Feed aggregator

I’m always interested in expanding and deepening my understanding of stories and storytelling and the web can be a treasure trove of ideas.

Here are some story inspiration links:

Pirates in Pajamas (I linked to the homepage so you can see how their story begins…there’s lots of great ideas on the site and their blog for storybuilding)

“How We Tell Stories” at Teacher Tom’s Blog (So much to read an enjoy on Teacher Tom’s blog! Reading about daily life and action at his preschool often inspires me to look at what I can do with LP in a new light.)

“Storytelling Tips for Oral Language Development” at Literacy Connections (Straightforward and specific.  A little something for the left side of your brain.)

“If I had the Courage…” at the Improvisational Storyteller (This is my friend Kat’s bog.  Contemplating her questions inspired me in my own storytelling AND I love the idea to starting stories using the magic “if.” I can see using it to explore emotions with LP by starting stories “If I felt sad…” or “If I felt mad…”)

Do you have a favorite story structure or link to share? I’d love it if you would share!

This bog is part of the Moms’ 30 Minute Blog Challenge over at SteadyMom.

Performing improvisors know the almost impossible to resist pull of going onstage when a scene is going well.

I’ve stood on the sidelines knowing that I am not needed — the actors are solidly playing the characters they have created, the story is flowing, the audience is laughing or crying — and yet, I want to be onstage. I want to be a part of that. Who wouldn’t? When it feels good just to be close to that action, it is easy to imagine that it would be incredible to be in the middle of it. That thought is never at the forefront of my consciousness; my imagination gives me all kinds of ideas that would justify getting out there, but underneath it all, I know that I just want to be out there for the good stuff.  From inside a scene that is rocking and rolling along, I’ve felt the “oh no” as other improvisors pile on in to try and be a part of it.

It is the flipside of hanging out in the wings when things are going badly and you don’t know what to do. When the stage is cold and the improvisors on it are floundering, just getting yourself on the stage to make some kind of offer is the best thing. When you do that, even if it doesn’t help the scene, at the very least, your fellow players know they are not alone. There is the difference — when the stage is cold, we need to be reminded that we are not alone and return to the most basic principles of taking care of our partners and triggering their imaginations.  When the stage is hot, we need to know that sometimes the best offer is the one held back in respect of what is already happening.  The choice to not to do something can be just as playful and wonderful a choice as doing something.

I have gotten (and given) the post-show note, “You weren’t needed in that scene. Stay offstage.” It is common. It is so human. When there’s fun, we want in.  Yet going on stage when you are not needed often throws a scene off-kilter.  The magic of the moment can be deflated by the over-eager newcomer.

And so it is in playing with our little people too. There is a delicate balance to be found between offering opportunities to play together, joining play, letting the little people take the lead, taking the lead, and staying out of it.

Which brings me to yesterday morning’s cat pancakes.

LP & I had a number of days in a row where all our mornings felt rushed. So yesterday we were taking it slow and I suggested making pancakes for breakfast. The response was an enthusiastic “YES!”

In the middle of helping pour and mix, she climbed down from the stepstool to harvest some cats to add. (She has long been into the book Farm Fresh Cats by Scott Santoro.  In this book, Farmer Ray’s cabbage crop mysteriously turns into a cat crop. Very quirky and fun.) She went back and forth a number of times, harvesting her imaginary cats from the other room and running in to add them to the pancake batter. Throughout this, I bantered with her –calling her “Farmer Ray” and talking about cat harvest — while cooking and cleaning up a bit.

Once the pancakes (with blueberries) were cooking, LP was back on the stool counting cat eyes (blueberries). Her face was alight with delight, her energy was big and bold; it was just fun to be next to her.  And I noticed myself start to think about making pancakes in the shape of cats. Surely that would be even more fun, right?

Fortunately there was no space to start a new pancake at the moment of that idea so I got to sit with it a minute. And realized that, LP was completely engrossed in the experience she had created.  My offer of cat-shaped pancakes (which of course won’t really look much more like real cats than my un-cat-shaped pancakes), would be the equivalent of going onstage when I am not needed. My offer of shaping the pancakes intentionally like cats might have  deflated her imagining of them.

LP’s imagination was off and running, her play was full and robust.  She was showing me the level of interaction that added to her pleasure;  my role was mostly audience with a little verbal interaction.  If she had been minimally engaged in playing this out, joining her in harvesting the cats or making my sorta-cat-shaped pancakes would be invitations for more engagement as I tested out things to spark her imagination.

Throughout breakfast, I stayed focus on being appreciative  audience for LP’s Farmer Ray;  It was easy to do, especially since Farmer Ray enjoyed her cat pancakes with gusto.

