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The Drunken Odyssey

~ A Podcast About the Writing Life

The Drunken Odyssey

Monthly Archives: January 2016

The Rogue’s Guide to Shakespeare on Film #15: Othello (1995)

31 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Shakespeare, The Rogue's Guide to Shakespeare on Film

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Tags

Kenneth Branagh, Oliver Parker, Othello

Rogues Guide to Shakes on Film

#15. Othello (1995)

Othello poster

If we can agree, dear readers, that Olivier’s Richard III (1955) is both perfect and, in its own way, a bit old-fashioned, Oliver Parker’s Othello (1995) manages to treat the tragedy realistically, with some degree of historical accuracy and dramatic poignancy, so that the story seems timeless, which is a feeble word we use to describe work that feels simultaneously old and terribly relevant.

Othello 2

Let’s begin by talking about the casting of the ever-underrated Laurence Fishburne  as the title character (five years before his first turn as Morpheus in The Matrix). Parker’s Othello is now 21 years old, so it bears observing that this was the first time that a black actor was cast as Othello in a prominent feature film. We were spared the grotesque spectacle of seeing a white actor such as Orson Welles (1952) or Laurence Olivier (1965) in blackface.

othello 4

Visually, Fishburne offers a legitimate case for why Desdemona would fall in love with him despite the absolute opprobrium of her father.

Othello 3

As a Hollywood film actor, he manages the difficulty of the text perfectly, and makes the play the sublime experience it is meant to be.

Othello is a Moor, and since we don’t quite know exactly what a Moorish accent sounds like, Fishburne goes with a somewhat eloquent Caribbean voice, with some Arabic accents added, so that on a linguistic level, his cultural otherness is expressed by his very voice. The court of Venice spoke with believable Italian accents (not to be confused with whatever Paul Sorvino was doing in Romeo + Juliet). The courtiers and soldiers speak with English accents. By having his actors make such precise choices with some logic to them, Oliver Parker’s version of the play has a vocal texture that seems intoxicatingly real, unlike the motley casting in the Shakespeare films Branagh has directed since Henry V.

Iago

And if we are spared Branagh the director, we are treated to Branagh the actor, one of the best actors in the history of cinema, giving perhaps his best performance as the tortured Machiavellian officer Iago. It’s hard not to root for Iago, who takes such pleasure in his evil schemes, in his own thoughtful soliloquies, in his insults. (Othello has Shakespeare’s sharpest insult, by the way: “You are a Senator!”) Branagh gives him the occasional mugging for the camera, as if we are confederates for this virtuoso performance.

Othello 7.png

As the plot promises to grow more bloody, Iago, like any great liar, appears to believe in his own lies. Perhaps he does.

For writers, Othello is a remarkable study in the craft of characterization. What makes this play the greatest of Shakespeare’s tragedies–in your rogue’s infallible opinion–is how much we understand and care about all of the characters, including Iago, despite the fact that he will not explain himself for his crimes. This story shows us how frightening it is to define ourselves as others see us, when others overlook us, and how love is, for so many people, the most destructive force in the world.

Othello1

Certainly, these themes appear in Macbeth and Richard III, but the naivety and stupidity of many of those characters make me less filled with dread in the watching. The tragedies in those two plays seem too inevitable, people functioning themselves and one another to death. Macbeth in particular I have to be tricked into liking.

Even Desdemona, Job-like in her willingness to suffer, enters into the final night of her life with open eyes. She would rather risk whatever violence he intends than dishonor her love for him. By strangling her, Othello knows on some level he is destroying himself, too.   This is the metaphysics of love–we overlap into another person, and sacrifice part of ourselves to it. Of course this could seem like average codependence, too, if you are cynical.

Oliver Parker’s Othello is a masterpiece. It is fun and heartbreaking. As compelling as a devouring rose.

_______

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John King (Episode, well, all of them) holds a PhD in English from Purdue University, and an MFA from New York University. He has reviewed performances for Shakespeare Bulletin.

Episode 190: Adrian Todd Zuniga!

30 Saturday Jan 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode

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Adrian Todd Zuniga, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Literary Death Match, Litlando, Susanna Clark

Episode 190 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I interview Adrian Todd Zuniga, the host of Literary Death Match,

Adrian Todd Zuniga

plus Heather Whited writes about how Susanna Clark’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.

Heather Whited

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

NOTES

Learn More about Literary Death Match here.

Litlando-Poster

Get tickets for Litlando here.

Erotic Poetry Night IV

Sunday, February 7, 7 P.M. at Writer’s Atelier. More info is here.

_______

Episode 190 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

The Curator of Schlock #120: Diamonds Are Forever

29 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, The Curator of Schlock

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Diamonds are Forever

The Curator of Schlock #120 by John King

Diamonds Are Forever

The worst Bond movie ever?

