CATHY A. FISHER presents Illustrated Studies on Modern Problems

Dennis and the Villagers

2010-07-23T02:33:39Z

Yesterday my depression reached its nadir (I had to think for about 30 seconds before remembering that word! I checked it; it's right!) and now it's swung back around to a general goofiness characterized by a fixation on things I find amusing, such as this article in today's Free Press:

If you follow me on Twitter, you probably know by now that the idea of the man who knows himself only as "Dennis" fills me with glee, although I acknowledge that the man's situation is probably pretty distressing in real life. I want to make a series of comics all about Dennis' adventures. He will have the same bland but haunted expression on his face throughout.

My mood has also been buoyed somewhat over the past few days by getting hooked on Villagers via NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts. They're an exceptionally listenable Irish folky alt-something group in the vein of Grizzly Bear or Fleet Foxes. Conor J. O'Brien, the band's frontman and creative powerhouse, has a truly gorgeous voice. They seem to be touring the West Coast this coming week, so if you're out there, check Villagers out. For the rest of us, I would highly recommend watching the aforementioned All Songs Considered performance or just buying their album outright.

Review: Inception

2010-07-16T21:41:52Z

Inception left me shell-shocked and disoriented. It left my mind buzzing. It held me tight for a good twenty minutes after I left the theater. It did not leave me with the freeing, buzzing, radiant feeling that I felt after The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight is the kind of film that provides the viewer complete emotional filling and emptying. It is self-contained catharsis. Inception is a puzzle box bound together with frustration and desperation, presented with meticulous skill. We are placed within it and then led back out, but the experience simply fills, it doesn't empty.

I don't know if I can describe it any better than that. A conventional critical analysis of the film would be tricky. It's immaculately constructed. Other than some over-long, disorienting chase scenes and some clunky dialogue here and there, it borders on technical flawlessness.

I don't want to pose this as a criticism because I don't mean it as such, but it is a curiously humorless and emotionless film except for the very palpable longing Dom (Leonardo DiCaprio) feels for his family, represented beautifully by the motif of his children's backs. Inception presents the viewer with this powerful emotion, but for the most part does not allow us to experience it. We are held at arm's length, observers in the layers of dreams the characters traverse.

I guess this aspect of the film surprised me because one expects any movie about dreams to be immersive and subjective. Inception is most definitely experienced objectively. Rather than being immersed in the action, we are reminded of all the steps that must be taken to complete the process. Something at the complete other end of the spectrum but the same genre (roughly) would be Ocean's Eleven, where the viewer knows almost nothing about how the heist will happen and is swept up when it does. In Inception, the viewer is watching from the perspective of the mastermind, aware of every step.

Again, all of this is largely observation, not criticism. I thought the film was a masterwork. It's incredibly original. It's like nothing I've ever seen, and that's certainly saying something.

Highlights were Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy, who added really the only wryness and humor in the entire film. Ken Watanabe also got to be pretty fun. Gordon-Levitt's anti-gravity fight scenes were amazing. Cillian Murphy did an admirable job considering he wasn't given much to work with. DiCaprio, although very restrained, communicated Dom's tragedy perfectly.

I'm going to see it again tomorrow, so I may amend this entry if I have any other insights, but I felt I had to get out my thoughts right after the first viewing.

So, what did you think of Inception?

Things I Like: The IT Crowd

2010-07-15T16:35:45Z

As my powerful Mighty Boosh phase of last summer drew to a close and I was circling the edges of the fandom, I decided to give The IT Crowd a watch. Not only did Noel Fielding have an off-and-on character for the show's first two seasons, but its main cast includes Boosh regulars Richard Ayoade and Matt Berry. At the time, I enjoyed the show, but it didn't quite reach the itch I was looking to scratch. Boing Boing reminded me that a new series of the show was starting up a couple of weeks ago, however, so I decided to dive back in. Upon re-watching the first three seasons, I realized I liked it much more than I thought.

