That cracking sound you hear is hell freezing over: I'm linking to something at the NYT Theater section. I will grudgingly admit that the paper seems to have improved somewhat over the past year or so -- I could just be imagining things, but perhaps the death of the newspaper industry, the various scandals of the 00s, Rupert Murdoch's declaration of war, and the million slings and arrows of the blogs has jolted them out of their arrogance and complacency. Or maybe not. But I will admit that their pieces on water pollution and possible euthanasia in New Orleans were both really excellent journalism.
And also, there's THIS. More specifically, a slideshow of actor Glenn Fitzgerald's rehearsal photos from THIS, a really fantastic production at Playwrights Horizons right now, written by Melissa James Gibson and directed by Daniel Aukin. I'm nowhere near the theater booster I used to be, but this is a fantastic show. The photos are great too.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
In Which I Answer 9 Questions Posed By The Philadelphia Dramatists Center
If you would like to read my dumb Hitler jokes, and get my recommended reading list, click here.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Yo La Tengo Live At The Moog Factory
"Yo La Tengo launch the brand-new .Live at Moog. series on Paste.com. Live at Moog brings bands into the Moog Music Factory in Asheville, North Carolina, and lets them play with analog toys in service of the bands. original material. Check the session out here."
Unembeddable as far as I can tell, bout you can watch it here.
Unembeddable as far as I can tell, bout you can watch it here.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Colorado New Play Summit News
Going back to Denver in February '10 with my Clubbed Thumb commission, Civilization (All You Can Eat). View writeups in Playbill, The Denver Post, Broadway World, Stage Directions, Treehugger, Mile High Gay Guy (possibly the awesomest-named publication ever to cover me), and The Colorado Springs Gazette (that last one is one of the more comical manglings of a description of a play I've written -- it's neither about a TV commercial nor about our unhealthy obsession with food -- though I have to hand it to DCTC's excellent publicist, Chris Wiger, as this isn't an easy play to sum up and he does an admirable job of it).
You can also visit the official Summit site. Official press release follows:
Readings of new works by
Grote, Lowe, Svich and Weitzman announced for fifth annual Colorado New Play Summit
For digital releases and other PRESS MATERIALS www.denvercenter.org/pressmaterials
Watch 10 MINUTES TO CURTAIN http://www.denvercenter.org/10Minutes
DENVER – When he inaugurated The Denver Center Theatre Company’s Colorado New Play Summit in 2006, Artistic Director Kent Thompson called the event a “summit” because of the glorious Rocky Mountains and his goal to build the event into a peak experience… “a new play festival that is a must-see event for theatre professionals from across the United States.”
The young Summit continues to establish its place in the top tier of American new play festivals with the announcement of four readings of new American plays and the commissioned world premieres of When Tang Met Laika by Rogelio Martinez and Eventide by Eric Schmiedl, based on the novel by Kent Haruf. Adding to the festival’s national scope is the decision by the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) to hold its winter meeting at the Summit bringing critics from across the country to Colorado.
Artistic Director Kent Thompson, Director of New Play Development Bruce Sevy and Literary Manager Douglas Langworthy have selected the following new works to present to artistic directors, literary managers, dramaturgs, directors, press representatives and ATCA critics who will travel to Denver February 11, 12 and 13 for the 2010 Summit.
THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS
by Caridad Svich based on the novel by Isabel Allende
From the confines of her prison cell in an unnamed Latin American country, Alba thinks back over the past 50 years of her family’s history. Her grandfather made his fortune working in the mines, but her father became a field hand and revolutionary. While the tensions between the haves and the have-nots escalate, the Communist party takes power. Caridad Svich’s haunting and lyrical adaptation of Isabel Allende’s critically-acclaimed bestseller, The House of the Spirits, looks at four generations of political and social upheavals through the powerful lens of memory.
