blogger insider 2

well, a fix for my movabletype probem is in the works, and i'm also working on a new layout for when i return to the world of blogging... hopefully in the next week or so.

in the meantime, here are my answers for this round of blogger insider. I was paired up with Edward Champion of Dr. Mabuse's House of Fun. if you're interested, my questions and his answers can be found here.

1. what medium do you consider to be the world's central art form and why?
my friend harrison wanted me to say conversation, just to throw everyone for a loop, but i'll have to go with music. music is just one of those universal things that speak to people regardless of language barriers. cultural barrieres are a bit tougher to hurdle, but i think music, of all things, can do that.

2. if your cat had the ability to talk, what three questions do you think she would ask you? and how would you answer them?
the only question she'd probably ask is why we keep waking her up from her naps, and my answer would be that she's so cute i can't resist petting her. i'm sure that she'd like that answer (she likes it when people tell her she's cute) and then she'd go back to sleep. ;-)

3. you mentioned an undeveloped picture of camryn manheim somewhere in your room. what other pictures are on that roll and are you deliberately holding onto other rolls of film in this manner?
oh god, i think that film has halloween, the camryn manheim photo, and a few shots from my trip back east over new years. you know, i don't normally hang onto film that long, but i've been pretty broke lately, so i haven't had the 15 bucks lying around to get them developed.

4. since the acting world is incredibly competitive, what specific qualities do you believe you can add which will allow you to not only break through the barrier but offer a distinct voice?
well, i don't plan on doing acting as a profession simply because of the competitive nature... i'm not a very competitive person, and i'm perfectly happy doing community theater kind of stuff. i do acting and theater just because i love doing it. i do it for myself, not for anyone else. however, i'm planning on offering my 'distinct voice' through teaching... i'm planning on getting a masters in education and i'm going to teach high school theater. my dream is to help develop a good theater program at a school that may not have had one before.

5. describe the last politically related news that really angered or depressed you. and why?
well, the stuff going on in israel right now is very upsetting to me, mostly because it's really frustrating to see supposedly intelligent people being stubborn, stupid assholes. it doesn't help that we have family friends over there and my best friend want to go over there in two months.

6. okay, i'll fess up. i'm a joyce nut. why specifically did you hate "portrait of the artist as a young man"? will you ever give the book a second chance? did you hate it because it was difficult or too vivid? explain in reasonable terms why joyce (fer the love of all that is great about books, joyce!) stunk up the room!
well, it's been a long time since i've read the book, so i can't be too specific, but i just remember being bored of of my skin. i'm not sure if i'll ever read it again, but i may thumb through a copy so i can give you a better answer to this question someday.

7. what are your main influences in book choices? and how do you feel about the demise of the oprah book club?
lets see... in high school i started playing the dollar game... i'd scour the clearance racks and look for books that had neat titles, cool jackets and compelling summaries. i still do that, but clearance books are a bit more expensive than they used to be. now, i get great suggestions from friends, and i check out the besteller rack, the independent bookseller reccomendations and the employee recommendations at my local bookshop (a fantastic place, you should check it out if you're ever here in town.

as for the oprah book club, i am sad that it's ending not for my own sake, but for the sake of all the folks who started reading again because of it. i was rarely able to watch the book club episodes, but the first one i saw compelled me to buy a book that is now one of my favorites (the reader by Bernhard Schlink). Looking back at the list of books, I realize I've read quite a few of them... She's Come Undone, I Know This Much Is True, Where the Heart Is, The Reader, Drowning Ruth, and The Corrections. Fall on Your Knees is next on my list.

8. what was the last great holiday-oriented experience that you had and why? describe it.
i'll have to go with last 4th of july... my family and i were at the beach, and at dusk, the fireworks started... a few at first, but after about half an hour, they were hundreds of fireworks going off all down the beach. this went on for four hours (and i'm not even kidding). fireworks are illegal where i live, so it was a rather amazing sight. of course, we had to get in on the action... we had giant sparklers and some hard core, expensive fireworks imported from washington state. ;-)

9. if you could slide one of your five senses up into an almost superhuman level, which one would it be and why?
i think i'd have to pick sight. i've been nearsighted since i was 10, and my vision is really bad, and i really hate having to rely on glasses and/or contacts... it's like looking through a tunnel. i am eagerly awaiting they day when they have perfected laser eye surgery (and it will be totally covered by insurance by then, of course) and then i'll throw my glasses away forever!

10. you said that september 11 was the scariest thing that had happened to you. what was the second scariest thing?
well 9/11 really eclipsed almost everything because not too much has been really that scary, per se. i think the second scariest thing would have to be the gulf war. it was two days before my twelfth birthday and i remember vividly being very upset about it, because i had hoped that mine would be the first generation to see no u.s. involvements in any wars. i was an optimistic child. ;-)

11. what's your favorite shakespeare play and why?
i think i'd have to go with a midsummer night's dream, because it's funny as hell.

12. if you had to pick one, ibsen or strindberg?
that's easy. ibsen, without a doubt. a dolls house is one of my favorite plays... i wrote more than one paper on it during college. strindberg is a little weird for me, i think. they did a dream play at ucsc 2 years ago, i had to not only read the play, but see it as well. the design was fantastic, but i didn't really like the play itself, the acting or the actual text. it was really a sticky situation because the director was one of my ta's and i had to write a paper on it... i wanted to be truthful and tell her that i thought it was terrible, but like any good undergrad, i feared for my grade and turned in a nice, mild paper.

13. which of these questions did you answer first?
the last one.

14. a train is traveling westward towards a crossroads at 10mph. a pickup truck is puttering along northwards at 7mph. there is no indication that this intersection between rail and road is a railroad crossing aside from an crumbling x sign that dates back to 1947, which can only be seen during the daytime. however, both respective vehicles travel at nighttime and there are no lights on the road. what happens to the truck and the train? and how do their respective speeds factor into the equation?
um, didn't you get the memo? theater geeks don't get up before 11 am, and they don't do math. however, there are some problems with this equation... you didn't mention if the truck was traveling towards the intersection, and you didn't specify the distance between the crossroads and the vehicles, so there is no way to tell if the vehicles will ever intersect or not. (i may not be good at math but i can pick a word problem apart like nobody's business.)