"I wish I had said hi... so I figured I would on here."

Sophie Blackall creates beautiful and whimsical posters from the missed connections section on Craigslist. Here are a few, but they are all worth a look. The images seem to lend a surprising, wistful kindness to the nutty dreamers on missed connections. Kind of poetic and charming, no?

Monday, September 14, 2009
Look: historically, I'm not a morning person. And to top it off, I was grimacing
through some lower back pain that flowered over the weekend. So when you noticed me
(white guy, brown hair, blue/white striped shirt, earphones, red book) and I noticed you
(white girl, brown hair, nosering, headphones, blue book) for however brief a moment this morning,
it was bolstering and made me forget the knife in my back.
Haven't noticed you before, but if there's a next time,
maybe I can slap myself out of the morning slumber and say hey.
No promises, though.


Saturday, September 5, 2009
- m4m - 29 (astoria)
we were both swimming around 5-6 in astoria pool.
we ended up walking the same direction in the park for a while but didn't talk.
i wish i had said hi...so i figured i would on here.
worth a shot.

Someone just sent me this...

The Subliminal Mind Fuck America

I'm sitting here looking at these photos of American Idiot at Berkley Rep, and making sounds reminiscent of the little cleanup robot in WALL-E, "whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa..." Newsprint, grime, media overload, and some serious wailing seems to be ensuing. Opening night is Wednesday the 16th, there's more photos and video fun here.

someone please tell me what is going on here

Actress Stacy Haiduk brought a special guest to the Daytime Emmys yesterday. Is it her purse, or her plus one? I can't make heads or tails of it... more photos here.

I'm working on adapting this into a fringe show

"A little town with a really big secret."

Buzz on the heart wrenching documentary The Cove started at Sundance, and has continued to grow as the film screened at other festivals this year. In fact, it seemed like every film festival wanted to screen the doc that exposes animal abuse and threats to human health in a highly-guarded cove near Taijii, Japan - well, every festival but one. Despite having an ecology theme this year, and despite rolling out a "green carpet," the Tokyo Film Festival refused to screen The Cove. See, in order to film the "fishery" where thousands of dolphins are brutally killed each year, the filmmakers had to go guerrilla. They infiltrated the highly-guarded cove using cameras disguised as rocks, underwater microphones, and other secretive and risky techniques to capture and expose the horrifying truth. In one part of the trailer, one of the filmmakers says, "I do want to say, we tried making this story legally." Japan wants the filmmakers behind bars for exposing the largest slaughter of dolphins on the planet, and naturally, the Tokyo Film Festival wants no part of it.

Doesn't mean you can't see the film though - it's currently playing in New York at the Angelika. Watch the trailer here.

Sorry Spidey

Julie Taymor's big-concept, bigger-budget musical Spider-Man, Turn Off the Dark is running into some significant misadventure. Michael Riedel reports that the musical, currently budgeted at a whopping $45 million, is "in chaos," of both the financial and managerial variety. The center of the problem seems to be failure of leadership on the part of producer David Garfinkle, who may be ousted by Sony and Marvel as soon as this weekend. Riedel has the whole saga of how Garfinkle, with little previous experience as a theatre producer, came to preside over what may turn out to be Broadway's most expensive musical ever. Oh and Bono and The Edge are pissed, too. You can read all the dirt here.

Now let me just say that I love a big, glitzy musical full of technical effects. Razzle-dazzle could be my middle name. But in spite of my appreciation of the flashy stuff, there's something about the idea of a 45-million dollar superhero musical that reminds me of a dude driving around hard-times Wall Street in his brand-new Maserati. It's gross. What's happened to us as theatergoers that we require this incredible level of spending to entertain us in a theater? What can you possibly put on a stage that costs 45 million, even if you're Julie Taymor? The current Broadway revival of HAIR cost an initial investment of 5.76 million, allowing it to recoup in about 6 months. It would seem that Spiderman would require years and years to break even, unless producers plan to supersize ticket prices.

I'd love to see what Taymor is plotting. But I hope she has the support to do it in a way that makes sense. The last thing we need is another Young Frankenstein, bursting with production and void of substance.

David Cote asks bloggers for "more arguments, more dirt," but can we deliver?

Time Out's David Cote has proposed Nine Wishes for NYC Theater, with a list that varies from a plea for better scores of Broadway musicals (amen!) to an entreaty to bloggers to "engage/enrage" with "more arguments, more dirt, more bloody knock-down-drag-out fights." Hmm.

