Boxing Metropolis

2012-02-12T13:44:00.001-05:00

Sweet mercy, I loved this.

Jean Dujardin's Villain Auditions from Jean Dujardin

Louis on Gay Marriage

2012-02-09T16:00:00.001-05:00

2012-02-07T12:54:00.001-05:00

I'm sure 18-year-old Josh loved this. Wherever he is.

Via Videogum.

The Days of Yore

2012-01-23T11:26:00.003-05:00

Every Monday for almost two years now, The Days of Yore has posted a new interview. What started on a whim with Astri is actually a thing now! A real living thing. Sometimes I forget. Following through on ideas is good sometimes. Amidst all the stupider thoughts, some are actually worthwhile. Some.

Anyway, today a guest contributor posted an awesome talk with one of my favorite writers, Mary Karr. Have you read her books? You ought to. They are wonderful, fast, and crazy. Here's an excerpt from the DoY interview:

"My battles as a writer are battles with that part of myself that thinks I’m supposed to sound like T.S. Eliot when I grew up in East Texas. I wanted to sound lofty and British and to say ‘indeed’. That’s not how I am. The best thing about me is that I’m warm. The book should be that way, too, right? That’s something I can do better. I can do warm better than Don DeLillo. That’s not what he does. He does another thing.

There’s another Hemingway line about bullfighting. He interviews a famous bullfighter, and he says, “What exercises do you do for strength?” The bullfighter says, “The bull weighs two tons. Am I going to be stronger than the bull?” You’ve got to figure out what you have to fight with, what you bring to the party, and try to compete in that arena. Not in the arena that perhaps seems fashionable at the time, or perhaps seems enviable in other people, but the arena that’s really, as Faulkner says, your postage stamp of reality."

2012-01-17T13:33:00.003-05:00

This was really well done.

2012-01-16T23:13:00.001-05:00

2012-01-13T11:48:00.001-05:00

I genuinely can't stop watching this video and listening to this song. I don't even know why. I just can't stop.

2012-01-06T13:39:00.001-05:00

Watch Til The End

2012-01-06T11:33:00.001-05:00

Jeff Harris: 4,748 Self-Portraits and Counting from We Know Music on Vimeo.

2012-01-05T10:15:00.001-05:00

2011-12-27T16:41:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas from the Fuppets.

2011-12-19T18:13:00.001-05:00

(Via Keith Huang)

2011-12-10T17:10:00.001-05:00

Whoever is in charge of these amazing Soundbite videos has proven the age-old internet truth: simplicity trumps all. Here's the new Herman Cain one.

PR Email Of The Week

2011-12-02T13:26:00.003-05:00

This will be a new blog feature that I will likely soon forget about, but this PR email was too good to pass up. I get about a million of these a day.

Hi Lucas – Figured you might be interested… According to a new study, it’s not just the season for decking the halls – it’s the time for scrubbing them, too!

Whether messes are caused by an overflow of sweet potato casserole or puddles of spilled gravy, the survey from Georgia-Pacific, the manufacturer of Brawny® paper towels, and StrategyOne found Christmas to be the messiest holiday of all, adding nearly four hours to time spent cleaning before (151 minutes) and after (85 minutes) holiday at-home parties. This is in addition to the nearly two hours (116 minutes) it takes women to clean their homes already!

Perhaps all the extra work is because women are getting left high and dry when it comes to cleaning. The survey also found that 65% of women do not receive any help with household chores and that spouses are nearly as hard to clean up after as pets (25.6 percent vs. 27.1 percent).

I’m happy to send all of the additional results if you’re interested. Let me know what you think!

I can't wait to publish my newest Huffpo article: "Christmas Likely To Be Messy! MESSIEST OF ALL."

America

2011-11-21T23:43:00.006-05:00

This man was the governor of a state.

"Everyone realizes that there is now oxygen on Mars. And there is a dictatorship. And all that."

2011-11-04T18:20:00.001-04:00

2011-11-03T12:27:00.001-04:00

Zombies

2011-10-31T17:14:00.001-04:00

A lot of work went into this Zombie Takeover today. It felt like Christmas morning at the HuffPost Culture offices.

