Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:14 AM

Last month, I found Teeny Titans, and now Chibi!Watchmen?

By Katie Cook; and check out her deviantART gallery for more illustrations.

Via Newsarama

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:22 PM

They can't all be unemployed slackers living in their parents' basements...

Warning, strong language:

 1) The Original:

 2) The Sequel:

And more videos by the same creative team

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:01 PM

Laurence Olivier doing Richard III -- if you haven't seen it before, watch enough to get a sense of his style.

Peter Sellars doing Laurence Olivier doing Richard III... doing the Beatles...

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:30 PM

A friend forwarded me an invite to LinkedIn, and I've just spent far too long looking up former classmates and coworkers...

On a more positive note, I'm quite impressed by David Seah and the productivity tools he created. [Look up his Printable CEO Series]

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:20 PM

Okay, caught the rebroadcast pilot tonight.

Goofy and fun, about as I expected.

Didn't realize Kevin Smith directed (and, according to IMDb, is also a "consulting producer"), thus upping the Clerkslike similarities.

And Tyler Labine, who plays best bud and sidekick "Sock," has a definite Jack Black vibe.

Only problem right now is that the show is up against House, MD, which is one of the few TV shows we actually regularly watch. [The others being Heroes and (for me, at least) How I met your mother] May make for a tough decision on Tuesday nights...

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:45 PM

[O]ne man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

A police sketch artist trained in age progression tried to extrapolate what Shakespeare might've looked like at age 14, resulting in the image to the right.

2: And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school.

At the other end of the lifespan, Ben Kingsley plans to star and produce Will, a movie about Shakespeare's last days and based on an upcoming Christopher Rush novel.

7: Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

What's next? Tom Stoppard already put his stamp on Shakespeare's third age ("the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow.")

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:36 PM

Suddenly, this morning all my LJ Friends are raving about this new CW show Reaper.

Here's a summary for those as ignorant as I was:

Throughout Sam's life, he always wondered why his mom and dad were so easy on him. Whether it was sports, school, career choices, or picking on his little brother Keith, Sam always got away with everything. Because of it, he decided to drop out of college and take a deadbeat job, wasting most of his time playing video games and wishing he could ask his co-worker Andi out. However, everything changes in Sam's life once he turns 21 and finds out the reason his parents let him get over was because they sold his soul to the devil before he was born.

Satan explains to Sam that he must serve as his bounty hunter, tracking down souls that have escaped from Hell. Initially, Sam refuses to accept his fate but he realizes the grave consequences of breaking a deal with the devil. He is armed with various vessels to collect the escapees. Sam finds that the work is dangerous and frightening even with the goof ball help of his friends and fellow slackers Sock and Ben, and Sock's former girlfriend, Josie. As bizarre as his life becomes, Sam feels good about his newfound "missions", removing evil souls from the world and sending them back to where they belong. Along with his friends and his vessel of the week, Sam prepares to face his destiny as the "reaper".

I watched the video clips at TV.com. Really funny.

Why did none of you mention the show before it aired, so I might have had a chance to catch it?

I just noticed that CW is re-airing the pilot tomorrow night.

We've got plans for dinner with my in-laws tomorrow night. I wonder if they'll let me hole up in their TV room from 9 - 10 for this...

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:11 PM

[Crossposted to Riba Rambles and bard_in_boston]

The fall productions for both MIT Shakespeare Ensemble and Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club will be Titus Andronicus.

• MIT's is scheduled for October 25-27 and November 1-3 at 8:00 PM
• Harvard's is scheduled for December 7th - 15th. (as magid posted two weeks ago)

This will make four versions of Titus to be staged in the Boston area in just over a year (following productions by Wellesley last fall and ASP in the spring).

I don't know for certain whether Harvard or MIT were inspired by these earlier productions, though given ASP's prominence, it's hard to believe there wasn't some influence.

If so, I propose the various Boston-area Shakespeare troupes should get together and coordinate their productions more closely in response to one another.

Doesn't need to be for every play, or even involve every drama group, but even brief pairings could add so much to the theatergoing and educational experience.

There are any number of corresponding themes they could choose, singly or as a group.

For example, if one company stages Julius Caesar (which I see is Wellesley's fall production), another should consider following with Antony and Cleopatra.

Or maybe they could get together to present the history cycles, which are too big for any one company.
There are any number of ways to divvy up those plays, depending on interest and tastes. Assuming just the three schools and one semester:

• One school does Richard II and the other two take the two parts of Henry IV,
• The two parts of Henry IV followed by Henry V,
• All three parts of Henry VI?

I would love to see something like that.

Individually, these plays may not be much of a draw, but by banding together, each company could attract audiences from the other schools.

[And each company is still free to follow their own whims for the other semester, so this plan wouldn't tie any company down for an entire school year.]

And this doesn't have to be limited to the college companies, either.

ASP has worked with Harvard in the past, and its members have connections with other area colleges -- what kind of coordination would be possible?

On a personal note, assuming I see both the Cambridge collegiate productions this fall (which I intend to), by the end of the year I will have seen six versions of Titus, putting that second only to Midsummer Night's Dream. [As You Like It and Love's Labour's Lost are tied for third place, with four viewings each.]

Something seems awfully unbalanced about that.

In the meantime, I'm tempted to have t-shirts made up which read:

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:41 PM

Idle thoughts I've had this weekend:

Michael Rosenbaum, who plays Lex Luthor on Smallville is Jewish. And although I know the importance of separating actor from character, I wonder if his co-congregants still give an askance look at a criminal mastermind beating his breast over the sins he committed in the previous year.

