Opening went pretty well on Friday. Opening night jitters and a few things we hadn't taken into account (for example, absurdly, being surrounded on all sides by people) threw us a little bit off, and we didn't quite catch our stride until last night (which went as well as I could imagine this show going). Thanks to everyone who came and saw it. And to the rest of you, come see it some other day and I'll forgive you.
I realized last night that taking into account the workshop, this show's been my life, more or less, for about five months. Almost half a year. Which means that I now have to figure out what to do with myself during my days off. It's a daunting task.
And, since I never updated it, I finished my absinthe a couple of weeks ago, colored it, and have since tasted it many times. It is, by all accounts, a vast improvement over the god-awful tincture I made last time. Roughly speaking, it tastes like a pastis with a hint of wormwood bitterness in it, accompanied with the aromas and flavors of a few other herbs. The next step is to start fermenting a sort of light wine so that I can distill that into my base alcohol. This, supposedly, makes a much more drinkable absinthe.
I suspect this is what comes of being an artist. In seeking out a hobby, I had to find something inherently nonartistic. Because otherwise my hobby would be the same as my work.
link...
Sam sent me this. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but it seems really cool. So...that's good.
Happy belated birthday to Sam, by the way. He's the only person I know who's more of a mad culinary scientist than I am.
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Friday, February 25, 2005
Opening Night
It's the day of opening night, and I'm experiencing this sort of reversed Christmas-Eve effect, wherein I've spent the entire day waiting for the night to come and won't care about work or anything else until it does. I'm trying to edit a financial aid guidebook for the university and just can't find my stride. I mean, for fuck's sake, who cares about financial aid? The world is ending tonight!
I don't remember it being this way in college, but it probably was. It will probably be like this for as long as I have a day job to bother about.
My mother sent me a lovely dozen roses, which is sitting on my desk and brightening my day with its lovely colors and smells. And Neil Gaiman was kind enough to post an announcement for us on his journal. Which I thought was decidedly cool. Thanks to both of you.
Update of the Roses
This is a later post: I've discovered another good use for the dozen roses. Aside from brightening my day, I can use them to get the designers not to whine when I make massive corrections to documents. For example, I just finished editing the hell out of a graduate guide to financial aid. Ordinarily, this would make the designer hate on me, or at the very least, whine for a while. But attach a rose to it, and she cooed joyfully while I snuck away, content that she thinks I'm the sweetest editor this side of the Loop. It's great; the roses are the gift that keeps on giving. Thanks mom.
I don't remember it being this way in college, but it probably was. It will probably be like this for as long as I have a day job to bother about.
My mother sent me a lovely dozen roses, which is sitting on my desk and brightening my day with its lovely colors and smells. And Neil Gaiman was kind enough to post an announcement for us on his journal. Which I thought was decidedly cool. Thanks to both of you.
Update of the Roses
This is a later post: I've discovered another good use for the dozen roses. Aside from brightening my day, I can use them to get the designers not to whine when I make massive corrections to documents. For example, I just finished editing the hell out of a graduate guide to financial aid. Ordinarily, this would make the designer hate on me, or at the very least, whine for a while. But attach a rose to it, and she cooed joyfully while I snuck away, content that she thinks I'm the sweetest editor this side of the Loop. It's great; the roses are the gift that keeps on giving. Thanks mom.
Thursday, February 24, 2005
More on Ragnarok
Glen, the Ragnarok director just called to let me know that tickets tomorrow night are free for anyone who calls in advance and mentions the free tickets. So, if you want the rare opportunity to see an opening night for free, call 773-960-2066 immediately and reserve your space. Mention that you saw this on my blog and Glen will happily put your name on a list, so you can feel like one of the elite!
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Dorkadia
The other day I was dropping a few Ragnarok postcards off at the Grind and I showed one to the cute barista behind the counter and proudly told her she should come. She took one look at the back and said something like, “Oh my God…you guys are such dorks.” I blinked, opened my mouth to say something like, “nuh-uh…am not a dork!” then thought better of it and slunk back to my chair, dorky cup of hot cocoa in hand.
She’s right, of course. We’re dorks. Not the entire Tantalus Theatre Group, mind you…one or two of us are patently cool (literally…they have taken out patents on their variety of cool…see, that was a dorky joke), but by and large, we’re dorks. The thing is, I’m not sure that’s a problem. Didn’t the dorks finally win? At the end of all of those ‘80s movies, don’t the dorks prove that smart is cool, that creative is powerful, and don’t we get the hot cheerleader while the quarterback gets dunked in the pool while the college dean laughs at him? Don’t we rise victorious while “We Are the Champions” plays in the background? I seem to remember something about that in the handbook.
I like to think of the beginning of ‘90s as the end of the ultimate ‘80s movie (that being the ‘80s, themselves), and with it, I like to believe the dork found power. The ‘90s saw a pop, followed by a full-on explosion of nerdiness into the realms of cool. Suddenly pedantic intellectual conversations orbiting around minor semantic points became all the rage. Obscure bands nobody had heard of were way more popular than the ones everyone had heard of. Bands that were “alternative” were cool. It became a style of music and a mode of being, as did grunge. Afternoon cartoons began to reference things no child could ever get…and we loved them for it. At the cusp of the decade, Pump Up the Volume came out. It was the definitive 90’s high school movie. Instead of the film culminating in everyone realizing that the nerd was cool for being himself, it told us that in the beginning and went on to the moral that it didn’t matter if the nerd was cool or not, because, cool or not, everyone’s still just as tortured as everyone else.
I liken the dotcom boom at the end of the decade to the moment in Lambada when the class nerd teaches the class that computers are cool by programming his computer (in only three or four keystrokes) to play music that an animated man dances to. In no time, the whole class is up and dancing and they all want to know how to use a computer.
I’m not exactly sure where I was going with this when I started typing it this morning. Maybe I was heading somewhere into the fact that, just as the dotcom boom fizzled, the rise of the nerd seems to have been fleeting. Eventually advertising caught up with it (I can still remember the commercial that called Budweiser the “alternative beer”) and the edgy and obscure was marketed, packaged, and shipped off to Middle America to mellow out in the cask at the nation’s center for a while. The jock vs. nerd high school movie, which was practically extinct in the '90s (unless it was being produced for ironic reasons, because to do so was tragically kitschy or satirical), returned worse than ever for the sense of irony and the apologetic intellectualism it picked up from the '90s.
