It’s kind of charming to me that after 50 damn years of filmmaking, it’s still a coin-flip whether a Ridley Scott movie is going to be good or not. Sir Ridley’s not like Steven Spielberg, who mostly keeps knocking them out of the park; nor Cameron Crowe, who released “Almost Famous” and then forgot how moviemaking works. He tiptoes down the middle, daring you to believe in him with an “American Gangster” and then pooping out a “Robin Hood.”
So you’d be forgiven for thinking a lega-sequel to his 2000 blockbuster “Gladiator” would fall on the poop side of the line. It seems like nobody outside of the Hollywood bean-counting office was asking for this. But he’s done it, folks; he’s managed to make a big dumb watchable action movie!
About one million years ago, a glacier punched its way through the Wicklow Mountains south of Dublin, leaving behind a long, curved valley and two small lakes to remember it by.
Then about 1,500 years ago, a guy called Cóemgen settled in that same valley—by then unimaginatively named the “Glen of Two Lakes,” or Gleann Dá Loch—so he could live out a cloistered monastic life. Virtually nothing has survived about Cóemgen except for fantastical, sometimes amusing, legends. In one, he dropped a book in the lake only for a friendly otter to return it; in another, he rolled around in nettles to quell his carnal passions for a lovely maiden and encouraged her to do the same. (Girl, run.)
Cóemgen’s desire for hermitage backfired spectacularly, since he gained followers and fame, and well, here we are talking about him. By the 10th century the valley featured an entire “monastic city,” today a set of scattered ruins punctuated by a 30-meter stone tower. After the English showed up with their extremely weird language, Gleann Dá Loch became “Glendalough,” and Cóemgen became “Kevin.” That’s right: on the longest possible timeline, I’m this guy’s namesake.
I see the resemblance.
That’s all a mildly interesting history lesson, but Saint Kevin was completely incidental as to how Kiki and I found ourselves getting married in his old stomping grounds, of all places, last week. Despite our love of the stage, neither of us was in the mood for a big wedding; instead, Kiki had the lovely idea that we should elope with our two sisters, hers and mine. Ireland was a logical choice, since my brother-in-law Stephen is Irish1. When I floated the idea to Margaret she immediately recommended Glendalough, where her good friend Susanne owns a retreat venue called Glendalough Sanctuary. So the parts of the wedding fell into place like magical Lego bricks.
Statistically, at least one of these people is a Swiftie.
DISCLAIMER: The last thing the world needs is a white man in his 40s opining about Taylor Swift. For the record, this is just a glorified diary entry.
Back in college circa 1999, I was lucky enough to see Weird Al Yankovic in concert. I generally remember having a great time, but all these years later, I have only one specific memory of that show: the first ten seconds, when Weird Al himself ran onstage and started singing “Gump,” and in an instant, the goofy celebrity figure who only existed abstractly in my head became an actual three-dimensional human being. I laughed out loud, simply flabbergasted that this guy was real.
I thought about that moment a lot in the weeks leading up to seeing Taylor Swift in Amsterdam with Kiki and the nieces. Taylor’s become such a pop-culture force of nature that it’s functionally impossible not to have an opinion about her.1 So it seems bizarre that—with a little bit of luck and a whole lot of money—it’s possible to just walk into a place and see her.2 When she finally appeared Thursday night, over a year after we bought the tickets, emerging center-stage from enormous petals like a pop-idol flower, my first thought was: Look how small she is!
When I lost my job at Mambu last June (baby’s first layoff!), it was only a little bit surprising. I’d done a darn good job making myself valuable there—hell, I’d hosted the company-wide gathering only a few months before. But they’d been taking on water, so to speak, and eventually even the morale officers find themselves holding a paddle.1 I was sad, but already in the Acceptance phase when the fateful Zoom call came.
All things being equal I’d rather *not* be laid off (hot take, I know), but I was less than panicky. I’d gotten my Mambu job rather easily, and I’d chatted with some recruiters before I was even laid off, so I was confident in the job search ahead. As Kiki pointed out, it was kind of them to let me go at the beginning of the summer! I took an impromptu trip home, directed my improv play, made a “Funemployment” list of projects, and started my job search with a casual pickiness that I now regret. “I dunno,” I’d wonder, “do I really want to commute to the other side of Amsterdam?”
