Post 35: 290506 Rehearsals

As opening night gets nearer my focus has moved toward ‘This is a Play’. The weekends now consist of only a single rehearsal a day, giving me a little breathing space. Saturday was spent cleaning up moments and attempting to give the actors as much fodder as possible to draw from. Sunday began with 1 on 1’s running monologues with the ladies before Steven arrived after which when ran the play twice.

We have one more weekend of rehearsals then into the theatre on the 6th of June.

Post 34: 290506 Tournament Day 3

Saturday night and I was fit for a fight or so I thought as I sat on my plush pink pillow before my sleek silver laptop with while Miles wailed in my ears. But the bubble soon burst and left me surly.

I jumping into the Tantrix lobby hoping to see someone I’m yet to play from group A but alas there was none. ‘tzubobo’ invited me to a game and in need of a warm up I obliged but while we were trading turns, ‘kina’ from South Africa jumped into our room to announce her presence. She needed to play both of us and I was the lucky schtick who got to go first.

The first game was close until a late run saw ‘kina’ take it 20 to 16 but I wasn’t overly worried as I still felt like I could win the next to. In the second game I lead early on and needed a single tile to join two lines and take a commanding win but the tile was not to fall and my lead was erased and I lost 23 to 19. In game three saw a repeat of game two but at the very least it thought I could win one and take some much needed points away from our sparring. But again the lead was squashed and a third loss was recorded, 22 to 18.

So now my record stands at 6 wins and 5 losses with four games left to play.

Post 33: 250506 Tournament Day 2

It took a while to arrange the next set of games and as yet it has proved impossible for anyone in Group A to play the competitors from South Africa. This evening saw 3 games squared away against another Taiwanese hopeful. He flies under the name ‘joky’ and from around 8pm while I was still at work until just before 10pm as I sat in the comforts of home we completed our set.

Game 1 saw me take a casual approach that nearly ended in disaster but resulted in a win. The second game was a different story with ‘joky’ getting a 26 point loop and me playing catch up. At the final tile I was a point behind. The third game was close to begin with but I pulled away near the end to take a comfortable second victory.

My current record stands at 6 wins and two losses. With one member of Group A dropping out the number of games needed to be played has dropped to 15.

Post 32: 240506 Assistant Director Bio

It’s 20 minutes before I can walk out the door at the end of my day. I’m sitting here feeling a strange mix of vulnerability and confidence in my new orange striped shirt and watching the time tick down in the bottom right hand corner of the screen is not doing it for me. Teaching is a tough gig and don’t let anyone tell you any different.

Here is the bio I wrote for the play program. Too wanky?

"As sand fall though porous hands and tiny mounds attempt to amount to something more that shifting piles of sand, Craig McGeady attempts to gather the grains of life and call it lived. Granules of past performances drift away leaving the memories of wild times treading the boards for The Soul Players and numerous back stage affairs in both Korea and his home in New Zealand. He is comprised of abundant interests not the least of which is poetry, painting, play-craft and photography. "

Post 31: 230506 Tournament Day 1 Con't

A little while later a second competitor from Group A signed in to the Tantrix Lobby. ‘tzujoe’ is also from Taiwan. It was about midnight my time and I was a tad apprehensive at first of getting into it. I sucked it up and gave him a bell.

The first game was close and could have gone either way but a lucky fall meant I connected my tiles and took the win. The second game I was ahead but a late charge kept me nervous but when the tiles ran out I was still on top. 2 for 2. Understandably my opponent was not up for the third game so once we are better rested we’ll complete our set.

I currently stand at 4 wins and 1 loss. Phase 1 consists of a total of 18 games.

Post 30: 220506 Tantrix Tournament Day 1

And so it begins. I entered myself a little while ago into the AFRICAN & ASIAN TANTRIX CHAMPIONSHIPS (2006) and this evening played my first games in the opening round. There are fourteen players in the tournament divided into two groups. I am in Group A and seeded 8th overall.

I have to play each of the other six players in my group 3 times and it is up to us to organize the games. This can be tricky as some of the opponents are in Africa which is 7 or so hours behind Korea. All games in phase 1 have to be completed by the 16th of June.

My first opponent was ‘tzubobo’ from Taiwan. He is seeded sixth. I lost the first game and thought I was going to be on the receiving end of an old fashioned arse-womping. The second game went faster and I pulled it out of the bag for the win. The third game was closely fought but I came away with it. So after Day 1 my record stands at 2 wins and 1 loss.

Should you wish to check out the overall standing then follow the ‘Tantrix’ link under Current Escapes.

