Bonzuko

I”ll let you know when to start combing your Netflices, lovely lurkers, but know that Team Bonzuko is involved with a movie being shot in and around Boulder and its environs. It’s called The Code. Jas is playing the Commander who disarms a bomb in our protagonist’s past, and Jenn is in charge of the blocking and stunts. Here’s the website for the project.   http://www.thecode2012.com/

Saw this Japanese wall-run moment on Regis & Kelly this morning. Well done, sir!   ~Jenn

The Denver Post review. Have you seen the play yet?   ~Jenn

Just this: http://cjonline.com/news/state/2010-07-21/notable_book_list_announced

Nice work!   ~Jenn

I was going to post a long, scintillating review of Murderer! here today, lovely lurkers, but then I realized a lot of what I wanted to write about would consist of spoilers. For a play that has some

bloodstain on the set

 delightfully surprising twists, I think what I’ll do is save my view till after it’s over, and post this review I  saw on facebook instead–it’ll encourage you to go see it, and then we can come back here and discuss it when we’ve experienced the twisty, bloody plot. Sound good? (thanks Luke Terry for posting this to your fb notes)   ~Jenn

Not very random. From Murderer, which Team Bonzuko is going to go see tonight. Break a leg!

Here: http://www.emmys.com/nominations?tid=141

No, I still don’t know how we find out whether our scenes of awesomeness got in. You’ll be the first to know when I find out, lovely lurkers.   ~Jenn

Great review here. Can’t wait to see you all and review you myself!   ~Jenn

You may remember last summer when I taught Freshman Comp I held a mini-essay contest, in which the student who won would get her essay published here to this blog as a prize. Well this year the class and the contest happened again. This year’s winner is Sara Armijo–well done!   ~Jenn

Book Review by Sara Armijo

Many avid readers have at some point experienced a dazed feeling after having their nose buried in a book for hours.  Some stories are so thoroughly engaging that emerging back into the “real world” takes time and effort.  The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami (1998) is a novel that can work such magic on the psyche; it can actually feel a bit disturbing. Some book reviewers might tout a book as a must-read, a story for the ages. In contrast, I would like to find the select few among my audience that will accept this challenge for the imagination. I would like to find readers that aren’t afraid of a story that requires mental power, that don’t shy away from having to construct a story from bits and pieces of things that aren’t written, and are energized by lingering questions long after a book has found its way back onto a shelf.

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle has three main interwoven narratives, but one of the most prominent characters is Toru Okada.  A search for his wife’s cat leads to a mind-boggling hunt for his wife and a peculiar exploration of his own nature.  It is a bit of an otherworldly detective story in which Murakami paints vivid pictures of Japan, both in the modern day and during World War II. His writing style is very fluid and simple; so that it is surprising that such complexity is nestled within his words. An example:

I turned toward the cat path again.  What the hell was I doing here?  Not one cat had showed itself the whole time.  Hands still folded on my chest, I closed my eyes for maybe thirty seconds.  I could feel the sweat forming on different parts of my body.  The sun poured into me with a strange heaviness.  Whenever the girl moved her glass, the ice clinked inside it like a cowbell. 

“Go to sleep if you want,” she whispered.  “I’ll wake you if a cat shows up.”

Eyes closed, I nodded in silence (Murakami 19-20).

 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami is not for those that wish to be spoon-fed a story, nor is it for those that desire a neatly orchestrated ending. Instead, it is for those that agree that there is more to this world than the physical, and that are intrigued by fiction that so poignantly embodies the messiness of life.

Citation: Haruki Murakami. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. Trans. Jay Rubin. New York: Vintage International.  1998. Print.

Pic

The Pleepleus gobo. Drink!

Please watch him responsibly, though. If you can. Just don’t drive, okay?

Zane Lamprey is the star of Three Sheets and the upcoming Drinking Made Easy, two TV shows that explore the drinking substances and customs of areas all over the world. Zane and his posse are now touring the US as part of Drinking Made Easy, and they just passed through Boulder and Denver this past week. In fact, the Denver show will be part of the one-hour comedy special coming up on HD TV. Team Bonzuko went to the Boulder show (in the lovely Boulder Theatre) and enjoyed the comedic shenanigans quite a bit.

What was interesting about Zane’s show was the amount of educational material woven into the comedy. Sure, posse member Marc Ryan had some classic funny stand-up revolving aroun ddrinking and also his Southern roots; Steve McKenna’s bit revolved around the cult phenomenon that is his name (just watch an episode of Three Sheets to understand what it means to be so drunk you’re Steve McKenna’d), and also took a lot of inspiration obviously from Steven Wright. And they had a man-sized monkey (Pleepleus) who explained the rules of the drinking game to the already-quaffing crowd.

But when it came to Zane’s turn in the spotlight, it was almost like a, well, like a science and history lecture, but not at all as dreary as that sounds. He played on the audience playing along with the drinking game, and he was really funny, but he also, well, talked about different alcoholic beverages, their properties, their origins, etc. But he was funny! He calls it “dump[ing] information (disguised as jokes) on you!”

Well done Zane and Co. Your Boulder show rocked, and we look forward to seeing your Denver show on the boob tube this fall. In the meantime, Three Sheets is in replays on the Travel Channel–check it out.   ~Bonzuko