'Best of TBH Politoons'
Baron Dave Romm
The 2007 Minnesota Fringe Festival
By Baron Dave Romm
Shockwave Radio Theater
podcasts
2007
Minnesota Fringe Festival -- the early days
Still Fringing
Today (Sunday Aug. 12) is the last day of the Minnesota Fringe Festival and I'm still going, so this column will continue into next week.
These reviews are largely the ones I posted on the Fringe's web site, elaborated a bit. Many of these artists perform in other Fringes or in other locales, so keep an eye out, though they might do a different show elsewhere. Several performers from out of the country came around.
The I-35W Bridge Collapse
The I-35W Bridge as seen from the Stone Arch Bridge
Minneapolis,
August 10, 2007CE.
After more than a week, they finally let people closer to the collapsed bridge and opened the Stone Arch Bridge located well upriver.
In the picture above, the foreground is the Mississippi River, and the squarish structure is the dam and lock (lock on the right). The closed 10th Ave Bridge is in the background. The remnants of the 35W bridge are the green tangle of metal on the left and you can see the dip in the roadway behind the lock on the right. The brown castle-like buildings in the upper right are the University of Minnesota's hospital complex.
I'll have more on this later.
The Fringe continues: feels like blogging
The 2007 Minnesota Fringe Festival was off to a slow start, thanks to the bridge collapse. It took a few day before people felt comfortable driving around. In this middle days, many venues are crowded.
Here are the plays I've seen, in the order watched. For the most part, these are the reviews I posted on the site, using their five-star rating system, amplified and linked for the net. I'm writing about them to a large audience because many (if not most) Fringe shows appear in several Fringes around the world. Follow the links to the artist's home page, or check your local Fringe Festival listing.
Day 4: August 5, 2007CE
I'm busy this evening, so did three early shows in the same venue. I almost did a fourth, but I think I need a 24 hour rest until the shows start tomorrow. 14 Fringes so far! I haven't had time to make podcasts since I've been in theaters most of the day.
Vilification Tennis Donkey! Donkey! Donkey! **** 1/2
I have good taste, but I have other kinds of taste too. Tim Wick is an excellent line judge and his cautionary admonition at the beginning of the show was necessary to set the tone. Yes, the insults were rude and crude, but they also lobbed some math jokes and decent puns. Every show is different so your mileage will vary. Not for the faint of heart, but I laughed all the way through this show.
The tennis players change, but Tim & co. have been doing this act at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival for a long time. They get a longer and less restrictive show for the Fringe, but it still never made my "Must See" recommendations simply because you could catch their act later.
The Cody Rivers Show: Flammable People Overlapping Dialog, Overlapping Silence *****
My favorite show of the Fringe so far (and remains so). The two actors do more than throw dialog at each other, they create spaces. Using almost no props but their own body language and vocal dynamics, they travel from Undersea World to a mountaintop to 78 seconds in the past. Strange people get into stranger situations. They change scenes and characters in mid-sentence, and suddenly you're in another skit. The few parts that weren't hilarious were bizarre anyway.
Killer Smile Tedious And Unpleasant But Funny ** 1/2
A birthday party waits for the guest of honor and everyone goes for the jugular. Maybe this is your slice of cake, but it's not mine. I don't want anything to do with any of these people, but they got off a lot of funny lines. I debated whether to round up for the snappy humor or round down for the negativity, and eventually decided that I would rather have been someplace else.
Day 5: Aug. 6, 2007CEI don't so much go to Fringe shows as choreograph my day. This makes it easier to see many shows, and gives a certain randomness to an event best appreciated as a circus. Today, I went to four shows in the same venue, since I wanted to see the last one. Alas. Still, I don't consider that I've been to the Fringe until I've seen something I don't like. After today, I didn't have to worry about that aspect of the Fringe Experience.
The "F" Quotient Four Cathartic Acts For The Performers *
Four personal monologues, all awful, though the last one had some energy. The framing sequence was poor too. I don't mind people using performance as therapy, but for true catharsis they have to affect the audience as well.