Post 29: 210506 Rehearsals Con't

And so it continues. Today was a lighter day that saw us starting at 12 o'clock and finishing at 3pm. Other commitments intrude so delicately into our time. I blew off the evening rehearsal to spend time with Suk-hi. After all, with these guys and at this stage i am expendable. They have things on track and as long as i know what and who needs to be where and when i should be fine.


Here's a shot i took today. It's posed but still dandy. From left to right stand, Ryan the lighting guy, Emily, McKenzie, Steven, Amanda the ditector and Brian the composer.

Post 28: 210506 Rehearsals Con't

It was a full day of rehearsals yesterday. With our usual venue being unavailable we headed to the directors school to tread the boards on the stage in the school library. But damn, if the climb wasn't a killer up to the school. We go upstairs, we go downstairs, we go upstairs, classroom, classroom, classroom, library. Phew. It was a nice space and a nice change and several kg lighter.

Then i headed off to the second rehearsal back at the Uni. Our room of course was booked but thankfully the huge outdoor stage was available. Great to be able to shake the cobwebs off the vocal cords.

The evening continued when we headed into Itaewon to have a meal and i'm guessing drink away the night. I'm not quite sure yet what they then got up to but i guess i'll hear about it in a few hours. I was knackered so made the long trek back to Uijeongbu for a good nights sleep.


The fine cast of 'Never Swim Alone' also written by Daniel Macivor and directed by Krista Sheen. From left to right: Stephanie Bogue Kerr, Sean Dudley and Ed Miller


Steph looking on from the back of the stage at Krista's school.


The outdoor stage at Hanyang University.

MaKenzie as Older Female Actress. Yes it is a bad wig but it says so in the script.

Post 27: 180506 The Poster

Here it is. Relatively hot off the press. The poster for the two plays i'm currently spending my weekends on. Stylish don't you think. It has that professional look about it, reflecting the fact it was actually designed by a professional.

Post 26: 170506 Gym Number 4

Joss Stone morphs into Norah Jones and I slink away into the back room to find a little space between me and myself. The sun has found its way into my bones and I glow a little with the bliss of memory. A simple memory, one that is only hours old. A simple thing done that makes me feel that little bit more alive. There’s nothing like pressing weights to get the blood going to the brain.

I used to belong to a gym so many years ago. A Gold’s Gym where the goal of everyone in there was to look like Arnie, women included. It wasn’t my bag; well that’s what I tell myself. I think I lasted three visits before I gave up and wrote off the money laid down. In only the last seven months I have now quadrupled the number of gyms I have belonged to.

The first was near the school where I worked. Big, new, expensive and on the top floor providing a commanding view. I forked out for three months and actually found a habit. It wasn’t like the habit of biting my finger nails which took me years to break. It was easier than that but it was a habit none the less.

The second gym was closer to my girlfriends’ apartment and we went together. It wasn’t as big or as high or as new but it was cheaper. As I spent an hour each morning on the treadmill I looked out over concrete mixers lining up to unload their stirred contents into the walls, floor and ultimately ceiling of a neighbouring development. The building’s finished now and shops are moving in and I’ve moved on.

Today was the first time at a new gym, if you can call it that. It is in a building that is part of the apartment complex where I now live with my girlfriend. It is on the ground floor with a view currently of green trees and a small sprinkling of road that big green buses frequently traverse. It’s 10,000 won a month which is way cheap and if we get there early enough we can have a good hour on one of the few treadmills the gym has before I sling my slowly ever increasing weights. There is nothing like reps in the morning to wake you up for the day.

Post 25: 140506 The cast

Several changes and a burst eardrum later the pieces have fallen into place and the perfect match is found. This is the cast of 'This is a Play' written by Daniel MacIvor and Directed by Amanda Doucet. From left to right: Emily Durant as Female Actor, Steven Kurowski as Male Actor and McKenzie Morrell as Older Female Actor. We open in just over a month on the 15th of June. Ample time.

Post 24: 130506 Rehearsals

These are the images from today’s rehearsals. As there are two plays comprising the evening, both are being rehearsed alternately in the same space at Hanyang University. One has Saturday day and Sunday night, the other naturally the opposite.

Post 23: 120506 Blogger’s Blab

Interpol snugly fit into my earlobes as I huddle in the back room cranking out words that are quickly lost. Multiple boxes open into my sister’s birthday and a mate’s update on his recent trip and forthcoming permanent departure. The dialogue is quickly folded onto the tool bar along the bottom of the screen to flash orange occasionally when a new comment is added.

