Frozen Lakes and Music

It's getting fairly chilly here in Madison- we've had quite a bit of snow as of late. Epic is dealing with the problem in particularly crazy fashion by keeping their artificial river running throughout the winter. Granted, it leads to this pretty awesome view:

In other news, the girl and I have been concert going fiends as of late. First this past Sunday we went to a Doomtree concert featuring our favorite rapper, Dessa!

She is ridiculously talented- for one of my favorite songs of hers, check out the video below:



We also went to the Trampled by Turtles concert on Friday. They focus on contemporary bluegrass and are from Duluth. An example of their music is below:



In other news, I've been formally attached to a customer team and they are glad to finally meet me. So far the work hasn't been too tricky, but I hear there will be a lot more soon.

That's it for now- lots of busy work this weekend, but not too terribly much.

Until next time...

"We often feel sad in the presence of music without words; and often more than that in the presence of music without music."
- More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927

Warm Weather Weekend

It has been an absolutely gorgeous April so far here in Minnesota. The weather has been warm but not hot, sunny but not quite yet drought, and there have been plenty of sunny, blue-sky days to enjoy.

A couple of people have come to help us enjoy this warm weather. Becky Dernbach came back to temporarily live in our house on Thursday and has been exposing us all to some of the recipes that she learned while in Mexico.

Rachel's parents also came down over the weekend because her mom was taking some photography classes in St Paul. Most of this visit was spent in the usual fashion- us eating well while we enjoyed their company. Rachel also got to go to a Twins game over the weekend in some sweet seats at their new open air stadium. We also went to a storytelling performance over at the Black Forest Inn (a great place in town to get authentic German meals and beer... like the two are any different!)

The foremost reason we went to the performance was to see our friend Kathrin Glover perform. She's been in the theater world and in particular telling stories about her amazing life for a while now and is really, really good. Somehow she always manages to bring up yet another cool, interesting or shocking tidbit about her life, and I'm beginning to wonder if there is an end at all to the number of stories she can bring up at a whim.

This night's theme was High Maintenance, so her story was about a time early in her college career when she decided to focus solely on her music practicing... which became so intense that it caused severe trauma to her hands and arms. So much so that she had to rely on others to do simple tasks like tie her shoes for her. Her other compatriots on the stage added their various tales, all in very good form, including such juicy tidbits as:

• slam poetry on why he needs to be able to use the & in his poetry and why it makes a difference, thankyouverymuch
• a woman's reminiscence of her first marriage to a man who was pretty on the outside but just not what she was looking for on the inside
• a guy who sang a folk song about not liking a person's name. He didn't like the name so much that he instead used a name of an audience member instead of the other name.
• the purchase of a brand new, stainless steel refrigerator, and how it reflected on the rest of the storyteller's life
• and many more.

It was a great evening, and I even managed to pick up Kathryn's book, The Diary Theif. Haven't read it yet, but that's mostly because I've been saving it for later.

That's not all for now, but I'll let the various news bits dribble out like a good blogger. Look for more postings this week.

Until next time...

We had one fine sunset--a rich carmine flush that suffused the western sky and cast a ruddy glow far over the sea. Fine sunsets seem to be rare in this part of the world--or at least, striking ones. They are soft, sensuous, lovely --they are exquisite, refined, effeminate, but we have seen no sunsets here yet like the gorgeous conflagrations that flame in the track of the sinking sun in our high northern latitudes.
- The Innocents Abroad

The Scottish Last King of Scotland

On Friday Rachel and I (along with a couple of Rachel's coworkers) went to the Guthrie (yay working for nonprofits!) to see their production of Macbeth, by you-know-who. The Guthrie is fond of doing Shakespeare in... shall we say, interesting ways. I knew that this was going to be no exception when the first scene of the play was filled with machine gun fire. People were coming down zip lines while firing automatic weapons, Macbeth and company were engaged in a swirling melee with pistols and knives, and the setting was a ruined church or other gothic structure.

Apparently the Guthrie was going for a "Last King of Scotland" approach to the play as everything was set in modern times and everyone wore clothing that would best fit a tyrannical small African kingdom that had Western ambition. The involved fight scenes cropped up many times in the play and occasionally were a bit too much. Simple actions like Macbeth having his goons take out a rival's family became drawn out combats, and the assassination of Banquo took far too long to get to the end. It was when the fight scenes left something to the imagination that they became really convincing- like when the three goons close in on the rival's daughter and the lights go out. Chilling stuff.

The lead himself wasn't the most convincing figure. When he was decided on what he was doing he was great- an imposing, dangerous figure who nobody should mess with. It was the parts where he had to decide what path to go down that were rather unfulfilling. It just felt too much like a light switch- there wasn't any drama to the decision at all.

Still, the rest of the acting was spot on, and the scene where Banquo's spirit haunts Macbeth was AMAZING. The Weird Sisters were well done and had plenty of special effects back up to make them seem otherworldly and powerful. The very end was also very well done, grim and surprising, though I won't spoil it. Think of the ending of "A Brave New World" except upside down...

Until next time...

"How curious and interesting is the parallel--as far as poverty of biographical details is concerned--between Satan and Shakespeare. ...They are the best-known unknown persons that have ever drawn breath upon the planet."
- "Is Shakespeare Dead?" by Mark Twain

Going to the Fitz

So tonight Rachel and I had a special treat. We drove out to downtown St Paul in the middle of freezing rain and sleet to go to the Fitzgerald Theater.

Now why would we do a silly thing like that?

Oh wait, this guy!

 

So yes, Rachel and I got to go to the first ever live cinecast of A Prairie Home Companion! And see it live in the theater! The Fitz is a pretty nice theater (though it scarily resembles the Clemens Center in its architecture), and we got what I like to call quasi-boxed seats.

As you can see in that last picture, at the beginning there was a bit of a video where Garrison Keillor walked around St Paul and explained a bit about its landmarks and his favorite places in town. Particular favorite line from this part: "It's cold here. It's... Nature's way of killing us."

Then the show began, and an interesting figure took the stage; you can see him on the right there:

Elvis Costello!?!?!

