I found out about the Spanish courses offered at USDA, and they're not as inexpensive as I expected -- one class would cost me half of my paycheck. Now I'm considering these courses on CD ROM. I'm skeptical about this being a very effective way to learn a language, but it would be significantly cheaper. And while there are obvious advantages of learning a language from someone who speaks it fluently, I'd probably need to take at least four courses to have a relatively comprehensive understanding of the language, as opposed to paying a much lower price for more or less those same courses on CD ROM. Has anyone learned a language this way? It would be nice to travel to a Spanish-speaking country and have a real dialogue with the people, instead of being the typical tourist who only asks for directions and whatnot. Not to mention, it's an increasingly marketable skill among the ever-growing Spanish-speaking population in this country.

So I'm doing an extension of The Glory of Living with Profiles Theatre right now. The show's been running for 10 weeks and they've replaced some of the smaller roles to do one last extension as it's been getting really good reviews and houses are full. I've decided replacement roles are fairly awesome. The show is already teched, everyone knows what they're doing, you have four days of rehearsal and then you just start running. It's awesome and the cast is really good too.

So anyway, it's one of those intense shows that's really fun to do but makes the audience uncomfortable. It's the way you're supposed to react. I saw the show before I was cast in it, it's definitely a show you'll have some kind of reaction to. I'm the only girl who gets to keep all of her clothes on I think. I also get to do combat. It's fairly sweet.

So anyway, they're used to people walking out at intermission and just not coming back. It's fine. Some people don't like to see provocative theatre. The stage is set up so that if you enter from the lobby, you have some audience on your right, the stage right in front of you, and if you cross it, more audience on your left. So part of the audience has to walk across the stage to sit down and you'll see the other audience members on the other side of the stage. So no forth or second wall.

Anyway, so there's a scene where a girl just takes her dress off and sits there naked having a conversation for a minute. Right after she takes her dress off, four audience members get up to walk out, across the stage of course. One actually brushes by the other actor and says, 'excuse me'. Weird. They couldn't even wait for a scene change, much less intermission. They were powerful offended by the nakedness.

I just had 2.5 weeks off work, so I had some time to do some reading...

Speed Tribes by Karl Taro Greenfeld

This is a great little book that gives an overview of a variety of different subcultures of Japanese life. He covers the AV (Adult Video) scene, the club scene, the yakusa, among other groups... One favorite chapter discusses the systematic theft that is required for Japan's "no inventory" motorcycle industry to work smoothly... suprisingly interesting stuff. Another stand-out chapter delves into the lives of a small group of juvenile deliquents. The fact that the chapters are arranged to give you a necessary base of information for the next chapter is really helpful... you find out about the Yakusa, then the unofficial gangs that act as recruiting grounds for their ranks, then the deliquents that end up in gangs (and the juvenile justice system which often fails to rehabilitate them), for example. Great read.

If Chins Could Kill by Bruce Campbell

I picked this up at Value Village, and read it in an afternoon... actually, probably about 3 hours. Lots of photos, huge type, but a fun read. There are lots of cool facts about the Evil Dead pictures, and he makes you see the schlocky Hercules and Xena shows in a bit of a different light... also it highlights the 180 degree difference in the filmmaking process that Sam Raimi used on his earlier projects versus the Spider-Man films. A fun little book.

Two Trains Running by Andrew Vachss

This was disappointing. I have always been a fan of Vachss' books, especially those that branch off from his repeatative Burke series: Shella, the Getaway Man, A Bomb Built In Hell and now Two Trains Running. Unfortunately, I didn't like this one... I felt it was a very conscious attempt to do craft a more "mainstream" novel, and quite possibly to attempt what James Ellroy is doing fairly well with his America trilogy - that is, retread his pet themes in a fictional retelling of American history. However, this book is no 'The Cold Six Thousand'. It's muddled and just not very fufilling. A shame.

The Secret Voice #1 by Zack!

I picked this up and gave it a quick skim a few weeks back, but recently I picked it back and delved deeper - it's good! I like the fact that many of the stories are basically weird superhero tales... I like art comics to an extent, but superheroes I can understand! Good stuff, Zack.

The Demon In The Freezer by Richard Preston

I'm reading this now - a nonfiction account of a smallpox outbreak, as well as a primer about bio-warfare and bio-terrorism. Gripping so far - I didn't know much about smallpox, and the gory details are pretty amazing...

What have you been reading?