Patrick's patois: Taiko, PersaCon, MFA...
I was too busy to mention it right away, but it's about time I wax percussive about the Taiko concert at UCR last Saturday night. Senryu Taiko performed with folks from Satori Daiko, the RCC Tap Ensamble and the Schurr High School Drumline, and it was a good show--a damn good show, really, and a steal at a measly $6 a ticket. I'd have shelled out triple or quadruple that without batting an eye.
UCR's Taiko concert last year was what inspired me to join Senryu Taiko in the first place. Had the respective impracticalities and impossibilities of the commute and work schedule not put the kibosh on things, I would have continued playing with them. It was a little tough to experience last Saturday's concert from the audience instead of from the stage, but the bittersweet moments were eclipsed by my vicarious enjoyment. I had gone to the concert a bit worried that I wouldn't be as enthralled by it as I had been last year, seeing as how I know more about Taiko now. I shouldn't have worried. If anything, I think I found everything even more impressive now that I know how difficult playing the Taiko drums can be. I was amazed by what the newbies had learned in less than a single academic year, and the group's veterans simply blew my mind.
So here's a big high-five to Terry, Joe, Giovanni, Bryan, Junko, Ryoko, Michael, Jeannette, Lina, Chi, Shady, Alma, Kraig, Scott, Mike, Elizabeth, Kelly and Danielle. You guys rocked last Saturday, and with any luck, I'll get down to the Taiko Invitational next month and watch you do it again.
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I'll be heading out next weekend to my very first out-of-state anime convention: PersaCon. In a sense, this will be my first true con experience. I mean, I did go to Anime Expo last July. Had a great time, too--but only going for one full day and crashing at my own house some 40 miles away before returning for part of the next does not a true con experience make. My attendance at PersaCon as an industry guest has been nailed down for a long while now, but next weekend has still managed to sneak up on me. Then again, I have been keeping pretty busy with work lately.
(And speaking of work, I knocked out something of a geek trifecta at work today--I noticed a palindromatic time-code in my script, I used "tertiary" in normal conversation and then defined it for somebody who asked, and I nosed through a gaming/hobby that I passed as I walked down the street for lunch.)
But yes, PersaCon. It's down in Madison, Alabama. I've never been to Alabama, and my last jaunt into the South (a week in New Orleans while my mom was getting trained for the second half of a distance education class she was teaching) is a hazy memory of over half a lifetime ago. I'll have to see to my pre-con errands this weekend, including getting a haircut and perhaps finally buying a camera. My dad's affinity for photography didn't get passed along to me, and so I've always just made do with the disposable dealies, but maybe it's time to invest in one of those digital camera everybody seems to love so much. I'm assuming that, as is the case with all technology, the low-to-moderate-end models have come down to some pretty reasonable prices, now that they've been on the market for a few years. I'll have to hunt around.
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Let's see...anything else to relate? Oh, yeah...my freakin' MFA thesis is due exactly seven weeks from tomorrow--but, y'know, no pressure. Suffice it to say that I've been robbing Peter (said MFA thesis) to pay Paul (work), I'm feeling like quite the procrastinating grasshopper to some of my fellow grad students' ants, and I'm fervently hoping to dodge the comeuppance I so richly deserve. Oy!
Time to post this entry and get cracking on that script...
Posted by patrick at 02:32 PM | Comments (1)
April 02, 2005
Damn you, Zeno! You owe me an eyepatch!
I'm a measly six pages away from being done with my last of seven scripts to adapt--somewhere around the 97% mark. Just as I'm reaching for the tape at the end of the marathon, Zeno cross-checks me with his eponymous paradox and sends me flying into the spectators and the Gatorade stand. Yes, the closer I've gotten to being done, the less gumption I've had to soldier on. And now, with six pages left, my mind has ground to a halt.
There's a discount bookstore at the corner of Laurel Canyon and Ventura--one of those huge rooms, filled with nothing but fold-out tables heaped high with remaindered books. And if you can find something you want, a black stripe drawn edgewise across the open end of the book is a small price to pay for an 80% discount.
I poked around in there, nothing really jumping out at me--which is always a shame. It's one thing to walk out of a bookstore empty-handed because you don't have any money, or couldn't pick from among the roughly 3,000 books that caught your eye, or because you know you have a stack of books at home you should read first. It's quite another thing to leave sans purchase because nothing seemed worth buying. It's the same vague sense of disappointment you have when you espy a gorgeous stranger, only to have them ruin it all by giving a barista undeserved attitude or screeching inanities into their cell-phone.
Anyhow, while I was thumbing through the books, I came across a hardback book with a full-page, black-and-white photo of the author across the back of the book-jacket--not uncommon. This particular author was a man in his 30s or early 40s, seated, sharply dressed. He had a dog at his feet and an eye-patch over his right eye.
My mind keeps creeping back to that photo during idle moments. Call me crazy, but I'm totally intrigued by that guy's eye-patch. Think of it. If you're sporting an eye-patch, we can deduce the following things about you:
* You've had some adventures and/or have been met with injury.
* You're enough of a non-conformist to reject the use of a glass eye, which would hide your injury.
* You might be a pirate. You're a pirate sympathizer, at the very least.
From a screenwriting/story-telling point of view, an eye-patch is a great device. Much like the criss-crossing scars on Hartigan's forehead in "Sin City," an eye-patch hints strongly at a character having an interesting back-story, even if it doesn't give any details.
Eye-patches. Just think on 'em for a minute or two, yeah?
Posted by patrick at 02:34 PM | Comments (1)