Worse still, the nerds who forged forward the revolution of proving to everyone that nerd was cool suddenly became elitist and snobby. At the top of the food chain, former nerds had just as little time for people different than them as jocks once had for the former nerds (an event predicted in 1992's Revenge of the Nerds III). The dreaded hipster was born.
Again, not sure exactly where I was going with this, and I’ve kind of petered out. I think this whole entry was really just an excuse to use a Lambada metaphor. Which, I suppose, makes me the biggest nerd of all.
She’s right, of course. We’re dorks. Not the entire Tantalus Theatre Group, mind you…one or two of us are patently cool (literally…they have taken out patents on their variety of cool…see, that was a dorky joke), but by and large, we’re dorks. The thing is, I’m not sure that’s a problem. Didn’t the dorks finally win? At the end of all of those ‘80s movies, don’t the dorks prove that smart is cool, that creative is powerful, and don’t we get the hot cheerleader while the quarterback gets dunked in the pool while the college dean laughs at him? Don’t we rise victorious while “We Are the Champions” plays in the background? I seem to remember something about that in the handbook.
I like to think of the beginning of ‘90s as the end of the ultimate ‘80s movie (that being the ‘80s, themselves), and with it, I like to believe the dork found power. The ‘90s saw a pop, followed by a full-on explosion of nerdiness into the realms of cool. Suddenly pedantic intellectual conversations orbiting around minor semantic points became all the rage. Obscure bands nobody had heard of were way more popular than the ones everyone had heard of. Bands that were “alternative” were cool. It became a style of music and a mode of being, as did grunge. Afternoon cartoons began to reference things no child could ever get…and we loved them for it. At the cusp of the decade, Pump Up the Volume came out. It was the definitive 90’s high school movie. Instead of the film culminating in everyone realizing that the nerd was cool for being himself, it told us that in the beginning and went on to the moral that it didn’t matter if the nerd was cool or not, because, cool or not, everyone’s still just as tortured as everyone else.
I liken the dotcom boom at the end of the decade to the moment in Lambada when the class nerd teaches the class that computers are cool by programming his computer (in only three or four keystrokes) to play music that an animated man dances to. In no time, the whole class is up and dancing and they all want to know how to use a computer.
I’m not exactly sure where I was going with this when I started typing it this morning. Maybe I was heading somewhere into the fact that, just as the dotcom boom fizzled, the rise of the nerd seems to have been fleeting. Eventually advertising caught up with it (I can still remember the commercial that called Budweiser the “alternative beer”) and the edgy and obscure was marketed, packaged, and shipped off to Middle America to mellow out in the cask at the nation’s center for a while. The jock vs. nerd high school movie, which was practically extinct in the '90s (unless it was being produced for ironic reasons, because to do so was tragically kitschy or satirical), returned worse than ever for the sense of irony and the apologetic intellectualism it picked up from the '90s.
Worse still, the nerds who forged forward the revolution of proving to everyone that nerd was cool suddenly became elitist and snobby. At the top of the food chain, former nerds had just as little time for people different than them as jocks once had for the former nerds (an event predicted in 1992's Revenge of the Nerds III). The dreaded hipster was born.
Again, not sure exactly where I was going with this, and I’ve kind of petered out. I think this whole entry was really just an excuse to use a Lambada metaphor. Which, I suppose, makes me the biggest nerd of all.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Hurling Towards Twilight
Last night was our first night in the space and it is beautiful. It's beyond beautiful; it's breathtaking. The synergy of the set and the space is unlike anything I've seen in another space. Our set is a table in a mead hall. With the seats removed, the ceiling vaulting over our heads, lanterns dangling from them, our own lights shedding just enough of a dim glow on everything, the set becomes, not a dressed up space within a theatre or an illusion or a blank space upon which a set stands, but a real thing, an immersive space in which the audience sits, forever surrounded and inundated with the world we create.
It's going to be awesome, in the truest sense of that word. I can't wait. Two more runs and then it's time to do it for real.
Once again, for information about the show, see the Tantalus Web site, or call 773-960-2066. Here's when and where we run:
Holy Covenant United Methodist Church
925 W. Diversey Ave.
Chicago, IL
February 25-March 19
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8 p.m.
$10
Call for tickets: 773-960-2066
Student and industry rates available Thursdays
Group rates available any night.
It's going to be awesome, in the truest sense of that word. I can't wait. Two more runs and then it's time to do it for real.
Once again, for information about the show, see the Tantalus Web site, or call 773-960-2066. Here's when and where we run:
Holy Covenant United Methodist Church
925 W. Diversey Ave.
Chicago, IL
February 25-March 19
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8 p.m.
$10
Call for tickets: 773-960-2066
Student and industry rates available Thursdays
Group rates available any night.
Monday, February 21, 2005
Grey Days, Fear and Loathing, Disconnect, Writing
I've been out of sorts for a couple of days. Nothing major, just a little off kilter, like I'm out of phase with everything else, like there's a little subliminal something sitting just in the corner of my eye, lending an unsettling bottom note to everything. I keep trying to get in touch with a friend, and we keep just missing each other by a thread, one of us running just too far ahead of the other to touch, and so I've felt disconnected from her. The weather is grey, which has made me feel disconnected from the sun. My sleep schedule was thrown off all weekend because I went to sleep at eight on Friday, a week of late nights and early mornings finally catching up to me. So all weekend, I woke up at four in the morning, my body telling me it had slept the requisite six hours and now it was time to get up, and I had to lull it back to bed and get my mind and my body to shut up and rest. Which has me feeling disconnected from my body.