The show revolves around the employees of the IT Department of Reynholm Industries. In what has since become kind of formulaic (see The Big Bang Theory), the department's two geeks, Roy (Chris O'Dowd) and Moss (Richard Ayoade) chafe under the management of Jen (Katherine Parkinson), a technologically-impaired female stereotype. This set-up could have yielded a fairly dull multicamera sitcom, but creator and comedy impresario Graham Linehan keeps it fun, intelligent, and absurd.

The first series, all the way back in 2006, took an approach that was in many ways dependent on geek-oriented jokes, lampooning the technological ignorance of the general populace. I think it's since become a little passe as more and more people become at least functionally tech-savvy. Either that or it didn't ring quite true since there had to be a delicate balance struck between making the jokes accessible to a general audience and true to character.

In the more recent seasons, I think The IT Crowd has become more about the relationships between the characters, which is ultimately what every TV show--comedy or drama--has to have at its heart. It still remains a nice little homage to geek culture and showcases a lot of very strong comic acting. Matt Berry, playing Douglas, Reynholm Industries' oblivious, womanizing CEO, is always a joy to watch.

There are still things that bother me about it, though. While a studio audience and the laugh track that comes along with it is a mainstay of the traditional sitcom (a genre that still seems to have a lot more popularity in the UK), it gets pretty grating, especially as the percentage of the show shot as single-camera inserts increases. Would it really be that bad to make it all single camera and ditch the audience?

I also appreciate that they've put some effort into making Jen geekier as the show progresses, but the concept of a slightly dumb, attractive woman placed in contrast to nerd guys is annoyingly stereotypical. Doesn't any show creator ever think about all the new dynamics and possibilities that would present themselves if these gender roles were inverted? Is it just that an audience would be too resistant to the concept of a female nerd, or even any female character not presented first and foremost as being attractive?

Anyways, despite all that, The IT Crowd is worth watching. May it be a stepping stone into the many other fantastic projects the talented comedians that make up its cast and creators have worked on, including The Mighty Boosh, Nathan Barley, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Man to Man with Dean Learner, Snuff Box, and Black Books.

Mopey McPherson the Boring Person

2010-07-14T02:37:30Z

I've been feeling kind of frustrated and beleaguered recently, for a variety of reasons, most notably the rejection of my application for a job that would have been impressive, well-suited to my skills, politically relevant, probably at least relatively well-paying, and located in the same city as some of my friends. As with anything you get rejected from, you can't help but wonder where you went wrong. Was I too nervous on the phone? Was my rationale on why I was interested in progressive ideology lacking? Did I do bad on the proofreading test? Was I so sleep-deprived and hung over that I was actually speaking gibberish?

The logical part of my brain tells me that there were probably just a lot more candidates with more impressive resumes than me, but that's never much consolation to the emotional part. It's just tough when you get these bursts of hope and you think "My search could be over! I could have a job in a few short days!" and then you wait and wait and wait and eventually realize that you're not any closer to success than you ever were.

I'm not completely hopeless now (and ideally I won't be even if I do end up at square one again). I still have one more exciting iron in the fire. But it's the hopeful waiting that kills you. It's tough to keep sending off applications when you're clinging to the hope that you'll rise to the top of whatever pool of sad jobless schmucks you happen to be swimming in at the moment.

So I continue to clean and organize in what could probably be analyzed as an attempt to assert a measure of control over my life. In a similar vein, I decided to try to start a comedy blog called Laughtracker. I'm not sure what exactly its content is going to entail, but it's all designed and functional. I did this instead of applying to more jobs. But I could argue (and will continue to, especially to my parents) that any and all design work strengthens my resume. So it counts!

In happy news, Inception is coming out this weekend! And my birthday is in a week and a half! And Mad Men is starting up again on my birthday! Almost all the major events in my life are media-related!

Indecision Robot

2010-07-08T02:33:48Z

I used to have fun, whimsical blog entries, my actual emotional state be damned! Or maybe not. That might just be a nostalgia-type thing.

