Crazytown

THE KOREANS ARE INVADING!!!

We’ve all been so worried that North Korea would launch an attack against the U.S., that no one seems to notice that we’ve already been invaded… by South Korea.

By David Davila (playwright/songwriter)

 

This week I was almost trampled to death by a bunch of obsessed teenagers who were trying to get a peek at their favorite boy band. No, it wasn’t One Direction. No, it wasn’t The Wanted, or Justin Bieber, or any other rag-tag group of little white twinks. It was someone I had never heard of, and I’ve never felt so old… but I’m getting ahead of myself. This phenomenon starts with Psy.

You all heard the song, you saw the viral video, you did the silly little dance at that Pub the other night. Don’t try to tell me you didn’t, there was proof on Instagram! We all got caught up in Gangnam style. It’s a catchy song with a crazy little video to match. Psy seemed to pop out of nowhere with his unique image, and enthusiasm for sexy Korean women and wild dance moves. It’s infectious, and the infection has spread across the world as Psy’s video for his first U.S. single (18^th K-Pop single), became the most watched video on YouTube, toppling Justin Bieber’s “Baby” in a matter of weeks. It has 1.5 BILLION views! That’s a sixth of the entire world population!

Psy not only sold millions of albums in the U.S., he also did something much more important. He created a viral portal that has been connecting teenagers around the world to Korean pop music, also known as K-Pop, one YouTube click at a time. Now the portal is wide open and Billboard has even started counting down the top K-Pop songs of each week, which brings me back to the mob of screaming teens.

B.A.P. is not like any other boy band you’ve encountered in your life. Well, okay they’re a lot like every other boy band from what I can tell. They’re a group of six hot young twinkish boys who sing really well, and dance even better, but they have a distinct brand that will help them gain more male fans than your standard Backstreet Boys milieu. B.A.P. are all Korean gangsters!

 
(When you watch this video you'll understand why the teens were freaking out. It's pretty effing bad ass!!!! DAMMNNNNN!!!!! B.A.P. - One Shot)

SPRING AWAKENING

or I Am Running Out Of Socks That Don't Have Holes In Them.
By Alisha Giampola (Actor) 

Sometimes living in New York City can make you feel like this:

I've been having major cabin/spring fever this week and I am desperate to get outside in a meaningful way. I want to wear minimal clothing and lie in a hammock somewhere that smells nice and is quiet. Like Bora Bora.

Perfect.

Don't get me wrong, I am not Nature Girl. I don't camp well (while outdoor lighting is excellent for applying makeup, the lack of running hot water makes it so my face never feels perfectly clean, and tents lack air conditioning); I don't particularly like most traditional outdoor sports or activities (as a child the only way you could get me to play outside was if a costume or a swimming pool was involved in some way); and I would enormously fail at being lost in the woods (even when the sun is visible I have a hard time discerning the points of the compass). However, I do enjoy the outdoors in very specific, relaxing ways. Primarily ways that include beaches or other large bodies of water located close to a hotel or at least to a swim-up bar. 

POETRY IN SUBWAY MOTION

A regular day in New York City, as told through haikus.
By Ali Gordon

The View from March 23rd

Hey, springtime! I think
it may be time for you to
show the f&*^ up, dude.

----

E Train

Dear man on subway,
stop reaching in your pocket.
You're freaking me out.

Seriously, man.
You make eye contact with me.
And mutter something.

That's creepy, okay?
I'm switching cars as soon as
we get to Times Square.

