Something so RIGHT, and one RWONG

This week I'm writing to recommend two FABULOUS shows. The first is a wonderful, imaginative, hilarious, poignant clown show featuring my good friend Sarah in her company Nomadic Theatre Co. The show is called Running Into Walls. If you've never seen a clown show (and I'm NOT talking Ringling Brothers) this is a great introduction into that delightful world. The story follows two very close clown friends as they take a strange journey to confront mortality. Wonderful physical comedy, engaging performances, touching story. Plus, you'll find out the origins of the word "muffin" and what the word "Himalaya" means. The show runs through April 27 at Theater! Theatre!, 3430 SE Belmont, Portland.

Next is Roberta Wong's art exhibit at IFCC gallery in North Portland. If you've never been there it's a pretty darn cool space. She's showing some of her installation work from the past 2 decades and it's all still extremely relevant stuff exploring race, gender, history and identity. I wrote about Roberta's show in The Asian Reporter so check out my story. The exhibit runs through April 26.

Movie quotes meme, inspired by hambox

Okay I admit I first had to figure out what a meme was. Wiktionary defines it as:

Any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity.

A cultural virus of sorts. So, here's my movie quotes meme, inspired by my friend hambox who go it from spark and foam who got it from Life in Scribbletown and so on...

The rules:

• Pick 10 of your favorite movies.
• Go to IMDB and find a quote from each movie.
• Post them on your blog for everyone to guess in the comments.
• Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
• GUESSERS: NO Googling/using IMDB search functions. I mean, you can cheat if you want, but all that would do is make you win. Where's the fun in that?
• One movie guess per human allowed in the comments, but email me with additional guesses, if you like.
  

The Quotes:

1. "Oh, you think you're hot shit 'cause you get to sit over there and play Pictionary, well guess what? My five year old daughter could do that and let me tell you, she's not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed." Rico's good he got 2 of the quotes. I'll credit him for both cuz he's my bro. This one's Juno .
2. "Screws fall out all the time, the world is an imperfect place." Rico's done it again. Breakfast Club, baby.
3. "My embarrassing admission is I really like that you're nice, right now."
4. "I've been trying to write her a poem, but I can't seem to finish it. What rhymes with 'glass'?"
5. "Great pate, mom, but I gotta motor if I wanna be ready for that party tonight."Nice get Ms Polly! Great line from Heathers
6. "Oh, I just think I'm gonna barf... Well, that passed. Now I'm hungry again."
7. "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." That's Princess Bride of course. Ms. Becky was quick on that draw.
8. A: "Would you like another schnitzengruben?" B: "No, thank you. Fifteen is my limit on schnitzengruben." Thanks for playing FreshHell! Blazing Saddles is correct.
9. "I don't care what you believe in, just believe in it."
10. A: "Is life always this hard, or is it just when you're a kid?" B: "Always like this."

Snow and Sangre

Last week I had the pleasure of snowboarding for the first time in two years. I'm volunteering with Matt's org Chill. Funded in large part by Burton Snowboards, Chill brings Portland teens up to Mt. Hood to teach them life lessons, such as persistence and responsibility, in the guise of snowboarding. Matt's working with a bunch of different amazing Portland agencies dedicated to youth empowerment, including Metropolitan Family Services, New Avenues for Youth, El Programa Hispano, IRCO, Open Meadow and a bunch of other schools and organizations.

So, last Friday I drove up to Timberline early with a bunch of the other volunteers - Rico, Scott and Daley. It was a gorgeous and warm-ish day. We had time for a bunch of awesome runs, then Scott, Daley and I decided to take one of the long trails (2+ miles) directly to Government Camp (sort of illegal and out of bounds, but very cool!) where we were to meet up with the busload of kids to help them gear up (Burton provides snowboards, boots, jackets etc for all the kids and their chaperones) for the day. Once we got everyone geared up we hit the mountain. After a day of riding I was pretty whipped, but it was energizing for me to hang with some of the kids. I was drawn to the kids who were having a harder time because I wanted to help keep their spirits up and not let them give up when they got frustrated. Plus it's just a pleasure to connect one-on-one with these teenagers, as I don't necessarily have many other opportunities to hang with teens. I'm back with them tomorrow and I can't wait!

Last night a bunch of us went to see our friend Jaime in a show at Milagro Theatre called Bodas de Sangre or Blood Wedding written by the famed Federico Garcia Lorca. As you might gather from the title, there was certainly some drama and intensity to the piece. Themes running through included death, birth, destiny, history, love and lust. In general, I thought the Olga Sanchez (the show's Director, and also Milagro's Artistic Director) did a fine job putting this together. The staging was inventive and poetic. Better known as a poet, Lorca's words are evocative and brimming with symbolism. A highlight for me was just post-intermission. The angry wedding crowd is in the midst of searching for the runaway bride and her lover. It reminded me of a Greek chorus with the Moon spouting incantations and Death lording over with foreboding. The staging was simple, elegant and dreamy. I believe this was the first play I've watched in another language with supertitles. Very much list viewing a foreign film with subtitles. Effective enough, but sometimes I missed some of the action and other times my timing in reading was off. All in all, though it was a lovely experience and I look forward to checking out more bilingual shows at the Milagro.