The first of the weddings has arrived. People that I knew in high school and whose intelligence I respect are starting to get married. It's not that I'm disdainful of them. No, more power to 'em if they want to get married. But the contrast between the place where I am emotionally/developmentally/professionally and the place I associate with marriage is enormously stark.

Perhaps this has just been ingrained into me by two parents who each had a young, ill-advised marriage before getting it right, but I really don't think I could pledge my life to anything at this point. I don't even know who (or what) I am now, much less how I'm going to feel thirty (or even just ten! Or five!) years from now. Getting married fresh out of college is a ballsy thing to do. You really have to have conviction (and love or whatever, I guess). Maybe it's my lack of both of those things that makes it so hard for me to grasp.

Yes, I've said it! I'm an emotionless, indecisive robot! Watch me debate every possible option endlessly, my tiny robot brain going round and round in circles! Wheeee!

While I continue to ponder, I will continue to clean my room. Unfortunately, I'm running out of places to clean. Anyone want to hire a robot maid? You know, like on The Jetsons?

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

2010-07-04T20:56:10Z

Friday was the end of another era for me, as it was the day of Zack's Farewell Blowout. A handful of friends came up to Zack's parents' house, where we ate excellent fajitas and cruised the nearby lakes in his boat. In a shocking turn, I finally managed to get Chicago-supremacist Adrian to admit that Michigan is not so bad. It was extremely pleasant and more than a little melancholy.

Zack and I have been friends since the very beginning of college. We both came to the first Gargoyle meeting of our freshman year and, as I recall, hit it off pretty immediately. We got even closer living in the same house this past year. I can't count the number of strange and wonderful in-jokes we've generated over the course of our college careers, how many times we've had breakfast at the Fleetwood, or how many times we've walked down the tracks to The Underpass (actually I can: two).

So here's to you, Mr. Beauvais. I wish you all the best in DC, keeping all the nuclear things under control. I'll meet you one day at the Hoist Bar with a fresh bowl of Cracklin' Oat Bran, some Fancy, and a steaming glass of barber's milk. Greg Allman will be there. He will be smiling.

So I've half-moved back to Rochester for now to save money, since right now it doesn't look like I'm going to be getting a job before my lease in Ann Arbor is up. By happy coincidence, my semi-clone Sam Nash, who used to live in the same town as Zack, has moved to a neighborhood about a five minute drive away from here, which will be nice. I've spent the past day re-integrating my possessions and throwing out old stuff, something I'm a little tired of doing at this point. If college has taught me nothing else, it at least trained me well in the art of packing, moving, and unpacking.

Right now I'm waiting to leave for my aunt and uncle's house for our annual July 4th cookout. It's hard to believe that is was only a year ago that I was packed like a sardine in a crowd of strangers, watching fireworks burst over the Hudson. Last summer still seems more like a strange dream to me than something that actually happened. It was so far out of my paradigm that I can't reconcile it.

Anyway, I hope you're all having a great holiday. Let's all show our country we love it the best way we know how: by setting things on fire.

New Orleans: Restitution, Change Teams

2010-06-25T02:47:04Z

Two weeks ago, I left on the first ever major road trip I've gone on with friends. Well, the road trip itself was just with one friend, the much-referenced (on this blog) Z. Beauvais. Right up until the night before, whether or not he would come was up in the air because of an extreme reaction he'd had to poison ivy, leaving him with some prescription steroids and self-described "face mung." He manned up, though, once the swelling had gone down a little, and soon we were speeding south towards the storied city of New Orleans and our friends Kris and Max.