Caridad Svich is a US Latina playwright, translator, lyricist and editor whose works have been presented across the US and abroad at diverse venues including Repertorio Espanol, The Women's Project, INTAR, 59East59, Cincinnati Playhouse, McCarren Park Pool, 7 Stages, Salvage Vanguard Theatre, ARTheater-Cologne, and Edinburgh Fringe Festival/UK. The summer 2009 issue of American Theatre magazine featured a significant profile about her work, and she is the recipient of the 2009 Lee Reynolds Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women. Among her key plays are 12 Ophelias, Any Place But Here, Alchemy of Desire/Dead-Man's Blues, Fugitive Pieces, Iphigenia...a rave fable, Instructions for Breathing, and The Booth Variations. She has translated nearly all of Federico Garcia Lorca's plays as well as works by Lope de Vega, Calderon de la Barca, Julio Cortazar and new plays from Spain, Cuba and Mexico and has freely adapted works by Wedekind, Sophocles, Euripides and Shakespeare. She's a former Harvard/Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellow and has received grants from the NEA, TCG, Pew Charitable Trusts and California Arts Council. She has edited several books on theatre and performance including Trans-Global Readings: Crossing Theatrical Boundaries (Manchester University Press) and Divine Fire (BackStage Books). Her work is published by TCG, Smith & Kraus, Playscripts and more. She is alumna playwright of New Dramatists, founder of NoPassport theatre alliance & press, associate editor of Routledge's Contemporary Theatre Review and contributing editor of TheatreForum. She is member of PEN American Center, The Dramatists Guild and is featured in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latino History. She holds an MFA from UCSD. Website: www.caridadsvich.com
MAP OF HEAVEN
by Michele Lowe
Lena’s painting career is on the rise; her beautiful abstracted maps of places real and imaginary are poised to take downtown New York by storm. But her husband Ian, a radiologist, makes a fatal error that upends Lena's relationship with her agent and threatens to take down her first show. A contemporary drama with tragic undertones, Map of Heaven explores the devastating consequences of a single lapse in judgment.
Michele Lowe is the author of Inana, which premiered at the Denver Center Theatre Company and was a finalist for the 2009 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Her play Victoria Musica recently premiered at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. New York productions include The Smell of the Kill (Broadway debut) and String of Pearls (Outer Critics Circle nomination for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play). She is the librettist and lyricist for the musical A Thousand Words Come to Mind (Joe’s Pub), which she wrote with composer Scott Richards. She also is the author of Mezzulah, 1946 (City Theatre) and Backsliding in the Promised Land (Syracuse Stage). Lowe has been commissioned by the Denver Center Theatre Company, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Arden Theatre and Geva Theatre. Her plays have been produced by companies around the world including Primary Stages, Vineyard Theater, Intiman Theater, Florida Stage, Reykjavik City Theatre, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Asolo Rep, and Cleveland Play House. Her work has been developed at the Eugene O’Neill National Music Theatre Conference, Colorado New Play Summit, New Harmony Project, PlayLabs, New York Stage and Film, Hartford Stage’s BRAND: NEW Festival, the ACT & Hedgebrook Women Playwrights Festival and the Lark Play Development Center. Her work appears in New Playwrights/The Best Plays of 2005 (Smith & Knaus, 2006), The Best Women’s Stage Monologues 2005 (Smith & Knaus, 2006) and Monologues for Women by Women (Heinemann, 2004). Screenplays include The Emergence of Emily Stark and Quitting Texas. She recently completed her first novel, It Goes Without Saying. Lowe is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Playwrights’ Center and ASCAP.
THE CATCH
by Ken Weitzman
America’s national pastime meets America’s financial meltdown. A failed dot-commer plots to regain his fortune by catching a star slugger’s record-breaking home run ball – through a mix of willpower, determination and sheer optimism. Playwright Ken Weitzman’s baseball drama The Catch knocks the cover off our national obsession with sports, stardom, money – and positive thinking.
Ken's previous plays include The As If Body Loop (Humana Festival ’07), Arrangements (Atlantic Theatre Company, Pavement Group), Spin Moves (Summer Play Festival), Hominid (Theatre Emory), Fire in the Garden (Castillo Theatre), Stadium 360 (Out of Hand Theater), Memorabilia (Alliance Theatre). Ken’s plays also have been developed and presented at, among others, New York Stage and Film, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Playwrights Horizons, Arena Stage, the Geva Theatre, the Mark Taper Forum, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Dad’s Garage, Florida Stage, Page 73 Productions, Hartford Stage, and the New Harmony Project. His awards include The L. Arnold Weissberger Award for Arrangements, the McDonald Playwriting Award for The As If Body Loop (best new play in San Diego), The Mario Fratti/Fred Newman Political Playwriting Contest for Fire in the Garden, and the Elizabeth George Commission for an Outstanding Emerging Playwright (chosen and awarded by South Coast Repertory Theatre). He has been commissioned by Arena Stage, South Coast Repertory, the Alliance Theatre, Theatre Emory, and Actors Theatre of Louisville. Currently, Ken is the Playwright-in-Residence for Out of Hand Theater Company. Ken received his MFA from the University of California, San Diego, and has taught Playwriting at Emory University, University of California San Diego, and, currently, at Indiana University.
