Deepthink
Jan. 9th, 2010
02:42 pm - Two Gentlemen of Lebowski
On Wednesday, a forums poster put up his latest fun project, an adaptation of The Big Lebowski as written by William Shakespeare. As a fan of the movie and someone who's read too much of the Bard (who hasn't?) I thought it was a great sendup.
By Thursday, he had been contacted by several indie theaters and a book publisher.
Today
DMTheatrics in association with Horse Trade Theater Group proudly present
the exclusive NYC premiere of
The most excellent comedie and tragical romance of
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF LEBOWSKI
being the amusing misadventures of the Knave and Sir Walter
written by Mr. Adam Bertocci
inspired by the works of Mr. William Shakespeare and the Bros. Coen
Produced by Michele Schlossberg and Frank Cwiklik
Directed by Mr. Frank Cwiklik
March 18th thru April 4th 2010
The Kraine Theater, 85 East 4th St, NYC
Thursdays 8 PM, Friday thru Sunday 7:30 PM sharp
So it's off-off, but still amazing.
Full copies of the play are mirrored here (HTML), here (PDF), and here (PDF).
Nov. 5th, 2009
10:42 pm - Your moment of zen.
Because I get silly after a long evening with the 'shop.
Also, the jacket and pins turned out nicely after all.
Oct. 30th, 2009
10:22 pm - Note to future self.
When a Dremel tool is used on CD jewel case plastic, it doesn't grind or cut. It melts.
Yes, even on the lowest setting.
12:14 am - Things I miss about sewing:
1) Wearable crafts.
2)
Things I don't miss about sewing:
1) Perforated callouses.
2) Two trips shopping for supplies and still having to make do with almost-right.
3) The sneaking suspicion that someone very close by is much better at this than I am.
Oct. 22nd, 2009
08:39 pm - My lab coat.
I can't remember what happened to it.
Is it hiding in a completely unsuspected case or box?
Did I give it to someone?
Did I donate it? Where would I have taken it?
Sep. 14th, 2009
05:48 pm - Friday morning, the phone rings.
"Charlie was at a conference in New York," and she means the city, "and he collapsed in the street. He hit his head...."
My stepmother, Michelle, breaks off, and her breath is ragged. She apologizes, and says that she hasn't been crying, doesn't know why it only hit her now. I understand, it's the pressure of knowledge, of completely understanding something only when we have to tell someone else about it.
My dad is 65 and has agonizingly high cholesterol and blood pressure. Diet and medicine have kept him around long enough for me to be grateful for his presence and his love. He's suffered heart attacks, hospital visits and carries so many tiny supports in the arteries surrounding his heart that I've stopped counting. Most have been implanted in the inferior vena cava by going through an incision in the thigh. It's not exactly dinner conversation. I know it's just a matter of time.
"Some good person found him, and must have called an ambulance."
Attending a trade conference, he had complained of dizziness, and started on the short walk back to his hotel. He was still out when the first responders arrived, but they got him to the closest facility. The night was pretty tense, but not for issues with his heart. Something in his daily medication had gone off balance, and he'd passed out from low blood pressure. The immediate problem: a concussion sustained falling unconscious to the pavement.
He found out he was in a "teaching hospital" after asking why there were so many faculty around. By morning, young interns were wandering the place in small groups. For some reason, a lot of them visited his room while he was recovering. He'd wave, they would leave. He called home to reassure everyone that he was fine, he'd be coming back on the train Friday evening accompanied by one of his staffers. No driving or traveling unaccompanied for a while.
It's Sunday, early afternoon. We're just finishing up a sandwich lunch on the shaded back patio. It's a beautiful day at the end of summer, and Michelle pressures my dad to tell us "the best part." He's still dizzy, and a little tired, but smiles and reminisces. A doctor had finally confided in him that not everyone was getting the same level of observation.
"Apparently the word was getting around, and everyone had to see this guy, you won't believe it, he's 65 and he looks 50. I had tour groups."
I don't remember much else about the weekend, but the memories I have are worth it.
Sep. 2nd, 2009
01:15 am - Brickskellar? Brickskellar!
Understaffed! Warm beered! And it was Tuesday!
But throw five people into the basement and it's a great time. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
labrynthos is in town for a few, so she called up some people. Brad, Ron, Rob, and myself, and we drank ourselves sillier than normal and groused about work and remembered embarrassing stories out loud. No more than 3-4 apiece, really, but it's enough to be in good company. And I just remembered I owe Brad a beer or two.
And they leaned on me to join the evil Facebook network. Between them and my family it's impossible to resist, so I guess I better do some larnin'.