I'm not going to attempt to cover everything we did over the next few days, since they were fairly packed with new experiences, in-jokes, and gastronomic adventures. Instead, here are a few firsts:

My first time driving below the Mason-Dixon Line, and first time in anywhere in the South other than Florida
My first night in a Motel 6
My first meal at Waffle House
My first time barhopping in Nashville during a huge country music festival
My first city recognized only because of its description in a Gargoyle article (Horse Cave, Kentucky)
My first time seeing an accident back-up so major that drivers got out of their cars and walked around for miles
My first attempt to explain to myself what "barber's milk" is
My first time backing out of a cave tour because of frightening torrential rain
My first time hearing Ludacris' opus, "Sex Room"
My first time soaking a shirt in sweat in under five minutes
My first jambalaya (delicious, at COOP'S PLACE)
My first Sneaky Pete (disgusting, at Sneaky Pete's)
My first beignets and chicory coffee
My first time swimming in a disturbingly warm and salty pool
My first legal, public, open alcohol consumption in a major city
My first time seeing a house Nicholas Cage has lived in
My first Mississippi riverboat ride
My first time wandering under a highway to find a fancy cemetery
My first time enjoying coleslaw
My first turtle soup (also delicious)
My first live New Orleans jazz
My first time trying authentic gumbo
My first time experiencing horrible intestinal distress due to said gumbo
My first glass of absinthe
My first time watching True Blood with anyone else
My first interview for a bona fide, actual, desirable, long-term job
My first time driving 18 hours in one day (not that bad!)

More happened (so, so much more!) but it would take a long time for me to cover everything here. Suffice it to say, I had a great time. Despite the stifling, unbelievable humidity, New Orleans is a gorgeous, lively, eccentric, friendly town. I could seriously consider living there. As long as I had air conditioning, naturally.

I just returned from a second, less ambitious trip. This one was to Mackinac with my family and my sister's boyfriend, Adam. It was also quite pleasant and lower-key. We made all the normal rounds to the normal places, did a good deal of walking and nature-enjoying. Now I have to stop eating because I weigh 900 pounds. I made the drive back strapped to the top of the van.

Scenic view from the top of Mackinac Island

Two Days of Saying Yes

2010-06-04T13:51:33Z

A couple days this past week have been full of both new experiences and me (for once) not backing out when people suggest things that stretch the edges of my comfort zone. I wish I had some photos to go along with this entry, but I seem to have spent all my photo-taking time on adventuring instead. Whoops!

On Monday, I texted Zack that I was bored, and he invited me to come up to his parents' house in Fenton to do some fishing. There was rain coming, so we spent the first half hour or so fishing for bluegills off his dock, since they were pretty easy to snag. After catching a couple and feeling dumb asking Zack to take them off my hook for me, I fought my live-fish-touching squeamishness and took one off myself. It was not that bad!

Soon after, we retreated to his house and I had a nice lunch with the Beauvais family after discussing the TV show Tracker Man, in which a man experienced in tracking gets to hunt the Most Dangerous Game. It sounded possibly illegal. After a while, the conversation turned to shooting and the fact that Zack hadn't gone shooting yet this year. So he asked me if I wanted to go with him. Now. In keeping with the trend that day, I said yes. A couple hours later, after picking up some clay pigeons, Zack's dad, and their family friend whom they describe as "a lumberjack," we were at the local shooting range and I was awkwardly holding a surprisingly heavy shotgun and hesitantly saying "pull."

Surprise, surprise--I was not a great shot. But Zack did just as badly as me and he's had much more experience. When shooting at a stationary target, though, I did much better. My souvenirs from the day were a spent shell casing and a vibrantly-colored bruise from where I probably held the gun wrong a couple of times. Main lesson learned: racking a shotgun is really fun.

The middle part of the week was spent more quietly, redesigning this site. Yesterday, though, while eating breakfast with (who else?) Zack, I remembered that our friend Natalie had wanted us to come to the Curwood Festival in her hometown of Owosso at the beginning of June. Soon enough, we were taking backroads and strange routes through Whitmore Lake on our way to the sleepy, heavily inbred town of Owosso.