2011-10-27T15:03:00.002-04:00

Hey, I posted a new "serious" song! On this page of songs I add to once in a while! Check it out if you enjoy music.

2011-10-27T12:14:00.004-04:00

Has any group of hosts been so consistently douche-baggy, so relentlessly bullying and generally shitty, as the hosts of 'Fox and Friends'? It's difficult to say, but it's nice to see that they consistently want to beat their own record for overall dick-ness and close-mindedness and just being terrible for the world at large. That's nice to see. This is nice. God I hate these people.

2011-10-26T12:32:00.002-04:00

This is a political ad for Herman Cain from August.

Again, this is a real ad for a real presidential candidate.

2011-10-18T16:42:00.005-04:00

This was published in an American newspaper! In other news: let's not move to Greater Hazleton.

Via Nextround

2011-10-04T11:21:00.001-04:00

Well played, SNL.

2011-09-27T14:08:00.000-04:00

Das Racist + Green Screens = Virtual Insanity.

Thanks, Lustick, for the link.

2011-09-24T13:49:00.001-04:00

Parents, lock up your daughters.

2011-09-16T12:10:00.001-04:00

Experience Human Flight from Betty Wants In on Vimeo.

2011-09-15T12:38:00.001-04:00

Sometimes something is perfect.

I Like The Animals...But I Love The Humans

2011-09-14T16:01:00.003-04:00

Here's the reeeeeeeally silly new trailer for Cameron Crowe's new film, "We Bought A Zoo." Like - this film looks so Cameron Crowe that it could almost have been made by a super robot version of Cameron Crowe that combined ingredients from every other Cameron Crowe film and put them into a horrible pot with a score by Sigur Ros.

"The sellers say you don't even need any special knowledge to run a zoo," Matt Damon says. "What you need is...a lot of heart."

Certainly, Matt Damon, that could be true, but it worries me that Matt Damon has no prior knowledge of animal care before he takes over a zoo. Also, why was this zoo was just sitting there unattended? Who was running this zoo beforehand? You need trained professionals to feed and take care of lions, you can't just be Matt Damon and assume everything is going to be fine and those zebras will get the care they need. But maybe Matt Damon will go to Zookeeper Night School in the film. I really hope he goes to Zookeeper Night School.

At least this movie will help real estate brokers looking to sell houses that are also zoos. That will be a nice side-benefit of this film, I think.

2011-09-14T13:28:00.002-04:00

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

2011-08-25T17:02:00.004-04:00

A nice photo taken by the ever-increasingly-photographically-gifted Caitlin Dennis back in June of myself and Ms. Kat Cooley on Lake Dunmore in Vermont.

What a great weekend this was.

2011-08-24T17:03:00.002-04:00

Interviewed Scott Gairdner, an internet videomaker I've long loved, for the Huffpo.
Here's a recent gem of his:

Staying Positive with Jesse Eisenberg - watch more funny videos

2011-08-23T20:55:00.002-04:00

This is really Ryan Seacrest when he was 13.
Really.
Does it explain so much? Or so little?

2011-08-18T10:52:00.001-04:00

2011-08-17T11:48:00.001-04:00

A Built to Spill kind of day.

2011-08-08T11:46:00.000-04:00

The production values alone are worth appreciating.

2011-08-05T11:37:00.001-04:00

2011-07-15T12:11:00.001-04:00

Bye, Kermit.

2011-07-14T16:11:00.003-04:00

I thought this was really nice -- Frank Oz (Grover, Fozzie, Cookie Monster, Yoda et al.) speaking at Jim Henson's memorial, over 20 years ago, in May 1990.

And then this, of course...just kills. Heart on fire.

Via Mental Floss.

2011-07-11T14:10:00.001-04:00

Love him or hate him, Bon Iver's cover of Bonnie Raitt's classic is pretty damn beautiful, right?

2011-07-07T15:26:00.002-04:00

David Simon gets all optimistic up in Salon.

