Sunday Post

via GIPHY

 

 

The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly or for a monthly wrap up. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

 

LOOKING FORWARD to November

This week I took several people to the airport. 

 I also went to the dentist twice, I had an endodontic appointment for a consultation on a root canal, and an appointment for cleaning  My brother talked me through it, as finding the clinic was half the battle. It's located on the U of M campus.  

I went to see comedian, Josh Blue. My friend had tickets and she has cerebral palsy like Josh so it was great to support his work.  Josh blue was voted the Last Comic Standing (fourth season).

I enjoyed this quote from Tiny Buddha about sensitive people.

If my nervous system is signaling a threat, how am I supposed to ignore that?!

Imagine tuning a guitar; as you turn the knob, you create a higher pitch. The string becomes tighter and the notes higher.

I think this is the perfect metaphor for sensitivity, and one I discovered in college after reading the work of a troubled 1800s poet, Charles Baudelaire. He said, “My nerves are strung to such a pitch that they no longer give anything but piercing and painful vibrations.”

The tough truth is that those with highly attuned nervous systems must master emotion… or suffer. Mastering emotional fluency is an extremely fulfilling journey because you get to experience the full spectrum of human emotion. Whereas many people are just going through the motions, you feel everything, which gives you a unique power and ability to handle anything.

This was my week, how was yours?  Let me know in the comments below.

 

ON THE BLOG

Reading

Reading this novel by Sue Seabury. I have had the honor of giving feedback to this author in the past and I love seeing familiar authors publish their work.

I came across Alexandro Chen's work three years ago.  This indie author is great! I'd call his work similar to Haruki Murakami's.  He's also Japanese and makes use of surrealism in his writing.I would read almost any novel with surrealism.

In this book My (Almost) Life as a Hikikomori shares glints of our contemporary lives, as well as the old dilemma of death.

Sunday Post

via GIPHY

 

he Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly or for a monthly wrap up. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

 

LOOKING FORWARD to December

It's been snowing a lot in Minnesota, and dropped like 20 degrees in the course of one night. 

 On Friday, I did an improv stage match at Strike theater.

How do these shows work out? 

We meet at 6:15 and do a 20 minute rehearsal with an appointed coach. There's generally 4-8 people in our group, many of whom we meet for the first time.  Then we do some improv exercises like pass the clap, OR zip, zap, zop.

Then we do some montage scenes.  What's a montage scene?

1. Start the first scene based on that suggestion.
2. When there is an appropriate time to edit, a player on the back row edits the scene
3. The player that edits the scene may start the new one.
4. Repeat the editing process until you have a few scenes going.
5. Once a comfortable number has been reached, revisit your previous scenes and perform a second beat. Three or four scenes is recommended. Try to incorporate the new information that has been offered in other scenes, but do not force connections.
6. Heighten the scenes with each beat.

We'll pick a name for our group.  Friday night's group is called "The Spectacular's. Then each group (sometimes four groups total) will come on stage. Each group makes a choice of a way to come on stage.  We chose to say our group's name in a fancy way, some chose a dance.  We'll perform for twenty minutes in front of a live audience in short montage scenes. Sometimes these scenes are 15 seconds to three minutes long. Sometimes you'll have up to 20 scenes in one set.

And then take a bow and sit down.  Easy peasy! 

Hope you enjoyed this.

Improv at Strike Theater

Yesterday, I visited my friend Mark Knutson who was in the hospital. He is at St. Francis for a lung issue. I met Mark after hosting an Improv Jam for people with disabilities. Meeting Mark helped open me up to the disabled community in Minnesota.  I never attended adapted sports as a kid, like Mark did, so hosting the jam was my first introduction to this community as an adult.

Pokemon ball (Tododial)

I bought my son a Pokemon ball. My son loves to sleep with all of his toys on the first day he gets them. Currently he's sleeping with two plushy pillows and Tododial.

Here's my Grateful list for this week:

Grateful for fun things to try

Playing with improvisers.

For thinking big in terms of possibilities in the universe.

I'm grateful for the connection to the community.

This was my week, how was yours?  Let me know in the comments below.

 

ON THE BLOG

Reading

I started reading "Dreams and Shadows" . It was recommended as a similar novel to Ted Chiang "Stories of Your Life" .Synopsis: something is missing from Ewan and Colby's lives. Residing in the corners of their memories is their time in Limestone Kingdom, a realm filled with magic and mystery, a world where only some may travel amongst the menagerie of mystical souls and sinister demons.

I was introduced to Sadhguru after he gave a talk about the difference between pain and suffering.  He describes pain as something physical, and something we need to save our lives and to warn us to make changes in healthy life choices. But suffering is what issues we bring into our lives and hold on to.

Sunday post

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

 

The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly or for a monthly wrap up. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

 

LOOKING FORWARD to November

I went to an Opera this week at Southern Theatre.  Proving up is an opera about the American Dream, told through the story of Nebraskan homesteaders in the 1870s.