I’m always on the look out for writing about play that inspires me and (or) makes me think. Here are some of my current favorites on the web:

“A Part of Their World: Adult Roles in Child’s Play”  at Not Just Cute

“Let Kids Just Play” at Raising Happiness

“just add places to pause, places to hide, places to rest” at Let the Children Play

“Power Struggles Dissolve with Laughter” at Hand in Hand Parenting

The sunflowers we planted in our butterfly garden are giving us a lovely surprise.  The package says to expect 3-4 foot plants and ours are growing beyond expectations.

I’m getting a lot of delight watching our sunflowers grow…especially since they are growing beyond the boundaries of our expectations and I like that as a metaphor. We, like the sunflower seeds, have all this potential for growth inside if we can find, make and/or create the conditions for it to happen.  Sometimes in the daily, weekly repetitive grind of parenting, I forget to see all the ways that I have grown.

Something I love about being an improvisor is that there is always room for growth.  There is always room to deepen storytelling, play more nuanced characters, develop new skills at an accent, learn a new genre – the list goes on and on.  I find that to be true as a parent too; there is so much room to develop patience, learn new approaches to supporting independence and skill-building, new ways to play together….yes, that list goes on and on as well. There is a challenge in both cases, to appreciate and enjoy the stage you are at, while working on the next new thing.  AND like those sunflowers growing taller than expected, I have experienced in both arenas, growth I did not predict or expect.

Those sunflower seeds have the inner code to grow and so do we.  Whatever our metaphoric water and sun and good soil is, it is good when we find it and can grow more than anyone, even ourselves expected.

LP has caught the “sunflower bug” too. When it is time to wash hands in the bathroom, she crouches on the stepstool until I act out watering and shining the sun on her and she grows tall enough to reach the sink. (Actually I quite look forward to her growing another inch or two so she can reach the faucet on her own….that or I need to find a taller stepstool for her.)

This post is part of the Moms’ 30 Minute Blog Challenge at SteadyMom.

I keep trying to write this post and failing.  My words tangle and snarl up. My thoughts that seem so clear at 3 am arrive on the screen without a sense of cohesion.  So I’m trying a 30-Minute attempt it and accept that it may take more than one post for me to dig out the meaning AND connect it to the practice of improv.

We all have habits of mind. There are many ways these are useful; we develop these habits for good reasons.  But life changes, we change and sometimes old habits of mind aren’t useful anymore.  Many spiritual practices and therapy modalities have techniques for noticing and letting go (or changing) habits of mind.

These days I find I am particularly challenged by  my own habits of mind that are not useful anymore. And it is hard to let them go.

After LP’s birth, I suffered from postpartum depression. One of the places I experience the lingering effects is in my habits of mind.  I used to be a much more hopeful, optimistic person and I miss that way of being. I have the distinct experience of having my generally positive view of the world enhanced over the years by the practice of  improv. And then I have the distinct experience of my generally positive view of the world being absorbed by all of the dark, sad and lonely feelings of ppd.

One reason that I say that the practice of improvisation builds optimism is that creating together opens us up to alternate stories.   When we create together in the moment, we have a give and take of ideas and actions. The story that I start to tell in my head, leaping forward into the future, is not the story that gets told because my partner has different ideas.  Together we find a story path which is different than the story we would tell either of us alone. The world and specifically any given moment becomes filled with possibilities.

When I get drawn back down in my negative habits of mind, I am not in the present. I am spinning in the sadness of the past. I am wrapped up in grief for the things that didn’t happen and the experiences I missed out on because I was depressed. My world becomes quite narrow and I lose sight of those possible other stories.

An example:

LP has been getting more easily frustrated recently and cries out, “I can’t do it. It’s too hard.”  This shakes me.  I believe this is all part of her normal development; she’s three and struggling to be more independent while simultaneously longing for dependence. Yet I have fears about how my ppd has affected her and those particular words are triggering for me. All those months when that is what I felt day after day — “I can’t do this. It’s too hard.” Every day for 10 months before I found a treatment that helped me and even then it took almost 2 years to feel like myself again.

To help me not go spinning off into my own sadness when this occurs, I made a plan.  When she says it, I am prepared to sit by her side and say “I know you can do this” and “Why don’t you give it another try?” and “You feel like it’s hard. It’s good to try hard things.” and “I’m going to stay right here with you while you try again” or “I’ll be in the other room when you’ve done it” (depends on the circumstance). I need these prepared responses because otherwise I get caught up in over-thinking (and over-feeling) the moment, ascribing meaning to it that it may or may not have…I cannot know for sure.  And we need to get through the day.

