301 graduation show!

It feels like I just had my 201 show, but it’s already time to advertise this one! It’s Saturday, 11/7, at 4:00pm at the UCB theater (5919 Franklin Ave.) if anyone would like to come down for a laugh. I’m particularly excited about this one since it’s the first graduation show where we’ll be performing a full Harold. It’s only $5 for the show and will definitely be a lot of fun, so stop by if you’re free in LA!

Any suggestions for how best to clean the surface of a Wii balance board?

There is one good thing about the Indian summers in LA: the night-blooming jasmine that covers the front of my building gets confused and opens again. My bedroom has a balcony that opens to the front of the building, so my room smells fantastic.

If it is raining, then I am happy.

And it’s raining today!

I have to admit, when the weather is cool enough that I can leave my windows open and wear a sweatshirt, California doesn’t seem so bad.

Book 3: The Great Perhaps

fiftytwobooks:

Author: Joe Meno
Dates read: September 24, 2009 - September 29, 2009 (6 days)
Pages: 414

Still on track, now with book three under my belt. The Great Perhaps was next on my docket for a very simple reason: the author happens to also be one of my favorite teachers from college. This is his latest novel, so naturally it was high on my list of things to read.

This book follows a Chicago family in which each member is dealing with a crisis of uncertainty in the days leading up to the 2004 presidential election. The father, Jonathan, is a paleontologist narrowly focused on finding a live specimen of a prehistoric giant squid. The mother, Madeline, is an animal behaviorist with a failing experiment and a growing fascination with an oddly shaped cloud and its movements. The oldest daughter, Amelia, is a cynical teenage revolutionary wannabe trying to derail capitalism. The younger daughter, Thisbe, is searching for God and frustrated with her results or lack thereof. The grandfather, Henry, is waiting to simply disappear from a life that has given him as many regrets as it has memories.

I have to admit that knowing the author does make me like this book even more than I otherwise would. Reading this felt a bit like being home for me. It took me back to living in Chicago during the autumn of 2004, and my memories and experiences of that place and time certainly made the book more vivid for me. But even more than having been in the place and time he’s describing, the strength of Joe’s voice is what really makes reading his work feel personal. When I read something of his, it’s nearly the same as talking with him: I hear the words on the page in his voice and see his expressions change as he tells the story. And anyone that knows Joe can attest to the fact that conversing with him or listening to him do a reading is unlike listening to anyone else.

But I can also definitely say I would’ve still really liked this book even if I didn’t happen to know Joe. Uncertainty and self-doubt are obviously feelings every person has dealt with, but Joe manages to explore them through every character in the book without the ways in which he does so overlapping from character to character. They each have their own anxieties, regrets, and attempts at redemption while still easily fitting together in one familial tapestry. Joe also employs a handful of ancestral time jumps that create the sense that this family has been doomed to cowardice and self-doubt forever, yet each one of them ultimately is individually responsible for their successes or failures. And while Joe may have begun writing the book to explore, in his words, “how the country could’ve made such a terrible mistake in re-electing Bush”, the political aspect of the novel doesn’t overshadow the characters because he treats the setting of October 2004 as the perfect backdrop for his story rather than treating the characters as the perfect way to anthropomorphize the setting. In the end, he manages to find a truth about humanity in general rather than simply answering his own question. Add to all this the dashes of magical realism in Madeline’s pursuit of a man-shaped cloud as it walks about the city and you’ve got a wonderfully unique novel that I highly recommend to anyone, even if you don’t happen to know Joe Meno.

I enjoyed The Great Perhaps so much that I wanted to reblog this entry from my book resolution tumblr into my “main” tumblr too. I really encourage everyone to read this book, it’s fantastic!

Reblogged from Fifty-Two Books

Last night I saw Sentimental Lady’s last performance at Harold Night at UCB, which was fantastic. There was a funny little tribute video before they performed, and they were great, as always.

I’ve really only been going to the theater regularly for about 5 months now, as long as I’ve been taking improv classes there, but in that short time I’ve really come to feel at home at UCB. There are a few teams there that I see on a regular basis now, but Sentimental Lady was the first one that got me in the theater every week to see their show. Watching them do Harolds was entertaining and impressive, and it made me think about improv and comedy in ways I hadn’t before. I’m really glad not only that I got to see their last performance at Harold night, but also that I got to see so many of their shows leading up to last night. They’re an amazing team, and I’m really looking forward to the new show they’re doing beginning in October.