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Started by ~, February 22, 2010, 02:37:23 PM

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Doktor Howl

Quote from: LMNO on March 26, 2010, 04:18:31 PM
I've kind of hit a wall.  I need some brain juice.

Take the woman and go somewhere new tonight.  Preferably somewhere badwrong.

Always works for me.
Molon Lube

LMNO

We're gonna go see "Othello" in the fancy-pants part of town.


Does that count?

Doktor Howl

Quote from: LMNO on March 26, 2010, 04:30:00 PM
We're gonna go see "Othello" in the fancy-pants part of town.


Does that count?

If you can't see the potential in THAT, then I can't help you.   :lulz:
Molon Lube

LMNO

Yeah, yeah.

:wink:

I've still got my work ahead of me, but I'm pretty sure I can get through this.

Dimocritus

Just now reading a lot of this. LMNO, you're a genius.
HOUSE OF GABCab ~ "caecus plumbum caecus"

LMNO

Day 21:

In which I show myself as Elitist.  Yeah, I went to see Shakespeare.    I know, a play, right?  Who does that these days, anyway?  Certainly not anyone else under the age of forty, if what I saw was any indication.  Not to knock the audience, though.  Most of them looked like they honestly wanted to be there, and the actors needed to get paid somehow.  I did see some of the pretentious elites wandering through the crowd, the scarecrow-faced women with gaudy furs, or bearded Cambridgian men carrying carefully tattered leather briefcases and sporting shoes polished to a high shine. 

I suppose it was understandable why Youth wasn't there.  What teen wants to spend a Friday night cooped up in a theater with people their parents' age, trying to figure out archaic speech patterns and complex narratives?  Since an anime convention was in town, I'm sure they were hanging out with like minded peers, trying to piece together half-understood Japanese dialog from the multi-linear non-sequitor plots of various cartoons.

That was a joke.  You laugh now.

The point being, I've never been that interested in Anime, and one of my friends was in the play and comped me tickets, so why not?  And I happen to like Shakespeare, especially when it's not A Midsummer Night's Dream or Romeo and Juliet, which have been done to death.  No, this was Othello, which can usually be fun if done right.  After all, it's got interracial sex, manipulation, jealousy, drunken fights, domestic abuse, and murder!  Kind of like an MTV reality show, but with a bit more emotional depth.  Although, Ye Olde Shore of Newe Jerfey would probably have made The Bard a lot of cash, back in the day.

I took my seat in the balcony, the house lights went down, the stage lights came up, and we're off.  The director had decided to stage the production in a sort of modified theater in the round, with the main stage at floor level to the audience, and surrounded.  There were a few pieces of modular risers that served as various props and staging, but there wasn't much more than that; apparently the director was hoping the immediacy and proximity of the actors would take precedence over any sort of fancy props or set design.

The play starts in the middle of a conversation, as if it had begun several minutes earlier, and we're thrown into the intrigue headfirst.  I usually need a few minutes to get into the rhythm of the language, but even so, it was a little hard to get into it this time.  After a few minutes, it became clear why: The actor who played Iago sucked.  That's about when I started getting pissed. 

The most common interpretation of the play these days is that it may be about the tragedy of Othello, but it's really Iago's play.  He's the main driver, the sole manipulator and conniver of the whole plot.  Hell, he has more lines than anyone else in the play, and he's just pure evil.  His only mistake in the whole play was thinking that the bonds between him and his wife were stronger than between his wife and Desdemona.  If she had been even half as duplicitous as he (think Goneril from Lear), Iago would have ended up as the ruler of Cyrpess.  Sounds like the kind of dark, villainous, Joker-like role any decent actor would love to get his teeth into, right?  Not this guy.

He wasn't acting, he was just reciting.  Whereas Othello and Desdemona had gripping and emotional scenes of love, jealousy, and hate, Iago was just weak.  He wasn't sneaky at all, he was wooden and stiff.  When the various characters would call him "honest Iago" (a thematic riff throughout), it wasn't because he was tricking them, it was because the other characters were apparently too stupid to see through his plotting.  The acting was like nails on a blackboard.  I spent much of the play alternating between anger and exasperation, going so far as wishing Iago would shut the hell up and get off the stage so Othello could kill his wife and I could go to the bar.  At last, mercifully, the last lines were spoken, sentencing Iago to be carried off and tortured: "To you, lord governor, / Remains the censure of this hellish villain; / The time, the place, the torture: O, enforce it!"  At these words, a shout went up from the audience below me. 

I peered over the railing to see an old woman in the front row standing up, a purse in one hand, and a cane in the other.  She was joined by a handful of other seniors, who lurched out onto the center of the floor, and grabbed Iago.  "Let us!" the old woman cried, and smacked him in the head with her cane.  The actor staggered back as two old men lunged to grab his arms before he fell.  "Let the chorus judge him!" they yelled to the audience, many of whom had also stood, and shouted back, "Yes!  Judge him!" while clambering over their chairs to get onto the stage.

Stunned, Iago protested, "Now, wait a minute—" but his words were cut off as the handle of the old woman's cane caught him square in the teeth.  "No more from you, sonny," she said, "no more.  Ever."  Another audience member approached from behind, taking off his necktie, and rolling each end in his fists.  He wrapped the Armani garrote around Iago's neck and pulled tight and the young actor's eyes bulged as he strained against his captors.  A man dressed like a school teacher carefully folded up his eyeglasses, placed them in his breast pocket, adjusted his stance, and then kicked Iago straight in the groin.  The man restraining his left arm lifted his gleaming Italian leather shoe, and drove it into the side of Iago's knee with a loud crunch, and let go of his arm, letting him drop to the ground. 