Maybe it's me picking up Thompson, the radio wave of loathing and unease sent out by his spirit as it readied itself to leave: a signal of restlessness, of disorder, radiating out of the man for any and all of us with sensitive enough antennae to pick it up and let it interfere with our own electrostatic thoughts. Maybe it's my own spirit--my invisible room mate, the one who knocks on my door sometimes as I just slip into unconsciousness--waking me at night, trying to tell me something in that silent stagnant way of his. If only he wrote on the walls in blood, the way nice normal ghosts do, instead of just hanging around in my room
I woke up at six in the morning on Sunday with gastric discomfort, and found myself unable to do anything but fart and think about this post by Jeff Vandermeer, and more specifically this comment of his about style:
Some styles cannot multi-task. This is not a function of the simplicity or complexity of the prose, but a function of the simplicity or complexity of the layering the writer wishes to achieve; some writers have no choice but to operate at a simple level, while others can create simple and complex layering as they choose. Sometimes, the inability to multi-task is due to the banality of writer’s worldview. Sometimes, it is due to audience pandering. Sometimes, the writer hasn’t yet matured to the point where his or her style can carry the weight (or carry it in an effortless fashion).
I found myself thinking, "I don't layer my writing, do I? When I do, it's clunky...you can see my hands muddling about in the prose, you can hear me thinking I'm clever when I do something clever. Am I banal in my worldview? Is my prose just immature? Will it be more than immature...say...ever?" After a half hour of tossing, turning, incapable of sleeping or of shutting my brain up, I did the only thing I could think of. I got up and wrote for an hour. I thought about the structure of the Asexual Reproduction piece and the things my brother told me, which was essentially "Just fucking write, would you? Stop worrying about what you make and make it!" and in my relative state of tired restlessness, did just that inasmuchas I could.
Bonnie says she feels something new is in the works for me, but what new idea have I had? There's a lot of old ideas floating around in here, and ideas that haven't been realized, or new ideas that seem so large I can't even begin to know where to start. And what of the old ideas? That fucking novel who hangs out in my room the way the ghost does and that looks at me every time I turn on my computer with that accusatory file-glare it has that seems to remind me how I started to write it because my grandfather died and suddenly it seemed time to start something. Something other than wasting away and saying I would write the novel some day. And what will it take for me to get up and finish it? Another dead grandparent? What about the stories I started with such good beginnings that just won't end. Will they be left dangling? And what would it really matter if they did? In the grand scheme of things, I mean.
Ragnarok opens Friday. Anyone who is anywhere near Chicago when it does is invited. Anyone. And if you want to come on Wednesday and Thursday for previews, they're free and we need the audience.
Afterwards, maybe I'll be a cocoon for a while, melt away into goop and coalesce again from the essence of me into something new. Something connected. And until then, have beautiful dreams.
Maybe it's me picking up Thompson, the radio wave of loathing and unease sent out by his spirit as it readied itself to leave: a signal of restlessness, of disorder, radiating out of the man for any and all of us with sensitive enough antennae to pick it up and let it interfere with our own electrostatic thoughts. Maybe it's my own spirit--my invisible room mate, the one who knocks on my door sometimes as I just slip into unconsciousness--waking me at night, trying to tell me something in that silent stagnant way of his. If only he wrote on the walls in blood, the way nice normal ghosts do, instead of just hanging around in my room
I woke up at six in the morning on Sunday with gastric discomfort, and found myself unable to do anything but fart and think about this post by Jeff Vandermeer, and more specifically this comment of his about style:
Some styles cannot multi-task. This is not a function of the simplicity or complexity of the prose, but a function of the simplicity or complexity of the layering the writer wishes to achieve; some writers have no choice but to operate at a simple level, while others can create simple and complex layering as they choose. Sometimes, the inability to multi-task is due to the banality of writer’s worldview. Sometimes, it is due to audience pandering. Sometimes, the writer hasn’t yet matured to the point where his or her style can carry the weight (or carry it in an effortless fashion).
I found myself thinking, "I don't layer my writing, do I? When I do, it's clunky...you can see my hands muddling about in the prose, you can hear me thinking I'm clever when I do something clever. Am I banal in my worldview? Is my prose just immature? Will it be more than immature...say...ever?" After a half hour of tossing, turning, incapable of sleeping or of shutting my brain up, I did the only thing I could think of. I got up and wrote for an hour. I thought about the structure of the Asexual Reproduction piece and the things my brother told me, which was essentially "Just fucking write, would you? Stop worrying about what you make and make it!" and in my relative state of tired restlessness, did just that inasmuchas I could.
Bonnie says she feels something new is in the works for me, but what new idea have I had? There's a lot of old ideas floating around in here, and ideas that haven't been realized, or new ideas that seem so large I can't even begin to know where to start. And what of the old ideas? That fucking novel who hangs out in my room the way the ghost does and that looks at me every time I turn on my computer with that accusatory file-glare it has that seems to remind me how I started to write it because my grandfather died and suddenly it seemed time to start something. Something other than wasting away and saying I would write the novel some day. And what will it take for me to get up and finish it? Another dead grandparent? What about the stories I started with such good beginnings that just won't end. Will they be left dangling? And what would it really matter if they did? In the grand scheme of things, I mean.
Ragnarok opens Friday. Anyone who is anywhere near Chicago when it does is invited. Anyone. And if you want to come on Wednesday and Thursday for previews, they're free and we need the audience.
Afterwards, maybe I'll be a cocoon for a while, melt away into goop and coalesce again from the essence of me into something new. Something connected. And until then, have beautiful dreams.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Stains: 2; Shirts: 0
One of the things I like about doing theatre is that a lot of times the costumers don't want an element of my costume back, and I end up with a nice article of clothing. I have a pair of nice shoes coming to me when the show's done. Which is great, because I need nice shoes.
We're entering into tech week next week, which in theatre is also known as Hell Week, because it's traditionally the time when stress levels are at their highest, and the production staff of a show practically lives at the theater*. Luckily, actors are often encouraged not to live at the theatre, since working ourselves sick the week before the show opens would just lead to lots of sniffling and vomiting on opening night. Which is rarely the sort of thing that endears you to an audience (you rarely hear an audience leave a show saying, "My, what a good show! And the cast was so pallid! I just love that!"). Anyway, Hell Week is hellish enough to us actors, what with remembering our lines and incorporating elements like lights, sound, a stage, which we didn't have before.