Aug. 25th, 2009
09:24 pm - Belated 36
There was a great party for all of the Augusts this past Saturday, featuring Numbers turning 30, and with the coolest and most gracious of hosts kindly turning their extensive home into a huge bar. Again. Seriously, when will you guys learn? Beyond that, when will I learn that if I'm surprisingly presented with a lap full of girl, that is probably not the time to ask how her Krav Maga classes are going. And be cuddly or something. Sorry, they didn't cover that at the Spengler Institute in the amateur mad science discipline.
Then there was dinner with family the previous night, which started at Clyde's and ended up completely soaked to the skin because I am an even huge-er idiot and can't wait two minutes for someone with an umbrella. But at least it wasn't at all cold, and I suppose if I were into wetness or something, it would have been an incomparable experience.
On that note...( some of us never seem to grow up. )
Happy clobberin' time, everybody.
Aug. 18th, 2009
08:46 pm - This is not drama. This is not politics. This is...
UNINTELLIGIBLE EMPANADA TRUCK
It makes me so happy.
Aug. 14th, 2009
07:22 am - Signs and Portents
All of my dark socks fresh from the dryer paired up perfectly. Does this rejection of the customary sacrifice mean I am no longer favored by the goddess of laundry?
Aug. 4th, 2009
01:10 am - August
I have tried to rest, but I can feel my heart beat. Pressure spreading, my teeth grind, fingers grasp lightly at the edge of sleep without purpose or volition.
Returning here, to my room, to this cave, this tower, this window to the familiar, I've taken on all the old weight of life. The air unsettles after travel, humid and invasive, seething into me, infusing my old man's lungs with its signal of war. After so many priceless days, the stink of fuel, the roar of mighty engines, clamoring streets, wind and arctic surf. Torn mists climbing the twisted cypress, falling into narrow coves, infusing groves that for all their foreign and blackened woods held more the breath of home than this unwelcome heat.
I strain, I cough, a tickle in the throat, numb thoughts, a bitter salt gorge of disgust. Living here thirty years when every day is a battle. Waking again, a head full of numbers suspended in cotton, trying like mad to be something approaching loving and friendly and efficient and normal. My guide those simple moments of clarified anger or pain or confusion. Those gifts given, gone forever. Those taken, not without price.
I am not alone here, I see it well from the outside. We all live with loss and chaos and strive to step correctly, to both advance and preserve, to appreciate the present with no regret for the past. We are all born as minds in a metaphor of the flesh. Grasping at momentary pleasures. Curiously pitching forward on faint paths into a dusk of perfume and lamplight. We get one chance, and soon enough we'll be done with this ragged effort. Nothing to do but wake up again and prepare as best we can.
That is my comfort. This is still a life, and even if I don't have a long enough night, it may still contain a little sleep.
Jan. 1st, 2009
04:17 pm - 2009
History is never lost. As each moment arrives, that just past is folded into universal experience. Each inevitable second adds significance and savor to our shared continuous story. Each new year must be nurtured and appreciated, admired for its differences, and loved as unique. We, all of us, contribute to its progression.
Work to improve your own course, shed harmful elements, focus on the beneficial, plan for adversity. May your year grow strong enough to weather the storms and quakes of fate, and the actions of those who would harm us, whether through neglect or malevolence. Take care, live thoroughly, love well.
Dec. 25th, 2008
12:15 am - December 25
Tonight, in the wee hours of the morning, children may have their homes invaded by a giant bearded man suspected to be the former bishop of Turkey. He may be accompanied by elves, or possibly a retinue of minor imps, or even Satan himself. He may distribute gifts. However, naughty children can expect to be beaten with a stick and taken to Spain, his rumored current nation of citizenship.
If a family is exceptionally traditional, and has placed their straw-stuffed boots by the musty peat hearth, then this towering figure will park his flying eight-legged horse on the roof of the home. Small gifts will be placed in the boots as payment for the feed.
Modern families can expect a somewhat more rotund visitor dressed in red, white, and black, who will make with the giving of material goods in a surprisingly anarcho-communistic distribution of wealth from his legendary Arctic nation. Keeping the gifts is recommended. However, given current progressive melting of the north polar ice cap, we may all one day be called upon to return the favor.
And if you see a twinkle in his eye, run.
Dec. 21st, 2008
09:30 am - How did I forget this?
(Yesterday and) today I'm doing the leadbutt thing at Atlanta Bread Company [Google Maps] near the Dulles Town Center mall in Sterling, VA. Every Sunday morning, it is rumored, an Artklub meets there for breakfast and stuff. Joey, the owner, suggested we set up some tables for a kinda holiday event this weekend. We show off some of our work, he gets some additional business, all is good.