That’s my time cut-off too….so more to come in part two.

This post is part of the Moms 30 Minute Blog Challenge; a really wonderful idea (that keeps me writing at least once a week!) from Jamie over at SteadyMom.

This craft project has been in the works for a long time.  I was inspired by Future Craft Collective’s Prayer, Wish, Hope Flags. I even sewed up a bunch of muslin flags a few months ago. Where those flags have gone, I do not know.  So starting over, I decided to use the basic idea of the flags to create a photo banner that could brighten up LP’s room (with her favorite color as the base). At first I was going to make iron on photo transfers but then I remembered I had leftover photo sleeves which also have the added bonus of letting us swap the photos.

I sewed the flags while LP played with pins and thread.  Then discovered that while my old scrapbook photoholders were a good idea, they didn’t actually stick to the fabric.  So I sewed them to the flags. Voila!

LP chose the photos and I printed them out on our ink jet printer.

Here’s a close up of one flag (LP with her beloved chickens):

And here’s the whole thing:

I’m looking forward to seeing how the photo rotation goes. I think it will be a fun way to prepare for visiting family and friends and remembering special occasions.

In A World... opened last week to wonder and delight. Three worlds down, only twenty-one
to go! If you were there with us, you saw:

Thursday, 7/8: In A World . . . Where Everyone Can Talk to the Dead

Being dead can be great for your life. It can help you spy on your children, find
long-lost relatives you never knew, and even get rid of your pesky body so you can
spend more time at work. In this world, one dead man must make a choice: will he
follow a new love into the Great Beyond, or stay behind and support his pregnant
wife -- who's shacked up with his brother!

Friday, 7/9: In A World . . . Where Humans are Owned by Animals

Some humans have it made, with a cushy place to live and a wheel to run on while
their dog's at work. Some live in less friendly conditions, like underground with
earthworms. Others are strays, fleeing the Mancatcher to stay out of the pound.
In this world, can the pound posse plant an adoptee in the cat-mayor's house,
uncover the truth behind the spay/neuter law, and start a pet revolution?

Saturday, 7/10: In A World . . . Where There's No Personal Space

In this crowded world, people treat others' bodies as their own, and everyone's
pretty happy. Relationships are fluid as water, when people live and work literally
cheek to cheek. But ominous dread lurks behind this free love -- the only open
spaces left are graveyards, and when a child dies, he's replaced by a neighbor so
there's no empty space. In this world of universal bland affection, can one couple
find a REAL connection?

Tickets are onsale now for the rest of the run . . . who knows what intriguing worlds
are left to discover?

This week's cast:

    * Thursday, 7/15: Clay, Alex, Paul, Gina, Erica
    * Friday, 7/16: Dave, Clay, Bryce, Melissa, Erica
    * Saturday, 7/17: Bryce, Paul, Mandy, Gina, Larissa

I went to go see Jaws last night at the Cerrito. They were showing it as part of their "Classics" series, and had a little trivia contest before the show. I knew the answer to the second question before he'd finished reading it, but rather than raise my hand to actually win the free nachos, I just said the answer under my breath with an air of satisfaction.

Why didn't I actually try to win? It hadn't occurred to me at all to actually raise my hand, and I puzzled over why.

The answer: I'm an improvisor.

As an improvisor, when I go see an improv show, I consider myself not really an audience member. Rarely do improvisors want to see the same things from a show that a regular audience does. So, I don't give suggestions or participate really because I don't want to push the show in a direction that my thrill me and the actors but not the rest of the crowd. I'm not representative of the audience, I don't feel.

So I've trained myself so well not to interact when interacted with, that I didn't raise my hand. And that cost me nachos.

You owe me nachos, improv.

LP has taken up grunting a sound that is close to “yeah” instead of saying “yes.”

It bugs me.

So I started paying attention to what I actually say when I mean “yes.”

I say a lot of things — ok, sure, uh huh, yeah, in a minute and soon. I nod. I do what she asks without saying anything at all.

Yes is a beautiful word. It is a pleasure to hear. Truly, I find it a pleasure to say. And I had let it slip out of my vocabulary.

So that is my improv practice for the week.

To say “yes.” Literally.

This post is part of the Moms’ 30 Minute Blog Challenge over at SteadyMom.

Last fall I performed in Beer Theatre at Impact. Basically a grad student was working on his thesis and needed to do some research on how medieval plays were actually performed (i.e. drunk) and wanted to test how drinking at various levels changed the performance. (I learned that when you're drunk, it's not that you don't remember your lines--because you do--it's that you just don't care.) It was super fun and everyone wanted to do it again.

