Fringe Friday: Histories' Mysteries

Fringe Friday #2. (Here's Fringe Friday #1) The second the the series of updates on the creation of the show Your Responsibility for Sex Failure for the 2011 Minnesota Fringe Festival.


If you don't know by now, you will, Your Responsibility for Sex Failure is based on advice and articles from early 1960's ladies magazines. Think Cosmo 50 years ago.


Most of the magazines' stories are elaborate dramas involving the glamorous world of doctors and nurses.

As part of my research, my mom lent me her college yearbooks from 1960 to 1964. She let me steal them on the condition that I don't show anyone her picture:

 

This is not my mom. This is the 1964 Montana State Harvest Queen.

Did you really think my mom was the Harvest Queen?

Do you really think I would embarrass my mom like that?

Only like this: Can you find her in this sorority photo?

Did you find her?

Let me help you:

Ta-da!

Fun and games aside, I need to research sexy nurses.

Like these ladies:

Hot. 

Here's my interpretation of that:

Here's our show image! Come see our show! Aug 4-14th 2011
Minneapolis Theatre Garage.

Oh! Here's my mom again.

She's going to be so pretend angry.

To even things up here is a photo of me from 8th grade:

I don't know what is going on here. 

Re: Can i trust you with this funds?

I am America

Am I a jerk for not helping this woman out?

She sent me two emails today asking for help. Two emails. One minute apart from each other. She must really need help, especially since the emails were exactly the same. 

Though, I was pretty swayed for a moment when she called me Beloved. And she has a cancerous ailment.

Re: Can i trust you with this funds?

MRS. GHAYTH FAIZA.

23, Hawley Crescent,
Camden Town, London,
NW1 8NP, England.

Dear Beloved,

Here writes Mrs. Ghayth Faiza, suffering from cancerous ailment. I am
married to Watson Ghayth an Arabian who is dead. My husband was into
private practice all his life before his death. Our life together as man
and wife lasted for three decades without a child. My husband died after a
protracted illness. My husband and I made a vow to uplift the down-trodden
and the less-privileged individuals as he had passion for persons who can
not help themselves due to physical disability or financial predicament. I
can adduce this to the fact that he needed a Child from this relationship,
which never came.

When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of Two Million Great
Britain Pound Sterling which were derived from his vast estates and
investment in capital market with his bank here in UK. Presently, this
money is still with the Bank. Recently, my Doctor told me that I have
limited days to live due to the cancerous problems I am suffering from.

Though what bothers me most is the stroke that I have in addition to the
cancer. With this hard reality that has befallen my family and I, I have
decided to donate this fund to you and want you to use this gift which
comes from my husbands effort to fund the upkeep of widows, widowers,
orphans, destitute, the down-trodden, physically challenged children,
barren-women and persons who prove to be genuinely handicapped
financially.

It is often said that blessed is the hand that giveth. I took this
decision because I do not have any child that will inherit this money and
my husband's relatives are bourgeois and very wealthy persons and I do not
want my husband's hard earned money to be misused or invested into ill
perceived ventures. I do not want a situation where this money will be
used in an ungodly manner, hence the reason for taking this bold decision.
I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going. I know that I am
going to be with the Almighty when I eventually pass on.

The Almighty will fight my case and I shall hold my peace. I do not need
any telephone communication in this regard due to my deteriorating health
and because of the presence of my husband's relatives around me, I do not
want them to know about this development. With God all things are
possible. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of
the Bank in UK. I will also issue you a Letter of Authority that will
empower you as the original beneficiary of this fund. My happiness is that
I lived a life worthy of emulation. Please always be prayerful all through
your life.

Please assure me that you will act just as I have stated herein. Hope to
hear from you soon and God bless you and members of your family.

Reply to my mail through my email address: mrs-ghaythwatson044@w.cn

Yours Faithfully,

Mrs. Ghayth Faiza
mrs-ghaythwatson044@w.cn

I didn't help her, but I am toying with the idea of using her email address to sign up for email newsletters and coupons. Or I can use it at places that want me to give them my email address for whatever reason. 

I want to sell the spammers to other spammers. Through cannibalism. Spamiblism. 

Milestone

Not my license plate, but my name.

My car is 9 years old. When I bought it, it had 42 miles on it. I bought it at a huge discount after a driver's ed program was finished using it. So it was a 'new' car but really not.

The dealership in my hometown has some sort of amazing deal with the high school that it will provide brand-new cars for the students to learn to drive on every summer. If you want to learn about my driver's ed experience, go here and read my diary from that adventure.

