as they're walking out the door, then attempting to fall gracefully into a backbend without properly gauging the proximity of the coffee table and smashing up your shin on the descent may be equally amusing to an observer, but considerably less so to the participant.

Having a heart to heart talk with a friend who has a different perspective--or at least a receptive ear--on a painful rift with another friend who left for another city without telling you he was moving away can do wonders for a still-troubled soul.

Having a surprising and compelling heart to heart with someone you barely know via email, and having hard-won but nebulously defined insights vindicated in the process, works similar wonders.

LOST seems to dole new episodes out at a rate of one every, like, 3 weeks, and it's starting to piss me off. Someone needs to write those cats and say, "Look, dudes, your show's cool; but you've got to look at 24 if you wanna see how a season should be run."

OK, that's all. I just mocked some people last week for blogslacking, and didn't want to be a hypocrite. I'm sure I'll have something more interesting to say once the show opens. Oh, and that's April 7th, for those in the area and/or those who want to get to the area. Stine's show opens a couple weeks after that, so a late month visit could equal a weekend of much theatrical goings on (and any and all attendant misbehaviour!!).

8 Comments:

Blogger the beige one said...

dude, I know that it's your body image we're talking about here, but you have no goddamn love handles...maybe you have love slinkies, because I swear to you, you. are. in. goddamn. shape.

Re: LOST; the people you wanna bitch to are those at ABC, and I highly encourage you to do so. And do mention 24. It is only in this way that things will change. The industry still sees what's happening with 24 as an experiment.

If half the people who've been bitching about LOST's running schedule would actually send something in...

Because, frankly, what's been happening with LOST is par for the course, in terms of network TV.

10:04 AM  
Blogger Missuz J said...

I'm so glad for you that you found a show you believe in to be in. (A show in which you believe in which to be?)

Mormon missionaries + stout + hand stands = GT

11:03 AM  
Blogger thelyamhound said...

you have no goddamn love handles...maybe you have love slinkies, because I swear to you, you. are. in. goddamn. shape.

Aw, that's sweet (but . . . slinkies? What?).

Re: LOST; the people you wanna bitch to are those at ABC, and I highly encourage you to do so. And do mention 24 . . . The industry still sees what's happening with 24 as an experiment.
Because, frankly, what's been happening with LOST is par for the course, in terms of network TV.


Agreed. With most shows, though, it seems to matter less. No one cares much about momentum on The Simpsons. Stuff like 24, or LOST ends up losing some steam, though, when you get stuck with a few weeks of reruns.

But I think the success (as we see it) of the programming model adopted by 24 (itself adapted from the programming model of most HBO shows, near as I can tell) could change the norm if enough people are vocal about it.

I'm so glad for you that you found a show you believe in to be in. (A show in which you believe in which to be?)

Wish I could help you there, Missuz J. Once you have a certain number of prepositional phrases in one sentence, arranging them to avoid ending a sentence with a prep becomes a bit of a headache.

11:27 AM  
Blogger the beige one said...

(but . . . slinkies? What?)

Let's say that if I had a spare tire around my middle, your middle wouldn't even rate donut status. I'm saying there's nothing there.

how about "I'm glad you'll be performing in a show that you believe in?"

11:58 AM  
Blogger thelyamhound said...

This might just be one of those instances where coherence demands that we scrap the normal rules on prepositions (though I hesitate to say that in front of an English teacher), because even your solution ends in a preposition.

I suppose we could say, "I'm glad you'll be performing in a show in which you believe." That addresses all misgivings, I think; you can end a clause in a preposition as long as that clause isnt' the end of the sentence (if I recall correctly, which I mightn't).

12:09 PM  
Blogger Stine said...

Beck, they were visiting teachers. And man, they got an earful this time.

4:17 PM  
Blogger the beige one said...

so, lyam, you around?

10:46 AM  
Blogger thelyamhound said...

I'm around-ish. I'll try to post later today (on nothing in particular).

12:27 PM  

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