up and coming.

I'm playing this guy in this this weekend.
You can get more info here.

And then this guy in this.
Get more info here.

Bet you didn't know.

Just a number of interesting things that I bet you didn't know and will never need to know but just might be glad to know when you find yourself on a first-date and the conversation lulls to a painful halt and you've already asked her what her favorite fill-in-the-blank is.

A herd of cattle, a pack of wolves, even a pod of seals, you've heard of, but did you know that just about every assemblage of creatures has its own name? Some of them are freaking awesome and most of them are politically incorrect and discriminatory:

A shrewdness of apes, a prickle of porcupines (do porcupines ever hang out in groups? because that could make for a really negative encounter), a richness of martens, a business of ferrets, a BLOAT of hippopotamuses, a murder of crows, an exaltation of larks (what's so great about larks?), a crash of rhinoceroses, an UNKINDNESS of ravens (spoooky), a shiver of sharks, an intrusion of cockroaches, and a plague of locusts.

I bet sometime someone somewhere had terms for groups of certain types of people. It's best those terms aren't in use, but I can think of some pretty good ones. Like a malediction of mother-in-laws. A festering of lawyers. A warmth of grandmothers.

Ever heard of prosopagnosia? Yeah, neither had I. It's commonly referred to as face blindness and is a legit condition that impairs the brain's ability to recognize faces. And it's not simply having a hard time putting a face to a name; it makes it impossible for you to recognize the faces of close friends, family members, and sometimes even yourself. People with this condition have to use clothing, voices, or gait to recognize acquaintances. Don't believe me? Check out Harvard's research page on it or read Heather Seller's book.


Colors are interesting when it comes to languages. There are no words in the English language that rhyme with orange, purple, or silver. In Romanian not only are oranges called oranges, but tomatoes are called reds. In some Asian languages, blue and green are considered varying shades of the same color. In Italian and Russian, azure is a basic color and is distinguished from regular blue as habitually as English differentiates red and pink.


Thomas Jefferson, who did a lot of great things for this country, introduced french fries to the United States in 1802 when he served them at a White House dinner.


Peladophobia is the fear of bald people. (Sidenote: If you're going to throw this word around, be careful how you pronounce it. Pedophilia is something completely different and not a good conversation jump-starter. At all.)


NOW YOU KNOW.

pas cu pas.

Word of warning: scroll down to THE POINT if you're short on time and/or less interested in rambling.

The title of this post could also have been 'pas à pas', which means step by step, except in French. In both French and Romanian, pas means step, from the Latin, passus. Yes, Romanian is a Romance language (meaning it descended from Vulgar Latin--the language of ancient Rome, not that it's necessarily going to help you on a date. [Sidenote: it has]). In modern French, pas is used to negate a regular phrase. For example je vais (I go/I am going) or je ne vais pas (I don't go/I am not going). But why, you demand to know, is the word pas, which means step, used to say you're not doing something?

Well, it wasn't always so. You used to only have to use ne to negate phrases, like no in Spanish. But back in the day, to emphasize your point, you would add pas to the end of the example phrase (I am not going) to express the idea that not only are you not going, but you're not even going one step. And you could use other words for other verbs. Je ne mange mie--I'm not eating, not even a crumb. Je ne vois point--I don't see, not even a point. Well, eventually the other words were dropped and pas took control like a totalitarian dictator. See, more often than not in casual conversation you drop the ne and just use the pas (je veux pas)--which loses the original negation all together. (Thank you, Dr. Hurlbut.) Fascinating, huh? OK, maybe just to me.

The fact that you have to use both ne and pas to negate was always something for French 101 students to complain about--Two words? Why can't we just use NE? But if you think French negation is confusing, just try explaining to a student of English why the verb to do suddenly pops up when you negate in English: I see/I don't see.


OK, one more thing about pas and I swear I'll get on with why I'm writing today:
When I was an LDS missionary in Romania, I was stationed with a guy who had just arrived from the States. He was a go-getter and was constantly studying the language. One night we were knocking doors in an old, communist block apartment building which we often found ourselves doing. After knocking twice at a certain door, I started to move on when he stopped me and said, in Romanian, "Wait, I think I hear step-mothers."

THE POINT:

Yesterday I took a big step. Really, it was just a small step that felt like a big step, but life is made up of small steps...

