More importantly

I just found the other place where the mice are getting in.

I'm a little behind the eight-ball since this article by Germaine Greer was written in March, but the subject of whether women can be funny is one I'm very invested in, since I've had a lot of personal experience--and and experienced a fair amount of opposition--in trying to disprove that. The part that hit home for me was when she mentioned briefly women in improvisational situations:

Given an opportunity to perform a finished comedy routine, a female comedian will make you laugh as hard as any man. Put her in an improvisation situation along with male comedians, and she is likely to be left speechless.

Having been in that situation, I can say that it's true. In my experience, most men do improv like stand-up--it's all about the jokes, and it's all about you--even though the entire basis of improv comedy is collaboration, to make your partner look better than you. The article made me wonder if women are "bad" at stand-up (and thus in most people's eyes, comedy) because we are more collaborative in nature. Maybe women work better when they work with someone. Most of the female comedians I know are part of duo or a group. To me, that was the fun of doing improv--seeing what we as a troupe could build, or where we could go. Unfortunately, most of the men I worked with didn't feel that way. The most crushing experiences I had on stage were not when the audience didn't laugh at what I said, but when my troupe members didn't back me up.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, girls rule boys drool. Girl power!

Also, let's go see I Eat Pandas at WET's summer series. Only $5! One of the girls in it played Jenna to my Liz Lemon last year and she is awesome.

Blerg-o-rama

Today was blerg. This whole week has been blerg. Blerg blerg blerg.

Something just happened outside my window that sounded like a one-man band tripping over himself. Maybe I can ask him to follow me around tomorrow and punctuate everything I say with a good crash of the cymbals. That would be pretty much the opposite of blerg.

We have a smart mouse.

Bawdy Songs in Sing-Along

The best thing about being an actor is definitely the job interviews. True, sometimes they can also be the worst, but on Tuesday, that was not the case.

After telling us about how much he loves Shakespeare, Improv and Clowning (hello, soulmate?) the very British director asked us if we would prefer to sing something traditional or bawdy. We all said bawdy. And this is what we sang for a solid fifteen minutes:

Take a slab of butter, made in May
Slap it to your arse on a summer's day
And ever as it melts, lick it clean away
'Tis a med'cine for the toothache, old wives say

Then we proceeded for the remaining twenty minutes to walk around the room as though holding a very full bowl of precious liquid.

Man this is an awesome job. If only I was getting paid for it...

When English Ain't Assez

Do ever find that the English word just isn't as good as its literal translation in another language? In "Eat, Pray, Love", the author mentions that her favorite word in Italian is "attraversiamo" which is such a better word than the clunky English "Let's cross over to the other side." I have been writing several letters of application recently where I'm trying to express that I'd like to deepen my education. But I hate the way that sounds. Every time I try to think of a substitute work I get stuck on the French "Approfondir" which is infinitely superior than "deepen". I wish I could include French words in these essays without looking like a tool. Alas, I don't think that's possible

Jools and Jamie

Jamie Oliver, the formerly nekkid chef, just had a baby girl. Her name is Petal Blossom Rainbow. She has two siblings (who I can only assume are girls) named Poppy Honey and Daisy Boo.

These names are absolutely preposterous and I love them.