The Curwood Festival is an annual celebration of Owosso's most famous son, novelist James Oliver Curwood. We visited Curwood's (disappointingly small) castle, admired the historic houses, ate at a restaurant targeted towards old people, got local Owosso ice cream, rode carnival rides such as "Gravity Time," "Drop-Down," and "Crushy" (not actual names), and watched a competition where dogs long-jumped into a pool. After that full day, we bid farewell to Natalie, I dropped Zack off in Fenton, and I continued home to Ann Arbor.

Although I was kind of exhausted, I remembered that Salon Vox is open until midnight on Thursdays and that I really needed a haircut, so I popped over there. Very satisfied with the day overall. There will probably be at least another week of boring days now. This week's been a good experience, though. It's helpful to remember that good things can come from saying yes.

Fotygrafts and Egolatry

2010-05-29T16:24:49Z

There are a few subjects about which I can speak with a reliable degree of expertise and authority, but literature is not one of them. My reading habits, especially over the past four years, have been sporadic and scattershot at best, and I somehow missed out on reading most of the classics that people are "supposed" to have read by the time they graduate from college. I might blame the fact that my high school literature program was really half focused on international literature and half focused on drama. I know a lot more about Mahfouz than Hemingway.

It saddens me to think how terrible a reader I am now, since I used to read voraciously. Although when you count up the words read per day (in tweets, web articles, emails, and magazine articles) I probably still read just as much as I ever did.

Anyway, I've never really taken the time to explore Ann Arbor's collection of great used book stores, so a couple weeks ago, I walked over to West Side Book Shop. I'm not sure what I expected to find, but after a half an hour of browsing the packed shelves, I emerged with two small, old volumes: The Fotygraft Album by Frank Wing and I. Youth & Egolatry by Pio Baroja.

The former is a strange little book from 1915 that basically contains portrait drawings of wacky people, ostensibly someone's relatives. The subtitle is "Shown to the New Neighbor by Rebecca Sparks Peters, Aged Eleven." So each drawing is accompanied by this imaginary eleven-year-old's commentary on the people depicted. It's pretty bizarre, but cute. I can only imagine that this is the 1915 equivalent of a Family Circus anthology.

This drawing, for example, is accompanied by the following description:

"Pa's cousin Stella, dressed up in some of her ma's old clothes fer a mask ball. Pa drawed in that streak and that printin'. He's a reg'lar artist and he ain't never had a lesson in his life, neither.

"He calls this pitchure 'Stella as Ajax defyin' th' lightin'!' "

The second book, Youth & Egolatry, is certainly less fluffy, but equally perplexing in its own way. As the introduction by H. L. Mencken (or as the West Side Books guy exclaimed to me "Mencken! From Baltimore!") explains, Baroja was a prominent Spanish author and intellectual around the turn of the twentieth century. The contents of the book are a strange mix of commentaries, thoughts, and observations, broken into short segments, which generally follow a loose thematic train of thought. For example, a section entitled "The Veils of Sexual Life" is followed by "A Little Talk," in which he discusses how he sometimes thinks he would have been happier if he were impotent.

Both books hold a collection of odd little gems that you can pick up on a whim and admire. They're foreign, archaic, and perplexing, but ultimately fascinating.

Summer Doldrums, Part One

2010-05-27T03:20:57Z

I am so bad at summer vacation. I always have been. As a kid, I would get bored within a few days and start hounding my mom, trying to get her to entertain me. In theory, it's nice to have a few months of R&R before starting the next phase of my life, but in reality I find idleness stressful, not relaxing. Somehow, wasting time is only enjoyable if I'm putting off doing something else I need to do.

Job-hunting is ostensibly my job right now, but it's so free-form and unstructured (not to mention thankless and soul-crushing) that it doesn't feel like I'm working measurably towards a goal. It's nice to have a more quantifiable distraction, like another little job redesigning my friend Max's personal website. Unfortunately, that's going to be done all too soon.

I'm feeling like this blog has become a place for me to come to complain about my problems, and that probably isn't fun to read, if there are in fact people out there reading it. I'm trying to think of something cool, upbeat, and interesting to discuss. Ummm.