The dealership is banking that once the kids learn to drive on these fancy new cars, that their parents will then by them a similar fancy new car with the belief that it is a safe choice since this is the car the kid learned on.

Well, at the end of driver's ed, the dealership sells the cars at a pretty meaty discount because:

a) The new models have already come out.
b) No one wants to buy a car that idiots learned to drive on
c) all of the above.

The correct answer is C. So I bought my car the late summer of 2002. It's been everywhere with me. We are kind of married, my car and I.  And this winter we celebrated a milestone. 100,000 miles. (Really I should have celebrated 100,042 miles) but who's counting.

I was lucky enough to capture the moment on film.

Good luck getting those two minutes of your life back.

Here's the Cliff's Note Version:

If you didn't watch the movie, you missed all the awesome banter between me and Mike. Of course, the word awesome is subjective.

Fringe Friday: Sneak Peak!

From one of our show magazines.
Hello, 1964!

Friday Fringe Show Sneak Peak!

My MN fringe show, Your Responsibility for Sex Failure is close to having a show image!

Playing producer, I took photos of the photo shoot (how meta!).

That's the photographer Joey Ford behind the camera and Debra Berger as the sexy 1960's nurse in front of the lens. Joey was nice enough to let me hover around and take photos of the photo shoot.

Stay tuned for the final image to come! But don't hold you breath, it will be a few days!

And remember Your Responsibility for Sex Failure runs August 4-14, 2011 as part of the Minnesota Fringe Festival. All performances will be at the Minneapolis Theatre Garage.

Yves Klein Blue or Heather Meyer Gold Leaf

Feb 2011: Yves Klein Art Exhibit

Quick review: The art was great. Especially the sponges on sticks. Everything was blue. There were quotes on the wall. I took picture of the quotes. Then a young helpful, underemployed ‘guard’ put the smack down on my photo taking. I pointed out I was taking photos of the vinyl quotes on the wall, not trying to steal the art's soul. I know those are not the art. And it’s not like I am going to steal the quotes and claim them as my own. The quotes have the sayer of the quote right on them. That is what makes them a quote.

Here's the first quote.

The stern sixth grader didn’t by my story, nor thought I was the least bit amusing. I bet if I had farted he would have laughed. Who wouldn’t? So I stopped taking photos. I wanted to take some secret photos just to be brave, but I am too much of a square.

(Some galleries at the photography is allowed, just not at the Yves Klein exhibit, this information is useless since the exhibit closed on Feb 14, unless you have a time machine. If you did have a time machine you probably would screw up and go to a time without camera phones so it wouldn’t matter anyway.)

But I did get a photo of something other than non-art vinyl wall quotes.

Is this Yves Klein's toolbox?

Yves Klein also liked gold leaf. I have a special kinship with gold leaf. 

Another quote!

“Gold lame, just like basic black” I coined that phrase in college.

Let me tell you about gold leaf. I know about gold leaf. I used to be a really important scenic painter. One of my gigs was at Big Fancy Theatre in St. Louis. It was awesome. I was one of four scenic painters. We had a whole warehouse across the pond from the carpentry shop for our painting needs. The whole production side was a theatrical compound with gardens and snakes and bridges! We did three shows that summer, 1776, Big: the Musical and La Cage Aux Folles. 1776 was grey and brown, Big was BLUE (Yves Klein!) and La Cage was purple and GOLD LEAF (Yves Klein!).

I was assigned to gold leaf a beautiful antique sofa that had been reupholstered by Brooke in the prop shop (across the stream). Brooke had ushered the adorable sofa proudly over the bridge to our warehouse in the back. She showed off her upholstering job and skill at making sure the very limited amount of fabric work perfectly the cover the chair. They had used every bit of that fabric they could find! And it was perfect. She was pleased that they had just enough fabric to upholstery this sofa and the matching chairs, because there was not an ounce of that fabric left on the planet.

I had never gold leafed before, but as a smart woman who knows how to read directions, I knew I could handle it. (And Brooke gave me a tutorial).

I was rocking and rolling the gold leaf. Gold leafing is awesome and glamorous! From drab to fab with a little adhesive and gold foil sheets! I filled every little nook and cranny in the intricately carved frame. I was a master! I shall gold leaf the world. And then I dropped a glob of adhesive on the newly upholstered chair.

Again that is:

I dropped a glob of adhesive on the newly upholstered chair that had been upholstered in the last remnants of that particular fabric on earth.

Yikes!

I tried to wipe the glob of adhesive off that was now drying the fabric to a darkened splotch.