Since then the student has started his own theatre company and tonight Beer Theatre is happening again as essentially a fundraiser for Front Line Theatre and Impact. 8pm at La Val's. Get there early if you want tickets. It will sell-out fast.

I'm not performing this time. I was asked and agreed to do it, but then when I realized that it no longer had a research purpose, my enthusiasm waned. And then I realized how few weekends are left before the wedding and I started to hyperventilate.

Why did my enthusiasm wane? I'm something of a nerd and the academic angle appealed to my geeky nature. Without that, Beer Theatre becomes Bar-Prov-Sports. Now Bar-Prov-Sports can be a lot of fun for performers and audience alike, it's just not my thing. I mean, Un-Scripted basically exists for the sole purpose of not being Bar-Prov-Sports and we're constantly having to fight people's assumptions that all improv is Bar-Prov-Sports.

I think that was what made the first Beer Theatre so much fun for me. It was an excuse do to that sort of thing with an actual driving reason behind it other than "hey, that would be fun".

It is super-fun though, so if you're in Berkeley tonight, check it out.

This idea is borrowed from our friends down the block. Last week when LP & I went over to play, her friend E showed us his outdoor kitchen. I thought it was a brilliant idea AND we have a lot of old building supplies hanging around (cinder blocks, slate slabs, bricks).  Since we rent and the owner wants to hold on to this stuff, this is a great way to use it and not just keep moving it out of the way.

LP & I planted a “kitchen garden” of parsley, basil & poppies in the cinder blocks.  We’ll see what happens…for the meantime, it has added a new fun element to the yard.

This post is part of the Moms 30 minute blog challenge over at SteadyMom.

Everyone put on your best Don LaFontaine voice (may he rest in peace!) and read this text with me:

In A World ... just like our own—with one key difference.

  A cultural norm.  A technological miracle.  Or even the laws of physics...

Each night, you determine the change, and the Un-Scripted Theater Company will be your guide on a feature-length improvised-theater journey to this new world. Spanning the gamut of genres, from science fiction to magical realism to just plain . . . different, the only boundaries are in your imagination. Find out how life is different, yet strangely familiar, In A World...

Playing July 8 through August 28 in a theater near you. Which theater? There can be only one. The SF Playhouse, at 533 Sutter St. In San Francisco.

That's right! In A World..., our newestest show, opens Next Week! Thursdays through Saturdays at 8pm -- and we're back at the SF Playhouse again, hurrah!

We've never done this show before, and as you probably know if you're reading our blog, the show, especially a new one, evolves throughout the process, so come help us shape our new creation! On the first night of the show (and possibly the rest of the first weekend), we have a talkback after the show -- where YOU tell US what you thought. What did you like, what were you expecting, what could we add that would be awesome, that sort of thing.

And to help you out, you can get tickets for our subscriber price: 25% off! Just use the coupon code SPECIAL on our website between now and opening weekend, to get that awesome deal.

(AND, as you also may know, patrons at the first weekend get a special present: coupons to come see the show AGAIN at half price. Cause this is an eight-week run. We expect it to change a LOT.)

See you at the show, improv fans! Start dreaming of your alternate universes NOW.

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, 2006



It's Kinda Like: Not sure . . . the most tragic romantic comedy ever?

Directed by: Karan Johar

Produced by: Hiroo Johar

Starring: Shahrukh Khan, Rani Mukerji, Preity Zinta, Abhishek Bachchan, Amitabh Bachchan, Kirron Kher

Note: among those in the know, this movie is referred to as KANK. Yeah, no kidding.

This is sort of a blast from the recent past, with a huge all-star cast. But my Bollywood class is doing a song from it, so I thought I'd mentally revisit it. I saw this kind of awhile ago, and one thing stuck with me: its unusually high-contrast genres. There are parts of this movie that are outlandishly cheesy, and parts that are punch-someone-in-the-face tearjerky (I'm not big on the tearjerker genre ;o). Overall I'm pretty sure I enjoyed it, though they drag out that drama To Its Utmost. It's an earl(ier) directing effort by Karan Johar, and not his very best.

This film is packed with stars, all doing their starry best in roles that suit them. There's Shahrukh Khan, today's most (?) famous Bollywood star, playing the comic/tragic love interest to the solid and stolid Rani Mukerji -- rounding out the love square (?) are their spouses, respectively played by the adorably bubbly Preity Zinta and the charmingly petulant Abhishek Bachchan (do they call him the Little B?). Parents in the film are played by yesterday's favorite Bollywood action hero, now Bollywood's favorite dad and narrator -- here he is, everyone's favorite, the Big B -- Amitabh Bachchan, and everyone's favorite most huggable Bollywood mom, Kirron Kher. All the stars are out, and they're emoting up a storm.

With four essentially likeable people involved in the Love Square, the sad parts are that much sadder, and of course there's every Romantic Misunderstanding and Missed Moment that you could think of. (If you're studying to remount Love At First Sight, Jennifer Kah, this would be a great microcosm of Romantic Distress.) And yet it's that kind of movie where the main characters are so in love that their time together is mostly spent crying because they feel So Guilty For Being In Love.

But there's also comedy, my friends -- for what is Bollywood if not for everyone? Of course Shahrukh Khan's character is charming, irreverent, witty, ever the jester and gadfly (when he's not doing that thing he does where he's sucking air through his lips in a Brave Attempt Not to Cry -- I'll have to imitate it for you). And then there's The Big B, who plays his real-life son's father in the film. In what might be a parody of their actual relationship, Amitabh's character Samarjit Singh Talwar goes by "Sexy Sam," and keeps being discovered by his son in corners, canoodling with young white hotties, a different one every scene. (Whenever he appears onscreen, he gets his own "Sexy Sam" background singers in the score. Awesome!) And his outfits are HIGH-larious. See this highlarious turtleneck and fur-collar jacket? He wears this in this movie.

And the musical numbers are half cheesy sadness and half cheesy goodness. Here are the cheesy-goodness songs from this movie, which, though they seem to fall from nowhere, are nonetheless welcome for their unabashed wackiness.

First: the song we're doing a choreography to -- I include this YouTube clip which has the dialogue preceding it, exposing all the romantic entanglements in a nutshell. (And of course, the parents have a longtime romantic rivalry too -- here they meet at the sumptuous party and trade barbs -- she asks him, "Oh, is that your daughter?" and when he finally ends the conversation, the chick asks Amitabh, "Who was that?" he replies, "My mother.")The scenes preceding the song are only about half in English, but the body language is pretty universal, and sets up the rivalries better than a lengthy plot explanation could. (also, watch out for Sexy Sam! he's got his own the actual lines from this song: "Sexy Sam, Sexy Sam, wham bam, wham bam, thank you, Sam." No kidding, watch for it around 5:20 in this clip):



Now, wouldn't you guess that that song came from a COMEDY? But comedy is just tragedy that you laugh at, and they stop laughing for the second act. Even this song doesn't manage to tip the genre scale, and it's pretty awesome . . . . And now, here and blaring from clubs worldwide, it's everyone's favorite hilarious party anthem . . .


(even more hilarious: both likely "item girls" are in this movie already -- and Kajol is a surprise Item Girl in the first song posted -- so there's kind of an "item guy" here -- the DJ is John Abraham, muscle-man star of action films like Dhoom.)

And then watch the genres collide! That's Bollywood for you -- there's enough time to see both sides of everything. The complications from comedy become tragic. The lousy spouses might be nice people. The silly father becomes noble. Romantic gestures turn practical and vice-versa. Will love triumph? And will throwing popcorn at the TV make it happen FASTER, already? Find out when you watch it.

Verdict: Mixed . . . depends on your mood? There are so many great actors doing their thing that they're fun to watch. And if you like heckling, there's plenty of over-the-top tearjerking to heckle. Again, depending on your mood, it's either a fun romantic comedy that suddenly runs off the rails into the Grand Canyon dug by all that crying, or else it's a Sumptuously Tragic Romance that springs from a silly comedy. Definitely a solid example of that kind of Bollywood tragicomedy romance.

In a World… opens in a few weeks. I’m not in it, as I’ve mentioned. That means by the time our holiday show starts rehearsing, I will have gone about 6 months without doing improv. Fortunately, Christian has started teaching classes again, and after several weeks being thwarted, I was finally able to attend on Monday.

I had a great time. It was a small class, which made for lots of personal attention. He’s using a very interesting narrative based approach in an effort to come up with exercises that actually translate to better performance skills. I don’t really want to go too in depth, because they’re his ideas and I wouldn’t do them justice. I just want to point out that he’s not spending a lot of time dwelling on protagonist work, at least not directly.

Now, I want to point out an interesting tidbit that I took a way from class. As usual, it’s something I knew already, but enjoyed hearing so concisely put. Basically, that the protagonist has to start in the middle. By that I mean, they must have hope of moving up towards their goals, while at the same time have room to move further away from them. If the protagonist starts at the bottom with no where to go but up, you’re not going to have a very interesting story.

