Atticus, etc.

Just a few shots from my recent trip to Burlington.  Mostly of this year's entry to the 'World's Cutest Baby' competition, plus a couple pix of wall art outside the JDK Gallery, which had an extremely fun retrospective of a Printing Workshop they'd done with some local kidz.

More Postmodernism

Palm Sunday - Cory and I went to the gym and now she's at a brunch in Brooklyn with some friends, and I'm left to my own devices. Not a bad thing. Made a brunch of my own, worked on the place a little bit, brought out that print from the West New York Book Arts Collaborative I want to get framed, prepped for an audition, and realized a theory that the world may have been created as a result of the Adagio movement of Brahms' Violin Concerto in D. As I was doing the dishes. It's possible that I've been thinking too much about Godel in the wake of Einstein's birthday. Or that I've been thinking too much about Lost.

I also downloaded my most recent batch of photos from rehearsals for Post Modern Living. And here they are, for your viewing pleasure:

Here's Chris, complete with super-bitchin CBGB baseball shirt, embodying the spirit guide of our central character.

Speaking of whom, here is Richard/Mitch being guided by Chris/Louis through the imponderable mysteries of aging.

Here's Heather, guiding us all through the whole thing.

Another view of Richard and Chris' scene.

And another view of Heather - here she is reading in for Frank, who couldn't make it to this rehearsal. Really like this shot.

See, a good stage manager makes all the difference to a show. Moves things along, keeps people on the ball, solves problems you can't even imagine, oftentimes even before they rear their heads. And in some cases, they even volunteer to take on additional tasks that have nothing to do with the job description - like using a pain-in-the-ass actor's camera to shoot the scenes that said actor needs to be, you know, on stage for. And to shoot gems like this one of your truly - looking, I don't know, darkly annoyed or something.

Here are a couple of the other pics she took:

This one really gives a sense of these rehearsals: the detritus on the Director's/SM's table; the ad hoc furniture; the fluorescent fixtures lending their unnatural glow to the natural light flowing in through the windows; the big old room, full of life and history in all the cracks and creaks.

Note Jenny there on the floor. She's not actually acting in the show (though she is instrumental to the production, gathering props and helping with all manner of on- and off-stage elements), but Briana couldn't be at this rehearsal either, and so she dove right in, floor-lying and all. And her acting was really good too! Very cool - thanks Jenny!


Last but not least, I'm not sure what's going on here - no one appears to be speaking and Cathy is writing in her script, which might indicate that we're getting direction or making an adjustment of some sort - but I do like this shot.

So there it is. That's all for now. I'm listening to Jesus Christ Superstar as I write this, in honor of the holiday. Very excited for the Indian Passover Seder I'm going to with Cory and Kim on Tuesday. We're going to a book release party this afternoon, but will have to leave early to catch some important basketball action, which I am not going to discuss until all is said and done.

Happy Palm Sunday, everybody.

More Fun than It Looks

We went to Buffalo last weekend for a memorial service for our good friends' father. I know, that does not sound like fun. That sounds like the opposite of fun.

But as it happened, Cory and I actually had quite a bit of fun. This mostly has to do with the fact that our friends are the Funnest People in the History of Everything. Yes, that sounds like I am saying an awful lot. I realize this. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The memorial itself was very moving, as everyone knew it would be. Lots of stories, and memories, and music. And food and drinks, natch. Great to see Molly and Chris and all the assorted people who came forth to share the day with them.

The day before, Cory and I explored Downtown Buffalo.



We had arrived on Friday night, rather late. Even though Buffalo is the 2nd biggest city in NY (albeit a pretty distant second), and even though our hotel was smack in the middle of downtown, there's not much going on there after 9 p.m. besides bars, so we just finished the Scrabble game we'd started at LaGuardia and called it a night.

Then on Saturday, we braved the cold and hit the town. And if you know Buffalo at all, you know that when I say cold, I mean cold. The guy at the front desk was friendly and pointed us in the right direction to try to find some brunch in a brunchless land. We made our way to Spot Coffee, which turned out to be great - cool people, good food, good coffee, great vibe: only too happy to give it a shoutout. After that (follow along on the map, if you please) we wound our way over to City Hall, which is a big beautiful art deco building, past the obelisk (the obelisk and City Hall Square are outlined in blue on the map. There are a lot of obelisks in Buffalo.) and some crazy film students shooting a mockumentary about Android Rights protesters (it was a very small mock protest, but cut 'em slack: the temperature was in single digits), over by the library, and to a really depressing mall that nonetheless had a cool sculpture of a life size buffalo climbing out of a much much bigger than lifesize buffalo nickel. Then, based on a flyer we'd seen in the coffee shop, we followed our freezing noses to the Western New York Book Arts Collaborative. Which was amazing!! A collective of printers, paper-makers, artists and book-makers have made great use of a couple floors of space to experiment, create and display work. There had been an opening the night before (we'd arrived to late to have attended even if we'd known about it) and there were plenty of examples on display and for sale, as well as really cool people there to show us around, and take us downstairs to the workshop where most of the magic happens. Really, really cool operation - very glad we stumbled on that flyer.

Not only were the printing co-op types good at showing us around their shop, they also gave us good info about exploring the city on foot. And on subway. There is a somewhat limited subway "system" in Buffalo (it's just one line that goes from the Harbor out to the University. Some Buffalonians call it the 'Subway to Nowhere') that we used to go out to the Allentown neighborhood because it was just too cold to walk the whole way. Anyway, it did get us from point A to point B, and then we walked over to the Hero gallery (which had been the nexus of the opening at WNYBAC the night before) and beyond that to a used book store and past some bars and music venues. We discovered that we were near the Anchor Bar, which is by unanimous account the Original Home of the World's First Buffalo Wings, so we went there too.

Now, here's where it got really cold. Turns out that we weren't quite as near to that spot as we'd been led to believe, and the last quarter mile or so was up hill (a very gentle hill, but still...) and into the wind. Holy crap it was cold. Cory turned to me at one point and said "Are you sure we're going in the right direction? I can't feel my feet. And I think this finger is going to break off." But we made it there and had some wings and some fries and a beer. How could we not?

Took the subway back to the hotel and crawled under the covers to warm up and watch part of "I Am Legend" on TV, and then met Sue & Kevin & Max for dinner. Jen showed up later on, and we had a nightcap with her before turning in. The next morning we broke fast in the hotel and all smooshed into Sue and Kevin's car (which isn't normally a clown car, but they made an exception for us that day) and went to the memorial, and you know the rest.

EXCEPT - on the way back home, we had to go to the airport extra early because Jen's flight was more than an hour before ours. But as we checked in, Cory noticed that an earlier flight to NY hadn't taken off yet, so we zipped through security as fast as we could and luckily they let us on the almost-empty plane. Such a stroke of luck! We walked through the threshold of Cory's apartment at almost exactly the moment our original plane was scheduled to be taking off. Nice coda to a nice weekend.

And, above all, for Fran: requiescat in pace.