The Reviews Are In!

Well, Berit and I are married.

Maybe only 3/4ths married in spirit, until the last of the four performances of The Wedding of Berit Johnson & Ian W. Hill: A Theatre Study by Ian W. Hill & Berit Johnson at The Brick, tomorrow at 4.30 pm (or thereabouts -- the show before us in The Too Soon Festival is running long, and we'll probably start late), but it appears that we actually signed the real piece of paper this past Sunday, in the presence of about 90 friends and family members (there had been some discussion of just randomly choosing any of the 4 performances to actually sign the legal document, and not "prefer" one show over the others, but Trav S.D., our officiant, seemed pretty set on doing the real thing in front of everyone on the 20th, so I assume we did).

So Berit looked at me, mid-day Monday, with some wonder and disbelief and giggled, "I have a HUSBAND." Yes, and I have a wife.

This is excellent. My favorite comment as yet from someone not at any of the performances, but just seeing things about it on Facebook, was from playwright Matthew Freeman: "Your life is weird in ways that are good and right."

Yes. And, while generally true, Matt was specifically referring to the wonderful review by Avi Glickstein that appeared at nytheatre.com.

Always nice to get a good review. Better still to get a good review that actually gets what you were trying to do. Even better is when that review is of your Wedding. Sweet.

We don't have any of the official photos yet from the wonderful hired photographer, Eric, but there are some candids up from friends on Facebook. I don't know if any of these are visible to the general public (they may be locked to just Friends or Friends of Friends, I can't tell), but here are links to sets by Eric C. Bailey, Stacia French, and Josephine Cashman (who is responsible for the picture above), in case you can see them and would like to.

Today, we have another rest day, with some work on the August shows, before finishing the Wedding tomorrow. We are slowly returning back to normal after this amazing week just past. The entire experience has been a mindblower -- and the reception on Sunday at Aurora was an evening we'll never forget. When I get the official shots in, I'll write about it more; I'm still trying to process the whole thing.

But for those friends and family who were there and are reading this, THANK YOU SO VERY VERY MUCH for making Sunday, June 20 such a fantastic and surprisingly moving day for us (and to all the other friends who have come to the other performances and made each one of them their own special experience, THANK YOU as well).

And meanwhile, back in the iPod, here are a Random Ten track from the 2,949 tracks in the playlist of "unheard tracks by artists I like," with associated videos:

1. "Stop & Get A Hold Of Myself" - Gladys Knight & The Pips - Soul Diva Sessions
2. "You" - R.E.M. - Monster
3. "Flame Tree" - Yma Sumac - Miracles
4. "My Mind" - Chubby Checker - Nightmares At Toby's Shop 2
5. "Another Night" - Dionne Warwick - The Windows of the World
6. "Rev. Jack & His Roamin' Cadillac Church" - Timbuk 3 - Eden Alley
7. "If and When" - The dB's/Chris Stamey - Children of Nuggets: Original ARTyfacts from the Second Psychedelic Era - 1976-1996
8. "Heaven" - The Rolling Stones - Tattoo You
9. "Dance" - Suicide - Suicide (Second Album)
10. "Human Fly" - The Cramps - No Thanks! The '70s Punk Rebellion

And here's the video playlist of the songs (or related ones) above, plus an extra bonus track . . .

And since I have no other regular photos, I'll throw up a bunch of videos I've recently seen and enjoyed.

Here's the new DEVO single, "Fresh," with a classically DEVO video of cheap chroma-key and clip-art made disturbing:

John Cale performing "Paris 1919" on The Tonight Show with Sterling Morrison and strings (thanks Adam Swiderski for linking to this!):

And, finally, a whole bunch of kittens react to the tarp their cage is built on . . .

Back to bits of work and bits of rest and regrouping. I'm not sure I want to leave this amazing week behind . . .