Diamonds are Forever Poster

If you love cinema, you love James Bond movies and if you don’t love James Bond movies, you can just stop reading this blog right now! I have zero tolerance for fools that can’t enjoy beautiful women, exotic locales, criminal masterminds, or ass-kicking gentleman spies. But unfortunately not all bond movies are created equal and Diamonds Are Forever lies at the bottom of the barrel. Nothing will ever be as bad as 1967s Casino Royale, the one with Orson Wells and Peter Sellers. I don’t even know if you can even call that a Bond movie. Awaiting the inevitable defense of 1967s Casino Royale from John King.

The Blue Rat cover is sad. 

This might be the worst DVD cover art I’ve ever seen. We have Connery at a craps table like he’s in some come to Vegas brochure. In fact, there are whole scenes in this movie that feel like advertisements for Las Vegas Hotels and Casinos. That’s Plenty O’Toole standing next to Bond. I think she blows on the dice.

Diamonds1

 Plenty O’Toole is the worst Bond girl.

 Ooh. There’s some bad dialogue coming from this one. “You handle those cubes like a monkey handles coconuts.” I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean. Is that a simile or a metaphor? Oh wait. Similes are metaphors.

Diamonds2

Some Vegas mobsters toss Plenty (Lana Wood) out a hotel window. Later, she’s drowned in a swimming pool. Nobody cares. Tiffany Case (Jill St. John) is the main attraction on this strip.

Blofeld dresses up like an old lady.

Diamonds3 

There’s a scene where James Bonds’ arch-nemesis dresses up like an old lady, make-up and everything. This was the guy that electrocuted one of his minions while gently petting his kitty cat, the guy who ran SPECTRE, the criminal mastermind who was supposed to be so formidable that James Bond didn’t even meet him face to face until the fifth Bond movie. Why is he dressing up like an old lady? Who does he think he is, J. Edgar Hoover?

There are too many Blofelds.

Diamonds4

It looks like Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Charles Gray, of The Rocky Horror Picture Show fame) is copying himself by sticking henchman in special mud baths that make their faces into silly putty before being molded to look like him. He then installs a miniature transistor in their necks so they sound just like him. Seems overly complicated. In those Mission Impossible movies all they need is a fancy mask and a little adhesive strip of electronics taped to the neck. Much simpler!

Bambi and Thumper

Diamonds5

Two of Blofeld’s henchmen-I mean henchwomen. They’re guarding Jimmy Dean. Thumper kicks James Bond (Sean Connery) in the jimmy.

Jimmy Dean is in this movie.

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 Yeah, the sausage guy is in this movie. He plays Willard White, a character based off of Howard Hughes. Don’t worry he’s not peeing into mason jars or growing long fingernails. Don’t judge. How many of us haven’t done one of those things?

Blofeld has a super satellite

Ernst Stavos Blofeld builds a satellite with a bunch of diamonds that can focus the rays of the sun so he could shoot heat rays at nuclear missiles. Cool!

Diamonds7

I want a super satellite!

 Moon Buggy Madness

 There’s a scene where Connery’s Bond sneaks onto a set of a moon landing being filmed. I knew it was fake!

Diamonds8

The astronauts slowly chase after him as if they’re in zero gravity. One of the guys filming screams, “What the hell is this, amateur night?” Bond then steals a moon buggy leading the police on a mad capped chase across the Mojave Desert.

Worst Bond Movie ever?

No, I wouldn’t go that far. The sum of its parts doesn’t build up to much of anything, but the parts themselves are entertaining enough. James Bond would return in Live and Let Die starring Roger Moore as James Bond. We’ll cover the Moore Bond movies in the future on this blog. In the meantime, your Curator of Schlock will be on hiatus until March, but like James Bond, I will return

_______

Jeffrey Shuster 1

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA candidate at the University of Central Florida.

21st Century Brontë #7: The Unlikeable, Likeable Character

28 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in 21st Century Bronte, Blog Post

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Tags

Dungeons and Dragons, Ethics, Iago, Katniss Everdeen, Othello, Shakespeare, South Park, The Hunger Games, Unlikeable Character

21st Century Brontë #7 by Brontë Betterncourt

The Unlikeable, Likeable Character

Late last year I started a Dungeon & Dragons 5e campaign. The decision occurred around 2:30-3:00 A.M.

Dungeons and Dragons

Previously, my D&D experience ranged from on and off participation in my friend 3.5th edition, and the inkling of participation in my other friend’s Pathfinder edition. Both campaigns had separate rules and overarching stories. One was successful enough to last two years (and still running), while the other ended five months or so after launch, when an arrow impaled a bird crucial to the plot of our entire story, leaving our Dungeon Master speaking in tongues.

