Here's the SFGate.com's review of "Syvlia", Morris' 'Sylvia' forgoes showy dancing for an old-fashioned, irony-free romance.
On Sunday, we saw Yuan Yuan Tan and the dancer talked about in the review. It might be fun to see it again with a different dancer.
Monday, May 03, 2004
Then on Sunday I went to see the San Franciso ballet. I had a three-performance subscription, and this was our last one. The performance was Mark Morris' Sylvia. "Mark Morris' world premiere is the first complete staging of Sylvia ever created for an American company."
The ballet was colourful and sweet, but not very challenging for the dancers. Morris is no Balanchine, but the balled was well done. Morris is more clever and interesting than innovative I think.
Then my friend and I decided to go to Chevy's afterwards to have an early Cinco de Mayo celebration, and I had a huge mojito and we split a shrimp and crab quesadilla, which was so heavenly. I had such a nice buzz by the time I left the restaurant, that by the time I got home I was so sleepy I went straight to bed. I thought I would only take a short nap and work, but I couldn't wake myself up so I just kept on sleeping.
I did workout at my friend's health club before we went to ballet. She was showing off her snazzy new very expensive ($70/month), which is just a few blocks from her home. The health club provides towels, has a separate women's sauna, and lots of free beauty products in the locker room. There's also a nice pool for swimming laps and a racquetball court.
It was nice but that's a ton of money to pay for the club. It's good for my friend because it's such an incentive to have a gym within a five minute walk from your front door. But for me, I'd still have to drive and probably pay for parking to go to the gym there, and at their other location. Besides their gym equipment wasn't that up to date, and I didn't see free weight room.
The ballet was colourful and sweet, but not very challenging for the dancers. Morris is no Balanchine, but the balled was well done. Morris is more clever and interesting than innovative I think.
Then my friend and I decided to go to Chevy's afterwards to have an early Cinco de Mayo celebration, and I had a huge mojito and we split a shrimp and crab quesadilla, which was so heavenly. I had such a nice buzz by the time I left the restaurant, that by the time I got home I was so sleepy I went straight to bed. I thought I would only take a short nap and work, but I couldn't wake myself up so I just kept on sleeping.
I did workout at my friend's health club before we went to ballet. She was showing off her snazzy new very expensive ($70/month), which is just a few blocks from her home. The health club provides towels, has a separate women's sauna, and lots of free beauty products in the locker room. There's also a nice pool for swimming laps and a racquetball court.
It was nice but that's a ton of money to pay for the club. It's good for my friend because it's such an incentive to have a gym within a five minute walk from your front door. But for me, I'd still have to drive and probably pay for parking to go to the gym there, and at their other location. Besides their gym equipment wasn't that up to date, and I didn't see free weight room.
The weekend was so busy, I didn't even touch my work laptop. Memo to self: when you have events planned on both weekend days, it's not a good idea to bring work home because you won't have time to do it.
On Saturday, I headed down south to Palo Alto to go to a writing seminar on how to write a love story, "Michael Hauge: SEX, LIES AND LONGING: Creating Powerful Love Stories for Your Novel or Screenplay." It was probably one of the best seminars I've attended, and I learned a new way to create a plot structure.
The class was full of people who had already published their own books, were in movie development deals with Hollywood, had agents, and were way more advanced in their writing career than I am. These people were serious writers, all looking to score their first pot of gold by selling a screenplay to Hollywood.
One woman I ate lunch with had published two children's books, one non-fiction book, had an agent, an editor and a publisher, but said at the end that her writing wasn't a money-making venture. I think there were a ton of people in her shoes at the seminar. Half the people there were novelists who had switched to screenwriting or were adapting their novels for the screen because Hollywood pays more money than book publishers.
There were even a few women who stood up and said they were romance novelists. I was talking to a woman at the break who was a budding romance novelist, and telling her that I would love to be a romance novelist. I just never seem to create characters and stories that have happy endings. Even the "love story" that I'm trying to write called "Texas is a state of mind" has a bittersweet ending. The budding romance novelist said my "love story" isn't a love story if my characters don't end up in love and together at the end. Sad isn't it?
I was so inspired about my writing because of the seminar that I went to the library today, and rewrote one of my short stories to fit into his plot structure. I didn't think my short story would fit in his structure, but it did. I spend much time plotting out structure, even for a short story, so his way of plotting is not that different than what I've been doing.
Hauge's plot structure is nice because it ties up loose ends in a way I never thought possible before. He's a firm believer in character arcs, and it's a great way to structure a story that's very satisfying I think to a reader. Hauge said we could apply his plot structure to any story, and not just to screenplays.