With the stresses of Hell Week looming over me, I decided now was a good time to take a couple of personal days from work (read: "play hooky"). So I did. Yesterday, I went and saw the Body Worlds exhibit, which was every bit as fun and interesting as it had been when I saw it in Berlin, although a few of the more interesting plastinates had been left out (such as the woman turned into a chest of drawers, who opened her belly like a cabinet door to reveal the fetus inside of her), and the comments some people left behind were asinine to say the least. Including such gems as, "The exhibit is really great, but does it have to be so graphic? Do you have to have genitals on every single corpse? Especially the male genitals. Females shouldn't have to look at it and vice versa."(one guess: was the person who left that a man or a woman? I'm guessing it was a guy) Why would that surprise someone enough to be worthy of comment? Short of presenting a touring exhibit of plastinate eunuchs (which I would pay to see), I can't really imagine a way to show human corpses without showing their genitals. Perhaps the commentor wanted them to be dressed in the traditional zombie loincloth.
Last night before bed, I brewed up a bit of the Xsnanian national drink, which is coffee brewed with whiskey in a stove-top espresso pot. This time, I mixed a little raw cocoa I had into it and cooled it off. The result is a nice coffee/chocolate liqueur (currently filtering through a coffee filter at home). Unfortunately, as the cocoa portion brewed, a particularly gooey bubble exploded, leaving big brown spatter marks on my new white shirt. Then, today, I spilled coffee on my green sweater. Not bad, but still. I need to marry a dry cleaner. Or invest in more coffee-colored clothes.
Back to work tomorrow. I think I'll go enjoy the day.
*A note on the spellings of the word "theatre" versus "theater": Merriam-Webster doesn't recognize the "re" spelling of the word, but within the theatre industry--among people I know, at least--there is a distinction made between the British "re" and the American "er"; the distinction being that "theatre" refers to the artform, while "theater" refers to the building. Thus, if I start a theatre company, I'm making art, while if I start a theater company, I build buildings. Some people have argued to me that this is a fundamentally pretentious distinction, but I disagree. I think it serves a real and valid purpose of separating an abstract from a concrete. More importantly, pretentious or not, I've encountered it from enough perfectly intelligent sources that I feel justified in continuing it. That is my footnote for this blog entry.
We're entering into tech week next week, which in theatre is also known as Hell Week, because it's traditionally the time when stress levels are at their highest, and the production staff of a show practically lives at the theater*. Luckily, actors are often encouraged not to live at the theatre, since working ourselves sick the week before the show opens would just lead to lots of sniffling and vomiting on opening night. Which is rarely the sort of thing that endears you to an audience (you rarely hear an audience leave a show saying, "My, what a good show! And the cast was so pallid! I just love that!"). Anyway, Hell Week is hellish enough to us actors, what with remembering our lines and incorporating elements like lights, sound, a stage, which we didn't have before.
With the stresses of Hell Week looming over me, I decided now was a good time to take a couple of personal days from work (read: "play hooky"). So I did. Yesterday, I went and saw the Body Worlds exhibit, which was every bit as fun and interesting as it had been when I saw it in Berlin, although a few of the more interesting plastinates had been left out (such as the woman turned into a chest of drawers, who opened her belly like a cabinet door to reveal the fetus inside of her), and the comments some people left behind were asinine to say the least. Including such gems as, "The exhibit is really great, but does it have to be so graphic? Do you have to have genitals on every single corpse? Especially the male genitals. Females shouldn't have to look at it and vice versa."(one guess: was the person who left that a man or a woman? I'm guessing it was a guy) Why would that surprise someone enough to be worthy of comment? Short of presenting a touring exhibit of plastinate eunuchs (which I would pay to see), I can't really imagine a way to show human corpses without showing their genitals. Perhaps the commentor wanted them to be dressed in the traditional zombie loincloth.
Last night before bed, I brewed up a bit of the Xsnanian national drink, which is coffee brewed with whiskey in a stove-top espresso pot. This time, I mixed a little raw cocoa I had into it and cooled it off. The result is a nice coffee/chocolate liqueur (currently filtering through a coffee filter at home). Unfortunately, as the cocoa portion brewed, a particularly gooey bubble exploded, leaving big brown spatter marks on my new white shirt. Then, today, I spilled coffee on my green sweater. Not bad, but still. I need to marry a dry cleaner. Or invest in more coffee-colored clothes.
Back to work tomorrow. I think I'll go enjoy the day.
*A note on the spellings of the word "theatre" versus "theater": Merriam-Webster doesn't recognize the "re" spelling of the word, but within the theatre industry--among people I know, at least--there is a distinction made between the British "re" and the American "er"; the distinction being that "theatre" refers to the artform, while "theater" refers to the building. Thus, if I start a theatre company, I'm making art, while if I start a theater company, I build buildings. Some people have argued to me that this is a fundamentally pretentious distinction, but I disagree. I think it serves a real and valid purpose of separating an abstract from a concrete. More importantly, pretentious or not, I've encountered it from enough perfectly intelligent sources that I feel justified in continuing it. That is my footnote for this blog entry.
Monday, February 07, 2005
Visceral Origami
I used to love watching The Jetsons. I can remember whole afternoons as a kid, maybe ten or eleven years old, wasted watching the cheap animation, the crappy jokes, the weird vision of the future in which they can give a robot a sense of humor but not a proper-sounding voice box. One thing I never got, though, is who would want to eat food in pill form. Even if you had the technology to create little food-flavored nutrition pills, why would you? As a chubby little kid, I loved food. It goes with the territory of being a chubby little kid. And I just couldn’t fathom tossing back a pill and calling it lunch. Similarly, I’ve never understood people who go to Florida or Huston and come back all excited with little packets of freeze-dried ice cream from NASA. Yeah, it’s what the astronauts eat, but it has the consistency of packing material. Give me actual ice cream any day of the week. I think the astronauts would agree with me.
So I was baffled and intrigued when I read this article:
But the sushi made by Mr. Cantu, the 28-year-old executive chef at Moto in Chicago, often contains no fish. It is prepared on a Canon i560 inkjet printer rather than a cutting board. He prints images of maki on pieces of edible paper made of soybeans and cornstarch, using organic, food-based inks of his own concoction. He then flavors the back of the paper, which is ordinarily used to put images onto birthday cakes, with powdered soy and seaweed seasonings.
