Show and Tell: Mr Ando of the Woods

Devin today on blog duty.

Here is the next installment of show and tell. It's a strange video. The animals in the woods are trying to figure out if Mr. Ando is a human or not, obviously ignoring the fact that all the animals have human faces as well. Make sure to stick around for the fish singing about wanting to sleep with Mr. Ando even though he's fishy or something.


Also notice that in the credits, even if you can't read it, that all the symbols on the right side are the same. Meaning that the same person did all the work and voice-acted all the roles. I find that funny. It reminds of high school films where three people would film three minutes and then have two minutes of credits because they just made up filming jobs and new people that didn't exist before. In fact sometimes we do that when we film movies(Bill's Close Shave anyone?). I still find it funny though.

People I Wish I Knew

Kimber writes.

There are times when watching, reading, or listening to something that I wish I’d been able to have dinner with the artist responsible. I wouldn’t say no to dinner with most artists, but a very few of them seem like people I really could have been friends with, either because of a wicked sense of humor, a passion for life, or just a series of interesting personality quirks. So, with that in mind, here is my list of people I would invite to the best dinner party ever.

Kurt Vonnegut
I love Kurt Vonnegut’s writing. I’ve read almost everything he’s written, and I’ve adored all of it. He’s a pessimistic optimist, and I connect with that. His writing is wonderfully self-conscious, yet is still graceful. Most importantly, Vonnegut went through some of the most brutal experiences, yet still held on to his hope for humanity.

Orson Welles
At first I thought Orson Welles was a pretentious—if gifted—asshole. But that was because I only really knew him through Citizen Kane and his War of the Worlds radio broadcast. I’ve recently watched some of his later work, and have found him to be delightfully whimsical. More than anything, Welles was an indulgent person. Indulgent with his food, indulgent with his filmmaking, indulgent with his conversations. I recognize that I’m the same way; I only hope I pull it off with the same finesse.

Katherine Hepburn
Let me begin by telling you that I love Katherine Hepburn’s voice. It’s low and a little raspy, but wonderful; it sounds like crystallized honey. Talking with Hepburn would be lovely simply for hearing her voice. However, there is much more to the woman than that. She wore pants regularly when no respectable woman would. She persisted in her career despite initial difficulty. She pursued what she wanted in her life with few reservations and no apologies, something we’d all do well to try sometime.

Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde, when coming to America, passed through customs wearing a maroon jacket, green waistcoat, blue breeches, and gold gloves. He was asked if he had anything to declare, and replied, “nothing but my own intelligence”. I would invite him to dinner for his one-liners alone. More than being a witty writer, Wilde was kind. He visited people in distress and successfully cheered them up, he didn’t condemn people, but rather gently mocked them, and he was willing to interact with people regardless of their class background. Wilde eventually became an outcast for his idiomatic lifestyle, but he kept his sense of humor till the very end.

Edith Sitwell
I know Edith Sitwell only through Façade, and through a failed paper on her connection to Sappho. However, just this brief brush with her work is enough to pique my interest in her as a person. She wrote just as modernism was coming into its own, and embraced satire when it was not proper to do so, especially for a woman. More than that, she wrote her poetry with an incredibly musical ear (Façade is set to music), and crafted each of her works with careful attention to detail. Any dinner party would be enriched by having such an independent and thoughtful guest.

The Venerable Bede
Any historian who has the balls to put a favorable adjective in front of his name, and then proceed to give the history of the world in a very gossipy manner has to be an interesting person. Not much is known about Bede, but I’m willing to risk inviting a possible jerk to a dinner party based on the evidence which shows he’s a pretty neat person.

Virginia Woolf
I imagine Virginia Woolf would be semi-whiney, introspective friend, but one that people keep around because of the novel way she thinks of things. I’ve never counted her as one of my favorite authors, but have always been intently interested in her work. I’m not sure if I would get along with her, but I would invite her to dinner, just to see if she speaks the same way she writes. Plus, I imagine that she and Edith Sitwell would get along well, so if worse comes to worst I can seat them next to each other and ignore Virginia Woolf altogether.

Zora Neale Hurston
One of my favorite personal essays, “How it Feels to Be Colored Me”, was penned by Zora Neale Hurston. In it she remarks that we have different outsides, but the insides are the same. More distinctly, she remarks that these insides are things like mismatched marbles, bits of colored twine, and door knobs which open doors long decayed away. Hurston is realistically fanciful in her writing. She recognizes the realities of life (she was a black woman in the 1920s), but refused to be limited by the way others thought she should be. She worked with what she had to create a better life for herself, and wrote pieces that touched deeply on things resonant with the human soul. Most importantly, she kept her perspective and a sense of humor, two things everyone needs, no matter where life takes them.

Show and Tell Time

Ok this is Devin.

I decided that show and tell was one of the most awesome parts of elementary school and that they need to do it for all the K-12 grades and then do it for college too. It would just make things less stressful and more happy. But I also think we should do it for this blog. And so I proudly present your new dose of WTF show and tell.



