| Once on this Island |
[May. 1st, 2008|01:48 pm] |
So I choreographed a show...
Everyone is awesome in it, and it's awfully entertaining.
The show is Once On This Island and it pretty much retells the story of The Little Mermaid (non Disney version) but instead of being under da sea, it's about class stuggles on a Carribean island. And there are gods! And singing and dancing!
If any one is interested in seeing this (Erica you'd love it)we open tonight and continues May 1st - 3rd at 8pm with a 2pm show on Sunday the 4th at Parish Auditorium on Miami University's Hamilton Campus. Tickets are $12 at the door. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Jun. 26th, 2007|09:31 am] |
So I haven't posted in a while mostly because there's not much to say and I haven't been feeling very creative. But I woke this morning with an urge to write or create something. Most importantly to create something good. Something of quality. Something people would like. Now what that is I have not a clue. And I certainly am not doing it right now. So what is it people like? Puppies! Oh and Kitties. Okay here goes in less than 25 minutes. (I went back later and edited a little)
She lays on her back and stares, paws pulled up to the sides of her white downy belly. 'What a glorious thing' she purrs to herself, 'to not be burdened by human wickedness, human failings, human feelings'. She lives only for pleasure this tiny creature. Yet she is all to aware of her own superiority. She is witness to human life, entertained by it. 'It is humanities flaw to be ruled by emotion,' she'd muse while chasing a lazer spot or stalking a sock toy "To be tortured by conscious - the endless drudgery of being good. Goodness' she'd observe as she licked her hind leg' is happiness'. When she is happy it is good and right now what would make her happy is a gentle belly rub. She purrs coyly and wiggles a little. It is most adoreable. 'Yes that's it', she thinks 'you can't resist me.' Her owner, a dowdy woman in her mid thirties who had what some might call the start of a glorious ugliness coming about her, glances up from the sink where she is washing her lone dinner plate. The woman smiles admiringly and leaves her washing, wiping her hands on her worn Winnie the Pooh sweatshirt. She walks over and strokes the cats tummy. "Aren't you the cutest thing in the world. Yes you are. Yes you are!" Yes, she is. Her short grey fur is feather soft and her green eyes are inviting and innocent. The cat, having gotten what she wanted flipped back over to feet and stretchs dismissively. She can not take the prattle of common folk. There's nothing worse than being adored. It's absolutely exhausting.
Pretty kitty yawns large and impressively her mouth creating a vast chasm like she was swallowing the world. How she'd love to. To take in all of lifes pleasures in one gulp. But there shan't be time for it now. She hears the sweet machinical grind of the can opener. An animalist urge takes over and much to her own shame she runs to her dinner bowl cursing the human's control over her. Then again eating is a special pleasure for it is followed soon by napping which is then followed by eating and so on. She licks her paw feigning passivity. Waiting for the Lovin' Vittles.
Oh to be a kitten forever. To be forever adorable and loveable. To have endless control over her master...why for that she'd give her soul.
Time to eat.
Okay so I had also just read Oscar Wilde... |
|
|
| Power of the Pen |
[Apr. 15th, 2007|11:59 pm] |
Okay so I again was a judge for a Power of the Pen competition.
Writers are given a prompt and 40 minutes to write. At the end of 40 minutes we collect their works and score them accordingly. The top scores go on to state competition.
One prompt was "Feeling Alive". This is what I would have written. Sorry for typos...I don't want to cheat.
I feel squishy.
Not bad squishy but just like my insides have been...oh I don't know...taken out, filled with chemicals and then returned to my body.
And it's dark. Comfy, warm, but dark. And do I smell carnations. Ew.
I remember the plague. Newscasters speaking in hushed and urgent tones. Each getting uglier than the next. It's hard to keep the pretty around in the face of a real emergency. No, it's the homely and stern that do their duty, keep the public informed.
I lived alone. Except for my cat Zora. It wasn't hard to stay off the streets, hole up in my house and wait for the disease to pass by. I was lucky.
Others weren't.
They say, the newscasters, that the infected were not to be trusted. You could tell them apart by their sallow complection darkened eyes...and usually by the crust of blood around their mouths. Dead give away that.
So I ate my spagetti oh's and watched my Days and carried on even if work didn't. Not that I minded. Spending time on my couch was the ideal employment anyhow. I had my morning shows - trashy talk, Price is Right, then the afternoon - Oprah and reruns of Home Improvement. Then in the evening I'd switch to cable. Nothing is better than the feeling of slipping away into sleep as you are watching something soothing, like Animal Planet. Oh you just drift into dreamless slumber as the antelopes are stalked by lions or elephants graze. And you think how you're so glad not to be an animal, struggling between finding food and being food. Then you pop another diet coke and microwave a hot pocket and settle in for another marathon. With the plague on and no new programing coming in...every week was Shark Week.