Learning an entirely new edition of game mechanics, lore, and creatures, and compiling them into my own homebrew campaign sounded like a totally sane thing to do.

So far, nothing has exploded. I’ve had the mass slaughter of innocent carnies and ceilings collapse onto unsuspecting players. One character nearly drowned in sewer water. There was also a debate involving the consumption of sentient beings and malicious rats.

I can only take credit for the first one.

I hope that my players’ characters make it to the end of the campaign. If played well, they’ll develop within the chaotic world of my fictional continent and its accompanying realms. But as it stands, a few of the players have considered abandoning one of their own. The character is only 13 years old, but has already attempted to steal, lie, and cook the corpses of those slain in battle. She also killed a highwayman after he gave up fighting due to being too injured.

I applaud my players for staying true to their characters, but they must also adhere to the rules of the game. For me, the DM acts as a referee. I believe our job is to stand back and allow the players to interact with the surrounding world, intervening only to roleplay and set scenes. My enjoyment results from their interaction with the story I’ve created.

But what do you do about a character who may not cooperate with the others? Is there merit to keeping a morally corrupted character around, and what does that add to everyone else’s experience?

Can an unlikeable, likeable character persist in Dungeons & Dragons?

It’s a mouthful to say, but the phrase stands for characters that we find fascinating in their universe, but would not associate with in real life. Think Eric Cartman from South Park: an overall fucked up kid. In just one episode he coerces the town to take down the Jews, leading droves of citizens down the street Third Reich style. He’s clad in the signature Hitler-stache and uniform, shouting broken commands in German, which the citizens blindly parrot. This scene is so outrageous that I find it hysterical. If I knew this kid in real life, I’d consider throwing him into oncoming traffic.

Cartman

The problem then rests in the fact that an unlikeable likeable character in art works in a realm separate from our own. With D&D, we aren’t given that separation, nor a window into that character’s thought processes (otherwise that would be meta-gaming, which is highly frowned upon). We have to directly interact with this character’s socially unacceptable traits, hampering our ability to appreciate this character’s nuances and motivations through mere observation. Considering that the other players know basic ethics, I doubt they’d laugh at an unlikeable likeable character forming a racist-fueled regime in the forests.

Well, the character in question is still young. Though her actions aren’t acceptable, they could be excusable to an extent. What is unlikeable now may change through a pivotal event in the campaign that she could ultimately grow and change from. The easiest fix would be a redemption arc.

Or what if the character didn’t follow this predictable arc?

Maybe the character could balance her questionable morals, remaining good enough to remain with the party, while engaging in shady dealings with demons or devils? If done well, she wouldn’t need to apologize. Instead, she ends up betraying the party, and one of the final battles consist of everyone fighting her?

But this brings us back to my original concern: Does it matter if a character is complex if we don’t like that character enough to follow her thought-processes? Can likeability be forsaken for writing an unapologetic character?

One of the reasons why I find an unlikeable-likeable character appealing is how unrelenting they are. Eric Cartman is still capable of coincidental good if there is personal gain for him. But the character is unapologetic in how outrageous his actions are, and if his character were to suddenly become good, I would feel cheated.

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have a character whose actions are deemed good, but her personality is not one that people would gravitate to. In The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen is sent into a walled off micro ecosystem where only one person can leave alive. We automatically root for her because she’s the narrator, but her personality isn’t an easy one to like. She’s sacrifices herself to keep her sister from entering the Games, but toward others she is emotionally walled off. The gifts sent from sponsors are attributed to the more likeable personalities working behind the scenes on her behalf, not because she’s charismatic. And sometimes her bluntness beckons a laugh from the reader.

The Hunger Games

Katniss doesn’t kill many people, and she doesn’t take pleasure in the act. But murder is made redeemable due to her dire circumstances and the psychological trauma that she never fully recovers from. I can see why she’s likeable, or at the very least respected. But what if The Hunger Games was written in a point of view from one of the wealthier districts? We see the nature of the tributes from District 1 and 2 taking glee in murdering others, but we can attribute that behavior from how they were raised. They were brought up to fight, to see the Games like the Romans do gladiatorial combat, and returning home victorious bestows a great honor on the family.

The Hunger Games Katniss

We wouldn’t even know anything about Katniss if we followed their narration, instead seeing her as a chick who’s good with a bow and arrow, standing between them and glory.

Would we root for this point of view? Quite possibly.