I also went to see Family Dinner at HUGE theater.  This was a fun improv show where characters gather for a holiday dinner and reveal to one another secrets while eating their meal on stage.

I also met up with my sister who is currently teaching gymnastics for kids.  She seems to be enjoying the kids and the energy.

I did an Improv scene online where this couple was in disagreement about who is giving the stare down, and the man in the scene claims that the woman never listens. When the woman suggested that they put cameras and note every time each other not listens, and in this scene the guy calls her out on not listening saying, “You were looking this way and that way and behind you on the camera.”  Eventually, the woman character says she created a PowerPoint that has documented evidence of not listening  from every turn of his head.  The woman character planned to make it a business and stream it, calling it "The couples fight," a reality TV show.

This was my week, how was yours?  Let me know in the comments below.

 

ON THE BLOG

Reading

I started reading this Ted Chiang novel that was remade into a movie in 2016 called "The Arrival". The movie is about a linguistics professor, Louise Banks (Amy Adams) who leads an elite team of investigators when gigantic spaceships touch down in 12 locations around the world. As nations teeter on the verge of global war, Banks and her crew must race against time to find a way to communicate with the extraterrestrial visitors. Hoping to unravel the mystery, she takes a chance that could threaten her life and quite possibly all of mankind.

The film suggests that knowing what will happen in the future doesn't diminish the meaning behind a choice you'll make today. On the contrary, it says every choice you do make can be made knowing it will actively shape what's to come. As Emerson once wrote, life's a journey, not a destination

I was paging through a magazine and I thought I'd pick up a few of these recommended historical reads.

Bootstrapped, My TV Film Fest Week #amjoy

Flashback post from three years ago

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted  @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things  received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

Today's post will link up to The Sunday Salon, The Sunday Post and Stacking the Shelves for weekly updates.

           LOOKING FORWARD TO OCTOBER

As I mentioned last week, I went to an independent TV festival in Duluth called the Catalyst.

David Sedaris at State Theatre on November 1st, 2022

When I was a kid, I kept a “Slam Book.''  For those of you unfamiliar, this is a notebook that’s passed around class, and includes prompts to slam one’s opinions down about a question/idea on each page.  It also includes prompts for writing fill-in-the-blank stories. I loved being able to write prompts and read my classmates' crude attempts at storytelling. Later, I would find David Sedaris did something similar with comedic stories he collected from patrons at his book signing events. Since then, I’ve read several of his memoirs including Barrel Fever, Holidays on Ice, Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, and Calypso.

Sunday blog post

The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly or for a monthly wrap up. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

 

LOOKING FORWARD to November

I took my son trick-or-treating. A friend of ours had the idea to get candy in a ritzy area because if you go from home-to-home in some areas of Saint Paul a lot of the homes do not have lights on. it’s a lot different than when I was a kid.

Sunday blog post

via GIPHY

he Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly or for a monthly wrap up. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

 

LOOKING FORWARD to October

Yesterday I took my son to a pumpkin patch. He had lots of fun taking pictures with pumpkins and walking through corn mazes and there was a huge pit with corn kernels up to your waist.

Sunday post

 

 The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly or for a monthly wrap up. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

 

LOOKING FORWARD to October

This week I drove for ride-share and took a ton of people to the airport ,some of which were complaining about the cost of flights as the time passes. 

Downtown Mpls Murals

My son made his first phone call to a friend this year(he’s six).  He also making plans to go to a pumpkin patch with a friend today. 

Chicken Tandoori from Masala Restuarant

This week I also did some improv for a zombie Podcast. we are still in the planning stages of deciding what kind of audio equipment we should use and breaking up the scenes for each section of the podcast.

This was my week, how was yours?  Let me know in the comments below.

 

ON THE BLOG

Reading

Magnolia Parks.  Lots of fun stuff in this novel. I'd describe it as a Billionaire novel series meets Korean K-pop drama because the little love triangles in this novel are very similar but maybe more intense. (And it's set in the UK) There's rhythm and snappy dialogue in Jessa Hastings writing that made me understand why this novel has at least 5,000 reads on GoodReads.

I loved the concept in this romance novel. The characters travel in their dreams.  I kind of thought it could be expanded upon or even work better as a fantasy novel but I heard that time travelling novels are the hardest to write overall and writers should avoid it if possible.

This book by Elizabeth O'Roark was recommended by Youtuber: Peace, Love Books and It was described as one of her books she was obsessed with.  This book is outstanding!. Olivia's character had such a tone and rebellious attitude. I don't want to spoil it for you but she is a runner with a flaw.  This novel literally got me excited about Exercising again.  The energy between the characters in this dual narrative novel was phenomenal.  

