Isn't it funny how job offers seem to increase exponentially when you're not looking for a job, but trickle to a halt when you are? I've received two emails and a phone call from Roadworks regarding their upcoming production, which sounds interesting, but is the last thing on my mind at the moment. They're doing the first production of a Talent Family (that is, David and Amy Sedaris) show not to feature the Talent Family. Should be interesting. Amy Sedaris was on the local NPR show recently promoting her book, Wigsfield, which I'd love to read.
I've come across a couple of examples of next-level thinking (one of my catch phrases, alas) in the past week: an unsigned parody of Family Circus with crass captions under classic FC drawings at Quimby's. Whoever made that zine is a fucking genius! I haven't laughed so hard in a long time, especially at the incredibly insensitive Tienenamen Square joke. Clearly the best $2 I've spent. That book will soon be making the rounds among my friends. The other example of next level thinking is an adaptation of a classic Japanese doll theatre tragedy, in the guise of a 4th grade school pageant, by Hypocrites artistic director Sean Graney. He's brilliant. The show runs through June 1st, and was reviewed this week in the Chicago Reader.
I've started a new knitting project, which I know to be a bad thing with so many items already on the needles. This one is in a much larger guage than all my socks, four stitches to the inch instead of seven. My hands needed a break. So I'm making another Ucan2can shell, from a pattern on www.chicknits.com. I'm making it from a lovely, dusty purple colorway in Rowan All Seasons Cotton. I love this yarn! It's so soft and spongy, probably due to the minute amount of microfiber, and has great stitch definition. I plan to modify the neckline to a big turtleneck instead of a funnelneck (too small for my big scandanavian skull to fit through), and maybe add sleeves to it in the fall. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Lewis and I went to the editing studio this morning to work on the benefit video. It's very odd to watch someone else edit when you're used to manning the deck yourself. I felt as though I was going to have some sort of seizure when he was scrolling back and forth through his clips, even though I've done that hundreds of times myself. I think it's because I wasn't controlling the playback. So I sat on the sofa and worked on my sweater, engaging in half-hearted debate about using clips from camera a vs. camera b. I'd like to cut the same footage as a crazy art school video piece. I miss spending most of my time in small, dark, confined places. When I was in college, I could typically be found in the darkroom, sound studio, video lab, or theatre. Maybe I can make a little studio space at my new venue, a kind of techie clubhouse. We'll see.
I also need to bring more of my a/v skills into my everyday life. I was puzzling earlier about how to transfer Berlitz language tapes to minidisc so that I can brush up my French. I can remember how to conjugate totally useless verb tenses, but not how to make hotel reservations (probably because I never had to) or understand directions. I hope to make a trip to PQ when I'm finished with the summer stock season, as I've wanted to do for several years now. It seems like the best environment for me to attempt french conversation with native speakers, as there are many anglophones there as well. We'll see if the exchange rate improves over the summer. So, I realized that it would be quite simple to burn from cd or tape (which is what I suspect the library has) to MD: with an optical cable. I don't now why I want to make things more difficult for myself than they need to be.