Learning to Crawl

Zelda has been learning how to push herself up on her knees, it's amazing to watch. I made a prediction that she would begin crawling here in Minnesota. We have a few days for that to come true.

Gossip
Last night the Vox Fringe board greeted us with this cry in the wilderness: "Who Do I Have To Blow To Get A Mainstream Review?" Ah, yes. The question of the ages. This person went on to lament the fact that all the papers have covered the same dozen shows (this is not true) and goes along with the accusation of local critics ignoring the out-of-town acts (they haven't.) But there is something to be said for the media concentrating on established performers and writers and up-and-coming companies which have already made waves at previous Fringes.

The other night I was having dinner with a certain influential member of the Minnesota media establishment. And this person recounted an encounter they had had the night before with an area theater critic at a solo performance written and performed by an established Twin Cities theater artist. The Fringe show in question is actually a revival from a few years earlier, a piece the artist had chosen to remount because they felt it hadn't gotten enough attention the first time around.

Well. The member of the local media establishment asked the critic, "what are you doing reviewing this, there's over 160 shows and you wrote this up three years ago," and the critic just smiled and said, "yeah, but it's just so good."

See, that story set me into a minor spasm of jealousy - my review was being wasted on a show that had already been covered just because the artist has a local critic in the palm of their hand!

And then I had to back up and say, hey dummy, if the tables were turned and this was your city and you were reviving a show you thought got short shrift and a local reviewer decided to give it another look-see, wouldn't you think that was your right, that you had earned that extra attention? The answer is, of course it would be.

The "sour grapes" conclusion to this barely interesting tale of envious rage is that Toni and Denny went to see the show in question yesterday afternoon. And they said it really isn't that great. The artist is a good actor, to be sure, but it's not a very cohesive or well-written play. Not even the bit about the cantaloupe.

Separated At Birth?

Amy Salloway and Curtis Proctor need to do a brother/sister act. While watching DTMMMLF? I was struck by her uncanny similarities to Curtis - not in appearance necessarily, though they do have a resemblance, but her voice, her gestures, her comic timing, it was stunning. I tried to figure it out, I thought perhaps it was the apparent inspiration Ms. Salloway has received from (among many others) David Sedaris, but that doesn't explain the performance. Anyway, I now have this urgent desire to bring them together - from far-flung Minneapolis and Wichita, to good old Cleveland, Ohio - and direct them in something. Maybe a trans-gendered production of True West or a seriously bent version of Virginia Woolf.

... hmn ... must contact James Mango ...

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Sweet! I got mentioned in City Pages! Not reviewed, mind you, but mentioned, and mentioned prominently. As Skip used to say, "every little bit hurts ..."