I liked the seminar leader alot. He gave a really sweet writers pep talk at the end, which made me want to cry. He was so spiritual without ever being new agey, religious or maudlin. The guy was definitely genuine, and knew his stuff. I bought his book, which he signed and two cd-sets of his of two of his other seminars. One of the seminars was a comparison of his plot structure to Christopher Vogler, who wrote "The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers". The two of them critique each other's methods in the seminar. Vogler's book is inspired by the work of mythologist Joseph Campbell, so it will be interesting to see how the Hauge's structure compares to Joseph Campbell's hero's journey.
On Saturday, I headed down south to Palo Alto to go to a writing seminar on how to write a love story, "Michael Hauge: SEX, LIES AND LONGING: Creating Powerful Love Stories for Your Novel or Screenplay." It was probably one of the best seminars I've attended, and I learned a new way to create a plot structure.
The class was full of people who had already published their own books, were in movie development deals with Hollywood, had agents, and were way more advanced in their writing career than I am. These people were serious writers, all looking to score their first pot of gold by selling a screenplay to Hollywood.
One woman I ate lunch with had published two children's books, one non-fiction book, had an agent, an editor and a publisher, but said at the end that her writing wasn't a money-making venture. I think there were a ton of people in her shoes at the seminar. Half the people there were novelists who had switched to screenwriting or were adapting their novels for the screen because Hollywood pays more money than book publishers.
There were even a few women who stood up and said they were romance novelists. I was talking to a woman at the break who was a budding romance novelist, and telling her that I would love to be a romance novelist. I just never seem to create characters and stories that have happy endings. Even the "love story" that I'm trying to write called "Texas is a state of mind" has a bittersweet ending. The budding romance novelist said my "love story" isn't a love story if my characters don't end up in love and together at the end. Sad isn't it?
I was so inspired about my writing because of the seminar that I went to the library today, and rewrote one of my short stories to fit into his plot structure. I didn't think my short story would fit in his structure, but it did. I spend much time plotting out structure, even for a short story, so his way of plotting is not that different than what I've been doing.
Hauge's plot structure is nice because it ties up loose ends in a way I never thought possible before. He's a firm believer in character arcs, and it's a great way to structure a story that's very satisfying I think to a reader. Hauge said we could apply his plot structure to any story, and not just to screenplays.
I liked the seminar leader alot. He gave a really sweet writers pep talk at the end, which made me want to cry. He was so spiritual without ever being new agey, religious or maudlin. The guy was definitely genuine, and knew his stuff. I bought his book, which he signed and two cd-sets of his of two of his other seminars. One of the seminars was a comparison of his plot structure to Christopher Vogler, who wrote "The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers". The two of them critique each other's methods in the seminar. Vogler's book is inspired by the work of mythologist Joseph Campbell, so it will be interesting to see how the Hauge's structure compares to Joseph Campbell's hero's journey.
Friday, April 30, 2004
So I broke down and brought my laptop home. I just have way too much work to do, and with all the meetings I attend during the week, I need a couple hours of solid uninterrupted time to get some of my work done.
My bosses are already starting to question my workload, and I'm like, you're the ones who keep dumping stuff on me, stuff I had no idea I was going to do when I first signed up. Nobody told me writing was going to be one of my main duties. Okay so I probably write better than your average employee, but still ... it's not what I signed up for.
My bosses tell me my writing is easy to understand. From reading some of the internal memoes I've had to plough through, I can see why. People try to sound so intelligent and make things so complicated, but when you really start to dig apart what they're actually trying to say, you realize that what they're doing or writing up makes no sense.
But hey it's written up so it takes someone even with a college education, an hour to read. What a waste of an hour, especially when you find out that the project the person was trying to write about was total BS, the methodology was messed up, and the analysis made no sense. Sometimes people in business think window dressing is going to make up for a badly designed and executed analysis or project. I don't think so!
My bosses are already starting to question my workload, and I'm like, you're the ones who keep dumping stuff on me, stuff I had no idea I was going to do when I first signed up. Nobody told me writing was going to be one of my main duties. Okay so I probably write better than your average employee, but still ... it's not what I signed up for.
My bosses tell me my writing is easy to understand. From reading some of the internal memoes I've had to plough through, I can see why. People try to sound so intelligent and make things so complicated, but when you really start to dig apart what they're actually trying to say, you realize that what they're doing or writing up makes no sense.
But hey it's written up so it takes someone even with a college education, an hour to read. What a waste of an hour, especially when you find out that the project the person was trying to write about was total BS, the methodology was messed up, and the analysis made no sense. Sometimes people in business think window dressing is going to make up for a badly designed and executed analysis or project. I don't think so!
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