I hope you liked it because I found it on some weird obscure blog about crazy japanese stuff. Apparently this guy moved to Japan and just finds crazy news and random stuff about Japan, stuff like this. And I know that I'm not helping the stereotype that Devin just posts pictures and videos but Kimber doesn't do it, so somebody has to. No offense to Kimber since she makes up for no pics with excellent writing skillz. Also what the heck is with Nolan? His writing ratio is like Kimber:6 Devin:4 and Nolan:1(maybe). I would like to see more Nolan posts. And I'm writing this at 3:00 am and am tired. Good bye.

A Shout-Out No One Will Hear

Kimber gushes approval.

My family has season tickets to Hale Center Theater, a theater company located in Orem, and one of the few good playhouses in Utah Valley. Right now, the HCT is putting on William Shakespeare's As You Like It, and it's a rather excellent production. I would like to recommend that everyone should go see it, but since few people read this blog (and some of our readers are in other states), it's unlikely that my favorable review will make a difference. Still, good things deserve a good word, so here are a few.

I've seen the director of this production, Chris Clark, put on other Shakespeare plays before. Actually only one, but his work has been consistently excellent between the two plays. He understands how Shakespeare was originally performed (in a rather bawdy fashion, if truth be told), and he stays faithful to that. His renditions of Shakespeare make the plays understandable, the characters loveable, and the performances memorable (in a "oh, how marvelous" way, not a "I thought it would never end" sort of way), which is no small feat for a director of Shakespeare.

As You Like It is a neat little romantic comedy where everyone gets paired off at the end, despite a bit of cross-dressing, and the audience gets to enjoy more than a few good laughs along the way. The casting is excellent (I've seen the play twice; both sets of casts have their strong and their weak points, but they're both worth watching), and the actors have truely committed to their roles. There's singing, dancing, fighting, and even a dash of physical comedy remeniscent of Charlie Chaplin. A string duet accompanies the action of the play with surprisingly fitting music, the sets are ingenious, and the costumes are deftly crafted. All in all, this is one of the better productions HTC has put on in a while, and one of the best versions of Shakespeare I've seen, including the MST3K version of Hamlet.

I wish I had more power to get people to go to this play, but I don't, so the best that I can hope for is that someone more influential than I recognizes the talent involved (on all fronts) in this production, and forces a large group of school children to see it. If you are reading this, I suggest you go quickly, before all the tickets are snapped up by high schoolers looking to fill their Shakespeare requirement for senior English.

Future Nolan

Hey you guys, this is Devin.
I would just like to share with you a quick clip I found on the interweb(don't worry this time I didn't steal it from failblog). This movie creeped me out SO MUCH that I decided that I must be staring through a hole in the space/time continuum and I was viewing Nolan in the future. Although I am a little hurt that there is no mention of me, or the nerd night posse. C'mon Nolan! have you forgotten us so easily?
If you want to visit Future Nolan's youtube page go here.


This man is so oblivious to the fact that his dogs will eat him in his sleep one day. I feel sorry for him. He is just so crazy.

Murder is Bad

Devin

Why are there so many murderers out there in the world? Like teachers that murder your motivation. Or directors that murder the film industry. Or even real murderers that kill people.
But the main thing I think want to know is, why do so many people suck and not realize it? Like Paris Hilton; although she's rich so she doesn't care I guess. But there are others who just have mediocre personalities, like almost every student at BYU or UVU. Geez, it's gotten so bad that when I tell people I plan on going back to college they ask me, "Oh which school? BYU or UVU?" Has it ever occurred to you that I could want to take the easy, cheap route and go to Snow, or Dixie or something? In fact lately I've been thinking about MATC, since they are cheap and have the classes I want. I have no idea where this post is going.

For a wrap up, I challenge everyone to come up with a list of murdering bitches in the comments below. Have fun.

Here is a funny video of a real murderer. No I don't indorse real murder

UPDATE: you have to click on the link, then click on the link that shows up. Don't panic

Things That Annoy Kimber (Part III)

I am annoyed by retarded people who assume that their safety is others' responsibility. I am thinking specifically of the BYU students who live in my neighborhood and wander through the streets without any regard for their lives. I drive slowly and am attentive behind the wheel, but when people hide behind parked cars and then step out unexpectedly in front of my moving one, I can't help but be surprised. For some reason, I always get a dirty look from them after slamming on the breaks in order to save their life. I think from now on I'll be nicer to my brakes and less nice to them. They can't give me a dirty look if they're under my back wheel.

Things that Annoy Kimber (Part II)

I hate girls that have my name. Kims and Kimberlys are fine, because those are stupid names anyway, but people who go by Kimber suck, because that's my name. By the way, my name really is Kimber; that's how it's written on my birth certificate. I've noticed that a lot of other Kimbers are really just Kimberlys trying to be as cool as I am.

I'm also very annoyed every time I sleep through something. For example, this morning I hit my snooze button one too many times, and slept through a final. Now I'm screwed.

The end.