Good/Bad Acting

I don't claim to work for rotten tomatoes or to be the next Ebert.  But my former post about Shakespeare and the quick reference to Daniel Plainview make me think about the quality of acting.  When I think of great actors, I think of Daniel Day Lewis.  "There Will Be Blood" may be an exhaustibly long movie, but the acting in that movie is phenomenal.  Lewis is the kind of actor who hasn't really been in that many movies.  I mean the man has been acting for a pretty long time yet I can only think of three movies that I know he's been in.  He is picks his roles very carefully and completely masters his part.  I respect that in an actor.  Quality NOT quantity.  On the other hand is the actor who is all over the place but produces mediocre movies at best.  Not to pick on anyone in particular, but Matthew Maconahay.  He's been all over the place with crappy romantic comedies but he hasn't done a role that requires a serious performance.

Another fine actor who I am a big fan of is Adrian Brody.  I just saw him in the Brothers Bloom.  A great movie.  Go see it.  Very Shakespearesque with a deep running theme in fiction as reality.  This is probably my favorite movie of the last five years.  The movie was literary, entertaining, funny, thought provoking, clever, imaginative and well casted.  Just see it.  Don't compare it to a Wes Anderson film, because while it has some similarities, it is not a Wes Anderson film.  It is better.  It is much more coherent than any Anderson film I've seen.  I've already said too much.  See it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HPXfmqIy-4

Next post goals: discussion of the book(s) I am reading - "Why We Hate Us"

Shakespeare: Twelfth Night

This post is a spin off from my last post.  Looking for the connection?  10 Things I Hate About You (Heath Ledger, Julia Stiles, and the girl from Alex Mack, one of the best shows Nickelodeon ever produced alongside Pete and Pete) is an interpretation of Shakespeare's, The Taming of the Shrew.  So there you have it.  

Last night I saw a production of Twelfth Night, one of Shakespeare's comedies, at the Old Globe in Balboa Park (essentially meaning that the play ends in marriage and not death).  Without becoming too periphrastic (one of my daily vocab iphone app words, and I know I know, OOOO wow, Brad's using big words in his blog, but give me a break, if you don't use it, what's the point!) the play revolves around the character of Viola, who disguises herself as a man after a shipwreck on a foreign land.  She is in love with the duke of that land who bids her (him) to woo Olivia, who in turn falls in love with Cessario (Viola's man name).  Oh yeah, it gets more fun with Viola's fraternal twin brother cruising around the island of Illyria unbeknownst to his sister or anyone else.  Its really a fun play and the rendering of it last night was well done.  Most of the parts were very well executed minus the role of Sebastian (the twin brother) who I found rather dry.  On the other hand, the role of Andrew Agucheek was brilliant.  If you don't know what I'm talking about you should see the movie in the very least.  There is a good one with Ben Kingsley in it as the fool Feste.  

To speak more specifically about last night's performance, the costume and setting were adapted to an affluent 1950s Mediterranean setting.  Recently seeing a beat version of mediocre A Midsummer Night's Dream, I was a little skeptical when I saw the costume designs in the program.  Despite my apprehensions, the play really was fantastic.

If you are going to approach Shakespeare, at least as a hobbyist and not as an essayist, I suggest approaching it in the following descending order: live performance, film version, audio tape, text.  Shakespeare is meant to be on stage.  Period.  It is really enjoyable seeing all the entrances and exits of each character, how each character interacts with the set and each other on stage.  There are little nuances that make the live production more enjoyable, at least in my opinion.  You don't get cuts or edits, you get ad lib and improv if something goes south.  Productions are always changing.  Sets from one year to the next.  Performances from one night to the next.  Its a lot of fun being a part of something that is presented in its entirety from beginning to end without a director's CUT and a coffee break.  I hope to attend more plays in the future.

It did help to sit second row back to the slight left of the stage thanks to a 50% student discount.  Seriously, hold on to those IDs and milk those discounts for as long as you possibly can.  My student ID doesn't have a date on it anywhere so as long as it isn't scanned, nobody will know whether or not I actually am in school or not.  Hopefully they'll be offering student discounts for a showing of "Herringbone" playing at the La Jolla Playhouse throughout the month of July.

Oh the pain

It hurts me to return to this page after such a long absence... yet again!  I feel like I've neglected a malnourished child.  Too be honest I feel a lot like Daniel Plainview when he proclaimed "I have abandoned my child!"  Or I feel like a trapped television viewer who finds himself taking a break from some pointless show to be greeted by a Santa Claus type looking character with a child sitting on his lap.  No, the child is not asking for a Red Ryder BB Gun.  The child is poor and asking a previously unsuspecting audience for donations to the Christian Children's Fund.  Okay, this is a bit dramatic buy you all know what I'm talking about.  But to quote another completely unrelated movie, "I'm back in the game!"  as said by nice-guy Cameron in 10 Things I Hate About You.  This brings me to a few things I've been meaning to blog about: Shakespeare, bad/good acting, and my summer reading progress.

