Didn't really do much today, as I was on the aforementioned duty... Got up around 10am-ish, showered, watched some TV, read a bit, updated some genealogy on the Scots side of the family, ordered some Chinese food, watched two old Richard Jeni specials I have on VHS tape, and did dishes.
A very nice Saturday. And, it felt like Sunday all day to me, so I think tomorrow will feel like a bonus weekend day, always good...
It was fun to dig out those two Richard Jeni specials. I think the CD I have of his comedy is a bit better than the tapes, but maybe that's just because we watched those shows so much while in college. I think if we were ever wanting for something to do to kill some time, once we got our work done, of course, we'd throw on those shows.
There's lots of little phrases that my roommates and I incorporated into our lingo from those specials. Some Minnesota accents, quick one liners (which of course I can't remember now!), and just general good jokes.
NP: Ensemble Modern - The Adventures of Greggery Peckery
24 March 2007
23 March 2007
I'm on Duty!
Ah yes, another work weekend, I'm the duty person for campus, so I get to stay around for the next few days and TCB (take care of business) here on campus.
This year has gone by amazingly fast, where we're less than two months to graduation. Maybe it's part of being at a school again where the academic year is more "normal" than working at Dartmouth. Here at Saint Peter's, graduation is on May 20th. At Dartmouth, graduation was usually around June 10th. So, this year, it feels like I'm ending much earlier.
At this time next week, I'll be in Orlando, Florida, for the Joint ACPA/NASPA conference. I'll be there from Friday until Wednesday. It's really much more like work than a vacation, but work in Florida can't really be bad when you're not used to it. Can it?
It'll be a good trip, I believe. I'll meet up with old colleagues, and get to interview candidates for positions here. This will be the first conference since 2005 where I'm not looking for a job myself, which will be a nice relief.
I'll be doing some more updates over this weekend, as I'll be around... What are *your* weekend plans?
And Lou, I really liked the dream you posted... Weird, but, well, weird!
This year has gone by amazingly fast, where we're less than two months to graduation. Maybe it's part of being at a school again where the academic year is more "normal" than working at Dartmouth. Here at Saint Peter's, graduation is on May 20th. At Dartmouth, graduation was usually around June 10th. So, this year, it feels like I'm ending much earlier.
At this time next week, I'll be in Orlando, Florida, for the Joint ACPA/NASPA conference. I'll be there from Friday until Wednesday. It's really much more like work than a vacation, but work in Florida can't really be bad when you're not used to it. Can it?
It'll be a good trip, I believe. I'll meet up with old colleagues, and get to interview candidates for positions here. This will be the first conference since 2005 where I'm not looking for a job myself, which will be a nice relief.
I'll be doing some more updates over this weekend, as I'll be around... What are *your* weekend plans?
And Lou, I really liked the dream you posted... Weird, but, well, weird!
21 March 2007
A dress?
Here's two pictures of me in a dress!
These are digital photos of real pictures, taken in late 1991-early 1992. Junior at Boston College. I was doing a scavenger hunt with a friend, and one of the items was a guy in a woman's dress. We found one of his female friends, whose dress I could just *barely* get into...I also have shots of me in a dress from one of the CCE productions we did, where I played an 85 year old woman. I should dig those out...
NP: ELP - Pictures At An Exhibition (13 Aug 1972)
20 March 2007
Not quite Platonian dialogues...
Brian and I just had an e-mail exchange about "THE HOST." Here it is for your enjoyment... '
In a message dated 3/20/2007 10:55:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Brian writes:
BRIAN: The first time I saw HARD BOILED was in college, senior year, with an animatrix friend. I think it was playing for several days in a row and I went back at least once more during that run. I *might* have dragged you to it then, but I suspect we must have seen it a year or so later, post-college.
MIKE: It feels more like post-college to me... I think that was when I saw my first HK cinema... I do remember really liking it, and I still have the Criterion DVD of it, I should break it out at some point soon...
BRIAN: Ah, THE HOST. I started to comment on your post about it, but felt that it would quickly get away from me, and bailed on commenting, figuring that I would do another write-up of my own on it... Alas, haven't gotten around to it. I've been having trouble settling down to write much of anything since getting back from Florida. Don't know quite why.
MIKE: It's the sun. It gets to you...
Feel free to hijack my blog anytime... I enjoy long comments.