I submitted my screenplay to the LDS Film Festival's feature-length screenplay competition. This means that three producers will read my script. Up to this point, only people who know me have read the script--people who seem to like me and maybe just like the script because they like me. Now three producers that don't know me and probably don't know anything about Alfred de Musset (the guy who wrote the French play that I adapted) will not only be reading it, but judging it. Here goes nothing.

I am also a little nervous because while the script does express certain LDS ideas, having been written and worked on by LDS individuals, it is not a Mormon film. And it maybe swears a couple times. Twice in English and twice in French, if I remember right. And it maybe deals with some more adult situations. Not adult as in adult films but adult as in intense and/or heavy situations. And so maybe it will be disqualified?

No matter what, it was a very rewarding experience just to print off the hundred pages that have taken up  much of the last eight months of my life to create, along with chunks of other people's lives. The girl at Kinko's probably thought I needed to be medicated.

What's the next step? Besides a few more revisions, I have an incredibly awesome friend who is doing an internship for a production company in LA that might be able to sneak it in front of her people. And another awesomely incredible friend that has a friend that has a friend that might be able to read it and might work for a very large production company in LA.

So, folks, let's get the ball rolling.

4.0

Did you know when a cat is lapping milk, it's tongue goes in and out of its mouth 4-5 times per second?

Ever get the feeling that something isn't quite right with Breast Cancer Awareness Month? What about all the other types of cancer? How much of the proceeds from all these pink sugar cookies, pink bandanas, and pink vehicles is going toward something useful? Read this article.

VAI DE MINE, this could have been me. I will never regret not going to law school.

Peter Weir's upcoming film The Way Back looks epic and awesome. You may know Weir from such movies as The Dead Poets' Society and The Truman Show. This is his first movie since Master and Commander back in 2003.

Besides the director and true story aspect, the film is also going to be awesome because it's starring, alongside Collin Farrell and Ed Harris, Dragoş Bucur. Never heard of him? That's because you don't watch enough Romanian movies. He's received numerous awards for his work in numerous award-winning Romanian films (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, The Paper Will Be Blue, and Police, Adjective) and I can't wait to see how he does in an English-speaking role.

Am I in the women's locker--oh, nope. That's not a woman. That's a dude.

Last week I got paid to turn office supplies into weapons and armor for an office gone Lord of the Flies commercial. I love being on a film set.

I got cast in Born Yesterday at Hale Centre Theatre. The show opens on New Year's Eve.

bon iver.

Bon Iver - For Emma, For Ever Ago - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

3.0

With the elections coming up next week, there was plenty to think about. You might want to skip the first few if you don't like politics.


What's the worst thing that could happen to you if you're running for governor in Illinois and trying to secure votes in multiple low-income districts? Ask Rich Whitney. As a result of a typo, or a sabotage according to some conspiracy theorists, his last name, Whitney, was misspelled as "Whitey" on early election ballots. Yep, Rich Whitey. And unfortunately for Rich, it appears as though the problem might not be fixed in time for Tuesday's elections.


You've never voted? Really? Well be warned, I do vote and it's probably not for the people you would vote for. Especially if you live in Alaska and are voting for Joe Miller.


Who's Joe Miller? (This is a little late in the game, but I'm only tweeting once a week.) Last week, Joe Miller, the Republican Senate candidate from Alaska, was asked about controlling immigration in a town hall meeting. He gave a typical response--recommending the fence-along-the-border method, but then cited East Germany as an effective model of border control. As in COMMUNIST East Germany. The BERLIN WALL East Germany. Complete lack of human rights and orders to shoot anyone trying to ESCAPE, East Germany. Maybe I'm just a little gun shy of the whole totalitarian dictatorship thing after living in Romania and interviewing victims of the communist regime, but really Joe? We have places like the former German Democratic Republic--they're called FEDERAL PRISONS.


Today at work I overheard a conversation (I was working in a cubicle, it was impossible not to overhear) about a wayward son who had strayed the path and voted for Obama...


...There was a brief period two years ago when my grandmother had a really hard time believing in me.