"Look, American television has been a juvenile medium for most of its existence. This is true. Because of the commercials, because of the need to placate the maximum number of eyeballs, happy endings abound, redemption abounds, perfect revenge is often achieved in an action sequence. It's very much unlike life as I have experienced it, and as most people have experienced.

Life is glorious and vibrant and joyous at points, but it is essentially tragic. That's not a unique David Simon perspective. That's the perspective of anyone who contemplates anything as simple as mortality. You're gonna die, and everyone you love and care about is gonna die. Life is finite. Some of them are gonna die too soon, and some of them are gonna die with things unsaid and things unfinished. And if you look at life in a fair and accurate context, you see that it is often deeply tragic, regardless of how well or poorly you live portions of your life — and certainly some people get luckier than other

Television, by and large, has not dealt with that ... because first of all, there's no money in it. And second of all, because they're scared of distracting you for a moment from what you have to do, which is buy Lexuses, or buy iPods, or buy bluejeans, or buy feminine hygiene products. Every few minutes, they need you reassured enough that you're gonna pay attention to the ads."

Thanks, Dave!

2011-07-05T17:40:00.001-04:00

Everyone's trying to get in on that sweet, sweet Casey Anthony hashtag action.

2011-06-29T17:05:00.000-04:00

This film was shot entirely on a Nokia cell phone.

Splitscreen: A Love Story from JW Griffiths on Vimeo.

2011-06-24T15:53:00.000-04:00

I got a major kick out of this great little website.

2011-06-10T17:46:00.000-04:00

Pretty stunning new video from the Memory Tapes.

Memory Tapes "Yes I Know" from Najork on Vimeo.

2011-06-09T17:59:00.001-04:00

Amen, kid. Amen.

2011-06-03T11:32:00.002-04:00

FISH EYE opened last night! There was pizza! And macaroons. Homemade macaroons. Also the play happened.

Some really nice reviews of the show can be read here, and here, and here.

It runs until June 18th.

This made my day

2011-06-03T11:23:00.004-04:00

This amazing teacher I spotlighted last week as part of Huffington Post's "Greatest Person of the Day" was featured in her hometown newspaper in Montana after the article ran.

"The last three days have also been very humbling," Burns said. "Realizing how many people these little guys have now touched, hearing they are inspiring others to be kind, too, and to see the potential of this simple activity growing in such a positive way."

Check out the original piece here, and the hometown Missoula, MT piece here.

2011-06-02T12:12:00.001-04:00

Yes. This is the best. It is.

Super Massive Blue Hole

2011-05-15T23:03:00.002-04:00

Potential Chair of the Dallas Republican Party releases hands down the greatest political video shot by a particularly ambitious high school film student of all time. Gotta love that sepia tone-switch halfway through. And the elephant. Jesus Christ, that elephant.

Thank you Nick Rallo, for the link.

Fish Eye

2011-05-10T17:31:00.003-04:00

It's really happening. There's no escape now. Check out the announcement in Broadway World and buy advance tickets for Fish Eye, opening May 27th at HERE Arts Center in NYC.

There are so many floating girls in this play it's going to blow your mind.

2011-05-10T11:26:00.001-04:00

2011-05-08T23:29:00.001-04:00

Today Now! Interviews The 5-Year-Old Screenwriter Of "Fast Five"

A Visit From The Goon Press

2011-04-23T15:15:00.006-04:00

So very excited about all the nice words that The Days of Yore has received this week (in the wake of Jennifer Egan's 2011 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Thanks circumstance!)

I will forever be jealous that Astri got to go to Ms. Egan's real life apartment and interview her real life face. Because she is maybe the most beautiful and down-to-earth and magical author in town? Do read her book if you haven't yet.

Egan as a teenager. Let us all collectively sigh.

Check out this week's press in The Huffington Post, the Paris Review, and Flavorwire, among many other kind personal blog and Twitter mentions.

2011-04-21T00:15:00.002-04:00

This was neat.

2011-04-17T23:41:00.001-04:00

I love David Brooks.