Humans in general are curious. We can’t ignore a car collision; it’s more eerie to not see any bystanders ogling at public tragedy. Some may walk away, and maybe those individuals wouldn’t be interested in reading about morally ambiguous characters. But through these incidents, and through these characters we’re able to spectate these grey areas without clouding our own values. We don’t have to feel guilty since we have that safe distance between Cartman spewing profanities, or teenage carnage. Instead, we can gain a better understanding on how the minds of these characters work. That doesn’t mean we agree with their actions, but we can further understand the inner workings of the mind, and how others can possibly believe that what they’re doing is right.

Let’s go old school for a moment: Shakespeare’s Othello. If we’re discussing characters that we would hate to know in real life but enjoy witnessing from a distance, Iago definitely fits this description. He is the driving force of this story, manipulating and killing to undo Othello’s life. To Iago, everyone else is … collateral damage. Speculations of Iago’s motives span from the bitterness of not receiving a promotion, to fears he has been cuckolded, to even homoerotic desires, but by the end of the play, nothing has been confirmed. The lack of an answer for why he’s so hell-bent on ruining Othello’s life is mind-boggling. We want to ask, why would any sane person do such a thing?

Iago

Why do we need an explanation?

I believe the problem rests in the fact that Iago is an extremely likeable character, one who makes us uncomfortable for liking him. The stage or screen lights up every time he appears, and he played the parts of friend, of confidant so well that I forgot about his treachery until his soliloquies reminded me that he is evil. It’s like he’s the director of the play, reminding us of what is really happening because he knows he’s that damn good as an actor that he might fool us along with everyone else in Othello’s coterie.

I find him the most interesting character of this play. Everyone else is clear cut with their emotions and motivations, but Iago exists outside of our comprehension. Even at the very end when Othello asks him why he would do such despicable things, Iago refuses to speak.

A personality so unapologetic could definitely work in a medium such as D&D. Unless such players verbalize their thoughts in roleplay, we don’t know their intentions. Players who are ready to trust everyone unless proven otherwise are in for a rude awakening if they come across a man like Iago, and the pain of his betrayal would continue to sting long after the wounds were inflicted. Which, if we’re considering a D&D Homebrew campaign as an art medium, sends a powerful message of smearing good and evil boundaries. The blow would be more direct since the players are directly interacting with said character, instead of viewing them from a distance.

So I’ll have to see what the character in question will do, though I might not rely on her for a performance of Iago’s magnitude.

I may just draw that inspiration for myself.

_______

21st Cen Bronté

Brontë Bettencourt (Episode 34) graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelors in English Creative Writing. When she’s not writing or working, she is a full time Dungeon Master and Youtube connoisseur.

McMillan’s Codex #23: Metro: Last Light

27 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in McMillan's Codex

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Metro: Last Light

McMillan’s Codex #23 By C.T. McMillan

Metro: Last Light

 If you read my reviews for the Fallout games, you know how much I like the post-apocalyptic (PA) genre. Whether it is other videogames or the vast catalog of movies, I will seek out anything that involves people struggling to survive in a wasteland. It was only after I spent days playing Fallout 4 that I discovered PA literature. I started with A Canticle for Leibowitz, the story of a recrudescent Catholic Church after a nuclear holocaust, then gathered a small collection of novels like The Postman, Damnation Alley, and Alas, Babylon. The fiction I am accustomed to is American in origin and not often am I exposed to foreign works until I played Metro: Last Light.

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Being an offshoot/adaptation of the Metro novels, a Russian series by Dimitry Glukhovsky, it is difficult to judge if the game captures the essence of PA from that perspective. Since I have not read the English translation of the available books, I am more than willing to take the game for what it is, especially considering Last Light is a new story written by the author himself.

From what I have been able to glean, Russian PA is characterized by a sense bleakness and despair. It has a realistic feel as people live in squalor and make due with what they have. Survival is the only option and what hope anyone retains is if they will make it through tomorrow. The depiction of a nuclear apocalypse is more accurate than something like Fallout where radiation and a lack of clean food and water take a huge toll on survivors. Mutants are still a mainstay, but one cannot journey across a ruined cityscape without protective gear, lest they succumb to the elements or worse.

One aspect that separates the game from standard PA is the titular metro. The story takes place entirely under Moscow in one of the biggest fallout shelters in the world. In addition to providing a last-ditch military control center in the event of an attack, each metro station doubles as a shelter for people fleeing from the destruction above. When the bombs fell, each station became a settlement with differentiating characteristics. One is devoted to entertainment, another is trading focused, and one is a red light district.

The need to recover some semblance of civilization is inherent in PA fiction, but rather than turn medieval, the people of Last Light regressed into old forms of government. Communism comes back in a big way as well as an organized gang of neo-fascists, a real-life problem in contemporary Russia. The two groups vie for control of the metro with ordinary people just trying to survive caught in the middle. One settlement was infected with a plague for supporting a rival faction, causing a full quarantine and execution of the sick.