LIVE YOUR LIFE LIKE THE PERFECT DONUT

Words of wisdom from the Big Easy
By Jen Littlefield (Choreographer/Librettist/Fried Dough Lover)

So I kicked off my 30s-and-still-spring-breaking week with a 3-day trip to New Orleans. My friend Jill booked us a sweet hotel right near the river in the CBD (Central Business District), and we've been pretty great, if often sober, tourists*. We went on a ghost and vampire tour of the French Quarter, drank bourbon on Frenchman St (after eating at 13; delicious with a side of tater tots), walked around the Lafayette Cemetery and the Garden District (Ann Rice's house!), took a swamp tour (wild pigs and gators!), rode the trolly, and ate delicious food. A quick recap in visual form:
    *I walked down Burbon St for exactly one block before the despiration and intoxication drove me back to Royal St

THE VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE

Sometimes I catch myself marveling at the beauty of NYC.  It's not typical.  It's not soaring mountain ranges or white sand beaches.  It's grey and shiny, sometimes cold, but it can still take my breath away.
Lara Paquette (Writer) 

Since I live in Brooklyn, I take the train over the Manhattan Bridge every day to go to work.  Most mornings, when we emerge from the tunnel and hit the sunlight, I'm not even paying attention.  I'm checking my email or wishing I was sitting instead of standing, or wondering how much sleep I will need to get for my eye to stop twitching.  Some mornings, though, when the sun is shining and I can spot the Statue of Liberty standing tall in the distances, and the light bounces off of the newly arisen One World Trade, I take it in.

I've been in NYC for 12 years.  People from all over the world wish they could live here, want to know that its like to inhabit this city.  And I'm doing it.  Tourists don't see the view from the N train at 9am on a Tuesday morning.  It's a gift that the city gives to the people in exchange for our devotion.  It's like the city saying, "I know I'm dirty and gross and the trains don't run the way they're supposed to and there are SO MANY FREAKING PEOPLE, but I sure am pretty."

Yes, NYC, you sure are.

LARA PAQUETTE Lara is an aspiring novelist and current blogger living in Park Slope. www.thinkwelllovewelldinewell.com
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IT'S A HEATWAVE!

Wait, that's just the fever talking...
By Jen Littlefield (Choreographer/Librettist/Vacation Planner)

My friend Jill and I are talking about taking a trip during my spring break. Yes I'm 32 and still have a spring break (I often feel like making a living in academia means never fully growing up, but that is another post), but if you've got it, make the most of it. And after being sick twice in the past two weeks, which were the coldest I've experienced since moving here from Chicago, I'm ready to think about someplace warm and fun with no rehearsals, classes, or deadlines. Below are my top 5 choices: 

1. New Orleans

This is the top of the list for many reasons - I have never been to this city before, Jill has to be here for work right before my break so we could just extend her stay, the food, the music, the cemeteries, and Anne Rice. Oh, I'm completely serious about that last one. I want to visit all the places mentioned in the Witching Hour and Interview With a Vampire. And take pictures...

2. Mexico 

Specifically near the Mayan ruins in Chichen Itza or Tulum. These are also conveniently close to Cancun and who wouldn't want to stay at an all-inclusive between trips to the jungle? And going at this age, I don't have to prove how many shots I can drink or how many videos my boobs can be featured in. It really is a win/win. 

LISTEN TO THE OTHER SIDE: PART 2

Last week, I talked to Melanie Closs and Rebecca Hackett-Levy about The Other Side and their new piece, LISTEN. This week, we discuss Theatre of the Oppressed, Cultural Competency, and creating a new work in eight hours.
By Rachel James (Treasurer/Writer)

Once Melanie decided she would be going back to India to create a sustainable theatre course at Pardada Pardadi, she wanted to enlist the help of fellow teachers and theatre practitioners to bring her vision to life. Enter director/facilitator Rebecca Hackett-Levy.

“I wanted to be involved just because I, one - love Melanie, two - love the way she works, [and] three - I like the subject matter: the wandering woman; the idea of being a conscientious artist and a conscientious woman.”

In order to create the piece, Melanie and Rebecca gave their actors (four girls, ages 14 and 15) a crash course in Theatre of the Oppressed. A method created by Augusto Boal (and explained in his titular book), it is theatre by the people and for the people. “It is theatre that is meant to empower people,” said Melanie. “It’s not theatre ‘for’ the oppressed, it’s theatre ‘of’ the oppressed.”

