I Got Two Words For You

EAST. SIDE. PIES.

Attention Two-Stepper: Allison Orr Wants YOU!

A Press Release from my buddy Allison-- if you haven't seen her work, trust me, she is an amazing choreographer.

We need two-steppers, yes we do!

Would you like to participate in what might be the grandest of all two-steps on the steps of the capitol? Entitled T is for...Two Hundred Two-Steppers on the Steps of the Texas Capitol, this free 30-minute performance will celebrate the two-step's rich cultural history while showcasing local dancers who love and live for the two-step.

Serving as the kick-off event for the 2010 Fusebox Festival, T is for... will be directed by celebrated local choreographer Allison Orr in partnership with award-winning Austin-based composer Graham Reynolds, who will be leading a 15-piece Texas swing orchestra.

The show will run from 6:30-7pm and Stubb's is providing free BBQ!

Would you like to participate? Here are the options:

Show up the day of the show! Show up and dance in the grand finale. Just arrive by 6:30pm and be in the end. Dance your heart out for the grand all-step!

Show up earlier the day of the show! Show up by 4pm on the South Steps of the Capitol and dance in the opening and ending sections. RSVP to twostep@fuseboxfestival.commailto:twostep@fuseboxfestival.com> so we can save you a spot. No partner required.

Want to play a bigger role? This is for experienced two-steppers. We will begin weekly rehearsals in mid-March. Email twostep@fuseboxfestival.commailto:twostep@fuseboxfestival.com> if you are interested and tell us if you have a partner and what kind of dancing you like to do.

The performance will include two-step, western swing, conjunto, spaghetti western-style, and country disco music. We need all kinds of dancers. We hope YOU will be a part!

Vibram Five Fingers: I Love Them, I Love Them, I LOVE THEM

I've been meaning to post a follow up to my first post about Vibram Five Fingers but a few things got in my way. The main one is that I'm so busy walking and walking and walking thanks to this wondrous footgear that I don't have much time for reviewing. But as I noted in that first post, the good folks at Vibram sent me a pair and I promised to write about my experience. I want to emphasize (<-- with italics and everything) that I did not commit to writing a glowing review. And even though I would've felt bad if I hated the shoes, I would've said something truthful but nice. Happily, since I am as in love with these gorilla feet as I am with the dogs (okay, not really but you get the idea) there will be no damning with faint praise. I am here to praise and recommend.

That's not to say I didn't have some troubles with the shoes. In fact I did. Well, just one of them-- the right one. Here's what happened: After the first week or so, the right shoe was really rubbing in the back. I mean serious friction. Like horny teenagers in a borrowed car. This caused me considerable pain. Suspecting that the problem might be more related to my foot than any flaw in the shoe, I wanted to test that theory. There's not a lot of "breaking in" to do with Vibrams. They are super flex from the get-go. But the way they stay on is courtesy of an elastic cord, and my little elastic-adjusting toggle was set as loose as it could be and still, the fit was super tight. Rub rub rub. Ouch ouch ouch. I tried stretching the shoe by pulling on it and then wedging-- I kid you not-- an itty-bitty twig between the elastic and the back of the shoe. This helped a little. In the end though, it came down to My Right Foot, which, while not an entire 1/2 size bigger than the left, is somewhat bigger, which I attribute to the surgical reconstruction back in 2005.

I stuck with the shoes, somedays hobbling along, until the day came-- PTL!!-- when at long last, that right shoe did loosen up just enough and fit like a glove. Not an OJ Simpson glove. A proper glove. The sort of glove we refer to when we say, "Fits like a glove."

How to describe how overjoyed I am that my Vibrams and I have come to this place? Yes, yes, they still look as goofy as ever. And as I predicted they might, they certainly prompt plenty of conversations with strangers. Lots of folks have heard of the shoes but not seen them, and they have vague ideas (often not exactly right) about how they "work." The truth is, they "work" by letting your feet do the work they were designed to. Your arch begins arching of its own accord again, not reliant on some artificial arch in a shoe. You land more on the ball of your foot than your heel. Come to think of it, *I* don't even know the full mechanics. I just know how they feel.