Story idea if anyone needs one...

Meanwhile, the Jewish holiday of Sukkot is approaching, and Ian is busily constructing a sukkah for our front yard.

Since we live near some truly garish Xmas displays, I've sometimes tried to imagine how to build the tackiest possible sukkah.

I propose using four rope light palm trees for the vertical supports, and making the sides and top (upon which schach can be lain) out of rainbow strobing net lights.

Until somebody actually manufactures jumbo inflatable ushpizin, that's my contribution.

Any better (or worse) ideas?

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:40 PM

Two quotes making the rounds:

1) CBS correspondent Scott Pelley as conduit from President Bush to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

I asked President Bush what he would say to you if he were sitting in this chair. And he told me, quote, speaking to you, that you've made terrible choices for your people. You've isolated your nation. You've taken a nation of proud and honorable people and made your country the pariah of the world. These are President Bush's words to you. What's your reply to the president?

2) on Barack Obama:

As for Obama, a senior White House official said the freshman senator from Illinois was "capable" of the intellectual rigor needed to win the presidency but instead relies too heavily on his easy charm.

"It's sort of like, 'that's all I need to get by,' which bespeaks sort of a condescending attitude towards the voters," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "And a laziness, an intellectual laziness."

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:25 PM

Thomas Garvey, of The Hub Review has found video of an actual Gypsy Rose Lee performance.

I've read her autobiography (inspiration for the musical) and her son's biography (continuing the story into her later years), and she's always impressed me.

I wish I could see more of her...

Meanwhile, Spatch is reading about the Marx Brothers. Get a load of this bit of film history:

A Night at the Opera was written and re-written nearly a dozen times. MGM head Irving Thalberg rejected many drafts, as he'd just acquired the Marx Bros and was determined to turn their fortunes around and make sympathetic figures out of them. By helping Kitty Carlisle and Allan Jones while running around nihilistically instead of just running around nihilistically, the brothers be sympathetic characters, and thus gain more favor with the audience ("I could give you a movie with half the laughs but with sympathetic characters," Thalberg proclaimed, "and it would earn double what Duck Soup made." Opera did indeed surpass Duck Soup at the box office.) This, however, meant the original story for A Night at the Opera had to go.

The original story? It involved Groucho as an opera impresario who deliberately oversold interest in his scheme of an operatic production designed to be a sure-fire dud, only to watch in shock as the opera became a raging success. Sound familiar? Both Morrie Ryskind and George Seaton, who worked on the initial drafts, claim this story idea originated with their original idea for the MGM film.

The story floated around Hollywood for many years until Mel Brooks picked it up and did his wonderful thing with it. Neither screenwriter brooked, as it were, any emnity towards Brooks, saying instead that he did it great, but really, when you think about it, Max Bialystock really is a proto-Groucho character (especially with Zero Mostel in the original film.) He's threadbare, on his last sou, romancing old dowagers for their money ("Ah, Mrs. Rittenhouse...") and scheming, ever scheming.

Still, it captures the imagination something fierce, don't it?

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:55 PM

All afternoon, I've felt as though I'm coming down with an impending cold.

Fortunately, we're currently well stocked in homemade chicken soup for the holidays, so here's hoping I can beat this thing, whatever it is.

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:05 PM

[sorry for the late notice; I hope many of you can make it!]
Monday, September 24, 6:30 to 8:30 pm

ASP's first Fall Open House will take place on Monday, September 24, in Studio 102 at the Boston University Fine Arts Center, 855 Commonwealth Avenue (where King Lear was performed and where Macbeth will be presented).

Members of our acting company, staff, and board will be on hand to talk about ASP's upcoming season.
Resident Company members John Kuntz, Marya Lowry, Paula Plum, Doug Lockwood will join actors from the Seasonal Company to present previews of the four plays scheduled ? Macbeth (Oct. 18-Nov. 11), Henry V (Jan. 10-Feb. 3), The Tempest (March 13-April 13), King John (May 15-June 8).

The event is free.
Refreshments will be served.
Season subscriptions and Macbeth tickets will be on sale.

Studio 102 at Boston University
855 Commonwealth Ave, Boston
Across from the BU West MBTA stop
Street parking available and $1/hour parking at the Agannis Arena, 925 Commonwealth Ave (corner Buick St.)

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:35 PM

a.k.a. Taking a joke too far?

Back in March (I don't precisely remember when), the webcomic xkcd offered the strip to the right.

Diligent people looked up the coordinates online and prepared to gather there at the appointed time.

Yes, we were there too.

We ran into a lot of old friends we haven't seen in far too long. We also saw people wandering around in goggles and a red cape, carrying a "citation needed" sign, holding competitive tape measure races, and the like.

And, yes, Randall Munroe (or someone claiming to be him) showed up at the appropriate time with an oversized version of that comic minus the final panel, saying it clearly needed a new ending and offering sharpies to the crowd to draw their own.

It was certainly an interesting way of inspiring an impromptu con. Apparently, wanting something can make it real. But I did find myself hoping that the crush of people didn't inflict any permanent damage to the playground or annoy the neighbors too badly.

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:25 PM

Evil Shakespeare Overlord List #107:

I will not use a chipmunk puppet, a frog puppet, and a neon green alligator puppet (or indeed, any puppets at all) instead of actors.

It takes a talented troupe to make these things look good.

Fortunately, the Cambridge American Stage Tour seems to be such a company.

I could go on, but just catch it if you can.

Having had such a good experience, I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for their future tours.