Sunday 14 December 2014

Mortified: Read your high-school diary to a room full of strangers

We went to see Mortified at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco. It's an amazing stage show where real people from the bay area read out their real high-school diaries on stage.  It's hilarious, tragic, pathetic, and beautiful all at the same time. And unlike high-school, the whole audience of 600 people is on your side and has your back.  Here's a taste from the documentary they made about the phenomenon:



After each reading there's a hiphop band called The Freeze that does musical improv based on the diary performance. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen.



After seeing it live, I went and watched the documentary. They get people coming to them with boxes and boxes of material, and the producers of the show help them sort through it and find the pieces that are funny to strangers, something that is not always obvious to the person who wrote it. Once they have pared it down they coach them on their delivery, and it goes into the show.

There are currently shows based in Austin, Boston, Chicago, DC, LA, NYC, Portland, San Francisco, Berkeley, and Malmo Sweden. Go see it!

Sunday 7 December 2014

Thanksmas: Bodega Bay the week after thanksgiving

We wanted a repeat of Thanksgiving from 2012, where we hired a house with some friends and ate and drank too much.  This time we would have three additional kids between us!  But everything was booked for the thanksgiving weekend.  Since none of us had family in the US we just moved it to the week after, when everything was much cheaper :)

This time we chose Bodega Bay, which is a popular beach spot in summer, but not that busy in winter.  It's also where The Birds was filmed.

The rain, my cold, and coordinating the schedules of two babies and two toddlers meant we didn't leave the house much, but we were prepared for this and had a great time anyway.  My plan to ride up highway 1 on a less busy weekday was scuttled due to weather and sickness :( But we got to a beach and ate oysters at Fisherman's Cove.

View from our impressive rental - the pyramid house.  Note to self, never build a house in the shape of a pyramid, it's a terrible idea, lots of strange spaces and windows you can't find coverings for...

Wrights beach.  I believe the sign, the water looked really dangerous.

People testing their burning man art installation of sunlight-reflecting mirrors on Wrights beach.
View from Highway 1.  This is the section where you can see some condemned houses that are about to fall into the sea.
View from the house at dawn (thanks kids).