Despite the fact that Twitter has probably tricked me into writing LJ entries worth of text lately, I am thinking I may ditch LJ. I don't update like ever. Facebook has most things covered. From the perspective of me getting info out to people, the only thing I lose is that it is slightly harder for someone who I don't specifically tag when I post to catch whatever it is that I said. That sentence could have been shorter and clearer. I dislike tagging people, but it will be necessary for correctly spreading info.

I lose the communities that make up the bulk of my friends list, but the important ones have rss feeds (comics, rpg publishers). The only thing I will be sad about is a very few people who regularly update with f-locked posts. But I guess I will live?

Actually, the thing I may miss the most is LJ Icons =D

Daisy Owl - The Rest Stop
That should sell you on the comic.

If you click on it like, eight times you'll get to the full size version.

Happy New Year, true believers.

Via the ancient powers of magic I will be arriving in DC on Monday afternoon. This demonstrates that my long tradition of "plans that are the best oh wait not actually" is alive and well in 2009. I do manage to successfully avoid other wizards flinging themselves post-holidaysically through the aether. On the other hand, I arrive at the aetheric hub with heavy bags while everyone is at work. And after traversing the kingdoms of the molemen out to Takoma, I will pray to all the gods that the key I pried from the depths of my sock drawer is the right one. Good times!

I leave via Dulles on Saturday next, at around 12:40pm. Anyone who is kind enough to drive me there will receive a meal's worth of food in exchange (expertly prepared by the restaurateurs of DC), plus some cash for gas, plus any additional reimbursements determined during contract negotiations.

Now that those logistics are out of the way, fun stuff. I'm not in for long, but I will try and see as many people as possible. Several people have called dibs. They have dibs. Let me know if you are not a 9-5 person, because then I can see you during the day while responsible people are working. If nothing else, I'm going to try for some kind of late birthday dealy on Friday night so people don't have to go sleep for work in the middle of it.

Speaking of this birthday dealy - would people be interested in trying another Shakespeare drinking game night? I've learned some things from the last two and all the reading groups that I've done in grad school. Namely, 1) no long plays, 2) preferably comedies, 3) have people switch roles scene to scene so everyone gets to participate. I think the play under consideration would be Twelfth Night. The alternative is some kind of drinks thing, and after the way Othello went, I wouldn't blame anyone for not wanting to chance the Bard. Oh, also, the Shakes reading is also dependent on a donated location, since I don't have a home to invite people to to which I may invite people.

The Update Bit
Things are going well in school. I'm currently working on my MLitt thesis, involving a paper and an edition of R+J. I'm presenting my project on Feb 15th, and appearing in a play on the 15th and 16th (Beaumont & Fletcher's Night of the Burning Pestle). I get to yell at children. I'd say you should come, but seriously, it's Sunday and Monday night. Not really convenient for anybody. Also, I cannot guarantee that my presentation will not be boring. The play will be funny. Oh, and as long as I don't bomb my thesis I'm already accepted to teh MFA program. Word.

Mentally am doing pretty well. Physically, better than in a long time. The thing I hate most about 2009 is that I HAVE LOST ZERO POUNDS THIS YEAR. School (also cold) managed to keep me away from the gym the last half of the semester, but I have kept off everything I lost, so go me. Sustainable improvements = please yes. And hopefully more to come.

I am down two pets. Max was put to sleep in November. His back legs basically were disconnected, and he kept falling down. Then he would look at you like, "Why did you push me over? That's a dumb game." No pain until right before the end, though, which was good. My mom doesn't have his ashes back yet, and I choose to believe that this means, somehow, that he escaped postmortem and is making a voodoo priestess somewhere a wonderful pet.

Delirium, one of my rats, has also died. We think that she died just to spite me, since I've been very good at keeping her from biting me. Lately. It was a little weird because she was the active and healthy one. Lauren has been taking Door to the vet for me while I'm gone in order to avoid similar occurrences. I don't think I'm going to be getting another pair right away. In another year and a half, when I'm settled somewhere with job or PhD program, I'll break out the cages again. I'll just have to spend more time with Door in the meantime to keep her from being lonely. Not like she was playing with Delirium anyway - I had to separate them because Delirium kept attacking her. What I'm trying to say is, while I'm a little upset because she was a living creature, good riddance. Me and Door never bit her.

