Well, That was... Exciting?

 Let's just hope the crazy gets toned down once the presidents switch out, huh?

Meanwhile: a cool architecture project, "super adobe" domes in Hormuz by ZAV Architects  HERE.

What have I been up to?  Starting (finally! because I find armed insurrection distracting, don't you?) to revise the 3D model for an in-the-future show I'm working on.  Since the design has changed, I think it's okay to publish the old version here.

Other than this, there's no theater on my board... except a sketch for reorganizing a theater's closet.  Seriously.  But I am deep into Masterclass videos, currently watching David Mamet and most recently finishing writers Malcom Gladwell, Margaret Atwood, and David Sedaris as well as artist Jeff Koons.  I am learning A LOT.  

A little reading too: I'm half way through Michelle Obama's Becoming which is as interesting as I kept hearing people say.  And I finished Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel, who wrote the great Station Eleven.  Love that book!  The new one is very good... but doesn't, somehow, resonate with me as much as her earlier dystopian pandemic novel.  I'm also going, day by day, through Lin-Manuel Miranda's book (illustrated by Jonny Sun) of tweets, Gmorning, Gnight.  Which, as I hoped and planned, are helping raise my mood.

Mood.  

That's my biggest challenge lately.  The cumulative effect of the past year has rather dampened my usual cheery optimism and (sporadically) bustling work ethic.  A little cabin-fevered.  Kinda depressed.  Actually.  

But Spring cometh.

Meanwhile, I'm building a mood-protecto buttress of good books and films (and bi-weekly virtual/distanced Movie Night hurrah!) and, you know, making myself take walks and wash dishes and Do Work and stuff.  I hope you all are being careful and cheerful-as-possible too.

Movie Night films so far?  Desperately Seeking Susan, Office Space, Big Trouble in Little China, Kung Fu Hustle, and up-coming, Love and Death.

Siege - Days 19 and 20

Weekends do still, somehow, feel more relaxed than work-weeks do.

Yesterday me and my housemate baked cookies together.  I'm not sure we've ever done that before, though cookies have certainly been baked and eaten around here in the past.  It was nice.  It added a sort of Christmasy vibe to the days around Palm Sunday.  And the chocolate chip cookies and powdered sugar dusted molasses cookies are tasty.

(And what a Lent this has been!  Someone quipped that they "hadn't planned to give up quite this much for Lent."  I feel that too.)

Leaves are breaking out on all the trees now, even our newly planted one!  Birds are noisy.

In a minute here I'm going to start an hour of architectural continuing education - online, of course.  Just to prepare for a future that might still be on... sometime.  Who knows?  It can't always be Lent.  Sometime it will be Easter.  Just as it can't always be winter and never Christmas.*

Public domain image from Pxfuel HERE

It seems right now like a very long slow walk to normal again.  A poem a friend found reminds me that we must make patient progress...

Grandma once gave me a tip:

During difficult times, you move forward in small steps.
Do what you have to do, but little by bit.
Don't think about the future, not even what might happen tomorrow. Wash the dishes.
Take off the dust.
Write a letter.
Make some soup.
Do you see?
You are moving forward step by step.
Take a step and stop.
Get some rest.
Compliment yourself.
Take another step.
Then another one.
You won't notice, but your steps will grow bigger and bigger.
And time will come when you can think about the future without crying. Good morning

Elena Mikhalkova, "The Room of Ancient Keys"

(I'm not sure if this is a fair-use, well, use here... If the poet objects I will, of course!, remove this.  Meanwhile, thank you Elena Mikhalkova for this present comfort.)

*  And it's a good time to reread hopeful classics.  Narnia.  Lord of the Rings.  The Little Princess or Little Women.

Book Report

Nutso busy around here!  (Explaining the lack of posts, sorry.)  

Application Pending is about to open at Circle Theater in Fort Worth.  (Go see the amazing one-woman show... and the bee-youtiful faux painted mahogany paneling.)  Ironbound Techs at Kitchen Dog Theater this weekend.  (Lots of weeds and roadside trash to dress there tomorrow.) And the musical Sister Act  also loads in this weekend at Mainstage Irving - Las Colinas.

But, recently, years ago feels like, I did once get a chance to read for leasure...