That was months ago.
There is something to be said for having lost most loved ones years ago. I mean I watched those specials, the memorials "We Won't Forget" etc etc. The names go scrolling by my screen and I haven't the time to read them let alone memorize. The thing is we will forget.
We all forget.
So I tried to stay away from the memorial shows, and the telethons with Chris Martin spouting retoric like he's the new Sting. Or is that Bono...I can't remember anymore. "The infected need our help" he said staring out from my set all glassy eyed and sincere as he knelt next to a docile looking infected child, "They can be cured if we take the time to listen to their needs." Then the child bit his face off. The camera cut away after that.
Anyway. You can't stay shocked and afraid forever. Pretty soon the attacks were as normal as anything else and if you were careful you could get by. It was the stupid that went and got their brains all eaten. And I needed toilet paper.
I'm starting to like the squishy. I feel awake now, like after a short but refreshing nap. I wiggle my toes down at the bottom of my box. All things seem to be in working order though my tummy is growling. I can now hear muffled conversations as the mourners file in. And over the scent of carnations I smell something else...something savory and alive. And I have no desire to watch TV.
p.s. On second reading I discover that I stole a joke...can you catch it? |
|
|
| since I never post. |
[Mar. 11th, 2007|01:21 pm] |
1. Have you worked for more than 5 employers in your life?
- Um lessee: Fred's Donuts, Tim Horton's (shudder), Camp O'Bannon, that one restaurant where I waitressed badly, and then various schools..so yeah.
-
2. What is the best drinking holiday of the year?
- I try to treat everyday as a drinking Holiday...it's what Jesus would want.
3. Name the one thing that will always make you smile.
-
4. Do you prefer the "Electric Slide, " or the "Booty Call," when dancing at weddings?
- I enjoy the "sliiiide to the left, now sliiiide to the right, two hops now ya'll, REVERSE REVERSE!" dance.
5. What is the one song that you would sing if you sang kareoke right now?
- I believe "Midnight Train to Georgia" is my signature tune...though I'd like to tackle "Fernando" but they never have enough ABBA at karaoke bars
6. Do your parents know how to turn on a computer?
- uh...it's just a button right?
7. Which of your friends lives the furthest away from you?
- I'll go with Carrie and Sian in New Zealand.
8. Does "twiddling your thumbs" sound like something you've done a lot of?
- No..but I do enjoy a good thumb twiddle
9. What is the stupidest thing you've ever done and not regretted it?
- well hopefully it will be doing a play in Middletown.
10. Have you ever had an alias?
- Brian Collins called me Al back in the day...but he was my bodyguard and I was his long lost pal. And my little brother called me Aki.
11. What is something 'twee'?
- Belle and Sebastian...Franz Ferdinand...I actually like by bands at bit twee.
12. Have you ever played a drinking game with cards?
- Boston Red
13. What about a drinking game without cards?
- Not really but Kim and I, while watching X-Files, would always go "DRINK!" whenever anyone said "truth"
14. Rally's or Checkers?
- I brake for Wendy's, but if we are talking pure hamburgerism then Red Robin is heaven.
15. Have you ever wondered what the 23 flavors of Dr. Pepper really are?
- I'm not unconvinced that there is only one flavor and that is "prune"
16. Answer this in a language other than your native one, what's your favorite color?
- riz-ed and bliz-ack
17. How many messaging systems do you use online?
- AIM
18. Sum up your week in 5 words:
- Kids, grading, chaos, couch, Jonstewart
19. True or False: Lobsters are fun to play with AND eat!
- Rock Lobsters..
20. What do you do well?
- I'm a pretty good public speaker
21. Did you have to take the garbage out today?
- Probably will tomorrow morning. Though I think it is my unofficial job. I kill the spiders, I take out the trash. It's kinda like Sam's my wife.
22. Are you musically inclined?
- I play no instrument except the radio
23. Do you sleep with lights on or off?
- I usually fall asleep reading so -on
24. Are you legally blind or color blind?
- you mean I have to choose either/or? Well then I'd say I'm more nearly legally blind...I mean before my contacts my glasses were rather on the thick side.
25. What one possession of yours would explain the most about you?
- My ipod?
26. Do you believe that Nessy, Big Foot, or Aliens really exist?
- I like to. I don't want to rule out any possibilities.
27. Any big plans this year?
- If by year you mean summer -cruise with Erica, camping in Utah with Kim, Maybe a road trip with Samantha...though I should be checking out grad programs...
28. What makes you appreciate your life?
- my weekends with Justyn...aaaaaaaawww.
29. Would you rather live on the East coast or West coast?
- West...I want summer.
30. Can you can-can?
- I've never tried-tried |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Feb. 20th, 2007|03:14 pm] |
So I judge a Power of the Pen competition weekend before last where students are given a prompt and 40 minutes to write on it. One of the prompts was "Describe a search for truth through your narrative." This is part of what I would have written if I was in the competition. I'm sure there are mistakes. I only had 40 minutes.
The Case of the Tiffany Killer
Chapter 1 - Hooked on Trouble
"Gee golly gosh!" Peggy gasped as she stared at the dismembered limbs hanging on meat hooks. The killer had been a hunter - deer, racoons, the occassional bear. He knew much about how to preserve a kill. Peggy felt a wave of regret as she saw the flayed corpse of what she new must have been Jamie Lee Hitchcock. She was stretched out like a piece of tapestry or an old shirt hung on the line to dry. For the first time in her life Peggy feared she was over her head.
She never had reason to doubt before. Her scrapbooks were full to bursting with news clippings. Young Girl Finds Missing Kitten. The Case of the Phantom Hitchhiker Solved. Diamond Mine Ghost Unmasked. All articles featured a picture of Peggy smiling broadly hair a perfect beribboned flip. She had been in the sleuthing biz for years. The scrapbooking came later but now one simply seemed to provide for the other. Peggy relished the time she was able to take apart from her studies at Harmort College and weekly soda shop dates with Hugh to organize and decorate her scrapbook. Memories organized and labled. She was even able to add an artistic touch. For example on the page that featured her success in solving the Mystery of the Popcorn Pilferer - in which she discovered the dastardly villian who had been stealing the Cinema 10's snack supply was no other than the manager Ted Cooker. She had known it was him because he was unable to write with a pen - it kept slipping out of his hands because they were covered in artificial butter flavoring!! On that page of her scrapbook she not only included the article featuring her looking especially nice in a cardigan sweater and plaid skirt with always present string of pearls as she handed Ted over to the police, but also she decorated the page with little paper cut outs of popcorn and candy. It was ever so adorable.
This mystery would not lend itself well to any sort of memory book. She could appreciate though the killers attention to detail. She had seen some pretty upsetting things in her line of work. Once she came upon a skeleton that was believed to belong to Pillaging Paul the Pirate. That gave her quite a fright but she never gave up her search for the missing treasure of Casper Cove. Turns out it was just a fake skeleton put there to scare people away from the cove by Mr. Jasper the museum curator. "This is no fake skeleton." she said to her self as she came upon Ms. Lena Lorington face stapled to a corkboard on the left hand side of the garage. The killer must have carefully removed it from her head like a cook cutting the fat from a lambchop. "Good gracious!" she coughed as she covered her mouth to keep out the stench of rotting flesh that permiated the small darkened garage.
All clues had led her here. The dropped peice of lace in the woods, the consitancy of the mud left in boot prints, the killers penchant for pistachio nuts. Sheriff Thompson told her not go look any further in this case but she didn't listen to him.
"Listen Miss Hart" he'd said in that gentle fatherly way of his, "I appreciate all you've done for this force. Believe me. I mean I would have been in terrible trouble had you not found my wife's wedding ring for me. Who knew that a little bird could cause so much trouble?"
"Magpies often make their nests out of shiny objects that they find laying around." she had said rocking back on her heals a little and smiling proudly.
"That said, Miss Hart," the sheriff furrowed his brows. "I don't think these kidnappings are going to turn out well. We've already gotten reports of things being found around town."
"What kind of things! These may very well be clues!" Peggy's eyes were bright with the excitement of this new information and the wheels in her head were spinning like a kalidascope.
"Well, not clues persay. More like remains." He said slowly.
"I don't follow."
"The killer is leaving...parts...of his victims body in small turquoise packages tied with white ribbons like Tiffany boxes." The sheriff spoke as if his words tasted of bile hesitant and forced.
"Jumping Jehosiphat!" Peggy's mind reeled with the news. "Those poor girls...they must be in terrible pain! We need to find them quickly."
Sheriff Thompson sighed. He should have told her right then. Should have told her what was in the box. Why the need to find the 6 missing girls wasn't as urgent as Peggy might have hoped. But he couldn't. It was distasteful so he just shook his greying head and looked the girl detective in the eye. "Back off this case please. For me. And if not for me then do it for the memory of your little brother." But in the back of his mind...he knew she wouldn't. |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2){kind=small}
shaquitaj1's journal