2011-04-08T15:35:00.001-04:00

Great video from my friends at 350.org

Chamber.350.org from Hans Hansen on Vimeo.

2011-04-06T00:29:00.003-04:00

Hi guys.

I write for the Huffington Post now. It's neat. There is free coffee and nap pods at the office. Real, genuine nap pods like the one you see above. You can also read my posts here.

2011-03-24T14:25:00.002-04:00

From The Best Picture on the Internet.

2011-03-22T00:59:00.000-04:00

Five points for anyone who can tell me what this movie is about. Five points.

2011-03-17T16:47:00.003-04:00

Just in case we weren't sure that tweens ruled the world and we are merely their slaves, this video went ahead and existed. Seriously, can tweens be stopped? This song sounds like a Disney Channel B-Side from Aaron Carter's awkward cousin in 1996. What is going on here?

h

2011-03-10T11:41:00.002-05:00

If you haven't yet seen Todd Bieber's NY Blizzard videos, start watching here from Part 1 and work your way to Part 3. These are very lovely and inspiring and This American Life-y.

2011-03-10T10:59:00.001-05:00

2011-03-09T11:37:00.004-05:00

"Edward Albee is amused that he has been befriended on Facebook by a young woman who allegedly lives near him and wishes to send him revealing photographs. This woman claims to know and respect him. What has he done wrong? What salient facts has he not transmitted?"

- Edward Albee's status on Facebook

2011-03-09T11:20:00.002-05:00

Holy crap! Kristen stars in the weird new National video.

The National

2011-03-06T23:16:00.002-05:00

2011-02-24T12:34:00.002-05:00

The Blue Flower was nominated for eleven IRNE Awards (Boston's theatre awards), including best play, direction, ensemble, and acting nods for Meghan, Teal, Dan, and myself. So proud of everyone involved with this show.

2011-02-21T09:36:00.002-05:00

Please watch the second episode of my friend Lauren's Kraftin' Korner. You will not be disappointed by the village she builds.

2011-02-16T12:57:00.000-05:00

This is the best Channel 101 Series i've seen in ages.

2011-02-16T11:49:00.003-05:00

A good friend sent me this very weird and very funny and very fucked up short animated film. It won a bunch of awards at Cannes.

Bye bye.

2011-02-12T13:22:00.012-05:00

Watching the last episode of the last season ever of Friday Night Lights felt far more important and more devastating than it probably needed to - coming and going too fast and during a time in my life when I'm so confused and attached and unattached to so many things that it really knocked me out in a major way. But yeah! Whatever! I cried. And now it's over and I feel like I have to say something about it because the show has meant so much to me. No spoilers for those who aren't caught up.

My deep attachment to FNL surely comes from the fact that I spent my high school years in suburban Dallas, but never really understood it or felt any sort of deep, lasting connection to the state of Texas. I was coming from another, very different place, and I always felt like I was an unwilling part of some movie about Southern, suburban life. I was like the new second unit cameraman--an awkward guy who didn't ever quite know what was going on, didn't have the knowledge or experience to do things the way you're supposed to, and also carries a bunch of random shit on his belt. Bad metaphor? Probably.

Of course, FNL both epitomizes the high school football experiences and dramatizes it to an absurd and overwhelming extent. As my friend says of the show, "All the characters are just too holy. They're moral to a fault." And it's true - even the most hardened players and townspeople are good, well-meaning, intelligent romantics and, truth be told, that ain't what high school football players are like (except, of course, Lord Byron, who was Plano Senior High School's running back). But damn if I wasn't more attached to these characters than any others on any TV show sans Wire. They're are all so steeped in the melodrama that inevitably surrounds them, but remain so wholly, beautifully of-this-earth and real that you can't help but want the best for every single one (except maybe Julie? She's a tough egg). We all want a marriage like Tami and Coach Taylor, we all want hair like Riggins, and we all want to believe that everything will work out for the best, like all the rest of them. I felt more attached to Texas after watching five seasons of this show than I had in five years of living there. That's very sad, but also a little inspiring, right?

