Supernatural 7.02 and 7.03: Everything Was So Awesome and Then Everything Sucked

Alrighty-roo, so obviously I'm waaaaay behind on Supernatural recaps. I'm going to do a compressed recap of 7.02 and 7.03, which is basically going to be a recap of just 7.02 because I REFUSE to do a full recap of the third episode. 

My reactions to the two episodes can be summed up by: 

More self-promotional tooling around....

My review of Charles Frazier's new book, Nightwoods, up at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.


Over on The Review Review I reviewed the literary journal Hayden's Ferry Review (Arizona pride, what what! Even though they are based out of....Phoenix. Sorry, superiority of Tucson to Phoenix in all things, blah blah blah Arizona in-joke etc. etc. etc. shut up you're stupid). And Hayden's Ferry Review was pleased!


Also, today I made banana bread muffins. 

I know, my darlings, sometimes I find myself very impressive as well. 

Gonzo Non-Journalism

As I stated below, last weekend I flew to Minneapolis/St. Paul (mostly St. Paul, lowertown St. Paul to be precise) where the lovely Gonzo Group Theater kicked off their workshop series by doing a staged reading of my play about fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen. The play is called The Most Incredible Thing (it's the title of one of his fairy tales, okay? I'm not that conceited. Although the play is rather incredible...as, come to think of it, am I...huh. Interesting.) 

One of the participants in the workshop, Tyler Olsen, blogged about it here. As he writes, the experience went like this: I met with the actors that Jen Harrington and Luke Weber, my friends -- er, professional acquaintances -- who run Gonzo, had selected and cast. The actors were all pretty amazing -- some were newer to the scene and some were kinda crazy qualified and experienced (in a "oh, I run my own theater group" kinda of a way) but they all did an excellent job and had been cast very well for their roles. The actors and Gonzo folk gave me lots of feedback, which is like manna to my raging ego, and I went home and made revisions. Tyler gives me a lot of credit in the blog entry above for being open to suggestions, but I'm basically just happy when people are paying attention to me and the initial draft was criminally long -- cutting it was easy as cutting a really easy pie. 

We did another reading/suggestion session and I made some MORE changes, and then angelic Jen Harrington printed out the changed pages and brought them to the space and then the angelic actors did not punch me in the face when I gave them new pages twenty minutes before the reading and was like "Okay, so pages 1-9 and are now new. Begin on old page 10 and continue halfway till old page number 34, which will then repeat to new pages 34-36 and being again halfway through old page 38..." They went with it and barely missed a beat in performance. 

The evening reading was the in Gonzo's new space, The Baroque Room, which is a beautiful room full of harpsichords (hence the name, I s'pose). I got to see some old friends at the reading, including this Food Junta lady, Claire, which was lovely. Then there was a reading the next morning at Golden's Deli (downstairs from the Baroque room), where I took some pictures! 

It's a very particular kind of thrilling to hear your work read out loud by well-suited actors. Especially so when you get to hear the changes you've made take effect so soon (in my fiction writing and most of the process of writing the play, I've been left to the echo chamber of my own mind, which is not nearly as fun).

That's so...Theatrical

Got various news in theater end of things. I'm very lucky to have become one of the theater reviewers for the Tucson Weekly. 

And...this weekend The Gonzo Group Theater is doing a reading of my play, "The Most Incredible Thing" about fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen.

There's a reading Saturday, October 15th at 7:30 pm at the Baroque Room in lowertown St. Paul. And a reading Sunday, October 16th at 11:00 am at Golden's Deli (also in lowertown St. Paul). 

For your entertainment, here's Danny Kaye as Hans Christian Andersen: 

Birthday things!

So this is most definitely an edition of "really old pictures of food" since my birthday was back in early September. How old did I turn? Well, the lady at the grocery story today said, "You an old lady! I thought you were so much younger!" when looking at my I.D. So I hope that answers your question. [Side note: I think people just forget that late twenties looks a lot like mid twenties? Your face doesn't collapse right before your thirtieth birthday. I dunno -- I've just been getting a lot of that "YOU LOOK SO YOUNG" recently and while I'd like to think it's my excellent skin care regime, I don't think so...I've always looked pretty much the age I am. I think people just expect my age to look different, or something? Or maybe I just lack gravitas? I'm also a teacher -- a pseudo-college-professor of sorts -- and I don't think that helps. People expect college professors to look old, I guess? I was clearing out my classroom the other day while another class entered and a student said, 'Are you the teacher?...I mean, did you just get out of undergrad or something? I'm sorry, you just look so young' and then when I told him my actual age HE LOOKED EMBARRASSED. However, the ultimate cluster of age awkwardness occurred when my orthodontist's assistant figured out I taught at the same college her daughter attended -- the struggle to reconcile the fact that the surly often-late-for-appointments girl who didn't wear her retainer was responsible for teaching her offspring played out in beautiful conflict across her face. Yes, adults get orthodontia, too. Suck it.]

Anywhoodle, what was I talking about? Oh, yes, how mature I am. I decided to have a birthday party and invite a motley, multi-generational crew, most of whom showed up, which was was awesome. I decided that the theme for my birthday would be "Laura's Blue and White Wonder bread Birthday." I was asked what a "blue and white" party was, and I replied that those are my favorite colors. Nothing more complicated than that. I also decided to make recipes from this book. Why? Because it exists, that's why.