Best two books?  

The novel: A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman.  Really loved it.  It's what you might call a Basic Novel, not any particular genre, no explosions to lead to a sale for a blockbuster movie, just a guy and his life.  I found it funny, moving, true to life, annoying, charming... time well spent.

The non-fiction: Setting the Stage by David Hayes.  A sort of memoir / sort of guide book about set design as a profession, written by a designer on Broadway during the '50s and '60s who, later, taught.  I also found this book funny, moving, true to life, annoying, charming... time well spent. 

I recommend both books!

Recharging

It's been a very busy year for me so far - both onstage and off - and, you know, sometimes you just need a rest.  Artists especially, I think, need to refresh and recharge their creative batteries.

Luckily, I now have a bit of a lull in theater deadlines.  A break.  So, rest.  Yay!

But recharging?  How do you do that?

Well, what I've found helpful before is as follows:

1) Take better care - eat and sleep better, exercise more, catch up on doctor's and dentist's visits etc.  Buy new socks or underwear... and maybe a few cool summer clothes.

2)  Have fun.  Some of that exercise might be at the pool or beach!  Watch movies.  Goof off.  Do something different...

3)  Do  / see / read / hear / experience something different.  Like visit a museum.  The Kimbell in Fort Worth has a terrific show about its original architect Louis Kahn right now.  Lots of drawings and models, including a full scale mock-up of part of one house.  (Plus, of course, the museum building itself.  More HERE.)  And the neighboring Amon Carter Museum has an interesting exhibit of Polaroid photography.  More on that HERE.  

I visit museums with a sketchbook... 

you can't always photograph what interests you

After the sheer wonder of the BIG Polaroids I never knew were possible - 20"x24"! - the images I found most interesting were two by James Nitsch that incorporated both the actual object - a razor blade, a leaf - and its image.  Fascinating to see the passage of time separate these objects still further... the razor blade rusts and its photo ages differently, the leaf dries and turns brown while its photo stays green.  Time physically trapped in Art.

The most touching image was a Polaroid by astronaut Charles Duke during the 1972 Apollo 16 mission: a family photo (protected in a plastic baggie) lying on the dusty surface of the moon, a surface rumpled by astronaut footprints and the tire tread of a rover.  That little snap-shotted American Family (kid in a tie!) lying there so long ago so very very far away...  realizing that that kid's grown up now, yet that photo still lies there...  

Photo by Charles Duke / NASA - public domain

See it in more detail HERE at MFA Houston

So.  

There's a new thought and image to store up.

Artistic restocking is all about new thoughts and images stored up.  Gathering!

So I'm reading, web surfing (is that still a phrase?), listening to podcasts and TED Talks (artist Dustin Yellen's work, wow!  HERE).  To someone who works in collage, Yellen's 3D collages caught in glass are amazing phenomena.

I'm going to the library again, now that I have time to actually bring back the books on time.  

I've also traveled, briefly, to the Pacific Northwest - a beauty I hadn't seen before - and to today's Waco and HGTV's hot interior design Magnolia Market - a beauty I had not wot of.  A marvel of marketing certainly.  More travel soon!

Is it time for you to take a refreshment break too?

ADDENDUM:  Found and added that great moon-snapshot.

Fit For Empire

As an antidote to reading waaay too much current events / political coverage lately, today I'm rereading Francis Bacon's Essays.

Written about 450 years ago, I figured these musings by the shrewd English philosopher and statesman would give some perspective.  

Yes indeedy.  

Turns out, people are still pretty much the same people now as then.  Political forms are different - absolute monarchs being thinner on the ground today (though that could change) - but politics is still politics.  

Then, while still remembering this morning's headlines about the beginning of sweeping deportations, I read this ancient news-flash:

" All states that are liberal of naturalization towards strangers, are fit for empire."

Bacon goes on to talk about how the Roman empire was the most welcoming of foreigners, inviting them into full citizenship.  This warm welcome and easy assimilation was the great strength and richness of their empire... the very thing that permitted their civilization to flourish and grow.  

Any present day applications come to mind?

A bronze statue of an aristocratic boy - Roman - the Met CC0

The essay is "Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Empires."  The Roman Empire lasted 500 years, will ours last the next 260 if we become "ill-liberal" towards strangers?