Last Light is a first person shooter with an emphasis on giving players a choice in how to complete levels. The diversity of choice, however, is restricted to completing stages loudly or stealthily. The gameplay is probably the best part as the feeling of shooting or sneaking is fluid and gratifying when you unload on a Nazi or creep past a huddle of Communists. There is also the option to kill or knockout enemies whenever you perform a take down, but your decisions do not affect the story. They are, however, tied to the game’s survival trappings.

MLL2

In the metro, bullets are both scarce and a form of currency that will get you health kits, air filters for your gasmask, and new guns. If you go loud in combat, you run the risk of using up your ammunition. And when you are desperate for a kit or filter, you realize you used your bullets being careless. While you acquire resources by scavenging the dead and abandoned, having ammo to not just bargain with, but to defend yourself is plain common sense. It is simply a matter of how you play and how good you are about being frugal.

Last Light is arguably survival horror thanks to its potent atmosphere. The claustrophobia of the tunnels is made worse by the fantastic sound design of ambient noise. One sequence that sticks out is a walk through a maze of rooms filled with mutant insects vulnerable to light. They make this chattering noise as they scurry around that never ends until you leave. The horror is pushed to the limits when you journey above ground. As I passed through a marsh, there was this omniscient, grotesque croaking that grew louder as I progressed, and I immediately wanted to go back underground. At the same time, mutants would pop out of the water and attack me when my back was turned. In the metro it was closed off and easy to comprehend, but in the wilderness, everything was open and monsters can get you from any direction. It is doubly unsettling if you used up your ammo in a fight going to the surface.

Last Light has an interesting aesthetic that sets it apart from conventional PA fiction. Since the inhabitants of the metro went into the tunnels at a moment’s notice when the bombs fell, they had to make due with what they had with them. It is fair to assume the metro would not have much in terms of clothing or weapons and scavenging would have been difficult with the radiated surface. And so everything is adapted from scraps and whatever was left from the old world. Armor is fashioned from cannibalized train parts and many of the weapons are makeshift with a few real guns here and there. While the metro is cramped, there is plenty room for small structures like shanties made from wooden planks that are stacked up on top of each other in a maze.

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There are obvious problems with the story as it has no sense of urgency and things just happen with no explanation. You are told about all this political upheaval when it seems like everything is going the way it should with nothing at steak until the very end. It is also worth mentioning that the English voice dub is laughable and I would recommend playing it in Russian if you do not mind subtitles. But the great gameplay, fully realized world, and the survival horror trappings make up for what Metro: Last Light lacks. It is an interesting take on the post-apocalypse genre from a part of the world that is not often publicized in the West.

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CT McMillan 1

C.T. McMillan (Episode 169) is a film critic and devout gamer.  He has a Bachelors for Creative Writing in Entertainment from Full Sail University.

On Top of It #14: Thank You, Jonas

25 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in On Top of It

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  On Top of It #14 by Lisa Martens

I’ve been working two jobs, trying to heal myself with Reiki, eating low carb, and pumping myself full of positive thoughts. It’s that kind of 2016. I’m filled with that hopeful optimism that comes with the idea of a fresh start–quite like writers starting a new book.

But, just like a writer starting a new book, I’ve been taking myself too seriously . . . until the snow forced me to cancel my plans and engage in Netflix and chill with two friends and an Afghani man I met at a Dunkin’ Donuts.

So thank you, Jonas, for reintroducing spontaneity in my life, as well as pizza delivery.

And, of course, Jonas gave me time to write . . . once I got back home and showered. My main character, Sandra, sells her artwork online and finds her art changing due to the demands of the Internet:

Deborah sold handmade soaps on CustomCraft. She had shown me photos of her garage where she sliced sheets of soap into bars, then slid each one into a small box. It was in her “Process Section.” I had about three paragraphs of text in my Process Section, and no photos:

DebDoesSoap

People like seeing pictures. I just make them really bright

I have some apps on my phone

just brighten and highlight everything and up the saturation

make colors pop

SandraMMorales

People actually like that?

They want to see pictures

???

DebDoesSoap

Yeah

I mean it seems silly

But my sales have gone way up

since i improved my process section

SandraMMorales

oh okay

wow

i guess i just thought the art would sell itself? haha

DebDoesSoap

I know I was hoping the same about my soaps. I put so much work into them, making sure all the products are organic and locally sourced. And people like that, sure, but throwing on some lipstick and surrounding myself with soap and taking a selfie is so much more effective

sad to say

that’s what people respond to.

I kind of hate it. Hate how much what I do has turned into marketing.

I was a little worried about what the Internet was doing to my art. I could afford to pay less attention to detail because, instead of being displayed on a wall in a museum, my paintings were shrunken down and slapped on the back of a phone cover. Recently, my creations had started to adopt the qualities of a meme. A blue sky with puffy clouds, “Be My Bitch” written in cursive in the center of it all.