Ruminations from Powell's Coffee Shop

Enjoying a 12oz chai at Powell's always hopping coffee shop/reading room. Not supposed to have more than 5 books, but i suck a couple of extra in. Figure, I'm pretty much set on buying almost all my items. It's always fun, and a bit daunting to peruse this institution. I always find it's good to have a game plan, i.e. a couple of key things you are looking for. This trip I was on the hunt for 3 things:

1) Birthday present for Matt. Wanted to find an fun, encouraging film book to support his pursuit of creative projects.
2) Information/reference books for my Pub Quiz Oregon quiz writing.
3) Zine(s). I'm a big fan of zines (however, as a dabbler, not deeply knowledgeable - just know what I like).

Here's what I ended up with:
1) Making Short Films by Jim Piper (coincidentally the name of our very nice previous landlord). It seems to have mixed reviews, but I like that it has pictures and seems somewhat The Conversations by Michael Ontaje. Looks very inspiring.
2) The reference books are my little secret...
3) A new local zine "Monster of Fun! a collection of Razorcake columns by Amy Adoyzie" which looks very promising. And hey she's APA which is always nice to support. Also picked up "time enough at last" by A.j. Michel out of Lansdowne, PA. I'm a list junkie and this one is subtitled: "A Reading Log 2007" including juicy documentation of A.j.'s reading habits over the past year.

Juno, you know it

When I called our friends Bryce and Liz tonight to see if they wanted to meet up with us to see Juno, they laughed because they already has planned to go the the same 5:30 showing at the local 2nd run theatre around the corner Cine Magic. So we met up and found some seats in the well worn-theatre, just in time to see a preview for some lame-looking Colin Farrell, Ralph Fiennes vehicle. Admittedly, I have never actually seen Colin Farrell in a movie, and yes, I've chosen to stereotype him as a H'wood dumb party boy who probably has not much talent. Anyhoo onto the feature here, Juno. Well, I thought it was adorable. A feel good movie, but in that quirky, well-written, well-performed, indie film kinda way. Kudos to Diablo Cody for a delightful, truly gal-power script. It's just amazingly refreshing to see such robust, complex characters in a pretty typical coming of age story. Juno, played spot-on by Ellen Page, plays a teen who accidentally gets pregnant by her best friend Bleeker (the always awkwardly charming Michael Cera, the next Owen Wilson?). And that's it. We follow her journey from pregnancy through birth. And in that time we meet some pretty stellar characters, each of which is at times odd, sweet, dumb, brilliant and just plain old regular. Great performances include Allison Janney, Jason Bateman and JK Simmons. (Jennifer Garner was the weakest link in my opinion, nothing surprising there.) You might sympathize, you might cringe, you'll certainly laugh and yes, you might even tear up (I admit, I did). Check this one out for sure.

January linkage

Here are some links to some of my recent work online:

APA Compass on KBOO Community Radio
Paper Cuts, Tung-Hui Hu and the Angry APA Minute

The Asian Reporter
Emerging artist finds inspiration from quilts, industrial sites
Local comic shop owner puts together stunning tribute to Bill Mantlo, writer of ROM Spaceknight
Vancouver-based artist’s new work explores identity and labor through subtle forms
North Portland gallery explores the world of sophisticated craft

another year, another set of resolutions

Greetings and happy new year, whether it be gregorian, julian, lunar, tet or other. I'll admit it, I've got some resolutions in mind for 2008. Trite, but useful. We've got the rules of improv, recipes for cooking, outlines in coloring books - which can all be considered structures, but in my opinion can also provide a smaller container from which to explore freely. I'd like to think that resolutions can do this too.

"Resolution" as defined on Wiktionary:

1. The state of being resolute.

   His stalwart resolution is perhaps admirable, perhaps foolish.

2. A statement of intent, a vow (often New Year's Resolution).

   My resolution is to cut back on the fast food this year.

3. The act of discerning detail.
4. (computing) The degree of fineness with which an image can be recorded or produced, often expressed as the number of pixels per unit of length (typically an inch).

   Printing at higher resolution will cause a reduction in performance.

5. (computer hardware) The number of pixels in an image that are stored or displayed.

   This monitor's maximum resolution is 800x600.

6. A formal statement adopted by an assembly.
7. (sciences) The separation of the constituent parts (of a spectrum etc).
8. (sciences) The degree of fineness of such a separation.
9. (music) Progression from dissonance to consonance; a chord to which such progression is made.

Some of those sound pretty juicy. I especially like the #7 and #9. Here's just a few of my resolutions, vows, intentions for 2008:

1. Blog at least twice a month
2. Eat more veggies
3. Intentionally move my body at least once a day
4. Work with Matt on completing at least three video shorts
5. Continue improvisation PLAYgroup
6. Organize and maintain my office/craft space
7. Buy a house
8. Raise money for KBOO and Bitch Magazine
   
9. Create one audio documentary piece
10. Learn and practice more Spanish
    
11. Streamline programming of the Portland Grassroots Media Camp
12. Watch lots of films
13. Practice sewing at least twice a month
    
14. Read these books - Omnivores Dilemma; Eat, Pray Love; Brave New World; Tokyo Cancelled; People's History of the United States; Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White; Writing Down the Bones
15. Teach an improv class
16. Take a walk at least once a week
    
17. Sing
18. Practice my New Zealand accent (currently obsessed with Flight of the Conchords)