Current music:

Mars Volta and The Rapture (mix CD from Allan)

"...idiotic arpeggios of self-approbation..."

"But shall we get off the very boring subject of me? I'm not interesting. You can sum me up in about ten words: a former student of English literature who—who—who went downhill from there! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha! Oh for God's sake...."

This entry is primarily about the Wallace Shawn reading I attended last night. So if you don't want to see me acting like a sycophantic, pseudo-intellectual fangirl, you can skip to the list of dates at the end... which you probably won't care about, either. :)

Anyway. I'm loathe to underestimate the cultural savvyness of my "readership" by contextualizing a name you already know, but the opening of a recent Time Out New York interview was so apt I want to keep it here for perpetuity anyway: "Wallace Shawn has two sets of fans, and chances are they don't overlap much. First, there are the moviegoers who see him as a spectral butler in The Haunted Mansion and whisper with relish, "There's the 'Inconceivable' guy from [The] Princess Bride!" Then there are others who see him shrugging and mugging in the same flicks and hang their heads in despair, wondering why America's most dangerous playwright has to take silly roles when his work ought to be presented at Lincoln Center."

Don't get me wrong... I'm seriously in love with much of Shawn's film work—especially Vizzini and Rex from Toy Story—but a depressingly small segment of people know that he's also one of our weirdest, most brilliant living playwrights. Or, as he put it in an interview with the New York Times Magazine, "My plays have been strange from the beginning, and they never got unstrange." Aunt Dan and Lemon (still playing off-Broadway) provoked a stronger response from me than almost anything in any media ever does: once I got over the initial dazzling effect of the glut of hot girls peopling Shawn's world, I realized that the themes that had been discussed in the play were striking some chord with nearly every thought and discussion I had for the next month.

When I first read The Designated Mourner, it didn't draw nearly as visceral a reaction from me. What I saw last night—a one-night quasi-revival of the production directed by Andre Gregory and featuring Larry Pine, Deborah Eisenberg, and Shawn himself (it sold out a 30-seat gentlemen's club in Wall Street every day of its 2000 run)—made it all too clear what the right production can do to illuminate a text. It's a little alarming, to start, how much more terrifying political plays get when they're performed in a roomful of people who are already scared witless by their own government. And since this is a play about the demise of the intelligencia; the danger of dichotomy; the relative benefits and comforts of high versus low culture; the fact that it is occasionally our duty not to be nice; and the sheer, terrible truth that sometimes the only way to overcome it all is to stop thinking about it... you can imagine its effect on the sort of people who would give up their evening to watch actors delivering three hours of monologues on a nearly bare stage.

You can supposedly hear a recording of the whole thing here, or you can borrow the script from me, either of which I strongly recommend if you enjoy being devastated. Combine with Patrick Marber's Closer for a surefire recipe for despair.

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The other thing on my agenda is to run down a list of the events that are currently on my social calendar. This is so you can tell me if you want to accompany me, and because I want to make sure I have them all in one place and I'm not forgetting to mention any of them to someone who would resent me for neglecting them. And so you can stalk me, of course. Anything up until the end of the year is fair game for this, so let me know if I'm not aware of something I really should have left room for…

3/10: Yeardly Smith: More (which was relevant back when I thought I'd finish this entry in time to post it before the show)
3/11: Valhalla (NYTW)
3/12: Karyn Kuhl at Arlene Grocery (?)
3/13: Chapelle's Show taping, courtesy of my super-cool roomie who works there (tentative)
3/14: King Lear at Lincoln Center
3/19-21: One day of Lunacon (for Tor). Possibly catching Ex-Mex at Downtime on the 20th if there's no conflict
3/24: Torie tells me I have to see Gutenberg! The Musical!, and I think this is the only day I can make it
3/25: MoCCA Event: Superman on the Couch
3/26: CUSFS and the Fed will be hosting the second annual Coed Naked Blood Wrestling match as part of CUSFS's celebration of Cthulhu Week. Looks like I... gasp!... may actually be wrestling this time, so you could theoretically show up and make me even more self-conscious I'll be already. Why the hell am I publicizing this? I have no idea.
3/31: Thea Gilmore, who I rant about all the freakin' time, is playing Joe's Pub (7:30, $15) on her first US tour in years. But that night is also CUSFS' first Virgin Sacrifice since my freshman year. My only hope is that the sacrifice is late enough that I can make both.
4/3: Jeff Lewis at Bluestockings
4/8: Libbie Schrader (formerly of Think of England) at the Sidewalk
4/9: Fed Bash
4/15: Kimya Dawson at the Knitting Factory
4/17: Karyn Kuhl at CB's Gallery
4/22: Magnetic Fields at NYU's Kimmel Center
4/24: CUSFS Banquet. Plus, I still plan to put together a proposal for a 24-hour Comic Book Day event at the MoCCA gallery. I'd better get on that soon if I actually want it to happen.
5/1: Jeff Lewis at the Sidewalk
5/6: Jeff Lewis at the Bowery Poetry Club
5/8 or 5/15: Engaged at TFANA
5/13: MoCCA Event: Kyle Baker
5/28-31: Wiscon (for Tor), possibly followed by vacation in Chicago
6/6: Tony Awards
6/26-27: MAF / Harveys Weekend
9/2-6: Noreascon, a.k.a. WorldCon '04. It's in Boston this year, so east coast geeks haven't much excuse not to check it out. And, um, Eugene? We should really figure out the hotel room thang.
10/5: Official opening of MoCCA's SoHo gallery (tentative). This day is also notable for another trivial reason, but I'll let you guess what that is. :)
11/5: Opening night of The Incredibles
11/18: Magnetic Fields at Carnegie Hall

Plus, there are tons more shows I think I'd like to make time for before they close, among them: Aunt Dan and Lemon (again), Sea of Tranquility, Roulette, Frozen, Bug (on comp?); Gypsy, I Am My Own Wife, Wonderful Town (rush?); Assassins (ushering?); Avenue Q (lottery?); and Jumpers (whatever it takes). Let me know if you want me to keep you apprised on my plans for any of these shows in particular.