On site are local artists Rand Arrington, Jerry Carr, Khalid "Iszy" Iszard, Brian Maze, Dermot Meehan, Hatton Slaydon, Tamara and Walt Stoneburner, me, and whoever else happens to show up. If you're in the area between 10:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., maybe finishing up some shopping or maybe just looking for a good soup and sandwich place, drop by and say HOWDY.
Dec. 9th, 2008
04:36 pm - You want it where?
I get more done in a day than any other slacker I know.
Going by company names and environments, I love my work history. But sometimes it feels like being the guy who rolls in to restock the drink machines. Friday I have an assignment at IBM, through the end of the year. Office casual drudge work as usual. There's some quiet value in being essential but overlooked. It's my accepted duty to be blamed or forgotten. That guy.
Taking another look at my finances, I called up the bank and shut off my credit card. I do not need the temptation. And it's one more way to force myself to plan ahead.
Nationwide sent a check in the amount of my auto insurance premium. What the hell? It turns out the local rep didn't do things quite right, but will fix things up tomorrow. One more theoretical gray hair in the name of paperwork.
Time to whip up a few holiday cards, and then back to the drawing board.
12:55 am - I should be gone to bed.
Unfortunately I stumbled across high res NIN concert videos by this guy.
Hopefully this infects someone else and I can get to sleep.
Dec. 7th, 2008
07:21 pm - White Lily
Generally speaking, I must not play.
I have an active prepaid online gaming account that I can't touch, because it is nothing more than an enormous waste of time. Beyond that, there are a hundred different pursuits that are free, or almost-free, and always available. I am surrounded by consumer content that I am reasonably certain would be fun or rewarding to be involved with in some way. But those rewards are false emotional rewards. Sitting at a television or computer is not truly social; it is shallow and emotionally depressing. It is all surface, not a foundation.
Without work, play is meaningless, and I've wasted enough of my oft-reset life already. Play precludes steps in pursuit of a real life. It does not usefully blow off steam for me, because I do not have that kind of stressful pressure that would otherwise be self-destructive. I have nothing but tension that should instead be used to produce positive change, because I deserve more.
I do not have a career. I do not have work I love that inspires me to achieve. I do not have work I hate that suggests routes for improvement, or that drives me to the kind of frustration that would find an outlet in creative expression. Any of that would contribute to personal development. To life becoming something more meaningful and directed than its current rapidly deteriorating state.
I am rusty with demanding work. This does not help my effort to find a position earnestly helping a company and getting paid for it. Work that would keep me occupied, that would be worthwhile, with a defined agenda, whether that is profit for all or personal advancement. I am not a religiously directed person, or I would throw my case at the feet of god or trustingly devote my free time to a congregation, a social group. Instead I have faith, or to be more precise, I am losing faith, in the potential of humanity. In myself.
I am looking for work and finding nothing. I am taking small steps towards the paratrooper's exit in a descending aircraft built of history and dreams. I'm pretty sure the pack on my back is full of a picnic lunch instead of a parachute.
Meanwhile, whatever creative instinct I have left is trapped and thrashing wildly in an attempt to escape. That creativity is surrounded by potential finished artwork and front-loaded with free time. But it has no portfolio of current personal examples with which to compare, no active life to make more rewarding, and in its consequent lack of activity, no practice to measure its true ability. I have unfinished commissions, gifts to family and to friends that I should have completed months ago. The calendar whips by and I am frozen, distracted, knotted with conflicted anger. Nothing I have produced seems good enough. Revisions look worse.
Achievement or failure must look so easy from the outside, but that is true for any of us. A finished work is the summary of every scar and every moment spent refining our personal abilities. Every line on the page speaks volumes about its author.
I keep my nose down, but time grinds finer and hits harder. And another day goes by.
Nov. 17th, 2008
11:10 pm - Strength of Stone
Family can tell me that I'm being stupid about something, and absolutely mean it.
Family can incite emotion: passionate anger, weeping sadness, laughter and catharsis. Mourning loss, celebrating a little victory. A party with family can get unruly on wine over the littlest of things and never break.
Over the phone, the voice of those I've been missing can breathe an ember of hope into flame or, well, all of the above. No wine necessary. It is a strong and calloused hand gripping strands that reach into deep childhood. Weighty stone rests on the riverbed, polished smooth with years, impossible to remove but easy to shift. Reminder scars that never ache but never fade.
This is the strength of my life that holds true through any personal upheaval. My family is my base, my strength. This is my observation, my reminder, because I often forget.
Remember.
Nov. 4th, 2008
03:50 am - Can't Sleep Polls Will Eat Me
Intentionally sourceless one-liner of the night:
"I miss the days of Republicans being the elitist Ivy League crypto-aristocrats."
Nov. 3rd, 2008
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