Not only does this methodology help the people to share their stories, it’s also an exercise in finding solutions. “The idea is that if you can act out, if you can practice - rehearse - some action that you can take in this controlled theatrical environment” she continued, “you can then go out in the real world and actually implement those actions. It’s like a rehearsal for the real world.”

Rehearsing LISTEN in Brooklyn.  Photo courtesy of The Other Side.

Rebecca created a curriculum from which they worked. They brought in various pieces of inspiration, such as facts about life for modern American women, articles about current affairs in India, and documents from feminist history, such as the Declaration of Sentiments from the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. The actors then used those pieces, as well as their own histories, to create a narrative on what it’s like to be a girl in America today. And they did all this in eight hours.

LISTEN TO THE OTHER SIDE: PART 1

In this two-parter, I sit down with new theatre company, The Other Side, to discuss their new project, LISTEN.  Like pen pals. But with theatre.
By Rachel James (Treasurer/Writer) 

In trying to expand my cultural consuming horizons, I decided to go see a piece 
some friends of mine were developing called LISTEN.  In it, four teenage girls 
discuss what it is like to be a girl growing up in America in the 21st century, 
using poetry, tableau, and their own stories. This piece will then be brought to 
the Pardada Pardadi Educational Society in Anoopshahr, Bulandshahr, 
Uttar Pradesh, India.  In witnessing this piece,the girls at Pardada Pardadi will 
develop their own piece about what it’s like to be a girl growing up in rural India. 
As The Other Side states...it’s like pen pals, but with theatre.

Melanie Closs is the creative mind behind The Other Side.  Originally, it started 

as a piece she created about what it’s like to be an other.  During 2009/2010,

she travelled to over twenty countries, adding to the piece and changing it with 

the different experiences she encountered.  It culminated in a two person show 

at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  And while it was about her experiences 

traveling, a lot of it focused on her time in India.

“It was just the strongest experience I had being an other in a culture.  Because 

I was in a village, was the only white person for miles and miles; It was [a] real... I wouldn’t say culture shock, because I had gone through the shock 

already going to all these other countries.  But it was definitely the biggest 

cultural difference.”

THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH

This week, I went to Disney World.  Things could be worse.
By Rachel James (Treasurer/Writer) 

Sometimes you wake up on Monday with... well... a case of the Mondays.

 

And sometimes you wake up on Monday and have breakfast with a princess.

While everyone else wears Disney themed attire.
I am sporting my "Liza's At The Palace" t-shirt.
That's how I roll...

I spent the last few days in Disney World, helping to plan the wedding of my friends/former roommates, Scott and Tevy. Excuse to go to Orlando in the middle of January? Don’t mind if I do!

Scott and Tevy getting ready to plan their wedding at Disney World.  
Say it with me, everybody: "Awwwwww!"

TAKE THE NYC CHRISTMAS DECORATION & HOLIDAY DISPLAY WALKING TOUR

Nietzsche said "All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking" - it's like that movie 'Walking Barefoot in the Park' only not really at all. (And one should make sure to keep their shoes on while walking in any NYC  parks. But that was a great movie!) AND it is a great time to walk in New York because it's Christmas season up in this biaaaaahtchhhh!
-By Leah Bonnema 

I absolutely love walking around NYC in December. New York got major decoration game son! The lights and window displays are simply incredible; I dare say THE best of the best. 

Not a bad pic for a Blackberry!

Amidst all the chaos of trying to get everything in order for the holidays and finishing up loose ends before the new year begins, it's been really important for me to take a moment and just enjoy exactly where I am. (I definitely don't do it enough.) So for the past two weeks I've made a concerted effort to go for a walkabout every night after stand up shows and simply admire. Walking seems to help melt away all the bullshiznit from the day, leaving me feeling clear minded and grateful. 

Looking to 5th from RockCenter they play a friggin' mini movie on the side of Saks!!!