Wiping it off, however, just rubbed it in and collected the dirt from my grimy hands in to the sticky adhesive. Now it was worse. 

What the hell was I going to do? This couch was a big deal. A BIG deal. There isn’t a bigger deal than this couch. This production of La Cage Aux Folles was "pull out all the stops" important. And I had just pooped all over it. Permanent, immovable poop.

Double Yikes!

I didn’t want to tell any of my fellow painters. They didn’t need to know, they couldn't fix it.  And if  id did tell them it would just fuel the “Reasons Why Heather Sucks” list compiled by one member of the team.

Reasons Why Heather Sucks List

1: Heather is a broad strokes kind of girl

2. Heather didn’t like to listen to talk radio all day long

3. Heather thought a paint shop was a paint shop

4. Heather was AMAZING at mixing colors

5. Heather usually had a wet paint spot on her clothes at all times

6. Heather made a lot of jokes.

7. Heather spilled paint on the concrete and then cleaned it up.

8. Heather is a happy positive person

9. Heather didn’t use bamboo (as is the industry standard) to paint drops, she just bent over

So to avoid adding to that list and as an honest person, I had to tell someone.

I had to tell Props, it was their prop that I had ruined.

I had to tell Brooke. She was my friend, roommate and the props master. She always has a solution.

Right?

So I put my brave balls on and called a meeting with Brooke. Brooke was understanding and the only thing she could tell me was to avoid doing it again. She said it was pretty unnoticeable. Which is was. And it was onstage, in a proscenium, in a huge theatre. And in a production this afire, a quarter-sized slightly darkened spot was the least distracting thing on stage. 

Right?

Wrong. So so so so so so so so so wrong. Rumor has it the dark stain was the worst thing to ever happen to theatre. Ever. Theatre was dead, and I had killed it. There was no solution, no throw blanket or pillow could cover it, it was un-cover-up-able. The show was ruined.

Or was it? 

Nah. Nothing can stop a musical. It was an awesome show, with amazing performances and blah, blah, blah achievements all the way around.

Here's the couch in action!

That poor actor had to hold his knee up over the couch the whole show.

So Walker Art Center, let me take photos of the quotes on your walls or I might drip gold leaf adhesive all over you and ruin make you think I ruined your life but in fact improved everything in the world.

Disclaimer: I think I am allowed to public tell this story now because the statute of limitations on scenic painting crimes has expired. And because everything turned out OK.

Legume show you brilliance.

Snack Review with footnotes: Planter’s NUT-rition line of nut mixes.

Yesterday between work and a show, I was looking for a belly filler. Already at Target, I tried to pretend that I am a healthy eater, I searched for snacks in the nut aisle at Target. I made the world's best discovery ever: The Planter's NUT-rition mixes are awesome.

First:

Awesomely sized. Like Goldilocks sized. Not too big, not too small. Good old fashioned medium sized. No doubt that a can of nut mix will fill me.

Second:

Variety! Assorted nuts and seeds and dried fruits! Hooray, many choices for the peanut avoider like me. Most of the mixes didn’t even include the stupid legume*

Third:

There are sorted by health benefits! Like vitamins in the vitamin aisle. One of my favorite things ever! There was the Omega-3 Mix, Digestive Health Mix, Antioxidant Mix, South Beach Diet Mix (which has its own Facebook page ),Energy Mix, Heart Healthy and Bone Health Mix. So many choices! I was stumped. First I wanted the Omega-3 Mix because of the delicious-ness in side and for my recent hobby of thinking about wrinkles. And Bone Health was exciting, I am a woman after all and calcium is good! And it is Women's Health Week (shout-out to Naomi for telling me) And Energy Mix had chocolate covered things in them!

The labels on the NUT-rition mixes look like vitamin labels. Or at least they do to me. This is brilliant marketing. Selling what you already have: nuts, by giving people what they want: health. So simple. So genius.

I applaud the strategy and the product. Because, I am sure other nut mixes achieve some of these same goals, but the Planter’s mixes tell me upfront and I get to choose what type of nutrition. It gives me some power of choice but not too much.  Since there are only seven mixes not a hundred from which to choose. Nice work Planter’s, someone should get a raise. And the mix is delicious.

I chose the Digestive Health Mix because fiber always wins me over. And there were pistachios (smishsmachios) in it.

From the Planter’s website:

Digestive Health Mix

This succulent blend of pistachios, almonds, tart cranberries, crunchy granola clusters and sweet cherries is an excellent source of dietary fiber, which helps promote digestive health.

