Rorschach's The Minotaur: Reflections in a Bull's Eye

Sara Dabney Tisdale and David Zimmerman play half-human half-siblings.

There's at least one good reason to see Rorschach Theatre's co-world premiere production of Anna Ziegler's The Minotaur: the eponymous beast his own surprisingly rational, philosophical, well-spoken self.

I review the show in today's Washington City Paper.

Arnold Schwarzenegger: Return of the Machine

“If I am not me, who da hell am I? I mean, who da hell am I now?”

I am delighted to tell you that I am making my Village Voice debut this week with an essay about one Arnold Schwarzenegger, screen icon of my youth, governor of California for part of the time I lived there (I didn't vote for him) and celebrity host of my narrowly acclaimed 2012 Christmas album.

It was a happy, potentially self-improving experience, being edited by the noted crapologist Alan Scherstuhl, whose cover story in last week's Voice about current Spider-Man scribe Dan Slott is well worth your time, if you care at all about Spider-Man or comic books.

There were some outtakes from this one. Writing about subjects that have interested me since childhood is often more time consuming than writing about more recent interests (like, say, theater) because there's so much more "onboard" material -- memories, opinions -- to sift through. There was a whole bit about John Wayne in my first draft that I may resurrect for a different piece someday. And it was hard to lose the factoid that Arnold's sole credit as a film director was a 1992 remake of the Barbara Stanwyck comedy Christmas in Connecticut. Because he and Stanwyck had the same jawline, maybe?

"I think we both realize this will not be your truly epic all-encompassing Schwarzenegger piece, which you should be pitching right now to The Believer," Alan wrote during one of our e-mail exchanges.

Perhaps I shall, Alan, perhaps I shall. In the meantime, thanks for helping me with this one.

Movies I Watched or Rewatched in Their Entirety While Writing This Piece (chronological by year of release): The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Last Action Hero, The 6th Day, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, I Saw the Devil.

Arnold's new one, The Last Stand, did not screen in DC before my deadline. And his good films are all indelibly lightscribed onto my brain, for better or for worse, so I didn't have to revisit them.

Judgment: Judgment Day

Edward Furlong and Arnold Schwarzenegger get close in 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Over in today's Criticwire survey, I make a Sophie's choice and present my surprisingly concise rationale for why Terminator 2: Judgment Day is the superior of James Cameron's two Terminator joints. And I begin flogging my imminent Village Voice piece about Arnold Schwarzenegger's attempt at a comeback in The Last Stand. That should be online Wednesday or Thursday.  Rest assured I will let you know.

Studio's An Iliad! Huh! Good God, y'all! What is it good for?

Scott Parkinson tells the -- well, an -- Iliad.

In today's City Paper, I shrug at the competence of Lisa Peterson and Denis O'Hare's one-man, one-cellist take on Homer's Iliad.

Please Look at This So I Can Throw It Away: Our Town ticket

FOUND, in a box of unsorted crap: my ticket stub from a 2010 production of Our Town I saw that featured Michael Shannon, future star of my favorite movie of 2011, Take Shelter, as the Stage Manager. He plays a mean man on Boardwalk Empire (I've only seen the first few episodes of the first season), and he's Superman's Kryptonian nemesis General Zod in the upcoming Man of Steel. And yet I remember him as the kindly face and voice in what is perhaps the most avuncular and unthreatening role in all of theater.

Unrelated, Wallace Shawn from The Princess Bride and many other things was in the audience with us that night. Someone recognized him and started the applause when he walked in to take his seat. The Barrow Street Theatre is not very large.

Anyway, I'm tossing it, so take a good look.  Happy new year.

On the radio with Andy Cirzan!

On Friday I had the honor of doing 35 minutes of live radio with Andy Cirzan, the great archeologist of obscure holiday records who provided much of the inspiration for my own Yule-Tunes Eclectic and Inexplicable series. (I interviewed Andy a month ago for an essay about my mixtape project that ran in the Washington Post just after Thanksgiving.)

Anyway, Minnesota Public Radio's The Daily Circuit invited us both on to talk about our mixtapes and recommend some yulejams that haven't been played to death. I was afraid no one would be in the mood for this silliness when I realized our segment would follow an hour of reaction to the NRA's spectacularly tone-deaf press conference about the Newton, Conn. school shootings, which the station had carried live a little over an hour before we went on. But I thought the segment turned out well. I had a great time.

