A Very Busy Week (part two of five)

The Brooklyn Museum of Art is hosting an exhibit on Graffiti. While is is quite limited in terms of size and the time span it represents, the exhibit does showcase some beautiful pieces by very important artists.






I just wish there had been more by modern writers, as the stuff kids are doing today is crazy, all 3D and photoquality and whatnot.

A Very Busy Week (part one of five)

This week I was joined in NYC by a group of kids from ann arbor, some of whom were looking for a place to rent in their impending move to the city, some of whom were just along for the ride. I got to play host/guide for a good chunk of that week, and ye gods did we ever get into some stuff.

The first highlight on this reel was the BODIES exhibit. This was breathtakingly amazing, humbling, and fasctinating. It presents preserved human bodies in various stages of dissection, and makes accesible to all comers a view of the intricacies and complex beauty of the human machine that would never be possible otherwise. The histological preservation is expert, and what is shown is unbelievable. Attendance was made an unofficial requirement for all NYU med students. I have wanted to go for some time, and this week the A2 gang wanted to go, too.

I admit to knowing that there is some controversy around this show - that some of the bodies were not donated, but rather "collected" from "unclaimed or unidentified" bodies at the exhibit's point or origin, the University of Beijing. Meaning, technically, that some of these anatomical donations were not made with informed consent. And while, yes, this is a matter to be taken very seriously, the contributions this exhibit makes to the field of science and education were clearly obvious at the exhibit itself, on the faces of those in attendance. Anyways, decide for yourself, but not before seeing this exhibit!

Advanced social awkwardness 101: I barfed on the 6 line

When it says "take medication with food," trust me. Take the medication with food. Also, while I'm sparing you the details (they are gross), I will say this much: I have a burgeoning theory that people in situations such as mine put off some sort of "bad things are about to happen" pheremone, because as soon as I knew I was going to vomit, everybody else seemed to know what was going down. Or coming up, as the case may have been. Way to let me by and pretend not to be fazed, subway riders.

Th (first) last tango in New York - OR- No, no, please go right ahead and believe the Hype

Amidst a sequence of rather unfortunate...erm, things...going on in my life, I managed to have quite a bit of fun this past Sunday night. My de facto Tango partner, Betsy, came to town with her friend as a stop on a whirlwind roadtrip of the East Coast. It turns out there are easily four or five places you can go to do Argetine Tango in New York city for free or cheap every single night of the week! So, we picked going to the southstreet sea port for some outdoor, under the stars tango fun. It was great, and there were a ton of people, and they were all very nice. One couple even agreed to teach us a fairly complicated but really sweet looking move called the Bolleo. Much fun was had, and Betsy was safely placed upon the mighty FungWah bus to parts north the following day.

Today, I attended a really interesting event at Lincoln Center. It was an "auteur study" of, and discussion with, Hype Williams, the director of pretty much every good hip-hop video ever, most notably Missy Elliot's "The rain"

(and many others of hers), and Kanye West's "Goldigger." It was 1) really bizarre to watch those videos mentioned, along with others like Jay-Z's "Big Pimpin'," while being at Lincoln Center; 2) fantastically interesting to be guided through a study of symbolism, theme, and cinematography in one director's hip-hop videos by a New York Times music critic - seriously, who knew this stuff was in there? Also, Irv Gotti was there and got up to speak, and he was hilarious to listen to. Hype Williams was very humble, and sort of softspoken, but overall the event was time well spent.

Celebrooklyn Brelebrate. Er, wait...OR, My head asplode!

This weekend involved far too much moving of heavy things. Inga Katinka moved in, and The Fanciest American picked up some of his stuff for his move to Long Island. Therefore, while all the cool kids went to coney island for the siren festival, I punked out and went instead to Celebrate Brooklyn.



I went to CB last year with 'Lil Shari Strauss, who snuck me into the VIP area; that was a great time, and so was this. CB s held scant few blocks from my place, in prospect park, lasts for several weeks, there are a ton of good bands, and the audience demographics are more to my liking (fewer hipsters and scenesters, more crepe-paper parties, BBQs, and families hanging out). See? Photographic illustration. It has a sort of "super-sized southwest detroit" feel.



And it's either ridiculously cheap, or free. I opted for free, because you have more space. It gets crowded in the fenced in area, and apparently I wasn't the only one skipping out on a not-exactly-whopping $3 ticket price.