Reading Riot!

It's been too long since I reviewed any books here... but then, it has been too long since I had time to read any books.  But I've been having a sort of sanity break just lately - time to visit the beach, take that long-promised water color painting class, and to really read.

As my theatrical life speeds up again, I'll give you a in-the-rear-view-mirror look (if not full reviews) of some of the favorite books I've found during The Lull:


The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde - recommended by the owner of Fort Worth's cool new bookstore The Last Word, this is the first in a series of literary detective novels that I really enjoyed.  And when I say "literary detective" I mean a detective/peace officer inside literature.  As in dealing with those hotheads in Wuthering Heights and prosecuting fraudulent and/or cloned Shaxpeares.  Or working with 'em.  Whichever.  Amusingly meta.  Literate.  Clever.  Funny.  Alice-in-Bookland inventive.

Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler - another find from The Last Word.  This is a retelling of Shakespeare's (the real one's) The Taming of the Shrew.  I found it oddly charming and gently funny.  Romantic, but not in the least mushy.  I liked it so well that I immediately followed up with the same author's Pulitzer Prize-winning Breathing Lessons as a chaser.  Both good... wisely observant of real people and (rare!) understanding of the chemistry of relationships and especially long time marriages.

Another entry in the retell-classic-stories race is Emma, Jane Austen's classic rewritten by Alexander McCall Smith.  Which worked pretty well.  I have to admit that Emma is not my fav Austen heroine - too bossy, too unaware, too embarrassing-herself (I cringe).  But this modern day retelling is lively and funny and makes ol' Emma more fun, I think.

As is my wont, I spent a good few hours revisiting old favorites by the old authors too.  Among the best times this time was a great Terry Pratchett, The Truth.  This is set in his Discworld, but is a strong stand-alone from that series.  More-or-less it's about the invention of a Free Press... really funny, thoughtful, smart, silly, and sane... in a crazy way.  Classic Pratchett.  Not a bad first book to start with if you haven't met his work before.

Another golden oldie: Trustee from the Toolroom, by Nevil Shute.  I'm a fan.  Shute's On the Beach is probably best known now, but this is my favorite, with one of my favorite all-time heroes- he's quiet, humble, talented but poor in a worldly way, unambitious... and, when he needs to be, a brave and resourceful man.  His superpower is figuring out what the right thing to do is and then just doing it.

A different kind of hero - but with the same superpower - is in The Prince of Foxes by Samuel Shellabarger.  I loved this book as a teen, and it was dated then, but I still enjoyed it hugely.  For me, it's a classic like The Prisoner of Zenda.

On the topic of heroes: Andy Weir's The Martian is as good as and even more involving than the film version.  And that just won a Hugo award.  Plus NASA people I know like the science.  So there.  Read it!

A shockingly new variation of hero lives in Naomi Novik's non-science but magic-based novel Uprooted.  A girl?  Hero?  Absolutely.   Disclaimer: I always want to like books about magic, but am often disappointed by how well, mundane, it all becomes by about chapter five.  By chapter eleven it's generally all ren-faire-ish politics.  Yawn.  (Ditto "urban romance" another vamp/were/zombie clash? mega yawn.)  Not so much here.  In this novel magic is real and really scary.  Some wonderful, thrilling visions of magic at work.  Very visual.  Very the creepy side of the Brothers Grimm.  Loved it.  I need to reread this soon.

Speaking of so called "urban romance" AKA Vampire Lit...  A few interesting recent reads:  the latest in Charlaine Harris's Midnight, Texas series is fun.  (She authored the books behind TV's True Blood.)  I enjoy her work, but I'd kinda class it in the beach-book airplane-book category - in the nicest way.  Funnier, so I like it better, is the series by Drew Hayes that starts with The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant.  At the tippy-top of my Favorites for this genre (more or less) has to be Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series, starting with Rivers of London or in the US, Midnight Riot.  (Because, being the US, we won't read books without gratuitous violence in the title?)  These are excellent.  Can't recommend these magical-policeman stories strongly enough.  And BTW there are comic books as part of the series at Comixology.