Sandra is also renting rooms of her house out, and runs into legal issues with one of her tenants. But I’m not going to give it all away just yet.

Continue not taking yourselves too seriously. Love you.

_______

Lisa Martens

Lisa Martens (Episode 22) currently lives in Harlem. In her past 10 years in New York, she has lived in a garage on Long Island, a living room in Hell’s Kitchen, the architecture building of CCNY, and on the couch of a startup. She grew up in New York, Costa Rica and Texas, and she’s still not sure which of these is home. She completed her MFA in Creative Writing from CCNY. Her thesis, What Grows in Heavy Rain, is available on Amazon. Check out her website here. Follow her on Instagram here.

The Global Barfly’s Companion #21: The Wheel

25 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in The Global Barfly's Companion

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The Global Barfly’s Companion #21 by Scott Gilman

Bar: The Wheel

Location: 1902-B E. MLK Blvd, Austin, TX 78702

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Are there many people reading The Drunken Odyssey who live in or are visiting Austin? While I of course want an expansive audience, I don’t want too many people showing up at The Wheel, a splendid cocktail bar on Austin’s East Side. On East MLK Boulevard, within blowing distance of East Side hipster cool but at least further north and away from the beaten paths of Cesar Chavez and East Sixth, The Wheel is an understated oasis that is as trendy as it is welcoming and laid back.

Located next to a Juiceland (from where the bartenders were eating food and snacking on sandwiches during their break) The Wheel is the perfect spot for any kind of drinking leisure. Want to cozy up to the bar and drink exquisite cocktails? Check. Want to grab a table in the corner with your date and drink and talk in the darkened recesses of the place? Check. Want to go outside and drink beer while sitting on picnic tables and playing with all the dogs people brought? You can do that do.

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The flexibility of the kind of social and drinking experience you can have at The Wheel is what gives the place its charm. It’s an intimate and comfortable space; you feel relaxed and at ease before you’ve even ordered your drink. The wooden panels in the ceiling add to the warmth of the interior, as does the beautiful wall with all the bottles and kegs. The outdoor patio is covered, and there is enough space in between tables to allow for a private gathering among strangers. The fountain along the back wall outside, providing ambient noise of rushing water, was a row beer taps constantly flowing (with water, just in case you got nervous).

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My only complaint was the choice of music: apparently it was ‘80s night. I heard more INXS while there than I have in the past several years. Alas, that’s what the drinks are for, to help any music sound better. I tried two of the specialty cocktails. My favorite was the Madison, consisting of Knob Creek rye, vanilla bean syrup, orange and vanilla bitters. It was a little sweet but I enjoyed the way the vanilla mixed with the rye. I admit the drink went down a bit too easy. The second one I tried was the Lyllian, made of Hendriks gin, aperol, lillet blanc and grapefruit zest. Colored gin cocktails make me nervous, but this drink I liked quite a bit. It was neither too sweet or too bitter, and the grapefruit was not overwhelming.

The bar features a whiskey of the day, a concept we should all get behind, but a beer selection I found surprisingly small. Not much of an issue on a cool winter’s night, but come the spring and summer it can seem limiting. Many patrons seemed to struggle choosing their beer; Austin does not get enough credit for its thriving beer culture and I think expectations among bar patrons these days, especially at upscale cocktail bars, is that the beer choices will be as refined as the mixed drinks. I finished my night off with a Sputnik, from Austin’s own Austin Beerworks; it’s a dark beer with tons of flavor and character, so it’s not like great beer can’t be found at The Wheel. I just noticed a few people, when ordering beers, taking longer than usual.

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The scene was very relaxed, as you might expect from a smaller venue with a patio. The bartenders were friendly and eager to serve. The clientele was a mix of regulars (identified by bartenders knowing their names) and those bundled up to make the most of a Sunday night on a long weekend. During busy times seating could perhaps be an issue at The Wheel, but not if you take my advice to not go there and leave this charming spot to me and my friends.

_______

Scott Gilman

Scott Gilman lives in Austin, Texas and enjoys exercise, reading, writing, eating and drinking. He is working on his first novel and a short story and essay collection. More of his writing can be found here.

The Rogue’s Guide to Shakespeare on Film #14: Richard III (1955)

24 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Shakespeare, The Rogue's Guide to Shakespeare on Film

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Lady Anne, Laurence Olivier, Richard III

Rogues Guide to Shakes on Film 2

#14. Richard III (1955)

I’ve decided to deviate from my survey of Kenneth Branagh films lest this guide get too tedious, especially since his miserable Love’s Labour Lost is lurking for me like some malicious ghost. (The very prospect scared me away for a month.)