If I was in New York, I would go see Franz Xaver Messerschmidt's temporary exhibition at the Neue Galerie. His fascinating story goes a little like this: Around the time baroque was on its way out and neo-classical was the new black, Messerschmidt was at the top of his sculpting game and easily transitioning, even leading the transition, into the new movement. But he wasn't one of the popular kids in the Austrian Academy and when everyone was keeping things stoic, he started to put expression into the faces of his subjects. First smiles and grimaces, then yawns and stink-eyes. As a result, people thought he was crazy. Disenchanted he moved out of town and finished out his life creating all sorts of freaky faces that were way ahead of his time. And what happened to all those courtesan sculptures that mocked him and called him crazy? NO ONE CARES. If you are in New York before 10 January 2011, check out the original thriller FXM.

Why are we only symmetrical (OK, almost symmetrical) on the outside? And since we aren't symmetrical on the inside, how did we end up being almost symmetrical on the outside?

I like dressing up as a gothic for Halloween. I don't like being asked the next day, because I can't quite get that manliner off, if I'm supposed to be Adam Lambert or Evan Lysacek.


When I was a kid, my mom rationed out our Halloween candy for MONTHS. I distinctly remember gnawing through old black and orange taffy after Easter.


When I was a kid, my dad once took me and some friends on a trick-or-treating rampage all over Bountiful. We must have covered fifty miles of streets. After he dropped off my friends, he took me to the grocery store and bought me a bag full of candy bars to supplement my loot. I was the talk of the neighborhood. Until my brother Ben ratted me out--"You didn't get all that from trick-or-treating!" "Yes I did!" "No you didn't--Dad took you to the grocery store!" At this point in the conversation I made some attempt at a denial, but the shock if his uncanny perception was all over my face, screaming "How did you know?" "I know he did cause he did the same thing for me last year."

Besides "Thriller" and "Monster Mash", which are great, are there any other Halloween songs?

An older woman lived across the street from where I grew up. I was scared to death of her. I remember running through her front yard once on a dare--it was the bravest thing I had done up to that point in my life. We never trick-or-treated at her house because everyone knew that she covertly tucked ice into your trick-or-treat bag to ruin your candy. That house still makes me uneasy.


Plastic pumpkin face? A cauldron? Psssht. In my neighborhood, the only respectable trick-or-treat bag was a pillow case. Anything else was child's play.


Remember It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown?


Transylvania is absolutely the coolest place I have ever been on Halloween. First of all, it's Transylvania and it's awesome and it's beautiful in the fall. Second, huge flocks of crows fly through on their way south. I'm talking huge rivers of cawing birds soaring just above the apartment buildings. Third, on The Day of the Dead, everyone visits their family graves to clear away the weeds, leave gifts, and surround the tombs in candles. In Cluj-Napoca, the heart of Transylvania, the cemetery is on a hill over looking the city. That night, the hill was on fire with flickering candles. 


HAPPY HALLOWEEN.

if i had twitter 2.0.

Round two. I didn't have as much time to think this week because my funemployment has come to an end. For now. But here you have some random thoughts for the week:

On Sunday I ran into a guy that I was in a play (Shenandoah) with back when Rodgers Memorial Theater was Pages Lane Theater. The best line in that play? "If we don't try, then we don't do; and if we don't do, then why are we here?" AMEN.

An older gentleman, whom I respect very much, told me this week that if he had to go back and choose a career all over again, he would have gone with music.

The French are protesting. It's part of their culture. They've been doing it for centuries--even before 1789 when they gathered on a tennis court and decided they weren't going to roll over and take it anymore from the monarchy. And then stormed the Bastille. Right now they are striking because the government is threatening to pass a bill that would delay retirement two years. Swinging their unions into action, the protestors have blockaded fuel reserves, leaving one third of the nation's gas stations empty. And no one writes better, or more offensive protest signs. One particularly irreverent sign refers to Carla Bruni, the gorgeous Italian born French singer/supermodel-turned-first-lady: Hey Carla, we're like you--we're being screwed by the Chief of State.

Wislawa Szymborska, the Polish poet, said "I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order." I like you Wislawa.

What marks the difference between murder and assassination? Societal import?

There's a third circumstance which may be interpreted as me mumbling: talking on my cell phone. If I hold it in my right hand, or go hands-free with it against my shoulder, the person on the other end can't understand a thing. Add fatigue or apathy to the mix and there's no hope of intelligible conversation.

I can't picture myself ever getting to the point where I build, or even buy, a house.

Matt's house now has a Scentsy in it.

