NaPoWriMo day 16, or I couldn't think of anything to write for 15.

 An Opposite

It reminds you of life but was never alive

It has a mouth but does not eat,

It suggests wings but cannot fly

It can stand but has no feet

It has no feathers but feels like it should

It has eyes but does not see you

It has a tongue but can't make a sound

What is it? I've no idea hoo

NaPoWriMo Day 14: A Howling Parody

 I saw the worst minds of my generation improved by reading, well fed and warmly clothed,

marching themselves through the bright sunny streets at dusk looking for the bar where their friend is waiting,

every-shaped humans aching for the newest film of their favourite dynamic star to whir through the machinery of their local cinema,

who a social security net and well paid available employment opportunities has catapulted up the pyramid of needs, floating across the clouds of self improvement contemplating their favourite tune,

who adequate housing, readily accessible education, and the support and treatment to get back on their feet,

Who bared their brains to honest information under the humility of trust to expertise and saw specialised angels scratching their pens to the paper of papers,

who passed through being wrong and gaining learning and understanding so that next time they can with cool eyes accept the truth they see,

and who therefore ran through the streets of this poem and in its variable measure and non-rhyming plane,

found at last a full stop.

NaPoWriMo Day 13 (You'll Notice there was no Day 1-12, this wasn't an oversight)

 I haven't been on here for a while, but I'm dabbling unofficially with some of the NaPoWriMo prompts this year, and I needed somewhere to put them... so enjoy!

Day 13: Jokes as Poems

#1 Ellie and Prue

"What's the difference?" asked Ellie of Prue
"Between wallpaper and that of the loo?"
Prue chuckling so
said "I just don't know!"
"Ah ha!" Ellie cried. "It was you!"

#1 Times New Roman

Times New Roman is always sober

Serious, formal, polite

He considered a drink last October

But the bar didn't serve his type

As I Liked It

Full Disclosure: I attended this show free of charge in return for agreeing to write a review of the performance. The review has not been seen by the production prior to publishing, and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Arden Production’s reimagined version of As You Like It is not your average faithful production. Characters are combined or compressed. Speeches are passed around and repurposed. Genders are changed, and sexual orientations updated accordingly. Little is left untouched or unrevised, and you leave with a very different experience than had you seen, say, the Bell Shakespeare Company cover the same work.

But this all fits well with the poetry of Shakespeare. Love is love no matter the identity of those who profess it, and a promise is a promise, whether you’re Phoebus or Phoebe. Arden have produced a radical but respectful adaptation, allowing it to explore new issues with letting his words ring as true as ever.

The opening night (after a preview performance) was a very solid start to a generous run for the play, the cast in top form, with impeccable live music and a tight technical ship that produced no visible errors.

Being played in a former church hall, the actors perform a stylised and abstract rendition of the play in the centre of the audience’s circle of chairs. An actor might leave in one direction before suddenly emerging from another, speaking lines in a way that clearly indicates they are not truly part of the scene but rather reflecting on it. Two performers finish their speeches before undertaking a serious of almost dance like movements as the music builds around them, before they and the guitar fall silent.

The actors are to be commended for their performance, some taking on wildly different characters as the play transitioned from A Duchess’ court in the first act to a forest in the second. No actual changes to the set occur apart from the addition of a couple of stumps, and yet the locations and mood are clear.

While I thought all the performers were equally skilled, I wanted to especially mention an actor who took over from another only a week before opening. The director informed us that he would be prompting if needed before the play began, and it is a credit to the actor that aside from one or two polite requests for his line, we otherwise could not tell that this was relatively new material for him.

The music is also a particular highlight, composed especially for this production and played live with the guitar on the composer’s lap, the stings and body of the guitar all serving as instrument for a surreal score that perfectly fits the non-naturalistic performance.

It must be mentioned that your experience of the play might be somewhat affected by where you choose to sit. Sitting in a circle around the stage does give you a wonderfully intimate and varied view of the proceedings, but by its very nature means you sometimes will have nothing to look at but the back of a performer’s head (or if you’re particularly unlucky, squinting to see through a light pointing right at you).