Excelsior, bitches.

First: Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends Rickrolled the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade

Second: The plan for tomorrow is Repo at Village East at 3:30, then Macbeth at Roust at 8. Feel free to join.

Third: Saturday is planned zoo day. Details are uncertain, but will probably be in the form of "Meet at animal x's cage at y o'clock because that is animal x feeding time."

I know I owe y'all a regular entry, but I've been crazy with pretending to do schoolwork. You know how it is. So this entry will instead be for information gathering and decision making.

Point One
I will be in NY for Thanksgiving as of tomorrow night. I will be staying until Sunday, and probably leaving Monday morning to avoid traffic. My roommate is driving me and having turkey with the fam since he can't make it back to Illinois. We plan to attempt the Bronx Zoo, despite the cold. I think my family has me reserved Wed and Thurs nights. Am free asides from that (and the Zoo is something other people could attend). So feel free to try and get me to hang out, roommate in tow. Also also: Any interest in another Unknown Armies one-shot? I'd need four to five people saying yes to make a big enough group. And I'd have to find my book, wherever the hell it went.

Point Two
My winter break extends from December 13 to January 11. I plan on being in NY first, and then DC. This would be really simple except for that whole New Year thing. Who's doing a party that I should be at? Help me decide where I should be!

mdnghtmlkywy: we had people stop by at the dixie tonight to ask if the same mc would be working the rocky show
me: Uh oh
mdnghtmlkywy: lol they were really excited when i said yes
me: Hurrah!
mdnghtmlkywy: yeah
i was like "um yes...in theater #2..." and they said "how do we guarantee that we are in #2?"
---

Should be good times at the Dixie come next Friday. This'll be my fifth separate run as a Rocky MC, meaning not counting consecutive nights.

I have wedding pictures. I haven't edited out the completely useless ones, but I realized I wouldn't bother to do so for about a million years. Since I take so many pictures to compensate for not using the flash, I suggest you click through the photostream really quickly and pretend it's a flipbook.

This is the mask I purchased in Italy. And this is my stun death ray.

Gary Taylor gave a talk to the program today about his reconstruction of Shakespeare's Cardenio, a mostly-lost play. There's going to be a staged reading of it on Sunday at the ASC. Dude's a rockstar, and dresses like it. Or maybe a stage magician. Not even kidding.

To those of you who have mentioned, in the past, that I should start reading A Song of Ice and Fire - I hate you so much. Because obviously when you told me that they were "the best fantasy books ever" you did not praise them enough, leaving me to languish without them for so very long. I finished A Game of Thrones, and almost cried when I realized that the other book I had grabbed from the used bookstore was #3. I blame all y'all.

After the post 24HTP party at my place, I was left with a half bottle of gin. And an inch of vermouth. And a quarter jar of olives. Their powers combined, they are a giant bottle of martini hanging out in the freezer. It will get drunk tonight or tomorrow night. Or at least, tasted and poured down the drain.

I've been drafted into a friend's MFA Directing project. I'll be playing the Citizen in Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle. I get to yell at small children, mostly an 11 year old girl named Emily. Depending on which of two Sun-Tues sets in February they happen to be in (22-24 is the play, I think, 15-17 is the other place for presentations), it's theoretically possible that a person could see me both act and present my thesis paper.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S 2 SCOOBY DOO 6: THE FIRST PART OF THE CONTENTION BETWEEN THE TWO NOBLE HOUSES OF HANNA AND BARBERA

Or

RUH-ROH, MY METATHEATRICS ARE SHOWING

My second 24 Hour Theatre Project offering, written with the assistance of the inestimable Nolan Carey. As a note to readers, please treat the Transition to stage direction as Wayne's World style fade-outs.

So it took me a while to realize that postdating this very interesting entry would not, in fact, keep it at the top of Friends' pages a little longer, but would in fact hide it forever. So, uh, this is a plug for myself, in my own journal. Go me. Also, I have to decide:



I kind of like 2 and 3 best.