The finale answered all questions and left the right ones open. I have a couple plotty complaints (and an overarching one about the overuse of the word "Superteam"), but they did a great job. You won't be disappointed and you'll question all the right things.

So watch this show if you can. Newbies: watch from season one. You will cry with genuine happiness and sadness and you will be attached - and attracted - to everyone.

2011-02-10T23:58:00.003-05:00

I'm part of this fun show at the PIT sponsored by the NY Post. They have fancy cameras.

2011-02-09T09:40:00.001-05:00

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis: Tila Tequila from Between Two Ferns

2011-01-31T15:00:00.008-05:00

This is a polar bear made out of snow

This week on The Days of Yore I interview Dan Jenkins, an actor I just worked with on The Blue Flower up at A.R.T. It's safe to say I admire Dan quite a bit. The guy is a phenomenal actor, first and foremost, genuinely good-natured to an almost absurd extent, and would rather play some mandolin and build an ice polar bear in Harvard Yard than he would talk about his agent and all the famous people he's met. There's something extremely rewarding about interviewing someone you know and have worked with, and I thank the site (often, in my mind) for being able to offer such opportunities.

Check out the interview with Dan here. Meet a real polar bear here.

2011-01-25T00:51:00.006-05:00

In this age of Faceballz and Tweetzie and Bling and ConnectPalz, it's easy to be envious of everybody else's life. I mean it's all right there, in front of you, asking you to look at it and admire it daily. My friend Mike Ives is a good friend from college who lives in Hanoi, Vietnam and writes wonderful travel pieces for American newspapers and magazines. This is his website where you can read them all.

I'm sure it's lonely sometimes in Hanoi, but still... pretty cool, yeah? He's doing that thing you said you'd try before you couldn't anymore. Also: there's all that ramen.

UPDATE: Mike told me there is no ramen in Vietnam. Now everything I thought I knew is wrong.

2011-01-11T11:27:00.002-05:00

MTV is gearing up to remind us what it was like to be a young and carefree teenager in this wonderful, "ultra-realistic" new program. Remember when we all went to each other's houses and poured vodka on each other's faces and went around from person to person blowing marijuana smoke directly into their mouths? Man, those were the days.

Skins - MTV Shows

2011-01-03T19:06:00.001-05:00

UNDERCITY from Andrew Wonder on Vimeo.

2010 Was a Year We Had

2010-12-27T12:18:00.016-05:00

Here are some disparate favorite things of mine from the past year! It's fun to wrap things up in list form, as the rest of the internet can attest to.

Favorite Article
Zadie Smith in not-so-brief-terms defined why so many of us are starting to hate the big, blue social network in this great piece for the New York Review of Books. Nonetheless, we all still remain under its big, blue spell.

Favorite Older Movie I Saw on Netflix
The King of Kong. So hilarious that you can't believe it's real. Probably because a lot of it was staged. But whatever. From the hot sauce baron to the family man you root for to the lackies who work for the video game commission, this is an undeniably entertaining documentary.

Favorite Rant
Aaron Sorkin perfectly sums up why Sarah Palin is the worst. And he does it humorously and intelligently - always a plus.

Favorite Book
Fine, I'll just say it, even though it's boring: Freedom is the best book of the year. Who else but sad, awkward Mr. Franzen can make one fly through 500 depressing pages in less than five days? He writes epically about the modern, liberal psyche better than anyone ever. As Curtin Sittenfeld wrote in the Guardian: it's "impossible to read his vivisections of people's flaws and delusions without anxiously imagining what short work he could make of you and pretty much everyone you care about."

Favorite Incredibly Shitty Thing That Happened this Year that Also Made a Good Story and Happened to Be Captured on Video
I guess this.

Favorite TV Show, Even Despite Myself
Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose. I started many others this year and liked quite a few of them, (especially the zombies one), but only one show keeps me coming back, even if you know exactly what's coming every step of the way, and the melodramatic foreshadowing techniques are getting old and lame, and they straight up DROP storylines that aren't working mid-season, I still love you, FNL.

Favorite New City
Cambridge, MA. Come for the sandwiches, stay for the coffee shops and overpriced groceries.