This past week has been going on for years.

There has been a lot of screaming from LP and a lot of insomnia from me (I’m not sure if there is a direct relationship or if those are two things that just happen to be going on simultaneously). A fairly disastrous combination.  She is tired and wants me to do everything for her; I am tired and want her to please just go play for a while. She’s at the end of her rope and so am I. Our playful spirit has not been present as we retract to just plain coping, coping, coping.

I can see the factors that add up to this moment. The transition from being away to back home is always difficult for LP and we have a house guest for a week (a dear friend we haven’t seen who is lovely in just about every way and has spoiled us rotten with his cooking while we treat him to hours of screaming) which shakes things up. And a growth spurt. And a number of little things that have kept our regular routine from being that comfort that I’ve witnessed it be for LP.

So I’ve been battening down the hatches. Looking for ways to slow down our day, do less. So much less that I’m climbing the walls a bit. But it seems to be helping. Slowly. Very, very slowly.

This afternoon, I had a big feeling of dread.  I could see she was feeling tender and thought I needed to come up with something really great to offer to do when all I really wanted to work on a gardening project.  The side of our house has gone wild with grass and poppies and a huge thorny blackberry plant that produces no berries. Since we have so little gardening space, I want to reclaim it. I had been hesitating because I love the poppies; I find them such a cheerful flower.  So the current batch is past flowering and I realized it was the right moment to collect seeds from the pods and then plant poppies at will.

Since I really had no energy for anything else, I told LP that we were going to do a gardening project expecting it would probably last all of 10 minutes, at best. As it turned out, seed collecting was the perfect thing for us. We sat together on the path, picking and emptying pods. And talking. There was no screaming. Not a single one.  When she was ready to move on, she did. No fuss.  I sat and continued my seed collecting and then started pulling them out.  LP came and went, moving between her own play and being with me. For over an hour.

I needed that.

And by bathtime tonight, I had a little playful spirit back. Not 100% but good enough.

This post is part of the Moms 30 Minute Blog Challenge over at SteadyMom.

We three are  adjusting back to life at home (complete with post-vacation/travel tantrums). It was a wonderful trip to visit Grandma and Auntie K and then travel together to Orcas Island to visit with family there too. Lots of delicious time to play and explore tidepools and meet animals (such a highlight for LP! Chickens and horses and alpacas! Crabs and limpets and barnacles!)

All that open play time, gave us lots of time for low-key improv. Something I love about vacation is the slower (and mostly un-plugged) pace which makes so much more room for “yes.”

One of the most special moments was at a rest stop of all places. After lunch, LP wanted to play so I started to teach her “Red light, Green light.”  She very quickly put her own spin on it AND enticed ImprovDad and Grandma into joining us.

This is one of those moments that I like to look at from an improv perspective.  It would be so easy to tell her that this game has “rules” and we have to follow them.  AND it is so much more joyful to follow her lead, to say “yes” and create a different version that springs from LP’s spontaneity. Something in the moment triggered her imagination and I certainly had more fun playing her version which has continued to evolve.  Currently “red light” means stop, “green light” means go, “orange light” means move in slow motion, “purple light” means hop like a bunny and “brown light” means run around flapping like a chicken. (Also there isn’t one caller in LP’s game…anyone can call out the color light and everyone moves.)

We followed up with ring-around-the-rosie…and I wish I had a photo of the four of us, holding hands, going around together in the sun.

Taking in that experience reminds me how delicious improvising with little people can be;  when a small thing captures their imagination, you get a lot of mileage (and delight) out of it!

LP explores Orcas Island.

This post is part of the Moms’ 30 Minute Blog Challenge over at SteadyMom.

Wake Up Sid, 2009
Directed by: Ayan Mukerji

Produced by: Karan Johar

Starring: Ranbir Kapoor, Konkona Sen Sharma, Anupam Kher, Supriya Pathak, Rahul Khanna, Kashmira Shah

It's Kinda Like: Overboard meets Maid to Order, without the amnesia?

This week's Bollywood movie is a great complement to last week's Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year. Both movies came out the same year, and both star Ranbir Kapoor. And between the two, he shows off his versatility, playing two opposite characters in the two films. (Both of which films, by the way, were delightful.)

