INSPIRATION, WODEHOUSE + LAUGHTER

I’m putting this on a t-shirt + adding a cape.

Found on a site listing Jeeves + Wooster quotes. P.G. Wodehouse to comfort me in this hectic time of approaching tech and dress rehearsals:

As sayeth the Jeeves: “I’m sure that your cool head and undoubted thespian powers will see you through the day, Sir.”

Good night.

COLOR ME TWEET

Robot avatars on swirling blue backgrounds rock; check out @poetryc

DC Wednesday Comics is a must, according to sources.

World of Warcraft gets a Twitter app (unofficially): Tweetcraft. But there are concerns that it violates Terms of Use + could lead to banning.

@lilipip found this beautiful blue haiku based animation.

And why aren’t you following me on Twitter?

Oh, and this is something I found on Facebook, just for a change of pace…new Economist advertising campaign: clever, intricate and gorgeously done exploration of thinking spaces. You can submit yours.

And, oh yes, I have broken down and gotten Flash a last.fm subscription so I don’t get the darn bear during WoW sessions with the little brother. As an enchanting tailoring blood elf ret paladin, I find myself sewing and disenchanting pants for strange dust, which harkens back to my quest for pants beginnings in a strange and dusty kind of way.

And to leave you laughing, @cooljerk takes on vampires and musicals. Or as he says it.

Since we started with robots, we’ll end with @shellsuitzombie recommendation of The Princess and The Robot. Very cool art; nice version of the traditional tale.

And I almost forgot the lovely @Bardcore who started off my Twitterday with their crazy rocking music video version of Hamlet, Act III, scene i.

CAP + KANSAS

Well, the Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays so let’s talk about comics I’ve picked up recently + some of my favorite characters, both of which categories include Captain America.

Picked up Captain America #600, my interest piqued by rumors that they were going to bring him back. Killing Cap upset me — although, it’s comic books; it’s what happens. If you want a character with a storyline that never aggravates or annoys you, write your own comic/novel/cartoon. But that might not be a guarantee either.

Cap is all about triumph of human spirit and #600, which he doesn’t appear in is chock full of it in the good tear up a little and feel better about humanity sort of way. It’s a journey through how people feel about Cap’s legacy and Steve Rogers while Sharon Carter tracks down a rumor he might not be totally gone.

I’ve signed on for the Captain America trip, adding the book and the Reborn miniseries to my pull list. The comic book guy spent five minutes raving about Ed Brubaker’s writing and totally blanked when I mentioned my favorite Cap story arc, “Man Without A Country” drawn by Ron Garney. Garney’s Cap was iconic, a little cartoony (which I like) but solid and real — exactly like Cap should be. And Mark Waid’s strong stories gave Garney and Cap a springboard for excellent comics.

What else did I pick up? Jersey Gods, which is up to Issue #5 and fizzled somewhere in the middle of #3. Keeping your two main characters worlds and galaxies apart is not a ticket to keeping me interested. It turned from a potentially sharp love story to a plodding New Gods riff…Boo. New Jersey deserves better.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold is leaving my pull list soon. It’s become a dusty visit to some little known corner of the DC heroverse each issue without any wit or humor.

Batwoman, aka Detective Comics #854 with the Question II back of the book story rocked. Rucka’s a good writer (see Whiteout comments) — speaking of Whiteout artist Steve Lieber was robbed and doesn’t have the resources to promote his latest book, Underground. But back to Detective, whose artist is J.H. Williams III, whose fight scenes are kick ass wonders — he makes the Kate Kane in the Batwoman costume pages have a different, more stylized feel than the out of costume pages. Don’t like the tan background motif to the non action pages, but it’s a small quibble. Looking forward to the next issue. The Renee Montoya/Question II story is just the kick off without enough time to develop anything. I am trying to track down (actually I’ve sicced my brother on it — he’s the comic shopping expert in the family) the Gotham Central issues (6-10) where Montoya was outed and kidnapped by Two Face.

Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers — yes, Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers…I always liked Lockjaw’s appearances with the Inhumans and there’s a frog in a Thor costume (let’s see Branagh work that into the movie). Pet Avengers was fun, is only four issues and I’ll keep reading it. I seem to be on a Marvel kick.

But then there’s Phonogram, which is beautiful. Jamie McKelvie amazes me. Characters and colors make up for lack of background in the mostly nightclub interiors. The Singles Club is an interesting collection of characters — the first one pulled me in, the second one I couldn’t find (Joe’s on it, I hope) and the third was still beautiful and cryptic…I need to put all the music the creators list in a last.fm station.

Almost forgot Kansas, which is a Smallville reference. Now, Superman and Captain America are two heroes I think of as counterparts of each other — even though Superman adds yellow to the red and blue motif. Read MTV Splashpage interview excerpt with Justin Hartley and was somewhat disheartened at the news that he thinks the series could continue onto infinity when I think it lost it long ago.