While my one star isn't the lowest rating, two people gave it five stars and and six of the nine reviews gave it four stars or better; one of the reasons I went. YMMV and all that, but geeze, they must have been at a different show.
The Knot TuStupid Extravaganza Poor Concept Poorly Done * 1/2
I'm not at all sure what they were trying to do, but it didn't work. A half star for the tv theme songs playing before the show opened, and another half star for last sketch with the characters from Genesis in a 50s sitcom.
Who We Found Instead Slight Plot Nicely Acted ** 1/2
Doesn't go anywhere or say much about war, but I got into the characters.
Another one where several people really liked a show I thought was okay at best. Maybe I'm more jaded than I'm allowing for.
The Honeymoon Period Is Officially Over Hamster Love ****
Good acting of an okay story. I saw the 10pm show so she could go over time, but alas she stuck to an hour. A solid Fringe entry that won't disappoint.
A sold-out-show and a Fringe hit, but I don't really see why. Sex? The story is a standard downer British soap opera with few things to recommend it other than a woman miming sexual situations and a few clever non-humans. The only reason to see it is to watch Gemma Wilcox deftly slip in and out of characters, playing both sides of a conversation or strutting like a peacock.
Day 6: Aug 7, 2007CE
Circumference The Third In The Amy Salloway Trilogy (so far) **** 1/2
Intensely personal, very sad and very funny. Amy's one-woman show includes a large number of characters in her life and in her body. The play is rough around the edges (no jokes now); a work in progress, and every performance is a little different.
AfterLife Two Studies In Death *** 1/2
The men are all serial killers and the women are all murder victims in this two act play which takes place in the afterlife. The first act is a discussion among serial killers about serial killing. The second act is about the price of fame and the potential responsibility. The scripts are better than the acting, and neither segment really hits the target. Still, some interesting subjects get raised. Read the playbill beforehand so you can follow the characters.
Pigeon Man Apocalypse Descent Into Madness ****
The performance by Andy McQuade is excellent. The story isn't great, but it's a good character study of an abused child and the consequences. It's the dark side of Lindholm's "Wizard of the Pigeons". I'm rounding up because the intro music included my favorite song, "Streets of London".
Moliere Than Thou Does The Original French Rhyme? ****
Tim Mooney is having an enormously fun time playing Moliere and assorted Moliere characters. He never stops moving, and he plays off the audience well. You don't have to know the original plays, though it helps. The dialog from the 1700s sounds a bit archaic but the subject matter remains bawdy and funny.
Tim Mooney Repertory Theatre is based in Illinois and does many shows nearby and around the country. He's been doing Moliere for many years, and has a few other plays he performs regularly.
Day 7: Aug 8, 2007CE
Macbeth's Awesome Scottish Castle Party Young and Cheap, Pandering Interactive Deeds ****
Okay, it was stupid and crass but it (mostly) works. It reminded me, in tone, of Rocky and Bullwinkle: Lowbrow humor for the highbrow. Stay away if you want to see Shakespeare. Come if you don't mind a whole cast of Fallstaffs who talk to the audience and make crude jokes.
The Scrimshaw Brothers have been enlivening the Minneapolis scene for a decade now. As I was talking to some people at the show, comparing notes about Fringes, a woman turned and warned us about saying anything bad about her sons... and that's how we met.
Joseph Scrimshaw and parents Pat and Tim
Black
Forest Inn, August 8, 2007CE
But I'm Not Bitter: Confessions of a Lounge Lizard Confessions of a Mid-Life Crisis *** 1/2
A story of growing older punctuated by lounge acts. Funniest part was the beginning, about reading the cereal box. Most poignant segment came near the end, about his dying father.
I almost didn't see this show: I was trying for a Hump Day, relaxing in the middle of the Fringe, and had only scheduled two shows. One early, one late. But I couldn't do it, and filled in a slot with a show in a venue close to the next one. I don't regret seeing it, but from this point on I did a bit more planning.
An Intimate Evening With Fotis: The Taller Side of Ferrari McSpeedy Appropriate Use of Profanity **** 1/2
Okay, it was a guy reading essays with a bass playing in the background. But reading really funny essays with great emotion. How does he keep his voice from dying? This is not Lake Wobegon and the personal stories are not for kids or actors who aren't into sports or people whoare queasy about ear infections. The stories and digressions build to peaks and then climb higher. His father was in the audience for this show, which added an unusual dimension.
A two-dad day. Hard to plan for this.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. Permanent archive. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
--////
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Roger Ebert: Looking back on the path to war No End in Sight (Not rated; 4 STARS)
Remember the scene in "A Clockwork Orange" where Alex has his eyes clamped open and is forced to watch a movie? I imagine a similar experience for the architects of our catastrophe in Iraq. I would like them to see "No End in Sight," the story of how we were led into that war, and more than 3,000 American lives and hundreds of thousands of other lives were destroyed. ... No, I am distinctly not comparing anyone to Hitler, but I cannot help being reminded of the stories of him in his Berlin bunker, moving nonexistent troops on a map, and issuing orders to dead generals.
PAUL KRUGMAN: Very Scary Things (The New York Times)
In September 1998, the collapse of Long Term Capital Management, a giant hedge fund, led to a meltdown in the financial markets similar, in some ways, to what's happening now.
By DAVID POGUE: Internet Radio Made Easier (The New York Times)
You've heard of air pollution and noise pollution? Don't look now, but another depressing form of toxicity is taking the fun out of life: ad pollution. That's the creeping commercial crud that has sapped the pleasure out of TV, faxes, e-mail and, of course, radio. These days, it seems as though AM radio has 52 minutes of ads an hour.
Roger Ebert: Answer Man
Q. Is the movie critic for the Washington Post embarrassed that he was the only critic of the "cream of the crop" on Rotten Tomatoes who gave "The Bourne Ultimatum" a negative rating? He's got to be questioning himself.--Carey Ford, Corsicana, Texas
Paul Pratt: Brett Ratner knows gay sex (advocate.com)
The Rush Hour 3 director talks to The Advocate about his latest blockbuster and his own gay experiences.
Sara Gilbert has given birth to a baby girl (advocate.com)
The 32-year-old actress, who played surly teenager Darlene Conner on the hit ABC sitcom Roseanne, welcomed her daughter, Sawyer, on August 2, according to Variety. This is the second child for her and her partner, Allison Adler.
Jessica Graham's Coming-Out Party (afterellen.com)
The rising star of "2 Minutes Later" talks about why she's openly bisexual.
Kaki Flynn: Interview With Sheryl Swoopes (afterellen.com)
We recently talked to Swoopes from the bench about her plans to open a sports bar; the lack of women coaches in the WNBA; the sacrifices her partner, Alisa Scott, has had to make since Swoopes came out; and starring in NBA Street Homecourt, the first-ever video game to feature WNBA players.
Vatican's Best Films List (maryshop.com)
To mark the 100th anniversary of cinema in 1995, the Vatican compiled a list of 45 "great films," divided into three categories: Religion, Values and Art.
Hubert's Poetry Corner
DUBIOUS DUPES OF HAZARD
LEADING TO FAIL?
Reader Suggestion
Making Sense
This guy is on to something:
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Bit warmer, but still tolerable.
Bush More Disastrous Than Nixon
Carl Bernstein
Carl Bernstein will always be known as the journalist who brought down a president whose disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law disqualified the errant executive from completing a second term in the White House. And Bernstein still gets a round of applause when mention is made of the role he played, as part of a Washington Post investigative team that also included Bob Woodward, in exposing the high crimes and misdemeanors of a president named Nixon.
But 33 years after Nixon resigned in order to avoid an inevitable impeachment -- on August 9, 1974 -- Bernstein is more concerned about a president named Bush.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author was under no illusions regarding the extent of Nixon's wrongdoing as compared with that of Bush and those around the current president.
Unlike the often crude and conniving but unquestionably intelligent and highly-engaged 37th president, Bernstein says of Bush: "He's lazy, arrogant and has little curiosity. He's a catastrophe..."
Carl Bernstein
Rock Music Tries To Heal Wounds
Kashmir
The sound of a new rock band is soothing Kashmir which has been blighted by years of violence and a ban on entertainment by separatist Muslim guerrillas.
In a region where the boom of guns and bombs has drowned out all sounds for almost 20 years, a cacophony of melodies from guitar, drums and electric keyboards is now sweeping Kashmir's war-weary youngsters with a message of love and peace.
"Immersion," a five-member rock band that also includes a woman, says the purpose of its music is to try to erase the scars and trauma of young Kashmiris.
"They have suffered a lot and they are hungry for entertainment," Amit Wanchoo, the band's 28-year-old lyricist, told Reuters. "We are trying to heal their wounds."
Kashmir
Condemns Lucy Tour of U.S.
Richard Leakey
One of the world's leading paleontologists denounced Ethiopia's decision to send the Lucy skeleton on a six-year tour of the United States, warning Friday that the 3.2 million-year-old fossil will likely be damaged no matter how careful its handlers are.
The skeleton was quietly flown out of Ethiopia earlier this week for the U.S. tour.
Paleontologist Richard Leakey joined other experts in criticizing what some see as a gamble with one of the world's most famous fossils. The Smithsonian Institution also has objected to the tour, and the secretive manner in which the remains were sent abroad has raised eyebrows in Ethiopia, where Lucy has been displayed to the public only twice.
Richard Leakey
Bike Trail Follows Wall
Berlin
It is hard to find any tangible evidence left of the Berlin Wall that was hastily built 46 years ago by Communist East Germany and torn down almost as quickly in 1989 in a rush to obliterate memories of the loathed barrier.
But Berlin has been re-discovering its painful Cold War past and putting the finishing touches on a $6 million bike trail that follows the path of the 160-km (100 mile) Wall built on August 13, 1961.
Tracing a "death strip" that ran next to the Wall around the enclave of West Berlin, the "Berliner Mauerweg" (Berlin Wall Trail) is both a pleasant tour of the city's green belt and at the same time a surreal journey into its horrific history.
Berlin
Who Would Jesus Drag?
Love Demonstrated Ministries
Authorities charged the director of a Christian boot camp and an employee with dragging a 15-year-old girl behind a van after she fell behind the group during a morning run.
Charles Eugene Flowers and Stephanie Bassitt of San Antonio-based Love Demonstrated Ministries, a 32-day boot camp for at-risk teens, are accused of tying the girl to the van with a rope June 12 and dragging her, according to an arrest affidavit filed Wednesday.
Flowers, the camp's director, ordered Bassitt to run alongside the girl after she fell behind, according to the affidavit. When the girl stopped running, Bassitt yelled at her and pinned her to the ground while Flowers tied the rope to her, according to the affidavit.
The girl's mother gave investigators photos of her daughter's injuries and a sworn statement from a witness who claimed to have seen the girl dragged on her stomach at least three times.
Love Demonstrated Ministries
Kenya Court Clears 4
Joan Root
A Kenyan judge acquitted four men accused of killing a British wildlife filmmaker and naturalist in her home, ruling Friday that the investigation was "poorly done."
Joan Root, 69, was shot in her bed in January 2006 by two intruders who broke her bedroom window and fired an AK-47 assault rifle at close range, police said. They said she tried unsuccessfully to stop her bleeding with bed sheets before she died. The motive apparently was robbery.
Magistrate Nicholas Njagi, who presided over the bench trial, ordered the men released after more than a year in custody and denounced the investigation. They had faced charges including robbery with violence that leads to a death.
Root collaborated with her former husband, Alan Root, in making several popular films about African wildlife, including "Balloon Safari" and "Two in the Bush."
