October 2008 Archives

Guys, I thought I had a stroke tonight. Really.

Heather and I went to our improv comedy class tonight, just like we do every Monday. We did a bunch of wacky activities, like we always do. And then, all of the sudden, the instructor just starts speaking in this weird gibberish. Like some sort of weird, proto-French/German hybrid.

I looked around. Everyone else seemed to be nodding. Heather stood up and looked at me. She nodded in clear comprehension. By this time, the instructor was really getting into it. She was wildly gesticulating, seemingly telling us, "move the chairs to the side of the classroom." But it was pure gibberish.

But Heather seemed to know what she was doing. I proceeded to move my chair - and another - to the side of the room. Seriously - seriously - I thought that I was having a stroke, and that I had entered some deep psychosis in which I could tell that people were saying things - and that it was full of emotion - but I just had no idea what was being said. Kind of like that old episode of the Twilight Zone, Wordplay. Get ready for some nightmares.

And part two, if you can stomach it.

It was all an improv exercise, of course. But it really terrified me.

I sometimes smell things in the office - like burnt toast, or lilacs. I ask others if they smell it too, but nobody ever says they do. So I've often half-joked that maybe I was having a stroke or something. So you can imagine how scary this experience was for me.

A couple of weeks ago, a guy came in to the office to interview for a position at Zattoo. Very smart guy. Very sharp.

Anyway, he told us a story of when he was interviewing at MIT. This is what they told him:

Work. Friends. Sleep. Choose two.

Remind me never, ever to work interview at MIT. IHTFP indeed.

Heather and I went to our friends Mark and Julie's place for a halloween party. Here's a picture of Heather (prisoner with a dirty face), me (as Bob Marley), and our friends Mi (as Elvis) and B (as Neo from the Matrix).

Heather found a picture of a watermelon brain on the Internet, so we decided to get our demented Martha Stewart on, carve one of our own, and bring it to the party. Doesn't quite look like a brain... but it's a good first attempt.  The next brain is going to be awesome.

I'm (finally) finishing up Frank Luntz's book Words that Work. Good book, but I think the first half was much better than the second. The second is useful, but sometimes deteriorates into off-message homily.

Film, for all its wonders, is an infinitely more passive medium [than literature] for just this reason - and it undermines rather than enhances imagination. Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities is one of the most read and applauded novels about business and greed ever written because of its visionary and descriptive prose, but the movie was a bust. Even good films suffer in comparison to what we imagine from the pages of a book. The Natural is considered by many to be one of the best baseball films of all time - but those same people will assert that the book was better. Same with Lord of the Rings.

Ah, the old, oft-repeated complaint, "the book was better than the movie." The idea that movies stimulate imagination less than books across the board is ridiculous, and is only held by the unimaginative. Sure, literature can manipulate turns of phrases with unequaled facility, and can transplant the reader to any perspective at any time. Everyone would concede that literature has strengths that film could not possibly tap into. But film has its own strengths that rival literature. Facial expressions, for example, are an especially poor phenomenon to communicate via the written word. If a writer wants to convey that somebody is sad, she might just write it: "he was sad." If she's more sophisticated, and wants to show rather than tell - or, perhaps she might want to inject mystery into her character - she might write "his brow furrowed."

Whereas in firm, we can see the extent to which a character's brow furrowed - immediately. Was it quick? Did it linger? Were the character's eyes shifting? What was the character doing with his or her hands at the time? What were other characters doing in response to the original character's response? These things all can be communicated in print, but it would be such a laborious read that I would put it down soon after I started it. I'm simply not smart enough to keep all the details in my head and try to construct a real narrative out of it. Film, in this regard, has much greater emotive bandwidth. Furthermore, there's an inexorable, steady rhythm in the movies - more like real life. It really puts us in the headspace of the characters and the resulting social situation. Not so with books. The reader can pause, rewind, and even fast-forward with ease, at least compared to movies.

Anyway, I still love books. Love 'em. But I'm not going to stand by while film gets trashed.

Heather and I arrived in Chicago last night. We're here to visit some friends and my uncle. Actually, in about an hour and a half we'll be enjoying some delicious Tapas at Emilio's Tapas Bar, as suggested by my uncle. Really looking forward to it!

So, Heather and I will be starting to take an improv class at the Washtenaw Community College. You know, like that show Whose Line is it Anyway? It's a continuing education class, and it lasts about four weeks. Here's the description:

Improv 1: Your Life is a Stage

Laugh your way to thinking quicker and better on your feet.Enjoy developing your creativity through improvisational play in a fun and supportive environment. The class will help you learn a set of skills and attitudes that will let you become a better communicator, a better collaborator, and a more relaxed, spontaneous person at work and home. Writers, actors, and musicians may also find some unexpected benefits.

Neither of us have any aspirations whatsoever of doing improvisational comedy. We just wanted to find a way to stretch our minds and push our own boundaries. Also, the bit about "thinking quicker and better on your feet" really appealed to me personally. I'm hoping that I can parlay any skills that I learn in this class to something that can improve my effectiveness at work.

I guess that sounds kind of lame, now that I'm reading it. I don't care. I'm pretty excited about it.

Heather and I have no idea what kind of people to expect to be in the class with us. Will it mostly be people like us, who are just coming to see what there is to see? Will it be people interested in launching a comedy career? Will it be shy people who are interested in learning how to come out of their shell? Will it be slick MBAs interested in brushing up their routine and tailoring their elevator pitch to their audiences? A mixture thereof?

I'm excited to find out. Really excited.

OK, that's all for now. Off to Tapas!

Oh, and tonight, friends Andy and Sam are hosting an Indian-food and beer-brewing themed party. Which I'm also really excited about. :)