• 150 calories
• 8g total fat (1g saturated fat, 0g trans fat, 2g polyunsaturated fat, 5g monounsaturated fat)
• Low saturated fat
• Low sodium (40mg per serving)

Excellent source of the following:

• Dietary Fiber

Good source of the following:

• Vitamin E
• Copper
• Magnesium
• Manganese

Each serving (8 in each can) was 20% of my daily dietary fiber in take. 20%! That beats FiberOne bars (unless you eat them by the box like I do)! I was sold.

I ended up eating over half the can in the car. That is around 5 servings. Let’s do the math. 5 x 20 + 100% I achieve maximum fiber load by eating these awesome nuts. But the thing was I was eating in the car because I was on my way to an improv show in a far away superb. And there was no stopping. I hoped that the fiber would be slow going and I wouldn’t feel the full effects of the NUT-rition Digestive Health mix until after the show.

And hoping usually works, right? It did, there was no explosion other that the improvised ones.

I love the Planter’s NUT-rition mixes! I want to try them all, however, the Digestive Health Mix is so awesome that it will be hard to not just keep buying that one.****

*I love all legumes. They are my favorite food group and a staple of my yearly month-long celebration of Fiberuary. But regular old peanuts are so boring. Unless they are salted in shells. Then that is an activity snack** Put them in a butter or a spicy noodle dish, then we can talk.***

**Shelled peanuts and hard boiled eggs are an exception to the “too much work to eat” rule. Non-exceptions are crab legs, crawfish,

***My opinion only, you can go ahead and love up on peanuts all you want. Noting against peanuts, I know peanuts are a big part of Planter’s identity. I should know I was Liz in the Book of Liz by the Talent Family: Amy and David Sedaris and there’s a giant Mr. Peanut in that play. So don’t get all angry OK?

****Constructive Feedback: There are too many dried cranberries in the mix ratio. 

Newest hobby

I've recently taken up hooping. And by "recently", I mean Jan 1, 2011. And by 'taken up" I mean sometimes I do it. And by "hooping" I mean hula-hoops.

Hooping is a thing. In five years, it will be like sparkle vampires are now. A little tired but totally accepted. (Please forgive me for the totally tired but accepted joke about sparkle vampires).

There is a documentary either in the making, soon to be released or already in Netflix queues call The Hooping Life. I haven't seen it, obviously, or I would know if it was in production/in theatres/or in queues. I've only gone so far as to "Like" it on Facebook.

Hooping is non-competitive. Which is why I only do it sometimes. I have two hoops. My first hoop is green and orange (my most favorite colors) actually; they are more like GREEN and ORANGE! It is super bright and it is collapsible. It was HUGE because I am new but I cut it down with a tool because I am a DIY-er like that.

My friend Laura introduced me to hooping. Here is her blog www.adventuresinhooping.com. She writes another blog I love so much at www.theyogachicken.com . Yesterday I gave her another chicken. From North Dakota. It was really flat (both the chicken and the state).

Remember when I said I was a DIY-er? Hooping is all about DIY. You don't buy a hoop; you make one (or have one made and buy it from them). That is what real hoopers do. Well, my friend Naomi and I have a plan to make hoops. We are armed with YouTube tutorials and enthusiasm. And a bunch of colored gaff tape.

My other hoop! I didn't tell you about it. It is my Ab blaster it is bigger and weighted. I love it the most because I feel like it is doing work while I am having fun. (As opposed to just having fun, sometimes I am too efficient).

Hooping. The other hip thing to do (That is a good pun because of hip like cool, and hip like hippie and hip as in the part of your body).

Self photo montage. Heather-tage!

Photographer Cadence Cornelius took these photos of me. I am impressed. 

Your Responsibility for Sex Failure in the MN Fringe Festival!

I am creating a fringe show. Mark your calendars now for Aug 4-14. It is going to be amazing. Seriously, I am so excited for this show that I can't control it. I get sweaty excited about it. Which is better than sweaty nervous. Maybe it is a little sweaty nervous. But mainly excited nervous because look:

Yeah, that is real. That is so real. That is so real that I get sweaty excited about it. This magazine is the show. Or a part of the show, we have like 30 of the magazines. So much raw material that we are going to melt faces so off that they will reform and look like regular faces again, only awesome-er. Your Responsibility for Sex Failure (playing at the Minneapolis Theatre Garage Aug 4-14), is a hilarious romp through the melodramatic articles of a 1960's women's magazine, including the print ad and letters to the editor. It is going to be so great. Stay tuned in the next few weeks for more news! But I will leave you with this: