It's A Wonderful Life

Nicole surprised me with tickets to It's A Wonderful Life tonight, one of her favorite movies and one I've never seen. It started off a little stressful. The Music Box was packed and there was a line out the door. When we picked up the tickets we were surprised to discover that the seats were assigned and through some box office mix up our seats were one in front of the other instead of one next to the other. The theater was a chaotic mess and I clammed up, situations like that shoot my anxiety to the moon.

The family sitting to my left had reserved the remainder of the row but one of their party wasn't coming. They graciously acquiesced when Nicole asked for the seat. We had our own little Christmas miracle. My relief was palpable. Before the film started Santa and a faction of some Chicago choir lead the room in Christmas carols. I was skeptical at first but quickly joined in. It was a nice feeling, a room full of people singing those old familiar songs.

The movie started and by then I was in my element. I liked the movie a lot. I think it has an almost perfect structure and performances which walk a tight rope of sentimentality but never fall into it. I cried at the end.

It was a wonderful night. Sharing the experience with Nicole meant a great deal and I now understand why the movie resonates with her and so many others.

I'm not one for the Christmas spirit or seasonal sentimentality. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't moved.

Posion

"How may I help you?"
day after day after day
erodes empathy
and leaves a calculating cold.

Unwarranted and Unplanned
Maliciousness
targets those who answer phones
or make change
or conduct trains
or tear tickets
or serve spirits.
Conduits for discontent.

Temper is infectious
and can be leeched.

But serenity is better
and kindness best.

Goodbye Gary

Tonight was Gary's goodbye show. It was really fun and loving and sweet. There were two sets with Gary then a series of tributes/bits for him. All the expressions of affection were very genuine and there was a palpable feeling of friendship in the room. That of course was off set by some gentle and not so gentle ribbing.

Gary will be missed but there wasn't a pervading feeling of sadness because Gary is an amazingly talented guy and there is no doubt from anyone that he will do well in New York. Also there is no doubt he'll come back to visit. 

A lot of things were said about Gary- how nice he is, how talented, and how fun. What I will remember most, Gary's defining trait in my eyes, is his fearlessness. I've seen him again and again in improv shows and with his sketch and stand-up engage in dangerous material. Stuff that seems almost impossible to pull off. I wrote about one of my favorite bits of his last year: No Guts No Glory. He has the ability to walk a razor's edge of controversial material and make the content funny and at times poignant. Recently Gary and Carmen did a frat boy scene about date rape. As a concept it should have been awful but some how they managed to make it funny and make a point. Gary constantly delivered fresh innovative perspectives on perilous subjects.

Every time I watched Gary there was an element of courage, of daring, and it is that which I'll miss most.

Good luck my friend.

A Cold City

The Chicago winter has come on quick and vengeful. Kept temperate for the past couple years it seems this winter has much too prove. The city is not less welcoming but seems to be fortifying itself for a long siege, as do most of it's occupants. People travel less and with more purpose, bundled and distant. With thickening blood Chicagoans guard against the long dark. A temper of reservation spreads, anxiety and depressive traps are prevalent.

But time passes, the city pumps, and we preserver.

"I have struck a city - a real city - and they call it Chicago... I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages." -Rudyard Kipling

"A city is a place where there is no need to wait for next week to get the answer to a question, to taste the food of any country, to find new voices to listen to and familiar ones to listen to again." -Margaret Mead

'Nebraska' A Review

Nebraska is a road trip family drama dubbed a comedy by its director Alexander Payne. It follows Woody(Bruce Dern) and his son David(Will Forte) as they travel from Billings, MT to Lincoln NE in order to collect a million dollars Woody believes he won in a publishers clearing house sweepstakes. They make a stop in Woody's hometown where most of the action takes place.

The film is quiet, patient, and subdued. It explores family, age, and a certain type of America. The performances are extremely varied. Dern puts in a layered performance as an aging alcoholic father with selective and/or impaired memory. Forte plays the everyman, a well meaning, lost, blank slate, searching for connection with his father and direction in his life. The rest of the cast success varies with good turns from Stacy Keach and Bob Odenkirk but with some rigid, jarring performances from Nebraskan locals. At points the line delivery is stilted and contrived but not enough to detract from the fluidity of the film.

Nebraska is shot in a cool black and white and depicts the landscape and the people with a haunting beauty and authenticity. Certainly not a lively film, but a film that conveys a lot of truth with enough moments of excitement, inspiration, and affirmation to balance it's overall depressive feel.

See It.

The Improv Mind

The first couple years I performed I could remember every suggestion, every scene, every show. Weeks after I could recall in detail moves and characters and took great pleasure in holding on to them. At a a certain point my mind hit critical mass and I lost it all. I still remember some stuff and can be jogged into remembering more but for the most part most of it fades pretty quickly. I don't miss it, the recall, it seems fitting, my memory mirrors the transient nature of improv.

My short term recall has vastly improved. The holding capacity has transferred from the long term to the short term. In a thirty minute span I can juggle scores of character names, premises, locations, and narrative arcs. But the specifics dissipate shortly after the lights are pulled.

Being able to be present and hyper aware in a show is more vital than being able to reminisce after a show.

Hang Drum

Last night The Hague had a show at iO, it was probably our best show to date, everything came together in a very organic pleasing way. Our show was totally eclipsed, however, by The Dream.

The Dream is usually the second or third act in an improv show at iO. The host brings someone up from the crowd, interviews them about their day, then the improvisers do a piece based on the response. Sometimes it can be fun, most of the time its relatively sedate. Last night The Dream was very different.

The first striking difference was it was just seven of us, instead of the Deltones the second show was going to be a one person musical and that person wasn't going to participate. The usual number of people doing it is 15-30. The second thing was the guy that did it. His name was Perry and he was a new agey guy who talked about getting his tarot cards read, being a spiritual traveler, transitioning from being a telemarketer to a spiritual healer, and playing an instrument called a Hang Drum. He has a daughter named Truth.

As the interview progressed I started to panic. The stuff he was saying was not typical and once we started doing scenes it could go from fun to making fun of him very quickly. I was anticipating it to be very difficult and to go very badly. He had his hang drum with him and we invited him to accompany Dave on piano while we improvised. It has this resonate, sharp, bell like quality.

The piece itself was a shocking success. It was very organic with little to no scenic elements- a lot of narrating, physical transformations, and direct address. It was the first time in a long time an improv piece I was in felt almost solely artistic, we didn't try to make jokes or do bits at all, it had a very trance like quality- ethereal and fleeting. We ended it by all seven of us mirroring him playing the hang drum with its tinkling foreign tones filling the room.

It's relatively unsatisfying describing an improv show, I know, but this one was special, unique, and one I'll never forget.