Well, I've been watching Six Feet Under. I'm balanced on the edge of deciding to keep watching it or quit, almost done with the second season. It's well-written, but SO. HORRIBLY. SLOW. Internet tells me there are a variety of interesting actor cameos to come, but so far it's been fairly bland. It feels like it takes episodes and episodes for conflicts to play out.

I'm almost done playing through Plants vs. Zombies the second time. I bet you find that exciting, reader. It's not, really, though. Ugh. Auuuuuugggggh.

Somebody give me something to do. Put me to work. I need a job.

I need to remake my wardrobe.

2010-05-21T15:08:47Z

Yes, it's true. Again. Always. Maybe more so now than before. I'm coming to realize that last summer was a catapult that launched me in a variety of new directions, or at least brought some things to the forefront that had been lurking in the background of my personality before. Even though I really sorely failed to take advantage of New York to the fullest while I was there, the experience of being there on my own and working pretty directly in the fashion/food/travel/luxury industry affected me a lot.

Working for Epicurious gave me a dose of information about the food world and cooking technique that got me really interested in the foodie universe and more passionate and open-minded about food. That's been pretty smooth transition, since I was already inclined towards eating delicious things and being crafty.

Fashion is another thing entirely. Browsing Style.com for hours gives you a pretty good appreciation of high fashion, but getting into it personally is another thing. I love the aesthetic sensibilities of fashion, but it's immensely difficult to apply them to yourself. First off, prying myself away from my high school graphic-tee-and-blue-jeans uniform has been remarkably difficult. Not only does it comprise the bulk of my day-to-day wardrobe, but it's comfortable and safe.

I've been trying to ease out of that mode through a slow transition--boot-cut jeans to skinny jeans, unisex t-shirts to v-necks. I managed to wean myself off of sweatshirts onto sweaters. I'm supplementing my workhorse sneakers with more feminine flats. There's still a long way to go, though, and the real world is approaching with startling speed. I really want to have an acceptably female and adult closet by the time I start a job.

Getting that to happen is going to take a number of tough steps for me. I'm going to have to be able to wear a dress casually. It's so difficult. Really more so because I'll have to deal with the inevitable "Cathy, you're wearing a dress"s from EVERYONE I KNOW. Yeah, thanks for pointing that out, guys. Thanks for making me that much more self-conscious. Ugh. It's inevitable. The same thing happens every time I decide to wear eye makeup. I know people only do that because they're noticing there's something different about you and trying to be attentive, but it's really kind of terrible.

I'm going to have to also be able to wear heels casually. I'm going to go ahead and blame my mom for this particular neurosis because she is clearly from the "heels can never be comfortable" camp, which I think it probably a harmful generalization. I certainly have never owned comfortable heels, but I think that's probably because all my heels tend to be ultra-formal, since the Fishers only wear them for major holidays and formal events.

I'm going to have to start accessorizing. It's something I've sort of always avoided because it didn't go with my fabulously gender-neutral ThinkGeek shirts. Because of that, I haven't really bought a necklace since middle school. My only wrist wear is a watch. I ditched my rings a couple years ago. I don't have any non-winter scarves or headwear, really.

The point is really that all of this needs to be built from the ground up. In some ways, that's freeing; I have a blank palette. It's also terrifying. And potentially very expensive.

The Almighty Schedule

2010-05-13T14:37:30Z

As my roommate and fellow recent graduate Zack and I sat staring at each other, numb with boredom, on Tuesday, we decided we needed to have a daily schedule to bring some order to the emptiness. He's got about a month and a half until he moves to D.C. to start his job, and I have, you know, an indefinite period of time until I move somewhere and start mine (because it does not exist). We tried it out yesterday, and it not only filled the hours, but was consistently fun. Hopefully it'll last.

Since certain persons have expressed interest, here's the details of that schedule. I hope it can help those with a similar plight bring structure and happiness to their empty days.