It’s raining, ever so slightly. Not enough to warrant an umbrella but enough to annoy and stain the cobbles a darker shade of garbage. I’m minutes away from wiping off the rest of today’s daylight hours by retreating into a classroom and attempt to impart my native language to a mix of receptive and ungrateful ears. I have no love of this task, especially when most of the time can be taken up with just trying to keep the class quiet long enough to say a single sentence. I don’t think they are really into either.

How could they be? A full day of school already behind them and the prospect of private classes in varying schools before they get to go home, some as late as midnight. Can’t be a fun life. And to my untrained eye it appears to have stunted them socially. A trauma that takes years to evolve out of, if at all. A trip overseas usually helps.

I have the treat of a weekend of rehearsals ahead. Two each day for Saturday and Sunday, beginning at 11am and finishing at 8pm. That doesn’t include the hour and a half travel time to and from the University. Right now I’m still looking forward to them so I better stop thinking about all the time they will chew up. I’m not complaining, it’s what I want to do.

Last night an idea came for a quiet little film about a guy attempting to adjust to his quiet little life when his life collides with a wrongfully convicted woman on the wrong end of a policeman who has made a bad choice and can’t change it. It was a funky little idea that I would love to make but chances are it would go the way of all my other ideas, disappear without a trace. Ideas come to tease you.

Post 21: 100506 Where are the Blogosphere Celebs?

Now that I’ve been reading more blogs the question has arisen, are Blogs the natural evolution of reality television? Reality TV has given rise to the everyman celebrity. A new breed where their celebrity is based on seemingly natural events where what we know of the person is from what would normally be behind the scenes. All the stuff we desire to know about the big bucks, glamorous celebs that are draped across our movie screens and are seen only on red carpets and the odd sneaky peak from over the hedge.

Reality television celebrities fulfill that desire because we get to see them down and dirty. We find out their knee jerk reactions to daily situations. We see the times they blow their nose and excuse themselves to go to the can. Because of the repetition of their image we come to know them and develop an acquaintance with them, whatever that may be, positive or negative.

So now comes the Bloggers. There is an immediacy to their presence and the possibility to become acquainted with their style, feelings, inner most imaginings. As yet I am unacquainted with the Blogger celebrities but I’m sure they are out there. Bloggers control what we see or rather know of them but they want to be known. Some write freely, barfing their thoughts and feelings into the net without edit, others are cautious and shape their image. They want to be liked. Blogging gives rise to the possibility of becoming a celebrity.

When so many people want to garner that kind of fame by shaping their own Blog, their projected image, then where does the desire come from to rummage the blogs of others? What are they seeking? Are there different breeds co-existing within the blogosphere? Sure there are different styles and interests but that’s not what I’m asking. Are there those that eagerly hunt for celebrities and are there those that just as eagerly hunt for celebrity?

Then that begs the question, what do I want to get out of being a Blogger?

Post 20: 080506 Heung Guk-sa Temple

When not rehearsing on the weekends, Suk-he and I like to take Sunday drives. This usually results in us stopping in a national park or walking the grounds of an ancient Buddhist temple. This Sunday gone, with permission from my director, we drove out into the country and joined the throng of cars enveloping many other avid escapists, seeking respite and solitude.

Turning off from the main drag where the traffic had slowed to a crawl and the cars air conditioning was giving me a headache, we wound our way up a narrow road and found ourselves at the footsteps of Heung Guk-sa (흥국사) temple. A predominantly empty car park allowed us a place in the shade and from there we eagerly dawdled between restored buildings that had first found their feet in 599A.D.

What I usually feel when standing in the threshold looking into the interior of these buildings is a mix of longing and disappointment. Longing, as I would dearly like to be familiar with the mechanics of this belief system. I know rudimentary belief structures such as the desire to live in harmony with ones environment rather than at its antithesis but not the means of showing ones respect for its multi-millennia history. Disappointment because what I usually find is reconstruction or the hope of reconstruction after what once stood on these grounds had been pulverized but an occupying force.

Here I found reconstruction but void of the tackiness of other examples. This was older and treated with more respect. Well, treated with respect by some but not the local bloke who thought the wood dangling from chains and used to ring the eight foot high bronze cast bell was the perfect place to sit. No residents were within sight which is usually the case but their presence was felt and numerous candles burnt solemnly along the walls. I was pleased to share, for an all too brief spell, their charismatic setting of respite and devotion.

Here are a few photos so you get the idea.

