31 Plays in 31 Days: #18 - "Chapfallen"

So you may remember that few years ago I directed a little play called Hamlet. Because I was determined to not make it an heavy emotastic dramaslog, I wanted it to be funny in some places to contrast with the tragedy. This led to some decidedly weird bits making it into the final production. One of the weirdest being the idea of Mr. Alex d'Anjou, who played the gravedigger, who ended up being apparently a collector of his dead charges' skulls and the only truly happy character in the play. We began joking about how he must have had a field day with the throne room after the end of the final scene, with all those new pretties to harvest. I have no idea why it came to me today, but that wast the inspiration for today's weird-ass piece.

Day #18 - "Chapfallen"

(A row of skulls of various shapes and sizes sit on a brick wall in a mausoleum. A GRAVEDIGGER in shabby clothes, with another skull hanging on a rope from his belt, enters with a shovel over his shoulder.)

GRAVEDIGGER: Good sooth, my pretties, how fare ye?

(He goes over to inspect the skulls.)

GRAVEDIGGER: Ah, clean and cleaner, I espy. Soon ye shall be smooth and fair as eggs. The beetles well have nibbled off your shabby bits. Alas but there’s not more fine sun for ye, but you’ll blench full in time enough. And I shall tell thy tales.

(He lifts and displays the first one.)

GRAVEDIGGER: Here’s a fair noggin, fair enough to turn the living heads of brothers while she lived. She had two crowns once, flaxen soft with a golden circle nestled in. She won a third when she wed a second king. All those crowns be gone now, but this snowy smooth one quite becomes!

(He replaces that skull and bends to look the second in the eye sockets.)

GRAVEDIGGER: As for thee, thank me prettily, sweet, for I went to pains to dig you from your berth and join ye with your fellows. I though ye need not lie lonely evermore, not when thy company was gathered elsewhere. And no more hurts of thine for them to cast aside!

(He hefts the skull and examines it approvingly.)

GRAVEDIGGER: The lady’s death were doubtful, but her bones do bleach as white as any blameless maid.

(He turns the bulbous skull beside it.)

GRAVEDIGGER: You as well, rescued from the dirt! But I presume thy children are a comfort to thee.

(He picks it up and touches it.)

GRAVEDIGGER: Such a ponderous dome! Were ye as wise as your globe could hold? Or were ye hollow and filled with gusting like a rotted tree, with your blather rattling around within?

(He exchanges it for the next skull.)

GRAVEDIGGER: Through quite the sturdy neck I must needs hack, to harvest this thick head. With more ease I unearthed those others graves, and the blood did fly with my labors! But it matters not to the new strong-armed king, and it pleased him muchly to see thee carried away from his throne room. By any measure a worthy effort, for union of the family. Though from these bare bones alone none would see the likeness.

(He turns around to look a cluster of three nearly identical skulls.)

GRAVEDIGGER: Not so to regard the three of them! Any knave may see the borne resemblance. The brooding brow, the gentleman’s jaw, the lordly straight white teeth.

(He picks up the first two and weighs them in his hands.)

GRAVEDIGGER: Thou hast held up well since thy brother coveted all the things that had been thine! But now all’s well, is it not, for all you have you have alike. Peace between thee at last! But though fine in troth but I see not how princely. Prithee, are the worms in this mud more regal than those in the village churchyard for having et the flesh from the bones of kings?

(He shrugs, replaces the, and turns reverently to the last skull.)

GRAVEDIGGER: Alas, poor princeling! I knew thee. It does me good in my old heart at last to see your forehead smooth and without burden, with none of glinting madness in thine eye. Still, quite chapfallen? Now I spy you grinning! Fear me not, young prince. Perhaps I’ll hang thee on rope beside thy dear old jester, and he may make you laugh at that. The flights of angels have sung, and I remain to tell thy tale.

(He picks up the last skull, and, tossing it happily up and down in his hands, exits.)

31 Plays in 31 Days: #10 - "The Late Mrs. Chadwick"

This is very clearly inspired by Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit. One thing I found to be a slight missed opportunity in that piece is that only Charles Condomine is able to see the ghost Elvira, I think there would have been lots of funny things to do with a slightly different scenario. I also wrote it imaging two of the very talented gentlemen I worked with in Sherlock Holmes, Chris who played Sherlock and John who played my husband Larabee, as Chadwick and Shrewsbury. It made things much funnier for me.

Another inspiration was one of the one-acts Jared and I saw at the festival of them thrown by the Hovey Players. The piece on its own was fairly whatever-- it was about a man who went into the hospital for an appendectomy and came out with a sex change and was trying to very politely bring it up with his doctor. The jokes were pretty obvious and not that remarkable on their own, but they made it work by giving the characters English accents, and making the joke out of how completely polite and stiff-upper-lippy they were. I thought I'd borrow that for my own piece here.