Reflecting on all this sort of richness is an interesting collection of essays by writer Neil Gaiman in The View from the Cheap Seats.  Obviously, this will mean more to you if you first know Gaiman's fiction: I'd suggest starting with Stardust or Neverwhere or his collaboration with Terry Pratchett, Good Omens, a cheery look at the Apocalypse.  The essays are thoughtful and scholarly about the sort of imaginative fiction I love, though delving more deeply into comics than I can keep up with.  A takeaway?

"I believe that in the battle between guns and ideas, 

ideas will, eventually, win."

On the battlefront of Ideas - in the skirmish of democracy - Sarah Powell's Lafayette in the Somewhat United States is an amusing and informative look at one of the Founding Fathers... or, rather, their French battle-buddy.  I really like the way she spins things, for example:  "Devoted to the principles of liberty, equality, and religious tolerance - which, dear Internet, is not necessarily the same thing as Satanism..."  

I've been reading up on history lately... starting with 1820s New Orleans ('cause Architect/Pirate Barthelemy Lafon!) but slipping back in time a bit (because I've gotten interested in the hit musical Hamilton).  So I've been reading The Hemingses of Monticello, by Annette Gordon-Reed.  Another award winner.  Fascinating!  Also dipping into letters by Hamilton himself and this and that.  The internet is a rabbit hole for history - just a warning.  Anyway. 

I've found my history reading timely... Nice to know that political discourse - as we see it in this years presidential race - hasn't really changed much.  Sigh.

Alexander Hamilton by John Trumbull courtesy of Wikimedia

public domain

The most fascinating reading has been my gift copy (thanks!) of Hamilton: the Revolution, the book by Lin Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter.  This documents the creation of the you-can't-BUY-a-ticket Broadway musical.  A really in depth look at its writing and its development on stage.  This book would be an ideal present for anyone creating (or interested in) new works for the theater.

Phew!  Last entry.  Also on artists doing their art, the book of the long over-due retrospective for painter Elisabeth Vigee-Le Brun...  Gorgeous portraits!  Vigee Le Brun, by Joseph Baillio, Katherine Baetjer, and Paul Lang.  Important painter, protege of Queen Marie  Antoinette, international celebrity in her own day, it only took the Metropolitan Museum, what, 200 years? to stage her first international show.  Figures. 

 Another thing that hasn't changed enough, misogyny.  As a member of France's Revolutionary Council explained back in 1800s:

"Among savage peoples, who are closest to nature, does one see women doing the work of men?  He thinks it is because a famous woman, la citoyenne Le Brun, showed great talent in painting that a host of others have wanted to take up painting, whereas they ought only to engage in embroidering police officers' belts and caps..."

Sometimes fiction is more upbeat than history.  I'm looking for a nice comforting dystopia next...

Books, Books, Books

I had a very refreshing chat about books the other day.

Nothing is more fun.

(Well, okay, hardy anything.)

What jogged my memory today was a blog post HERE about a new book called Soviet Bus Stops, by Christopher Herwig.  I haven't got my hands on this book yet, but it looks fantastic...  a photo study of ubiquitous, humble - yet socially important - architectural monuments.  These small buildings seem to have received all the whimsy and delight that official Soviet architecture quashed.  Just Google "soviet bus stop" for the wild range of styles.  This one I like as sort of Romanesque-Modern with a flavor of '60s Pop.  (It'd make a cool garden folly.  Please mentally add a blue pool and girls in Holly Golightly sunglasses, sipping martinis.  See it?)

Not sure if this photo is truly from Herwig's Soviet Bus Stops.  

Copyright-holder please let me know if you want it removed.

Folk architecture - whether designed by amateurs or pros - is always lively.

Picture books are fun aren't they?

That book chat was not about architecture or picture books, actually, more on WWII topics.  I'm currently reading Winston Churchill's The Gathering Storm.  The man can write!  Another WWII book was recommended to me (but I don't have that note handy); in turn I recommended George McDonald Fraser's The Complete McAuslan, entertaining stories of  a Scottish regiment at the end of that war, and his more serious, excellent memoir of fighting the Japanese in Burma, Quartered Safe Out Here. 