THEY FEEL SO GREAT.

I recently increased my walking distance-- doubling from 30 minutes to an hour whenever I can. Back in the old days walking an hour was nothing. But I've been cautious since the surgery. Now I'm testing out longer walks again and so far, so good. It's like walking barefoot, which I love, except you have a nice little layer between foot and pebbles or burrs or whatever.

Another funny thing-- when I'm inside the house, I am 99% of the time either barefoot or wearing a pair of handknitted socks. There is no place for shoes in my indoor life. Except now-- the way the shoes separate my toes feels so good that the other morning I found myself putting the Vibrams on even though I wasn't going anywhere. I just wanted that each-toe-gets-a-hug-every-minute-of-everyday feel.

So there you go. My Vibram update. Go get yourself a pair. They have them at Whole Earth and REI. Make sure you get the right size. And-- one last thing: if you get the synthetic ones (which I have) you can TOSS THEM IN THE WASHER. I just tested this out, too, and they came out all sparkly clean and totally intact.

Thank you Vibram. Too bad I can't wear them on the Red Carpet. (But that's just because I don't get Red Carpet invites.)

Author Talk: John Otis in Town This Week

Y'all,

John Otis will be in town THURSDAY at 12:30, speaking at UT School of Communications. And just who is John Otis? He's worked as a reporter in Latin American for twenty years and is the author of the newly published Law of the Jungle: The Hunt for Colombian Guerrillas, American Hostages, and Buried Treasure. He's also tight with some of my very favorite friends in the whole world, so I have it on excellent authority that the book and the talk are/will be most excellent.

You can read read an excerpt of the book-- which details the fate of three US military contractors held hostage for five years by the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC)-- in Time Magazine.

For more info on John, check out his website.

Please help spread the word about this talk.

Thanks,

Spike

Note: I’m no longer reviewing theater for The Austinist, but from time to time will post reviews here. Toward that end, here’s my take on The Atheist, a play by Irish playwright Ronan Noone, currently playing at the Hyde Park Theatre. The Atheist, a one-man show, stars Joey Hood and is directed by Ken Webster. It runs about 90 minutes and there’s a ten-minute intermission.

The six of you who read this blog with regularity— thank you— likely already know I’m a huge fan of Ken Webster and the Hyde Park Theatre. Selfishly speaking, I love the space because that’s where the Dick Monologues played for two years. But I also love Ken’s taste in plays (wicked, dark, sardonic), and I know that when I go to see a show at HPT, I am in for an evening of outstanding acting.

So I went to see The Atheist pretty certain it would be another great show. And it was. Though I wasn’t totally in love with Noone’s writing (more on that later), Joey Hood took the piece and masterfully made it his own. I’ve seen Hood in a few shows now and he always delivers. I especially dug his performance as a great manipulator in last fall’s The Collection, a Harold Pinter play also at HPT. In The Atheist, he’s back in the role of big-time string puller, master of manipulation. This time, he plays Augustine Early, a Midwestern journalist suffering from a severe lack of morals. The set is sparse—just Early, his desk, a table, and a video camera. Let’s just say that, ala Chekov, one of these items serves as the old first-act loaded gun and, since I am anti-spoiler, leave it at that.

I will tell you that Early opens up his monologue with a little stage-setting anecdote about a moment in his childhood where he learned— at the expense of being made a bit of a fool— that you can present a piece of information one way, understand that this information is purposefully confusing to the recipient, and use it in your favor. In the case of the childhood incident, the event seems innocent enough— a little word sleight played by a trash collector on the impressionable Early. But the message sticks with the character as he grows up, renounces God, and decides he’s going to be the master of his own destiny.

Early turns the video camera on at the start of the performance, and his image is projected, live, on the top left side of a wall. It didn’t occur to me until late in the show, but anytime the audience wants to look this rather despicable character in the eye, they must look at the projected image, the one floating up above like—yes, you got it—a sort of god. Because Hood-as-Early directs his actual attention directly on the camera, focused on the task at hand, making a permanent record of his version of a very strange series of events that finds him stirring up an awful lot of shit for an awful lot of people.

