Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand
by krisis
krisis: Do you have to be a real singer-songwriter before you get to write from the perspective of disturbing characters that you’ve created? Or, alternately, is it a turnoff if my new song is about killing my lover?
Carton: hmm. as long as people realize you didn’t actually commit homicide, you should be okay
krisis: Well, that would require me to have had a lover,… so i’m in the clear!
by krisis
i have the oddest singing range: not high enough to sing along to the high parts of tenor vocals, but not low enough to sing most female parts an octave low. In a way i’m a bit intimidated by my higher range, because i’ve got to belt stuff out for it to come out on pitch. I always approach the notes from underneath for some reason, makes me sound shaky, so it’s either a shaky approach or a blind wailing of the note in question. Either way, it ends absolutely at E unless i venture into falsetto, even if i’m totally warmed up. Usually it’s more like D. However, it used to be C, so i’m getting better. Still not high enough to follow all of the Tenors i listen to (Peter Mulvey comes to mind; i can hit *most* of his notes) though i can sorta sing along with aimee mann note for note, but it gets sketchy on choruses. No word yet on the range of the song i have to sing in Good Woman of Setzuan.
by krisis
I’m not sure what it is i find so enchanting about Rabi, but i just chanced onto Blogger just as she made an update (and was in the “recently” list (see, publicity does work wonders)) and was sucked into yet another post about physics and other hi-brow stuff. And i loved it! Rabi, you’re going to make an excellent teacher because your enthusiasm for the material shows through, even over the internet. Although, even i apparently seem interesting on the internet, so maybe you shouldn’t be taking my advice…
by krisis
Is there a good reason that my belly button smells of coffee? It’s not as though i was serving it shirtless today. Ack… the smell of that place makes me so queazy … all of the coffee and sweet and bleach seeps into my fingertips as i clean at the end of the day and when i get home i can still smell it even after scrubbing my hands for minutes at a time. Uck. When i used to work in a footwear store the scent of rubber made me nauseous as well. I never got sick from the scents of being a camp counselor though; even the goose poop gets charming after a while when the sun is shining.
by krisis
I miss hair. I didn’t make it into the cast of our production, but i wound up running props for all of the performances. After getting used to the format of the show i came to have my favourite moments and songs, where i’d peek out of the curtain to watch the action; and then there were the points where i knew to get onto the headset because our stage manager was likely to be dishing in between lighting cues.
“Hair” got progressively more and more sizzling night after night until finally for the penultimate performance it just exploded from the mouths of the cast like some sort of audio dynamite. After the last chorus there had to have been a second of awed silence before the audience began their applause. I grabbed for the headset and switched it on to hear Kate say “Oh my god, that was amazing.” All of us just *knew* we’d seen the cast fall into a totally synergetic state to produce an amazing work of art.
By the end of the second act all the props were gone and i’d just get to stand in the wings and listen to the last few songs. I don’t think anything i’ll ever do in my life will compare the awe of watching my darling cast sing the refrain of “Let the Sunshine In” with my friend Tom lying dead in the middle of the stage as Claude Bukowski. “Let the Sunshine In” is at once the most depressing and uplifting song you’ll ever hear in theatre next to Annie‘s “Tomorrow,” if you have the right kind of cast at the end it turns into some sort of magical rock opera gospel choir with all of the members swaying and clapping and crying and… God, what a great musical… if you like Rent at all you need to find a production of Hair to go see. Or, at least buy the soundtrack.