Austin Improv

Improvisation in Art and Life- Stephen Nachmanovich
Dhalgren- Samuel Delaney
Best American Poetry 2005
Love is a Dog From Hell- Charles Bukowski

valetoile wrote:Improvisation in Art and Life- Stephen Nachmanovich

Hey, I just read this, too. What did you think? I found it a little New Agey for my tastes, with interesting thoughts cropping up every once in a while.

valetoile wrote:Improvisation in Art and Life- Stephen Nachmanovich

I found Nachmanovich's book engaging and inspiring four years ago. I keep meaning to go back to it and see how it holds up, but haven't gotten a chance. Same thing with Zen and the Art of Archery.

shando wrote:

valetoile wrote:Improvisation in Art and Life- Stephen Nachmanovich

Hey, I just read this, too. What did you think? I found it a little New Agey for my tastes, with interesting thoughts cropping up every once in a while.

I'm still in the midst of it. I like it a lot. There are lots and lots of inspiring thoughts in there, and it's nice to see things that are very general that reflect things that i thought of as specific to improv theatre. It makes me think more about how to apply improv to life, how to be in that state of open acceptance and flow and focus and ego loss more and more.

just finished Stardust by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Charles Vess. Vess, as always, is utterly brilliant. But i was overall a bit disappointed with the book. I love Gaiman and the language itself is amazing as ever, but the story and characters weren't very compelling. It felt like i knew exactly what was going to happen within the first couple of chapters. No real surprises. By far the weakest thing i've read from him.

finally breaking down and starting into the Harry Potter books. needed a bit of a Gaiman break after reading Smoke And Mirrors, Neverwhere and Stardust back to back. So i'll blow through the five Potter books i have before i start in on Anansi Boys. Only a couple of chapters into Sorceror's Stone right now. Pretty good. Better than i'd expected.

also got a stack of new comics yesterday. reading more of Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers, which is a really interesting modular kind of storytelling. Seven different mini series, each featuring a different character on their own adventure...but all seven together tell an even larger and more epic story. It's really quite fascinating.

Recently Finished:

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams
Neuromancer by William Gibson (hey, the opportunity had never presented itself before now)
A couple of random Clive Cussler novels
The Watchmen

In Progress:

Currently working my way through the Sin City graphic novels
Blood: A Southern Fantasy by Michael Moorcock

On Deck:

All One Universe by Poul Anderson

valetoile wrote:Love is a Dog From Hell- Charles Bukowski

I'm surprised that reading Buk doesn't make you spit black bile at the pages.

kbadr wrote: I'm surprised that reading Buk doesn't make you spit black bile at the pages.

I find that reading Bukowski just makes we want to drink...a lot.

shksprtx wrote:I find that reading Bukowski just makes we want to drink...a lot.

I spent many a night with a copy of Women and a nice bottle of scotch. Made for a good combination.

hammett fans, check out the glass key: the coen bros. lifted the setup and characters for miller's crossing DIRECTLY from the beginning of the book, and then just took it in a different direction once the story got underway.

my list:

halpern, johnstone, spolin
john keay's history of india
donna farhi's three books on yoga
david thomson's new biographical dictionary of film
madame bovary
survival in auschwitz by primo levi
norwood by charles portis
the chicago manual of style (yes, copy geeks actually read this)
arkham asylum
the flamenco academy (sarah bird's new novel)

with all the talk about noir and comics in this thread, i'm curious about how many of you have tried 100 Bullets by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso. and if you haven't, what exactly is wrong with you?

the_reverend wrote:with all the talk about noir and comics in this thread, i'm curious about how many of you have tried 100 Bullets by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso. and if you haven't, what exactly is wrong with you?

I have not. Good, eh? Have to add that to my list.

Did not know there were so many comics readers here, but that sholdn't surprise me. Can I just say, as improvisors, we should all be reading Naruto. Oh my god, it's so fricking addictive.

This is the anime Naruto? What is its relationship to improv?

I would desperately love to improvise narrative longform in the style of Miyuzaki (Spirited Away in particular). It's totally doable -- just gotta find an opportunity to work it.

ratliff wrote:This is the anime Naruto? What is its relationship to improv?

Well, I've been reading the manga, but yes. Basically, it's some of the perkiest storytelling I've seen in a long time, so if one is interested in narrative longform, there's a lot of stuff to cop. And since the characters are all ninjas in training, the parallels to improvisors in training is also interesting.