CDK Company is a dance troupe based in The Netherlands (website), and they recently released an extremely energetic dance video to Gotye’s ubiquitous “Somebody That I Used to Know.” The scale of the production is striking, as are the Wes Anderson aesthetics. But the real eye-grabber is the choreography, a sharp, baroque contrast to the plink-plink-plink simplicity of the song.
I don’t even know if I like it! The dance moves are so rapid-fire, so herky-jerky, that it’s hard for my eye to settle (which was their intention). But the physical talent and technical precision involved are undeniable. Plus they’re Dutch! So I watched it twice just the same.
As plans solidify for the all-but-inevitable expansion of I-35 through central Austin, KUT has shared a truly impressive deep dive into TxDOT’s plans. Since the write-up is well over 5,000 words, I thought I’d do a write-up of the write-up and summarize the good, bad, and ugly. TLDR: It’s about 20% good, 60% bad, and 20% ugly.
Let’s start with their physics-defying intention to add four more lanes, which—it is almost universally understood1—will leave traffic worse than it started. Add to that the decade of construction, and it’s hard to argue the widening provides any benefit (though of course many will argue it just the same; meet me in the comments).
When you live in Europe, you often wake up to the news. I’ll never forget Kiki startling me awake one morning with “Will Smith slapped Chris Rock!” Of course, sometimes the news is bad—occasionally very bad. So it was to wake up to texts from Brad and Lampe telling me Cortney DeAngelo had suddenly, shockingly passed away in her sleep.
When I told my friend Rahel that an Austin improv friend had died, she asked “Were you two close?” I started to type three different responses:
Today’s the five-year anniversary of one of my most secretly amazing nights, and I figure that’s a good enough excuse to end the secret. I think I’ve told this story to fewer than twenty people, which for me is a VERY low number.
So I’d come into possession of a “gift certificate” offering two free nights in a decent Vegas hotel in exchange for sitting through a timeshare sales pitch. Timeshares are a scam, but the free hotel stay felt like scamming the scammers. I booked it in February 2019 and invited my friend Yichao to make the drive from LA and spend a guys’ weekend together.
Yichao picked me up at the airport and we made the most of Vegas for 48 hours (the correct duration for any Vegas trip; no more, no less). We wandered the Strip, went to Drag Brunch, got confused by slot machines, and ate an alarming number of calories. (Did you know there’s a $100 all-you-can-eat buffet? Now you do.) Oh yes, and I dutifully sat through the two-hour timeshare sales pitch and repeatedly told the guy that I was not his target market before finally being released.
This is actually from a different Vegas trip, but I’ll use any excuse to share the greatest selfie ever taken.
As I started telling local improv buddies that I was bringing my favorite show format back to Amsterdam (Saturday March 9th! Tickets €12!), I heard from more than one friend—two, actually—that they felt anxious about it. That seemed like a good reason to jot down my thoughts about Maestro, and why it’s nothing to fear.
If you have no idea what Maestro even is, here’s a summary…
Maestro is a competitive improv format where 12 improvisers perform short-form improv scenes in small groups. The audience gives each scene a score, 1 through 5; at intermission, the lowest-scoring players are knocked out; and at the end of the night, the last person standing is crowned Maestro and awarded the coveted Canadian Five-Dollar Bill.1
To admit my obvious bias, I’ve been playing Maestro for a long, long time. It’s been a weekly show at the Hideout Theatre in Austin since 1999, which I’d bet money2 is the longest such streak in the world. That means it’s been a regular part of my life since I began taking improv classes in 2001. I grew up on this stuff.
Given that history, I wasn’t surprised to hear about the anxiety! There are a few reasons people shy away from this kind of show:
Though it all feels like one big project, visiting and photographing 300 courthouses could hardly be more different than making a coffee-table book about them. The former is mostly a test of endurance and road trip route-planning. The latter is a hugely complicated creative and logistical endeavor. Sure it’s possible to order a simple photo book from Shutterstock, but this idea felt like it needed to be done properly or not at all.
After settling with Kiki in Amsterdam at the end of 2020, I waffled on whether—more importantly, how—I should begin. One of my first actions was to mock up the cover, which started as an iPad sketch and changed surprisingly little over time.