The article describes foods made of paper, pills flavored like watermelon, condiments that levitate under the beam of an ion-particle gun. Deep in my little foodie brain, I began to understand the logic of the future dining experience. The world of The Jetsons didn’t eat their food freeze-dried, condensed, gelled, in pellets, in discs, in powders just because they could. They did it because to do so was cool. The Jetsons was really a horrible dystopic vision of a future in which the hipster culture of the new cuisine had run rampant and taken over the world. It all makes sense now.
That said, I’m man enough to admit that the article had me. There is something very interesting about revolutionizing the way we think of food and nutrition. And as works of art, the food served at Moto are beautiful. Delicate, light, with watercolor rose petals and Escher sketches printed on them, they are literally works of art, a magical unification of print and food. Beyond that, what is the appeal of a place like Moto? Can a person really derive satisfaction from plates of paper crackers? Possibly it’s that the appeal of Moto’s cuisine goes beyond the question of nourishment and into deeper questions of food and cuisine in general.
For a while, now, I’ve been thinking about why I like to cook so much. Why go through all the trouble of making a meal, decorating it, making it pretty, if only to eat it? Why do I do things like make a still and sit for hours on end tending it, just so that I can have a bottle of a liqueur that I could have imported. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the reason I like to cook is that it unifies my artistic and scientific sides.
I’m fascinated by science, and I always have been. When I was a kid, I would spend hours mucking around, looking for frogs in the drainage basin at the base of my development. When my father bought squid for dinner, we would clean it together, taking care to examine the organs, look at the structure of the eyes, the ink sacs still full and black. My scientific prospects fairly ended at age twelve when I blew up a glass bottle in an experiment (the goal of which was to make soda). I nearly killed myself in the process and was left with a big crescent-shaped scar on my neck to remind me not to play stupidly again. And I didn’t. I turned to the arts for creative fulfillment and was done with science altogether, but as the old saying goes, you can take the boy out of the lab, but you can’t take the lab out of the boy. Inevitably, I was going to find something technical or scientific that would grab my attention.
This isn’t to say I started cooking when I was twelve. Not at all. I started cooking when I was five, and maybe before then. My mother would let me help her as she cooked dinner and cookies and whatever else she might have been cooking when I was little. When she went back to work when I was five, I told her that I would miss her baking. I think what I was actually trying to say was that I would miss cooking with her (which I needn’t have worried about—mom and I still make dinner together when I’m home). As I grew into my teenage years, I began to experiment again. This time, it was with different combinations of flavors, different ways of mixing and matching foods. Some recipes would come out weird and inedible. Some would be delicious and new. Some I would eat once and love and never be able to re-create again, no matter how closely I matched the recipe. With each, I learned what foods and spices did what. What does the egg do in a bread? What does the wheat do? The milk? What kind of flavor does rosemary contribute to a recipe? If a recipe is too spicy, how can I cut the spice? And so on. In college, while all of my friends were eating ramen noodles, I ate couscous with spicy pepper and tomato sauces. Or pasta with broccoli. When I had next to no money while I was temping after college, I always ate well. You could give me ten dollars and I could whip together a full meal for me and two friends and it would be great. Still can.
It’s this fusion of the scientific mind with the artistic mind that I love about food. Food is chemistry made practical. It is a Bunsen-burner balancing act of oils and crystals, proteins and gases, heat, pressure, time. A recipe for, say, leg of lamb is a scientific formula in coded form. It says, “Soak the protein bundle in a combination of acid and fat to soften the cellular membrane and loosen connective tissue. Heat intensely for fifteen minutes to carbonize the sugars in the outer layer of the meat until crusty, then lower temp to 300 degrees for two hours to denature the protein until easily cut and digested." Seasoning instructions are recipes for which oils best complement which other oils.
It’s art because the experience of eating lies beyond the tongue. We eat with our eyes, with our noses, our minds, our memories, our hearts, our companions. When humans eat well, we eat with our full selves. The meal is a shared experience that demands it please us aesthetically. I love setting a dish on a table and watching people watch the food. I love seeing sushi come out and hearing people “ooooh” at the beautiful pinks and greens. Sushi, especially, is a food that values aesthetics. Fully half the experience of eating it comes in the joy of seeing it beforehand. And then it’s eaten, and it’s gone, a beautiful, intangible experience, like that of viewing a flower or a play. Perfectly filling and ephemeral.
Having come to all of this, I was all set to splurge a bit and eat at Moto some day after work (it is, after all, only a stone’s throw from my office). Until I found out that it costs $245-a-head to eat there. Possibly because of the class IV laser they have in the kitchen.
So I was baffled and intrigued when I read this article:
But the sushi made by Mr. Cantu, the 28-year-old executive chef at Moto in Chicago, often contains no fish. It is prepared on a Canon i560 inkjet printer rather than a cutting board. He prints images of maki on pieces of edible paper made of soybeans and cornstarch, using organic, food-based inks of his own concoction. He then flavors the back of the paper, which is ordinarily used to put images onto birthday cakes, with powdered soy and seaweed seasonings.
The article describes foods made of paper, pills flavored like watermelon, condiments that levitate under the beam of an ion-particle gun. Deep in my little foodie brain, I began to understand the logic of the future dining experience. The world of The Jetsons didn’t eat their food freeze-dried, condensed, gelled, in pellets, in discs, in powders just because they could. They did it because to do so was cool. The Jetsons was really a horrible dystopic vision of a future in which the hipster culture of the new cuisine had run rampant and taken over the world. It all makes sense now.
That said, I’m man enough to admit that the article had me. There is something very interesting about revolutionizing the way we think of food and nutrition. And as works of art, the food served at Moto are beautiful. Delicate, light, with watercolor rose petals and Escher sketches printed on them, they are literally works of art, a magical unification of print and food. Beyond that, what is the appeal of a place like Moto? Can a person really derive satisfaction from plates of paper crackers? Possibly it’s that the appeal of Moto’s cuisine goes beyond the question of nourishment and into deeper questions of food and cuisine in general.
For a while, now, I’ve been thinking about why I like to cook so much. Why go through all the trouble of making a meal, decorating it, making it pretty, if only to eat it? Why do I do things like make a still and sit for hours on end tending it, just so that I can have a bottle of a liqueur that I could have imported. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the reason I like to cook is that it unifies my artistic and scientific sides.
