January 5, 2007
A visit
Lawrence and Emma and Simon breezed through town and I was able to join them for lunch at Union Station. I am fortunate, indeed, to have such delightful godchildren.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:52 PM | Comments (2)
Impress These Apes
Did a photoshoot Wednesday night for the latest Blewt production, Impress These Apes. Perfect Cup didn't have any problem with us taking a bunch of pictures of guys in gorilla* masks, which frankly surprised me a bit. People are so touchy about that sort of thing, these days.
* I kept putting my foot in my mouth by calling them "monkeys". They are, of course, apes.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:29 PM | Comments (0)
Interviewed by Bilal
Bilal Dardai (playwright, Neo-Futurist, married man) is doing one of those things -- the Interview Meme -- on his LiveJournal.
Rules are as follows: You comment on this entry requesting an interview. I respond with five questions. The questions will theoretically be tailored to you based on what I know of you (or want to know). You copy and paste those questions into your own journal, and write the answers, along with these rules. Anyone wanting an interview from you continues the game by requesting an interview from you.
So here are the questions he asked me and my answers to the same:
1) You always strike me as a very even-tempered individual. Have you always been as such, or did you have to actively cultivate this demeanor? Is there anything that can get you truly, truly angry?
Yes, yes, and yes. I was going to say I've always been pretty calm, but I realized that "neurotic" would probably be a better way of describing the demeanor of my youth. I've been actively pursuing sanguinity for a number of years now (FuzzyCo motto #6: Therapy is Great!). But get me tired and grumpy or show me great injustice and you'll hear some cursing. I'm not proud to admit it, but the number one thing that really gets me swearing-and-shaking furious is frustrating sections of video games. I have, to my shame, flung controllers.
2) Is there any job/career besides your own you've always wanted to try?
In my youth I wanted to be a forest ranger.
In my adulthood I've wanted to try everything. And I do dabble in a lot of different things. I used to be a handy-man for rental units, and a bookkeeper for a headshop, and a graphic designer (all at the same time). These days I do a little programing, a little web design, a little photography, a little video-editing. And there are seriously times when I'm on the train and there are the ads that the CTA is hiring train repairers and I really wonder how long it would take to get trained in hydraulic systems repair and what it would be like to have that job. Could I be a cop? A teacher? I think about that all the time.
3) List your five all-time favorite video games; defend your choices if you think they need defending.
In alphabetical order:
Galaga
Karateka
Monkey Island (the first three)
Samba de Amigo
Tony Hawk (all versions)
4) Is there a show you've produced that you're proudest of? How about a show you've performed in?
In the summer of 1995, my friend Matt Martin decided he wanted to direct No Exit. I was already producing a bi-weekly 'coffeehouse' music event at the Wesley Foundation (the Methodist Campus Ministry), so we somehow managed to convince people that Sartre's examination of hell would be an appropriate summer production for The Wesley Players. It was my first time producing theater, and I was the technical director as well, so I'm proud that the show went off at all. But I'm also really proud that we sold out our entire run* and that we came in on budget and made a tiny ($5) profit.
I think I'm proud of all the times I've taken risks and gotten on stage and done something new (new to me, anyway).
* To increase the claustrophobia for the audience, we put the audience on stage and built a stage on the floor -- so we only had 35 seats. And our run was three shows in one weekend. So 'sold out' was 105 patrons.
5) In a best case scenario--that is, you went when you wanted to, how you wanted to, and everybody was okay with that--describe your funeral.
Goodness, what a question. We've been trying not to think about funerals in the Gerdes household, but here goes:
When my grandma Ahlrichs died, she wanted (and we had) a memorial service, not a funeral. Her body wasn't there (in fact, it was in rural Iowa, so the nearest crematorium was hours away and she was somewhere in transit while we were having the service. It was, at some level, just a big family get together and people kept saying (and then catching themselves), "we should do this more often." So, something like that. Oh, and play Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy's I Only Have Eyes For You.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:35 AM | Comments (4)
January 4, 2007
Monkey Poot
As Kate says, "just in time for Valentine's Day", she's made the above image into notecards available in her CafePress store. And what says "I love you" more than a monkey farting hearts? Nothing, that's what.
Posted by Fuzzy at 10:59 AM | Comments (1)
January 3, 2007
Our performances
Sometimes, it seems, I go to great lengths to take new technology and shoe-horn it into old frames. Like the time I tried to install a CD player into my lamented 1974 Datsun 260z. Or like how I'm taking the data from a completely separate blog and cramming it into a table* at the top of my front page to make a list of upcoming performances.
But that does mean that if you're one of those hyper-modern people who uses a Blog Reader (or technically, an RSS aggregator) you can now subscribe to a feed of my upcoming shows and performances. You can also subscribe to Erica's shows, if you're a fan (and who isn't).
* Modern web designers, feel free to gasp. And then give yourself a heart-attack by going to look at my CSS file for this site and discovering that it doesn't exist. I'm really looking at getting that taken care of by 2008.
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:20 PM | Comments (1)
January 2, 2007
Looking Back: 2006 in Cities
Just a little more looking back at 2006 and we'll get on with 2007. Here's every city I spent the night in, with an asterix indicating multiple, non-consecutive visits. It was a pretty light travel year this year, with only one trip to an improv festival and mostly family-visits otherwise.
Austin, TX
Chicago, IL*
Cleveland, OH
New Orleans, LA
New York, NY
Phoenix, AZ
Santa Fe, NM
Starkville, MS
Vicksburg, MS*
(Via kottke.org)
Posted by Fuzzy at 6:05 PM | Comments (0)
Phoenix Neutrino Project
You can watch the last several months of the Phoenix Neutrino Project on Google Video: October, November, December.