The rest of the show had all of the great hallmarks of PHC: good music, Lake Wobegon, random advertisements, etc. It was really interesting to see them perform the show as, well, a radio show, rather than a live show. Sure there were plenty of gestures towards the audience, but for the most part it was as they always do, geared towards radio. Stage hands walking unapoligetically around the stage, big obtrusive mikes, no props besides the two awesome sound effects guys... just a lot of people talking and making us see the scenery through the way that they talked about everything.

Some more pics from the show:

 

Until next time...

When you want genuine music--music that will come right home to you like a bad quarter, suffuse your system like strychnine whisky, go right through you like Brandreth's pills, ramify your whole constitution like the measles, and break out on your hide like the pin-feather pimples on a picked goose,--when you want all this, just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo!
- Mark Twain's "Enthusiastic Eloquence," San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle, 6/23/1865

Mortem Capiendum

Thursday night Rachel and I headed out to the Guthrie Theater on yet another "Guthrie loves nonprofits!" night.

The Guthrie is a very pretty theater, with a lot of cool interiors...

 

 

and exteriors, like the Endless Bridge.

We went to see a showing of Mortem Capiendum by the Four Humors. It's a show about a group of snake-oil salesmen starring Professor John St. Miracle. They begin the show with all of the standard tricks of the trade: a bit of music, a lot of fast talking and trying to appear like a local in this here town of "Minn-ee-appolis!", and of course an audience plant who is magically cured by Doctor ("It's Professor, but I'll let you get away with that this once.") St. Miracle.

It's funny and entertaining, but the real show begins right after that when the Proffessor claims to have "the Ultimate cure for a condition most permanent." It appears that the trio have somehow managed to trap Death in a steamboat trunk and have extracted from him an elixir "brewed from the River Styx!" called Mortem Capiendum, the drink of eternal life.

Of course in a show about eternal life, there has to be proof of the effects. The Professor himself has already died, shot down by bandits outside of St. Louis. Eustace is the next to go, drowned by the Professor, and stays dead long enough for the snake-oil facade to falter. Their accomplice, Lloyd, falls grotesquely soon after, only to rise again.

In and around these deaths the characters discover, well, what being dead is like, both physically and spiritually. Each has lost something that made them what they were is now gone- their ambitions have become fuzzy and impossible to remember, their most treasured skills lost as their souls "just stood up and walked away," and food and all pleasures taste like ash. The show plays around with this theme for quite a while, taking plenty of interesting turns that are impossible to predict. One moment the characters could be having a serious conversation about where their souls went, the next they are doing handstands to try to prevent their blood from pooling down around their ankles.

For such a short play (only 60 minutes) they manage to pack a surprising amount of material into it, the theme of which seems to be that life without the things that make life good is worthless, even if it is eternal. It is darkly funny all the way through and raises some interesting questions about the quest for life everlasting and what would happen if we ever achieved it. All in all, a good show that fit exactly my kind of humor.*

*Note: not applicable to all people.

Until next time...

"Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world."
- The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson and the Comedy of the Extraordinary Twins , by Mark Twain

Teching, among other things

The past week was fairly busy. As mentioned before, I had tech for Panda Sandwich and WTF in the Garden of Eden. The shows went very well, especially on the last night, and I think everyone had a good time.

The tech booth was pretty awesome as I had to climb a ladder to get to it and it was open air, so if something sounded to loud or soft I could hear it right away and adjust on the playlist.



The first night they had a lot of bands around to get more people to come, including one band that really blew me away. They are called Bad September and sing Victorian-influenced songs while dressed in period gear. They're also led by John Heimbach, who runs Walking Shadow Theatre Company. I think my favorite was about a duel between Tesla and Edison, though the one where the chorus is a recitation of chess moves was pretty spiffy too.



I also helped filming a PSA for the Electronic Waste project that I've been working on. It was really interesting to see all of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes, as well as the sheer amount of equipment and time that you need to film a short minute long PSA... not to mention cut it down to size! I'll post the PSA after it's all finished... but for now we have pictures a plenty.



Yay first video post!

Until next time...

"It is a fairy play. There isn't a thing in it which could ever happen in real life. That is as it should be. It is consistently beautiful, sweet, clean, fascinating, satisfying, charming, and impossible from beginning to end. It breaks all the rules of life drama, but preserves intact all the rules of fairyland, and the result is altogether contenting to the spirit. The longing of my heart is a fairy portrait of myself: I want to be pretty; I want to eliminate facts and fill up the gap with charms."
- Interview with Mark Twain on Peter Pan in Seattle Star, Nov. 30, 1905, p. 8

Too many things!

The above is a picture of SKROLBORG- the Viking Art of the Axe. See bottom of post for the show it is from. And COME!

Last week my dad and bro drove up from New York on motorcycles to hang out with me. It was definitely a ton of fun. As Rachel put it, "I have never eaten so well in my life!" Mostly because we decided that an extended gastro tour was the best way to show my fam around the Cities. Very strangely they appeared for the exact same time as we had the coldest days of July on record... heck, a lot of the pics around Lake Calhoun looked like it was winter out.

Awesome things we did included:
-visited many bars including the Muddy Pig
-went to the Science museum and saw Harry Potter (mini-review: very good. Hilarious, suspenseful and badass at all the correct points. Go see it.)
-went to the Tour de Fat, a bike and beer themed festival put on by Fat Tire
-saw a great Blues band at Famous Dave's
-not only convinced Siegi that Minneapolis exists, but that it is a great place to live (woohoo veggie restaurants and Green Way!)

Troubling things in my life include grad school hunting, GRE studying and making sure that I get all of my hours in for Americorps. Grad school hunting is proving to be scarier than when I last tried it, as now I'm trying to find schools that have both Physics Education and Physics courses, as I'm not sure which would help me out more right now. That question makes it all the scarier, as I'm actually at the point where I need to decide what I want to do for the rest of my life, a question that I have avoided for nigh on 23 years. But that could (and will) probably be a post of its own... For Americorps I need to do approximately 15 more hours per week than I normally do to get everything done in time (took one too many vacations I think...). I think I have enough work that I could do to get it all done, but it means giving up every day except maybe Sunday to work to get it all done on time. And the GRE sits there, mocking me and my lack of time.



I'm also currently involved with Panda Sandwich and WTF In the Garden of Eden. This relapse into doing tech is devouring my life, so come and see it on Wednesday through Saturday, doors open at 7 and show at 7:30. Is at Bedlam Theatre. Be there.

p.s. And yes mom, I am able to do tech and do all my other stuff as well. It just means I have no free time. *sigh*

Until next time...

"Suicide is the only sane thing the young or old ever do in this life."
- quoted in Mark Twain: God' s Fool, Hamlin Hill

Delicious Mind Putty

So this week I had the pleasure of seeing two excellent shows: Happy Days by Samuel Beckett and Coraline. The former was a bit of a surprise to me- Teagle invited me along that morning as I was driving to work, and I figured "why not?" When she told me who the play was by I began having second thoughts. I mean, this is the man who wrote Godot, a play that I have heard I would hate above all others. Still, it was a free show, I got some Teagle Time (TM), so I figured why not.

Thank God I was extremely pleasantly surprised. Happy Days was an excellently executed, acted, and scripted play. Basically the play is about a woman who is partially buried in dirt. She doesn't seem very concerned about this, except for occasional terrified glimpses into her psyche where she realizes she can't remember life before the dirt. The only other actor, her husband, is more of a prop than anything else- occasionally says a few words, but that's about it. As you may have guessed, there was tons of symbolism going on, but not so much that the options for interpretation became endless. I think the version that Teagle and I came out with was that the woman was actually a terminally ill patient in a hospital who exhibited that depressing kind of optimism and can-do attitude that occasionally grips the soon to be departed, which was occasionally dispelled by momentary realizations of her condition. The husband at first simply made sure she was taken care of and visited her occasionally, but at the end realized that he had not done enough and was desperately trying to make up for it. There's a couple of other cool tidbits, but they wouldn't make much sense if you haven't seen the play. Suffice it to say that the show was very entertaining and engaged my brain in a way that a show hasn't done in... well, ever. Good job, Mr. Beckett- your weirdness paid off.

Speaking of weirdness, Coraline is awesome! We went on Friday to see the 3D version with Laura and were completely blown away. I think it's one of the very few times where a movie has elicited so many sounds of pure amazement, joy and terror from a group of 20-somethings. The visuals were spectacular, so much so that I caught our row audibly reacting to the impossible, beautiful images on the screen. The story was suitably whimsical and dark at the appropriate times, and many times at the same time. So much so that it might not actually be appropriate for children, but damn was it appropriate for us. The line between reality and fantasy becomes delightfully blurred towards the end, which made me smile evilly as I now have some more ammunition to use in my upcoming Changeling campaign. Finally, the 3D element- it's not needed, but it certainly amps up the visuals to a high degree. Nothing jumps out at you in a hackneyed manner- instead it draws you more convincingly into the story and manages to elicit even more "oohs" and "aahs" from the audience. Go see it. Now.

In other news:
-have been working on the e-waste project. Should soon have radio and print ads alerting ethnic minorities about their e-cycling options.
-junk mail is terrible for the environment. Just think about how many trees are cut down for paper and envelopes; how much water is used in paper manufacture; how much fuel is consumed in transporting logs, paper, envelopes, and junk mail; how few pieces of junk mail are acutally responded to; and how few of the rejected mails are recycled. Post if you want to get more info on stopping junk mail.
-got to see more Carleton folks on Saturday with rousing games of Catan and Heroscape (the latter took some getting used to after 40k, but was still fun.

Until next time...

"The castle-building habit, the day-dreaming habit--how it grows! what a luxury it becomes; how we fly to its enchantments at every idle moment, how we revel in them, steep our souls in them, intoxicate ourselves with their beguiling fantasies--oh, yes, and how soon and how easily our dream-life and our material life become so intermingled and so fused together that we can't quite tell which is which, anymore."
- "The $30,000 Bequest," by Mark Twain

Valentime's Day!

As many of you may be aware, this past Saturday was Valentime's [sic] Day, which the girl and I decided to celebrate in style. We began by giving each other gifts- she got me a geeky shirt, and I got her a ridiculous geeky shirt. Unfortunately the hearts on her shirt didn't light up properly, but I can guarantee you that when I get a fixed copy there shall be ridiculous pics.

We then got all spiffed up and headed out to El Meson, a nice Spanish/Caribbean restaurant on 35th and Lyndale. We got to have some very exciting looking and tasting treats like ceviche! (cold, not warm) After dinner we headed out to Yum! to grab some desert, which consisted of a slice of coconut cake. I was then directed to our mystery activity location by Rachel, who was having way too much fun not telling me where we were going. It turned out to be Patrick's Cabaret, which was having a cabaret and burlesque show that night. We got there a bit early, so we decided to head over to Town Talk Diner to kill some time.

If you haven't been to the Diner before, it is awesomeness distilled with a slight infusion of crazy. They have all sorts of delicious foods and drinks that are a bit off the beaten path- for instance, they make a lot of their own liquers and throw a lot of interesting twists into existing ones, like habanero infused scotch. The place was packed (it being Valentime's [sic] Day), but we managed to get two seats at the bar very quickly. I was immediately drawn to their alcoholic malteds and ordered one called Monkey Business (see above pic), which consisted of PB, banana liquer, chocolate, rum, and vanilla ice cream. It tasted like a chocolate fluffernutter and not at all like something that would get me drunk. Rachel had some kind of blackberry concoction with homemade liquer which was also fantastic.

We then headed on over to the Cabaret to wait in the quickly growing line. Even though it was pretty cold out, the line quickly snaked around out of the alley and down the sidewalk. The people at Patrick's didn't seem to mind- they happily crammed patrons in wherever they could find room. This led to a lot of people seeing the show, but unfortunately some bad sight lines for us unless we sat seiza style on our chairs. The show itself was pretty good- the musicians and singers were talented, the belly dancers jiggly, and the burlesque performances had the right mix of raunch and whimsy to make it incredibly entertaining. For instance, in one act the performer came out wearing pretty much only pink balloons. She had a heart shaped pin that she and audience members used to pop in a suitably suggestive manner. Once down to no balloons... let's just say that tassles are fun.

After the show we headed home to watch some 28 Days Later (best Valentime's [sic] Day movie ever!), but by 1:30 were too exhausted to finish the second half.

There's been some other stuff going on, but I'll wait till later to post about it. Until next time...

"What, Sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce."
- Speech given by Mark Twain, January 11, 1868

A Plethora of Plays

As the title suggests, I saw plenty of plays this past weekend. Two of these were at the Guthrie, thanks to a handy little deal wherein people who work for nonprofits could get 4 tickets to select shows for FREE. Rachel and I of course had to take advantage of this offer, and so we found ourselves with tickets to Two Gentlemen of Verona and A Delicate Balance.

Verona was an interesting play; we showed up about 25 minutes late (curse you I-94 random rush hours!) but still understood what was going on for the most part (being one of Shakespeare's early comedies, this is not to be unexpected). The play was being set in 1950's/60's America, complete with Honeymooner's style slapstick, crooning tunes from a man with a pompadour, and big boat cars. The stage was set up like a TV set from the period, with a projected backdrop and huge TV cameras filming the show and showing it on two huge black and white screens. At the intermissions the "stage manager" would come out and corral the audience and actors about just as if it were a live TV show recording. Probably the best part of the show was the actor playing Lance, one of the "clownish attendants" of the main character. He got to do most of the Honeymooner's style slapstick, sing a couple of songs with pompadour back up, AND go to walk around on stage with a real dog, all to great effect. Some parts of the play were definitely wierd and felt a bit out of place (the thugs, calling what is apparently a CEO an emperor), but overall I enjoyed it.

On Monday we went to the "pay-what-you-can" night for Planting Shelly Anne, the play Teagle AD'd, which I also enjoyed. The play is about a mother and the challenges and worries that she faces on a daily basis: will she get her daughter to eat again, is her husband cheating on her, how can she stop the polar ice caps from melting, and- most importantly- will she get the tulips planted before the first frost? She tries to corral everything with a to do list, but inevitably ends up not doing those things she really wanted to get done. There's also some day dreams and a remarkable fever sequence, but really I think it was the first half of the play that sold me on it, mostly because of how it reminds me of my mom... minus the cheating husband and a couple of other things. She always seems to want to do a lot of things but only ever manages to do a few; every other second is taken up by taking care of a family that certainly loves her but often takes her for granted, leaving her no time to plant her metaphorical tulips.

Tuesday saw Kristine Mackin, Joe Knoedler and Nick Netland come up to go see A Delicate Balance with me. First off, the set was fantastic- an actual, working elegantly shaped staircase, huge bookshelves, and set walls that gave the illusion of a vast, black dome. As for the play, I believe my term is "queerly enjoyable." By this I mean the premise of the play made little sense, but I liked the reactions it provoked. I don't want to spoil it if you do see it, but the play deals with loneliness and our reactions to it: how do we seek comfort from loneliness, and to what extremes will we go to to get it. The actress playing the daughter, Julia, gave an especially impassioned performance and definitely highlighted the "extremes" part of securing solace from being alone against the world.

In non play news, I also:
-explained computer science through PB&J
-have been watching Buffy like a fiend
-have spent way too much time looking up Eldar tactica

So, until next time...

"How curious and interesting is the parallel--as far as poverty of biographical details is concerned--between Satan and Shakespeare. ...They are the best-known unknown persons that have ever drawn breath upon the planet."
-"Is Shakespeare Dead?", by Mark Twain

Gov't Money, An awesome weekend, and other stuff

So, I am now living on the support of the government. Yaaaaaaaaay. It turns out that applying for Food Support is actually quite easy if you have all of the proper documentation ripping and raring to go. Well, not ripping, but raring I think is still appropriate. Anyway, I went in, took my number, was immediately called up to a window where I filled out a blue form and handed in my previously complete CFAP (the form that gets you all the support you could ever need), then sat and waited for about 2 hours. I doodled a bit, drew up some new lists for teh geekedness, and was eventually called into Door 18.
Very few people get to go through Door 18, especially on their first try. Behind it are a bunch of people with computers, and you sit in a very short chair, one so short that you can barely see over the cubicle wall at the person processing your paperwork. It was a rather humbling experience, as the only way I could interact at all was to reach over this high ledge, like a kid handing reports over a kitchen table. If that was their intention, then bravo I say.
There I sat, handed over my documents, convinced them that I was in fact an Americorps member, and waited while the computer threw a hissy fit over my non-existant existant income (it's confusing, I know, but Americorps income does not count as income! Well, for the non-taxing gov't, anyway). Got my new form, headed down three flights of stairs, waited in another line in a surprisingly airport terminal-esque space, and got my EBT card (it's actually quite pretty and innocuous; bunch of fall colored trees, blue sky, looks like a credit card).

But the upside of that is now I can actually eat food without wondering how much it costs! Yay! And speaking of eating food, last weekend was pretty awesome. So one of Rachel's fellow AP people had a dinner party at her house courtesy of her host parents. It was in Edina, so we knew it would be a pretty good spread, but we were completely unprepared for the amazingness that was to happen. The couple were very friendly, and even had their own home brewed beer! (steam ale with an infusion of gooseberries- very crisp, excellent blend of hops that was not overpowering but definitely present, and a slight malt taste. The gooseberries added an interesting level of tartness to the beer, but in a very good way.) So there was a huge, amazingly delicious spread, plenty of wine and beer, and afterwards we had a poetry reading. This was actually probably the second best part (after the beer, of course), as we got to hear a lot of serious, funny, and homebrewed compositions that were uniformly interesting. I decided to be a bit ironic; you can find my submission here, once again by the inestimable Mark Twain.

On Saturday it was actually warm out, so after a good day at work (students at both classes!), Rachel and I went for a walk around the lakes, then headed out to see Waltz with Bashir. I really, really liked the movie on about every level. The narrative to the documentary was compelling, the subject matter interesting, and the medium it was told in was incredibly brilliant. It is also a very heavy movie, and can be disturbing, hilarious, and cause dumb struck silence in the span of 15 minutes. Rachel had some reservations about the film, though, particularly the fact that it only told one side of the story. This is true- the film is from the perspective of Israeli troops and no one else, which to some extent dehumanizes the Palestinians and the Lebanese. But still, any movie that causes the audience to be silent almost the entire way through the credits deserves a gold star in my book. I recommend it, but be prepared for a serious and kind of trippy movie.

Other things going on:
- won a game of Warhammer last night! My theory of flying tanks+lasers+undead, nigh indestructible giants=win was proven to be true, at least against Marines. Further tests will have to be conducted.
- I see faeries and their nefarious work everywhere
- studying for the GRE has begun once again
- I have mastered the art of scratch pizza making, and am now moving on to shepherd's pie

Until next time...

"If the bubble reputation can be obtained only at the cannon's mouth, I am willing to go there for it, provided the cannon is empty. If it is loaded my immortal and inflexible purpose is to get over the fence and go home. My invariable practice in war has been to bring out of every fight two-thirds more men than when I went in. This seems to me Napoleonic in its grandeur."
- "Mark Twain as a Presidential Candidate," New York Evening Post, 6/9/1879

Frost/Nixon and Political Star Trek

On Saturday Jason, Caroline, Rachel and I headed down to Edina to see the movie Frost/Nixon. I came into the movie not exactly knowing what to expect- I knew that there was a famous interview that showed Nixon in a bad light, but that was about it. So, I didn't think that the story would be especially gripping, more just good.

Well, I was half right and half wrong. The story was good, but it was also surprisingly gripping, dragging us the whole way while we were on the edge of our seats with worry and/or anticipation. There's a whole lot of factors that make it so intense- the excellent way that Frost is portrayed as a potential nitwit who might be way in over his head, especially through that vacant smile he's always wearing; the mounting debt that the production runs up, even during the final day of filming; and the strangely likeable malevolence of Nixon. Speaking of Nixon, the actor, Frank Langella, is amazing. He looks nothing like Nixon, but just from the way that he speaks, walks and gestures you are convinced that he is Tricky Dick. This effect was pulled off so well that about halfway through the movie I could've sworn that he had actually physically morphed into the former president, despite the aforementioned discrepancy in their appearances.

In other news, Rachel and I are working our way through Star Trek: TNG. Last night we came across an episode called The Outcast which was really good and surprisingly relevant. It concerns the Enterprise coming to the aid of an alien race that is completely androgynous. Throughout the episode we come to realize that the race is not, in fact, completely androgynous and that some of them realize that they are of a gender, either male or female, and are scorned for it. In all it was a really neat look at the gay rights issue, except kind of reversed and of course in an alien setting. I recommend that you check it out- it's worth the watch.

That's about it for now; till next time...

"History has tried hard to teach us that we can't have good government under politicians. Now, to go and stick one at the very head of the government couldn't be wise."
- Mark Twain writing in the New York Herald, 8/26/1876

T-Day Week

Dammit, forgot about the blog for a while again. Well, no time like the present to catch up, now is there?

In my last blog post I headed home to Elmira, NY to do some shooting in the woods. Unfortunately that didn't work out so well for me, as not only did I not see any deer until Thanksgiving morning but I didn't even see any fresh tracks until then. My dad and I were pretty frightened that he had shot everything in the woods, but the last day proved us wrong. We switched to the one part of our property that we had not hunted yet and saw tons of tracks, droppings, and even the occasional deer. Unfortunately I didn't get a good shot at anything, but oh well. At least I saw something after all.

Being home this time was... weird. I don't know why, but it just feels very different to be home again now that I'm out of college. I guess I'm beginning to no longer consider home "home" anymore. I've spent the last 4.5 years out here in Minnesota, and now I'll be with the parents for a grand total of 3-4 weeks out of the year. I guess the really weird part is how ok I am with that; it's not scary or even sad- it just seems right.

But still, getting to see the whole family was pretty cool. I got to help Hans along on his quest to construct the perfect board game (the latest sounds like some kind of weird cross between the rules of Call of Cthulhu and Epic Duels), drink amazing Belgian beer with my dad and Siegi, tease Liesel about her boyfriend, see my Orio, and even kid around Oma (though I got to be careful with the latter nowadays). Perhaps as a gift to the fact that we were all home my dad even got the Wii, which was a blast. I mean seriously, how can you make a duck-hunt rip off so much fun?

Also while I was home I got to catch up with some of my high school friends. We played the requisite couple of games of Euchre and also went to see Role Models. I would describe this movie as the only cute rated-R movie that I have ever seen. Sure, it has its boatloads of sophomoric humor, but there's definitely a lot of tenderness thrown into the movie... also a lot of geekery. We decided that the writers for the movie just wanted to have an epic foam sword battle movie, but had to make some pretty major edits to get people to watch it. The final scene in particular has some pretty jaw dropping feats of Assassin-style sword fighting.

I got back on Friday to discover two things: 1) I was alone in the house, and 2) the water was shut off. The latter was fixed by a call to Jason, but the former was not resolved until Sunday, leaving me to go a little stir crazy at home. I filled this empty void in my life by watching Roughnecks: The Starship Trooper Chronicles on Youtube. It's actually a pretty good CGI cartoon, and a bit more mature than your average one. Of course watching the entire series in two days is a bit crazy... but I was pretty bored and drunk, in my defense.

Anyway, people came home, Teagle baked an awesome apple-cinnamon spice cake, and work resumed. There's some other, sometimes geekier stuff going on with me right now, but I'll leave that for another post.

Until next time...

"Thanksgiving Day. Let all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks now, but the turkeys. In the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys; they use plumbers. It does not become you and me to sneer at Fiji."
- "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" by Mark Twain

An Adventure, an Awesome, and an Airplane

Adventure: Downtown

So, after hearing that Russell was deathly ill with fever we decided to cancel Warhammer 40K round 2: metal mayhem. Now without a fixed point to guide my wanderings that evening, I chanced upon a call from Ms. Teagle. She wanted to know if I wanted to go see a play about one of her friend's travels around the world, so I said sure. I got her in the car and we headed out... to downtown Minneapolis.

Now, many of you may here the term "downtown Minneapolis" and not shudder in horror; in fact, you may laugh at those of us who do. Granted there is not as much traffic as in other, larger cities, but the layout is almost certainly more confusing. Streets are randomly decided to be one way, and many more are blocked off by the scattered bits of construction that pockmark downtown like chicken pox. The most dangerous and frustrating part of all of this, however, is the light rail. Normally a beautiful, well thought out thing in most cities of renown, the Minneapolis light rail is very dangerous in downtown because it looks like a normal street and is very easy to drive on to.

My personal experience with this happened that night. We wanted to make a right turn to try to find parking near the bar where the show was and accidentally turned onto the tracks, not knowing that the real street was actually in the third most left lane of the "street." Panicked, I pulled onto the sidewalk and assessed the situation with Teagle. Fortunately no trains were coming, but there was still the matter of getting from the sidewalk on the right side of the "street" to the actual street all the way to the left. The city planners seemed to have realized that their planning made no sense and thus made the medians seperating the two lanes of train and the lane of actual traffic by very low medians that can be driven over with care.

We managed to make it over the medians before oncoming trains flattened us and continued to try to find our way to a parking place. Unfortunately all right turns were denied to us by the light rail tracks, and this continued all the way until the tracks (and our road!) ended. 7 minutes of circling back around eventually got us back to our starting point, but still... what the hell, Minneapolis?

As a good note, the show was really good. It got me thinking about exactly what my "culture" is, and how typical it is of American, or any other culture on the planet. It also got me thinking about my heritage and how much that defines me. For myself, it does quite a bit, but I still think of my self as an American with German ancestry, not a German-American. There were some other good tidbits, like realizing just how different some cultures can be and exactly what some cultures find refreshing, fun, outrageous, etc.

Awesome: Danny Boyle

So, Danny Boyle is awesome. It takes a lot of people a while to realize this mostly because his movies are all so different from one another. In his directorial resume are such disparate movies as Trainspotting (need to see), 28 Days Later (probably the best zombie movie around despite the zombies not being the stars of the show)... and Slumdog Millionaire.

The last is his latest work that just debuted this past Friday. It tells the story of a boy and those closest to him, from his origins in the slums of Mumbai, throughout India and eventually back home, all in the search for who he is and to find his childhood sweetheart again.

The first really awesome thing about this movie is the fact that it is all told in retrospect as the main character is being investigated for cheating on India's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The second is that, while the movie can be lighthearted at times, it is also ruthless to its characters and subjects them to all sorts of real trauma, both physical and emotional, so it's a love story with something at stake. And the music is awesome, and every single person who saw the movie with us (i.e. the entire theater) enjoyed it, as well as 50 other screenings according to the pollster guy at the exit, which is kind of ridiculous. SO: go see it. NOW.

Airplane

I went home to New York on Friday. Yay! On the way I got to have a philly cheesesteak in Philly. Yay! I then got to sit in the woods for 4.5 hours waiting for invisible deer. Yay! Then I played Heroes 5 and Fallout 3. Yay!

Yay!

Until next time...

"We can't define anything precisely. If we attempt to, we get into that paralysis of thought that comes to philosophers… one saying to the other: 'you don't know what you are talking about!'. The second one says: 'what do you mean by talking? What do you mean by you? What do you mean by know?'"
-Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics

Return of the Blog

Wow, it's been a while since I updated this thing, hasn't it? Well, most of the reason for that was me studying for the physics GRE which absorbed my nights for quite some time. The GRE was last Saturday... but I didn't take it. The why of this is because ETS apparently never got the money for my test and never bothered to tell me about that until I called on the Thursday before the test asking for my registration ticket. Now, granted, there were a few things I could have done here- like, realize that there was such a thing as a registration ticket in the first place and check my credit card statements. But still... couldn't you send me an e-mail besides the confirmation e-mail that I thought guaranteed me a place at the test saying that you never got my money? Oyveh Maria...

Anyway, with that out of the way until freaking APRIL (grumble grumble death plot grumble) I now have a lot of free time on my hands. Some of this I have spent cooking things, and other parts of it doing geekier things... like brushing up on Warhammer 40K.

Now, before any of you freak out that I'm going to be broke playing this game, two things:
1. I'm already broke, how much worse can it get, and
2. I'm not actually buying any pieces, codices or books; just borrowing, proxying, and pirating like a good boy.
Since Russell is already gung-ho for Abaddon Chaos and Pechous wants to be the Space Marines I am forced to play with the Eldar, aka Space Elves. (No, seriously, they even have pointy ears and everything!) So I stole the codex from online and looked up army lists, deciding on Alaitoc because I love stealth and snipers, and they have them aplenty.

Another thing that I have done with my life recently is go up to Duluth to go see Rachel's parents and get my snow tires. While we were there the Carrolls took us out to Timberlodge Steakhouse (Would you like to load your [insert already kind of unhealthy food item here] with [insert incredibly unhealthy sounding dressing/food item here]?) and to a concert featuring the British Quartet Cantabile.

They were described to us as a "singing/comedy group", which sounded kind of wierd, but describes them perfectly. Basically they are an accapella group that has toured all over the world singing songs quite beautifully and/or disrespectfully, and ESPECIALLY if the songs in question don't have any words. For instance, their first song was a medley of a bunch of famous orchestral pieces where they sang all of the different instruments at once, mocking it along the way. They also sang some really beautiful pieces without a hint of irony; one that especially got to me was "Bist Du Bei Mir." It's a German song that can be sung in three or four parts, and I have sung it many times in my youth with my brothers and my church choir, and I also sung it the last time I saw my great-grandmother alive. Hearing it sung excellently before a crowd was really awesome and definitely put a smile to my face as I tried to sing along.