CIVILIZATION (ALL YOU CAN EAT)
by Jason Grote
The filming of a post-racial TV commercial kicks off Jason Grote’s fierce burlesque of America’s love/hate obsession with food. A giant pig on the rampage, mass choreography, Washington and Jefferson selling snacks to the inner city, the search for love and meaning – all are braided together to devastating effect through the inspired vision of the author of 1001 – DCTC’s acclaimed 2007 premiere. Commissioned by Clubbed Thumb.
Jason Grote's 1001 was developed in The Denver Center's first Colorado New Play Summit in 2006 and received its world premiere here the following year. That production received an Ovation Award from The Denver Post, was named best new non-local play by Westword, and was listed in the year-end top ten lists of The Boulder Daily Camera and The Rocky Mountain News. It has since been published by Samuel French and gone on to ten more productions throughout the United States, one of which (Page 73) was listed in Time Out New York's Top Ten of 2007, and another of which (Theater @ Boston Court) was nominated for Best Performance of 2008 by L.A. Weekly. The Washington, DC premiere (Rorschach Theater) was the subject of a feature by Voice of America, broadcast in Farsi into Iran. He is currently developing a musical version of the play with composer Marisa Michelson as part of Montclair State University's 2010 New Works Initiative. His other plays include Maria/Stuart, Hamilton Township, Darwin's Challenge, Box Americana, and This Storm Is What We Call Progress. Other recent projects include HABIT, an installation piece with conceptual artist David Levine, (The Water Mill Center, The Luminato Festival, Mass MoCA); the screenplay to What We Got: DJ Spooky's Quest For The Commons; a radio play program, The Acousmatic Theater Hour on WFMU; and commissions from The Denver Center and ACT/Seattle. Civilization (All You Can Eat) was a commission from Clubbed Thumb, supported with a grant from The New York State Council on The Arts.
The 2010 Colorado New Play Summit also will include a panel of theatre professionals and ATCA critics discussing “New Works and the Critics.” Denver Center trustee and national theatre philanthropist Jim Steinberg of the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust will moderate the discussion. Panelists include Christine Dolen from The Miami Herald, Jeffrey Eric Jenkins editor of Best Plays and Christopher Rawson from the Pittsburgh Post - Gazette.
With additional funding from the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, Associate Artistic Director and Director of New Play Development Bruce K. Sevy and Dramaturg and Literary Manager Douglas Langworthy are insuring the future of the Colorado New Play Summit by developing one of America’s most ambitious new play commissioning programs, building a collection of new works, now numbering more than 20, to be featured at Summits and eventually at the Denver Center and other national stages in full productions.
For more information and Summit registration visit www.denvercenter.org/summit
Members of the PRESS contact Chris Wiger at 303.446.4848 or cwiger@dcpa.org for information or Summit registration.
Special thanks to The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust for supporting new American plays at the Denver Center Theatre Company.
Producing Partners for the Colorado New Play Summit are Leo & Susan Kiely, Daniel L. Ritchie, The Women’s Voices Fund and The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.
Hotel sponsors of the Colorado New Play Summit are The Curtis, Courtyard by Marriott and Residence Inn by Marriott.
Restaurant sponsors for the Colorado New Play Summit are The Broker Restaurant, Baur’s Ristorante and Rialto Café.
Additional thanks to Great American Coffee Company and New Wave Enviro Products – Sheri and Lee Archer.
Producing Partners for Eventide are Jim Steinberg & Karolynn Lestrud and Terry & Noel Hefty.
Eventide is the recipient of a major Edgerton Foundation New American Plays Award.
Eventide was commissioned by the Denver Center Theatre Company.
Producing Partners for When Tang Met Laika are Robert & Judi Newman and Margot & Allan Frank.
When Tang Met Laika was commissioned by the Denver Center Theatre Company and Magic Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation New Science & Technology Plays Initiative.
Season sponsors are The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust,
Gay & Lesbian Fund for Colorado and SCFD – The Scientific and Cultural Facilities District.
Media sponsors are CBS 4 and The Denver Post Community.
You can also visit the official Summit site. Official press release follows:
Readings of new works by
Grote, Lowe, Svich and Weitzman announced for fifth annual Colorado New Play Summit
For digital releases and other PRESS MATERIALS www.denvercenter.org/pressmaterials
Watch 10 MINUTES TO CURTAIN http://www.denvercenter.org/10Minutes
DENVER – When he inaugurated The Denver Center Theatre Company’s Colorado New Play Summit in 2006, Artistic Director Kent Thompson called the event a “summit” because of the glorious Rocky Mountains and his goal to build the event into a peak experience… “a new play festival that is a must-see event for theatre professionals from across the United States.”
