CollisionWorks

In any case, Berit and I will be going to go see the last show of The Granduncle Quadrilogy: Tales from the Land of Ice at The Brick tomorrow night. Berit hasn't seen it, and should.

It is, as I said, quite funny, but some of the reviewers seemed a bit put off by the tonal changes - it gets quite dark, too, and if you think about it, the whole damned thing is pretty depressing. Standard Brick fare - an easy-going, funny surface covering a dark, nasty subtext. It's what we do there.

Two of the better reviews started out with surprisingly similar ledes: John Del Signore at Gothamist starts out with "If Joseph Campbell ever got really baked and told his grandchildren a meandering bedtime story, it might have. . .", and Pamela Newton at Time Out New York opens with "Had Dr. Seuss smoked opium, he might have . . .".

It's understandable, given the style of Granduncle, that what comes to mind is some combination of mythology, children's tale, and a druggy haze, but still, I feel like I'm seeing this structure a bit too often these days as a review lede . . . "If [blank] did [blank] you might get something like . . ."

B & I started thinking of possibilities in this mode last night, and had trouble stopping -- we weren't really even thinking of Granduncle anymore -- and came up with a few possibilities . . .

"If Lewis Carroll drank absinthe, he might have . . ."

"If Friedrich Nietzsche were all hopped up on goofballs, it could have produced. . ."

"If Mother Goose mainlined smack, you could possibly get . . ."

"If Maurice Sendak ate some very bad oysters, his delirium might have produced . . ."

"If Carl Jung shot LSD into his eyeballs, the result might be . . ."

"If the Brothers Grimm were a pair of freebasing leather boys, they might have created . . ."

"If Claude Levi-Strauss were lost in a K-hole, he might imagine something like . . ."

"If Hermann Hesse got seriously behind crank, you might see . . ."

"If Bruno Bettelheim had, like, this really bad fever this one time, we might have seen . . ."

"If C.S. Lewis were a Carbona-huffer, we'd have been graced with . . ."

Okay, now I can see why this lede gets used so much -- the possibilities are nearly endless and a lot of fun.

And here's today's Random Ten tracks from the 26,109 on the iPod:

1. "Three Songs For Paper, Film And Video" - Laurie Anderson - United States Live Part 1
2. "Mine All Mine" - Verna Williams & The Sharp Cats - A Million Dollars Worth of Girl Groups Volume 2
3. "Staring At The Sun" - U2 - Pop
4. "Underpants" - Easter Monkeys - Splendor of Sorrow
5. "Koochie-Koo" - Baccara - The Original Hits
6. "Don't Be Sore At Me" - The Parliaments - Testify! The Best of the Early Years
7. "Listen To The Melody / Dixie Tag " - Quincy Jones - The Hot Rock
8. "One More Rainy Day" - Deep Purple - Those Classic Golden Years 14
9. "I'll Come Running Over" - The New Breed - Wants You!
10. "Oh My God" - Lily Allen with Mark Ronson - Mix Disk - Dad

So, while at home hibernating, I've been looking through mounds of Warner Bros. cartoons to submit a list (another list!) at Jerry Beck's Cartoon Brew blog. Beck is one of the best animation historians out there, and he's in the process of writing a book on "The 100 Greatest Warner Bros. Cartoons." He has, bravely, opened the comments on his blog for people to submit their lists (up to 50) of what they consider the greatest, and has already been swamped by submissions.

Some obvious ones are consistently appearing, of course (and for good reason) but other people are being deliberately perverse (or self-consciously "cool") by submitting cartoons that are more obscure than good - or by submitting some of the racist ones that are more notorious than good -- for example, including Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips, which is both racist and a deeply mediocre cartoon, as opposed to Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarves, which is both racist and a brilliant cartoon (a difficult idea that should be dealt with, and as Beck has written on this one before, I'm sure he will in the new book too; it's in my top ten WB cartoons). Seems silly to suggest cartoons that are so definitely NOT going to be in a book of this kind, if you're actually interested in helping Jerry Beck out (of course, some commenters aren't at all interested in helping him, but with one-upping him -- nice . . .).

I was able to think of about 25 off the top of my head that I thought needed to be included in such a list, and have gone over some books, Wikipedia, and DVDs the past day to find another 25 or so. I've wound up with a list of about 100, so I'll winnow that down this afternoon. Maybe post it here as well as at Cartoon Brew.

Okay, I've been working on this in the background for hours while watching cartoons and reading blogs, and now I hear sirens outside and hear something more like ice coming down - and can see the ice on the patio out the window. B & I are hunkering down tonight, no parties, no shows. Hope it clears up by tomorrow night. Have a nice night. Stay warm.

The set is all white/blue/icy - the floor painted, with curtain "mountain" backing on three sides - and looks great under the fluorescent work lights. Under stage lights, of course, everything bounces everywhere, the color temperature never seems quite right (identical instruments with identical bulbs, diffusion, and everything, can now be seen to be putting out two different shades of very light yellow), and there's a fine line between "enough light to make everything seen properly that should be seen" and "flat and looking like ass."

Most of the show is meant to look cold and harsh, though the show itself is an hysterical comedy - I asked Hope, the director, if she wanted "comedy" lighting (without telling her I hate that - everything bright and cheery-looking because "it's only funny that way") or "deadpan comedy" lighting (or as I also called it, referring to the lead actor in the show, who is brilliantly funny in his flat, affectless tone, "Richard Harrington" lighting). She (and the playwright, Jeff) assured me they wanted the deadpan, cold lighting, as if this was a SERIOUS, HEAVY work, which does work great when I can get the levels just right. I had to shuttle things carefully up and down a point at a time more than usual. After the first tech Monday, Hope asked me to go back and fix a more colored section a bit more to her liking (she was right - I had honestly thought I couldn't get it to look better than I had and I was wrong), and I took care of that last night. Tonight I have to go back to make some tiny little fixes and this'll be done. If I can fix these last little spots that were still bugging me last night (and two that Hope just emailed me about), I'll be happy with my work here.

It's a VERY funny show. Preview tomorrow night, opens Friday. Again, fun-NEE. Great cast, almost all of whom I've worked with many times, just knocking some big laffs out.

Saturday, I'm in a free reading of a play by Trav S.D. Here's the info:

Beach Blanket Bluebeard

When Johnny Guitar shows up to play his way-out music at the local surf-beach, all the kids go wild – and some of them wind up DEAD.

featuring
Gyda Arber, Eric Bland, Bob Brader, Maggie Cino, Cory Einbinder, Rainbow Geffner, Ian W. Hill, Kalle Macrides, Pete Macnamara, Josh Mertz, Dina Rivera, Mike Rutkowski, and Trav S.D.

ADMISSION: Free!

Saturday, December 6, 2008, 7.00 pm

Voorhees Theatre
City Tech
186 Jay Street (near the base of the Manhattan Bridge)

Subway:
C, F, A to Jay Street & Borough Hall
2, 3, 4, 5 to Borough Hall
M, N, R to Lawrence Street/Metro Tech or Court Street

Again, great cast, fun script, sure to be a laff riot.

And now, back to The Brick to finish out my work on the show . . .