But as long as you choose your seat with care, (preferably somewhere where you can also spot the guitar playing, just don’t get too distracted watching it and miss the whole play) you can expect a thought-provoking play performed by a cast that quite clearly know what they’re saying and respect the play they’re doing. I definitely recommend it; you won’t be disappointed.

As You Like It Reimagined runs until October 4^th at the Bluestone Church Arts Space in Footscray. Tickets and more information can be found at http://www.ardenproductions.com.au/as-you-like-it/ever-wanted-to-be-somebody-youre-not/ and https://www.melbournefringe.com.au/program/event/view/a700f9c0-1cb7-4ef9-a220-ca0ed75d513c

New Initiative Shows Initiative

Two things happened this weekend.

Well that’s not true, a lot of things happened this weekend. Especially if you acknowledge the admittedly unlikely notion that there are more people in the universe than me. (crazy, I know!) Even if only two things happened to each of them this weekend, (and if so, the human race in general is quite boring, unless the two things were #1: Captured international Spy-Ring. #2: Ate pancakes. Best weekend ever!) that’s still a whopping 14 billion things that happened this weekend. And if you add in the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe, then that’s a simply mind boggling amount. But more on that in a moment.

The two things I was referring to specifically in this case where relating to this blog. I’ve decided that I’m really just not that interested in discussing my life on a daily basis. This is not to say that I have anything against people that do (Hi, other people! *waves*) It’s just that I don’t really have the cool exciting adventure filled life that justifies it. I don’t really have misadventures like “Today the car on the front of me on the freeway crashed into the car in front of him! And then a third guy drove up and he got out and mugged the first two drivers. Then they were all eaten by a tyrannosaur who did a little dance.”

That has yet to happen.

Neither do I have the self confidence to write about everydayness. “I went to the, like, Starbucks and asked for a gingerbread latte and instead they almost gave me a caramel latte because the G looked like a C on the cup!? OMG! And I didn’t get my free cookie. FML.”

That actually did happen today on the way home from church, just with less three letter acronyms. Or TLA’s, if you will. For the record I don’t really define the lack of a free cookie as a life is over moment. Although I really would like a cookie now. Damn it.

If I were to accurately write out my life it would follow some variation of “Went to work. Work went well. Went home. May or may not have done some side work. Played video games. Went to bed. Blogged in my sleep.” And you know what? I’m cool with that. I perfectly content to have a mostly routine lifestyle, it’s comforting and easy to manage. It also means I get to play video games, so you know, win/win.

But it’s not what I want to write about. What I want to write is stories. I absolutely adore stories. And given this whole writing every day thing is to encourage creativity, it would be really nice to actually be writing a story instead of “today I got the wrong coffee” entries.

“So, why not do that,” you ask? Well it’s funny you should mention that...

So, starting right now, I am happy to present the ongoing adventures of “Dear Space Diary.” There’ll be a new entry every day whenever real life doesn’t intervene, and much like Dickens and radio serials of old, will be an ongoing continuing narrative until an ending presents itself, or my hands drop off. You know, either/or.

In usual disclaimer I should mention that this will very much be a live, unedited and stream of consciousness type of story. I know how it starts and I know a few places it’s going, but part of the fun is I’ve no idea how it’s going to get there. I’m looking forward to finding out.

I just got into RSS feeds (I know, 15 years late to the party, shh), and thanks to the wonders of Google related projects being smart, this blog is subscribeable (officially not a real word) by going to Google Reader or pretty much most other RSS thingies and entering in the site http://dearspacediary.blogspot.com should get the entry subscribed, meaning you’ll be notified when new updates are published.

There’ll still be random personal stuff whenever the mood takes me, or if that dancing anti-mugging tyrannosaur ever turns up, but not on a regular basis. I figure I can talk about my life when I want to rather than a schedule, as let’s face it, it’s my life. Back off. Get your own life. Unless you’re Batman. In which case, want to swap? Actually, now I think about it, Batman’s life isn’t actually all that fun. Fun to watch sure, but I don’t really want to lose my parents, go a little crazy, and get beaten up. Just sayin’.

