I’m interested in setting up a darkroom in my apt. Photo film equipment is dirt cheap nowadays, so I typed in “enlarger” on Ebay to see what I could find. I guess I didn’t think about my search phrase enough — I got a lot of results for penis and breast enlargers. On Ebay. I’ll ignore the obvious question of who would buy a penis enlarger, but I will raise another one. Who would be a (potentially used) penis enlarger on Ebay?
Fiat: Diceless Roleplaying
After weeks of sporadic tinkering the role-playing system I was hoping to run for Protozoicon is finally at a usable stage. Still not polished to the sleek and glossy shine I’d prefer but workable at least and including all the necessary components. Also, at six pages, it’s mercifully brief.
You can find it here in PDF format.
For those really interested there’s more commentary available here on the design philosophy behind it and such.
Interview with Gabe Weisert, Director
Gabe Weisert is the director and co-writer of the two classic independent films Fishing with Gandhi (1998) and Cow Monkey (2001). For anyone interested in film, both works are must-owns and for low-budget filmmakers, they are mandatory viewing. Shot in relatively short amounts of time (each film was shot in 9 days or less) and with limited locations, the films demonstrate just what one can do with zero-budget, inventive story telling, dedication and talent: make damn fine art.
Weisert’s directorial debut, Fishing with Gandhi, is a loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Fishing with Gandhi is one of those rare films that balances profundity with side-splitting laughs and presently remains criminally under-appreciated. Its story follows Danno, played by Dan Klein, who has just returned from the wedding of his mother and uncle. Now traveling to see his too-cool-for-school friends Stephen, played by Weisert, and Giles, played by William Birdthistle, Danno hitches a ride with brothers Roy and Gil, played by James Reichmuth and John Reichmuth respectively.
Weisert, the Reichmuth brothers and Klein followed Fishing with Gandhi with another film truly after my own heart, Cow Monkey. Cow Monkey returns to characters Roy and Gil as they go on a quest to avenge the murder of their dog, Wanda II, by Bigfoot, or the mythical ape-beast the “cow monkey”. When Roy and Gil arrive at the Bigfoot site, they meet the woodsy Grover, played by Klein, and an anthropological student named Sydney, played by Bridget Schwartz. What ensues is 88 minutes that, like Fishing with Gandhi, is as funny as it is philosophical.
For more information on Gabe Weisert, visit his photography site. For more information on John and James Reichmuth and Dan Klein, visit their website of their extremely funny comedy troupe, Kasper Hauser, and check out their new book Sky Maul.
To purchase and view the films, visit Film Baby, which currently offers a signed double DVD package of the films, both which have extremely illuminating commentaries and are full of great outakes, cartoons, and Kasper Hauser troupe standup.
In the following interview, Weisert talks about the two films.
Interview follows.
I’m shocked that Fishing with Gandhi isn’t a better known film. It’s well written, well acted, extremely funny and quite touching. When it was released, did it get a lot of attention?
Thanks for the kind words! When it came out in ’98, FWG [Fishing with Gandhi] bounced around some of the smaller film festivals then got picked up by Hollywood Video. We got a nice write-up in Variety, and some great local press, and good word of mouth around the hip indie film fest circles, but by no means was it on any kind of grand national Entertainment Weekly type scale. But honestly I was pleasantly surprised — it’s more of a student film than anything else, so I was happy to see the small but very favorable attention that it received.
John Reichmuth as Gil and James Reichmuth as Roy
It came from the Receiving Room…
Many years ago at my current place of employment, someone made a donation of, who knows, maybe 15,000 vinyl records. This was long before I took the job. After the donation was accepted, the records proceeded to sit down in a dark room called the receiving room and went untouched for years. The records would have probably sat there indefinitely, but due to space issues, it was finally decided to do something about them. So it fell to me and a small band of others to see to it that the records vacated the premises. Of the many jobs I’ve had at my workplace, this is the job I have enjoyed the most. I like the job, because I get an incredible sense of joy watching physical things happen to space (i.e. records slowly disappear from the receiving room). The best part about the entire job is that a number of vinyl finds have been made along the way. I’ve been introduced to the music of Glenn Branca, found a recording of Joseph Byrd’s Yankee Transcendoodle and even a copy of Yoshi Wada’s Lament For The Rise And Fall Of The Elephantine Crocodile, which is really worthy of a post unto itself. There have also been a number of fantastic record covers. While I know it is a very internet thing to post nutty record covers, I couldn’t help myself and thought I would make my contribution to the glut of other funny record sites out there. I thought I’d start out subtle with Sound Waves… or not so subtle…
Sound Waves: Flipper king of the sea.
