Blogs, Blogs, Everywhere.

For the small but discerning population that periodically attends this blog, know that my productivity has not completely dropped off the map, but occasionally pops up in alternate outlets, such as over on Blog Central at AllEars.Net.

My most recent blog posted over there (A Star-Studded Christmas) shows some videos of a few fabulous celebrities I managed to stalk see performing in various theme parks over the past few months.  Take a gander, won't you?  And be sure to have a Happy Holiday.

I See a Movie!

It seems like a long time 

since I last saw a regular movie.  I saw Brave, but that was partly to check out the live show El Capitan premiered with it.  I saw Doll Squad, but that hardly counts as no one in their right mind would have gone to see it without the live component of Cinematic Titanic.  I kept meaning to see the Avengers, but that got away from me, just like the Netflix DVD of the Grifters, that's been sitting on top of the counter for the last 10 months.  



Sleepwalk With Me is an independent film written, directed, and starring Mike Birbiglia, a stand-up comedian and frequent contributor to This American Life--the NPR show that co-produced the movie.  

Prior to being a movie, Birbiglia worked the basic premise, loosely autobiographical, into both an off-Broadway play and a well-received book. Its three-part focus follows his journey to become a successful stand-up comedian, his difficulties dealing with his personal relationships, and his increasingly dangerous sleep disorder that manifests his anxieties in hilariously painful ways.  One of the funniest concepts is the framework of the story, in which Birbiglia breaks the fourth wall to comment directly on the action to the audience.  "I know!"  Birbiglia tells the audience, after a scene where his character makes a particularly bad decision, "I'm in the future too!"

Besides the content of the movie, another interesting aspect is the marketing, for which there is apparently no budget.  Virtually all the advertising being done for Sleepwalk is through Birbiglia and Glass' twitter/internet presence, and their main drive is to ask people to request any or all of their local art/independent theaters to play it.  At the beginning of the film's run (initially at about 24 theaters in the country,) both Glass and Birbiglia appeared at various showings to do Q&As afterwards.  New York was lucky enough to get both of them, while subsequently, Chicago got Glass, and Birbiglia came out West to the Nuart in Santa Monica.  


Birbiglia projects the same low-key, likable, but periodically befuddled persona on film as he does in his comedy bits.  If you enjoy the comedy stylings of the late Mitch Hedberg, I would recommend as having a similar sensibility.  I enjoyed and recommend the movie, even despite having had to pay $2 for the street parking meter.



Sleepwalk With Me is currently playing limited dates at independent theaters around the country.  Check out their website at http://www.sleepwalkmovie.com/ for one near you.

Cinematic Titanic!

So this weekend, the excitement was going to see Cinematic Titanic!  They were riffing a pretty spectacularly bad movie called "The Doll Squad," which is thought to maybe be an inspiration for Charlie's Angels.  I actually managed to get there in a timely fashion, and thanks to it being a Sunday, even found some street parking so I didn't have to pay the $10 for parking!  [Bonus Points:  1000]

One thing I didn't realize until afterwards, is that the Saban Theatre is actually the third incarnation of the historical Fox Wilshire Theatre, which premiered with the Marx comedy "Animal Crackers."

(from  http://www.hollywoodhistoricphotos.com/ )

Anyway, if you haven't seen Cinematic Titanic, one of the offspring of the original Mystery Science Theater 3000, here's an example of their comedy, as they riff on another spectacularly bad movie, "East Meets Watts."

While hilarious, one might miss the robot puppets...but perhaps, after all, you can't have everything.

Afterwards, the group hung around and signed books and DVDs and probably tried in general not to get weirded out by all the MST3K fanatics.

It was a very nice night.  Did I mention I didn't have to pay for parking?

Sleepy in Seattle

Ah Seattle.