Have a good one,
-Sam.

P.S. The other thing that happened this weekend is that I got so excited about this idea yesterday that I completely forgot to write a blog entry. Whoops. Hence Double Entry.

Stuff About A Blog About A Blog About Stuff

5 days in and I‘m actually struggling on what to write about. While this could be taken as an ominous sign given that I’m attempting to write 400 words a day (not more, not less, exactly 400 words, title not included) and I’m already having trouble, it’s actually a pretty good sign that things are going well at the moment. Easiest thing to write about is hardship, or problems, or “man I’m so annoyed by what happened on the way to that thing!” and the fact that I have none of those is probably a good thing. Sure makes it hard to write a blog though.

So am I writing a blog about not writing blog? Yes I am. Either that’s selling out, or thrillingly post-modern and avant-gard.

The blog has been a bit patchwork this year, given I went a grand total of 51 weeks without updating (Very carefully jumping in before it was more than a year). On reflection as a friend pointed out I think that was because I was trying to write too much at a time. First world problems and all that (although that phrase somewhat annoys me. Yes they’re miniscule compared to real problems that less fortunate people have to deal with on a daily basis, but on a purely psychological point of view, being told you should feel guilty for worrying about your problems is a very slippery slope…), but nonetheless was a challenge.

Then I did my collection of movie rants, but really I want more out of keeping a blog than just reviewing movies. If I really wanted to review movies (and that could be cool) I should probably set up a movie review site. And then review movies.

Then, based on another friend’s rather neat idea to maintain productivity by writing something every day, I thought I would give it a shot myself. And so here we are, 4 days later, and I can’t think of anything to say. I’m not overly concerned, as I said, it means things are good, and that’s not to say a hilarious escapade won’t occur to provide fuel for tomorrow. My blog today eventually came about because, as I struggled to write my very first sentence, I suddenly got a text from my friend N3rd.Girl. It read “RANDOM INSPIRATIONAL TEXT”, and cheered my up immensely. And, you know, it worked!

…I totally sold out.

A Bit of a Twitter Twit

I’ve been trying hard to get back into Twitter, though it’s kind of debatable if I ever was into Twitter in the first place. Still, first time for everything. The concept of Twitter does interest me greatly. Being required to say what you have to say in only 140 characters (which I’ve already exceeded in this post) is an intriguing challenge, but I’ve actually found it rather hard, though not for the reasons I expected. The issue is not trying to fit what I wanted to say into 140 characters, it was finding anything to say at all.

Allow me to elaborate.

It’s not that my life is bereft of interesting moments (my phone alone seems to account for a large proportion to them), but rather because, a) a lot of them don’t feel worth dedicating to a public space (probably should chalk that one up to self-esteem), and b) I’ve already said them.

See, although I’m hardly the most prolific of updaters, I’m already on Facebook, and recently joined Google+ as well. And as the bulk of my friends are on Facebook, that’s where my updates normally go. I generally double post to Google+ as well, but there’s only a few people there as it hasn’t really taken off yet, which is a shame because as a system I greatly prefer the way it functions. It’s got a slick and clean interface, and the ability to share specific posts with specific people quickly and easily is a major improvement over Facebook, its ticker, and its convoluted Top News algorithms. And Google’s privacy policy. That’s an improvement too. But in pure “The point of posting stuff is to have it read,” Facebook is definitely the winner currently, despite my reservations. By the time my thoughts trickle down to twitter I generally feel like I’ve already said it, which is a shame. I like twitter; it’s a really good way of sharing information. So I do need to try harder, because I want to be more involved. And if my dreams of company and business plans come to fruition, it’s an essential communication tool with customers (and, if you’re not very good at it, a hilarious one too).

I did also try MySpace, but only briefly. My experience can be summed up as follows. -Opened MySpace account. -Received 200 invites in 48 hours from bands I didn’t know. -Closed MySpace account.