FuzzyCo

How many subways of the world have you ridden on?

From b3co.com!

I'm not sure why "CTA" and "Chicago L" are listed separately, but I took it.

(via PNH)

Shaun and Kristen got two new kittens: Zordon (the tabby) and Murphy (the tuxedo cat). They. Are. Adorable.

Of course, with Lady and Robert, this means that Shaun and Kristen have four cats and officially crazy cat people. Too bad, guys, it was nice knowing you.

Shaun and Lillie Frances and I had a meeting late last night at Konak to see if we could pull together [A Show]. [A Venue] had contacted me because they had an upcoming gap in their schedule and they wanted to see if we'd bring the Neutrino Project to their space. In a few weeks. We definitely don't want to do Neutrino on short notice -- it's a complicated enough show as it is.

But it made Shaun think of an idea he's wanted to try since our last Neutrino Project run. When he explained his idea to me, I said, "that's funny -- that sounds a lot like [A Proposal] Lillie and I made to [A Different Venue] sometime ago. Maybe we should call Lillie and see if we can combine our ideas."

So, we had a great meeting and really hashed out a bunch of things. Most especially being our agreement that we'd be putting up [The Show] as a work-shoppy sort of thing, to just see what worked. I've been reflecting on that philosophy lately, especially after seeing Ze Frank's recent The Show about bad ideas and "brain crack".

And... this morning I got back in touch with [The Venue] and I may have completely misunderstood their schedule. So... we might not be doing anything. So between that and TheThingOutWestThatIsn'tConfirmedYet and writing Thank You notes for the wedding (and playing the Japanese import of LocoRoco on the train) is pretty much what I'm up to right now. Oh, and doing a photoshoot for some burlesque ladies. And doing a show out at the CCC Theater and one with the Belmont Burlesque the same night. I think I started this paragraph to try and say I wasn't doing that much, but I guess I am a little busy.

Demetri Martin's new standup album, These Are Jokes, comes out September 26. It was recorded live at some shows at the Lakeshore Theater here in Chicago and Erica and I were there for one of them. So that's our laughs, on some of the tracks. And laugh we did, because he is funny. Dead Frog has a preview track, which features Will Forte on scat assist (singing, not animal poop).

This weekend I did a photoshoot with the Belmont Burlesque Revue cast -- individual shots of all seven cast members, plus group shots. Plus video of 6 dance numbers. We were at the Playground for 10 hours. Did I mention we were in Indiana for Matt M.'s birthday the night before until midnight? I don't think I would have survived if Erica hadn't come along and been my photo assistant for the first 7 hours before she had to go to work (which meant she had a 15 hour work day -- the poor dear).

Earlier in the week I had had a bit of a panic attack when I realized that, while I take lots of concert photos and street photos and so on, I'm usually an available light kind of shooter, and that the theater lights in the Playground were not really going to be suitable for portrait work. So I bugged a number of my photographer friends, and found some good resources in a book, Digital Portrait Photography and Lighting by Catherine Jamieson and Sean McCormick, and in the Lighting 101 section of the blog Strobist (by David Hobby, staff photographer at the Baltimore Sun). I ended up running out to Calumet on Friday and picking up a Strobist-style lighting kit -- a stand, umbrella, reflector, and a Nikon SB-80DX, which I used off-camera for the shoot, but which can also be used on my Nikon D1 (versatility is my middle name).

So... part of the point of this is that I now have a more portraity-oriented photo setup. And I, well, spent more on the gear than I got paid by the BBR. So, if you need a portrait or some baby photos or something, keep me in mind.

Kate over for America's Next Top Model, "Lighting Bug Gummy Worm" candy kit, and a camera with manual shutter settings. Whee!

It happens occasionally.

The Belmont Burlesque Revue (come see Gerdes & Reid this Saturday night!) is featured in a Chicago Tribune article today on burlesque shows: Beyond a nudge and wink

Today's Cat and Girl took me aback with its awesomeness. (If you're confused...)

A few years ago, Erica did a photoshoot with world-famous photographer Victor Skrebneski. At that time, Skrebneski did not have a website. Now, not only does he have a site, but Erica's photo is one of the photos in his site's splash page animation.

Erica and I both took off from performing in the months leading up to our wedding and it was only just this weekend that we got back into the swing of things. Erica did Don't Spit the Water (which got a write-up in The Bastion) while I was out in the suburbs doing the shows at the CCC Theater. Then I raced back into town so we could do Gerdes & Reid at the Belmont Burlesque Revue. The short story is, "we still got it."

I'll be back out at CCC this weekend, and Erica will be doing DSTW again in a couple of weeks.

Steve has set up a Blewt 'channel' on You Tube and he's filling it up with episodes of Talkin' Funny (Erica and my appearance is here) and with the appearance, finally, of Silly Horse Whisperer.

SHW completes the Silly Triology. Each of the videos consists of 30 people doing something for two minutes in front of a green screen. Steve added crazy backgrounds and royalty-free music to each and the result was an hour of... comedy? bewilderment? something. (I was in Silly Faces but missed the taping of Silly Dances.) The only problem with the You Tube videos is that they're divided into the 2 minute segments, which means that you lose the "what?! there's more?!" quality of watching the DVDs. But that said, here's Erica:

And Cowboy Fuzzy:

And who's hidden under that handsome gorilla mask?

Everything I've ever read from John M. Ford was well worth reading and I'm very selfishly sad that there will be no more writings because there is no more John M. Ford. His novels are intricate and delightful things and he could just toss off these note-perfect poems in three styles at once and tell me that The Declaration of Unity is not one of the most beautiful wedding ceremonies you've ever read. Oh, poop to death.

Here's a cool trick I learned from Kenner -- let's say you want to take a quick self-portrait for MyBook or FaceSpace or whatever you kids are into these days. But you're at work, and who wants their boring old cubical office in the background? No one, that's who. So, put that office chair to good use and... spin!

Those are clean clothes, you jerk!

Cool -- I just updated MovableType to the latest version and finally moved from a flat-file database to MySQL (welcome to the year 2001!) and remarkably, it all seems to have gone smoothly.

Photo by Brian Loden for the Vicksburg Post

This is what I married into: a town where people wrestle fawns, for what are, I'm sure, very good reasons. (J'adore Vicksburg!)