Sunday Post #amwriting

via GIPHY

 

 The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly or for a monthly wrap up. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

 

LOOKING FORWARD to October

This week I went to 10,000 Laughs.  This is a comic-centered, artist-run stand up comedy festival. It takes place in the Twin Cities audiences with 35+ shows and 80 comedians. On Saturday night, comedian Dulce Sloan performed. Sloan  is a correspondent for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on Comedy Central. 

46 PLAYS FOR AMERICA'S FIRST LADIES presented by Theatre Pro Rata

 

Pictured - Sif Oberon, Christy Johnson, Heather Meyer, Nissa Nordland Morgan, Anjeline Ramirez Credit Scott Pakudaitis; Graphic Design - Max Lindorfer

46 Plays for America’s First Ladies, is being produced by Theatre Pro Rata at The Crane Theatre in Minneapolis through October 16th.  

46 Plays for America’s First Ladies is a companion piece to the past Neo-Futurist script 43 Plays for 43 Presidents [originally produced in 2004, and remounted in 2012 as 44 Plays for 44 Presidents and re-published as 45 Plays for 45 Presidents in 2019].

This production consisted of one to five minute sketches that used a variety of theatrical conventions, including tableau and musical pieces with audience participation. Scenic projections helped the audience picture the first ladies, especially those whose roles were in the early 19th century for whom we had very little information available.

The insertion of comedy into the scenes was used to examine the roles of marginalized individuals who worked for the first families, many unrecognized and unrewarded.

Guitar music and songs were played to parody the First Ladies’ lives. These happened to be the most engaging scenes, as patrons bobbed their heads and clapped along. One may not associate the First Ladies with comedy, since a few of them died of tuberculosis, including Hannah Hoes Van Buren, wife of Martin. Others like Mary Todd Lincoln had a child die while at the White House. Some First Ladies were quite ambitious like Edith Roosevelt who hired her own staff and cultivated contacts in Britain. The juxtaposition between tragedy and comedy created this ebb and flow of emotion, where the bits of comic relief sustained the overall performance.

Lights cast down on patrons as they were asked by actors (Christy Johnson, Heather Meyer, Nissa Nordland Morgan, Sif Oberon, Anjeline Ramirez) to pause and think about some of the more traumatic moments in the First Ladies’ lives.This interpretation illuminated the roles the first ladies played in the White House-more than dressing fashionable and decorating. In some cases the scenes exaggerated stereotypes about the presidency that may have not been examined before, scenes that had to do with misogyny and interpersonal relationships. This production is written by Genevra Gallo-Bayiates, Sharon Greene, Chloe Johnston, Bilal Dardai, and Andy Bayiates(Neo-Futurists) and directed by Shanan Custer.

 Purchase tickets for 46 Plays for America’s First Ladies at https://www.theatreprorata.org/.  Orlando will be showing this spring at the Crane.

Sunday Post

via GIPHY

  

The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly or for a monthly wrap up. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

 

LOOKING FORWARD to November

This week I went to Costco and picked up a pie for Thanksgiving.  I love Costco for specific items like cheesecake and summer clothes and odds and ends you can get for your house. 

  It was great talking to my ride-share clients about positive experiences they are drawing in.  One of my clients works as a substitute teacher, and we exchanged stories.I worked as a sub in 2009-2011 in Saint Paul.  He remembered having me as a ride-share driver a while back and how I liked to talk about potholes.  He had an east coast accent which was memorable.

I bought my son this big hamburger plushy from Costco and he took a picture and saved it to his iPad.

Lots of turkeys and snow in MN

This was my week, how was yours?  Let me know in the comments below. 

 

On the Blog

Reading

​Always Only You by Chloe Liese is an opposites-attract, forbidden love sports romance about a nerdy, late-blooming hockey star, and his tough cookie coworker who keeps both her soft side and her autism diagnosis to herself. Complete with a meddling secretary, tantric yoga torture, and a scorching slow burn, this standalone is the second in a series of novels about a Swedish-American family of five brothers, two sisters, and their wild adventures as they each find happily ever after.

Gary Zukav, one of the pioneer members of the New Age Movement in psychology.  He has built upon the contents of his first book The Dancing Wu Li Masters to show how we create our own reality through action and thought. 

I'm loving Laura Berman's work. She gives advice for those seeking love.

If someone tells her that they really want that person in the coffee shop. She says, "Now wait, I challenge you by asking what are the emotions you are seeking when you see that person?"  (love, safety, security, cherishing?)  And then she says "When you walk in that coffee shop, bring that emotion, and if they are a match for you, they'll come straight for you." 

Listen to Laura Berman give a talk at below link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r08_ZkcE4sA&ab_channel=BrianScott

This week I also participated in a Community(improv) Jam online, and I loved it because we played a game that had each person go back and forth listing words based on a category and I slammed that competition.  Watch it here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4aHs7MDfSY&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3o-gCCA1RUHs7VN9p7e05fmpLtON-i0lY4e3ZzmAjuGFtDl1sH6tw-byI