What would get me back; humor, Lois, The Legion, Maggie Sawyer, moving Clark off stall, not having killed James Olsen, the Justice League rocking out, MUSIC — I hear songs from episodes of Smallville on last.fm and lament the loss of so many music style and wit points.

My favorite episodes;

The Season 4 openers, Crusade and Gone, where Lois shows up…excellent introduction of a great character. Actually, you can easily include the third and fourth episode — Facade and Devoted; the Lois and Clark interaction promises a sparking relationship to follow. Season 4, Episode 13, with Lois at Metropolis U is one of our favorites, with Clark demonstrating how essential Lois is becoming to him. Tom Welling does an excellent job of looking at Lois differently than any other woman — it’s a fascinating mix of exasperation, interest and concern.

Season 5, Episode 6, Exposed, is my favorite episode and not just because of the Lois pole dance (but oh, the lovely irony of Lois twirling to “Don’t Cha (Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot like Me).” Maggie Sawyer makes an appearance and I had hopes that this would be the first step on the path of Lois and Clark saving the universe together.

The Season 6 Lois/Green Arrow story line held my interest, but the show doesn’t want to commit to Lois and Clark and they seem to have lost their grip on her character and any hope that she and Clark would actually make a compelling couple, whether romantic or colleagues.

Now, I think Tom Welling does an excellent job, as does Erica Durance, Alison Mack, et al…but their talents are WASTED on the emotional, ill plotted morass Smallville has turned itself into — VOLUNTARILY!

And yet, no second season of The Middleman. Bah.

Happy Fourth of July. Exercise your first amendments rights and actually comment, darn it. And don’t blow yourselves up.

THE SLIDE SHOW

Uploaded photos to the ning #artwalk community; slideshow pretty cool, shows great details.

#artwalk

Twitter has an #artwalk the last Tuesday of the month thanks to @KimSherrell. So, I’ll upload one of my first and favorites here for you, Mystery. Other examples are on my art blog. And maybe next month, I’ll take you on a portfolio tour.

READING BEHIND THE TIMES

yes, I have the stack of papers and yes, I have been thinking of you and saving articles. So here’s a quick roundup:

Stefan Stern’s excellent column on effective networking, innovation and leadership.

Moon movies + moon moments from Nigel Andrews.

Well, that’s enough for now…although I was going to tell you my bingo adventures but you can just read Sarah Hemming’s interview with Neil Bartlett.

NOT ABOUT THE GUY

Princess Protection Program has taken over Twitter tonight and the reviews seem mostly positive. Yes, we watched it; yes, Flash bopped around with a happy, girly tail and yes, it was one of the better Disney movies that have rolled out recently. Demi Lovato’s misplaced princess turn moved me more than I expected and Selena Gomez always manages excellent work. A bit too many “how to be a princess” references for me, but I bet my nine year old niece was taking notes while wearing her Camp Rock shirt.

Someday, and yes, this is a dream, I would like to see Disney or Nick run a fun, non issue movie where the girl gets the girl. And yes, writing a script and sending it somewhere would be a good first step. But until then, it’s nice to see a more independent breed of heroine becoming popular; I am starting to get annoyed by Jonas just using Macy’s proclaimed athletic prowess as an excuse to give her props and not actually anything that makes her more of a person and less of a caricature. So positive review for the Princess Protection Program (if you watch it tomorrow + count princess mentions, you can unlock new episodes of Wizards and Sonny).

And the Wizards movie is also looking good — it will be nice to see David DeLuise and Maria Canals-Barrera have some time to work; along with everyone else in the Wizards cast, they do excellent comedy. Wizards really seems to have stepped up its game since letting Harper in on the magic secret — we watched the silent film homage episode today — very nice.

Saw some preview scenes of The Princess and The Frog…still not sure if I’m looking forward to it.

MICHAEL JACKSON

I’ve rebooted the Blink Kitty Love site and the “Guess or Sneak” lyric game and it’s a Michael Jackson tribute.

Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett –as I commented on a friend’s blog, that’s two major cultural chapters closed in one day. Condolences to both families.

I learned about both deaths on Twitter; they bookended my day. News like that flies around the Twitterverse. Tonight, I stood in front of my computer, said f**k, Gayle wondered what was wrong, and it took a couple of minutes for either of us to believe the news about Jackson. I had a flashback to the Jackson 5 cartoon — he had quite a career.

NOTE: We’re listening to the Michael Jackson songs I linked to and Flash has her paws in the air and is more relaxed than I’ve seen her in days…damn, he was good.