The young Summit continues to establish its place in the top tier of American new play festivals with the announcement of four readings of new American plays and the commissioned world premieres of When Tang Met Laika by Rogelio Martinez and Eventide by Eric Schmiedl, based on the novel by Kent Haruf. Adding to the festival’s national scope is the decision by the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) to hold its winter meeting at the Summit bringing critics from across the country to Colorado.
Artistic Director Kent Thompson, Director of New Play Development Bruce Sevy and Literary Manager Douglas Langworthy have selected the following new works to present to artistic directors, literary managers, dramaturgs, directors, press representatives and ATCA critics who will travel to Denver February 11, 12 and 13 for the 2010 Summit.
THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS
by Caridad Svich based on the novel by Isabel Allende
From the confines of her prison cell in an unnamed Latin American country, Alba thinks back over the past 50 years of her family’s history. Her grandfather made his fortune working in the mines, but her father became a field hand and revolutionary. While the tensions between the haves and the have-nots escalate, the Communist party takes power. Caridad Svich’s haunting and lyrical adaptation of Isabel Allende’s critically-acclaimed bestseller, The House of the Spirits, looks at four generations of political and social upheavals through the powerful lens of memory.
Caridad Svich is a US Latina playwright, translator, lyricist and editor whose works have been presented across the US and abroad at diverse venues including Repertorio Espanol, The Women's Project, INTAR, 59East59, Cincinnati Playhouse, McCarren Park Pool, 7 Stages, Salvage Vanguard Theatre, ARTheater-Cologne, and Edinburgh Fringe Festival/UK. The summer 2009 issue of American Theatre magazine featured a significant profile about her work, and she is the recipient of the 2009 Lee Reynolds Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women. Among her key plays are 12 Ophelias, Any Place But Here, Alchemy of Desire/Dead-Man's Blues, Fugitive Pieces, Iphigenia...a rave fable, Instructions for Breathing, and The Booth Variations. She has translated nearly all of Federico Garcia Lorca's plays as well as works by Lope de Vega, Calderon de la Barca, Julio Cortazar and new plays from Spain, Cuba and Mexico and has freely adapted works by Wedekind, Sophocles, Euripides and Shakespeare. She's a former Harvard/Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellow and has received grants from the NEA, TCG, Pew Charitable Trusts and California Arts Council. She has edited several books on theatre and performance including Trans-Global Readings: Crossing Theatrical Boundaries (Manchester University Press) and Divine Fire (BackStage Books). Her work is published by TCG, Smith & Kraus, Playscripts and more. She is alumna playwright of New Dramatists, founder of NoPassport theatre alliance & press, associate editor of Routledge's Contemporary Theatre Review and contributing editor of TheatreForum. She is member of PEN American Center, The Dramatists Guild and is featured in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latino History. She holds an MFA from UCSD. Website: www.caridadsvich.com
MAP OF HEAVEN
by Michele Lowe
Lena’s painting career is on the rise; her beautiful abstracted maps of places real and imaginary are poised to take downtown New York by storm. But her husband Ian, a radiologist, makes a fatal error that upends Lena's relationship with her agent and threatens to take down her first show. A contemporary drama with tragic undertones, Map of Heaven explores the devastating consequences of a single lapse in judgment.
Michele Lowe is the author of Inana, which premiered at the Denver Center Theatre Company and was a finalist for the 2009 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Her play Victoria Musica recently premiered at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. New York productions include The Smell of the Kill (Broadway debut) and String of Pearls (Outer Critics Circle nomination for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play). She is the librettist and lyricist for the musical A Thousand Words Come to Mind (Joe’s Pub), which she wrote with composer Scott Richards. She also is the author of Mezzulah, 1946 (City Theatre) and Backsliding in the Promised Land (Syracuse Stage). Lowe has been commissioned by the Denver Center Theatre Company, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Arden Theatre and Geva Theatre. Her plays have been produced by companies around the world including Primary Stages, Vineyard Theater, Intiman Theater, Florida Stage, Reykjavik City Theatre, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Asolo Rep, and Cleveland Play House. Her work has been developed at the Eugene O’Neill National Music Theatre Conference, Colorado New Play Summit, New Harmony Project, PlayLabs, New York Stage and Film, Hartford Stage’s BRAND: NEW Festival, the ACT & Hedgebrook Women Playwrights Festival and the Lark Play Development Center. Her work appears in New Playwrights/The Best Plays of 2005 (Smith & Knaus, 2006), The Best Women’s Stage Monologues 2005 (Smith & Knaus, 2006) and Monologues for Women by Women (Heinemann, 2004). Screenplays include The Emergence of Emily Stark and Quitting Texas. She recently completed her first novel, It Goes Without Saying. Lowe is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Playwrights’ Center and ASCAP.
