Bowling: Ironic, Post Ironic, or Belief System

Tyler Stout’s The Big Lebowski poster [via Slashfilm]

The End of Irony?

One good thing could come from this horror: it could spell the end of the age of irony. For some 30 years--roughly as long as the Twin Towers were upright--the good folks in charge of America's intellectual life have insisted that nothing was to be believed in or taken seriously. Nothing was real. With a giggle and a smirk, our chattering classes--our columnists and pop culture makers--declared that detachment and personal whimsy were the necessary tools for an oh-so-cool life. Who but a slobbering bumpkin would think, "I feel your pain"? The ironists, seeing through everything, made it difficult for anyone to see anything. The consequence of thinking that nothing is real--apart from prancing around in an air of vain stupidity--is that one will not know the difference between a joke and a menace.

Roger Rosenblatt, Time Magazine, September 24, 2011  

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1000893,00.html#ixzz1XfB9aCeL

The New Yorker, September 5, 2011

how improv training helps you to play with your grandchildren or children or a nice nephew or niece

1. Agreeing with a two year old is better than asking questions. If you ask questions, they answer and the game stops. Example. Do you want Elmo to go to the park?
Child will say yes or no and then what.

If however you say, "I'm taking Elmo to the park"
The kid says,"Let's take him on the swings."
Now, you've got a narrative.

2. The "game" in improv world is what happens that is unique, strange, or remarkable about the interaction between the people on stage. Example...a senior partner at a law firm is so arrogant that he can't even compliment a junior partner without it being a put down. He just gets worse and the junior partner quits the firm.

With a child, the game is less complex. Examples....giving Elmo and non-branded dolls a bath. The game....shampoo in their eyes...they either get shampoo in their eyes and they cry or you are careful to keep shampoo out of their eyes. That is the centerpiece of each bath scene.


3. Props can work. My granddaughter  (2 1/2) picked up a ukulele. I suggested that she play "Twinkle, Twinkle little star." She played that. Then she became a song leader and made up words to the tune of "Twinkle, twinkle" and had the doll students standing up, sitting down, dancing and singing.

FYI...there 57 million google results for Elmo and and 6.5 million image results.

Here is Joe Pesci, playing with Elmo,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ05oOZiZOA

                                          Elmo in Don's Basement

Rebranding