A recent good novel about that period I highly recommend is All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr.  This read was the result of book club friends recommending it to my mother, she to my sister, then the same copy on to me, then to my child...  That's a catchy book!  I won't spoiler it: let's just say that I had to stay up all night to finish it.  Dawn, I'm sayin'.  Actual dawn.

At about the same time a kindly person lent me a copy of Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel.  Also engrossing - apocalypse plus traveling Shakespearean orchestra... how could I resist?  (NPR on it HERE.)  Naturally, I had to give copies of both novels on to others... nothing is as catching as a book.

It's a good week - month! - when you get two excellent new books to read.

Back from the Beach

After a chock-full-o'-design spring and a refreshing beach vacation on Galveston Island...

Ah!  Hot shrimp gumbo, ice cold beer, and warm Gulf waters!

A view of Galveston beach at the turn of the last century by P.H. Rose, Wikimedia 

But now I'm back.  To Dallas.  To work.  To blogging.

While opening ten shows in five months this spring I did rather let the blogging thing slide, but I'll do better now.  At least until my (very faint) tan fades and the work schedule warms up.

Before getting back to Theatre... a beach book recommendation:  the brilliant graphic novel from the internet blog-comic by Sydney Padua:

The Thrilling Adventures of 

Lovelace and Babbage*

The (mostly) True Story of the First Computer

Review to follow, but why wait?  Buy it HERE, now.  

(That's The Author, by the way, struggling with her day job to find time to write.)

And so on...

Long time, no post.

It's the Holidays!

But today's little designer treat is an elegant on-line inspirograph - very cool!  Find it HERE.

What else have I been up to?  Well, The Explorers Club opened to good reviews (including set mentions), so that went well.  (If you don't see this funny show at Stage West in Fort Worth, please see it at WaterTower Theatre when it moves to Addison.)  I've just emailed off the construction drawings for Godspell, to be built and played in the San Francisco area.  I'm sketching away at ideas for Asher, the dramatization of a long-time favorite book My Name Is Asher Lev.  For anyone interested in art and the artist's life the book's examination of the conflict between artistic truth and personal and family feeling, between tradition and growth, is fascinating.  Chaim Potok is a good writer, but this is my favorite of his novels.

Speaking of books - I'm reading William Shakespeare's Star Wars Trilogy.   A hoot!  Very funny.  But even when the novelty of the iambic pentameter wears off, the author (really a guy named Ian Doescher channeling The Bard... if The Bard sat through a LOT of Star Wars rewatchings) gives characters clever soliloquies - like the priceless musings of the rancor's keeper.  Even sideline characters have comments on Imperial architecture.  And, you know, it's just flat a good story.

I'd love to see this actually staged.

Perfect for Shakespeare and/or Star Wars fans!

William Shakespeare's Star Wars Trilogy

Illustrations by Nicolas Delort, 

Author Ian Doescher.

Quirk Books & Lucasfilm Ltd.

Sigh

It's always when you're already busy that unexpected extra work lands on you.

Squidoo has been sold.  This is the on-line community where I've written a number of articles (including my Greatest-Hit "Theater Set Questions Answered," my Dear-Abby-ish answer to worried high school play designers everywhere). 

This means that I will have to reformat, rewrite, or abandon a lot of work.  Whatever I choose, the new owners, HubPages, can choose to drop any or all of it.

Sigh.

A polite sigh was not, mind you, my first reaction to this news. 

If this is having a rug pulled out from under me, it's a rug upon which I set a desk, a chair, bookcases (of course!) stuffed with books, assorted filing cabinets, a drafting board, a sofa, giant ornamental vases full of dried pampas grass, and maybe a stuffed grizzly bear. 

Grumpy as I feel... maybe the bear's not taxidermied just yet.

A collage from public domain sources, including Amedeo Simonetti's 

The Rug Merchant at Wikimedia Commons.  

In more cheerful news, among those books I'll have to virtually move (sigh? snarl?) is a recent read - Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction, by  Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd, the author of House and his long-time editor and friend.  This is a book I'll need to return to the library... then buy my own copy of. 