However, what was probably their best piece was also the last of their program, where they took a Frank Sinatra song and sang it as if it were a broken record, skipping their words, changing keys in wierd ways and speeding up and slowing down at random. All in all, hilarious.

Well, I don't want to bore you too much, so I'll talk about how work has been going in my next post. Again, sorry about the delay in posting, and hopefully I'll be able to keep more in touch from now on.

Until next time...

"The reason I dread writing letters is because I am so apt to get to slinging wisdom & forget to let up. Thus much precious time is lost."
- Letter to James Redpath from Mark Twain, 6/15/1871

Drive-In!

Hey all, not much to report today. Attempted some new culinary diversions, but met with limited success (note: apparently peanut butter and oil do not mix into a sauce. The more you know...), and celebrated National Milk Chocolate Day with a toasted coconut s'more. Mmm, mmm, mmm.
This evening Siegi, a few of his friends and Greg and I all went out to the Drive-In to watch Dark Knight and Hellboy 2. We drove up Siegi's pickup truck and set up a bunch of chairs and bean bags in the back and watched the movies with plenty of soda, chocolate and beer. Dark Knight, is of course still awesome, and even more awesome as I now got to look at all of the little plot points in greater detail. Hellboy 2 was also a surprisingly good movie, much better than the first one. They have a very interesting take on the fairy world- in some ways much more steampunk than usual, but in others more organic and weird. Still, that's about what you have to expect from the guy who directed Pan's Labyrinth. The artistic direction was spectacular right form the get go- scenes such as a story being acted out by wooden, porcelain and metal soldiers in life and death struggles (Jared, Kyle- remember that there's ALWAYS a bigger game...); a god of the forest's blood turning asphalt and skyscrapers into a wooded paradise; and the court of strange steampunk elves in the middle of a rusting factory that inexplicably has petals streaming from the ceiling were simply amazing and, I'll admit, a bit awe inspiring and quite beautiful in their own weird and fantastical way. The story was fairly good- pretty cute at times, with the right amounts of badassery to make it a blast to watch, but definitely go and see it for the visuals over the story.

In interesting news, apparently there are real world superheroes. They even have a registry. I just hope this doesn't end up like Watchmen, but for right now it's really freaking cool. Now if I can just get some kevlar...

Tomorrow I'm heading down to Philadelphia to look at grad schools and go to an OAR concert with my sister and her boyfriend, and then as soon as we get back I'm headed off to New Hampshire again with the whole family plus auxiliaries (Danielle and Greg). I might be able to post on Thursday quick, but don't count on it. Now I must to bed, so until next time...

"You're in love. Have a beer."
-Hellboy, from Hellboy 2

Reviews!

Well, let's get the day out of the way first, eh? Went down to the Honda dealer this morning to get my tires re-aligned as the last time I was there they didn't have the program in their computer for my car's make. They also told me it would be about 200 dollars the first time I went down, so I was pretty blue... until they told me to go without paying. Apparently Honda eliminates all charges if you have to wait two weeks because they don't have a part; who knew? Anyway, this cements in my mind that Honda is the nicest auto manufacturer out there right now, as all of the Honda places I've gone to have had great service and customer support. Yay corporate shilling!

We also had some really weird weather patterns here- fast moving storms that drop solid waves of rain for 5 minutes, complete with thunder and lightning, and then clear up into a sunny day, then repeat the process again three more times on the same day. It's getting kind of annoying, as we can't mow the lawn or go bike riding for fear that the ever present storm clouds will at any moment unleash their fury on our world. And finally, had really, really good sushi today- it even came in its own little wooden boat! Hint- eel is awesome, and soy sauce mixed with wasabi is also awesome.

So, reviews. First we will have our inaugural Brew Review! If you will recall me mentioning it earlier (Road Trippin' In the Northeast, Part One! -ed), I had some very interesting brews up in New Hampshire. The first of these was a brew from the Tuckerman Brewing Company, which is based in the very heart of the White Mountains and is named after the famous Tuckerman Ravine on Mt. Washington. The beer I tried, their Pale Ale, was amazing. Unlike most pale ales, which tend to beat you over the head with their hops, the Tuckerman Pale Ale combined the aroma and tang of hops with a sweet, rich flavor that mellowed the hops enough to truly taste all parts of the beer together. This beer rekindled my love of Pale Ales and, if I may, rekindled my hope in humanity.
Rating: 2 double jointed thumbs up.

The other beer I had was the Sea Dog Bluepaw Blueberry Wheat, which is brewed in Maine. It is what I would classify as a "girly beer", as it has more of a fruity taste than a beer taste. To quote my mom, "It doesn't taste like it has any alcohol in it!" It does, however, taste pretty good, at least to me; the flavor I think of when I drink it is Post Blueberry Morning cereal, but in a good way. Still, not exactly my favorite, but definitely drinkable and a recommendation to all of those non-beer drinkers out there.
Rating: 2 thumbs up.

Next on our reviews hit list is our inaugural Book Review! Today we will be looking at a book that I received as a graduation present from my elementary school friend Brian Kardon, who now goes to MIT. The book is The Best Science Writing of 2007, and is an incredibly informative and enjoyable book. Every article located in it looks at the topic at hand from both a scientific and a humanistic angle. By this I mean they include the history and facts behind the research, but also deal with how the research has or will affect humanity and looks at the journey the people being influenced by the research have made. Some of the stories are quite funny; having the great-great grandson of Charles Darwin report on the Intelligent Design trial in Dover, Pennsylvania by acerbically painting the ID defense team as a "dysfunctional family" filled with liars and bimbos is a riot. Some of them are quite sad; the tale of an incredibly intelligent and faith filled man succumbing to Alzheimer's one bit at a time is heart wrenching not only because of his own awareness of his diminishing mental faculties but the post-death autopsy scenes that are spliced in showing a brain that has been ravaged by a disease with no cure. All of these stories are well written, and all are on extremely topical and relevant issues.
Rating: two double jointed thumbs up

