Mile Zero

October 10, 2009

Last night I went to see Evil Dead: The Musical performed by the Landless Theatre Company in DC. Verdict? Groovy.

Let's be clear: it's a production for fans of the movies. If that doesn't describe you--or indeed, if you haven't seen all three films--you probably won't get much out of the show. A lot of the fun comes from the Army of Darkness quotes scattered through the script, or the way they've adapted certain scenes from the movie (it's actually based more on Evil Dead 2) to the stage, sometimes breaking the fourth wall in the process ("That does seem a bit inconsistent," Ash admits during one particularly transparent plot point).

But given that it's a for-the-fans production, I was pleasantly surprised. I don't usually enjoy musical theatre, but the songs are kept mostly short and snappy. The direction makes good use of the single set, and the script abandons the horror aspects of the movie completely, while amping up the campy humor (Karissa Swanigan is particularly good as Cheryl, Ash's sister, who spends much of the show providing snarky undead commentary from the cellar). And while there's no way to provide the kind of over-the-top gore that Sam Raimi delighted in, they did manage to spray red "blood" all over the audience whenever possible (protective ponchos were $1 at the entrance).

I could nitpick a few things: Clay Comer can't quite pull off Bruce Campbell's swagger as Ash, and the closing scene (ripped from the end of Army of Darkness) comes off a bit abrupt. There's probably a bit too much milked from the "S-Mart employee" gag overall, come to think about it. But hey: if you wanted serious theater criticism, you'd be watching serious theater, and this isn't it. ED:TM's a fun romp for cult movie aficionados, and on that level it's a success. It's playing through November 1, with tickets available from Landless Theatre.

July 10, 2009

The entrepreneurs in DC work fast: they've actually had these for a week. For my money, though, these aren't nearly as eye-popping as the post-election shirts with Obama's grinning mug superimposed onto the famous Ali-over-Liston photo--a surreal, hilarious juxtaposition.

June 24, 2009

The carpenter's union in DC is very active, with regular protests around the Golden Triangle, but you don't see them bring The Rat out much. Maybe it's hard to find parking for him.

I like that he seems to have jumped up onto the hybrid in his rage, causing the hood and hatchback to fly open as he crushes it under his massive, scabby feet. It's like a scene from Michael Bay's remake of The Rats of N.I.M.H.

October 28, 2008

The late Mitch Hedberg used to have a joke: "I love escalators," he said, "because an escalator can never break. It can only become stairs."

With apologies to Mr. Hedberg, above is a picture of some broken escalators. DC has decided, in its infinite wisdom, that it is a good idea to repair all its escalators at the same time--ALL the escalators, over the entire system. Also, it rained today, and you know what that means: all trains are 45 minutes late and stuffed until the doors can't close. If the engineers of the DC Metro had worked on public transit in, say, Seattle or London, commuters would be starving to death underground on a daily basis, unable to escape due to stationary trains and blocked exits.

The problem with the Metro, I often say, is that its deficiencies are completely invisible to anyone who does not commute to the city every day, and apparently those people just don't count. When tourists visit the city, they usually don't travel at rush hour, so they don't see the way the system breaks under load. Instead, they have a much more comfortable experience: big, padded seats, leisurely escalators, and spacious stations. They don't see how those oversized seats take up room needed for standing passengers, or how the escalators under repair force everyone into a stairway that's too small for two-way traffic. To a tourist, compared to something like the NYC subway, Metro must seem like a dream come true.

Just don't try to use it for anything important. Good thing there's nothing like that in our nation's capital.

Updated: Oh, even better--Metro will begin a bag inspection program. WMATA's new motto is apparently "bringing all the joy of slow, cramped, expensive air travel to your daily commute."

October 6, 2008

Next week Belle and I are taking a mini-roadtrip vacation on the West coast and up into Canada. It'll be my first time in Canada, and the fifth or sixth trip I've taken out of the country. And that means I've started rethinking the dilemmas of packing.