8:00 Wake up/Wake the other up

8:15 Workout time: Tennis TTh, Run MWF

10:15 Shower

10:45 Brunch

11:00 Will & Grace

12:00 Alone time/Personal development

2:20 Afternoon Snack

2:35 Relaxation/Meditation/Communion with nature

4:30 Adventure time

6:00 Happy Hour/Dinner Prep

7:00 Dinner

8:00 Dicking around/Cultural betterment & enrichment

10:40 Share secrets

So that's it. Won't have another scheduled day until next week, since Zack's off camping with his family. I guess in the meantime, I should apply for jobs. :/

Things I Like: The League of Gentlemen

2010-04-27T16:36:51Z

I've been prodded toward this British pseudo-sketch comedy group a couple of times, first by Max a few years ago, and more recently by Mandy, a Twitter friend who first contacted me for the sole purpose of recommending LoG to me. Since I was swamped with school work and completely anxiety-ridden over my various exams and research papers, I decided it was a wonderful time to become fixated on something new. I poked around on YouTube, watching clips, decided I liked what I saw, and procured the series.

It straddles a fine line between sitcom and sketch comedy. The episodes all take place in the fictional northern-England village of Royston Vasey. Almost all the characters are played by Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton, and Reece Shearsmith (Jeremy Dyson writes for the group, but doesn't act), and their storylines are episodes or seasons long, not just one sketch.

The most interesting thing about the show is not that its humor is groundbreakingly unique, but rather the way in which that humor is mixed with tragedy and darkness. Characters that seem initially to be one-sided when they're introduced are then revealed to be far more complex as the series progresses. Power structures are constantly inverted. Characters that are initially villainous are later the sympathetic victims.

This not only indicates an intellectual appreciation of comedy's workings on the parts of the creators, but also an immense affection for their characters. In their universe, stories can be absurd and slightly terrifying:

Or spot-on mimicries that turn tragic:

Just that alone would be reason to watch and enjoy the series, but in addition, it has fantastic production values for a BBC comedy and Gatiss, Pemberton, and Shearsmith's ability to commit dramatically to their characters, both in comedy and tragedy, is remarkable.

Once you finish watching all 18 episodes of the TV show, their Christmas special, the feature-length The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse, and their two live shows on DVD, I recommend you move on to Psychoville, which is what Pemberton and Shearsmith are working on currently. It has a lot of things in common with LoG, including the special dance of comedy and drama, and makes you feel a little bit better when you realize you can't go back to Royston Vasey.

Monsters and Masks

2010-04-21T04:05:33Z

Final project for Printmaking, hand-pulled screen prints

Avoidance

2010-04-21T02:32:24Z

Today was my last day of classes. All I have left to do is to set up my Printmaking exhibit and take one exam. But I'm not going to talk about that.

I am going to talk about The Last Hurrah, the tentative (and disputed) title for this weekend. Kris and Max are coming up to Ann Arbor, possibly for the last time but possibly not, to celebrate (for Kris) the graduation of the last of us that she worked on the Gargoyle with. Max is coming because he likes parties and hugs. In reflection of deeply-ingrained ideas of hospitality, I am scrubbing down the house, trying to locate the source of our recent, abrupt ant infestation.

If all goes AS PLANNED (by me), we're going to go to see The Antlers on Friday, and a midnight showing of Hausu on Saturday. Hopefully this is what will happen. This is what the hive mind that controls both myself and Sam Nash, as well as thirty Polynesian boys, wants to happen. The Antlers were one of three bands that carried me through last summer. Maybe because it's great music to listen to on headphones while you avoid acknowledging your roommate's existence.

Anyway, it will be nice to have the excitement and busyness of guests to distract me from what would probably be a long, dull depression in the face of the end of my childhood.

IF YOU AVOID EMOTIONS, THEY GO AWAY

IT'S TRUE; ASK SCIENCE