Both films begin with the same circumstances: school is almost out, and the college students are graduating. And, both Kapoor's characters -- Harpreet Singh Bedi in Rocket Singh and Siddharth "Sid" Mehra in Wake Up Sid -- haven't been doing so well in school. But there the similarity ends. HP Bedi is earnest, ambitious, and hardworking, just not great at school. You can see what happens to him in his movie. Sid, on the other hand, is the spoiled partyboy son of uber-rich parents, barely scraping by in school because he can't be bothered to put in any work. He loves his carefree existence -- until graduation, when his slacker friends have somehow managed to squeeze out passing grades, leaving him alone at the bottom. He is, of course, super angry at them for this. To top it off, his dad wants him to start right away working in the office at the family business.

At their graduation party, Sid meets Aisha (Konkona Sen Sharma, who I'm pleased to see keeps getting cast in better and better films). Aisha has moved to Mumbai all on her own that very afternoon, leaving everyone she knows, in search of a dream job. She's a little older than Sid and anxious that he not get "the wrong idea," since they're hitting it off so awfully well. He shows her the city and they exchange numbers; she's thankful to find ONE friend in Mumbai, at least.

And of course Sid's time in the office doesn't go so well, despite the fancy SUV he's promised if he comes to work for a whole two weeks. After a falling-out, he leaves home and with nowhere else to go, crashes at Aisha's place. Hilarity ensues, mostly based on Sid's total inability to take care of himself. (See? Like Overboard meets Maid to Order!)

While Rocket Singh is a quirky, understated movie that feels like an indie, Wake Up Sid feels more like an 80s film: it's more exuberant, and slightly goofy. Kapoor is equally likeable in both roles, and in Wake Up Sid he's charmingly petulant. And the costume design is equally delightful, with him cycling through a neverending (and enviable) wardrobe of superhero, comic book, and Star Wars t-shirts (which of course are chosen for the scenes, well done designers). (I believe he also has Spongebob sheets.) The music, too, is really catchy -- heavily acoustic guitar based, for a true-feeling modern college graduate feel. (Similar to the music from 3 Idiots.)

Here's a song from early in the film -- see his adorable carefree ways? And this song is *ridiculously* catchy. ("Kya Karoon" loosely translates to "What should I do?," or "What do I do?")


Just like in Overboard and Maid to Order (I LOVE those movies!), Sid's transformation/coming-of-age is immensely satisfying to watch, while not being overly unrealistic. And the film's question is how to become the *right amount* of grown up; it's possible to go too far -- or at least far enough to become just no fun at all.

Verdict: I kind of loved this movie. Watch it, and go through your own end-of-school, beginning-of-summer transformation. Enjoy, and happy summer!

You may have noticed I haven't been blogging about the rehearsal's for Un-Scripted's next show. That's because I'm not in it. I know, I know... tragic.

In the meantime, however, voting has started in the SF Bay Guardian's annual best of the bay poll. Lots of local papers have "best of" polls, but the Guardian's was the first and as such is the most prestigious. We actually won it back in 2008. Not too shabby huh?

Here is our "official" pitch, taken from our Facebook event page:

In 2008 the Un-Scripted Theater Company was voted best theater company by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. In 2009 ACT, the biggest theater company in San Francisco, took the title. The voting has started for 2010, and we're really going to need your help to overcome ACT's large subscriber base, not to mention every other theater company or comedy troupe pushing to take the highly competitive category of Best Theater Company.

http://www.sfbg.com/bestofthebay2010

But hey, we don't just want to win the title in name, we actively strive to create the best theater in San Francisco using improvisation as our medium. At the Un-Scripted Theater Company, we try to push the envelope of improvised theater with 2-hour improvised plays, movies, musicals, comedies, and dramas. If you've ever seen one of our shows, you know what I mean. Improv and theater is our lives, and creating amazing live productions worthy of being called the Best of the Bay has always been our goal ever since we started in 2002.

http://www.sfbg.com/bestofthebay2010

So please take a moment and vote for the Un-Scripted Theater Company as Best Theater Company located in category 3 on the ARTS & NIGHTLIFE page. And when you get to the end of the poll, please feel free to write the Un-Scripted Theater Company in as something you love in the 25 word or less write in category.

I just watched TWO completely unrelated pieces of media, which both incorporated a certain song. And in each piece, characters used the song as a sort of camaraderie test: if you knew the lyrics, you were of an age, and could be friends. A sort of communal open-secret guilty pleasure, if you will.

What were the pieces of media?
1. The Proposal, starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds -- which, though predictable in structure and plot (cause really, I mean helloooo) was actually, in its dedicated snarkiness, quite hilariously delightful!
2. Episode 21 ("Mamma Mia") of Season Three of 30 Rock

What was the song? If you haven't guessed from the post title, perhaps you fail the test? See below. (I think for my contemporaries I might have picked "Ice Ice Baby" . . . thoughts?)