"If they're here, they should have to learn English." This phrase drives me up the wall for multiple reasons, but one in particular. Yes, I think people should put forth an effort to learn the language of whatever country they inhabit. And I think most people do try. However, "they", or sometimes "those people", usually refers to adults. Do you know how difficult it is for an adult to learn a second language? For four semesters I taught beginning French to college students. We had an hour of class every day in which I spoke almost entirely in French and they were forced to employ the basic French grammar and vocabulary they were learning. They had an hour of homework every night. They were required to attend French-speaking activities, watch French movies, and meet once a week outside of class to speak French with a classmate. We had oral and written exams every other week. We sampled French food and listened to French music. My classes were supervised by one of the top French language instructors in the country--the woman who had written our text book. All the best, most researched means of second language instruction were employed to help these bright, young minds learn French. Some of them, let's say half, did everything in their power to learn the language. Everyday I would encourage them, praise them for their progress--tell them they were doing great. You know what? I LIED. Their French was awful--ear-numbingly painful. Their comprehension was limited to theatrically expressive, slow speaking on my behalf. The few who succeeded in learning more than simple phrases were those who had previously learned another foreign language. If they can't do it, how can we expect an immigrant, day-laborer (who has no such language resources) to learn English in the United States? If we take a look back at our progenitors, most of us will find that learning English didn't kick in until the second generation.

You may have heard this before, but it is true: Women are most attractive when they are not trying to be.

The Tea Party movement doesn't sound like much of a party to me.

I hate hearing that people are worried about me. Not just because I would rather not have my life's circumstances be a subject of discussion, but because it shows a lack of confidence on their behalf for what I am doing with those circumstances.

Jersey Shore--nature or nurture?

I almost signed up for an EMT class this week. Why? I've always been interested in emergency medicine and being a paramedic or a firefighter really appeals to me. They are occupations with the coolness-adventure factor of river guiding on a slightly more mature scale.

I miss being a river guide. And I still miss Paris. And Romania. And AFRICA.

Around the 18th and 19th centuries, a soldier's desertion, sickness, or even death could be attributed to nostalgia. This was determined to be most common amongst Swiss mercenaries because of their longing for the beauty of the Swiss Alps. The opposite of nostalgia, or homesickness, was wanderlust, coined by the Germans, as the desire to be far from home. My great-grandfather, Fritz Seibold, attributed his young adult wanderings (which led him to meet my great-grandmother, Frieda) to wanderlust.

Compare the words overcome and undergo.

When I was in college I almost signed up for the marines. Not kidding. I was especially interested in the scholarship possibilities when I was thinking of going to law school. After talking to a recruiter on campus, I went into their office and took an aptitude test. They made me an offer and I went home to think about it. I mentioned it to my dad and his wigging out made me chicken out. Mostly because I had seen in the movies what happens to guys at boot camp who have last names like Dickamore.

At a birthday party last weekend, I had to wear a name tag with my last name on it. Several people l.o.l.-ed and two people couldn't stop laughing. For several minutes. It's been a while since I got such boisterous reactions.

Springing leaks, convulsing core, spreading joints, and tearing flesh--a full on body kamikaze. Thank the Almighty I never "get" to give birth.

Ben's a freaking DAD. The word precious makes me queezy but there is nothing more that than a newborn baby girl.

As I get older it's becoming increasingly possible that I will marry a girl who has already been married and may already have kids. I think I'm OK with that.

If there hadn't been a Cold War, we probably never would have put a man on the moon. The government had decided that lunar exploration was too risky and too expensive. In 1961, the Soviets gave us the finger by successfully put Major Yuri Gagarin into orbit. Two years prior, the Soviets had also been the first to land a man-made object on the moon. The pressure was on, but with a price tag of 11 billion dollars, Kennedy was still reluctant. It took the encouragement of his vice-president Lyndon B. Johnson to seal the deal with the phrase "To be second in space is to be second in everything". In September 1962, Kennedy made an epic speech to a filled stadium at Rice University in Houston, Texas (He spoke there because of the university's involvement in the space effort--hence the "Houston, we have a problem" line). He announced that we were going to the moon and closed his speech with this: "Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, 'Because it is there.'Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked." Billions of dollars, 400,000 people, and seven years later, Neil Armstrong made one giant leap for mankind.

The movie script is coming along. Largely thanks to the genius that is Joel Ackerman.

This guy is in town tonight.

And those are some filtered thoughts for the week.