A thin woman in a sequined evening dress stomped on his chest, her stiletto heel driving deep into his body and sending up a spurt of blood into the air.  Another got down on her knees, grabbed his ears, and started banging his head into the floorboards, her white hair falling into her face, the ends dragging in the pool of blood gathering beneath his damaged body.  More audience members poured onto the floor, shouting accusations and recriminations at the prostrate body, trying to kick him, throwing programs and crumpled ticket stubs at him, goading those closest to hit him, hurt him, spit on him.  Two men grabbed Iago's ankles and began dragging him out towards the main doors, and the rest of the audience followed, howling madly.  In a minute, the theater was empty.  I left quietly through one of the back exits, thankful I was only interested in being a musician.  Acting is tough.

Doktor Howl

Molon Lube

Jasper

Yes.

I love the semi-believable-yet-surreal/scary feel to it.

LMNO

Day 22:

It's not every day you get to meet someone you've only seen on movie and TV screens.  But to do so while getting free drinks is something you simply can't say no to.  So, my wife and I were really eager to hit up this meet-and-greet with Mink Stole, sponsored by Maker's Mark.

What do you mean, "Who's Mink Stole?"  She's been in every single one of John Waters' movies so far, a triumph from the school of "act like everything has an exclamation point at the end".  She parlayed a movie career from abandoning all sense of self-censorship, and has become a respected name in the universe of deviant cinema – so much so that she was to be given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Boston Underground Film Festival.

Anyway, we were invited, and were excited to meet her and consume free whisky drinks.  It was another moment for the moustache to shine, so we tried to look spiffy, and I got the lip caterpillar waxed up.  The ends had just started to get long enough, and I was able to coax a slight curl out of them, sufficient to get the point across at least. 

As it turned out, we weren't the only ones who wanted to see her.  Well, obviously.  But we weren't exactly prepared for the sea of hipsters we waded into when we approached the lounge.  Textbook cases of the Late Twenties Outsider filled the place, sleeveless flannels and Caucasian dreadlocks and wallet chains and skinny jeans and ripped fishnets and tattoos that were only a few years away from being regrettable. 

I should have realized that the Art School students would come rushing out to this.  It was the Underground Film Festival, after all, and they were probably still pushing the same black-and-white 16mm "re-imagining" of Psycho from the perspective of the stuffed bird in Norman Bates' office that they hacked together for their final project, and resting their henna'd laurels on the B+ they got from their Senior Advisor.

Most of them hadn't learned basic etiquette yet, as they pushed and shoved their way to the bar, waving their drink tickets like traders on the floor of the exchange, and not tipping the bartenders after pushing the sodden scrap of paper at them, then just standing there, not allowing the thirsty ones behind them access.  I had my own method, which consisted of going off to one side, being polite, and tipping heavily on the first few drinks.  There's something to be said for experience.

Soon enough, the music died down, and an overloaded speaker blared out, "Are you ready for MINK!?"  The crowd roared in response.  "She's in back, getting ready, so you better give it up for this legend of outlaw cinema!"  A collective metallic scratching sound swelled from all around me, and as the MC bellowed, "HERE SHE IS!  MINK STOLE!" I looked around to see everyone had unzipped their pants. 

She appeared, an unassuming 60-year old in a red blazer and black slacks.  She looked like she could be the wife of an ambitious Assemblyman in the Baltimore political scene.  But the crowd pushed forward, crowding around her.  "Mink, Mink!" they cried, reaching down with one hand and towards her with the other.  Startled, she drew back, but they pressed in closer. 

"Mink!  We love you!" a kid in front shouted out, grunted heavily a few times, and then dropped to the floor, his body jerking.  The crowd packed in tighter, twitching, moaning.  A viscous fluid splashed against her red jacket, and she looked around the room in horror.  Another fan fell to the floor in ecstasy, but the crowd continued to push, trampling them underfoot without a second thought.

With a cry, her outfit and face now a sticky mess, Mink disappeared from view under the weight of the crowd, who continued to pile on, grunting and shuddering.  Limbs intertwined as they lunged and thrust themselves into a tangled mass of bodies with their singular obsession trapped underneath, slowly drowning in their praise.  I looked at my wife who downed her drink.  I grabbed her hand and we headed for the door.

What do you mean, "Who's John Waters?"

Jenne

Poor Mink!

And who doesn't know who John Waters is?  For shame, those who don't.  Dude is a benchmark in several ways.

Freeky

Quote from: Jenne on March 30, 2010, 02:46:00 PM
And who doesn't know who John Waters is? 

*raises hand, hangs head in shame*

Jenne


LMNO

Ooooh.....


ATTN: DOKTOR HOWL.

PLEASE TO CHAIN FREEKY DOWN AND HAVE A FILM FESTIVAL.


Pink Flamingos
Female Trouble
Desperate Living
Polyester
Hairspray
Cry-Baby
Serial Mom
Pecker
Cecil B. Demented



THANK YOU KINDLY,
LMNO

Triple Zero

Wait isn't Hairspray that musical comedy remake of some musical comedy?

000 still doesn't know either who John Waters is.

I could wikipedia it but it sounds like some celeb or something and I don't look most of those up either for the simple reason of that not knowing them causes them to be less famous, which theoretically reduces the amount of celebrities, which also solves the problem of not knowing them, in a way. AKA the "some problems really do go away if you ignore them" solution.

Plus, if "Hairspray" is really that comedy movie I'm thinking of ... well it was okay for a movie of that type, I guess but why should I care who directed it? (assuming he's the director) Same for "Serial Mom" isn't that another comedy movie? I don't know the other titles though.
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Nast

"If I owned Goodwill, no charity worker would feel safe.  I would sit in my office behind a massive pile of cocaine, racking my pistol's slide every time the cleaning lady came near.  Auditors, I'd just shoot."