You can listen to the whole segment here.  Should it happen to pique your curiosity, my 2009-2012 yulemixes are on the Christmas Mixtapes page of this site. Finally, you can grab Andy's 2012 mixtape, Santa Soul, from Sound Opinions.

Happy holidays, everybody!

Yulemix 2012, Drop'd! It's time to Stay Hungry to Feed the World

I don't have a Christmas tree in my apartment yet. My friends haven't seen me in weeks. My editors are all ready to fire me. I've been avoiding mirrors, but I assume I look like Ted Kaczynski.

It's all for a noble cause: Every November & early December I fall into a four-to-six week time warp attempting to create the funniest and most reverent, most entertaining and most beguiling Christmas mixtape possible. (You may have read the essay I wrote about this project recently in the Washington Post. If you haven't, please do.)

It is my great pleasure to unveil now for your hall-decking enjoyment entry No. 007 in my  Yuletunes Eclectic & Inexplicable series. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the future of Christmas merry-making enforcement, Stay Hungry to Feed the World.  In keeping with the perpetually inflating ethos of this project, it's the longest one yet. When it comes to Christmas, less is less. And more? Is just the most.

PLEASE NOTE: These are large files; each side is a little more than an hour long and they're encoded at high bitrates. It may take a minute or two after you click the play button for you to hear anything, but have faith.

Side A

I can't tell you how thrilled I was to learn one of my boyhood heroes -- seven-time Mr. Olympia, five-time Mr. Universe, living tissue-over-a-microprocessor-controlled-hyperalloy-combat chassis former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger -- was available and willing to serve as master of ceremonies for this year's yulmemix.

I don't like to brag, but Arnold and I have been friends for years, ever since he brought me in to do an emergency script polish on his 2001 action thriller Collateral Damage. NOW IT CAN BE TOLD.

Look, I don't need you to tell me that Collateral Damage, as released, is no Predator, or even -- let's be honest -- Raw Deal. All I can tell you is you should've seen the Ambien-shooter of a script they were going to make before I got there. It would've made Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life seem like, I dunno, Taylor Hackford's Proof of Life. (Full disclosure: I have never actually watched a film in its entirety that did not star Arnold Schwarzenegger.)

Anyway, Schwarz -- that's what his good friends call him -- and I got to be very close. We used to tease one another: "How much did you squat this morning?" And the answer was always, "How much did you squat?" Invariably the other person would reply, "I asked you first!" And then we'd both be like, "Let's both say it at the same time -- JINX!" And then we'd laugh until we wept.

I have fond memories of those long, languid Sunday afternoons when we'd ride our Harleys up the Pacific Coast Highway to Neptune's Net. Sometimes just for a laugh Schwarz would strip naked in the parking lot, then saunter into the bar, face down the 200-odd bikers inside, and announce, "I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle." And these tatted-up lifers would just be trampling one another to give him the keys to their hogs. I swear that Schwarz could never get one of these guys to fight him. He used to get really frustrated by that. I'd do my best to cheer him up: "Hey Schwarz, don't let it get you down man, you were Mr. Olympia for like 15 years. And we'll always have Collateral Damage." Except we didn't, really, not in the end. Hey, Andrew Davis had made The Fugitive. How were we supposed to know he would phone this one in?

But I digress. Schwarz was a big part of the success of my 2007 yulemix, Santa's Got a Big Old Bagge, so I was thrilled to offer him an expanded role here. The Austrian Oak favors us with his recollections and musings on success throughout the album. In celebration of his return, I have reprised a handful of songs from five years ago, but they only add up to about 11 minutes out of 130. When Rhett Miller very gamely agreed to sit for an interview about writing Christmas songs, how I could not play "Here It Is, Christmastime," the Old 97's (sic) yulejam that I first used upon its release in 2007?

Side B

LANGUAGE ADVISORY: This set has some. Lots, actually! Poetry and prose. But there're also a few stray F-bombs bandied about. Parental whatever whatevered.

Total Recall, Schwarz's revelation-packed autobiography, is in stores now.

NOW PLAY THIS CHRISTMAS LOUD! I command it! These halls ain't gonna deck themselves!