Favorite Theatre Thing
No doubts here. There's nothing like watching something you love grow and change for two years and become something that everyone, (even poopy-pants Isherwood!) is affected by.

Least Favorite General Thing
The Jersey Shore. Look, I know as a nation we've embraced and grown to love some pretty awful people over the years, but the fact that Pauly D and Snooki are now multi-millionaires based on the sole fact that they're gross and slutty should make us all marginally tearful.

Favorite Songs
in MIX Form! THE FUTURE IS NOW!

2010-12-23T17:10:00.005-05:00

When I was little my dad listened to lots of Harry Nilsson. I find that a lot of the stuff I love now was brought to me when I was little (except Steely Dan, who I will always hate for reasons generally unknown to me, but maybe just because they suck).

Here's a Christmas cover of a classic Nilsson song, or just a "Holiday" cover if you're a lefty, liberal Christmas-hater, shabbily recorded on my Mac speakers from my apartment in Cambridge. Happy Holidays to all.

2010-12-22T14:24:00.008-05:00

Cool piece on our show from the Boston TV box.

Also exciting: The show was named one of the best Boston productions of 2010 by the Boston Phoenix! If anyone is in Boston over Christmas break, please don't hesitate to come see it and/or hang out with me.

2010-12-20T16:15:00.005-05:00

Week after week, Josh Ruben owns the internet with "Hello My Name Is." It's always good.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

2010-12-15T13:26:00.000-05:00

This is the best thing. Also: there are black people in Russia? That's great news.

OPENING!

2010-12-08T15:58:00.009-05:00

Tonight, we officially open this thang. The whole process has been one of the the most interesting, beautiful, and challenging things I've ever been a part of and everyone has genuinely worked their asses off. Previews have been a blast, and we're all just really happy it's been resonating so well with people.

Here are some photos to get you turned on in a mildly sexual way.

photos by Marcus Stern

2010-12-04T10:33:00.001-05:00

This is what Obama needs to remind everyone. ALL THE TIME. Every day.

2010-12-02T00:48:00.003-05:00

First preview for The Blue Flower tonight - great response from the much-welcomed audience and an extra curtain call. What a treat after everyone worked so insanely hard all week. Let's hope we can ease into this baby...

Here's some recent press on the show:

Playbill Announcement
Blue Flower on Radio Boston
Blue Flower feature in the Boston Globe

2010-11-29T19:32:00.005-05:00

Is it possible that one video can represent what's wrong with America so effortlessly and skillfully that you can't help but laugh at its pitch-perfect representation of grossness?

Yeyyyyyyyy!!

2010-11-29T18:13:00.000-05:00

Via (EpicPonyz)

Spoiler alert

2010-11-23T13:29:00.002-05:00

“We’re reading the script right now. I don’t want to give it away because that wouldn’t be tight, but it’s set in the future and it’s about a journey.”

Jaden Smith on M. Night Shyamalan’s One Thousand A.E.

2010-11-16T13:50:00.003-05:00

This might be the only funny thing SNL's done in months?

Da Azul Fauna

2010-11-13T19:11:00.009-05:00

Shows start in a little over 2 weeks! I've never felt so completely overwhelmed and I mean that in the best way possible - I think this thing is gonna be unique and beautiful to watch (as long as I learn to sing). Everyone involved is crazy talented and smart and invested all the way. Here's a preview video from Stephen "I Write Musicals Good" Schwartz. The photos are from previous showcase productions...

2010-11-11T17:48:00.003-05:00

This is what happens when you make a shitty movie and have too much disposable income.

2010-11-10T19:51:00.009-05:00

Zadie Smith wrote an extremely insightful and scary article for the NY Review of Books about The Social Network and Facebook in general. It's long, but all of it is eerily spot on.

"The last defense of every Facebook addict is: but it helps me keep in contact with people who are far away! Well, e-mail and Skype do that, too, and they have the added advantage of not forcing you to interface with the mind of Mark Zuckerberg...If we really wanted to write to these faraway people, or see them, we would. What we actually want to do is the bare minimum, just like any nineteen-year-old college boy who’d rather be doing something else, or nothing."