Enjoy!

(Netflix streaming of Bollywood movies = awesome!)

Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year, 2009
Directed by: Shimit Amin
Produced by: Yash Raj Films

Starring: Ranbir Kapoor, Shazahn Padamsee, Sharon Prabhakar, Gauhar Khan, Prem Chopra, Manish Choudhary

It's Kinda Like: If Wes Anderson directed Office Space, a little bit . . . mixed with some IT Crowd, but serious.

(Note: Beware of Netflix film descriptions; this is the blurb from their site: "Versatile Bollywood talent Ranbir Kapoor stars in this romantic comedy as Rocket Singh, a salesman hustling his trade in a flush economy. In fact, Singh is performing so well at work that he decides to start a company -- within the same company. In his effort to keep his venture under wraps, Singh soon adds con artist to his list of credentials." Did they WATCH the movie? Approximately 75% of this is Entirely, Entirely False. His name is NOT Rocket Singh, he's sucking at work, the economy is NOT necessarily great, and he's NOT a con artist; his whole thing is being completely honest with everyone. Nice going, interns who apparently wrote this blurb.)

This movie was really great! And with a very "Western Cinema Indie Film" aesthetic -- quirky, understated, actors that look like Real People instead of plastic heroes. The opening reminded me a little of something like Rushmore, or The Royal Tenenbaums, with its offbeat, stylized approach to cinematography and characterization. No dance numbers, no Hot Romantic B-story, but an excellent satisfying underdog story. A quiet, quirky comedy, or maybe a comedy-drama -- with the necessary Terrible Things happening around the intermission, as per the Bollywood structure.

Ranbir Kapoor performs admirably as our hero, Harpreet Singh Bedi (not "Rocket," Netflix!), a hopeful, earnest college graduate who didn't exactly get the best grades ever. But he knows how to deal with people. Kapoor is adorably forthright, decked out in a neverending palette of stripes (at once childlike AND an indication that he's on the Straight and Narrow) and a dizzying array of colored turbans. At the outset, he's kind of like a little old man-child (not unlike Rushmore): he wears horizontal striped T-shirts like Ernie, he dances in that embarrassing dad way, he wears *short-sleeved buttondowns,* he's rocking the turban and the beard (no one else is Sikh in the film but his grandpa, forcing him visually even more into the minority), and he seems cheerfully unconcerned by his uncoolness. "HP," as his friends call him, is determined to get a great job like all his friends, so he decides to go into sales--he's a people person, after all. Sales of what? Who cares! Wherever he can get an interview.

Here, look how cute he is:


Far from the suave con man that Netflix indicates he is, HP is actually wide-eyed and innocent, unaware of the cutthroat techniques employed by businessmen. His new mentor, Nitin (played with excellent smarminess by Naveen Kaushik, sporting some truly awesome douchebaggish facial hair), quickly shows him both the quick thinking needed by salesmen, and the routine dirty tricks. HP is appalled by the casual dishonesty employed by his new colleagues.

Through a complicated series of events, HP finds himself running a rival company from within the bigger company. In an Office Space type way, he's quietly subversive, while maintaining his own personal integrity.

The characters in this film are all slightly unexpected -- again a la Wes Anderson. Since it's not your typical Bollywood Romance, the characters have that real-life tinge; like in The Royal Tenenbaums they come off as *slightly* sad, with a hint of wilted skeeviness, as if you're made uncomfortable by your own voyeurism of their perfectly ordinary lives. Harpreet Singh lives in a flat with his grandpa, who is so gleefully young for his age that they're more like cranky brothers. Giri (D. Santosh), the IT guy, is like an Indian version of Roy from The IT Crowd: greasy curly hair, unkempt appearance, nearly horizontal posture in his desk chair, personal schedule entirely unconcerned with the actual time of day, and an open predilection for "porn," which in this case being a family movie is pictures of ladies in swimsuits. Koena the receptionist (Gauhar Khan) is always being hit on -- but she's not really THAT hot, or scantily-dressed or anything, she's just better looking than anyone else in the office. They're ordinary, with the reality-volume turned up a notch. Stylized.

I think just the premise is enough; a lot more happens that I won't spoil for you. Suffice it to say, it's a great underdog movie with an awesome villain (Prem Chopra as Mr. Bedi, the boss, with his perfectly-kept frownyface mustache), a quiet and entirely engaging hero in Harpreet Singh, a delightfully dangerous predicament (starting a rival company from inside), and a satisfying conclusion. A nice-looking, well made film. Enjoy!

(This trailer gives the *most* accurate flavor of the trailers that I could find . . . )