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Tumblrrrrring

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I'm considering switching to another blogging platform, since blogspot is a little cumbersome, especially from my phone.

Tumblr? It seems kinda like Twitter, except for blogs and minus one vowel. 

Darabont fires his entire writing staff

via Deadline, via Milch, The Walking Dead is going into its 2nd season sans its current writing staff, and possible sans writing staff at all. That's super unusual.

But, okay, if they're doing an overhaul, here's my Top Five Ways to Improve The Walking Dead

1. For the love of God, improve the gender politics, specifically Lori's unnecessarily irrational behavior. The hysterical, capricious woman-as-victim is incredibly tired, uncomplicated and boring.

2. Stop making Dale the wise guru of the show. Just because he has a beard and is old, that doesn't mean he always has to have a platitude on hand. Remember in the comic how he liked having both Amy and Andrea around because they flirted with him? Dale's still human, right?

3. The drama inherent in a post-apocalyptic world is heightened enough. There's more interesting storytelling by allowing the characters to make difficult decisions subtly, or address the new issues that arrise when zombies have taken over the world with a little doubt instead of guns-blazing arrogance. For example, how much more interesting would the bit about Carol's abusive husband have been if he weren't just some woman-hating piece of white trash, but instead, like the comics do later, if he had a crucial role to the community (ie, if he were the best shot or the only good hunter or something) and dealing with him could impact their basic survival? Instead we get Andrea making a huge scene and Shane bashing the guy's head in. Boo.

4. Enough. With. The terrible. Dialogue.

5. And finally, instead of having kneejerk plot points that further the exposition ("I heard the CDC was looking for a cure..." Really, Rick? You hear that in your COMA?), the writing could be (and is, for the most part, in the comic) so much more thoughtful.

There you go. You're welcome, Frank Darabont.

Pinter Plays

Atlantic is putting up two one acts by Pinter at CSC right now The Collection and Some Kind of Alaska. I'm not sure why they're using Classic Stage Company's space. Are they renovating their main stage?

It's fascinating to see the difference between these two plays, written about 20 years apart. The Collection is much more on-the-nose than Pinter at his best, and despite the setup (essentially, "who is telling the truth in a tale of infidelity"), the play somehow lacks his usual forward momemtum of mystery and malice bubbling beneath the surface. Heather put it best when she said it reminded her of something Pinter would write in grad school.

But Some Kind of Alaska is a masterpiece. It is so heartbreaking and unexpected and wonderful. It's influenced by Awakenings, which I just picked up from the library a few days ago, and the story is so simple, a woman waking up from a 29-year coma of some sort coming to terms with the time that has passed. The play is so beautiful, and watching Lisa Emery and Larry Bryggman bring it to life is perfect.

Teh Berkz

Took a mini vacation to the Berkshires when I had two mornings off work. Short story: Beautiful! Relaxing! Snow!

Long story: We stayed at Porches and it's charming and beautiful even if we didn't swim in the so-called open-year-round heated pool even though I definitely packed a bathing suit and yeah, I know it's all but winter, but year-round! Heated! Pool, come on! Fine.

John took a nifty photo of the room using some panorama app on his iphone and blah blah blah stolen photo that I can't seem to make the right size for this blog:


We woke up the next day to snow??

Snow??

Fine, we can just wait for the breakfast we ordered to come to our room in old timey tin lunchboxes.

What is more exciting than a tin thermos of coffee? Not a whole lot, my friend.

I guess the only thing we actually did was go to Mass MoCA and look at the Sol Lewitt Exhibit, which is so great (especially when your tour guide is the director of marketing and has been at the museum since before it was a museum).

Look at this timelapse of my favorite painting.

The art was awesome, but is it bad that I liked the passageway (a bridge tunnel???) to the exhibit more?

Scary!

Then we drove back to New York listening to Best Coast and Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga and I went to work at 4 o'clock The End.

Swype helps too.

Since upgrading my cell phone from the technological equivalent of this,


to this,


...a surprising advantage has been that I am zipping out artistic statements and project proposals and cover letters and resume upgrades and etc., etc., etc. Writing drafts in Gmail on my Droid -- usually on my commute, but also when I'm doing laundry or when I'm standing on line at the post office for an excruciating amount of time or when I'm killing an hour or so after work and before tutoring. And then I can justify the glass of wine or unnecessarily large cookie or stolen cigarette because LOOK I ACCOMPLISHED THINGS.

Basically what I'm trying to say is, when you see me you should give me a drink and a cookie and a cigarette.

Braaaaaains, BRAAAAAAINS

It's beating a dead horse -- or (SPOILER ALERT) eating a dead horse with your pale, mangled zombie arms -- but The Walking Dead on AMC is fantastic. It's the first time I felt the pang of zomg-what-if-they-ruin-it fangirl flutters in my tummy, but it so doesn't disappoint. I'd even say to wait for the series to end before you pick up the comics... if only because I'm jealous of anyone who has no idea what's coming.

Phoenix, Arizona. Not really.

So there's that super-hipster, pseudo-elitist thing about liking a band before they get popular, and then not liking them once they get really popular. And that is really annoying.

But what is also really annoying is when a band you like gets really popular, and then they start playing terrible venues like Terminal 5 and Carnegie Hall (not a terribly venue for everything, but terrible for a rock band) and Madison Square Garden. Especially Madison Square Garden, where tickets cost $35+ and you have to watch the show on a screen.

That being said, last night's Phoenix concert at MSG was really really good, and only better when DAFT PUNK played with them during the encore.

I don't have any pictures because I was totally in the arena part of that arena, but here's a picture of a sleepy giraffe I saw online, ENJOY:

O hai blogz

Last weekend I went to Boston and saw Cabaret, and watched the band Film School at some place whose name escapes me but it made no sense and also had "Bear" in it and the band also was fairly unmemorable since I just now confused them with the band The Film Society and John had to correct me. Oh and we went to Newbury Comics. All three of these things were a little disappointing (ouch, honesty) but what was not disappointing was how really really beautiful Boston is in the fall and also do you know how blue the water looks in the Charles River? Like, really blue.

Of course, I didn't take any pictures because I am an idiot. Except this one, of the menu at Miracle of Science, which is written like a periodic table.

Nerd.

Three things

A book to read: The Patterns of Paper Monsters

A music to listen to even though you've been listening to it all summer: Sleigh Bells

A place to eat at (and order the chicken) (I know, who orders chicken?) (Order the chicken.): The Good Fork