Instead, I pivot to that first British actor and director whose iconic relationship to Shakespeare on film is an essential part of his mythos: Laurence Olivier.

I must confess, your favorite Shakespearean rogue took a long time learning to love Olivier. When I was growing up, when dinosaurs freely roamed the earth, his name itself signified that elevated cultural sophistication that no reasonable person would want to inflict on himself. In my senior year of high school, my excellent teacher, Ms. Musgrave, showed us his grainy black and white film of Hamlet, which had terrible sound quality that diminished Olivier’s greatest strength: his voice. And Olivier was not a method actor, so that to me the whole thing seemed deeply imbued with affect. He was a traditional thespian, for whom how to speak and where to stand were paramount over sense-memories and emotional discovery. Although I have tended to exaggerate this quality.

My colleague Kevin Crawford, a peerless Shakespearean actor himself, harshly poo-pooed my poo-pooing of Olivier. What I didn’t know then was that Olivier is a more impressive director than he is an actor, and he is a better actor (and this is obvious to me now) than I gave him credit for.

Richard III is his best film.

R3 poster

The setting for this film is tradition, some version of historically accurate with a hint of storybook whimsy added, like the giant crown in the eaves of the castle that looms over the proceedings of the court.

Richard III is a hunchbacked, malformed man who is second in succession to the throne when his oldest brother becomes king after a period of civil war. As a soldier, as a leader of arms, he had purpose, but in peacetime he has nothing but his own loneliness and worthlessness to look forward to. So he begins to plot his bloody way to the top.

R3.9

Richard is a bad character, like a two-dimensional vice character that Shakespeare might have plucked out of a morality play and given psychological depth to. And Olivier, in a striking soliloquy that is filmed in a single take, looks us in the eye and confides his great frustration, his sense of honor, and his plans to us, the audience.

R3.1

That he trusts us with this information makes us feel gratified, and perhaps a bit implicated, as he warns us of what he will do to his family. Olivier’s portrayal is nuanced, letting us understand how much he might feel conflicted by this vast impulse that has taken him.

One of his schemes is to woo and marry the Lady Anne (Claire Bloom), whose father and husband both died by his hands in the civil war preceding the play.

R3.3

He begins this suit over the coffin of her husband, Edward. Shakespeare’s psychology is fascinating. Richard is wooing a beautiful noblewoman, which he perhaps has the nerve to attempt since the odds of succeeding are so low that failure should be considered less important than the audacity of the attempt.

Considering the context, Lady Anne is not receptive. But Richard is unrelenting in asserting his love for her, and makes himself vulnerable to her vengeance if that means making her happy. He forces her to choose to love or murder him.

R3.8

Is it the agency he grants her, her own grieving weariness, or perhaps an inkling that for his vulnerability, for his devotion, for himself, that makes her relent, and accept his proposal?

R3.5

In a romantic comedy, this would be the happy ending.

But Olivier’s Richard III also shows us the joys to be found in wickedness, and he will boast of his victory over love to us.

But the real relationship of Richard III is between Richard and his willing conspirator, the Duke of Buckingham, played to perfection by Ralph Richardson.

R3 Ralph Richardson

Olivier and Richardson are so reactive to one another’s performances that our joy in their Machiavellian schemes turns into great fun, until Richard decides to start bumping off children.

There are so many great performances in the film, including John Gielgud as Clarence, the nice, middle brother whose innocence runs the risk of being sentimentally intolerable. If Richard’s eldest brother, King Edward IV, is a bit corrupt, or at least flaky, Clarence’s assassination gives us reason to pause in our admiration of Richard.

R3.4

Claire Bloom as Lady Anne is astoundingly good, in one of the most difficult parts of all of Shakespeare. If we don’t believe that she has truly, psychologically capitulated to Richard, then the rest of the story doesn’t matter.

Olivier gives Richard a surprising amount of heart, and the vulnerability he has shown Lady Anne we will also see from time to time, when he isn’t scheming, even when he has committed to being a villain. Olivier’s Richard can know fear.

R3.2

It is a shame that I forsook Olivier for so long. His acting was amazing, but he was generous as an actor, and surrounded himself with equally talented people. And for all my expectations that he was somehow atavistic in supporting a historical sense of Shakespeare, Olivier possessed an artist’s eye in interpreting Richard III, and also in his Henry V. In R3, he rearranged scenes, changed lines, made much visual use of Mistress Shore (the extramarital consort of Edward IV). Perhaps Olivier is not the place to start for fans of Shakespeare on film, but among all the Shakespeare films I’ve seen, this version of R3 has grown on me the most, and is the most rewarding one to put in the Blu-ray player once more, and hit play.

