ARTISTS* AND THE ACTIVITY DESCRIPTIONS ON WHICH I HAVE ASKED THEM TO EXPAND
dave eggers / mowing down pedestrians
david lynch / climbing into a dumpster
helen oyeyemi / napping
*esb feels that using "artist" as a standalone term (without a qualifier such as "visual" or "fondant") for, say, writers and breakdancers as opposed to painters and sculptors is douchey; i think i'm alright with it in some contexts. we agree that it's better in any case when one says it with a phony french accent.
03.12.14
birthdaycakesforanimals.tumblr.com, 2013-2014
![how doth the little [sic] crocodile improve his shining tail?](http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2875/9775498483_df0fb852b8_z.jpg)
the owner of one of the photos i'd posted on my tumblr contacted me today and asked me to remove her content from my site. i apologized and did, and then i fell down a copyright-law-commentary-lined hole in the internet; at the bottom of it i concluded that though i'd thought i was doing right by photographers and writers by citing and linking to my sources—i'd thought i was doing some good, even, by highlighting conservation efforts—that might not have been so. i just wanted to fête old crocodiles. so long, hairy, feathered, pungent, dead-rat-covered site; i was fond of you.
administrative update: when i deleted my tumblr account, the URL was released back into the wild. while it probably goes without saying that i'm not its new caretaker (edris muff the entertainer), let me be clear: i'm not edris muff the entertainer.
the owner of one of the photos i'd posted on my tumblr contacted me today and asked me to remove her content from my site. i apologized and did, and then i fell down a copyright-law-commentary-lined hole in the internet; at the bottom of it i concluded that though i'd thought i was doing right by photographers and writers by citing and linking to my sources—i'd thought i was doing some good, even, by highlighting conservation efforts—that might not have been so. i just wanted to fête old crocodiles. so long, hairy, feathered, pungent, dead-rat-covered site; i was fond of you.
administrative update: when i deleted my tumblr account, the URL was released back into the wild. while it probably goes without saying that i'm not its new caretaker (edris muff the entertainer), let me be clear: i'm not edris muff the entertainer.
03.11.14
101 in 1001 {III}: 022 see at least 6 more of shakespeare's plays for the first time [completed 02.21.14]
at some point in the '80s a community theatre company came to my elementary school and performed the pyramus-and-thisbe scene from a midsummer night's dream; i tingled both with the dead leg i always got from wearing a skirt on assembly day and having to sit sidesaddle on the carpeted multi-purpose-room floor and with the first stirrings of a serious and lifelong shakespeare jones. for the next decade i tended to scratch the itch with rental movies and questionable summer stock productions, but things got and stayed serious when i went away to college and discovered that no one would prevent me from registering for every shakespeare and shakespeare-adjacent class i could find. joe and i turned into a couple when our overseas program sent us to stratford for shakespeare's birthday and a few dozen royal shakespeare company productions; our friend jacob read sonnet 116 at our wedding. i'll fold in another playwright every now and again if i must—we roll out for shakespeare in the park twice every summer whether the second show is more shakespeare or, like, into the woods (eh) or hair (FAH), and we're turning into regulars at playwrights horizons—but i have weathered a lot of midsummers at this point, is what i'm saying. i wondered if six "new" plays could really be new to me.
happily, they can; having to chase down happenings like a matinee performance of the national theatre's fantastic post-financial-crash timon of athens when we were in london for a wedding and a crazily-edited international-collaboration version of antony and cleopatra set in colonial haiti* has been good for me. i now know, for example, that "timon" rhymes with "simon" and not "limón," and that london retirees love eating ice cream super-loudly more than i have ever loved anything. i have new favorite language on stoicism (from antony and cleopatra, act IV, scene 14)...
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 how many of shakespeare's plays have you seen performed live?
02 the worst theatrical production you've ever seen?** the best?
03 would you be more likely to eat at a matinee performance than at an evening performance? (yes, i'm asking about eating in theaters again.)
*that one was just down the street at the public's snazzy new HQ on lafayette, but you get my drift.
**one of my shakespeare profs, the inimitable charles lyons, told a wonderful story about a production in which the beleaguered actor playing hamlet was unable to stab through gertrude's bedroom draperies in order to kill polonius and was finally encouraged by the audience to beat him to death.
at some point in the '80s a community theatre company came to my elementary school and performed the pyramus-and-thisbe scene from a midsummer night's dream; i tingled both with the dead leg i always got from wearing a skirt on assembly day and having to sit sidesaddle on the carpeted multi-purpose-room floor and with the first stirrings of a serious and lifelong shakespeare jones. for the next decade i tended to scratch the itch with rental movies and questionable summer stock productions, but things got and stayed serious when i went away to college and discovered that no one would prevent me from registering for every shakespeare and shakespeare-adjacent class i could find. joe and i turned into a couple when our overseas program sent us to stratford for shakespeare's birthday and a few dozen royal shakespeare company productions; our friend jacob read sonnet 116 at our wedding. i'll fold in another playwright every now and again if i must—we roll out for shakespeare in the park twice every summer whether the second show is more shakespeare or, like, into the woods (eh) or hair (FAH), and we're turning into regulars at playwrights horizons—but i have weathered a lot of midsummers at this point, is what i'm saying. i wondered if six "new" plays could really be new to me.
happily, they can; having to chase down happenings like a matinee performance of the national theatre's fantastic post-financial-crash timon of athens when we were in london for a wedding and a crazily-edited international-collaboration version of antony and cleopatra set in colonial haiti* has been good for me. i now know, for example, that "timon" rhymes with "simon" and not "limón," and that london retirees love eating ice cream super-loudly more than i have ever loved anything. i have new favorite language on stoicism (from antony and cleopatra, act IV, scene 14)...
Nay, good my fellows, do not please sharp fate...and i know never to cast a semi-mechanical water snake in a death scene (so distracting!). i have enjoyed myself immensely.
To grace it with your sorrows: bid that welcome
Which comes to punish us, and we punish it
Seeming to bear it lightly. Take me up:
I have led you oft: carry me now, good friends,
And have my thanks for all.
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 how many of shakespeare's plays have you seen performed live?
02 the worst theatrical production you've ever seen?** the best?
03 would you be more likely to eat at a matinee performance than at an evening performance? (yes, i'm asking about eating in theaters again.)
*that one was just down the street at the public's snazzy new HQ on lafayette, but you get my drift.
**one of my shakespeare profs, the inimitable charles lyons, told a wonderful story about a production in which the beleaguered actor playing hamlet was unable to stab through gertrude's bedroom draperies in order to kill polonius and was finally encouraged by the audience to beat him to death.
03.07.14
conversations on the D train
1: so you stopped dating him because he played minecraft.
2: yeah.
1: did he play minecraft on the date?
2: no, he just...played minecraft.
1: so if i grow up i won't be able to date anyone.
2: well, you won't be able to date me.
1: i don't want to date you! you're -
2: careful!
1: - twenty-seven -
2: okay, that's alright.
1: - and i'm twelve. and on weekends you're amanda poupon.
3: amanda poupon?
2: it's my drag name.
1: do you throw mustard at people?
1: so you stopped dating him because he played minecraft.
2: yeah.
1: did he play minecraft on the date?
2: no, he just...played minecraft.
1: so if i grow up i won't be able to date anyone.
2: well, you won't be able to date me.
1: i don't want to date you! you're -
2: careful!
1: - twenty-seven -
2: okay, that's alright.
1: - and i'm twelve. and on weekends you're amanda poupon.
3: amanda poupon?
2: it's my drag name.
1: do you throw mustard at people?