Category: This; And also that

Hi,
This one’s narrowcast to my fellow Bay Areans. Just wanted to share the fun fact that my daughter (aka Shonny Vortex) is making her big-time stage debut this very weekend in Virago Theatre Company’s staging of Candide, with music by Leonard “don’t call me Spock” Bernstein and lyrics by (among others) Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman, and Stephen “don’t call me Spock either” Sondheim.
This is an actual grown up performance. The New York Times described Bernstein’s score as “shimmering” and claims that Shonny’s performance is likely to be “the greatest stage appearance of the new century.” I think they’re overhyping it, but who’s gonna argue with the New York Times?
Special Twofer Deal
The show opens this coming Friday, and they’re offering a crazy two-for-one deal on advance tix for the first weekend — two tickets for the low price of just $20. You can secure that snazzy deal by calling 510-865-6237 or by dropping me an email….
Days and Times: Friday February 22nd, 8pm, Sat February 23rd, 8pm, Sunday February 24th, 7pm.
The show runs from Feb 22 through to March 9th. For more information: click away.
-Cecil

That’s what this lady at the table next to mine just asked her gentleman friend.
“Yes! Dear lord yes!” I want to shout.

I’m drinking vanilla mighty leaf tonight.
The most macho tea.
Tough guys smell this brew they
back down. They should back down.
It makes me French with rage. Like some
French Bruce Banner. “Petite l’hommes!
Je crushez vous!”

A while back, my better half worked on a full-length independent science fiction feature called “Homeworld.” Well the movie’s now done and ready for it’s world premiere — this coming Sunday, January 13th. The tickets are free, and the theater is pretty huge, so we’re encouraging one and all to come and join us for the event. I’ll be the one who looks like the picture over on the right, only without the goatee and with both a top and a bottom part to my head.
Here’s all the info:
When: January 13th, 2008 @ 5PM
Where: Rheem Theater 350 Park St., Moraga, CA 94556
Admission: Free
Rating: Not rated yet, but think “PG.” Kids are welcome.
More info, including directions: Homeworld Site

Hope to see ya there!

OK, time to wander out on that limb. At 8:58 am on Wednesday the 3rd, based on, well, very little, I’m calling Iowa for Obama (largely because I wish it so) and Romney (organization).
Fortunately, I can edit this post tomorrow if I get it all wrong.
Any other predictions out there?

I dreamt last night that I was throwing a party and someone brought Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel-themed Kraft Cheese Lunchables.
Der Wikipedia tells us that Hegel (1770-1831) talked about “a relation between nature and freedom, immanence and transcendence, and the unification of these dualities without eliminating either pole or reducing it to the other.”
I’m trying to find the connection my subconscious was drawing between Hegel and Kraft Cheese Lunchables. The best I’ve come up with so far is that Kraft Cheese Lunchables are free from nature. Transcendentally free from nature.
Immanence.

the last thing I’m
gonna do is check my email.
You know — blinding chest pain,
hit refresh.
Hit refresh again. Pull down some spam.
Reboot
this mortal coil.

So I have this new idea for a movie. It’s the most completely original idea I’ve ever come up with. And tonight I’m giving it to the world because that’s how much I love the world.
The movie’s called “Gnome Alone.” And the idea is, I’ve gone away for Christmas vacation and I’ve accidentally left my gnome home, all by himself. Two bungling crooks try to rob the place, but my gnome fights them off with a series of slapstick Rube Goldberg-style defensive maneuvers. And then he stabs them in the heart.
I’m proud to say, this idea is entirely fiction. (I don’t even have a gnome!)
It’s sort of a send up of all those gnome movies from back in the late ’50s. “The Third Gnome.” “Gnome on a Hot Tin Roof.” Remember those? “12 Angry Gnomes”? What was up with that?
Update: My family reminded me that Meg Ryan also had those pair of gnome movies in the ’80s and ’90s: “When Gnome Met Sally” and then a few years later, “You’ve Got Gnome.”

This hurts my brain:

disclosure: I work for the publisher that distributes No Starch Press’ Forbidden Lego.
more disclosure: Somebody should get the Nobel Book Titling prize for calling a book “Forbidden Lego.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about toast and how everyone takes it for granted. I mean, how many foods taste great uncooked and taste even greater after you’ve heated them up? 10? Maybe? Maybe 12? It’s not a lot.
So I’ve started working on some new slogans that I hope will help turn things around. See if you can incorporate these into your daily conversations. You know, virally.

• “Toast: Like bread, only naughtier.”
• “Suddenly everyone’s talking — about toast!”
• “If you combined ‘toad’ with ‘roast,’ you’d get ‘toast.’ Who’s hungry?”
• “Toast!” (this one’s not really a slogan, just a fresh way of saying the word toast — with extra emphasis.)

OK. Enough jibber jabber. Let’s get this toast party rolling!