Also, for some perverse reason I really like writing dialogue for characters who hate Catholics. I love using the term "papists."

Day #10 - "The Late Mrs. Chadwick"

(Two very stiffly-dressed English gentlemen, ARTHUR CHADWICK and EDWIN SHREWSBURY sit in a tastefully decorated parlor drinking tea and talking about cricket.)

SHREWSBURY: That is a bold statement, friend. That is a four-time championship team you’re talking about.

CHADWICK: I say the team is ageing out of their skills. Their lineup has not changed in far too long.

(There is the ghostly wail of a woman from offstage.)

SHREWSBURY: I say, Chadwick, did you hear something?

CHADWICK: Beg your pardon?

SHREWSBURY: Apologies, nothing, old boy. You were saying?

CHADWICK: Yes, well, they’ve got to get some new blood in there. Thirty-six isn’t absurd, but they’re no spring chickens when it comes to test cricket.

(Suddenly a woman ghost, MATILDA CHADWICK, her skin painted a pale gray wearing a diaphanous gray gown, sweeps through the parlor, wailing as she goes. After a moment she exits. CHADWICK appears not to notice, but SHREWSBURY is vaguely perturbed.)

CHADWICK: Shrewsbury, are you quite all right?

SHREWSBURY: Forgive me, old friend, but what was that?

CHADWICK: What was what?

(MATILDA reenters and sweeps through again, waving her arms and wailing, then exits.)

SHREWSBURY: Are you aware that there seems to be some sort of… spectral lady… thing… of some kind… floating around your parlor?

CHADWICK: Oh, yes, good of you to notice. That is my late wife.

SHREWSBURY: Your… late wife?

CHADWICK: Yes, Matilda. She’s recently taken up residence in the house again.

SHREWSBURY: I see. But, if I might ask, how can that be so, given that Matilda is… what’s the polite word… dead?

CHADWICK: Yes, in a freak croquet accident on the front lawn. Very tragic.

SHREWSBURY: I recall.

CHADWICK: But it seems that somehow in the Great Beyond word reached Matilda about my recent remarriage, and as far as anyone can deduce, she is so distraught over the news that she’s crossed back over to the material plane in order to seek eternal vengeance from beyond the grave.

(A piece of crockery flies onstage and explodes on the ground. MATILDA enters after it and swans around dramatically, making rhythmic keening sounds.)

CHADWICK: But please, don’t let it trouble you.

SHREWSBURY: Oh, I hardly notice.

(MATILDA knocks the teacup out of SHREWSBURY’s hand. He is just slightly nonplussed.)

CHADWICK: More tea, old friend?

SHREWSBURY: Please.

(SHREWSBURY picks up another cup from the tea set, which CHADWICK fills from the pot. MATILDA knocks that cup away too.)

SHREWSBURY: On second thought, that’s enough for me.

CHADWICK: Quite right.

SHREWSBURY: And what does the, shall we say, living Mrs. Chadwick think?

CHADWICK: Between you and me, old boy, I will confess that she is not entirely pleased with the whole arrangement.

SHREWSBURY: Oh, the poor dear.

CHADWICK: Apparently Matilda sees fit to take out the whole sad business on her by vowing to haunt and torment her through this world and beyond until the fires of Judgment Day.

SHREWSBURY: How unfortunate. You have my sympathies, Arthur.

CHADWICK: Thanks very much. These things are sent to try us.

(MATILDA begins picking up household items and hurling them to smash upon the ground.)

SHREWSBURY: Where is your wife at the moment?

CHADWICK: Well, Hermione’s found it a bit vexing to remain in the house for long periods, what with the flying crockery and Matilda’s propensity for setting fire to her hair.

SHREWSBURY: Quite understandable.

CHADWICK: I rather thought so. So my dear girl’s dedicated herself to having Matilda exorcised.

(MATILDA wails.)

SHREWSBURY: I say, exorcised?

CHADWICK: I believe that’s the term. You know, banished. Returned to the Great Beyond.

SHREWSBURY: For my edification, what is the process for such a banishment?

(MATILDA breaks something.)

SHREWSBURY: In case any of my departed relations also elect to make a return visit.

CHADWICK: I’m afraid we’re still in the process of figuring that out. Lord knows we’ve tried a few things.

SHREWSBURY: With no success, I take it?

(MATILDA pours a ewer of water over CHADWICK’s head.)

CHADWICK: Not as such, no. First we rung up one of those, what do you call them, mediums, who commune with the spirit world.