_______

1flip

John King (Episode, well, all of them) holds a PhD in English from Purdue University, and an MFA from New York University. He has reviewed performances for Shakespeare Bulletin.

Episode 189: A Craft Discussion About Ferlinghetti’s Poetry as Insurgent Art, with Vanessa Blakeslee!

23 Saturday Jan 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Episode 189 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I talk about Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Poetry as Insurgent Art with Vanessa Blakeslee,

Vanessa and John 2

Plus Alice Lowe writes about how Virginia Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary changed her life.

Alice Lowe

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Poetry as Insurgent binding

A Coney Island of the Mind

A Writer's Diary

NOTES

Coney Island in 2007 when I visited.

DSC03368

DSC03369

DSC03371

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Parachute Literary Arts managed a much better poetic experience at Coney Island.

gorgeous shot of wheel for poem-a-rama

Wonder Wheel, photographed by Jim McDonnell.

RaymondAdams-AmandaDeutchat the podium

Amanda Deutch hosting the night of poetry in and on The Wonder Wheel.

RaymondAdams-9682

Emcee and Coney Island Hysterical Society co-founder (on the left, outside the car) Richard Eagan.

RaymondAdams-9162

Julie Ezelle Patton.

RaymondAdams-9063-2

Wanda Phipps reading.

 

Litlando-Poster

_____

Episode 189 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

The Curator of Schlock #119: Phantasm

22 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Horror, The Curator of Schlock

≈ Leave a comment

The Curator of Schlock #119 by Jeff Shuster

Phantasm

The scariest movie ever made? Maybe.

Angus_Scrimm

We had the deaths of many cultural icons last week. David Bowie. Alan Rickman. Grizzly Adams. Not to discount any of those, but they ended up overshadowing the death of Angus Scrimm the weekend prior. I think all of us horror fans have our favorite monsters, whether it’s Freddy Krueger, Candyman, or Pinhead. But for me it has always the Tall Man that keeps me up at night, and the Tall Man wouldn’t have been possible without Angus Scrimm. You will be missed.

Phantasm1

But this is not a sad day for us Phantasm fans. Angus Scrimm gave his final performance in the upcoming Phantasm V: Ravager, which comes later this year. The movie looks very promising from the trailers and will hopefully prove a satisfying end to the series. In addition to Ravager, J.J. Abrams (the director of that Star Wars thing) has commissioned a 4K restoration of the original. Wow! 4K! I don’t know what that means. Is that like 4,000 times the definition that we’re experiencing now? Can we get a 4K restoration of Howard the Duck?

I posed the question in the subhead on whether 1979’s Phantasm from director Don Coscarelli is the scariest movie ever made. The trailer is pretty darn spooky. In fact, the trailer narrator asks a series of questions of the viewer. I’ll attempt to answer them.

Phantasm. Is it a nightmare?

Oh yeah. Phantasm is most definitely a nightmare. How so? Try a floating silver sphere that zips all around until it decides to claw onto your forehead, drilling inside your brain until a steady stream of blood squirts all over the mausoleum floor.

Phantasm2

Wetting your pants is another symptom of the sphere drilling into your skull. How embarrassing.

Phantasm. Is it an illusion?

Sure. Phantasm is an illusion. Like when it’s 1979 and your sporting a boss 70s mustache and this beautiful woman wearing a lavender dress approaches you wanting to get it on in the local cemetery.

Phantasm3

You’ll say, “That was great, baby.” only to realize the woman you were making sweet love to is actually the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm). This happens right after you’ve gotten a dagger shoved into your guts. The police, obviously, will rule it a suicide.

Phantasm. Is it an evil?

Hmmmmmm. I’m not sure. The Tall Man plunders the graves to he can squash the bodies down into these dwarf creatures to be shipped off to his home world to work. I guess their experiencing a labor shortage where he’s from.

Phantasm6

That’s actually a form of recycling if you think about it and recycling isn’t evil. Recycling is good. So Phantasm is not an evil.

Phantasm. Is it a fantasy?

No. Phantasm is a horror movie like Suspiria or Gone Girl.

Phantasm5

 Phantasm. Is it alive?

That very question scares the bejesus out of me. Is it alive? I hope not because the “it” will probably try to eat my face.

Phantasm4

 Whatever it is, if this one doesn’t scare you, you’re already dead.

 

Uhh. Okay. You’ve convinced me. Phantasm is the scariest movie ever made!

Five things I learned from watching Phantasm

  1. Don’t stick your hand in the box!
  2. Moon murals never go out of style.
  3. Giant flies are the most horrible things ever!
  4. Warning shots are bullshit.
  5. “Sitting Here at Midnight” is actually a pretty groovy tune.

_______

Jeffrey Shuster 3

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA candidate at the University of Central Florida.

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