Just A Peck 0018 // God of Carnage, Running Man, Turkey Dance
Welcome to the latest issue of Just A Peck. I’m glad you’re here! New issues come out most Sundays. Unsubscribe at any time.
WHAT I'M EXCITED ABOUT THIS WEEK
God of Carnage opens this week! This rehearsal process for this brilliant Tony Award-winning dark comedy has been an absolute joy. The cast is so good, I don’t think I would ever tire of watching them. Get your tickets!
This week is the 50th Anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Tomorrow’s annual memorial beacon lighting is sold out.
A new Edgar Wright movie opens this week! That’s always a reason to be excited!
QUICK LINKS
- Singing for animals
- These are pastel drawings, not photographs.
- Shortlist for the 2025 Close-Up Photographer of the Year
- Goodbye Farmer's Almanac
- Tim Minchin's on the importance of art
- Berghain by Rosalia featuring Bjork & Yves Tumor
- The Art of Atari
- AI is Dunning-Kruger as a service
- When Stick Figures Fought
- A nearly-complete archive of Whole Earth publications
- The world's largest spider web
JOURNAL
We closed The Shark is Broken this week. It was an honor and a joy to be involved in this one. The kids came up to see the closing performance.
My time this week has continued to be consumed by God of Carnage rehearsals, including sourcing props, building vomit mechanisms (spoilers!), and baking clafoutis (which one of the cast described as an “apple omelet”).
It’s November! That means it’s time for my annual Thanksgiving burrito from Burrito Union!
I voted this week. I hope you did too.
I spent a couple of days working with talented and hilarious multi-hyphenate, Amber Burns, along with other fantastic local artists on a series of funny videos about choreographing a dance to “save the turkeys”. Make sure you come to Drinksgiving at Zeitgeist if you want to see this awesome nonsense!
What I watched:
- Crookyln (1994). Spike Lee making a smaller personal piece about being a kid in Brookly in the 70s. Alfre Woodard and Delroy Lindo are great, and Zelda Harris as Troy is outstanding. I totally blamed the smashed aspect ratio when Troy goes to stay with her family in the south on the streaming service I was watching. (It was intentional.)
- The Cameraman (1928). I thought for sure I had seen this Keaton feature where he is trying to be a newsreel cameraman, but I'm pretty sure I hadn't. A monkey working as both an assistant camera operator and chaingunner in a gang war, and a dressing room scene for the ages.
- Weapons (2025). Well that was bonkers. I had avoided most of the conversation about this movie, so I didn't realize that it was episodic. That structure worked well. I'm not generally a horror guy, but I'm a fan of inventive, well-crafted art--so more movies like this please.
What I’m reading:
FINISHED: What Art Does by Brian Eno. I snacked on this whimsical “unfinished theory” throughout the week as I had a minute free here or there. If I had read straight through, it would have taken about thirty minutes. “Play is how children learn; art is how adults play”, “Civilization is shared imagination”, “If we don’t learn to make a balance between control and surrender, if we only know how to control, we end up in a world shrunken to the bits that we can still control. The raw wild world develops and leaves us behind, playing Solitaire on our phones”.
MEMORIES
Ten Years Ago:
Ten years ago, I was writing a series of comics for QONQR with the incredibly talented Joey Vazquez doing all the art and lettering. I found him on Deviant Art and QONQR was one of his first professional gigs. He has gone on to be a very successful comic artist working for Marvel.
Fifteen Years Ago:
Fifteen years ago, Corey was playing a punk rock embodiment of Death in a show at TItW.
Twenty Years Ago:
Twenty years ago, Jody was frequently running Scrapbooking retreats for family, friends, and clients.
MY FAVORITE QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."
-- Carl Sagan
That’s it for this week. Stay safe, friends. Thanks for reading!