It's been over three years since I did this last. As of this moment, I'm holding confession. I've set this entry to screen all comments, and I will not click the little "OK" button that makes them public. No one will ever be able to read what you write here. Be anonymous if you want the extra layer of secrecy, but where's the fun in that? No one will ever know but you, and me.

I want big secrets. I want little sins. I want petty crimes and peccadilloes. I want family secrets. I want the things you'd never admit to your mother. I want the things you'd only admit to your mother. I want the things you wanted to tell me before, but were afraid I'd blab about under other circumstances.

I want you to send your LJ Friends here. Facebook acquaintances. Blog readers. Co-workers. I want strangers, if you can get them. I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists.

I can't promise forgiveness, but I can give you silence. So come on - 'fess up.


EDIT: A friend in the program, upon hearing this idea said, "Oh, I should do this on MySpace and see if any of my friends from home respond and tell me secrets." THIS IS NOT THE CORRECT PROCEDURE. Correct procedure requires a link to this entry, so people can tell me their secrets. People trust strangers with their innermost thoughts. And I am stranger.

Lonely Werewolf Girl. Do it now. He also wrote The Good Fairies of New York, but this is somehow better. Martin Millar is the sort of person that Neil Gaiman gushes about. For instance:

"I don't understand why Martin Millar isn't as celebrated as Kurt Vonnegut, as rich as Terry Pratchett, as famous as Douglas Adams... I've been a fan of his work for almost twenty years."
or
"Millar writes like Kurt Vonnegut might have written, if he'd been born fifty years later in a different country and hung around with entirely the wrong sort of people... The Good Fairies of New York is a story that starts when Morag and Heather, two eighteen-inch fairies (that's 45 centimeters tall to you) with swords and green kilts and badly-dyed hair fly through the window of the worst violinist in New York, an overweight and antisocial type named Dinnie, and vomit on his carpet...It has a war in it, and a most unusual production of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Johnny Thunders' New York Dolls guitar solos. What more could anyone desire from a book?... Read it now, and then make your friends buy their own copies. You'll thank me one day."

My theory is that everything this man has written is worth reading.

AWAY MESSAGE RELATED EDIT: ""The pyjamas have cats on them. I am informed that these cats belong to an organization called Hello Kitty." is from the book.

ALSO: Not from the book: Colon: "Soup and water are different things" is the best away message I have ever constructed, as it can be used for both eating delicious soup and/or being in the shower. It is relevant to all my interests!

I've been looking through my lj for procrastination-related reasons, and I've come to a decision. Every once in a while I come up with a fun little game for my Friends list, and most of the time the response is minimal. Sometimes, on the other hand, much fun is had. The obvious next step is to try reposting some of these games, to see what happens x many years down the line.

So be prepared for: reruns!

Last night was a midnight showing of Labyrinth at the Dixie. It was a little fantastical, both because it was an actual film instead of a DVD, and because Matt, Reesa, and I sung along. Also, Matt was drunk. The following exchanges occurred:

Matt: I don't see what the big deal is, it's gonna be exactly the same as a DVD.
Me: That's not true. It's going to sound worse and look fuzzier.
~~~
*Line from the movie about "terrible black oubliette"*
Me: Why does it always have to be about race?
Matt: If it were a terrible white oubliette she wouldn't be trying to get away.
Girl behind us: That's horrible.
Matt: It's ok, the black man said it.
GBU: Oh *Laughs*

There was a costume contest, which I did not participate in despite having a costume. I followed the Daniel "Oz" Osbourne school of costume design, so I was sporting a label affixed to my t-shirt. It read, "FROM: Major Tom, c/o the Action Man TO: David Bowie." So I attended the screening as David Bowie's package.

My Dr. Horrible costume proceeds apace. Goggles, boots, and pants are in my possession. Black gloves and a lab coat remain. Since it's just a Halloween costume and not for cons, I'll probably take the cheaper way out and grab the standard mad scientist costume and die the coat red. Once I have everything (sometime next month) I'll take pictures, along with a pic of my mask from Venice, which I promised a million years ago.

That's about it. Thesis work continues apace.

First, this is already making the rounds but deserves to be reposted. It is an adorable fox, being a fox and adorable. It's name is Freddy. Freddy is a girl fox. Thanks qotcpcf and saraphina_marie for the link.

Moving right along. I've just started my second year of grad school at MBC, and have spent the first two weeks dealing with a sinus infection. Fun times! Mostly over it now, though. The most annoying part is that it's kept me out of circuit training. That's right. One of the professors in the program does circuits in the morning. It's required for third year acting students, and everyone else is free to attend if they want. I made the first two meetings before I got all sicky, so it's been over a week for me. I learned during running that the big secret is not making a big deal about the missed sessions - if I let myself feel guilty about it, I'll hide from it rather than go back. And I do want to go, I'm just not going to until I clear up completely. Mostly I console myself with the fact that the people who are teasing me for not showing up to circuits are in horrible pain.

PS - I lost ten pounds from running over the summer and eating a little better. By "eating better" I mean "only having half as much dessert." It's all relative.

So yeah, grad school. This semester is Dramaturgy (applied theatrical research) and Visual Design for the Early Modern Stage (choreography, blocking, creating visuals using people). If I stay a third year for my MFA, Dramaturgy is what the degree will actually be in. The last class slot is taken up by a Directed Inquiry, i.e., starting my thesis. I've already denuded an entire section of the library - PR3071 now exists only as a descriptor of the types of books located in my study carrel. Good times! My aim is to create a for-actors edition of an Early Modern play (possibly R&J) that gets around many of the problems of a)edited texts, b)texts designed for scholars, and c)if possible, paper editions.

( Computer/design/interested-parties type people, click here to help me! )

Oh, also. I have acquired two new pieces of hardware. The first is an iPod, which I call music from a farther room. It is black, and actually holds all my music. Plus my music videos. Plus all of my pictures. I used to sport one of the 20G 4th Gen models, pre-color. It was sort of weird when, a month after I got my old one, they introduced a model (the iPod photo) that was color, held more, and yet somehow had a greater battery life. I have finally rectified the matter. Now I just have to figure out why all my attempts to have it automatically synch up with my Google Calendars are coming to naught. And fight pressure to get more music just to fill the thing up.

The other item is a laptop, which bears the name of Ulalume. I haven't had the itch for a laptop in quite some time, mostly because of the way I used to use them when I had one. My laptop was a desktop replacement - a big heavy thing that ran games well and could be transported to NY when I went home for the summer. That was all the movement it did. I never took it to the library, or the cafe, or what-have-you. So when, one move to DC and two catastrophic spills later, I wound up with a desktop, the need for portability just wasn't there. During the NEH conference this summer, I finally started to think to myself, "Man, I wish I had a laptop with me for typing/note-taking/internet/minesweeper." And lo, it came to pass. It's pretty much just for that kind of work - I'm certainly not giving up on my main comp for gaming or anything (though it's about time for a RAM upgrade and maybe a second video card). I don't even think I'm going to be installing my music on here. But it's nice to be able to work somewhere asides from the basement. Or just sit in bed with a computer/dvd-player. You know. For the porn.

Leaving the house in a few minutes. Will be in NY as of 8/14. Performances are as follows:
The Brooklyn Lyceum on 8/14 and 8/15, 8pm; 8/16, 3pm and 7pm; and 8/17, 3pm - Brooklyn, NY

Will be staying a week or so after that, and totally looking to run an Unknown Armies one-shot for 5-9 people.

"If one's mind is working, actively, one is not having fun. One is in the presence of T.S. Eliot." --Stephen Booth

Today's Fortune: You will have no problems in your home [except in bed].