THE CATCH
by Ken Weitzman
America’s national pastime meets America’s financial meltdown. A failed dot-commer plots to regain his fortune by catching a star slugger’s record-breaking home run ball – through a mix of willpower, determination and sheer optimism. Playwright Ken Weitzman’s baseball drama The Catch knocks the cover off our national obsession with sports, stardom, money – and positive thinking.
Ken's previous plays include The As If Body Loop (Humana Festival ’07), Arrangements (Atlantic Theatre Company, Pavement Group), Spin Moves (Summer Play Festival), Hominid (Theatre Emory), Fire in the Garden (Castillo Theatre), Stadium 360 (Out of Hand Theater), Memorabilia (Alliance Theatre). Ken’s plays also have been developed and presented at, among others, New York Stage and Film, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Playwrights Horizons, Arena Stage, the Geva Theatre, the Mark Taper Forum, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Dad’s Garage, Florida Stage, Page 73 Productions, Hartford Stage, and the New Harmony Project. His awards include The L. Arnold Weissberger Award for Arrangements, the McDonald Playwriting Award for The As If Body Loop (best new play in San Diego), The Mario Fratti/Fred Newman Political Playwriting Contest for Fire in the Garden, and the Elizabeth George Commission for an Outstanding Emerging Playwright (chosen and awarded by South Coast Repertory Theatre). He has been commissioned by Arena Stage, South Coast Repertory, the Alliance Theatre, Theatre Emory, and Actors Theatre of Louisville. Currently, Ken is the Playwright-in-Residence for Out of Hand Theater Company. Ken received his MFA from the University of California, San Diego, and has taught Playwriting at Emory University, University of California San Diego, and, currently, at Indiana University.
CIVILIZATION (ALL YOU CAN EAT)
by Jason Grote
The filming of a post-racial TV commercial kicks off Jason Grote’s fierce burlesque of America’s love/hate obsession with food. A giant pig on the rampage, mass choreography, Washington and Jefferson selling snacks to the inner city, the search for love and meaning – all are braided together to devastating effect through the inspired vision of the author of 1001 – DCTC’s acclaimed 2007 premiere. Commissioned by Clubbed Thumb.
Jason Grote's 1001 was developed in The Denver Center's first Colorado New Play Summit in 2006 and received its world premiere here the following year. That production received an Ovation Award from The Denver Post, was named best new non-local play by Westword, and was listed in the year-end top ten lists of The Boulder Daily Camera and The Rocky Mountain News. It has since been published by Samuel French and gone on to ten more productions throughout the United States, one of which (Page 73) was listed in Time Out New York's Top Ten of 2007, and another of which (Theater @ Boston Court) was nominated for Best Performance of 2008 by L.A. Weekly. The Washington, DC premiere (Rorschach Theater) was the subject of a feature by Voice of America, broadcast in Farsi into Iran. He is currently developing a musical version of the play with composer Marisa Michelson as part of Montclair State University's 2010 New Works Initiative. His other plays include Maria/Stuart, Hamilton Township, Darwin's Challenge, Box Americana, and This Storm Is What We Call Progress. Other recent projects include HABIT, an installation piece with conceptual artist David Levine, (The Water Mill Center, The Luminato Festival, Mass MoCA); the screenplay to What We Got: DJ Spooky's Quest For The Commons; a radio play program, The Acousmatic Theater Hour on WFMU; and commissions from The Denver Center and ACT/Seattle. Civilization (All You Can Eat) was a commission from Clubbed Thumb, supported with a grant from The New York State Council on The Arts.
The 2010 Colorado New Play Summit also will include a panel of theatre professionals and ATCA critics discussing “New Works and the Critics.” Denver Center trustee and national theatre philanthropist Jim Steinberg of the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust will moderate the discussion. Panelists include Christine Dolen from The Miami Herald, Jeffrey Eric Jenkins editor of Best Plays and Christopher Rawson from the Pittsburgh Post - Gazette.
With additional funding from the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, Associate Artistic Director and Director of New Play Development Bruce K. Sevy and Dramaturg and Literary Manager Douglas Langworthy are insuring the future of the Colorado New Play Summit by developing one of America’s most ambitious new play commissioning programs, building a collection of new works, now numbering more than 20, to be featured at Summits and eventually at the Denver Center and other national stages in full productions.
For more information and Summit registration visit www.denvercenter.org/summit
Members of the PRESS contact Chris Wiger at 303.446.4848 or cwiger@dcpa.org for information or Summit registration.
Special thanks to The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust for supporting new American plays at the Denver Center Theatre Company.
Producing Partners for the Colorado New Play Summit are Leo & Susan Kiely, Daniel L. Ritchie, The Women’s Voices Fund and The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.
Hotel sponsors of the Colorado New Play Summit are The Curtis, Courtyard by Marriott and Residence Inn by Marriott.
Restaurant sponsors for the Colorado New Play Summit are The Broker Restaurant, Baur’s Ristorante and Rialto Café.
Additional thanks to Great American Coffee Company and New Wave Enviro Products – Sheri and Lee Archer.
Producing Partners for Eventide are Jim Steinberg & Karolynn Lestrud and Terry & Noel Hefty.
Eventide is the recipient of a major Edgerton Foundation New American Plays Award.
Eventide was commissioned by the Denver Center Theatre Company.
Producing Partners for When Tang Met Laika are Robert & Judi Newman and Margot & Allan Frank.
When Tang Met Laika was commissioned by the Denver Center Theatre Company and Magic Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation New Science & Technology Plays Initiative.
Season sponsors are The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust,
Gay & Lesbian Fund for Colorado and SCFD – The Scientific and Cultural Facilities District.
Media sponsors are CBS 4 and The Denver Post Community.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
James Parker: "Let Us Now Praise... Jingles"
I hope this is a regular feature over at the Globe. Great stuff!
Monday, December 14, 2009
Guided By Voices
Nice Onion A/V Club piece on where to start with the insanely overwhelming but mostly awesome catalog of Robert Pollard/Boston Spaceships/Guided By Voices.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
DJ/Rupture: "Put The Thong On The Aussie And See How He Likes Hit"
Interesting post on "world music" and cultural appropriation on the WNYC blog.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Catching Up With Paul F. Tompkins
Nice interview with alt-comedy megastar and Twitter's greatest comedienne Paul F. Tompkins.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Barthes on Blind and Dumb Criticism
"Why do critics... periodically proclaim their helplessness or their lack of understanding? It is certainly not out of modesty: no one is more at ease than one critic confessing that he understands nothing about existentialism; no one more ironic and therefore more self-assured than another admitting shamefacedly that he does not have the luck to have been initiated into the philosophy of the Extraordinary; and no one more soldier-like than a third pleading for poetic ineffability...
"The reality behind this seasonally professed lack of culture is the old obscurantist myth according to which ideas are noxious if they are not controlled by 'common sense' and 'feeling:' Knowledge is Evil, they both grew on the same tree. Culture is allowed on condition that it periodically proclaims the vanity of its ends and the limits of its power..."
-From Mythologies
"The reality behind this seasonally professed lack of culture is the old obscurantist myth according to which ideas are noxious if they are not controlled by 'common sense' and 'feeling:' Knowledge is Evil, they both grew on the same tree. Culture is allowed on condition that it periodically proclaims the vanity of its ends and the limits of its power..."
-From Mythologies
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Barthes on Bourgeois Theatre
"Bourgeois theatre is a good example of this contradiction: on the one hand, theatre is presented as an essence which cannot be reduced to any language and reveals itself only to the heart, to intuition. From this quality, it receives an irritable dignity (it is forbidden as a crime of 'lese-essence' to speak about the theatre scientifically: or rather, any intellectual way of viewing the theatre is discredited as scientism or pedantic language). On the other hand, bourgeois dramatic art rests on a pure quantification of effects: a whole circuit of computable appearances establishes a quantitative equality between the cost of a ticket and the tears of an actor or the luxuriousness of a set: what is currently meant by the 'naturalness' of an actor, for instance, is above all a conspicuous quantity of effects."
From Mythologies
From Mythologies
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Happy Freakin' Holidays Playlist
Three CD's worth of holiday music from WFMU's Beware of the Blog:
CD1:
01 Roger Roger - Jolly Bells
02 Gordon Thomas - Merry Christmas
03 The Sounds Extraordinare - Take A Ride On Santa's Rocket
04 Northern Telecom - I Want An OC192 For Christmas/The 12 Days Of Christmas
05 Chinese Kids Choir - Hark The Herald Angels Sing
06 Oscar The Grouch - I Hate Christmas
07 Danger Woman - Sleigh Ride
08 Karen Gathercole - Come and Join the Celebration
09 Alain Marcoux - Noël j'ai mal au coeur
10 Red Coffee (Quacky The Singing Duck) - Ducky Christmas
11 Major Bill Smith and Nancy Nolte - Happy Birthday Jesus
12 Inpatient Music Therapy Program, Univ of Michigan Medical Center, Children's Psychiatric Hospital - Jingle Bell Rock
13 Les Poppys - September Noir December Blanc
14 The Greenbergs - Sleepy
15 Bathing Beauty - Christmas Tears
16 Ethel Smith - Jingle Bells
17 Otis Skillings - Love Can Work A Miracle
18 Raymond Scott Quintette - Christmas Night In Harlem
19 Eddie Davis - A Recorded Christmas Message for Reverend W. Simmons
20 Les Intimes - C'est Noel
21 Inpatient Music Therapy Program, University of Michigan Medical Center, Children's Psychiatric Hospital - Oh Come, All Ye Faithful
22 2 Live Jews - Sabbath Night
23 Mae West - Santa Come Up and See Me Some Time
CD2:
01 A Visit From Santa Claus!
02 Milton Delugg & The Little Eskimos - Hooray For Santa Claus
03 Sam Ulano - The Story Of Santa Claus
04 Corporal Blossom - White Christmas
05 The Ventures - Snowflakes
06 Fred Lowery - Letter To Virginia
07 Arthur Lyman - Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
08 National Lampoon - Kung-Fu Christmas
09 Bobby 'Boris' Pickett - Monsters' Holiday
10 Mae West - From Mae To You
11 Katie's Kitchen - Holiday Ring Mold
12 The Kaisers - Merry Christmas, Loopy Lu
13 Annette & Frankie - The Night Before Christmas
14 Martin Mull - Santafly
15 The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping
16 Stan Freberg - Green Christmas
17 The Caroleer Singers - Christmas Cookies and Holiday Hearts
18 Toni Stante - Donde Esta Santa Claus
19 Margo Guryan - I Don't Intend To Spend Christmas Without You
20 Kimi & Ritz - Merry Christmas Baby
21 The Misletoe Disco Band - Sleigh Ride
22 Wayne Newton - Jingle Bell Hustle
23 Sy Mann - Jingle Bells
24 The Border Brass - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
25 Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol - All Alone In The World
26 Ferrante and Teicher - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
27 Buchanan & Goodman - Santa and the Satellite (Part 1)
CD3:
01 The Free Design - Now Sound Christmas Introduction
02 Swingerhead - I'll Be Home For Christmas
03 The Blue Hawaiians - Have Yourself A Quiet Little Christmas
04 The Brave Combo - O Holy Night Cha Cha Cha
05 Billy May - Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Mambo
06 Tammy Faye Bakker (Susie & Allie) - Jingle Bells
07 Kirsten & Heather Mayne - Silver Bells
08 Little Marcy - Suzy Snowflake
09 Wild Man Fischer - I'm A Christmas Tree
10 Esquivel - Frosty The Snowman
11 Mel Torme - Good King Wenceslas
12 Johnny Cash - The Little Drummer Boy
13 Franklyn MacCormack - I Like Christmas
14 Jimmy Mitchell - Eres Tu
15 Star Wars Christmas - R2-D2 We Wish You a Merry Christmas
16 Spike Jones - Christmas Island
17 Robert C. Pritikin - I Sawed Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
18 Buchanan & Goodman - Santa and the Satellite (Part 2)
19 Run-DMC - Christmas In Hollis
20 The Ramones - Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight)
21 Neil Innes - Dear Father Christmas
22 Ricky Segall - All I Want To Ask Santa Claus
23 The Ladmo Trio & The LaChords - Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer
24 The Surfaris - A Surfer's Christmas List
25 Jan & Dean - Frosty The Snowman
26 The Grasshoppers - Santa Claus, Rudolph and Us
27 Red Sovine - Here It Is, Christmas
28 The Carpenters - Merry Christmas, Darling (Live 1978)
29 Herman Apple - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
30 A Visit From Santa Claus!
Get it all for free right here.