The responses to Cote's wish list make an interesting read - one fairly well-known theater actor even weighs in in the comments with, "Eek! To want to give bloggers more power seems not only a frightening prospect, but a downright dangerous one. I am an actor who has admittedly scoured the internet for bloggers' "reviews" and "dirt" and have found them to be more often than not dangerous, cruel, irrational, and from an uneducated POV!" Eek, indeed - the old saying springs to mind, don't ask the question if you don't want to know the answer. Or in this case, don't google if you don't want to read the review, whether it's from All That Chat, a bitchy blog, or the New York Times.

Meanwhile, a lengthier discussion of theater blogging and the Engage/Enrage concept is raging here, stemming from David Cote's cyber-evisceration of blogger (and playwright) George Hunka. Many theater bloggers make appearances in the comments section, including Surplus's Jaime, who questions how realistic it is for us to be the provacateurs of the entertainment industry when we ourselves have careers within that industry to consider. I've had my fair share of uncomfortable professional moments due to stuff I’ve posted. Even as an anonymous blogger, I have to be pretty thoughtful about what I post and who it might engage/enrage, and while it would be cool to be the Nikki Finke of the NYC theater scene, not getting fired is nice, too.

So how to proceed in being my gossipmongering self? Well, let's start here: I can't post most of the insider dirt I learn at work, but I sure can post yours. Got a tip? Why not drop me a line at moxiethemaven@yahoo.com.

forever on the dance floor

This is the best thing I've seen all week - one couple's nontraditional choice of wedding entrance music makes for the coolest freakin wedding ever.



(thanks Clint!)

Update: New York Magazine's own Dan Kois has a piece on the now-famous Minnesota Wedding Dance Video, and why it might be "the best theater you'll see all year". It's a great read so go check it out.

What a setup, holy cow!

Gotta love the Post's headlines - today they feature a story called "Broadway Invades Time Warner Center". Check out this great video of a spontaneous eruption of musical theater in front of Williams Sonoma. One passerby said "It's spontaneous, it's spectacular, it's New York." Amen!

hot

This is why So You Think You Can Dance is unmissable television!

Totes Fierce and Brills

The Musical Theatre Dictionary will school you in the linguistic idiosyncrasies of Brooaaadwaaaay. Here are just a few gems:

"On That Stage" -saying- When you don't want to be mean about an obviously terrible performance, but the person being "on that stage" is the ONLY nice thing you can say.
Meg: How was KiKi in H.M.S. Pinafore?
Abby: Um...she was... on that stage.

"Jawbrato" -noun/verb- Describes a belter-screamer who chooses to accent their vibrato by visibly shaking their jaw up and down.
Morty: Babe, who is that singer friend of yours, the one who shakes when she sings? you know, the one with turrets or something?
Rosie:Oh, Morty, that's Cheryl, the gal who sings at the JCC. She doesn't have Tourret's Syndrome , you asshole, she just has a heavy jawbrato.

"Effie We All Got Pain" -saying- Response to a costar when he/she is throwing tons of diva comments your way. A reference to the musical Dreamgirls when Effie White's laundry-lists of excuses are met with this statement. The point being: you have struggles, so do we.
Diva: My Laduca Strap broke, I'm not warm yet, and if they make me wear this bullshit costume I'm going to flip.
Smart Actor: Effie, we all got pain.

(Thanks Isaac!)

Constantine: What a Pro

"SW kickin ass...unlike some people did. Oh well.. Movin on."

-Rock of Ages star Constantine Maroulis, on Amy Spanger's replacement Savannah Wise. Spanger recently departed the show for "personal reasons." (Via Twitter.)

Also, this is not Constantine's twitter page.

Dear Kalpen Modi,

Wanna get married? I don't mind that you're looking a bit plumper now that you're formally employed by the White House. I think it's sexy that you've moved on from your stoner past. I even saw that cool indie you did, and I have to say, you were really really good. And I dig that you changed your name back from the SAG-approved Kal Penn. So, whaddaya think? Wanna get hitched?

__ Yes
__ No

hopefully yours,
Moxie

'lil blogging break

Hi folks, as you might have noticed, posting is going to be light this summer - I have some professional stuff going on that's exciting but time consuming, and also some vacation plans that will hopefully untether me from my laptop. I'll continue to check in, and bring you stuff like this trailer for The Invention of Lying, Ricky Gervais's comedy about a world in which nobody lies, ever. All truth, all the time, for better or for worse - until one man (Gervais) discovers fibbing and all the power therein. A million fun cameos, and one of the funniest scripts I've ever read.

...and this, Michael Jackson's performance from the 1995 MTV Awards. Just a great mashup of his greatest hits. Sure, the lipsyching is plain as day, but his live performances were always about the moves, right? My first real attempts at "dance" were in first grade, in my best friends bedroom, listening to Michael Jackson and attempting what were probably some unwittingly perverse moves for a seven-year-old.



[via kottke]