PS - I like T.S. Eliot.

The visiting scholar for the end of the NEH institute is Stephen Booth, the only one of the scholars to have his own Wikipedia article (several of the others are mentioned or cited, however). Ralph refers to Stephen as the world's best close reader, and it may not be far from the truth. We spent the second session today listening to him read, I kid you not, Go Dog. Go! Once "like normal people read it," and once the way that Stephen Booth reads it. And it probably taught me more about critical analysis than any class I've ever had. Startling insights such as the fact that the book is not thematically about dogs, but about trees, hats, and wheels. Dogs matter about as much as plot does to Shakespeare - it's just there to hold the good stuff together. Best day ever.

"Go Dog. Go! is the closest thing I have ever found to a map of what is beautiful. It means just what it says it means. There are these dogs, see..."
--Stephen Booth

OFFICIAL NOTICE: The Fortune Cookie Game has new rules, and you should be using them. Today's fortune is, "Try it, you may like it [except in bed]."

Because making Dr. Horrible icons is the most productive way that a grad student can spend their time, I swear. They looked better without words, but the words were too good to leave off. Conundrum! Severals of minutes were spent wrestling with this issue. Speaking of issues, the latest Entertainment Weekly (surprised?) features Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, revealing among other things that the DVD will have singing commentary and that planned audio language tracks include a)Spanish b)French c)Japanese badly translated back into English d)classical Latin and e)panther noises. Good times! Speaking of which, I think this trumps owning a Jayne hat as a reason for choosing a Halloween costume. Of course, being me, I'm going to see if I can swing the red version. Red ones go faster.

The NEH institute is drawing to a close, which I'm ok with at this point. It's been an enormous time-suck, and although it was both enjoyable and educational, those bits could have probably been condensed into a day or three. Mostly it was sitting around watching people take a crash course in the same stuff I've been learning in detail over the last year. And the guest scholar list, while illustrious, was carefully constructed so as to provide as little new information as possible. It's like Blackfriars Greatest Hits - all the academia that you love, but only the really popular stuff that everyone hears when they first get into the genre. That's my theory, anyway. On the other hand, Alan Dessen was the impressive, and Jeremy Lopez spent so much time talking about my less-probable thesis idea that he managed to link it to my more-probable thesis idea. Thank you, Dr. Lopez!

On a final note: Alan Dessen was discussing the existence and loss of the early modern dramatic vocabulary. Basically, since actors were putting on shows with minimal rehearsal, there's a possibility that the stage directions we have are so sparse because everyone knew what that meant. For example, "Enter as to a jail" means put one guy in manacles, and give another a giant ring of keys. That's a simple one. Slightly more complicated is the disappearance of the ghost in Hamlet - since the actor has to leave the stage like everyone else does, the "ZOMG it vanished" has to be hard-coded into a sort of "standard disappearance maneuver." Looking at the spot where it suddenly went invisible, ignoring the exit, a bit of flailing, and etc. Dessen pointed out that there's indication of the ghost opening its arms before almost speaking to Horatio. So maybe the accepted convention for disappearing, at least in that moment, involved closing the arms.

To put it another way: Big-time Shakespearean scholar Alan Dessen suggested that undead creatures cross their arms over their chests to go invisible. How cool is that?

With a free Flickr account, 527 MB worth of pictures will take approximately 5.27 months to upload. By which I mean six. The obvious solution was to pay for a Flickr Pro account so that you, the loyal viewer, can play along from in your own home. I present:

SHAKESPEARE IN ITALY, ALSO IN CAPS LOCK

That should be the right link. People seeing this through Facebook can just check the MyFlickr application I added to my profile, since I don't think the link will come through in the note.

Some explanations as well:
The photos should be in chronological order.
Tags will be updated over time, but right now they should at least let you know what city you're looking at.
I figured that everyone would be taking pictures of the famous buildings and art and such, which are also on postcards, so I tried to focus on classmates and strangers and graffiti and dogs/cats/etc.
There are multiple pictures of many paintings and sculptures because I thought I might need them later for assignments, and wanted/needed multiple angles.
My general strategy is to take as many photos as possible and guarantee myself a few will look ok later.
I deleted a lot of blurry or unnecessarily duplicated pictures so you don't have to see them.
I hate the flash, so I just try and hold still and hope for the best; sometimes the best is not great.
I set a fairly low standard for how good something needs to look to be worth showing off.
Some of the pics are, imho, really good, and will probably wind up with the "favorite" tag down the line.

I need to take millions of pictures now to make the account worthwhile.