I lived there once, a long, long time ago, while I interned at the Virginia Mason Medical Center.  Coming from San Francisco, where an affordable apartment meant living in a pit that made you constantly expect someone to lower a basket down and ask for lotion, it was a breath of fresh air.  Green, wet air, but fresh.

I got to visit again recently, and was lucky enough to catch their one weekend of summer, where the temperatures hovered around 90 degrees.  Oh well, I'll be home soon enough...except by the time I got back to LA, the temperatures had soared to the 90's there too.  Apparently I shouldn't have refused that rose, from the witch...

I stayed at the Maxwell Hotel--a quirky little hotel across the street from the Seattle Center.  Themed around some obsession with pineapples, they had complementary pineapple cupcakes in the lobby every day which, along with the free parking, made them the best hotel ever.

Oh did I mention I had a car?  Alamo gave me way too many choices at the airport, and as a result, I wound up with a Fiat--clearly the smallest car known to man.  I was a little concerned that I wouldn't be able to fit my luggage in, but with a little (lot) amount of effort, it all jammed in.

Although I wasn't terribly sure what I was going to accomplish with my extra day in Seattle, I figured I would do some of the touristy things I never did while I was living here, like gawking at the needle, etc.  Walking through the center, I got to see an enormous amount of people cavorting about a huge fountain, like it was the that Bradbury story "All Summer in a Day."

It seems irreverent, but pretty much the whole day, I can only hear the music from this MST3K short going through my head.  I need it as an MP3.

Continuing onwards, there was even more noisy merriment as I apparently happened to arrive on Brasil Fest Day!  I don't really know what all the celebrating was about, but toujours gai toujours gai.

As it turned out, 2012 is the 50th anniversary of the 1962 Seattle World's Fair (where the Needle comes from!) so there was a number of new exhibits around the area.  I spent the whole day and the next morning there and didn't even get to half of what was there.

One exhibit I did attend was Chihuly Garden and Glass, a space designed particularly by Dale Chihuly to display a selection of his works.  I didn't even realize he was from the Pacific Northwest.


They were having a special deal for the summer:  You could buy a ticket to wander through during the day, and then re-enter at night, when the garden was illuminated.

If you paid slightly more, it included a ticket to go up the Space Needle...so...alrighty, then.

 Some interesting things I learned about Chihuly:  He no longer does most of the glasswork himself, as he's had damage to one eye and a shoulder.  He seems to come up with the general concept of the sculpture and then directs his assistants amidst a sea of glass parts as to where to attach them.

As you walk through the various galleries, you're supposed to be listening to an audio tour.  Unfortunately, the only way to access the tour is to stream it through your smartphone.  Even more unfortunately, it doesn't seem as though the Awesome Power of the Edge Network penetrates through the gallery structure, so I couldn't get a signal for anything.

I noticed there was a wifi signal called "Audio Tour," which I thought might be useful, except it wasn't.  I asked the guy in front if we were supposed to be able to access it for the tour, and he said "I think you have to bring your own internet."  Later, I spoke with another docent inside, and he said "oh, just use the Audio Tour wifi."  I said I had already asked about that, and he said "yeah, I don't think he knows anything about that."

Anyway, the outside garden and greenhouse area was pretty enough in the daytime...

...But was really impressive at night, with the special lighting.  Well worth a trip.

While I was walking over at nighttime, it was around 10pm, and I was vaguely hoping not to get mugged and thrown in a dumpster.  There was no one around, but all at once I heard some one speaking loudly, as if through a megaphone.  Great.  Loud Homicidal Guy is coming to kill me.  Actually, it turned out that the center was having outdoor movie night, with a jillion people sitting around on the grass watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets until midnight.

The next day, after checking out of the hotel, I wandered back over and almost by accident stumbled onto an exhibit dedicated to the 1962 World's Fair.  Did I tell you I'm obsessed with the idea of World Fairs?  No?  Well it was serendipitous. 

There was so much optimism inherent in the post-war World's Fairs.  Surely nothing could ever be as bad as what we just went through, they seem to say.  It's all clear sailing from here. 