I’m fascinated by science, and I always have been. When I was a kid, I would spend hours mucking around, looking for frogs in the drainage basin at the base of my development. When my father bought squid for dinner, we would clean it together, taking care to examine the organs, look at the structure of the eyes, the ink sacs still full and black. My scientific prospects fairly ended at age twelve when I blew up a glass bottle in an experiment (the goal of which was to make soda). I nearly killed myself in the process and was left with a big crescent-shaped scar on my neck to remind me not to play stupidly again. And I didn’t. I turned to the arts for creative fulfillment and was done with science altogether, but as the old saying goes, you can take the boy out of the lab, but you can’t take the lab out of the boy. Inevitably, I was going to find something technical or scientific that would grab my attention.
This isn’t to say I started cooking when I was twelve. Not at all. I started cooking when I was five, and maybe before then. My mother would let me help her as she cooked dinner and cookies and whatever else she might have been cooking when I was little. When she went back to work when I was five, I told her that I would miss her baking. I think what I was actually trying to say was that I would miss cooking with her (which I needn’t have worried about—mom and I still make dinner together when I’m home). As I grew into my teenage years, I began to experiment again. This time, it was with different combinations of flavors, different ways of mixing and matching foods. Some recipes would come out weird and inedible. Some would be delicious and new. Some I would eat once and love and never be able to re-create again, no matter how closely I matched the recipe. With each, I learned what foods and spices did what. What does the egg do in a bread? What does the wheat do? The milk? What kind of flavor does rosemary contribute to a recipe? If a recipe is too spicy, how can I cut the spice? And so on. In college, while all of my friends were eating ramen noodles, I ate couscous with spicy pepper and tomato sauces. Or pasta with broccoli. When I had next to no money while I was temping after college, I always ate well. You could give me ten dollars and I could whip together a full meal for me and two friends and it would be great. Still can.
It’s this fusion of the scientific mind with the artistic mind that I love about food. Food is chemistry made practical. It is a Bunsen-burner balancing act of oils and crystals, proteins and gases, heat, pressure, time. A recipe for, say, leg of lamb is a scientific formula in coded form. It says, “Soak the protein bundle in a combination of acid and fat to soften the cellular membrane and loosen connective tissue. Heat intensely for fifteen minutes to carbonize the sugars in the outer layer of the meat until crusty, then lower temp to 300 degrees for two hours to denature the protein until easily cut and digested." Seasoning instructions are recipes for which oils best complement which other oils.
It’s art because the experience of eating lies beyond the tongue. We eat with our eyes, with our noses, our minds, our memories, our hearts, our companions. When humans eat well, we eat with our full selves. The meal is a shared experience that demands it please us aesthetically. I love setting a dish on a table and watching people watch the food. I love seeing sushi come out and hearing people “ooooh” at the beautiful pinks and greens. Sushi, especially, is a food that values aesthetics. Fully half the experience of eating it comes in the joy of seeing it beforehand. And then it’s eaten, and it’s gone, a beautiful, intangible experience, like that of viewing a flower or a play. Perfectly filling and ephemeral.
Having come to all of this, I was all set to splurge a bit and eat at Moto some day after work (it is, after all, only a stone’s throw from my office). Until I found out that it costs $245-a-head to eat there. Possibly because of the class IV laser they have in the kitchen.
Friday, February 04, 2005
He's Got Personality
coming out his ears...
I found this personality quiz on the site of one of Ian's friends. As near as I can tell, it's pretty accurate in its assessment of me:
Your Brain Usage Profile:
Auditory : 35%
Visual : 64
%Left : 40
%Right : 60%
Matthew, you possess an interesting balance of hemispheric and sensory characteristics, with a slight right-brain dominance and a slight preference for visual processing. Since neither of these is completely centered, you lack the indecision and second-guessing associated with other patterns. You have a distinct preference for creativity and intuition with seemingly sufficient verbal skills to be able to translate in any meaningful way to yourself and others.
You tend to see things in "wholes" without surrendering the ability to attend to details. You can give them sufficient notice to be able to utitlize and incorporate them as part of an overall pattern. In the same way, while you are active and process information simultaneously, you demonstrate a capacity for sequencing as well as reflection which allows for some "inner dialogue."
All in all, you are likely to be quite content with yourself and your style although at times it will not necessarily be appreciated by others. You have sufficient confidence to not second-guess yourself, but rather to use your critical faculties in a way that enhances, rather than limits, your creativity.
You can learn in either mode although far more efficiently within the visual mode. It is likely that in listening to conversations or lecture materials you simultaneously translate into pictures which enhance and elaborate on the meaning.
It is most likely that you will gravitate towards those endeavors which are predominantly visual but include some logic or structuring. You may either work particularly hard at cultivating your auditory skills or risk "missing out" on being able to efficiently process what you learn. Your own intuitive skills will at times interfere with your capacity to listen to others, which is something else you may need to take into account.
I'm not able to see me the way others see me, of course, but this fairly well describes me as I see myself (although I'm often much less confident and much more indecisive than it gives me credit for). I'm curious as to how it does for others. And how it works.
I found this personality quiz on the site of one of Ian's friends. As near as I can tell, it's pretty accurate in its assessment of me:
Your Brain Usage Profile:
Auditory : 35%
Visual : 64
%Left : 40
%Right : 60%
Matthew, you possess an interesting balance of hemispheric and sensory characteristics, with a slight right-brain dominance and a slight preference for visual processing. Since neither of these is completely centered, you lack the indecision and second-guessing associated with other patterns. You have a distinct preference for creativity and intuition with seemingly sufficient verbal skills to be able to translate in any meaningful way to yourself and others.
You tend to see things in "wholes" without surrendering the ability to attend to details. You can give them sufficient notice to be able to utitlize and incorporate them as part of an overall pattern. In the same way, while you are active and process information simultaneously, you demonstrate a capacity for sequencing as well as reflection which allows for some "inner dialogue."
All in all, you are likely to be quite content with yourself and your style although at times it will not necessarily be appreciated by others. You have sufficient confidence to not second-guess yourself, but rather to use your critical faculties in a way that enhances, rather than limits, your creativity.