It was a great even. I saw a band called, i think, Group Sonidoro, or something. They played North Mexican salsa music, and were followed by Nortec Collective - which could rightly be called Nerdtec Collective, as it was mexican nerds mixing bad salsa with bad techno. Still, a very fun event in all. I'll most likely go back soon.

And yes, I am posting this at like 4:45 in the a.m., because it was so painfully hot and high pressure here today that I developed an Eye Exploding Headache. So I came home from work and passed out until almost 2 a.m. Lousy global warming.

Settle down, you.

I'm not doing so well at this readjustment thing so far, but I've been reminded that it's only been a few days. And that New York is weird.

The latter reminiscence came from a "taxi" driver. I purchased a very heavy - though not as heavy as the one i wanted - do-it-yourself chest of drawers. The box said my purchase required 3 or 4 people to lift it, so I, of course, figured I could carry it home on my own. I lugged it through the store. The Target employee at the door, however, suggested strongly that I take a taxi, and he called out to someone just outside. The "taxi" turned out to be some guy's SUV. A homeless man tried to help me to the car, which prompted the driver to carry on at great length for the ride home about how he hates "crackheads" and how they scare off his customers and can steal anything, even things that are bolted down - "that's that crackhead strength," he says - and how King of New York was the greatest movie ever and they don't make movies like that anymore. He also has a theory about how crackheads run carwashes and use hot wax as a scam. It took a lot not to laugh, even though the whole thing was completely ridiculous.

It also took me something like three hours to put the stupid chest of drawers together, but whatever, it's done and looks nice.

Back to feeling weird. I was thinking a lot about it this morning on the subway, when suddenly a man in a stained t-shirt and sweatpants, badly for want of a wash and shave, stumbled onto the subway. "I'm in the big time now, hoo, boy, I am in the big time now," he said. Then he sat down and started to sing "ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall" just loudly enough to irritate everyone. So I guess, technically speaking, I could be doing worse.

It lives! Or, Return of the Brooklyn!

One of my old Aikido senseis imparted to our class, during a lecture one day, that should we find ourselves in an unusual or uncomfortable situation, and we're having trouble figuring out what to do, we should "draw our own compass."

Well, that's fine advice, and it's served me well these many years. But if you had put me in front of that class that day, my advice would have gone like this: "If you find yourself in an unusual or uncomfortable situation, and you're not sure what to do...go see you some dinosaurs! Preferably eating each other. Also...



Say hello to some creepy monkeys!



And watch a a group of people who don't know they're about to have a whale fall on them.



Maybe I should stick to being a student of Aikido, and not become a teacher ever. Today I attended the American Museum of Natural History on 79th and Central Park West. Yesterday I got into Brooklyn after an all-night dance party - in my honor - at Jose's. Andrew and I painted my new room, and spent most of the day interviewing prospective roomates. We settled on a Swedish architect, who, when asked if she was friends with the Swedish chef, did not miss a beat in replying that he was her father. I think she'll do just fine.

Leaving was particularly bittersweet this time, for reasons I'll write more about when I have the emotional capacity to do so. For now I'm off to have nightmares about this exhibit (pictured below) from the museum.




So farewell, messy old apartment.
Hello, soon to be messy new/old apartment!

About a month's worth.

Whew. Imagine, if you will, a film in which the frames do not retain their individuality, but rather drag, one into the next, to create a kind of smeary, streaky blur. This has been my last month or so.

It started with the pirate bang, which was the sweatiest of parties, but very, very fun.




After the Bang, the whole "Love's Labours Lost" crew went to Jose's for food and more dancing. This is one of those images that repeat most frequently when looking back over the past month or so: eating and dancing at Jose's until sunrise. We dance salsa, merengue, bachata, argentine tango and tango nuevo. Songs like Paolo Conte's "Via Con Me" and Elvis Crespo's "Suavemente" string together dozens of nights, it seems, of learning new steps and enjoying ourselves to the fullest.

Another image is that of rehearsal - lord, was there a lot of that - and, thankfully, also performances. After all of our hard work fixing up shakespeare's least performable play, the shows were, by all reports, wonderful. We received a flood of compliments, and had perfect weather for all but one night. Oh, and I may or may not have played a ridiculous academic modeled after Martin Walsh and Final Fantasy 10's "Lord Widebottom," and that performance may or may not have involved dancing around with horns on my head.






The best part of the show, though, was getting to work with old friends like JP Dutka (pictured here with me as we sped along in a golf cart; I am driving), Carol Gray, and Beca Fried. I also made a number of new and very good friends, whom I will miss terribly.