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:15 PM | Comments (0)
Pastor of Muppets
There's something about the nature of improv groups that guarantees that as soon as you take a cast photo, it'll be out of date. But for the next ten minutes or so this (or this or this) is the official Pastor of Muppets ensemble photo. Now that Erica has joined the group as well, PoM shows are your one-stop Reid-Gerdes performance fix, so check us out. And hey, we've got one of those fancy Myspace pages the kids are all crazy for, so you can add as a pretend "friend" and then we can "bother" you about our "shows".
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:15 PM | Comments (0)
January 1, 2007
Books 51-79
In August I completed my self-imposed goal of reading 50 books in a year and I said I was going to stop counting -- well, I just stopped counting in public. I definitely slacked off in pace, as I only read 29* more books in the rest of the year. But I was intentionally focussing more on video games in my personal media consumption. Now I have to decide if I'm going to set myself the same goal this year.
51. Lulu Eightball - Emily Flake
52. Lady of Mazes - Karl Schroeder
53. Chasing Vermeer - Blue Balliet
54. Clockwork - Philip Pullman
55. Wall and Piece - Banksy
56. The Big Bounce - Elmore Leonard
57. Parakeets - Nikki Moustaki
58. Old Man's War - John Scalzi
59. Skinny Dip - Carl Hiaasen
60. The Bourne Identity - Robert Ludlum
61. That Noise - Dan Telfer
62. Beauty and the Biz: The International Adventures of America's Third-to-Next Top Model - Elyse Sewell
63. 1632 - Eric Flint
Digital Portrait Photography and Lighting - Catherine Jamieson and Sean McCormick
64. Penny Arcade 1: Attack of the Bacon Robots - Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins
65. Penny Arcade 2: Epic Legends of the Magic Sword Kings - Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins
66. Manifold: Space - Stephen Baxter
67. Castleview - Gene Wolfe
68. Swag - Elmore Leonard
69. Definition of Awesome - Zach Miller
70. Terraforming Earth - Jack Williamson
71. Penultimate Peril - Lemony Snicket
72. The End - Lemony Snicket
73. Psychlone - Greg Bear
74. Improvising Better - Jimmy Carrane and Liz Allen
75. From Campus to Combat - James Alter
76. I Know You're Out There - Michael Beaumier
77. The Areas of My Expertise - John Hodgman
78. Sick Puppy - Carl Hiassen
79. Queen of Angels - Greg Bear
* And a half -- I'm in the middle of Darker Than You Think by Jack Williamson.
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:31 PM | Comments (1)
Looking Back: 2006
Last year I did a year-in-review thing where I took the first sentence from the first post of each month and it proved to be an interesting snapshot of the year, so here's 2006:
January 2006: Am I allowed to say that we had a terrible New Year's Eve? more
February 2006: After reading so much science fiction in a row, I was feeling a little genre-shame, so I dug out a buzz-worthy book from last year (my copy's cover notes that it's a Today's Book Club selection) -- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. more
March 2006: Just so you know, if you want to get me to help you with your thing, all you have to do is say "it's an art project." more
April 2006: I've been sitting in as "Comic #2" in Lavender Cabaret's Femme TV burlesque show for the past few months. more
May 2006: Our Tetris DS friend code is 7277-1792-4430. more
June 2006: The Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority (aka Asheville [NC]: any way you like it) is holding a contest to design their new TV ad. more
July 2006: I finally did my first Chicago Critical Mass ride, and I'm kicking myself that I've been in Chicago this long and never done one. more
August 2006: We're back in town, rested and refreshed from the honeymoon -- the first honest-to-goodness vacation I've taken in years. more
September 2006: How many subways of the world have you ridden on? more
October 2006: I promise this is not going to turn into an all-cats-on-beds-all-the-time blog. more
November 2006: It's almost election day, and so time for me to harrange all my friends to a) vote and b) vote out some judges. more
December 2006: Goldie's Trail Bar-B-Que is a Reid family staple, and I've got my meal down, now, after trying most of the menu over the years: barbequed sausage sandwich, side of the garlic bread, steal a few fries off of someone else's plate. more
Posted by Fuzzy at 9:50 PM | Comments (0)
Looking Back
I saw the charts that Anil Dash and Tim Bray made of their blog archives, so I made one, too. I noticed that Tim has incorporated his old USENET posts into his blog structure. I thought about doing that for a few seconds and then I thought of six better things to do with my time than to recover the text of old juggling and improv questions. What I should do someday is bring some of the pre-2001 material (like getting my first tattoo in 1997) into the blog archives so it's easier to find and categorize. Oh well, I'll get to that in my copious free time.
| 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 27 | 33 | 14 | 23 | 7 | |
| February | 35 | 25 | 12 | 18 | 4 | |
| March | 28 | 35 | 19 | 18 | 2 | |
| April | 35 | 34 | 30 | 18 | 4 | |
| May | 37 | 42 | 33 | 9 | 2 | |
| June | 27 | 27 | 38 | 11 | 2 | |
| July | 24 | 23 | 43 | 13 | 2 | |
| August | 15 | 43 | 36 | 16 | 13 | |
| September | 17 | 44 | 20 | 17 | 12 | |
| October | 39 | 33 | 33 | 18 | 3 | 3 |
| November | 38 | 23 | 37 | 17 | 7 | 14 |
| December | 39 | 30 | 28 | 9 | 17 | 8 |
Posted by Fuzzy at 9:06 PM | Comments (0)