Primate Boogie
While I don’t hold with Creationists (or even proponents “Intelligent Design” as the term is currently employed) my world-view is generally in line with that of mainstream Roman Catholicism, a paradigm which is still lacking enough in empirical rigor to draw a fair amount of fire from skeptics. As time goes by I’ve found more and more that prolonged confrontation over these beliefs, even when tenable, frequently causes me enough anxiety to have minor biological repercussions.
An odd byproduct of this is that I occasionally feel sort of a sympathetic anxiousness when other folks views are attacked, sometimes even if I disagree with them or hold an opposing viewpoint. As a result I don’t argue as much in general as I did in earlier years, and (as you’d probably imagine) find some of the popular topics on blogs I frequent cause my stomach to churn a little extra. Curse of Greyface at work in me no doubt.
But in spite of these occasional misgivings about rocking boats when I recently came across the New York Dolls “Dance Like a Monkey” video it somehow amused me greatly:
Click here to watch “Dance Like a Monkey”.
I really gotta hand it to them: between the actual song lyrics and the video animation this thing has got more creationist, evolutionist, religious, skeptic, political, and scientific in-jokes than I’ve ever seen crammed into a 3 minute and 25 second package previously.
The FSM gets some action (always a crowd pleaser with skeptics). But I think my favorite parts were the obvious Dubya/monkey visual humor, and a passing reference to the Scopes Monkey Trial.
I’m actually surprised it hasn’t shown up on Boing Boing yet as it is totally their bag, and will be even more surprised if someone else doesn’t point it out to them before this gets posted.
Interview with Gary Gustin, Actor
Gary Gustin is an actor who works in the Pennsylvania area. In the following interview, Gustin talks about his experiences as an actor. His most recent film is Sean McKnight’s Disturbing Images (2006).
Interview follows.
I am familiar with your work from Sean McKnight’s film Disturbing Images where you played the character of Byron Lloyd. How did you come to be involved with the film?
I learned of Disturbing Images after Director Sean McKnight started casting notices. At that time he was being assisted by Dave Von Roehm of Ningun Films. I met Dave when I worked on a trailer for the film Two of One Heart. You know working on Independent films is a pretty small universe, seems like everyone knows everyone.
Protozoicon ’06 – RPG Interest Survey
This year the RPG run at Protozoicon will be decided by concensus. So if you’re planning on attending and interested in playing please give a little feedback if you’ve got time.
The survey only contains 10 questions so hopefully it won’t take too long.
You can click here to take it.
Flying Numbers
Flying Numbers (2005) is a series of 49 poems written over a two-month period or so in 2004. Originally I published them on the web, but in 2005, I edited them into a PDF book-like format. Personally, I like their web presentation a little better than their PDF presentation. Some of the pictures for example were changed in making them into a book, along with the background colors. Additionally, some friends contributed their versions of flying number poems, which I had on the web also. The PDF-book version lacks these poems, and the colors, etc, but in the end it is probably a little easier to navigate.
Thematically, each poem centers on the flying numbers 1, 2 and 3. Rather convolutedly, the poems were also connected to a project (which is currently shelved) called PJ the Robot (and who in many regards still lives on). Even more convolutedly, PJ was an acronym, standing for “propaganda jox”, both a call to arms against the current state of world affairs and an allusion to a bygone time when the only enemies on the face of the Earth were Russia and the USA. The final thing that should be noted is that both”propaganda jox” and PJ owe a lot to Stuart Gordon’s film, Robot Jox (1990).
Crash and Burn and Flying Numbers.
Today Was Painted Thin
I recorded Today Was Painted Thin on the 4-track in Essex sometime around April of 2003. As with most efforts that I myself “recorded and mastered” without Tim, the quality is pretty poor. I always liked the song though and wanted to record it again with people who could actually play instruments, rather than bang them (which is typically my approach to playing instruments). However, like the Lesternomicon, this might be as good as it ever gets.
Rides by the Highway
The deer cannot see from the side of the highway the traffic beyond.