Other books I've enjoyed lately?  I'm working my way through Greek Revival America by Roger G. Kennedy, a writer on architecture and related topics whom I've followed for years... since he first introduced me to my role-model, architect/pirate Barthelemy Lafon, in fact.  I enjoyed Lindsey Davis' Enemies at Home, the second novel in her new ancient-Roman-detective series.  Try her Silver Pigs as a starter.  I liked Terry Pratchett's latest Discworld novel Raising Steam.

I think I'll go read a nice calming book.

Book Sale! Book Sale!

My printer hasn't been having as many sales lately as they used to, but today is a biggie -
Waffle Day Sale!

Waffle Day?  Really?
Really.

Alice 'n Waffles!

Shooped from public domain images

Find out more about my how-to-set-design book Alice Through the Proscenium HERE at Lulu.com.  When you order, be sure to quote the secret code:

Fiction Round-Up

In my scanty spare time I've been reading and even watching a few films.

Recommendations, you ask?

The latest of Ben Aaronovitch's Peter Grant magic-London-copper series is finally FINALLY available in the U.S.  Broken Homes.  I read it in one day.  Very good.  A bit slower moving than some others in this series (this is #4), but that is made up for by snarky modern architecture jokes and then by the incredible sky-diving-like rush of concluding chapters and the final kick-in-the-head of its end.  Man.  I reread those few sentences three times to make sure.  Highly recommended... but start with The Rivers of London AKA Midnight Riot (#1) first.  So... when is #5 due out?  Man!  That cliffhanger ending!

I've also recently roared through Game of Thrones - the books.  Very good.  Very violent.  Someone online has made travel posters for literary places, Rivendell etc. including King's Landing from GoT, to which someone else commented that they preferred to come back from their vacations alive.  I second that: Game of Thrones is fun to visit... only on paper, thanks.  I'm waiting now for the next of that series too.

One stand-alone (so far) book: The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Barker.  This is a modern woman suddenly dumped in a magical alternate medieval past situation... very nicely done.

Like all the romantic vampire craze stuff out there now, many if not most of the newest fantasy and urban fantasy novels can be... well, inferior.  Mere attempts to cash in on a fad.

These are wonderful books!

Off to the theater...

Color Junkie

I love color.

Years ago I worked with a very talented interior designer who could do beautiful work using color, but specialized in a sort of natural non-colors only palette, the natural pale birch through ebony shades of wood - white and off-white and unbleached pales and black of granite or leather.  Really beautiful, nuanced, textural interiors.

But where was the red? I wondered.

Red!  how could anyone resist it?  Some famous interior designer (wish I remembered who) said that
"No room is finished until there is red in it."

Exactly.

Except I feel that way about most colors.  (Except for maybe what Winston Churchill called "poor brown.")  Shoot, even brown - warm, friendly brown - has its charms.  I love color!  Can't get enough of it.

Matisse's red room - believed public domain image

I've been reading or rereading a couple great books on the subject lately:

Roy G. Biv: An Exceedingly Surprising Book About Color, by Jude Stewart and Pantone: The 20th Century in Color, by... Pantone I guess.  The color-standard experts, you know the ones.

Roy G. Biv is a little book full of the stories, folklore, history, and science of color.  Fascinating!  Here are a couple quotes from it that caught my eye:

"Red, of course, is the color of the interior of our bodies,  In a way it's inside out, red." 
- Anish Kapoor.  And...

"A thimbleful of red is redder than a bucketful." 
- Henri Matisse.  A man who knew his Red.

Pantone's 20th Century book, on the other hand, is less literary and more visual, though no less historical, a decade by decade look at the last century's color palettes.  Using an image from each period - a painting, an ad, an object - Pantone color samples are pulled from each.  Not only is this an interesting and beautiful book... I've found it very useful in working with directors in establishing the color palettes for theater shows.

(I wrote more about the Pantone book HERE when I got it for Christmas.)

Post-Holidays...

While that Christmas-present cash is burning that hole in your pocket...

This might be a good time to remind you about my how-to theater set design book that you've been wanting to treat yourself to.

(Of course you have!)

You can find out more about Alice Through the Proscenium HERE on her Squidoo page... or pop directly to the publisher's page HERE.

As one Amazon reader kindly says:

 "Taking away the clouds that often surround the process of what we do, this book offers to-the-point insight and equal amounts of wit. Whether you are an old pro or just starting out, this is a must read."