BRIAN: The first time I saw it, I laughed at the family falling down in mourning/fighting. The second tme, I didn't laugh. Third time, I laughed. I really do feel that it's meant to be sad *and* funny. I think that goes for a decent chunk of the film.
MIKE: I laughed as it went on, but more of one of those, "My god" type of laughs... Not funny, but more of a reaction... Sad and funny, that makes sense to me.
BRIAN: It's amazing how that film can so smoothly switch gears in tone and style without breaking the continuity of it.
MIKE: It was pretty good with that. I thought at the end, with the brother dropping the Molotov Cocktail, was just perfect too... The music swelling, slo mo, etc. I thought he'd miss, or the monster would move. Didn't think about him just *dropping* it, which was so right...
BRIAN: Within a heartbeat, you get a laugh as the dopey father counts to himself how many shots he's fired with the shotgun, and then just the worst kind of sadness at the spiteful thrashing of the grandfather by the creature.
MIKE: And he doesn't even try to run, because he knows it's not possible to get away...
BRIAN: One scene that I love that gets some interesting audience reactions is when the family sits down for a seo-ri dinner in the abandoned foodstand, and out of nowhere, the daughter joins them. For me, that was incredibly touching and bittersweet. For others, it seemed to be a joke. For really annoying others, it was a puzzle, prompting one jerkass to repeat out loud several times, "Now I'm confused."
MIKE: I know I didn't laugh, but within a moment, it's pretty obvious it's a dream/imagination piece. I can't believe that someone didn't get it, who was intelligent enough to seek out a Korean monster movie!
But then again, I think of the reaction you talked about to Romeo & Juliet, where someone in the audience really didn't know that they both die at the end...
BRIAN: I love that nothing is wasted in the film. At the start, we see dad Gang-dul asleep in the food stand, and a little urchin of a kid attempts to steal a candy bar or something. Before he can manage it,he's whisked away by a big brother type, dressed in fatigues. These are the brothers who get snatched by the creature after seo-ri/robbing the locked up food stand later in the film.
MIKE: Ah, I'd have to see that again to catch it. Missed it the first time. And I thought they were father/son, not brothers...
BRIAN: The beer. The wanted poster. The bucket of change.
MIKE: "If you put a gun on the mantle in Act 1, it needs to be fired by Act 3." I think Chekhov (the playwright, not the starfleet officer) said that...
BRIAN: I like that what would be the subtext in a typical monster film is just plain text for the most part. The political stuff is political stuff, no metaphors. I'm eager to see how an American version of the film frames things, particularly the origin of the beasty, and the activist brother's character/motivation. Perhaps he's a dot-com refugee, overqualified yet unemployable.
MIKE: True, no Godzille=atom bomb here. Here, it's chemicals=chemicals. Is there actually going to be an american version? American movies tend to have no problem with the government being the bad guys. Or, it may be Industry/Capitalism, which works too...
BRIAN: I hope Sam Raimi's involved in bringing it over. He's had a hand in bringing over THE GRUDGE films and they've been solid.
MIKE: I haven't seen any of those. With Sue not being a real horror nut, my viewing of them has been cut down. At Dartmouth, there were a few people into horror, so I could go with them, but no people here are good movie buddies.
--------------
There you have it. A conversation for the ages... We'll have more dialogues on this blog in the future... It saves me the trouble of writing.
In a message dated 3/20/2007 10:55:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Brian writes:
BRIAN: The first time I saw HARD BOILED was in college, senior year, with an animatrix friend. I think it was playing for several days in a row and I went back at least once more during that run. I *might* have dragged you to it then, but I suspect we must have seen it a year or so later, post-college.
MIKE: It feels more like post-college to me... I think that was when I saw my first HK cinema... I do remember really liking it, and I still have the Criterion DVD of it, I should break it out at some point soon...
BRIAN: Ah, THE HOST. I started to comment on your post about it, but felt that it would quickly get away from me, and bailed on commenting, figuring that I would do another write-up of my own on it... Alas, haven't gotten around to it. I've been having trouble settling down to write much of anything since getting back from Florida. Don't know quite why.
MIKE: It's the sun. It gets to you...
Feel free to hijack my blog anytime... I enjoy long comments.
BRIAN: The first time I saw it, I laughed at the family falling down in mourning/fighting. The second tme, I didn't laugh. Third time, I laughed. I really do feel that it's meant to be sad *and* funny. I think that goes for a decent chunk of the film.