You can learn in either mode although far more efficiently within the visual mode. It is likely that in listening to conversations or lecture materials you simultaneously translate into pictures which enhance and elaborate on the meaning.
It is most likely that you will gravitate towards those endeavors which are predominantly visual but include some logic or structuring. You may either work particularly hard at cultivating your auditory skills or risk "missing out" on being able to efficiently process what you learn. Your own intuitive skills will at times interfere with your capacity to listen to others, which is something else you may need to take into account.
I'm not able to see me the way others see me, of course, but this fairly well describes me as I see myself (although I'm often much less confident and much more indecisive than it gives me credit for). I'm curious as to how it does for others. And how it works.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Worm and Retort
It’s week three of rehearsals and my body is just about to give out. I’m sore in places I didn’t know could get sore. My body keeps moving in spite of itself at rehearsals, and I get home every night just dreaming of bed. I need a night or two off. Which, thankfully, I will get tomorrow.
My ongoing research on that elusive substance, absinthe, has unearthed a couple of interesting facts. The first is that, outside of the lesser brands being sold at high costs, there are a few very reasonably priced absinthes out there that are supposed to be pretty good. Most notable among the manufacturers is Jade Liqueurs, which makes absinthes based on lost recipes of the Belle Epoque (they were formerly called Belle Epoque Liqueurs). For a little over a hundred dollars (which is pricey, but not as pricey as some), you can get a bottle of absinthe that is of, supposedly, grand quality.
I found reviews for a couple of their products (and there are only a couple of products to review right now) at La Fee Verte, a very informative Web site that has articles on absinthe, thujone (debunking its reputed properties as a drug), wormwood, and the general zeitgeist of the age in which absinthe thrived. They also describe why absinthe must be distilled, as opposed to being merely macerated. Essentially, thujone, which is not particularly soluble in alcohol, must be distilled out of wormwood. Macerating wormwood releases its bitter oils, but not any thujone. I suspect the same is true of anethone, the essential oil found in anise. Consequently, I’m building a still this weekend.
I have found two still designs that I like online. The first is this teakettle still, given to us by Dangerous Laboratories (whose dry ice detonation gif frighteningly resembles what I did to myself when I was twelve). The second is this one at La Fee, which I like because it keeps the alcohol away from the open flame. Mine will be a hybrid of the two. The retort will be a two-liter, heat-resistant beaker with a cork in the top, submerged in a water bath. A copper tube from the top, connects to a flaring unit that connects to the condenser, which is more tubing, coiled inside of a milk jug full of ice water, that then leads into my receiver. If I have time and money leftover, I’ll add a fancy little water escape so I can keep the water cold. But that’s not necessary. And there I will, hopefully, have a functioning still. (I should note that, since distilling alcohol without a license is illegal in the U.S., I won’t actually use this still for that purpose. This is a purely hypothetical discussion, you see, one carried on by a scientific mind for fascination's sake).
The "Korpervelt" exhibit (a.k.a. “Body Worlds”) opens tomorrow at the Museum of Science and Industry. Unfortunately, based on my schedule and when it’s running, I won’t be able to make it. Actually, that’s bullshit; I wouldn’t miss it for anything. It just means I have to play hooky one day from work. At any rate, I once again recommend seeing it. It starts Friday and runs until March 20, and it is one of the most interesting, beautiful, macabre pieces of art I’ve had the pleasure of seeing. See my previous entry on it for more.
My friend, Ian, who would never describe himself as a writer, has posted some interesting entries over the past month or so. The most recent is a monologue he wrote to and from work one day, which isn’t on a vastly new subject (by his own admission) but covers it in a way that is so unpretentious and just genuine that it really appealed to me. The other is about a friend of Ian’s, his arrest (the friend’s, not Ian’s), and their friendship. Anyway, both impressed me greatly, so I thought I’d mention them here. (Incidentally, Ian has commented that he wouldn’t call himself a writer because he just takes forever to write anything, which reminds me of what a teacher once said to me and a classmate who thought she wrote poorly: A good writer isn’t one who writes easily; a good writer is one who thinks about what he/she is writing and strives to write it better. )
My ongoing research on that elusive substance, absinthe, has unearthed a couple of interesting facts. The first is that, outside of the lesser brands being sold at high costs, there are a few very reasonably priced absinthes out there that are supposed to be pretty good. Most notable among the manufacturers is Jade Liqueurs, which makes absinthes based on lost recipes of the Belle Epoque (they were formerly called Belle Epoque Liqueurs). For a little over a hundred dollars (which is pricey, but not as pricey as some), you can get a bottle of absinthe that is of, supposedly, grand quality.
I found reviews for a couple of their products (and there are only a couple of products to review right now) at La Fee Verte, a very informative Web site that has articles on absinthe, thujone (debunking its reputed properties as a drug), wormwood, and the general zeitgeist of the age in which absinthe thrived. They also describe why absinthe must be distilled, as opposed to being merely macerated. Essentially, thujone, which is not particularly soluble in alcohol, must be distilled out of wormwood. Macerating wormwood releases its bitter oils, but not any thujone. I suspect the same is true of anethone, the essential oil found in anise. Consequently, I’m building a still this weekend.
I have found two still designs that I like online. The first is this teakettle still, given to us by Dangerous Laboratories (whose dry ice detonation gif frighteningly resembles what I did to myself when I was twelve). The second is this one at La Fee, which I like because it keeps the alcohol away from the open flame. Mine will be a hybrid of the two. The retort will be a two-liter, heat-resistant beaker with a cork in the top, submerged in a water bath. A copper tube from the top, connects to a flaring unit that connects to the condenser, which is more tubing, coiled inside of a milk jug full of ice water, that then leads into my receiver. If I have time and money leftover, I’ll add a fancy little water escape so I can keep the water cold. But that’s not necessary. And there I will, hopefully, have a functioning still. (I should note that, since distilling alcohol without a license is illegal in the U.S., I won’t actually use this still for that purpose. This is a purely hypothetical discussion, you see, one carried on by a scientific mind for fascination's sake).