In fact, if we believe Early, he is responsible for at least one man’s death, another woman’s momentary glory, and yet another woman’s sudden launch to fame. The word “machinations” rolls off his tongue more than once. It’s not a common usage word, and each time he said it, my head called up deus ex machina, which, yep, has a reference to god in it. Bear in mind, holding a degree in English lit from a mediocre university has given me just enough literary interpretation skills to be dangerous. But I’d say that Noone seems to want us to see Early as the character seems to see himself: an atheist in relation to any “traditional” god, yes, but when it comes right down to it, a man who thinks himself godlike, one responsible not just for his own destiny.

(And now, it’s wacky tangent time. Let’s get a little meta here and say that in Hood’s performance, there are definitely echoes of Ken Webster. I mean that as the highest form of praise, not a suggestion of a derivative performance. Webster, who just floored me in his one-man performance of Thom Pain (Based on Nothing), knows exactly how to deliver a perfectly nuanced one-guy-on-the-stage-the-entire-time show. That Hood rises to the occasion of The Atheist and, in my opinion, rises above some serious Noone-related limitations, is a testament to his own hard work, but also a tribute to Webster’s direction. Should we look into God symbolism here, too? Well, just if we want to have some added fun.)

As for the plot of The Atheist—Noone really wants us to super-duper suspend our disbelief. I’m not incapable of this and still there were times when I thought, “Oh, come on Noone, that’s playwriting 101—there’s no fucking way any of that could unfold like that, it’s way too contrived…”

And yet. Whatever criticism-of-plot came to me as I watched the show, I did notice my brain latch on to parts of the story—a journalist using his medium to get what he thinks he wants—and it made me think. Journalism has shifted so much with the advent of the Internet, and what we can and cannot write and publish as journalists has shifted, too. For example, I can tell you at the top of this review that I have a personal love of HPT, which in another place and time might mean recusing myself from reviewing shows there. But now, I can do what I want. And I can even not reveal my relationship to the theater if I so choose. That was hardly the only example from real life that came to mind as I thought about Noone’s message.

Though Augustine Early works in the print world, his adventures there mirror much of what is going on with journalism today. Sure no one is now or ever has been fully objective— hello and welcome to the human race. But for whatever flaws I saw in Noone’s plot, I can’t deny that he offers a quick lesson on how careers and aspirations can be built and torn down, nearly instantaneously, by the cruel god that is mass communication courtesy of technology— anyone can make a movie and distribute it, for example— combined with rampant narcissism and the growing delight so many people take in other people’s dirty laundry. We’re starving for filth—Noone knows it, Early knows it, and Hood brings it home, inhabiting a host of characters as the tale unfolds.

Food for thought? Check. Fantastic acting? Check. Excellent Directing? Check. The Atheist won’t convert anyone to the Church of Journalism, but it certainly does provoke.

Fashion Camp is ON! Important Info!

I am delighted to announce that Fashion Camp (Plus!!) will be held at the Hyde Park Theatre in lovely Hyde Park, on 43rd street, immediately west of Guadalupe. This means we have a stage for our fashion show-- yay.

We will absolutely for certain have camp these two weeks:
June 14 - 18
June 21 - 25

We are hoping to also get enough interested fashionistas to hold camp these two weeks:
July 12 - 16
July 19 - 23

Some details:
Each session is one week, from 9 am til Noon, culminating in a fabulous Fashion Show on Friday morning at 11:30 am.

Ages: 8 - 12.

Cost: $200 includes everything-- camp, supplies, snacks.

Payment/Hold a Spot: If you would like to reserve a spot, please email me (spikegillespie@gmail.com) and let me know. I will get the registration forms out soon. In the meanwhile, I'll send a confirmation email and you will have a guaranteed slot (unless we sell out, so let me know soon). Once I do send you the form, if you'll get it back to me with a deposit that'd be great.

And Finally! (For now): Would y'all please, please help me get the word out to friends who might be interested? Just have them email me for details. We did get a late start this year and I sure could use help letting folks know that Fashion Camp is ON!

Thanks,
Spike

Pictures

Because today I'm just too lazy for words.