Reading and Running

I just read my last post eleven days ago promising two stories in my next post.  Well, I regrettably and laughingly must say I have no idea what stories I was supposed to recite to you all.  The whole bit about saying I'm going to write two stories was somehow going to help me remember to actually do the writing part of it was a failure to say the least.  My apologies.  This last week has been insanity.  I had papers, finals, standardized CBEST testing, graduation ceremonies and family gatherings, and an apartment to move out of all in a 7 day span.  So without further ado, I will recommence my blogging on this summer day.

I am currently signed up for two half marathons, mid August and mid October for the American's Finest City Half and the Long Beach Half, respectively.  So training is in full swing in order for me to get myself in shape by mid August.  To aid me in my endeavor I have started tracking my mileage on mapmyrun.com.  Technically, its a social networking tool for runners where you create a free account and can see what other runners are doing, or what other runners are running.  I like to use it because it allows me to keep track of my mileage without knowing specific routes.  I go for my run and keep track of time with a stop watch.  When I get home I map out my route on the site and punch in my time and wala.  It tells me my per mile rate and allows me to keep a calendar of my training.  Its also very useful for determining how far you want to run before you leave.  You could map out 6 miles exactly if you wanted to or you can look for runs in your area that other people are doing.  Its pretty cool.

Training is quite difficult I am finding.  Running and building up more and more endurance will come without a doubt, but its difficult to find time everyday to train.  Even just to run 5 miles takes quite a bit of time.  At least an hour if you include stretching and cool down.  Even more than that, I like to do 15 minutes of push ups and stuff before I go and shower off.  And then I usually will want to go play tennis or basketball later in the day.  And its only going to get longer too.  By the time I'm running upwards of 10 miles, I'll be at it for closer to an hour and half or two hours.

Moving on... I am starting to read this book called Why We Hate Us, "American Discontent in the New Millennium."  I am not too far in but I have had very mixed feelings thus far.  I sometimes feel like what the author is saying is obvious, or that he is simply just really negative and not worth reading (although I know resolutions come at the ends of books).  But there are times where some intriguing things are said.  I think I will use this book as a springboard for the next several posts. 

Side note: I am trying to finish Coetzee's "Waiting for the Barbarians" and will eventually start "For Whom the Bell Tolls" after that and will read concurrently with the Meyer's book that I mentioned above.  

Meyer's book starts off with a list of things that he believes everybody hates, or at least that one of his old column (CBSNews) readers hated and he agrees with.  Ridiculous things that the average person would dislike, such as people that clip their fingernails in public restaurants and the cosmetic line labeled "S.L.U.T.".  He then moves onto a larger complaint.  America's hypocrisy with the media, how we hate it and yell at it and call celebrities and reality stars stupid but spend hours watching them.  He reports in a study that on average, Americans spend 8 hours a day in front of electronic devices.  So that is essentially 8 hour work day, 8 hour media/electronic splurge, and 8 hours of sleep.  There is the American 24 hour cycle.  I appreciate the author's numerous allusions to Holden Caulfield in appropriately describing America's enemy in a national self pride - phoniness.  Caulfield hated phonies.  America is full of them.  I appreciate Meyer's quoting of columnist Lars-Erik Nelson's statement that "Conservatism isn't the enemy.  Liberalism isn't the enemy.  Bullshit is the enemy."  I couldn't agree more.  The media has turned Americans against one another.  The media has created the reds and the blues, the liberals and the conservatives, the atheists and the religious.  It is a polar nation.  The media is painting a picture of a divided nation, yet nobody is winning.  We are all still unhappy.  Just 19% of Americans, in a CBSNews poll, agreed that America was heading in the right direction in 2007.  I don't feel like that could be any higher right now given the poorest economy in decades.  We go to school and learn about the 60's, a time of revolution in America, a time usually deemed "turbulent," yet the numbers of "satisfied Americans" are now more than half of what they once were in polls taken in the sixties.  Yet, instead of fixing the problem together, Americans are still playing the "us" versus "them" game with each other and their own special interests, not realizing that we are all the "us" of America that media and big money are feeding off of.  The battle is against phonies and appearances, not each other.

I look forward to reading more, and hopefully finding more solutions than complaints.

I am really tired right now, but I must persevere with this blogging.

Things I find odd:

-the spelling for "shamee" is actually chamois.  I don't really see it.

-the handshake or hug exchange that usually ends in a weird combination of both.  A hug with locked hands in between the two participants stomachs.

-even more odd is trying to play it cool afterwards.  I find that playing it very uncool and just calling out the awkwardness is the best way to eliminate the awkwardness; a belief most don't share with me.

More to come.  I will tell two stories in my next blog.  Writing this not only puts all of you on the edge of your seat until i post my next blog, but also reminds me to write it at all.

"Tell us about yourself"

I went to the career center today for a workshop called "Job Search Jump Start."  Despite the title of the workshop, I really am in last place I feel like in the job hunt race.  I feel like I learned some valuable tips about resumes and cover letters, while some other things were pretty common sense, i.e. eye contact during an interview.  We did a little exercise with the person next to us to answer a possible first question of an interview; the duzy- "tell us about yourself"

The question seems simple enough but when asked to tell a peer who you don't know "about yourself" for a minute straight with out awkward breaks of silence, the question was impossible.  Its a deceiving question I feel like.  The workshop leader said that that is a great question to really sell yourself if its the first thing they ask.  I don't know though.  If I was an employer, I feel like I would use the question to break the ice and relieve anxiety for a would be employee; a moment for them to describe themselves... anything they wanted.  Apparently, "Tell us about yourself" = "tell us why you think we should hire you" or "brag about yourself."  Why can't I answer that question with my gut.  I feel by using the question to sell yourself is missing the point of the question.  Is it really the goal to define yourself through your desire for that specific job?  Thats essentially what the workshop leader was telling us.  

If an interviewer asks me what I can bring to the company then I'll tell them and try and sell myself.  If an interviewer asks me to describe my qualifications, I will sell myself by telling that person such.  But if I am asked to describe myself, I am more inclined to say that I love reading and writing and the beach, athletics and sailing, camping, or that I'm a twin and that my parents are divorced, or that I'm Catholic, or that I'm passionate about people... you know things that actually form my identity.  

My next favorite interviewer question is "What do you consider your weakness?"  This one can be the ultimate lock up if you're not ready for it.  Your eyes will migrate towards the ceiling and you'll stare at that fluorescent light until the cows come home trying to think of an appropriate answer.  Some of my favorite bad answers: 

"I'm a workaholic" - Lets all be honest, this is the annoying answer that desperate people give in order to turn a "negative" question into a positive and make you sound like a self righteous kook at the same time.  This is the answer that basically says, "I have no weakness but to serve you till death master!"  Next please. 

"I like people too much" - not really possible in my mind.

I'll stop there.  Basically any answer that changes the point of the actual question - for you to analyze a real weakness of yours and show to your employer what you have done to strengthen yourself in that area.  The idea is to show your employer self improvement and an ability to identify one's own self.  Now this isn't easy because it is a weakness for a reason and therefore isn't something that'll probably sound good, but they asked for it after all.  I'm not really sure what I would say mine is at this point, or at least one that I would tell my possible future employer.  Do you think they would mind if I said I was complacent, which might be just one notch above lazy?  Maybe I'll just take the easy way out:

Mr. Munns, What do you consider your weakness?

"I find that my weakness is being able to identify a weakness... it really is difficult, I can't think of anything..."

I'm sure I'll get hired on the spot with that quip.

blogging hodgepodge

Wow, I have really been letting my readers down lately.  Blogging really does take dedication.  I have been spending less time blogging, and more time making lists of things to blog later.  I have thought about getting a twitter account in light of Mr. Mitchell's new activity, but I am very hesitant.  Part of me agrees with him; it is in a sense a quickie blog, a convenient substitute when time is at a premium.  I guess for me, a twitter wouldn't be about what I'm doing, but more about what I am pondering or thinking.  I don't want people to know what I'm doing all the time.  

I think its weird when people start broadcasting their every moment to the world and I feel like most often people use it to try and garner some sort of sympathy from their friends.  The "I have the longest day ever," "when is summer going to finally be here," or "I hate finals" seem to be featured statements right now (on facebook status reports anyway).  I don't care about staying up to date with friends (or even non-friends) recent gripes and complaints.  

Maybe I feel like a blog post reaches a deeper level in a way, and I'm not sure if I want to sacrifice that for convenience and speed.  I also considered joining twitter out of necessity.  Not because I HAVE to stay connected with people but because I do feel like twitter is going to go places and I guess I feel like I don't want to get left behind in a way.  It could evolve into something better that I could be more behind.  Like a music twitter of sorts.  Where a twitter like application taps into your iTunes media player and displays to your friends what song you are currently listening to when you are logged in.  I feel like this would be a cool thing.  I am always wondering what people are listening to when I see ear budded students walking to and from class.  It would be the closest thing to everybody trading in their earbuds for juke boxes and connecting out loud through music.  Part of me also thinks that twitter could evolve drastically financially and I don't want to let a golden opportunity slip through my fingers.  

