Happy Birthday Lou Reed!

Lou Reed’s Perfect Day

In the movie I am writing, this is the song that plays as the argument turns aggressive and the woman violently murders the man…

… I am not writing a movie.

The French Connection

On a recent road trip across the entire country, friend Greg Casaletto and I began discussing the French language and its use in modern American English. Meanwhile Kevina was asleep in the back and Tennessee became the longest state EVER.

I enlisted the help of writer friend, Alma Khasawnih, speaker of French (among like a million other languages) and appreciator of word usage. And together we came up with this list in no particular order:

• Soirée
• Savoir faire
• Decor
• Chic
• Cliché
• Reservoir
• Repertoire
• Negligee
• Rendezvous
• Petite
• Expose’
• Voyeur
• Saute’
• Rapport
• Couture
• Coup d’etat
• Passé (contributed today via Greg via NPR’s French Correspondent Eleanor Beardsley)

When Alma mentioned ‘cliché’ and I said, “Oooooooo that is the best one!” Greg and I learned of our differing opinions of what makes a word better than another in this game. My basis for thinking that some of these words were more useful than the others was if they served such a purpose that there was not really an American English equivalent to the word. Example: I suppose you could replace the word ‘cliché’ with ‘overused’ but the two are not exactly synonymous. One would need more than just the word overused to define ‘cliché’.

Greg’s decision about whether or not these were good examples of what we were hoping to accomplish by this was the amount that these words are used in modern American English. How often they show up and how commonly they are utilized. Or as Greg says, “If it is actually used by modern people basically.”

The moral of the story is: Driving across the country takes a really long time. So take smart people with you so that you can brush up on your French American English.

Corcoran receives $25M Monet from reclusive heiress…

Huguette M. Clark, the reclusive heiress who died last month in New York, has left a painting from Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies” series to the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

Last line of this article: “Huguette Clark, whose estate was valued at nearly $400million, had no known survivors.” As someone who is descended from a family of Clarks I would LOVE to help them locate a blood heir to that fortune. Congrats to the Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art + Design for the Water Lilies.

Article here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/reclusive-late-heiress-bequeathes-25m-monet-painting-to-corcoran/2011/06/22/AGhoqdgH_story.html

What Happened at Intiman

Thank you to The Stranger for working in the word ‘clusterfuck’ to a super intelligent article about Seattle theater. And a big ‘OH SNAP’ to The Empty Space’s Allison Narver for posting her letter sent privately to Brendan Kiley!

Coolest article about Intiman yet!

Kickstarter is the new bakesale – Stephen Jeong

Kickstarter is a new way to Fund & Follow Creativity.
Basically you have a cool idea, you make a video, you set up different levels of contribution, and then you raise money to fund your project.
As a contributor, you look through different projects, decide which one you like, figure out what you want to get in return, fund the project, then get cool shit in the mail.
It IS the new bake sale!
Two current Kickstarter projects that are especially close to my heart are Barnstorm: The Cabaret Re – Imagined and Sprout. On our last leg of this roller coaster MFA program, some members of my beautiful, intelligent, amazing cohort have made these projects their capstones in some form.

Barnstorm is the brainchild of Lara Kaminsky and Josh Windsor. It is a weekend of arts and entertainment displayed in a way like you have never seen. All taking place in a soon to be renovated abandoned warehouse. Cool right? Barnstorm currently has 32 Backers, and has raised $1,570 of their $4,000 goal. They have 17 days left to meet that goal. Check out their Kickstarter video here…

Sprout is Kristen Hoskins and Sarah Steininger’s baby. Sprout is a quarterly dinner of locally grown ingredients and artist presentations. When you go to Sprout, you eat like royalty, hear artist proposals, and then vote on which project you would like to see funded. The money from the night is given to the artist with the most amount of votes. That artist then kicks off the following Sprout by presenting on what great things they did with their Sprout funding. Sprout’s Kickstarter campaign is seeking to raise money to be able to fund larger projects and more artists. They currently have 52 Backers, and $1897 of their $2500 goal. Sprout has 9 days left to go. See their video here…

Shipping Up to Boston

Went to Boston for St. Pats Day.
Saw The Dropkick Murphys at The House of Blues.
Dreams do come true and I am kind of sold on Boston.

Dead Man’s Sister – Tea Cozies

Sometimes when you live and work in Seattle you get to be around people that are in an effing cool band. Today as I write my final Shakespeare in Film paper Brady, Jessi, and the other Tea Cozies will be heading off to a week of playing awesome music at South by Southwest.

Check out the super sweet video for Dead Man’s Sister. As the Tea Cozies would say, “It will melt your face off.”

Lykke Li : “I Follow Rivers”

I Follow Rivers
Lykke Li

She is coming to the Showbox at the Market on the 26th.
Can we go please?

This could so be a Shirin Neshat short film. No?

Babs The Dodo

Thanks to the generosity of fellow MFA capos Jenny Haight and Josh Windsor I had the great fortune of spending a lovely night at the always amazing Washington Ensemble Theatre. WET’s world premiere, Babs the Dodo has it all; home shopping network personalities, a closeted ornithologist and a woman who discovers feathers under her skin after peeling it off of her arm with a potato peeler.

Babs the Dodo is running at WET until March 14, 2011. It will make you laugh out loud right before it gets really effing weird. Just like a good play should.

THEESatisfaction and Shabazz Palaces @ Nuemos

Self proclaimed (and rightfully so) “bad bitches” THEESatisfaction are one of the coolest musical acts happening in Seattle. Last week Randi, Alma and I had the awesome fortune of seeing them and Stranger Genius Award winners, Shabazz Palaces at Nuemos. I have pretty amazing sentiments towards this show and attribute only a small portion of the feelings towards the CONTACT HIGH that I received from merely breathing the air inside Nuemos.

I like Shabazz Palaces but I LOVE THEESatisfaction.These girls are amazing. And they have the coolest website: Black Weirdo

Also see them on MTV’s $5 Cover: Seattle with my pals The Tea Cozies.