CD1:
01 Roger Roger - Jolly Bells
02 Gordon Thomas - Merry Christmas
03 The Sounds Extraordinare - Take A Ride On Santa's Rocket
04 Northern Telecom - I Want An OC192 For Christmas/The 12 Days Of Christmas
05 Chinese Kids Choir - Hark The Herald Angels Sing
06 Oscar The Grouch - I Hate Christmas
07 Danger Woman - Sleigh Ride
08 Karen Gathercole - Come and Join the Celebration
09 Alain Marcoux - Noël j'ai mal au coeur
10 Red Coffee (Quacky The Singing Duck) - Ducky Christmas
11 Major Bill Smith and Nancy Nolte - Happy Birthday Jesus
12 Inpatient Music Therapy Program, Univ of Michigan Medical Center, Children's Psychiatric Hospital - Jingle Bell Rock
13 Les Poppys - September Noir December Blanc
14 The Greenbergs - Sleepy
15 Bathing Beauty - Christmas Tears
16 Ethel Smith - Jingle Bells
17 Otis Skillings - Love Can Work A Miracle
18 Raymond Scott Quintette - Christmas Night In Harlem
19 Eddie Davis - A Recorded Christmas Message for Reverend W. Simmons
20 Les Intimes - C'est Noel
21 Inpatient Music Therapy Program, University of Michigan Medical Center, Children's Psychiatric Hospital - Oh Come, All Ye Faithful
22 2 Live Jews - Sabbath Night
23 Mae West - Santa Come Up and See Me Some Time
CD2:
01 A Visit From Santa Claus!
02 Milton Delugg & The Little Eskimos - Hooray For Santa Claus
03 Sam Ulano - The Story Of Santa Claus
04 Corporal Blossom - White Christmas
05 The Ventures - Snowflakes
06 Fred Lowery - Letter To Virginia
07 Arthur Lyman - Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
08 National Lampoon - Kung-Fu Christmas
09 Bobby 'Boris' Pickett - Monsters' Holiday
10 Mae West - From Mae To You
11 Katie's Kitchen - Holiday Ring Mold
12 The Kaisers - Merry Christmas, Loopy Lu
13 Annette & Frankie - The Night Before Christmas
14 Martin Mull - Santafly
15 The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping
16 Stan Freberg - Green Christmas
17 The Caroleer Singers - Christmas Cookies and Holiday Hearts
18 Toni Stante - Donde Esta Santa Claus
19 Margo Guryan - I Don't Intend To Spend Christmas Without You
20 Kimi & Ritz - Merry Christmas Baby
21 The Misletoe Disco Band - Sleigh Ride
22 Wayne Newton - Jingle Bell Hustle
23 Sy Mann - Jingle Bells
24 The Border Brass - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
25 Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol - All Alone In The World
26 Ferrante and Teicher - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
27 Buchanan & Goodman - Santa and the Satellite (Part 1)
CD3:
01 The Free Design - Now Sound Christmas Introduction
02 Swingerhead - I'll Be Home For Christmas
03 The Blue Hawaiians - Have Yourself A Quiet Little Christmas
04 The Brave Combo - O Holy Night Cha Cha Cha
05 Billy May - Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Mambo
06 Tammy Faye Bakker (Susie & Allie) - Jingle Bells
07 Kirsten & Heather Mayne - Silver Bells
08 Little Marcy - Suzy Snowflake
09 Wild Man Fischer - I'm A Christmas Tree
10 Esquivel - Frosty The Snowman
11 Mel Torme - Good King Wenceslas
12 Johnny Cash - The Little Drummer Boy
13 Franklyn MacCormack - I Like Christmas
14 Jimmy Mitchell - Eres Tu
15 Star Wars Christmas - R2-D2 We Wish You a Merry Christmas
16 Spike Jones - Christmas Island
17 Robert C. Pritikin - I Sawed Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
18 Buchanan & Goodman - Santa and the Satellite (Part 2)
19 Run-DMC - Christmas In Hollis
20 The Ramones - Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight)
21 Neil Innes - Dear Father Christmas
22 Ricky Segall - All I Want To Ask Santa Claus
23 The Ladmo Trio & The LaChords - Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer
24 The Surfaris - A Surfer's Christmas List
25 Jan & Dean - Frosty The Snowman
26 The Grasshoppers - Santa Claus, Rudolph and Us
27 Red Sovine - Here It Is, Christmas
28 The Carpenters - Merry Christmas, Darling (Live 1978)
29 Herman Apple - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
30 A Visit From Santa Claus!
Get it all for free right here.
Monday, December 07, 2009
Hilobrow Holiday Shopping
Gift guide to stuff by Hilobrow.com contributors Douglas Rushkoff, Geoff Manaugh, Glenn Gould, Jason Grote, Jonathan Lethem, Luc Sante, Lydia Millet, Mark Kingwell, Mimi Lipson, and Peter Doyle. Full list here.
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