Author: Nick

Fezboy! just had his ass handed to him in a friendly game of Scrabble.® A good game that did not feature so many extraordinary words, but ordinary words played extraordinarily.

Final score:

Wife of Fezboy 296
Fezboy! 254

The Thunderchicken is no more.

The automobile that has ferried Fezboy!’s wife for longer than he has known her himself went belly up last evening. There is some sadness in Fezdom today, but not so much as one might think. Yes, the Almighty Fez has pulled off one of the more ironical events of the past few years.

You see, we put the car up for sale yesterday. I think the Thunderchicken just didn’t want to go on under new management and so it had a massive coronary on Jordan Avenue, just north of University. We are spared the pain of selling the TC on the one hand, but no long stand to receive a needed cash infusion on the other.

Oh well. Just goes to show you I guess. What, I’m not sure, but you have been shown nonetheless.

All reports have the birthday coming off as a success. We’re old now, don’t do a whole lot anymore, so there was not the vigorous feztivization that might have occurred years earlier. Instead, Wife of Fezboy! fielded calls from all over the U.S. of A. from well-wishers and celebrants. Better gift than Fezboy! could muster all on his lonesome.

Today we continue the birthday feztivities with a bit of local theater. In that vein I finally completed one of the two outstanding (in more ways than one) reviews so that I will not fall too far behind. Tomorrow is the drive-in! Woo Hoo!!

For now though, it is work and then mentoring. I caved in and purchased a "parting gift" for my kidlet. I hope he isn’t too disappointed with the scholastic nature of the items, but I am his mentor after all. What should he expect?

Unbinding Isaac was the latest production of the Redmoon Theater. This company is what theater is all about in my book. Geeeawd it’s tasty theater.

The show is a meditation on the biblical story of Abraham who, for those of you who did not have to suffer through endless hours of catechism, was the bloke who was told to off his son as an offering by and for God. Abraham was a dutiful sort of chap and had his son bound and the knife sharpened before God said "Okay, that’s enough buddy. I was only kidding." His son, Isaac, survives the ordeal and goes through a lifetime of counselling to get over the shocking horror.

Well, that’s how I remember it from my catechism days anyway. I’m sure Billy Graham might have a few issues with the interpretation provided.

The play, though, places Isaac in the relative present and follows his train of thought as he considers the value of sacrificing his own pleasure to benefit others who are in greater need. Peter Singer would have gotten a lot out of the moral of this production.

Anywho – the most incredible part about this play was the fact that Isaac had exactly one line and that came as the curtain was falling at the end. The entire production to that point was Isaac and three spectre-like women, all named Magritte, interacting via some outstanding choreography, shadow puppets, and Isaac himself running through his daily routines in a manner patterned after the great Buster Keaton. Words cannot do this play justice because its message was delivered by a series of images. The choreography was meticulous, the acting tremendous, and the lasting impression continues to reverberate between my ears.

The set was another creative marvel. It was simultaneously simple and complex. The imagery laden pieces were sparse, but strikingly detailed, something like Edward Hopper would do as an eleven year-old. Panels that slid out from the eaves were incorporated into the choreography and as the characters played out their string on stage, they were involved in changing the set for each scene in a way that did not leave the audience thinking, "Act I, Scene 2." It just flowed from Isaac’s studio, to the street below, to the bus, to work, to the pub, and back home. Work was exceptionally cool as two Magrittes had these awesome fold-out desks and pretended to talk using the perennially silly, "hum-in-a hum-in-a, hmmm, uh-huh, uh-huh?, hmmm" phraseology.

And, oh, the kite scene. . . yes. . . Okay, I’m back.

Equally stunning was the treatment of Sarah, who was Isaac’s mother – again for the catechismically impaired. No one really ever addresses what had to have gone through her mind when she found out ol’ hubby had been up in the mountains with her son, ready to gut him because the dog told him to. This isn’t to say that Sarah wasn’t a pious woman, but it’s been Fezboy!’s experience that chicks tend to be pretty protective of their offspring. Kudos to Redmoon for touching on this angle.

So, needless to say, Unbinding Isaac was exceptional, as is everything Redmoon Theater does. Do not miss another production they put on or else Fezboy! will "Send ’round the boys."

Coming soon, Fezboy! reviews Wit

It has not been another quiet week here at the SOL. There are two redesign projects that hang over my head in an "impending doom" sort of way and I just got handed another graphics request.

Okay, so I admit it. I don’t have the greatest of skill when it comes to designing graphics. It is something I work on, but I don’t think I will ever venture much beyond the pedestrian kind of things you will find on this site. Furthermore, the constraints and directions I work under leave me with no room and too much room respectively and simultaneously. Suckfest!

Okay, enough venting for now. Back to the grind.

BTW – I IM’ed with my old roommate and chum from my Great American Floodplain days for the first time this afternoon. So all that stuff about impending deadlines and doom, I suppose it has a little to do with my side pursuits after all . . .

I can still gripe though, can’t I?

Going off to visit the wife’s place of employ for lunch. Time for the good ol’ ‘merican traditional "pitch-in" luncheon. You know, the kind of thing where two-thirds of the people bring some sort of Jell-O® salad or potato chip/cracker-based casserole, one-sixth of the people bring a tasty treat that everyone else gorges on so there is none left by the time you get to the head of the line, and the last one-sixth of the pitch-in’s participants bring nothing and merely scavenge.

I believe my wife falls into the first one-sixth category by bringing both a sour cream-raisin pie and a spinach/raisin/pine nut dish.

Do you have pitch-ins at your place of employment? What are your thoughts on these pitch-ins?

It has been an excellent weekend in the Big Windy so far. I will write detailed reviews of the two shows we saw in the near future. Suffice it to say that those of you with access to Chicago theater who missed the Redmoon Theater’s production should be shot and those who have not made it to Wit at the Goodman Theater might be able to mitigate this penalty. Excellent! Excellent! Excellent!

Presently we are taking a slow late morning/early afternoon to recoop and catch up with those parts of the modern world we have ignored to this point. Later promises more of the same legato activities and an eventual andante trip back to Flowertown. From there we catch up with the real world in earnest and work begins anew on Tuesday.

Now a quick trip to Metafilter to see what’s up in the world at large.

Oh, by the way, since Fezboy! is off to visit the City of Big Shoulders and poor diction, he will be intermittently cut off from Internet access. This being the case, do not expect frequent updates. Have a groovy weekend! Check back Monday! Of course, Fezboy may surprise and blog a bit this weekend, so if youse are real bored, check back anyways.