Armin Wiebe's The Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven Blatz

I hate to say this, but what a colossally drawn out play. Even before the seminar and reading the works that spawned this play, I could tell that it was a short story with nowhere to go but the depths of hideous playdom. That said, the main points were insightful, the setting was novel, as was the low German. But they struggled to fill in the gaping two hour slot by ramming in the revelation point where Obrum realizes that he subconsciously wanted Beethoven to knock up his wife. If the work had been published as a series of short stories than we would have been able to address this point as you would normally do. Read through the story, then afterward in quiet reflection (not low German screeching) realize that that may have been Obrum's intention, and then scroll back to that line and look for clues in the syntax.

The whole play seemed a bit heavy. I expected a play with Mennonite subject manner to be handled a little more delicately. Of course, the feel was supposed to be a folk play, or at least that's how it was made out in the newspaper article, and that probably would have ruined the tone, but if Wiebe wanted folk play, he should have condensed it to an hour. It lends itself to the theme and he would have been able to cut out the ridiculous redundancies.

It was almost a relief for me to go back and read the original works and recapture the subtlety, but at the same time it was upsettingly clear that if he had condensed it to a single short story or novella, he would have had trouble squeezing in the full poison ivy story. And if it had become a novel, he would have had to generate piles of irrelevant content to fill in the gaps. Even the characters seemed so stupid and simple in the play version in contrast to the short stories, that it was impossible to relate to them. Then again, it 's hard for me to relate to plotlines that revolve solely around women who desire children- so it's possible I'm not the best person to be reviewing this play.

I suppose I have to congratulate Armin Wiebe for doing the best he could with such difficult content. I don't know what I would have done.

Breakfast Television speaks with Armin Wiebe

Owen the O says: Eat Boring O's

So today is the day of reckoning.
For all those who noticed Robert Zirk and I sneaking around the college for the last few weeks with a homemade box of Boring O's- now with one essential nutrient (It's fibre) (featuring Owen the O), this is what it has all come down to.

Thanks Owen.

Paperny Films, the Vancouver production company responsible for such Food Network favorites as Eat St., and Glutton for Punishment launched a competition called So You Think You Can Make TV?
So far our answer is....Maybe!

Our entry, the product of hours of blood, sweat, tears and The Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven Blatz somewhere in there, is a two minute trailer featuring Garrick Kozier and Ashley Wiebe, two friends who became so distraught by bland breakfasts that they were moved to develop high-tech, breakfast-spotting, teleportation watches- The Breakfastimers. Equipped with their new technology, they teleport from Breakfast H.Q. to find fabulous breakfast across Canada.
-Get ready for swooping pans, Garage Band pop and sweet lower thirds.


Our pilot trailer features scenes from The Current at  Inn At the Forks, and Breakfast H.Q.

I will be providing an additional post around May 1st with more details on how and where to make our trailer a smashing success.

List of Paperny Films productions

Top five things that help me sleep

Since the termination of my IPP partnership with Dave synched up so suicidally with the two day pilot shoot and cut for my breakfast collaboration with Robert, I have not slept for an increment longer than 2 hours in the last 3 days, vaulting my disappointment from soul crushing to bone crushing. By the way, those increments, there were three of them.

Anyway, in light of the fact that I can't think of anything other than sleep, I am submitting a list of things that help me sleep for your sleeping enjoyment. (In no particular order)

1. Crackily Talk Radio- even arguments, those pops and cracks are like someone opened up a NyQuil capsule and dumped it into my ears.

2. Crackily Talk Radio when there's a British person on the other end. AMAZING- it takes every ounce of self restraint not to tape wax paper over my ears in Chris Petty's class and enjoy a live hits derby of snoozing.

3. Shopping Channel. Preferably jewelry, the skin product representatives are a little uppity.

4. Chef Michael Smith- He's at home, he's cooking without a recipe, and his voice patterns are so sleep-inducingly predictable that I can't even stay awake to watch him dump his half hour of culinary excellence onto his 4 year old son- darn.

5. Caffeinated beverages- perhaps I am so apt to defiance that each of my cells react the complete opposite way out of principle.

Happy sleeping fellow miserables!

Disney and Psychology: Pepper Ann and Little Hans

Here's something I meant to write down before I forgot these two shows existed. 

(BEWARE! REFERENCE TO SEXUALITY)

Disney produced both Pepper Ann and The Weekenders, two shows about zany twelve year olds that were viciously popular and are sorely missed. One thing that struck me years ago was that Disney represented both sides of the psychology fear development war at different times. The Little Hans study and the Little Albert study have been at war since people starting asking how things make you feel.

I know what you're thinking... Disney and impartiality? Impossible. Perhaps not.

For all those who haven't taken Intro to Psych and only showed up for the exam:

The little Albert experiment, showing evidence of fear as a product of classical conditioning was conducted by John B Watson, and his genius bimbo/mistress Rosalie Rayner. 

The study involved a little boy named Albert being tortured with relentless noise as he played with a rat, causing him to be afraid of rats and other ratlike things until the experiment was reversed with positive conditioning, it was named "Little Albert to poke fun at the Little Hans case which despite having very little empirical value is fascinating nonetheless.

Anyway, it's crazy but in an episode, everyone discovers Tino's terrible fear of clowns when a clown convention comes to Bahia Bay, and through a series of flashbacks, it's determined that he developed the fear by being viciously kissed by his clown-resembling aunt in his childhood. Shazam, one for behavioral psychology.

One poor quality screenshot of The Weekenders coming up

On to Little Hans, the famous Freud case, where a young boy develops a chronic fear of horses shortly after being told that he wasn't allowed to masturbate. HA. Anyway, it turns out that the horse is a representation of his father who he truly fears because both the horse and his father have large penises, and Hans wouldn't be able to impregnate his mother, whom he secretly loved (infantile sexuality) until his penis was larger. NOW THAT IS SCIENCE! Anyway, there were a lot of factors at play but basically Freud was able to dispel the fear by helping him verbalize what his true fear was, and by telling him where babies come from. hahahahhaa

Damn the internet for not becoming popular until after Pepper Ann was cancelled. There are hardly enough pictures to go around.

Can you believe Disney supports this theory? All of the sudden I love Disney.

Anyway, Pepper Ann uses the Freudian theory of fear development when Nikki (I know this show is really old so I'll specify that she was the blonde one) reveals that she is uber-afraid of swans. It turns out that her fear of the swan was transfered from her fear of her mega-perfect sister.

Awesome.

So in the spirit of science I'll make my final deduction.

Pepper Ann > Weekenders, therefore Little Hans > Little Albert.

Thoughts?

A little taste of Little Hans

If anyone wants to borrow my Little Hans/The Rat Man case study I'm always happy to creep people out with infantile sexuality.