On Improv and what makes a good one of it

I got home ten minutes ago, at 4:31 am. Crossing the small clear field on the way I looked up at a blanket of clouds over the sky. I stopped and pretended that was the ground and I was a long ways off from where I should be. The ground I mean.

But I'm nuts about the sky; flying into BC some four or five years ago it was like we had climbed onto another level of sailing, surrounded by an ocean of cloud, with the mountain tops serving as islands.

The summer of my 17th year when I was at that army cadet band camp I was on the phone with my mom and was telling her how the sky looked like it was a moth eaten blanket- if I'm remembering correctly she said I sounded like a writer.

Have a bit of a headache, but that's because I'm up past my bedtime of "whenever is responsible". So, what am I doing out so late young man? I was downtown at a friends place paying some Super Smash Brothers Brawl. And by some I mean hours and hours. I got sucked in... and there went my subway chances. I threw on my sweater and said "okay, one more, then I have to go". But then I LOST (can you believe it?) and kept on losing?

So, two hours later I leave the house. It was still a pretty nice visit, I hadn't seen those guys in a while.

And when I left I found on the ground outside (this is just north of Bathurst and Bloor a block or two) an almost completely unwritten in leather bound (or faux leather? it was nice, whatever it was. what am I saying "was" for- I obviously picked it up and took it home with me) day planner for 2005. It's definitely a curiousity, with its empty dates and random structural outlines of the human ear. If I'm sane I'll throw it out myself soon.

Big if.

And no, there wasn't any name or anything in it, so it wasn't getting returned.

Before meeting up for Smash bros I was at an improv show- it had three teams in competition with each other. The first and third groups were meh- BUT I was laughing a TON with the second group. The best improv groups (and this is what amazes me about their craft) create a mini world, mini narrative on the spot, forming a quick relationship with the audience so that with every shift in character and setting it is still performed in reference to what has come before: so that when in the first sketch you can talk about programing a computer with the coordinates for a flying gun to assasinate someone, then have, six sketches later, a flying gun show up as a reference to your own show- I love that. It's great, and only the best troupes accomplish it as far as I've seen, which is a shame.

This one guy on that second improv team, there was a sketch where he was a prisoner to this one crazy woman, and so he has to go out on a date with her and try and make sure she doesn't lose it and kill him, so he was always saying really nice things to her, then quickly and slightly under his breath "hahabutseriouslyyou'recrazy" or he'd do the reverse, say something insulting to his kidnapper then when she'd notice he go "what, no, what? I'm having a great time! Ha ha".

This guy was the master at that nervous hmm, not sure what I'd call that. As a placeholder I'll call it "dramatic comedy" (my thought process here is to call it something along the lines of "dramatic irony" which could technically also work for what I'm describing, but I wanted to be more specific in its effect).

Then in another sketch another guy was playing a male prostitute and the girl who'd played the crazy kidnapper in the sketch I just described this time played the really lonely girl that hired him. So the guy puts on a cowboy type accent (I'm sure there are several variations on what kind of accent this was that I could again be more specific on, but it's late) and so the girl up and asks him to change his accent for the evening. He goes russian, goes australian- but she keeps asking him to do different accents, and it's amazing, because instead of progressing a scene she's just working this improv guy over, putting him on the spot with these crazy demands, she asked him to do English, then upper class english, then REALLY upper class english, then 1700's english, then 1771 english specifically, while talking about "facts" from 1771. It was obviously impossible, and it was hilarious. Kudos to the girl for not following accepted improv form (in as far as I'm aware of the rules, anyhow) and just making us laugh.

But yeah, if you get one good group, that's a good show.

***

Hmm, a friend of mine is visiting in Toronto, I still haven't called her up to see if she wants to hang out for a bit- get it together Isaac! You will officially be a terrible person if she heads out before you've gone to say hi.

Okay wait, the chances of that happening are pretty good, so let's not say I'll "officially be a terrible person" let's go with "I'll have some 'splaining to do."