This stems from a recent surge of interest in stocks and the money market.  I guess with graduation around the corner, I've snapped into money mode.  I don't mean that I am out to get as much money as I can, I'm going to be a teach for pete's sake.  I just mean that I want to take control of my finances and I'm going to really need to be smart and knowledgeable of money markets and investing, especially if I'm going to be a teacher who doesn't want to retire at 70, but wants to travel and explore the world on his summers off.  So, essentially, I've been trying to keep a watchful eye on companies that I think could go huge.  Twitter isn't a publicly traded company but I want to see what they do in the next couple of years.  For now though, I don't see myself using twitter or staying up with it or using it to follow my friends... at least until otherwise convinced.

As for a final topic of discussion, I guess I will update you all with the current game plan after graduation.  Briefly: graduate, summer at camp with middle schoolers, take the CBEST August 8th, attempt to get a substitute teaching job or at least a volunteer job in the very least to get my feet wet.  Side job for extra income (anything really, hopefully some freelance writing) Do that for a year and move to bay area and get credentialed at SFSU.  Research master's programs, but a definite goal before or right after I started a teaching job.

Okay, that was an exhaustive comeback party to my blogging world.  I will most likely come back to some of these issues and have more organized thoughts in my next entry... which will be SOON!

23 Flavors

As I enjoyed a refreshing Dr. Pepper yesterday, I really started to wonder... What are the 23 flavors that Dr. Pepper flouts?  Is this a good thing to have 23 unidentifiable flavors that simply make up the flavor under the ambiguous "Dr. Pepper?"  

Cous cous?

praprika?

nutmeg?

old spice ocean breeze?

How can there be 23 flavors!?

Easy buttonation

I was listening to the radio the other day and I heard a commercial that said, “does your child suffer from lack of concentration, short attention span, or is unable to sit still?”  It was a commercial advertising for a clinical trial of some sort for ADHD, or what I like to call just being a childitus.  Other tragic symptoms not mentioned are: excessive energy, nose picking, and giggling. 

 Now I’m not saying that ADD/ADHD (whatever the differences is besides the “H”) doesn’t necessarily exist (although I admit I might just be saying this because I work for a branch of UCLA that provides services for students with ADD/ADHD and I need to cover my bases) but I think there is a severe over-diagnosis of the condition or syndrome or whatever you want to call it.  Not only is it being over diagnosed but doctors too readily "fix" the problem with prescription drugs like Adderall.  The drug apparently helps such inflicted students to focus yet at what cost?  I have friends who have and haven't been diagnosed with ADHD, some who are getting the pill from friends and some from doctors in order to get through their college classes.  Sure, I've heard it helps with focusing, yet some of these friends admit to having a serious dependency on it.  They can't function like they USED TO off of it without being ON it.  Some of my friends have gone through withdrawal symptoms like dizziness and shaking.  Another friend, who I actually believe has ADHD, takes medication for it but it renders him a zombie.  He has borderline depression.  Is this really the best solution doctors can come up with?  I think trouble focusing and hyper activity is best relinquished with exercise.  Could there be a correlation between ADHD diagnoses and hours of video or television played per week in a child?  Possibly... I think this is worth looking into.  Let us also not forgot how much money media/television and pharmaceutical companies make per year and how this plays a role in the big picture.  I'm not suggesting conspiracies, I'm only putting forth my own observations on the subject.  I honestly feel like a healthy dose of blood flow in today's youth would do the ADHD epidemic a lot of good.  I'm a little tired of society's trigger happy fingers that press away at the EASY button.  Driving north on the 405 you know your are approaching LA by the number of lap band billboards you see per 5 miles.  By the time you reach LA, you see one seriously every two minutes.  One like the following:

I don't think I really have to say much more on the subject.  EASY button bad.  Exercise and hard work good.

On another and possibly self aggrandizing note I just registered for the Long Beach Half Marathon in October.  Any takers?  I wanted to go for the marathon but I thought I better get a halfy under my belt so I don't die at mile 18.

"writing" Update

I began reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein for class and thought that her introduction correlated with my previous thoughts about writing.  I am normally one not to read author's introduction because they tend to be pretty dry, but we have been focusing on them a lot in this class because they are an important part of the formation of the novel as a genre.  For example, Robinson Crusoe's first edition author's note is not at all by Daniel Defoe but by Robinson Crusoe himself.  He used the character as the author in order to gain higher readership by passing off his fiction as a first-hand non-fiction account.  In Mary Shelley's introduction, she writes the following:

"As a child I scribbled; and my favourite pastime during the hours given me for recreation was to 'write stories'.  Still, I had a dearer pleasure than this, which was the formation of castles in the air - the indulging in waking dreams - the following up trains of thought, which had for their subject the formation of a succession of imaginary incidents.  My dreams were at once more fantastic and agreeable than my writings.  I the latter I was a lose imitator - rather doing as others had done than putting down the suggestions of my own mind.  What I wrote was intended at least for one other eye - my childhood's companion and friend; but my dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed - my dearest pleasure when free..."