MIKE: I laughed as it went on, but more of one of those, "My god" type of laughs... Not funny, but more of a reaction... Sad and funny, that makes sense to me.
BRIAN: It's amazing how that film can so smoothly switch gears in tone and style without breaking the continuity of it.
MIKE: It was pretty good with that. I thought at the end, with the brother dropping the Molotov Cocktail, was just perfect too... The music swelling, slo mo, etc. I thought he'd miss, or the monster would move. Didn't think about him just *dropping* it, which was so right...
BRIAN: Within a heartbeat, you get a laugh as the dopey father counts to himself how many shots he's fired with the shotgun, and then just the worst kind of sadness at the spiteful thrashing of the grandfather by the creature.
MIKE: And he doesn't even try to run, because he knows it's not possible to get away...
BRIAN: One scene that I love that gets some interesting audience reactions is when the family sits down for a seo-ri dinner in the abandoned foodstand, and out of nowhere, the daughter joins them. For me, that was incredibly touching and bittersweet. For others, it seemed to be a joke. For really annoying others, it was a puzzle, prompting one jerkass to repeat out loud several times, "Now I'm confused."
MIKE: I know I didn't laugh, but within a moment, it's pretty obvious it's a dream/imagination piece. I can't believe that someone didn't get it, who was intelligent enough to seek out a Korean monster movie!
But then again, I think of the reaction you talked about to Romeo & Juliet, where someone in the audience really didn't know that they both die at the end...
BRIAN: I love that nothing is wasted in the film. At the start, we see dad Gang-dul asleep in the food stand, and a little urchin of a kid attempts to steal a candy bar or something. Before he can manage it,he's whisked away by a big brother type, dressed in fatigues. These are the brothers who get snatched by the creature after seo-ri/robbing the locked up food stand later in the film.
MIKE: Ah, I'd have to see that again to catch it. Missed it the first time. And I thought they were father/son, not brothers...
BRIAN: The beer. The wanted poster. The bucket of change.
MIKE: "If you put a gun on the mantle in Act 1, it needs to be fired by Act 3." I think Chekhov (the playwright, not the starfleet officer) said that...
BRIAN: I like that what would be the subtext in a typical monster film is just plain text for the most part. The political stuff is political stuff, no metaphors. I'm eager to see how an American version of the film frames things, particularly the origin of the beasty, and the activist brother's character/motivation. Perhaps he's a dot-com refugee, overqualified yet unemployable.
MIKE: True, no Godzille=atom bomb here. Here, it's chemicals=chemicals. Is there actually going to be an american version? American movies tend to have no problem with the government being the bad guys. Or, it may be Industry/Capitalism, which works too...
BRIAN: I hope Sam Raimi's involved in bringing it over. He's had a hand in bringing over THE GRUDGE films and they've been solid.
MIKE: I haven't seen any of those. With Sue not being a real horror nut, my viewing of them has been cut down. At Dartmouth, there were a few people into horror, so I could go with them, but no people here are good movie buddies.
--------------
There you have it. A conversation for the ages... We'll have more dialogues on this blog in the future... It saves me the trouble of writing.
High School dream...
The other night, I had an odd high school dream. Of course, upon waking, dreams always fall apart, but what I could remember from this one was:
- It was graduation, but only about 30 people were in a small classroom for the ceremony. I was there, sitting next to one of my friends, Beth Lefsky. Her father (Mr. Lefsky) who was the head of the social studies department, was organizing the ceremony.
- There were three people sitting near us, who were there to pick up a diploma for a friend of theirs, who was actually a student staff member who I worked with at Dartmouth, but they got his name wrong. His name was Mike, but they called him Mark. They also got his last name wrong, but the way it was wrong, it was the same name of someone in my class.
- At one point, Beth and I left, to try to find more people. I *think* we found my friend Brian, but he didn't want to do the ceremony.
- I was curious why there weren't more people around, or people I recognized, but that's dreams for you.
I think there was more of a plot to this dream. It did all seem to hang together when I woke up from it, but time and daylight drive out the details, and make it all just gossimer on the winds...
I'm "on duty" at work this week, which means I'm the administrator on call for the evenings if anything happens on campus. We'll see how this week goes.
Does anyone else out there have any weird dreams of their past to share?
NP: Genesis - In The Cage (24 Jan 1975)
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