Terrific1's blog

Friend of a friend sent me this hi-larious take on political crafting. See and read for yourself:

Jessica Vitkus "Low-Craft"

Friend clued me into this YouTube short. This guy is a genius. Check out his other shorts.

That's all for now.

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Happy Voting!

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A couple of months ago, I noticed a small storefront with a sign out front that read, Iraqi Art Gallery I immediately thought of going in and doing a story about how and why someone decided to bring Iraqi art to a little shop on the North Chicago lake front. But as with many story ideas, this one never fully took root and I did not think about it until the Round 3 directives came out.

There is a certain feeling, a sparkling kind of knowing that arises when you stumble over a subject/person/idea that you think you are going to invest actual production into. It is not unlike when you meet someone you want to kiss or at the very least ask out for a drink (and probably for a drink-drink and not just for coffee). So I got that feeling about contemporary Iraqi art.

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I feel lousy for being out of the blog loop...especially with the terrific behind-the-scenes discussions initiated by Rebecca and April.

So the remaining lady chimes in...

It has been really interesting trying to gather ideas for the Round 3 interview. I mean who hasn't had conversations about this very scenario. But after the initial geek out of possibility passed, I felt the very real danger of paralysis setting in.

So I rallied my troops for help. What I found out was that a lot of people had the same reaction as I did - elation, followed by a sort of expansive emptiness. Their silence was usually replaced with a halting apology and then maybe, in a deflated tone, they said they felt badly because everyone they would want to talk to is dead. (It seems Eleanor Roosevelt is a popular lady in 2007.)

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I know most people here in the 21st century may not have a personal experience with archery but that is a lot of what recording Round 2 felt like. It was as if you had about four arrows that you shot out into the direction of the target while wearing a blindfold. And then you are escorted off the field.

All you can go on in terms of where the arrow hit (if it made contact with the target at all and did not land awkwardly in the trees behind it) is your intuition and the wildly varying memories of what you did. And then the ping-ponging back and forth from it was good...it sucked. It was alright...it BLEW. The read was good, the billboard blew. The improv blew but the billboard had some nice moments. And on and on...

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Yesterday I went to a taping of a vintage baseball game in Champaign, IL. I am working as a freelancer for the Illinois Humanities Council and this was my assignment. As I was driving I noticed that the birds along the highways of central Illinois fly very low. The seemingly suicidal daring of these birds interrupted my more obsessive thinking about the upcoming round and what I would improvise about the word “Pakistan.” Right as I was beginning to perspire a bird flew into my window and bounced off.

So I get to the game…there were a bunch of men (and one woman) dressed in 1858 baseball regalia, playing by 1858 rules and generally acting as though the jowly James Buchanan was sitting in the oval office. If a player made an “ace” or a scored a run a bell was struck and the crowed of fifty or so spectators would yell “Huzza!” in unison.

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My god competitive blogging seems more daunting than creating a dating profile. Which I have recently done and apart from a baker (of pastries) on JDate and a balding 65 year-old married man from Atlanta (I live in a Chicago) I did not get the wonderful response I was hoping for.

But did such doubt stop that sneaky Clay Aiken from going for it on American Idol? Did it halt the momentum of that Russian gal that the rest of the ladies hated on America’s Next Top Model? No sir, it certainly did not.

So onward…and upward…

WHEN THEY CALLED: I was on the phone with a therapist because the past few weeks have been dreadful. It was one of those weeks where one envisions their personal possibilities as bright as an aging Hee Haw extra. I was thinking I would move back home to live with my mom in Minnesota. I would wear plaid Lanz nightgowns all the time and a straw hat with a 25 cent price tag dangling down the side.

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