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January 31, 2006
SINema
Well, this has been an interesting week. The last thing I wanted to deal with the day of an opening night is a bunch of strangers yelling at me on the internets, but, well, we don't always get what we want. It turns out that our clever new show name was already in use in Chicago, as was pointed out by some of the other show's fans. Note to self: always google your clever new show names.
So we've been trading co-producer emails all week -- an early favorite for a name change turned out to be the name of a burlesque show in Detroit; bullet dodged there -- and we're proud to present the Lavender Cabaret/FuzzyCo co-producton -- SINema. I think I'll be using the subtitle Smutty Comedy and Comic Smut. Whee. Now I just have to order a new big poster from Kinko's and get it over to the Improv Kitchen...
So...
SINema
Fridays at 11 pm, through Feb 24, 2006
The Improv Kitchen, 3419 N. Clark
FuzzyCo also encourages you to check out the completely unaffliated
Dirty Movie Night
The last Saturday of the month, resuming Feb 25
hosted by Odd Obsession, 1659 N Halsted
Yippee!
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:30 PM | Comments (0)
Book #6: Newton's Wake
I guess I'm just in a Scottish Science Fiction mood: book #6 was Newton's Wake by Ken MacLeod. The sub-title is "A Space Opera" and it was, indeed, a post-Singularity romp.
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:02 PM | Comments (0)
January 30, 2006
Dog will screen at Around the Coyote
Jason Stephens of Split Pillow writes:
The Around the Coyote Arts Festival, one of Chicago's biggest festivals, is having their winter show in Bucktown Feb. 10-12. As part of the festival, they screen short films at Rodan (1530 N Milwaukee) at 6pm on both Friday the 10th and Sunday the 12th. This year, the festival asked to screen exclusively "The Best of Split Pillow." A movie you were involved with has been selected by the Festival selection committee (we gave them every short film Split Pillow had ever had a hand in producing and they made the decisions). Congratulations.
The FuzzyCo film being shown is Dog. It was filmed for Split Pillow's Challenge, so over Memorial Day weekend 2004 we filmed a script written by another team (Jamie Pilarski & Lauren Austin) and we handed off the footage to yet another team to edit (Jennifer M. Fah). The FuzzyCo team included Shaun, me, Sarah Pappalardo, Andrea Swanson, Clifton Highfield, Jin Kim, and Ryan Stone.
I live-blogged our efforts, so take a little trip down memory lane with me:
Challenge - first night & day
Challenge: 1st Location
Challenge: 1/3 done
Challenge: 2nd location
Challenge: Editor Friendly
Challenge: 2/3 done filming
Challenge: Exteriors
Challenge: 99% done
Challenge: 100% done (filming, anyway)
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:36 PM | Comments (0)
Happy Birthday Rine-Stone
Happy Birthday, Rebecca Rine-Stone!
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:15 PM | Comments (0)
January 28, 2006
Book #5 - The Family Trade
Just finished book #5 this morning - The Family Trade by Charlie Stross.
Mini-review: An investigative journalist discovers her family heritage means that she's a "world walker" -- able to teleport between our world and another. In this other world, her family are merchant princes, using their abilities to become rich in both worlds. She's plunged into court intrigue and power struggles. And, ba-ba-bamp -- danger. It's good stuff, especially since Miriam is actually competent.
One annoying thing about the book is that it ends rather abruptly -- it turns out it's half of a longer book, chopped up for various publishery reasons. So now I have to go get the next one.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)
January 26, 2006
The other Dirty Movie Night
Update: We've renamed the show SINema.
Well, poop. There was is another Dirty Movie Night in Chicago. The video store Odd Obsession hosts a night of "dirty movies, dirty film trailers, ... sleazy performers, free wine/booze/beer and cheese". It's a free monthly event and they don't seem to have done one since last summer October.
The show was evidently well-loved and I'm getting some nasty comments on my show announcement (presumably because of the press we got today).
Franky and I were both aware of the Odd Obsession show, but neither of us remembered the name of that show (we swear). Franky had even contacted the owner of Odd Obsession months ago to see if he'd like to be a sponsor of our show. He expressed some interest, but we haven't been in contact since. Franky says he mentioned the name of the show at that time. (But, of course, it's such a generic name, none of us can be sure now whether he said, "we're doing a dirty movie night" or "we're going to be doing a show, the name of which will be, quote, "Dirty Movie Night", end quote.)