Post 19: 080506 Poem

Nail

Rusted
Busted
Blind
And abused.
Chewed
And askew
Stepped on
And walked through.
No longer
Stronger
Than hammer
And tong.
Deaf
And bereft
Stretched thin
And left long.
Pail
And frail
And seemingly lost
Until a stranger
With waivers
Redeems it
At cost.

Post 18: 080506 Poem

The Old Man With a Rag in His Hand

I watched him as he followed me
With his eyes and said strange things
At odd intervals. We walked together
Briefly before he choose to duck
Inside. He said the day was too nice
With its sun and cool breeze. He was
Used to shadows and damp smells and
Kept tugging at his collar until the beads
Of sweat on his forehead had disappeared.
We sat for a long time on make-shift chairs
Listening to water dripping from the faucet
In the next room while he periodically
Pulled a rag from the folds of his well
Pressed slacks. His eyes were transfixed
On my feet until a pair of peach coloured
Hares startled us when they emerged
From a gap in the tiled floor. Their ears
Were pinned back, their coats were well
Groomed and their out of place appearance
Lasted no more than a minute as they
Validated their surroundings and hopped
Out the way we came in. The old man
Extracted his rag and wiped the tears
That had welled in his eyes.

Post 17: 070506 A Photo

The Crane Overhead

Here it is, the photo I promised. This was taken while standing at a subway platform on my return journey from yesterdays rehearsal. The sky was overcast making the perfect seemless backdrop. This is uncropped and has not been altered in photoshop or alike in terms of colour. It is as I shot it in the camera. When it comes to digital I like doing most of the work in camera. Framing and tone etc. To achive this colour I white balanced off a set of green seats. There is text on the crane but it's a little hard to see on this scale. On a larger format it comes up blue.

Post 16: 070506 Movie Review

BAREFOOT KI-BONG - "Maenbal-ui Gibong-i"
April 2006 Cinema Release

Ki-bong is the name of the lead character in this touching drama based on true events. It tells the story of a man injured in youth and destined to retain a child-like mind. Shin Hyun-june takes the lead in a most remarkable performance which delicately treads the line between over the top lampoonery and an accurate portrayal of a man afflicted.

Ki-bong is tied by love to his aging mother’s apron and has ingratiated himself on a series of locals who require menial tasks performed for which he receives either a token payment of cash or food. While hoping to take a few swipes in a batting cage one day he inquires about the lady within booth and her detachable teeth. Due to his unwavering desire to help his mother in anyway, the possibility of a new set of teeth becomes a goal which ultimately leads to training for and competing in a half marathon.

Low budget Korean cinema has something that many cinema from around the world lack, the confidence to give screen time to the seemly banal. This movie has a budget but thankfully this tendency shines through from the director’s less affluent beginnings. It contains moments that sing the praises of small town Korea and a landscape that goes predominately ignored.

Couple that with an ability to swing wildly from moments of slapstick humor to gut wrenching, tissue grabbing explorations of the human capacity to love and you have the making of a most entertaining film. The locally recognizable face of Kim Su-mi, seen in commercials, Sit-coms, TV dramas and cinema, is seen here as an almost house bound, toothless old woman giving unquestionable love to her forty year old son. Despite his affliction she has come to rely on his abilities to find their next meal but in her own way, it is understood, she too would do anything for him.

The film brims with subplots from a group of well turned characters, something Korean film has waved triumphantly in the face of more name driven, movie making machines. As each story finds its conclusion we discover the climax for which we’ve hoped but at times seemed lost. On the whole, a well told and well presented story.

Post 15: 070506 Update

It’s a beautiful Sunday and after yesterday’s effort I’m kicking back with some satisfaction. I’ve trimmed my new goatee just so and had a delicious coffee while watching some crappy movie on telly. Today is shopping and movies and perhaps a walk in the hills behind our apartment.

If you notice I’ve been a busy little beaver with the site and tried to get the word out that I exist in the Blogoshere. I’ve added a people counter just in case someone else other than me comes to call and I’ve added a Link of the Week section. This week’s link is to Txt2nite. There you will find many efforts to create the perfect txt whether it be comedy, sexy, poetic or sad. There are regular themed competitions, to which I’ve entered and attempted to win myself an Ipod. We’ll see how I get on.

I’ll be continually adding to the Links section and when there are more than enough I’ll organize them just so then re-organize them then scrap them and start again. I hope everyone enjoys their Sunday, kick back, read a poem, go somewhere just for the hell of it. Oh and I took a cracker of a photo yesterday as I traveled back from rehearsals so I’ll be posting that later today. Look forward to it.