Joan Root
Rattler's Revenge
Danny Anderson
Turns out, even beheaded rattlesnakes can be dangerous. That's what 53-year-old Danny Anderson learned as he was feeding his horses Monday night, when a 5-foot rattler slithered onto his central Washington property, about 50 miles southeast of Yakima.
Anderson and his 27-year-old son, Benjamin, pinned the snake with an irrigation pipe and cut off its head with a shovel. A few more strikes to the head left it sitting under a pickup truck.
"When I reached down to pick up the head, it raised around and did a backflip almost, and bit my finger," Anderson said. "I had to shake my hand real hard to get it to let loose."
His wife insisted they go to the hospital, and by the time they arrived at Prosser Memorial Hospital 10 minutes later, Anderson's tongue was swollen and the venom was spreading. He then was taken by ambulance 30 miles to a Richland hospital to get the full series of six shots he needed.
Danny Anderson
Old Goat Milker
Arthur Lawton
A man accused of having sex with a goat is scheduled to be arraigned on Friday on a animal cruelty charge. Charging papers say a witness saw 63-year-old Arthur Lawton having sex with a goat May 8th in a barn at Eatonville's Pioneer Farm Museum where he worked.
Lawton said he was trying to milk the goat.
He's the second person charged in the county since the Legislature made bestiality a crime in response to the fatal injury to a man having sex with a horse in Enumclaw.
Arthur Lawton
Weekend Box Office
'Rush Hour 3'
People rushed to theaters to see the buddy cop comedy "Rush Hour 3," making the last of this summer's big budget Hollywood films the top movie at the weekend box office.
1. "Rush Hour 3," 50.3 million.
2. "The Bourne Ultimatum," $33.7 million.
3. "The Simpsons Movie," $11.1 million.
4. "Stardust," $9 million.
5. "Underdog," $6.5 million.
6. "Hairspray," $6.4 million.
7. "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry," $5.9 million.
8. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," $5.4 million.
9. "No Reservations," $3.9 million.
10. "Daddy Day Camp," which opened Wednesday, $3.3 million.
'Rush Hour 3'
In Memory
Merv Griffin
Merv Griffin, the big band-era crooner turned impresario who parlayed his "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune" game shows into a multimillion-dollar empire, died Sunday. He was 82.
From his beginning as a $100-a-week San Francisco radio singer, Griffin moved on as vocalist for Freddy Martin's band, sometime film actor in films and TV game and talk show host, and made Forbes' list of richest Americans several times.
In recent years, Griffin also rated frequent mentions in the sports pages as a successful race horse owner. His colt Stevie Wonderboy, named for entertainer Stevie Wonder, won the $1.5 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile in 2005.
In 1948, Freddy Martin hired Griffin to join his band at Los Angeles' Coconut Grove at $150 a week. With Griffin doing the singing, the band had a smash hit with "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Cocoanuts," a 1949 novelty song sung in a cockney accent.
Westinghouse Broadcasting introduced "The Merv Griffin Show" in 1965 on syndicated TV. Griffin never underestimated the intelligence of his audience, offering such figures as philosopher Bertrand Russell, cellist Pablo Casals and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer-philosopher-historians Will and Ariel Durant as well as movie stars and entertainers.
A lifelong crossword puzzle fan, Griffin devised a game show, "Word for Word," in 1963. It faded after one season, then his wife, Julann, suggested another show.
"Julann's idea was a twist on the usual question-answer format of the quiz shows of the Fifties," he wrote in his autobiography "Merv." "Her idea was to give the contestants the answer, and they had to come up with the appropriate question."
Mervyn Edward Griffin Jr. was born in San Mateo, south of San Francisco on July 6, 1925, the son of a stockbroker. An aunt, Claudia Robinson, taught him to play piano at age 4, and he soon was staging shows on the back porch.
Griffin and Julann Elizabeth Wright were married in 1958, and their son, Anthony, was born the following year. They divorced in 1973 because of "irreconcilable differences."
Besides his son, Griffin is survived by his daughter-in-law, Tricia, and two grandchildren.
Merv Griffin
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