SHREWSBURY: Oh, yes, they’re very entertaining at parties.

CHADWICK: To be sure, but this one seemed to have difficult effectively communicating with Matilda.

SHREWSBURY: Ah.

CHADWICK: I suppose I can’t criticize. It was a feat I had yet to achieve myself in five years of marriage to her!

(They laugh politely. MATILDA knocks over a table and wails.)

SHREWSBURY: Perhaps you could find a more diplomatic one.

CHADWICK: Perhaps, but the whole affair left Matilda quite cross, and I’m not inclined to weather that again. With all the blood weeping down walls.

SHREWSBURY: Most troublesome.

(MATILDA hurls a pillow at SHREWSBURY. He dodges without skipping a beat.)

CHADWICK: And then there was the woods witch who made a terrible mess of the drawing room with all those goats she sacrificed.

(MATILDA hurls another pillow at CHADWICK, who dodges equally casually.)

SHREWSBURY: Oh, I can imagine.

(MATILDA screams with rage and storms out.)

CHADWICK: It’s all driven Hermione to become quite desperate. At the moment she’s gone down to St. Swithin’s to ask assistance from the pastor.

SHREWSBURY: St. Swithin’s? Your Hermione set foot among the papists?

CHADWICK: Unbelievable, I know, but the poor thing’s quite determined. I understand they’ve some protocols in matters of peasant superstition.

SHREWSBURY: One does hear all those terrible stories about priests with their heads all spun about on their necks, though.

CHADWICK: Indeed. Bad enough that the neighbors see them coming in the house without having to remove their bodies as well. Still, I’m afraid we’re rather out of options.

(There is screaming and crashing offstage, then the crackling of flames. Smoke drifts out into the sitting room.)

SHREWSBURY: I say, Chadwick. That sounds rather terrible.

CHADWICK: I’ve come to know that sound quite well, I believe it’s the screaming of the servants. Excuse me a moment.

(CHADWICK rises and goes to look offstage where the smoke is coming from.)

CHADWICK: Yes, indeed. She’s set the kitchen on fire.

(There is the terrified screaming of horses.)

CHADWICK: And released the horses from the stables. Oh, I do hope she hasn’t barricaded the door this time. Forgive me, friend, but I’ll have to run off for a tick and handle this.

SHREWSBURY: Can I be of any assistance?

CHADWICK: Oh, don’t trouble yourself. Please, stay at your ease.

SHREWSBURY: If you insist, sir.

CHADWICK: Won’t be a moment!

(CHADWICK exits. SHREWSBURY pours himself a new cup of tea and begins sipping. He occasionally tosses a vaguely curious glance in the direction of the commotion.)

(MATILDA reenters. She storms up to SHREWSBURY and stares him down in the chair. After a long moment, she slaps the cup out of his hand again and runs off.)

Happy birthday, Rhoda May Biddle

Yesterday, July 26th, 2012, marks the one year-anniversary since I first started doing @HipsterFeminist, my once-daily joke Twitter feed. I have missed a few days here and there, as evidenced by the fact that one year later Rhoda has 358 tweets rather than 365, but I've been pretty good about posting something most days-- even if it's not the funniest thing in the world, I try to put up SOMETHING. Lately I've even managed to be topical!

I am currently up to 59 followers, which I think is the highest stable number I've ever had. Sadly the number goes up and down with ad accounts appearing and disappearing, and I lost a handful-- including Holly Pervocracy, alas --I think when I tried to do my first attempt at a plotline, when Rhoda stalks her ex's new girlfriend. I'm just guessing, but I think the humor may have gone to much to the "haha, Rhoda's actually a crazy woman" with that string for some people's taste. I want the joke to be primarily "Haha, Rhoda's doing feminism wrong!" and come off that way rather than implying to anyone "Ha, feminism!" or "Ha, women!" Ah, well, I did my best. But it's made me reluctant to try another plot thread for fear of resorting to lower-grade humor out of the need to keep the story going somehow in the very limited 140-characters-a-day format.

Not sure where I'm going from here. I do plan to continue, as I am enjoying the challenge and that fact that 59 people do in fact find it funny. If you are among the subscribers, thank you very much for indulging my little project. I am always interested in suggestions if you have any, and of course joke ideas. blendedchaitea* suggested I have Rhoda read Fifty Shades of Gray, which could be really funny... except it might mean I have to read it myself. And even for the sake of my art, I'm not sure I could subject myself to that...

Break a Leg running at Intercon M

I just got word this past week that Break a Leg has been accepted at Intercon. Glad to hear it, but I would have been very surprised had it not. It will make for a nice, short, funny eight-player game on Sunday morning. Intercon can always use those, and I get my attendance comped for a new game. Everybody's happy.