See, that's the conclusion to this month-long collage: I'm leaving. My job, as many of you know from speaking to me, has not turned out to be what was expected or promised. It's really very frustrating, and as that job was the main reason I moved back...

So it's back to NYC, to a job that pays very well in a city full of opportunity. I can't begin to tell you how excited I am to be going back in crazytown, leaving this (albeit pleasant) retirement community. I'm entirely too young and resourced to be anywhere I'm not challenged and excited and productive and happy. It's time for a new movie to start.

There's another bang this saturday, if you're in town. You should go. I'd like to see you. (Yes, you.) Or contact me. Soon.

So for now, I've got to get back to my farewell tour of friendly ann arbor faces and start packing. See you back here in less than a month (i promise, this time).

His name is Jose, you killed his father

Now do you see why I've been having so much fun lately?

Haditha as the act of irrational minds

You can read all about it at this link (and at the NY Times), but the short-story version is that an investigation has been launched into the events of last November, when U.S. Marines reported having been attacked by insurgents. The probe is not completed, but has thus far uncovered evidence and accounts from locals and other Marines in the area suggesting a very different story. According to these sources, the Marines involved were not provoked, and instead gunned down 5 men at a bus stop and women and children in 2 nearby houses. Reports estimate two dozen deaths.

These are not the acts of rational, sane, or otherwise stable people.

I know comparisons all have their limitations, but I recall my mother - at the beginning of this conflict - likening Iraq to Vietnam. Have we now seen the resurgence of the same mentality which led to My Lai?

Krapp's 26th

The 25th of may marked my 26th of birthdays. Begun with administrative business at the RC, my day was vastly improved by a trip to see my parents and sister Hilary back in the D. Dinner ensued, and was accompanied by the collection/creation of pirate garb for the upcoming Pirate Bang. Then I jetted back to Ann Arbor to see the midnight show of X-men 3 with some kids from the cast, and then several of us went back to Jose's, where he made baloon animals, juggled, and did his T-trex impression. Then we played Xbox and found it had become 5 in the morning.

This was a rough birthday. 26 feels very old. Lots of "what am I doing with myself" and so forth. Incidentally, I have been much reminded of Krapp's Last Tape, and, in lieu of tapes, I have begun a new tradition of taking a picture of myself every year on my birthday. So...26, eh?

In which I talk about my kitchen and sports. Thrilling, no?

First and foremost, the Matrix quinceanera was a really incredible experience, but I'm going to tabel that topic until I can get some pictures - because otherwise you might not believe the things I would say.

Here is an "after" picture to accompany the "before" picture of my kitchen. I'll pause while you take the appropriate sigh of relief.


Now then: it is my duty as a detroiter to talk about basketball (if you live near here you do not doubt this). Yes, the loss of the Red Wings was upsetting, particularly because we may have seen the last of Steve "if you tape my body back together I'll go out and win this game" Yzerman. But hockey is a game where the best team has only a slightly better chance of winning. There's way too much luck involved in hockey to adduce it as some sort of model for procedural justice. Also, there may be a curse on the President's Trophy.

I offer this description to contrast hockey with basketball. Yes, there is still a great deal of luck involved, but lucky bounces are far less of a factor in this high-scoring game, and ball movement is much more controlled than puck slapping. Basketball, particularly playoff basketball, is about team strength. For a while it seemed like everyone except LeBron James was off their game. No one is 100% great every game. But the difference came when the pistons team stepped up (e.g. lindsey hunter's explosion in the 2nd half of yesterday's game, Tayshaun Prince's Marathon of Good Basketball)and Lebron's team didn't. His team, without his stats, went 7-for-36 in the second half.

And I have to say I think it's about the way LeBron is hyped. His coach and all the announcers talked about how the key was to get LeBron the ball, and that other players shouldn't step up but let James make the plays. Well, guess what, kids? Despite everyone who maintains ad nauseam that he is, LeBron James is not Superman. He is great, but he will get tired. He will eventually be stopped by a good defense. In the long run, no single good player can outplay a good team. What kills me is that no one, except the detroit press, seems to get this. LeBron's team gets broken in the 7th game, goes down hard, and all the announcers can say is, "we're very excited about what's to come from this phenomenal player, LeBron (King) James. This is an amazing start." Ugh.

Woo, soapbox. Until next time, (best Mason impression) DEEEEETROIT BASKETBALL!

Standing, and on your shoulders the shoulders of giants...or something like that.