I have packing issues, although I hope I manage to seem more laid-back these days. But it's taken a lot of practice to beat down my pack-rat tendencies, and more specifically, my paranoid phobia of boredom. On my first international trip (to Mexico, during high school), I was terrified of ending up somewhere in the Yucatan without anything to do. I ended up with a backpack filled with books, games, and random amusements, apparently on the assumption that I was being marooned in Siberia instead of a gorgeous tropical peninsula. Two weeks of dragging all that crap on and off of chicken busses drove my mistake home.

So a few years later, on a trip to China for college, I tried to do something different. A lot of it was just the logistics: it might be possible to pack enough books for a two-week trip to Mexico, but it's not feasible for a month-long journey abroad. So I brought a lot fewer commodities, and only about a week's worth of clothing. When I ran out of clothes, I washed them in the dorm washing machine, or the sink if there wasn't a free laundry room, and dried them by hanging them over a lampshade. And without lugging a bunch of junk around, it was not just easier to travel from place to place, but it was a lot easier to get out of the room when I got bored--even if it was just to wander the streets asking people for directions in a language I barely spoke, leading to wacky hijinks and good humor for all concerned. That line about how the things you own end up owning you? When traveling, it's definitely true. I had a better trip, and it was partly because I had less stuff with me.

To be fair, it's gotten easier to pack light these days now that I've got extra income, and as gadgetry converges. I don't typically pack books when I can take the Kindle, for example. My cell phone is capable of doing almost anything I would have used a laptop for a few years back, including WiFi access, especially if I carry a folding keyboard. And if the phone has a camera, it's twice as useful--I'm not much of a shutterbug, but instead of carrying notes and maps, I try to take pictures of them for reference. Traveling with fewer devices and fewer clothes is not only easier, it's greener--it takes less energy to ship a lighter package from one point to another.

But frankly, if you're going to start thinking about traveling light, it starts to inspire thoughts of living the same way. Especially since I tend to have the same kinds of acquisition issues that led to my over-packing: a tendency to purchase shiny objects that's led to an overflowing home studio and a collection of old electronics that practically has its own gravity well. The same principles hold true: use as little energy as possible, reuse resources whenever possible, exploit multifunction devices, and rely on open-ended methods of entertainment.

The difficulty with learning to travel light, much less learning to live the same way, is probably that it fits an image of hostels and scruffy backpackers instead of vacationing. I find it helps to think of it not in terms of lost luggage, but gained freedom--appealing to the greenpunk set of aesthetics. Likewise, a big part of the problem with frugal living in the West is its association with poverty, as opposed to respect for the creativity and resourcefulness it might signal. But it doesn't have to be that way. Maybe the first step to a less crowded home is to leave it, and its baggage, behind.

September 11, 2008

July 23, 2008

It really is "too weird for the Wire" that, according to Washington Monthly, black defendents in Baltimore courts are trying to use a legal defense first proposed and popularized by white supremacists, including Terry Nichols. But it's also a tribute to the lasting appeal of conspiracy theories, which tend to resurrect themselves whenever people feel like their lives are out of control, and to the suspicion with which many city residents hold the government.

July 11, 2008

Told those kids to keep their silverware out of the socket. Damndest thing I ever saw.

June 27, 2008

I'm not going to say whether the DC gun ban is good or bad policy. I can see the constitutional reasoning behind its removal by the Supreme Court. I think this is a good, moderate take on the issue.

What I will say is that today the Metro was packed with out-of-town tourists, as it often is in the summer. And call me misanthropic and elitist, but I do not feel at all safer knowing that I could be sharing those small spaces with any number of loaded firearms in the hands of people who have heard exaggerated stories about the dangers of DC and are anxious to defend themselves.

It may or may not lower crime--nobody seems to really be sure. But it definitely freaks me out.

June 10, 2008

I think the heat is getting to someone.

People wonder why Americans don't save. But if these guys were the ones offering to help, would you?

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