Now I've got to write the thing. Besides the interpersonal stuff which will provide the bulk of the humor, two somewhat nonstandard major sources of gameplay will be the interactive environment, and the performance aspect. It will be very important to examine the setting, which will be limited to a backstage area, to gather information and things to respond to-- there is a murdered body right in front of you, so of course there's some clue-gathering to be done. But you also have to go on in two hours, and at the moment due to that murder the show you had planned isn't going to work. So you're going to have throw something together then, because of course the show must go on! You know that the eccentric genius playwright associated with the troop has been working on her next project, and as luck would have it pieces of her work seem to be scattered around the space... but rumors of her recent complete mental breakdown may be proven by the fact that these pieces are not as coherent as the troupe might hope. Still, it's your best bet to having a show, so you'd better find ways to make the material work, or you might never work in this town again! Perform what you find for each other so you can figure out how to stage it and assemble it into a some kind of complete show.

I think that performance aspect will be a lot of fun for players, but that means I have to write that weird-ass, hopefully humorous script material too. Which makes the job a little bit bigger than originally planned. Oh, well. As usual, it'll be worth it once it's done.



Biweekly Theater Writing Challenge #15: No-Context Theater!

This installment of the Biweekly Theater Writing Challenge will involve a piece of No-Context Theater. Inspired by real life, only dramatic! Make of it what you will, and enjoy!

(Two young women sit on a bench, sucking down sodas. A young mother runs through, trying to wrangle her little daughter.)

MOTHER: Lolita! Lolita, get back here!

(The mother drags her daughter off. The girls looks at each other.)

JESS: Quinn. That girl. Her name!

QUINN: Did we hear that right? That couldn't possibly be her name.

JESS: You heard it!

QUINN: Who names their kid Lolita!? So she'll be a nymph when she... doesn't grow up?

JESS: Nymphet, Quinn, get it right.

QUINN: Oh, sorry I used the wrong word, I'm not an expert on the terminology of pedophilia.

JESS: Hey, maybe if more people were familiar the book, they'd know not to name their kid Lolita!

QUINN: Maybe that will save her. Maybe none of the kids will make fun of her because they don't recognize why it's awful.

JESS: Oh, come on, that's the one thing everybody knows about Lolita.

QUINN: So they'll torment her, but their mocking will be really uninformed.

JESS: Okay, how awesome would it be if kids started reading Nabokov just so they could properly make fun of her?

QUINN: Imagine the notes that will get left on her locker!

JESS: Light of my life!

QUINN: Fire of my loins!

JESS: My sin!

QUINN: My soul!

BOTH: Lolita!

(They snigger.)

QUINN: Jesus, Jess. We're quoting a pedophile to make fun of a little kid. We're pervs.

JESS: We're not pervs, we're English majors! And maybe in reading one great book to torment their classmate, they'll be inspired to read other great books so they can better mock other classmates.

QUINN: So ultimately society is improved.

JESS: I think so.

QUINN: That's awful.

JESS: Look at this tangle of thorns.

(QUINN stares.)

JESS: That's a quote too, stupid.

QUINN: Oh, shut up, light of my life.

JESS: You shut up, fire of my loins.

Queen Victoria on linden trees

So this video is currently my favorite thing ever. Maybe because I just did a Victorian show, but I think it's completely hilarious. If a little bit crude.

"A fitting way to toast a Juliette"

God, I love the Holmes cast. They have this wonderful tendency to go off on long group e-mail chains that meander hilariously from topic to topic. The most recent one was started by our adorable messenger boy/Swiss maid, Juliette, announcing that she got through the English final some of us had been quizzing her for in the green room. This led to all sorts of responses on knowledge and grammar that spanned several languages. Not being fluent enough in anything to contribute well myself, this was the response I devised, which played to my particular strengths:

I've been afraid to toss my hat in too;
I have no words in other tongues like you.
But count my beats and see just what I've got,
As someone who has given English thought.
Perhaps iambs will make, in perfect set,
A fitting way to toast a Juliette.

I'm absurdly pleased with it. Not a bad little bit of verse, eh? Makes that grueling semester of iambic pentameter worth it.

The fairest of them all

Kindly given to me by bronzite*:



Damn straight. <3

The scandal in Bohemia

If you are familiar with the fabulous Sherlock Holmes story A Scandal in Bohemia, the only one to feature Irene Adler and one of the stories to inspire the show I am in, you know that Irene Adler was in possession of a photograph of herself with the King of Bohemia. The two of them carried on a whirlwind affair, and when he broke it off so that he could marry some Scandinavian princess, she threatened to ruin that marriage by sending the photograph to his bride's father on the day of the wedding. This image above is what we're using for that photograph in the show, and I must say that the two of us do making a charming couple, as they say in the show, "the very picture of love."

With my modern sensibilities, I find it absolutely hilarious that such a tame picture of a man with his ex-girlfriend could be the cause of so much shame and distress. Our director Matt, who took the picture, joked that he should be doing a line of coke or something off my stomach, except that in Victorian times cocaine was a lot more acceptable than dating an opera singer, apparently. I am curious exactly what the nature of the issue is supposed to be. Is it that the highborn king of Bohemia would be degraded to be known to have carried on an affair with a lowborn adventuress from New Jersey? Is it that it is evidence that Wilhelm is going to his marriage less pure and virginal than the driven snow? If that's it, well, at least I am pleased at the lack of a double standard, as I'm sure dear Princess Clothilde is expected to be.

As I mentioned, when we realized the audience is not going to be seeing this picture given how small the prop is, we took silly ones after.

These are my favorites.

Funny sewing machine diagram

I especially like "cryhole" because I suck at threading bobbins, or as I shall be saying henceforth, the "arc reactor." I like all the nerd references utilized here.

Kissing rehearsal

I managed to be off-book for rehearsal tonight! Not perfectly so, I had to call line a fair bit, but I was acceptably able to go on my own. I'll have to do some reviewing for tomorrow, but I'm close to where I should be. We ran the whole first act Sunday night and the whole second act just now, and I think we're in pretty good shape.

I am very much enjoying the process, and I'm also relaxing into the company and the role. I was nervous going in because my acting felt stiff-- probably a self-perpetuating cycle there --and I was terrified that someone was thinking "Oh, she got the role because she's pretty, not because she can act." But I'm doing better and better, and I find I really like my castmates. They're all really good actors and, it turns out, very fun people to work with. I love a cast I can laugh and joke with between scenes.

Tonight was kind of amusing. In the script, I have two scenes where I each kiss one of two of my castmates. The first is Larabee posing as Godfrey Norton at our wedding, then Holmes near the end of the show. We hadn't rehearsed either for real yet. While I was ready to put it in whenever everyone else was, I am, however, accustomed to the director declaring "Tonight we'll be doing the kissing," or something like that. Tonight, our first night off-book with it, our Sherlock just kind of went for it. I confess I was a little thrown. Though it surprised me, I had no trouble going with it, and as I said to the gentleman playing Holmes, good for him for just going for it. I always admire people who don't bother with stupid little hangups and don't waste the time being awkward.

The timing was a little bit weird too, because we're supposed to hold it until the lights go out, and because the stage manager was a wee bit slow declaring the transition we had some people teasing us about just hanging out like that. I said I read in an acting textbook once that a stage kiss isn't supposed to last more than four seconds. One of my castmates thought that was oddly specific, so I said I thought the idea behind it was that when people kiss, after four seconds it no longer seems realistic for them to just press their lips together. After that point the kiss needs to "progress," shall we say, basically transitioning to a makeout if it is to stay believable. Of course, that meant  that when we ran the scene for the second time, the SM started chanting, "One thousand one... one thousand two..." causing Holmes and I to break with laughter. I flipped him off, but he rightly said, "You asked for it!" and I had to concede, that yes, he got me there. :-)

What this also suggests is that if the lights are ever late, we've got four seconds until we have no choice but to escalate. ;-) Did the Victorians even have makeouts? Well, since the scene is obviously supposed to imply they go to bed together after the fade, I guess it wouldn't be totally inappropriate.

New game bid!

So I did it! I went ahead and bid my short funny larp idea for SLAW. I have taken laurion*'s suggestion and called it Break a Leg, as I like how it connotes both theater and disaster at once. Sorry, oakenguy* and morethings5*, for not going with Slaybill, which was also an excellent suggestion. :-) I think this game will be engaging and light, fun and funny, so I am excited to write and run it. I decided there will be eight core players (with one ninth that will be completely capable of being excised from the game) in one small to medium-sized room. The environment will be highly interactive and exploring the "set" will contribute to the plot. I also want to facilitate people performing scenes, since the characters will be actors, after all, which I am interested in writing original script fragments to facilitate. I have a lot of ideas that I'm excited to work out.

Since SLAW is so far away in November, I think I will have to plan an earlier, non-convention run. As a beta, perhaps. I am sure I can get a two-hour eight-character game written in fairly short order. Schoolwork has to come first-- I may be breaking my no-larp-writing rule, but I can't blow off the reasoning behind it-- but I'm used to writing four-hour twenty- or twenty-five-person games. This game should be a snap by comparison. When I figure out when and where that would be, I'll let everyone know so I can gather who's interested. Maybe I'll even do more than one pre-SLAW run. It's short, it's small, so why not? I've been wanting for ages to have a light, quick, funny game I can bust out at a moment's notice, and this just might fit the bill. Hooray!

Best Cookie Monster moment ever

This is a link to the video of Cookie Monster on The Colbert Report. It contains what may be the single funniest thing I've ever heard.

"Me had crazy time in 70s and 80s. Me was Robert Downey, Jr. of cookies."

I die. <3

Short fiction I wrote for scifi/fantasy class

I wrote this short piece for my science fiction and fantasy study for an assignment called "What if?" I had to pick a fantastical scenario and then ponder the implications of it. I thoroughly misunderstood the format of the assignment because I'm a dumbass, but at least I got a little bit of half-decent writing out of it. I got the idea from a fan fic I read years ago. This was hastily put together, but maybe with some polishing it wouldn't suck. I figured I'd post it regardless.

Nobody so far has gotten the vocal similarity thing. It's also technically a reference to that old fan fic. Honestly it was funnier and clearer in the original context, but whatever. I do like the Count Orlock bit, though.

  Her guts went cold when the shadow fell over her. Her hair blew out behind her with every beat of the wings. Then, as the creature descended, out stretched the wicked claws, reaching to close around her.

  She screamed until she thought her lungs would burst.

  “CUT!” Roddy bellowed. “Cut! Beautiful, Lydia! That’s the one we’ll print, you’ll see!”

  The claws pulled away as Odo stepped back. He smiled at her, a pleasant smile except for the mouthful of long white fangs.

  “Well done, Lydia! The look in your eyes was just perfect. Very realistic!” He had a wonderful voice, charmingly accented and strangely familiar, in sharp contrast to the alien weirdness of the rest of him.

  “Ah. Yeah.” She sucked in a deep breath to steady herself. “Thanks, Odo, I… thanks.”

  He gave her a friendly nod and turned to talk with Roddy about the scene. Lydia stood there a moment longer, gasping and gaping at the sight of her unusual costar. Claws, teeth, and ivory horns, enormous batwings, leathery skin covered with pebbled scales, corded muscle along long limbs and a coiling, twisting tail. He looked like he should be crouching over a crenellation on the roof of a gothic cathedral.

  She was yanked back to reality by Brett the makeup man appearing at her side, taking a hold of her chin and regarding her face critically. After a moment he began dabbing at her with a long-handled brush.

  “Hmmm, you’re a lot easier to work on when you have a blank expression of terror.”

  Lydia blushed. “It’s not terror! It’s just… surprise.”

  “Sure. It’s not like I blame you. I take it you’ve never met one before.”

  “A movie monster who’s not a man in a suit? No, never have.” She paused, searching for words that wouldn’t make her sound like a jerk. “It’s… pretty intense.”

  “No kidding.” Brett grinned. “Why do you think they want to shoot the scenes where you were screaming your head off right after you first met him? They didn’t want to give the shock a chance to wear off.”

  “I guess that makes sense.”

  She clammed up suddenly when she saw Odo was coming back over, striding across the set on oversized taloned feet. He inclined his head, the light running sleekly over his horns.

  “Ready when you are, miss.”

  Again she found herself stumbling over her tongue. “Oh, sure. Just— just a second and I’ll be, well, I’ll be…”

  Brett rolled his eyes. “You’ll have to forgive her, Odo, she’s lived a sheltered life up to this point.” He patted her cheek and moved off to attend to other smudged actors.

  The monster, however, just chuckled at her. Even his laugh sounded weirdly familiar. “Understandable. I guess we don’t show up much.”

  She swallowed hard and tried to collect herself. “How did… how did you get into the movie business?”

  He cocked his head thoughtfully, a disconcertingly human gesture of consideration. “Well, I’d always dreamed of being an actor. But of course the right role for fellows like me doesn’t come along very often. At first the only work I could find was as a stagehand, moving heavy sets and props and such around. Sometimes they had me handle some aerial photography. But fortunately there’s always eventually a need for something scary to crawl out of some pit or other.” He smiled again with all those terrible teeth.

  “And that’s how you started acting?”

  “That’s it. Not the most glamorous stuff, but like most working actors, I had to start off small. I don’t suppose you saw a sophisticated little piece by the name of Beast of Mars?”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “I’m not surprised. It wasn’t much more than a B-movie. But it does have the distinguishment of being my first title role.”

  His demeanor was friendly enough that she was beginning to feel more at ease. She found herself comfortable enough to ask what was bothering her. “But why keep it a secret from everybody?”

  He sighed, as if it were something that had weighed on him for some time. “It’s all part of the magic of the movies. Filmmakers look a lot cleverer when the public thinks it was their visionary work that made all those fantastic visual effects come to life.”

  She considered that, a little thrown. Odo went on. “Remember that John Malkovich movie, Shadow of the Vampire?”

  “Oh, yeah. The one about how Count Orlok in Nosferatu was played by a real… oh, my God. Was he?”

  “To be sure. That film was… sort of a test, in a way. It was to see how people would react to the idea, to see if they would find it intriguing or off-putting.”

  “What went wrong? I thought people liked that movie.”

  Odo clicked his enormous teeth together in a surprisingly delicate gesture. “That wasn’t the problem. Do you happen to remember what happened at the end?”

  “You mean… where Shreck eats everyone?”

  “Yes, well… that wasn’t a dramatization, so much.”

  She grimaced. “Ah.” Sudden fear struck her, and she couldn’t help but look at him with eyes the size of saucers.

  He understood immediately and was quick to reassure her. “An isolated incident, I promise you! Most of us in the business have more manners than that! I myself am a vegetarian, if that helps at all.”

  A vegetarian? Well, that was… something at least. She exhaled slowly and nodded, trying to look comforted.

  Odo cleared his throat. “Anyway, after that, it didn’t seem like such a good idea to tell the public just how real things were.”

  “I can see that. You know… Odo… there’s just one thing I can’t get over.” She paused, feeling awkward, but pressed on. “It’s your voice. You know, you sound just like—”

  Good-naturedly he laughed. “Yes, good ear. Not everyone notices, you know.”

  “Why… why is that?”

  “Well, it just so happens he’s an old friend of mine. Wonderful fellow, good-looking, and a terrific actor of course. Back when he was just starting out, the only trouble was, well, he really hasn’t got much of a voice. Squeaky, high-pitched, a real shame in someone so talented. They so wanted to use him, but the voice was a real problem. I was on the crew at the time and looking for acting work, and well, serendipity seems to have struck.”

  She gaped at him. “So that was your voice all that time?”

  “In every picture! I’ve been overdubbing his lines ever since.” He glanced over his shoulder, shifting his wings out of the way. “But it seems we’re ready to begin again.” He gestured with his broad claw. “Shall we?”

  “Well… I guess so!” With another deep breath, she returned to her position of crouched cowering, and gave her scream everything she had.

Teddy Roosevelt riding a moose

This is Teddy Roosevelt riding a moose across a river.



Obviously he is the biggest BAMF that ever lived.

Free on a Friday

For the second round of Festival I got into Folding the River. I was torn very much between it and High Rollers, but I'd already told the GMs I would be signing up, so I decided to let that decide for me. Neither Paranoia or The Stand have filled yet, but neither are in the time slots that people tend to prioritize, so I am hoping that once signups go open on Monday night we will get our full complements. Paranoia was in theory supposed to be modular, so it might be able to work if we have to excise parts, but frankly I think that fell by the wayside enough that we'd have to do a lot of fixing to make it work. The Stand is not really able to work without pretty much the entire cast-- I could maybe cut out two roles, max, without having to do major surgery --so I really really want it to fill.

In other news, I have finished my first screenwriting assignment and have decided to declare my afternoon and evening free. I am now making a list of things I'd like to do with that open time. I would like to take a walk into town, maybe run an errand or two, maybe just walk. It occurred to me recently that even if I get back to going to the gym as often as I did in undergrad, back then I was also walking across campus three or four times a day in addition, which I am definitely not getting now. So I am determined not only to make time for workouts, but also just get off my lazy ass and walk during the day. It means a significantly greater time commitment, unfortunately, but I think if I schedule correctly I can make it work. It would be worth it to shape up a little.

I want to finish another scene for Tailor that I've started but not yet made much progress on. It's the confrontation between Tom and Kenneth where we finally learn why Kenneth's been hanging around with so much interest in the Lorings. We recorded a scene between Plesser and Jared this week, which has inspired me. I would also like to have it for the Artist Meetup morethings5* and I have planned this weekend, where we use each other as accountability partners to keep us working on our artistic projects. Maybe I'll noodle a little on my short-quick-easy larp idea, since I'm feeling particularly engaged in larp production right now.

Finally, it'd be nice to make a little more progress with my new beginner sewing text, Sew Everything Workshop. I've gotten a little ways in and so far it's exactly what I was looking for. It starts with the basics and explains them very clearly. So far I haven't learned anything I didn't already know, but I like things that emphasize the foundation and confirm that I understand correctly before moving on to what I don't already grasp. I'm anxious to get to the part where it actually walks you through a sewing project, which is what I think I really need.