More Public Domain Images!

The British Museum uploads a million - one MILLION - 1,000,000 images from public domain books..  What a great institution!  Read more HERE.

We're in Gold Rush times Dear Reader.

Catching Up

Busy, busy...

But here are a few highlights from the books 'n movies front lately (as I scramble to get back into a regular schedule posting here... and in the rest of my productive life!).

Films:  Just saw the knuckle-biter Captain Phillips.  A very intense study of the real-life  story about Somali piracy.  Tom Hanks's performance is riveting.  I do wish the film makers had had the grace to cut away and end the film just a few minutes sooner - it just seems wrong to watch this tough character finally fall apart once he's saved.  He has every right to!  But give the guy some privacy, right?  The very human portrayal of the pirates makes the film, I think, turning this from just another action flick into art.  I'm hoping to see the other current crisis-on-the-sea movie, Robert Redford's All is Lost this weekend.

I tried watching This Is the End the other night on DVD.  I'm not at all the demographic the filmmakers were aiming for... but did anyone find this apocalyptic brat-pack film funny?  I could see it trying.  Pirates: Band of Misfits however, remains a light but amusing claymation/animation romp with a great alternative version of Queen Victoria.  Funny.

Books:  I lost steam in reading Telegraph Avenue.  Beautifully written, coming from Michael Chabon, but... after being interrupted I never quite got back into it.  I think because I can see the ending coming too clearly and don't (just personal taste) find the ambiance of jazz, blaxploitation/martial arts movies, midwifery, and Berkeley engrossing.  I may go reread The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay instead because I like the world of comics, golems, and Brooklyn better.  (Personal taste.)

I'm in a funny mood.  I want adventure and vicarious thrills, even a touch of the creeps.  Probably the Halloween/November weather.

I got all excited at the library because several authors I follow had new books.  Sadly these were all to some degree disappointing.  Charlaine Harris's last book in her Sookie Stackhouse series (basis for the True Blood TV show) was... O K.  It ended about as I thought it should, but I got the feeling the author herself was tired of the series well before it was actually all written.  (The TV show went off the rails completely at some point.)  I can, however, heartily recommend the first book Dead Until Dark as an entertaining stand-alone.  Then you may find yourself reading the whole saga just to see what happens to Sookie.

On the other hand, though I enjoyed the earliest Anita Blake vampire novels by Laurell K. Hamilton, the series... Well, first I stopped buying them, and after this last library trip I've now officially stopped bothering to check them out.  By page 15 or so it was clear the story has dwindled to boring vampire politics, confusing yet boring interpersonal relationships, or more sex... which reads like self-indulgence.  For me the books are now unreadable.  But the early ones?  The title of the first novel says it all: Guilty Pleasures.

Speaking of which... I'm working my way through a Buffy-thon.*  Enjoying it all over again.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of course.  Now in mid season 4.  Then maybe Master and Commander again for further sea adventures.  Remember the fun film Cowboys and Aliens?  How about making a Pirates and Vampires?  Pure popcorn!

Silent Reading

So long, so silent.

Sorry, I've been absolutely slammed with three shows building: Detroit at Kitchen Dog, Hank Williams: Lost Highway at WaterTower and Too Many Cooks at Circle Theatre.  Phew!

Anyway.

While waiting for a substantive post here, try a little reading, right?

At the little teeny libraries of sculptor Marc Giai-Mainiet  and photographed by Michel Dubois HERE.

Le Grand library by Marc Giai-Mainiet 

photographed by Michel Dubois, 

found at Boing Boing

HERE's the artist's own webpage.  (ADDENDUM)

Or maybe stay in the Dewey Decimal themed hotel?  In Manhattan and HERE.  (Both bookish places discovered on the estimable site Boing Boing)

This'll Hold You...

I'm buried in Back-in-town-catch-up-work with a side order of Visitors, but while you're waiting for a new post from me, here's something addictive to keep you busy: that latest (to me anyway) entry in the competition to rewrite Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, the Lizzie Bennet Video-Diaries.

Very funny retake on the classic story, with a clever spin on the Lydia scandal.

BTW  Just saw the film The End of the World at Dallas' spiffy new Alamo Drafthouse.  Fun.  Though I think I still prefer the film duo's previous Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

Miscellany

A few short catch-up posts:

1)  I've been doing some traveling lately.  New York City (read about it HERE) and - a quite different trip - to San Marcos and San Antonio this last weekend.

I haven't visited the old Aquarena Springs in San Marcos since I was a kid on a field trip.  The mermaids are gone now and so is the diving pig; I'm rather sad about that.  But, having now seen the de-kitsched springs... I have to agree that under the university's new management, the natural beauty of these springs and their historic, ecological, and geological importance are better revealed.  Diving pigs do distract even from Spanish gold and Clovis spear points.  Clovis! 12,000 years old, give or take.  This site has seen human habitation for as long as humans have been in North America and is home to several unique animal species.

The water is wonderfully clear.  Glass bottomed boats remain a perfect way to peer down into the depth and see the water weeds, the fish and turtles, and the magically bubbling waters from the Edwards aquifer.  (More info HERE.)

I can't figure out if this photo is public domain or not, it seems to be a city (therefore our tax -dollars-at-work) photo so i believe it is. Found HERE.  Please , dear copyright-holder, let me know if you want this removed.

2)  From San Marcos to San Antonio.  A very relaxed trip with no agenda except to wander the Riverwalk and visit the Market.  I can remember this way back when there were actual farmers at the market - nowadays it's mostly Mexican arts and crafts and blatantly touristy... yet there are some wonderful things if you look.  Every visit is different: the best things this time were gorgeous Talavera pottery and the wooden masks.  Plus Mi Tierra's pralines!

3)  Books:  My favorite reads lately are the latest in Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January series - set in 1830s New Orleans, though this book, The Shirt on His Back, travels to the Rockies, and Neil Gaiman's evocative new novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane.  Both very good - completely different experiences.  As usual with Gaiman's work, it's indescribable, you simply have to read it.



4)  I'm reading a new play, Detroit.
5)  The strike for Se Llama Cristina was yesterday.  I got to sit under the raised floor and help remove cross-bracing which was kinda fun.  Pizza and painting the stage floor black... the end of another show.

Film and Book Fest

Films recently watched:

Iron Man III - I liked this one slightly more than Iron Man II and less than the first one.  Ben Kingsley was great.  (I liked the Spoiler-can't-tell-you bit, though I know purists who didn't.)  And I liked seeing Tony Stark cope without the suit and seeing Pepper Potts cope with it.  Fun.

The Angels' Share - previously discussed HERE, stands up to later consideration and, what's more, is still remembered.  Most movies being immediately forgettable.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - I've started the trek through this classic TV series again.  I've just reached the point in the second season when Angelus reappears, for those of you who know it.)  It's nice to revisit these characters and now I'm catching all the jokes.  In the interests of pure research into cultural phenomena I have previously forced myself to watch a bunch o' vampire stuff (research report HERE ) and long-form fiction (HERE), and I still enjoy the Buffy Experience.  Fun and stealthily serious.  I mean, there are scholars no-kiddin' actively analyzing this oeuvre.

Books beside my chair:

Cover for New Orleans Mon Amour, by Andre Codrescu

New Orleans Mon Amour, by Andre Codrescu.  I'm familiar with this author mostly through his talks on NPR.  So far I'm loving his collection of short pieces - essays? - on the city of New Orleans.  Wonderfully atmospheric and well-observed.  Often quirky.  My favorite so far is his "Nouveau Pirates."  Following his recommendation in a later piece in the book (which the Dallas City Council ought to be made to read, as it discusses city-self-confidence), I see that I'm going to have to finally read A Confederacy of Dunces.  It sounds terrific.

I love this daisy-chain of recommendations that link one author to another.  In similar fashion, Codrescu has also made me more eager to listen to the CDs of Don Quixote that I got to listen to in the car.

Otherwise I'm just sort of dipping into old favorite books as the mood strikes me.

But I have discovered a neat thing over at Barnes and Noble: for those of us with NOOK eReaders: on Fridays the NOOK Blog gives away free ebooks!  I've only just discovered this perk, so haven't sampled many or had a chance to discover an unknown gem yet, but I look forward to that.