#51 Wag-toting lick machine
Issue #51 Wag-toting lick machine
1st March 2023
Greetings from Amsterdam!
IMPRO Amsterdam is in full swing and remains an utter delight. The festival has relocated from its former central location to Amsterdam-Noord - a perfect fit for improvisers. Noord is a redeveloped wharf area which is now home to artists, cool restaurants, theatre spaces and a crane that is a hotel.
There is also a boat that is a hotel.
Everything that used to not be a hotel is now a hotel.
I am brimming with hope and inspiration. The improv has been hilarious and dramatic. The people have been warm and fascinating. I am thinking of turning my shed into a hotel when I get home.
If I had one recommendation, it would be to go to IMPRO Amsterdam. However, I have three recommendations ...
Rule of three
[Book] Dogs of War
Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky is about a lovely dog, Rex, who is also a bio-engineered, gun-toting killing machine. Now, obviously I am biased because of my own lovely dog (who is a wag-toting lick machine) but I find the main character incredibly charming and relatable. The level of imagination and craft on display is breath-taking. There's a mind-blowing concept on almost every page. One of Rex's comrades is a dispersed intelligence made of bees. If you like that idea, I think you'll dig the whole book.
[Music] Bob the Drag Queen
I've never been an avid fan of Drag Race but I love Bob the Drag Queen. This week I was introduced to GAY BARZ, a rap cypher that, as the kids would say, doesn't need to go this hard.
[Tech] Chat GPT is a blurry jpeg of the web
Ted Chiang wrote the short story that Arrival was based on. He's a fantastic writer. In this article, he talks cogently about the opportunities and perils of the recent explosion in Artificial Intelligence and machine learning. If you are cash-strapped, you can use an incognito window or 12ft ladder to get past The New Yorker's paywall.
Spotlight
I've cautiously booked a venue in central London for a two day intensive on the weekend of 15th/16th April. The idea is to explore the kind of improv that I'm most interested in - deep, grounded, emotionally-connected scene work. I'm unsure whether there's an appetite for such a course. If you think you might be up for it, please email me an expression of interest (entirely non-binding of course) and if I get enough replies I'll put the course online next week. Thanks for your consideration.
Longform thoughts
I don’t want to be someone with a fixed notion of what a fellow artist can achieve. I want to give everyone a thousand thousand chances to be astonishing.
This week, I talk about growth and updating your old mental models in A thousand thousand chances.
Radio days
Meanwhile, back in the UK, Radio is looking out of the window, wondering where we are.