And finally, not quite a review of Batman: Gotham Knight. For those not in the know, Batman: GK is to the Dark Knight what the Animatrix was to Matrix 2: a series of short anime written by American writers and directed by Japanese directors about the time period between Batman Begins and Dark Knight. All of them show a different part of the whole that is Batman. There is the public's reaction to Batman in the first clip, depicting him as an inhuman force that cannot be understood. Later we see Batman as a man who must deal not only with physical pain, but the painful knowledge that he failed his parents and must constantly guard the night to prevent himself from failing an entire city that is given over to sin. Plus, the fact that many of the voices are from Batman: The Animated Series is just freaking awesome. All in all, it's actually a pretty good look at Batman from a psychological perspective (though the first clip is pretty weird, but I like it because it references a B:TAS episode) and I would recommend checking it out, if only on SurfTheChannel.

Well, that's about it for now; until next time...

"It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races."
- Pudd'nhead Wilson, by Mark Twain

*clap, clap, clap, clap*

So, I just went to go see Dark Knight, and I think I can sum up my feelings about it in one word: hooolyfreakingshititwasAMAZING! Seriously, one of the best movies I have seen in a long, long time. Everything was done perfectly- the psychological portrayals of the characters, the twists that keep you guessing at every point, Heath Ledger's and Aaron Eckhart's amazing portrayals of their characters- oh man, so good. If you haven't seen it yet, do it. NOW.




Have you seen it yet?

Good.

In other news, I've been fooling around with some really cool addons that I found for Firefox 3.0. I mean, there are the obvious ones- a little icon on the bottom of screen that tells you if you have mail, a German dictionary, an improved GMail, a faster downloading program, the appointment reminding program Don't Forget the Milk (it sends e-mails or text messages when appointments are coming up), but there are some really... shall we say, unique ones. First is PageAddict, which monitors the amount of time that you spend looking at different websites while surfing the web. Then, you can tell it to create a graph showing exactly how much time you are spending where. Hopefully this program will stop me from wasting so much time trolling the same old sites to see if there are any new updates yet.

The second really cool addon is called Stumble. When you add it on to your webbrowser you select different areas that you are interested in, with the option to change them later if you so desire. Then, all you have to do is click on the Stumble icon on your dashboard and it will load a random page that has been tagged with one or more of your favorites. So far it has led me to a lot of really cool sites, including ones containing thousands of free books, tales of the supernatural in America, a place you can e-mail yourself at a future date, and a really cool demo that illustrates an easy to comprehend way of understanding how to move in 10 dimensions.

My favorite site that it's taken me to so far, however, has to be a photography site. On it the artist has taken many normal, every day objects and used them to mimic other every day objects. For instance, there is a Roman arch made of books, a burnt match whose flame is created out of the rings in wood, and a zippered shirt using shadow and a flashlight. Really cool, you should check it out.

Well that's all for now. Oh, if you haven't checked out the Watchmen trailer, I recommend that you do. It's a little weird, and I agree with Jared that it probably uses too many slow downs, but hopefully the movie will be awesome... and at least Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan, Nite Owl and The Comedian look freaking awesome, especially the American god. And I'm going to Niagara Falls tomorrow with my pseudo sister Danielle. So, till next time...

I never said, "The superman exists, and he's American." What I said was,"God exists, and he's American." ~ Dr. Milton Glass, from Watchmen, about Dr. Manhattan

Of Batman and other things...

So, first off, go and look up Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog RIGHT NOW. It will only be up until the 20th and then will disappear forever, and you will miss the cutest tale of a super-villain just trying to make the world a better place through nefarious deeds. And his nemesis is played by the guy who played Malcolm Reynolds and is called Captain Hammer. And did I mention it's a musical?


So, on other fronts, I've been watching a lot of Batman recently to prep for Dark Knight (woo!). It had been a while since I saw the first two Batman movies (starring Michael Keaton), so it was really interesting to watch them again with a better understanding of the whole mythos. First of all, the movies now strike me as incredibly Tim Burton-esque (not surprising as he directed both of them). The sets are all kind of twisted, the characters pretty gimicky and deranged, but none of it in a really threatening kind of way. I mean, the Joker is definitely psychotic, but he plays up the clown-themed super-villain angle quite a bit. I mean, seriously, who uses a 10 foot long extendable boxing glove anymore? Conversely the Penguin traded in all of his gentlemanly ways to become a monster (and, coincidentally, his gang looks a lot like the Joker's).

Another strange thing about those early Batman movies is Batman's willingness to kill. Seriously, in the first movie Keaton kills almost every single villain he comes across and his entire motivation is violent revenge. Heck, he flies the damn batplane into a crowded square and launches missiles and heavy machine gun fire! And even though he is at least as psychotic as the Joker by the end of the movie, the Commissioner simply says "yay Batman! He's a good guy!" It just seemed to me that Batman would at least seem as dangerous to the population as the Joker; he just happens to choose victims that are villains. Also, if you're going to kill them anyway, why not use a gun?

But still, they were pretty entertaining movies and helped me to get more in the mood for Dark Knight (like I needed any help... heck, I'm printing out "I believe in Harvey Dent" posters for my car... [side note: in the first Batman movie, Harvey Dent was played by Billy Dee Williams, aka Lando Calrissian. Crazy world, huh?]).

I'll be altering a bit of my Heffenzopf baking post to include some information that I forgot the first time around, so be sure to check back there if you have the recipe and want to try to make some. Also, I found two really good sites for physics GRE help- http://www.physicsgre.com/ and http://grephysics.net/ans/

That's about it for now; I should have my photos from NH up within the hour.
edit: they are at http://picasaweb.google.com/herzlbem/NewHampshire

"A lot of guys ignore the laugh, and that's about standards. I mean, if you're going to get into the Evil League of Evil you have to have a memorable laugh... What, do you think Bad Horse didn't work on his whinnie? (pause) It's a terrible... death whinnie..."
-Dr. Horrible