Oh, and one of the commenters says that there was talk of having Odd Obsession's event at the Improv Kitchen. Well, they call it "your venue". I'm not the Improv Kitchen. They're just a rented venue. They've had no input into the name or content of the show. Lakeshore Theater. Franky rents the Lakeshore Theater to put on Lavender Cabaret. They don't keep him informed of every show that inquires about renting their space and he doesn't let them know about shows he's producing in other venues.
So, where are we now?
1. Oops. Sorry. We screwed up. I would never have knowingly "stolen" anyone's name. I'm confident in my and my cast's abilities -- I don't want to trade on anyone else's success. And if you know me, you'd know I'm accommodating to a fault. I would have been too afraid of the kind of ill-will we're seeing now to have done this on purpose. Next time a show name is proposed, I'll Google it, I swear.
1a. I'm double-sorry because the people who are so mad right now are our target audience. I bet they'd love the show if they weren't so mad about the name.
2. I'd prefer not to change the name, since listings info and such has already gone out, but I want to do the right thing. We're contacting Odd Obsession to see if they'd like us to change the name.
3. It's not much of a defense, but man, it is kind of a generic name. There's a Dirty Movie Night in LA, too.
4. The ideas in the show are mine and the cast's. While I had heard of the Odd Obsession event I've never attended one. I've been doing both comedy-over-video and working with burlesque shows since 2003, so when Franky came to me with the bare concept of "let's do a show at the Improv Kitchen with their green screen and dirty movies" I had plenty of ideas that I think will make for a fun, fresh, entertaining show. The cast were cracking each other up with their bits at rehearsal last night. It's a good show.
5. If you don't have the balls to leave your name or an email when you leave a nasty comment or threat of physical violence, then, you know, fuck you.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:57 PM | Comments (3)
Best Bet
Update: We've renamed the show SINema.
Dirty Movie Night is a MetroMix "Best Bet" in today's RedEye (or as Jared said last night, "we're number two on the PowerPick, with a Star"). I'm not sure I actually understand that first sentence of the blurb, but I do encourage you to come and "get your dose".
And again, criminey. We actually ran through the whole show last night, in Shaun's living room, and tonight we tech at the Improv Kitchen for the first (and last, pre-show) time. I'm going to be tweaking the video right up until opening night, which is, I guess, regular. I'm always doing everything at the last minute anyway, so all that this show schedule has done is let me skip the weeks where I feel the nagging sense of dread that I should be working on the show, but don't.
And I'll throw in here that Saturday night you can come and see Erica and I try out some new characters at Don't Spit the Water (check the front page to see our heads wiggle back and forth). We'll be (versions of) Maya and Miguel (and I'm suddenly thinking that if I'm going to do things like link to their site that maybe we should have called them Daya and Diguel or something).
Posted by Fuzzy at 10:46 AM | Comments (1)
Book #4: Peeps
I starting reading Scott Westerfeld last year when Cool Hunting turned me onto So Yesterday, a young adult novel about, well, cool hunting. Westerfeld writes young adult fiction and science fiction (and young adult science fiction) and my future in-laws have been reading his Midnighters books and got me Peeps for Christmas (but kept it for a few weeks so they could both read it first -- clever).
Peeps is a science fiction vampire story. Our hero, Cal, is a carrier of the parasite that causes vampirism (or as they refer to it in the novel, is "parasite positive" -- a peep) and works for an ancient, secret organization that works to control the spread of the parasite. In addition to a rollicking adventure story, every other chapter has delightfully gross information about real parasites. Make my hamburger well done, please.
Posted by Fuzzy at 9:04 AM | Comments (1)
January 25, 2006
Where's Waldo Mustapha?
It's a little game just for Kate, but you can play along too. Where's Mustapha in this picture?
The previous installment.
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:03 PM | Comments (0)
And speaking of Things
My brother sent me these... things. Thanks, dude.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:46 PM | Comments (4)
Thing
I a) read a lot of books, b) read a lot standing on the train holding my book open with one hand, c) like gadgets, and d) am not afraid to look like a fool. And yet, despite those four factors, I'm not sure I could/would ever use the Thumbthing. It's just a little too dorky even for me.
(via Cool Hunting)
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:13 AM | Comments (3)
January 24, 2006
Valentine
Rather than repeat myself, I'll point you to my rave about Valentine Victorious on the Chicago Metblog.
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:29 PM | Comments (0)
Book #3: Anansi Boys
My coworker Kyle had loaned me Anansi Boys, so I figured I should read it next to give it back. I mean, that and I've been wanting to read it since before it came out. I followed along on Neil Gaiman's journal as he wrote the book. It's set in the same world as American Gods, but is a much more lighthearted book.
When I got off the train late last night I was just at the part where (MILD SPOILERS) the killer has Fat Charlie and Daisy hostage in the nightclub and Spider has been staked out by the Bird Woman for Tiger to kill and the ghost is walking from Florida to St Andrews and Rosie and her mother are locked up in the meat locker and things are obviously coming to a head (and I'm not sure that sounds more lighthearted) and so I just had to stay up and read the last 50 pages. Whew.
Posted by Fuzzy at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)
January 21, 2006
Dirty Movie Night
Update: I've found out about the other Dirty Movie Night from the comments here and I've posted a response.
Update2: We've renamed the show SINema.
So Franky made a poster, which is one of the great things about working with a producer. Usually it's me running around trying to do 10 things at once. With Franky on board, that's down to 6 or 7 things.
We're putting up this show, if you haven't noticed, on something of a tight schedule. I've only just finalized the video pieces we're going to use for opening night and now I'm sitting, an hour away from rehearsal, willing the DVD encoding to go faster so that I can actually show it to the cast. That's a downside of a video-based show. I seem to recall promising myself after both our hugely complex Sketchfest show last year and after our last run of the tech-heavy Neutrino Project that my next show would be simple, simple, simple. And yet here I am, up to my neck in DVDs and VHSes of old movies, watching a progress bar creep across a monitor.
I'm really leaning on my cast for this show. Andrea Swanson has done this kind of thing with me before, in Cinema 2.0. Erica is delighfully vulgar and is very kind to let me throw her into another show when she's already in rehearsals for a real play. Jared Logan is a treat as Kelly Paynes in Don't Spit the Water and brings a very-different (to me) stand-up comedy sense of preparedness to the show. And Shaun always brings the oomph. Shaun is the oomph.
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:01 AM | Comments (46)
Book #2
I just finished Engine City by Ken MacLeod, the third book of his Engines of Light trilogy, and my 2nd book (of a hopeful 50) of 2006.
Micro-review: Alien cultures, political thriller, space romp. And now, bedtime! I have to get up way-too-early-for-a-weekend tomorrow and edit a bunch of video for Dirty Movie Night.
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:11 AM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2006
Book #1
I just finished my first book of 50 of 2006. At this rate I'm perfectly on track for... 20 books. Oh well, again this is just a personal challenge and I'm trying not to get caught up in the game of it. Anyway, Dark Light by Ken MacLeod, book two of the "Engines of Light" Trilogy = check.
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:54 PM | Comments (0)
Engagement Photos
The story is on our wedding blog. The photos are on Flickr.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:33 PM | Comments (2)
January 17, 2006
I'm not sure I could explain
But fortunately, Steve does.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:24 PM | Comments (2)
Kate's Birthday
My awesome friend Kate O'Leary had her birthday party this weekend and we played Catch Phrase 'til we puked. We even figured out the device by the third game. Live it in pictures.
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:08 PM | Comments (0)
Dirty Movie Night
Update: We've renamed the show SINema.
Well, Franky has put down the deposit, so I suppose I can start talking about the show. Lavender Cabaret and FuzzyCo are proud to bring you a new late night comedy-video-sexy extravaganza: Dirty Movie Night.
OK, first off, because this is you guys and not a press release, I've got to say that I'm trying to come up with a quick way to tell people that the dirty movies really aren't that dirty. We're going to be working with movies like 1977's Cheerleader Beach Party which has a lot of hare-brained cheerleader schemes and a bit of topless cheerleader showering. I don't want people scared off because they think the movies might be hard-core or anything.
And mostly it's going to be us (us being my talented cast, which includes Shaun Himmerick, Jared Logan, Erica Reid, and Andrea Swanson) making fun of those movies. We're going to be doing a whole grab bag of making-fun-of-movies styles, from commentary (ala Mystery Science Theater) to dubbing (ala Cinema 2.0) to short form improv and drinking games. Whee.
The show is going to run Friday nights at 11 pm at the Improv Kitchen (3419 N Clark), starting January 27.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:22 AM | Comments (1)
January 11, 2006
Ruth Buzzy / The Ladies and Gentlemen
I've posted a set of photos of Ruth Buzzy and The Ladies and Gentlemen from their show last weekend at the Kinetic Playground.
The Kinetic Playground is a) very dark, even by rock club standards, so I was playing around with long exposures, and b) interesting, design-wise. That is, I'm given to understand that the Kinetic Playground is a revival of an old (60s and 70s-old) rock club (or at least of the name) where Led Zeppelin, the Who, Jimi Hendrix, and Frank Zappa all played. The design of the club's logo and the outside of the place reflects that sort of heritage -- all psychedelic and hippy-trippy.
The inside, however, is all steel mesh and industrial and Ikea benches. I'm sure most people will be coming to see bands, but it's still odd -- someone who would be attracted to the design of the outside of the place would likely be put off by the coldness of the interior. And someone who was looking for a stylish club like the interior would like pass right by the hippy vibe given off by the exterior.
And anyone who actually wants to see the musicians in a band will be turned off by how freakin' dark the stage is! For reals.
Posted by Fuzzy at 10:56 AM | Comments (0)
January 10, 2006
Ruth Buzzy / The Ladies and Gentlemen
I've posted a set of photos of Ruth Buzzy and The Ladies and Gentlemen from their show last weekend at the Kinetic Playground.
The Kinetic Playground is a) very dark, even by rock club standards, so I was playing around with long exposures, and b) interesting, design-wise. That is, I
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:22 PM | Comments (0)
January 9, 2006
50 Books
So there's this challenge to read 50 Books in a year. (Did I read it on Bookslut? Anyway, I've been following Neal Pollack's attempt through 2005.) And now that we're in the new place and my in-boxes-for-two-years (or more) books are meeting my custom-built-for-a-different-house bookshelves, I'm confronted rather physically with how many books are in my too-be-read pile. And I feel like I used to read plenty more than 50 books a year. Of course, that was back in the 16 years as a student when reading books was, in effect, my job.
So, I've decided to try. It's just under a book a week. Should be no problem, right? Of course, we're already a week into 2006 and I've only just finished the last half of Cosmonaut Keep by Ken MacLeod, which I don't feel like I can count against 2006, both because it was just half of the book, and because it was a re-read in preparation for reading the latter two books of the Engines of Light trilogy. Sigh. Wish me luck!
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:10 PM | Comments (6)
Welcome Toronto
Toronto is the newest Neutrino Video Project "franchisee" and they've started off with some good press in the Toronto Star.
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:03 AM | Comments (0)
January 6, 2006
Ruth Buzzy tomorrow
Hey, you know I'm a big fan of Ruth Buzzy and they're playing one of their all-too-infrequent gigs tomorrow at The Kinetic Playground (1113 W. Lawrence).
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:27 PM | Comments (0)
January 4, 2006
Ha Ha!
Dan and Vicky are on their honeymoon in New York right now and sent out an email this morning suggesting that we Tivo Conan O'Brien tonight as they would be in the front row of the audience. We're watching the show right now and they haven't done a pan of audience, so we haven't seen them, but we've heard Dan's distinctive guffhaw several times. Ha-ha-haw!
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:43 PM | Comments (1)
January 3, 2006
Happy New Year!
Am I allowed to say that we had a terrible New Year's Eve? Nobody at work seems to know what to say when I respond to their cheery "How was your New Year's?" with an honest, "Terrible, actually."
It started out all right -- we got a bunch of errands done during the day and then laid down to take a nap, foolishly forgetting to set an alarm. Fortunately, we woken up by a phone call from Erica's mom just in time to get dressed and get to Dan and Victoria's wedding. They got married in a very touching ceremony (I have photographic proof) and then we all headed to the reception.
Where I proceeded to get rather violently ill. Erica had had a couple drinks, so our rock-star friends Ryan and Laura drove us home. Erica took care of me for a few hours until she started to show signs of the illness (food poisoning? stomach virus?). The rest of the night is a blur of trips to the bathrooms, snatched moments of sleep, and the thumping of Now That's What I Call Music Vol. 7 coming from the party that raged in our downstairs neighbor's place until 6 am. Oh, and the smoke -- they smoked so much downstairs that it was smoky as a bar in our place.
Anyway, thanks are also due to Kate for bringing us a morning delivery of Gatorade and popsicles and Shaun and Kristen for the evening delivery of more Gatorade and BRAT. And to Danny O'Brien for posting the make-it-at-home recipe for ORT on his website so many years ago.
So... Happy New Year!
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:50 PM | Comments (0)