Having a map of the whole fair on your uniform must have been a time-saver, at least.

Of course my Holy Grail is actually the 1964-65 New York World's Fair, featuring all the wonderful breakthrough attractions Disney debuted while he was testing whether that sophisticated East Coast market might bite for his style of corn.

I want to go to this Fair SO BAD.  Someday someone will invent a time machine, and this is the first place I'm going.  I'm sorry about not saving Archduke Ferdinand, but priorities are priorities.

Anyway, off to The Future!  Or at least 1962's future--their Alweg Monorail, unlike the Disney monorails--seem pretty close in style and substance as they must have been when they first came about.

The inside feel has more of a bus gestalt about it than anything, and the two-minute ride takes you directly to a shopping mall downtown.  Nevertheless, it is a monorail, and therefore cooler than almost any other kind of  transportation available, public or private.

So finally, time to ascend the needle...except, in a horrifying development, the line for the elevators up is now something like an hour long, which is way too long (even for a chronoptomist such as myself,) to make it to the airport on time.  Sullenly, I pony up the dough for the "fast pass" equivalent, and bypass the line of people quietly baking in the sun.

It's a fast trip up, and if you're not going to eat at the restaurant up there, you probably don't need a whole lot of time to check out the view.  But it is nice, and after all, you are on the Needle.


So after that, I successfully made my way back to the airport and JetBlued my way home.  It was a very nice trip, and see?  You don't need anything Disney to have a fun outing...

 

 ...Oh.

Bon Odori: Everybody Dance Now!

It's a curious dichotomy, that a race often distinguished by an aversion to public attention will, once a year, happily dance around in the streets in front of complete strangers.  Such is the nature of the Japanese Obon.

While the Buddhist custom of Obon has a long and formally defined history and significance in Japan, for Japanese Americans it is generally taken as an opportunity to celebrate and honor family members or friends who have passed on.  Obons are held at different locations--usually Buddhist Temples or Japanese Community Centers--during the summer weekends, when the spirits of the dead presumably come back to visit and enjoy the party.

(The emphasis on dead people is mostly dropped when the Obon is not at a Temple, and instead the whole thing is largely treated as a cultural festival.)

Although there are usually a plethora of food and carnival game booths at any festival, the highlight is typically the street dancing.  While I have no idea how the dances for each year are chosen (I have a vague idea of a secret cabal of ancient Japanese elders who meet and pick them out,) it's clear that there are some that are common to all the community Obons, and some that are specific just for that one location and year.  The first and last dance is generally the eponymous Bon Odori.

Other aspects of the cultural festival nature are various displays of Japanese arts and crafts.  In past years, these seem to have been whittled down to small displays of ikebana and bonsai.

Food is, of course, a big part of the festivals, and typically various groups will man booths as part of their yearly fund-raisers.  Consequently, you may have the Bingo Club grilling teriyaki chicken, or the Judo Team shaving sno-cones and frying won tons.  Other typical eats would include curry rice, udon, beef teriyaki, and sushi (but you better get there early because the sushi inevitably sells out.)

Back to the dancing, props are occasionally used for specific dances--"uchiwa," or round fans, "tenugui," or long cotton towels, and "kachi-kachi," or small wooden...clacking things.  The music is usually a recording that sounds like someone made a cassette tape of a scratchy LP about 80 years ago, accompanied by a live taiko drummer up in a square raised platform called a "yagura."  

Recently there's been a movement to use more modern songs in English (the Beach Boys' Kokomo for Heaven's Sakes!)...but that seems awfully unauthentic.  People are always welcome to join in from the onlookers, but in an effort to stave off total embarrassment, most dancers attend practices held a couple times a week for a month or so before the festival.  

Interested in attending an Obon near you?  http://www.japanese-city.com/calendar/events/ is a website with pretty extensive listings.