The "Korpervelt" exhibit (a.k.a. “Body Worlds”) opens tomorrow at the Museum of Science and Industry. Unfortunately, based on my schedule and when it’s running, I won’t be able to make it. Actually, that’s bullshit; I wouldn’t miss it for anything. It just means I have to play hooky one day from work. At any rate, I once again recommend seeing it. It starts Friday and runs until March 20, and it is one of the most interesting, beautiful, macabre pieces of art I’ve had the pleasure of seeing. See my previous entry on it for more.
My friend, Ian, who would never describe himself as a writer, has posted some interesting entries over the past month or so. The most recent is a monologue he wrote to and from work one day, which isn’t on a vastly new subject (by his own admission) but covers it in a way that is so unpretentious and just genuine that it really appealed to me. The other is about a friend of Ian’s, his arrest (the friend’s, not Ian’s), and their friendship. Anyway, both impressed me greatly, so I thought I’d mention them here. (Incidentally, Ian has commented that he wouldn’t call himself a writer because he just takes forever to write anything, which reminds me of what a teacher once said to me and a classmate who thought she wrote poorly: A good writer isn’t one who writes easily; a good writer is one who thinks about what he/she is writing and strives to write it better. )
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
A Joyous Slave to My Art
Last night after rehearsal, Steve, our music director, mentioned that the theater we’re renting our rehearsal space from had just wrapped up a show and was holding a free open mic downstairs, and he suggested we should all go. So those of us who either didn’t have need of sleep or who were willing to brave exhaustion for the sake of a good time got some beer and went down to hang out. And, my God, it was amazing! The night started out with a reading of Baudelaire’s “Be Drunk” in French (with English subtitles…no joke), which set the spirit of the night. It was a revel. It was a rollicking, laughing, beating, passionate, irreverent night of poetry, music, comedy, camaraderie, groove, talent.
My friend, Molly, read a poem of hers set in bed with a lover. The line I remember of it: “you’re soft. like silk. like satin. and I could sleep between you.” I audibly exhaled upon hearing that line. Late in the night, a viola player played something so beautiful I almost wept with joy from the sound of it, and Steve put his arm around me when he saw me grinning in bliss. The Tantalus crowd got up toward the end and sang a song from Ragnarok for everyone. Which the crowd responded relatively well to.
This is, I think, the crest of a wave of creative energy that I’ve been moving on since Friday (or maybe it’s just the swell of it…I certainly hope so). Tantalus did a 24-hour theatre this weekend, which means that we wrote, directed, lit, set, etc. an entire show from scratch in 24 hours. It was amazing. We met at the space on Friday night for a meet and greet. I was introduced to the lighting designer (who is the current boyfriend of my most recent ex…which was harrowing at first, but turned out to be better than fine), and then we set to work figuring out what we had, what we needed, etc. By midnight, a script synopsis was written. By two, we had built a makeshift dimmer board. At dawn, we had the first read-through of the script, and most of the lights were hung and ready. By nine o’clock the next night, we created a show that was as good as, and in fact better than many shows I have been involved that had full rehearsal processes. In the end, I spent forty-four hours awake, and I didn’t feel tired or exhausted, at all, until the moment when I decided to go home. The experience was so incredible—it was like nothing I’ve ever been involved in. Like squeezing the full experience of working with people on the run of a show, finding little intimacies with them and inside jokes into such a short time that it just infused me with energy.
The more time I spend with the Ragnarok cast, the more impressed I am with them. With us. Everyone comes to rehearsal with ideas and energy and a willingness to explore and go above and beyond what is usually expected of actors to create something that’s beautiful. Last night we had photo call for our publicity photos and afterwards I was struck with just how powerful the scenes we’ve created are. The music for the show sweeps and swells with the intensity of a folk opera—the sort of thing sung by heroes around a table in a mead hall. We play with the passion of people who are about to see the world end…because that’s what the play is about.
Anyway, I feel blessed, as if the cosmos is inserting me into new places with new people and experiences. I feel overjoyed to get to be a part of something incredible, and to work with such strong and intelligent and motivated people. It’s good fun and it’s exhilarating and I want it to last.
My friend, Molly, read a poem of hers set in bed with a lover. The line I remember of it: “you’re soft. like silk. like satin. and I could sleep between you.” I audibly exhaled upon hearing that line. Late in the night, a viola player played something so beautiful I almost wept with joy from the sound of it, and Steve put his arm around me when he saw me grinning in bliss. The Tantalus crowd got up toward the end and sang a song from Ragnarok for everyone. Which the crowd responded relatively well to.
This is, I think, the crest of a wave of creative energy that I’ve been moving on since Friday (or maybe it’s just the swell of it…I certainly hope so). Tantalus did a 24-hour theatre this weekend, which means that we wrote, directed, lit, set, etc. an entire show from scratch in 24 hours. It was amazing. We met at the space on Friday night for a meet and greet. I was introduced to the lighting designer (who is the current boyfriend of my most recent ex…which was harrowing at first, but turned out to be better than fine), and then we set to work figuring out what we had, what we needed, etc. By midnight, a script synopsis was written. By two, we had built a makeshift dimmer board. At dawn, we had the first read-through of the script, and most of the lights were hung and ready. By nine o’clock the next night, we created a show that was as good as, and in fact better than many shows I have been involved that had full rehearsal processes. In the end, I spent forty-four hours awake, and I didn’t feel tired or exhausted, at all, until the moment when I decided to go home. The experience was so incredible—it was like nothing I’ve ever been involved in. Like squeezing the full experience of working with people on the run of a show, finding little intimacies with them and inside jokes into such a short time that it just infused me with energy.
The more time I spend with the Ragnarok cast, the more impressed I am with them. With us. Everyone comes to rehearsal with ideas and energy and a willingness to explore and go above and beyond what is usually expected of actors to create something that’s beautiful. Last night we had photo call for our publicity photos and afterwards I was struck with just how powerful the scenes we’ve created are. The music for the show sweeps and swells with the intensity of a folk opera—the sort of thing sung by heroes around a table in a mead hall. We play with the passion of people who are about to see the world end…because that’s what the play is about.
Anyway, I feel blessed, as if the cosmos is inserting me into new places with new people and experiences. I feel overjoyed to get to be a part of something incredible, and to work with such strong and intelligent and motivated people. It’s good fun and it’s exhilarating and I want it to last.
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