Another bit I liked:

"Shouldn’t we struggle against Facebook? Everything in it is reduced to the size of its founder. Blue, because it turns out Zuckerberg is red-green color-blind. “Blue is the richest color for me—I can see all of blue.” Poking, because that’s what shy boys do to girls they are scared to talk to...We were going to live online. It was going to be extraordinary. Yet what kind of living is this? Step back from your Facebook Wall for a moment: Doesn’t it, suddenly, look a little ridiculous? Your life in this format?"

I've become curious recently how much time I actually waste on Facebook week-to-week, but honestly...writing those statistics down would scare the crap out of me. She's right: we're all doing this to ourselves, and we're the only ones who can change it.

"I am dreaming of a Web that caters to a kind of person who no longer exists. A private person, a person who is a mystery, to the world and—which is more important—to herself. Person as mystery: this idea of personhood is certainly changing, perhaps has already changed."

2010-11-09T22:01:00.001-05:00

2010-11-08T13:32:00.004-05:00

My friend Jon was on Jeopardy and it made me smile. He seemed to entertain Mr. Trebek, too.

2010-11-04T19:25:00.016-04:00

AAAAAAAH. It's just so hard to stop watching all of this stuff.

All politicians really need to drop the idea that "The American People" as one united body have elected them into office and, hence, agree with whatever bullshit they're talking about. Clearly The American People are divided into two very distinct and separate camps these days and it's about time we all just accepted that. I want to punch Mitch McConnell in the jowls. Yet I am also an American Person. So where does this leave me?

I think at this point we just need some Independents to upend all this crap and run for office based on their merits - based on something completely different. Right? That really seems to be the next step in American politics. And I am the foremost figure of American politics, so...it goes without saying. Your move, Clooney.

2010-11-02T21:33:00.004-04:00

Hey, watch Fox News cover the Sanity Rally! It'll really piss you off! That'll be fun.

Vermont

2010-10-29T20:04:00.011-04:00

is still the love of my life.

Did a show with Swords and taught a workshop with Otter Nonsense, the greatest college improv group in the history of college. Ate some pizza with kale on it and drank perfect beers. Then we climbed up a ski mountain when there was NO SNOW EVEN ON IT?! What?! I know.

2010-10-27T18:29:00.012-04:00

In quite possibly the quickest life transition I've ever made - I have up and moved to Cambridge, MA until mid-January to work on a new, really great new show called The Blue Flower at the A.R.T at Harvard. It'll run from December 1st until mid-January. The show's been in development for years and the music is "Kurt Weill by way of Hank Williams" (pedal steel having sex with accordian) and tells the story of four Dadaists moving through two World Wars in Germany and beyond.

Come visit! It'll be so much fun. I have couches and a balcony and we can crash Harvard lectures while eating chowder. Or something.

2010-10-13T20:32:00.002-04:00

Why this was made, nobody will ever know.

Self Help Yourself with Dr. Koenig Vaspar from lucas kavner on Vimeo.

Space!

2010-10-03T22:21:00.009-04:00

Just spent an amazing week with pretty much the best group of people on a beautiful farm-slash-artists' retreat called SPACE on Ryder Farm. We workshopped new plays by Bekah Brunstetter and Dylan Dawson and ate pulled pork sandwiches and built shitty fires and I fell in love with a dog named Birdie that I legitimately had trouble not stealing and keeping for my own.

I mean, seriously, come on.

There were goats. There were old pictures. There was a church tag sale where I procured one-dollar shoes and some eager old ladies convinced me to buy some sweaters. Bekah's short film she made during rehearsals sums up the experience:

2010-09-28T12:32:00.003-04:00

We won Sketchprov 2010! Another extremely fun week at the PIT from really talented people. Humbling also to have Tom Shillue as a judge - a comic who I've watched and loved ever since I came to New York.

Photo by Keith Huang

Some nice press in The Apiary and on the PIT website. Also thanks to Magner's for making me love/hate hard cider.