4/30/11

Apparently Chicago has an improv festival this weekend.  I think they made it up as they went along.

4/29/11

Anyone overly interested in watching the wedding, I suspect to have converted to Briticism simply to observe the 3-day weekend.

4/28/11

“Turtles seem to have two impulses only: 1) Eat and 2) Escape. This second urge is fierce; wherever they are placed somewhere, they instantly look for a way to leave that place and get somewhere else. That is what they do. That is pretty much all they do.”

The math works out.

“She backs away, turns around for a moment to consider the challenge: "Lessee, regroup. Okay, what are our assets? We are tough. We are determined. We are indestructible. A hypotenuse is always longer than the other two sides. Okay, we're going in."”

4/27/11

Two missionaries are captured by a savage tribe, and brought before the chieftess…

As much because it requires an extremely specific humor familiarity, as because it is tasteless, I’ve been sitting on a punchline without a suitable audience to share with. But after months of waiting until a decent opportunity, let patience bring validation.

“Very good. You brought it home. Yes, funny.”

4/26/11

So ready for the National Let's Celebrate Everything with Donuts Week to end.

4/25/11

Like a whirlwind through STL, and back, too soon.

4/24/11

The next funniest thing after Monty Python is an attempt at describing the killer bunny to a cakemaker.

4/23/11

Talk Like Someone Talking Like Shakespeare Day.

“You better talk in iambs all the time;
To talk in prose is copping out a bit.
I'm not suggesting ev'ry sentence rhyme,
Just get into the rhythm of that shit!
To say "forsooth" and "thee" and "thou" and "thine"
Takes little effort (where's the fun in that?)
This feast has so much more on which to dine!
So gorge yourself until your belly's fat.
But then, I might be taking this too far...
Most people can't distinguish verse from prose.
We'd wind up lonely losers in some bar
The laughingstock of groups of douche-y bros.
Besides, this sonnet's taking too much work;
I'm signing off before I go berserk.”

4/22/11

Spontaneous generations.

It’s your day, and you want me there. I’m so there.

4/21/11

Exodus.

4/20/11

“Open up your throat…”

With about 5 minutes of typing and backspacing behind it.

“…And let all of that time go…”

4/19/11

On all other nights I have found enjoyment in Seders amongst kin and kith.
Tonight, something different.

4/18/11

4/17/11

“If I were a professor, I would explain every concept with an analogy to professional hockey. I'd write a book called "Understanding Criminal Law in America Using a Canadian Sport".”
If I were a hockey coach, I would train my players by expounding on analogous case law.

The best defense is to not skate on thin ice.

4/16/11

First round, the communicable disease influenza.
Second round, prohibition hung out to dry.
Third, upotian urban planning as a replica of Midwestern sociability.
And the electricity-smelling platypus wins in the final.

Comfort station, indeed.

4/15/11

Nothing is certain but dirty laundry and taxes.

4/14/11

“Once upon a time there was light in my life…”

Absurdist composition mixed with depressed escapism mixed with lies told to the self, set against a backdrop of paranoia. The action splits between 3 spiraling plot threads, accelerating uncontrolled into a scripted singularity. “Heddatron” is just a play, but it knows it is just a play, and at the moment of self-awareness it awakens into something alive.

Saw, but need to return this weekend, so strong the desire to experience again.

“…Turn around, bright eyes…”

4/13/11

“Trying to keep you, trying to please you…”

The 90 second rule is equivalent to the 36 hour rule, both correlaries of the principle that 1 1/2 is long, enough.

(I hypothesize that there is something to the common factor 1 1/2. Perhaps as an approximation for an underlying mathematical constant of the golden mean, beyond and before which logic turns ugly.)

“…The change in my pocket wasn't enough…”

4/12/11

“And then I ask you over again / You only answer…”

Galway Bay 830pm: trivia questions composed by Jonathan and myself.

“…Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…”

4/11/11

“From the table in the corner they could see a world reborn…”

Ice cream parlors filled with people and empty tables.

“…Empty chairs at empty tables…”

4/10/11

“The Warriors” tackles a tricky, delicate, sensitive subject: how to reconnect with the past middle school-era friendships fled from, and sets it against a backdrop of Jonesboro.

4/9/11

Submerging myself in 6 days’ depths.

I don't know why I'm trying so hard to place it. It's good on its own. Well done, song. You're a keeper. I hope you feel the same about me.

4/8/11

I have a crush on a coffeehouse.

4/7/11

“Black Watch” is an unsettling play to view; instead of a narrative, it presents history and news.

4/6/11

I’ll get you a cupcake tomorrow.
“haha Thank you! I may not be there tomorrow. But you do not need to get me a cupcake either way.”
Oh. I’ll give it to the person of your choice then.
“Okay, whoever is sitting at the stool closest to the door is my person of choice.”

Have your cake and eat it, the classic loophole.

Also I need to go buy a cupcake but my phone has barely charged if I suddenly disappear for a bit.
“#whitepeopleproblems”

4/5/11

For when picking random numbers to fill out a bracket isn’t enough, only a few phrases are needed to cluelessly bluff through a conversation about NCAA.

“College sports is a passing game.”
“A good big man is rare.”
You can always have a Cinderella story.”

4/4/11

The temptation of reading “Heart of a Dog” as purely post-Russian Revolution political allegory may have been stifled too far in the opposite direction, but the story does seem more about general human educational and cultural development, a hybrid of Frankenstein, Animal Farm, and My Fair Lady. Communism fails for equally reapportioning positives while leaving the negatives unbalanced, matching the dichotomy of Philip’s positive and Ivan’s negative reinforcement. Childrearing, petowning, and bondage are collectively satirized as losses of liberty: only the beast admires the leash, with the price of loyalty $1.40. Individually cannot be squelched by bookburning an offending tome after it has been read; ideas are destroyed only by removing the soul, which is glandular, developing with maturation. The narration switches from 1st person to 3rd, with Sharik going from being so sympathetic that the reader initially isn’t sure his species, to a frighteningly foreign and increasingly absent 3rd person. Beauty is pliability, even transspecies; the out of control familiar is monstrous.

And if your galoshes are stolen in Act 1, there will be a flood in Act 3.

4/3/11

What goes up must get stuck on the 4th floor.

4/2/11

Autocomplete.

“Quick- good warm up energy games for 6-8th graders”
Spin the bottle!

4/1/11

Yet I actually had a decent idea this year.

Two miners are arguing over where to dig a pit. One of them wants to find the perfect location, the other just wants to get the job done. They argue back and forth all day. Finally the second miner defers, conceding… “Well, it’s your pick.”