Something I Learned Today

For me to be successful as a writer it helps me to think of writing as a daily practice, like yoga, or tai chi. If you move in a certain way enough times, like practicing free throws, you create what's known as muscle memory. Your body learns to do something so well you don't have to think about the act, but can instead perfect (or as close to it as we can come) the art of it.

There are cooks and there are master chefs. There are writers and there are authors. There are basketball players and there is Michael Jordan. To reach that next level you have to learn something new about your craft every day. Either by reading someone else, by writing something you've never written or by learning a simple fact, intellectually you have to be more than you were yesterday.

Today I learned that Canada has two national sports - lacrosse is the official summer sport and ice hockey is the official winter sport. The US has no official sport, but baseball, that greatest of all games, is the national pastime, I don't care how many people watch the NFL or NASCAR.

New Yorker Covers

Need to kill some time? I spent a decent portion of my evening (at work) browsing every single cover of the New Yorker, starting with the first cover February 21, 1925 and going through April 2007. (I guess they haven't uploaded the last year's worth of issues.) That's 3,699 covers.

And why would someone spend the time to do this? Because he wanted to see every baseball themed cover. Of the nearly 3,700 covers I found 29, starting with this cubist-inspired bad boy from May 8, 1926.

Chicago Reader Review

One of the more nerve-wracking aspects of the show was anticipating the review (my first ever!). Granted, it's super cool that there even was a review, but that doesn't change the fact that while I was waiting, and rationalizing every mean-spirited, spirit-breaking, just-plain-shitty thing I imagined the reviewer would write, I was a little anxious. Yeah, yeah, I know it's just one person's opinion. But I comforted myself with a million little reassurances about how well structured, funny, and most of all, well acted the show was.

It turns out, that for the most part, my fears were unfounded.

Holding Court

Clocking in at a little less than an hour, Courtney Arnett's solo piece about her many trials as a single woman looking for a decent date feels at once too short and too long. Although the show is packed with examples of awful dates, many of her tales consist of little more than a quick costume change (into a prom dress or a bridesmaid outfit) and a few brief, if funny reminiscences before she moves on to the next loser or asshole who hurt her or didn't quite measure up. The show just doesn't build dramatically, and Arnett never seems to learn. Still, Arnett does have a strong, likable stage presence, and most of her material avoids being too self-indulgent--the result, perhaps, of its having been edited and shaped by local writer Pablo Rajczyk and director Joe Lewis. --Jack Helbig Through 3/30: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 7 PM, La Costa Theatre Company, 3931 N. Elston, 773-866-0200, $10-$15.