Oh, and one last thing. I recently decided that the first "plot line" I'd like to feature on Hipster Feminist is a story about Rhoda stalking an ex-boyfriend. Not sure how that's going to work yet, but I think it has the potential to be very funny. Maybe I'll do a little work figuring out the storyline and seeing how I can chunk it out into individually funny, one hundred and forty-character pieces. 

My anniversary with Rhoda - six months of Hipster Feminist

I have officially been doing my joke Twitter feed Hipster Feminist for six months now. In that time period I've posted a joke almost daily, missing only a Sunday here and there. I'm up to one hundred and seventy-four tweets. They haven't always been as perfectly hilarious as I hoped they would be, but some of them turned out pretty damn funny, and I'm really proud of myself that I've kept it up. It would have been easy to space on it or get bored and quit, but I've enjoyed it and kept myself to it pretty well. Our girl Rhoda is even up to fifty-one followers now, double from three months ago, so I guess some people are liking it. :-)

I am thinking now about starting to do "storylines," chains of tweets that follow a plot about something going on in Rhoda's life. I'm not sure how feasible that is in the one-hundred-and-forty-character-per-post limit, but it might be trying it might be the logical next step. I do know some details from her life-- she comes from a totally regular, WASPy, upper-middle-class background that she wants strongly to disavow. Her parents are divorced and both remarried, and her hatred of her stepmom often makes her the target of Rhoda's feminist rage. (Which translates to I make her the whipping boy for a lot of the humor, poor woman.) Rhoda's dad is quite well-to-do, so she tries to distance herself from that privileged status while not realizing how much that privilege has shaped her. She has had and broken up with at least one boyfriend during this time. I never did settle on a last name for her, but I feel like it needs to be something dorky-sounding. That's not quite enough for a plot on its own, but I can flesh that out into something worth exploring. You know, as Charles Dickens showed us with the invention of the cliff hanger, creating the desire to find out what happens next in people is often the way to get them to follow your work.

Heh, that's what I need, more writing to work out, what with schoolwork, Tailor, and everything else on my plate. But work on my projects, the achievements I make on them, and the enjoyment of them by others gives me a lot of joy and satisfaction. So I'll take a stab at this. Of course any suggestions are welcome, particularly from those like morethings5* and blendedchaitea* who have offered hilarious ideas that I ended up using in the past.

Because I am twelve

Observe the charge in the middle of our restaurant tab.



Nice and cheap, the way I like it. Of course, I didn't finish it, it was too much, so I shared it with the rest of the table. You can believe they sucked it down right quick.

I'll stop now.

The funniest story about Keith Moon

Apparently Animal from the Muppets was based on Keith Moon. I just read this story about him that cracked me up so hard I just had to share it, courtesy of Cracked.com:

"The best Keith Moon story is the time when shortly after leaving a hotel, he sat up in a panic and told the driver to stop and turn around. "I forgot something! We've got to go back!" Upon returning to the hotel, he ran to his room, grabbed the television and threw it out the window and into the pool. Returning to the car, he said with a great sigh of relief, "I nearly forgot!""

You'd never guess how many drugs this man took from the way he looks in this picture. Or how many hotel rooms he destroyed.

Minecraft humor

So Jared has succumbed to the Minecraft bug, and finally bought the full version. Unfortunately he keeps dying every time he makes any progress, so at the moment his little piece of the Minecraft world isn't very developed. He doesn't have a house yet, just a shelter he dug out of a hillside. I said he lived in a hobbit hole, but when he told me he doesn't really have anything in it, I said he was more like a caveman. When he started going on about how much work it takes to build a house and make yourself a bed and how the bare ground with no floor or carpeting isn't so bad, I was horrified and said he was a Minecraft hobo. So I took on the persona of his nagging Minecraft cave-wife, and went on about how he'd be eating raw chicken and punching sheep for wool without me to take care of him, and if he found any diamond he was NOT going to make some stupid tool with it, he was going to give it to me in thanks for all I put up with being his cave-wife. Oh, and how I should have married that nice Minecrafter over the hillock who had boots and a pair of shears already. He responded by wishing he'd stayed a bachelor with nobody nagging him to sleep in a bed already or not try eating rotten zombie meat just to see what it tasted like, and oh, if only an enderman would carry him away and spare him from his domestic hell. I seriously wish I recorded the conversation, because it was absolutely hilarious.



I should have married this Minecrafter. I bet he'd lay a carpet for me.