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE BUT SO IN THE ZONE

Ok, Shakespeare (#tamingshakespeare) takes up a lot of time + mental energy. Traffic control with 7, 8 and 9 year olds takes up even more, so blog posting may be a bit erratic for awhile. But tonight at rehearsal, I was so IN THE ZONE…it was a great feeling, solving problems, dodging poetry + meter jams, hearing things right for the first time, moving actors and words and motion like everything was a painting, a symphony, a play, a whole entity that was clicking into its moment.

Personal notes: instrumental jazz drives me crazy after a bit, I prefer lyrics mixed in with my melodies; the little brother acquired a Hewlett Packard tower of some sort so we’re back to low level World of Warcrafting again while we work off the rust, and I really want to go on vacation. But first, I want to turn a kick ass Taming of The Shrew out into the world. We’ll see if the buzz/zone/focus survives Thursday and the return of the 12 and under crowd.

Twitter’s been fun(and yes, there is some irony underlying there); there’s all the #iranelection stuff and that somehow led to the gay activism #lgbt stuff and sparks occasionally fly off my twitterfeed these days, but they are directed at the political workings of the universe and not causing glitches in my internal mental circuits (NOTE: I need to subscribe to last.fm so I don’t get the have you been eaten by a bear graphic so often as I listen to Radio FlashCatFlash in the background. Flash is an ardent consumer of media — listener of last.fm, chewer of Entertainment Weekly.) Although, I did try follow an agent for awhile — I occasionally try to find new + interesting Twitter peeps, but it seems like the people on the inside of the “I’ve been published/I know the system/I’m not a Visigoth” wall shrink away from and patronize the strivers/hopers/schemers who think writing leads to JK Rowlings levels of success and billions and who believe that there’s an easy solution and that someone would actually tell them if there was. And that’s just tiring — the patronization: there is no easy solution; there’s only your own tolerance level for continuing to try. I suppose, to sympathize with the gatekeepers, smug or otherwise, that it’s also tiring getting harassed by people who want to be published. But I just don’t like the industries built up to take money/hope/energy from people with writing/moviemaking/painting/crafting/creating dreams. And who make little hoops for people to jump through rather than respecting honest effort. And the people who control access to the gates with assured superiority really tick me off – and no, I’m not sure that this agent was one of that breed, but it did trigger some memories. And yes, somewhere back in the day, my ancestors painted themselves blue and did things like tear down the towers of Rome. But then we learned to read the books and saved the civilization we once helped burn. And now we’re writing the blogs and drawing the webcomics and digitizing the viral videos.

Oh well, apparently, Twitter related mental glitches/rants still occur. But on a personal note, two of my WORST auditionees ever, who had the most trouble with the language, had turned into two of the MOST amazing and dedicated Shakespeareans by the time they stopped having time to spend their summers touring Shakespeare. Because they worked their asses off, they learned, they tried and I gave them opportunities and challenges. I am so thankful I took them up on their enthusiasm and bravery instead of dismissing their stumbling over the language. And I am so grateful it is a lesson I learned the FIRST time I directed Shakespeare. I remind myself of it before every audition.

Have been having a tweetversation about Henry James — someone’s reading “Turn of The Screw” and I suggested “Beast in The Jungle.” So I went looking for it to make sure that was the story I was talking about and found excerpts and suddenly thought, OMG, that’s what influenced Jane and Sally’s relationship in In The Bleak December. Wow. Amazing how what you’ve read and only remember the experience of gets threaded into what you write. And here I thought it was mainly Persuasion and Bellwether and Topsy Turvy mixed. Maybe the sequel could stand to be influenced by Taming of The Shrew. I can just see Jane grumbling “To me she’s married, not unto my clothes.” Now, there’s a place to start.

Speaking of married, we went to see The Proposal and were not impressed. No one seems to do dialogue anymore — or even put the stars in the same shot. you have faces, you have names, why worry about chemistry, communication, plot, script, the fast pace of banter…why not just linger on movie star faces. Oy. I watched Kissing Jessica Stein to recover my love of movies — now there’s a movie with some great conversations.

Now, so as not to be responsible for a total rant fest, I have hopes of (500) Days of Summer, which is apparently non linear. And I am still enjoying piecing together the upcoming Scott Pilgrim movies from Edgar Wright’s daily photos. And there’s the hope that Bandslam will actually rock. Must see Hot Fuzz sometime; NetFlix is becoming a must fit into the budget.

Anyway, thanks for listening; keep cool, get some sleep and some sun. And brush up your Shakespeare; it’s fun, darn it.

A BRACE OF WEEKEND HAIKUS

RIOT HAIKU
Thunderflash roars through
Noise fright then fresh quiet. Our storms
roil eternity

SOLSTICE HAIKU
Tangle of tigers
Dance glow bloom fairy heralds
Midsummer revels