A few of the aforementioned puppets.
From left to right, Mother Jones, MLK, Cesar Chavez, A. Philip Randolph, The Woman who Outshone the Sun, Ralph Bunch, and the almost-finished Fear.

An insane amount of delicate work goes into making giant puppets, and here Maryann, the program director for the community puppets, continues that work.


There are so many amazing puppets to wear, carry, and otherwise bring to life!


And finally, last but certainly not least, is Fear. Poor old Fear here was a very early construction for Matrix, and, I am told, has always been a very difficult piece to work with. Even after an initial father-and-son buildathon to give Fear his first real body, I have still had to rebuild that body twice to get it to balance Fear's massive head. The hand pictured here, however, is supasweet and was constructed by the very odd (for me to see) pairing of Matrix executive director Shaun nethercott and Athena (though the lion's share of the construction was all athena).


Being around these pieces now and having worked on constructing and paper macheing them in the past really makes me happy, and i have high hopes for saturday.

Um...somebody stole my kitchen.

This is what I came home to today.


Lots of giant puppet repair lately, as we gear up for this coming Saturday's 15th Anniversary celebration for Matrix Theatre Company. 10 a.m. at Holy Redeemer on Vernor, folks. It's going to be puppet madness.
To which, of course, you are all invited.

I did NOT have a date.

Um...while I certainly am flattered that quite a few of you have such faith in my ability to get dates, the "salsa dancing date" mentioned in the last post was (as I hoped you would conclude from my description of the picture) a very long time ago. Like January of '05. The current wave of salsa/merengue/tango has nothing to do with that date.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, though. In other news, my first tango lesson was a lot of fun (well, mostly the all-level practica was very fun, the class itself was kinda slow).

And then JP Dutka and I played music for a long time. Then we went to the bookstore, and I bought a book about poisoning people. Yay!

Hi, Royce! ... and then, tales of the Spaniard! [Edited]

Greetings to our newest reader, Royce. Incidentally, he started reading on 5/9, which I take as sufficient justification to claim that Royce da 59 reads my blog.

EDIT: My source was apparently having a senior moment, or was drunk, or possibly both. Apparently the new reader is actually Pete, not Royce. Sadly, there is no Pete Da 59, so this is bad news for all of us. This is the last time I try to do anything. At all. Ever.

And now, onto an extremely abridged version of a convoluted tale: I am now in a play with a spaniard named Jose, who, after I mentioned to him that myself and some other kids from the play had recently gone salsa dancing, insisted that we all go tango dancing, and, two days later, salsa dancing again. I have had more fun dancing than I have spent time sleeping in the past few days, and I was so enchanted by Argentine tango that I'm going with some of the aforementioned folks to Tango lessons on wednesday.

Maybe it's the spring in ann arbor, which explodes like sweet-smelling green fireworks. Maybe it's the release of frustrations from months spent indoors wasting my time in meetings and at home by myself. But now I'm acting and directing again and playing the bass for hours at a time, and dancing my brains out.

Below, incidentally, is a very hilarious picture I found online a long time ago. I was going to go on a salsa dancing date with this woman, and sent her this picture, in jest, with the caption "this is how we will look!" Only she didn't get the joke, and actually replied, "well, I'm not sure I can bend like that, but okay, we can try!" Le SIGH. Yes, do that, madam, and I'll try my hardest to make my hand burst into flames while wearing an expression of sheer madness. Would you go on a date with someone who suggested this? Because you shouldn't.

Three things you must learn

1) Avoid Da Hip Hop Witch! Seriously. I know, I know, you look at the box and you see the amazing line-up of hip hop talent in the credits. And you see the funny plotline described on the back. DO NOT BE FOOLED! Da Hip Hop Witch will hurt your soul!

2) Do not call me during Lost. Why does this happen? You have 167 other hours in the week you could call me, and you don't. You all call on Wednesday from 9-10:02, when I am watching with rapt attention as a fabulous story unfolds. That story does not benefit from your making my phone vibrate.

3) If you ever have a dream wherein Chauncey Billups joins you and and a bunch of strangers for dinner at a restaurant, don't let those strangers be rude to Chauncey - even if you get the sense those people are supposed to be your friends. Asking him about basketball again and again - like whether he prefers to face Cleveland or Washington - will make his face melt and he'll slide backward through the wall on his chair while you end up in a Museum with peanut butter on your feet. Just trust me on this one. Obviously LeBron and the Cavs would be the better choice.

Checking In

They're going to start having to call this "bLONGing" in stead of "bLOGGing"if I keep up this "once every couple of weeks" frequency with posting. So, at the request of those who have e-mailed asking for updates (read: Sarah), I provide the following lengthy document.

First things first, the space Bang. I've talked about the Bang before, and this one was no different. Well, except for the "space" theme. Nothing wrong with a tinfoil mohawk and shirt, kids.


So the Bang was ridiculously fun, and the next one (conveniently two days after my birthday) is on May 27 and is the Pirate Bang!

The Bang fell between Easter Vigil Mass and a very sleepy Easter morning. In my easter basket, in a joking resonse to a recent coloring debacle, I found a few coloring books. One of these was what can really only be termed a remedial coloring book, and is totally hilarious. Most of the pictures include animals with dumb, confused expressions...
and a lot of images about helmets and how much fun it is to wear them. I'm going to leave that one alone.

After Easter weekend, I finished up teaching for this semester by administering a final. Then I jetted to NYC to celebrate Greek Easter (a.k.a. Greekster), see some friends in the city, and, as usual, have horrible dental problems.

I hate dentists and dentistry. No other profession seems to be so replete with inept practitioners, and if it weren't for the rare exceptionally good dentist like Dr. Jim Sarji in Brooklyn, I'd probably just give up on the whole profession. (incidentally, my woes of late have stemmed from faulty work done by previous dentists)

Woo, tangent. Athena met me at Laguardia and presented me with the coolest Dinosaur T-shirt ever (pictured below).


We ran around the city, checked out Obscura, and went to FAO Schwartz for some fun with the cutest stuffed puppies ever.




Then we played with Legos for a while. Pictured below, of course, is Lego Princess Athena, whose recent work at Treehouse Animation on Lego Batman premiered on Cartoon Network on Saturday! She is the coolest!

Greekster was very fun. I have never easten so much lamb in my life, and Athena ate so much lamb she broke her hip. Um...at least that's how I'm going to tell the story. It was great!




We had some more fun in the city, watched the not-entirely-unterrible movie Silent Hill, and had a very nice dinner in Brooklyn with everyone's favorite future Rabbi, Andrew Goodman. I also failed miserably at arranging to see some of my favorite New Yorkers (mango pancakes, anyone?), but there's only so much a person can do.

Upon returning from New York, I underwent another emergency dental fix-up, and spent the next few days painkiller-ing it up. On friday Beca and I ran an all-day training on arts-centered education techniques at the UM Detroit Center.

And that, I think, at long last, brings you up-to-date. Hopefully I'll be a little more punctual in the future. Thanks for reading!

Take this job and blog it

If this were a news article, the dateline would read "Slow lane, MI." Let me adduce this picture of my phone, which left me an alert message to tell me I had missed zero calls.

But I've not been entirely without fun. I attended an horrendously boring training for Americorps, which provides some of my funding, but it was so very very bad that I and those with me had a wonderful time making fun of the program, and I got to meet some genuinely cool people.
Then I was able to run a class I've been wanting to try since I started teaching, of which I have taken the accompanying picture. There was an activity to get students into the story of a refugee from Somalia; then, once a context for and interest in the issue of immigration had been generated, the students were tasked with creating an original piece of theatre which would involve an audience. Their audience, they were told, would arrive in one hour.

They did a wonderful job, and what resulted was a very interesting dicussion of immigration and a very involved and interested audience.

And then, Athena came to visit! Wow, she must really like Michigan. Or something. We had fun on Saturday making giant puppets at Matrix with my dad, spent a lot of time relaxing, watched the Warriors on DVD and the uber-stupid Stay Alive at the movies. We also played outside and colored. I was having such a good time that I forgot to take any pictures, so I have provided the following picture - in which I create her likeness out of her favorite food, wagon-wheel pasta. I think I got the bangs just right.

incarcerated, not inhuman

Naomi and I attended the PCAP prisoner art show on north campus today. The art was amazing, and so expressive and sad all at the same time - once the pieces are created, they are taken from the prison and cannot be returned. Most of the works had been purchased (but were still on display) by the time I got there, although I did find and buy one I really liked. The show runs until wednesday! Here are some pictures of the other pieces (taken with permission of the organizers):


The one with the garments was an offering called "clothing the children"; the artist had created a child-sized prison uniform.

























The pieces depicting scenes from classic hollywood horror movies are really incredible. The artist used only pen on matchbook covers to create his works. There was a large display of his work - maybe twenty pieces in all - but none for sale.