Joshua Zamrycki's Weblog

Exactly one week has passed since I asked for your help. And you delivered. Thank you. Here is how things have unfolded.

• I will not be cleansing any time soon. I really did enjoy the other times that I did this, but I am too concerned about my gums receding again. And that’s the only reason. I was actually looking forward to not eating anything for 10 whole days and greeting each morning with a lukewarm saltwater flush. I may still undertake some sort of a raw vegetable diet. I just really miss that cleansed feeling.
• Now that I’ve finished The Sopranos, I have filled my commutes with a combination of The IT Crowd (not as good as the second season, but still good for a laugh), State of Play (very well-made and intense drama), and Stephen Fry in America (it’s refreshing to get an outsider’s view of the country – and an eloquent one at that). Now that I’ve finished The IT Crowd, I’ll soon be picking up Firefly again after only seeing three episodes. So many programs, so few commutes to the office.
• In the end, I whittled my choices for a new camera down to two. The exact models weren’t important – I was choosing between an utlra-compact slip-in-your-jeans-pocket camera and a slightly larger but with a better lens and manual control prosumer camera. After reading countless reviews and forum posts, I found myself choosing between the exquisite Canon PowerShot SD880 IS and the robust Canon PowerShot G10. I struggled with this decision for most of the past week, violently swinging from one camera to the other on a daily basis. Until I read a review by Ken Rockwell that totally convinced me. I’ll be picking up my new SD880 sometime this week.
• Thanks mostly to the expansive reach of Facebook, I received many suggestions regarding a name for our new little boy. They were as follows (in no particular order): Zachary, Juan, Oberon, Wolfgang, Weenis, Pubert, Humphrey, Ricky, Sue, Percivil, Rosa, Barack, Murphy, Matthew, Joseph, Edward, Moon Unit, Elmo, Javier, Jordi, Thomas, Antonio, Pancho, Samuel, Max, Daniel, Issac, Oscar, and Bruno. I am no closer to a decision on this one than I was last week but, after all those suggestions, I will probably start avoiding some of my friends. I want something that’s neither too common nor too off-the-wall. We’re at four weeks and counting so I’d better start cranking out some spreadsheets and fast.

I donated blood at work today. I enjoy donating blood. For purely selfish reasons. It’s the best way I can think of to minimize the life-expectancy gap between the sexes. You know, because of the whole menstruation advantage. Anyway…

They quizzed me, sterilized me, punctured me, and sucked me. Sounds a lot more romantic than it really was. Then I was supposed to apply direct pressure to stop the bleeding. I saw other people do this while I was being sucked dry and it usually took about two or three minutes for the wound to heal and the bleeding to stop. After a few minutes of me holding the gauze on my arm, the doctor came over and removed my hand and then jumped back in surprise when he was met by an aggressive fountain of blood. He quickly covered me back up and told me to hold on for a little longer. Five minutes later the nurse came over to check on me and was met by a similar fate. (‘coagular‘ means ‘to coagulate‘ in Spanish!) Maybe I should raise my arm above my head while I apply pressure. OK. For about eight minutes. Finally the nurse came back over and removed the gauze. The bleeding had stopped. She prodded around for a second and, to nobody’s surprise, Old Faithful erupted once again. “Why did you have to go and poke me?”, I said. “It’s your fault now.” Arm up. Direct pressure – but not so much this time. The nurse went out for a coffee. Ten more minutes. That seemed to do the trick.

Yes, it took me more than 20 minutes to stop bleeding. But I was rewarded with all of the apple juice, cupcakes, Smarties, and sesame seed bars I could eat.

Looks like another cartoon that I worked on has popped up on the interwebs. It’s called Sincopats. I’ve only done a few episodes but there was a lot of interest at the latest international animation festival and it looks like we may be doing a whole season. I did the voice for the guy in the red shirt with spiky hair and the cop.

Respecting the artist’s original intentions and her desire to “keep it real”, I have refrained from color correcting, cropping, or altering in any way the following set of avant-guard “holiday” photographs. Aggressive and unsettling, they speak of the dark secrets that our souls refuse to acknowledge. And of the normalcy we have foolishly convinced ourselves that we maintain. Taken this Christmas amidst the vast hedgeless fields of the fens in Cambridgeshire, England, I present to you the photographic debut of the stoically brilliant Emily Z.

All of the photos in this collection were taken solely by the artist, often unbeknownst to the subjects. Created during a very dark and introspective period of her life, Emily’s magnum opus may be viewed in its breath-taking entirety by clicking on either of the following links:

The awesome full-screen slideshow
The more modest contact sheet view

And here is a special treat for all of you die-hard fans out there. An intimate, behind-the-scenes look at the master at work. A chilling look at a troubled youth (27 months) and how she would stop at nothing to capture the essence of her personal Moby Dick.

It’s going to be hard taking a hiatus from my theatre company and not producing any shows this year. Thank goodness someone else is taking up the reins. James and Josie (both featured in my last production, Fuddy Meers) have decided to co-produce a show this spring and I couldn’t be happier! James is set to direct and Josie will act. There isn’t enough quality theatre in English here in Barcelona and I know they’ll do a great job of it.

They haven’t decided on which play to do yet so, as part of the selection process, a small gaggle of actors convened at James’ place to read through a couple of scripts tonight. There really is nothing like a civilized play reading on a Friday night with copious quantities of olives, fuet, chocolate, and wine. First we read The Wonderful World of Dissocia by Anthony Neilson – very much a mentally ill Alice In Wonderland but with more sex and violence. Fun! Then we read Betrayal by Harold Pintor – stark and fierce, this is Pintor at his gut-wrenching finest.

As an actor, I would love to work on either of these pieces – Dissocia for its wacky dark fun, or Betrayal for its meaty depth and subtext. As a director, it’d have to be Dissocia. I just prefer directing comedies.

James and Josie have got a couple other plays that are in the running so we may have another play reading sometime soon. But it had better be very soon since they’ve got to start casting the play in a few weeks if they want to be ready for the June dates that they’ve already booked with the theatre. I’m gutted that I don’t think I’ll be available to audition seeing as how my family will need me at home whenever possible in the upcoming months. I’m still very happy that English theatre lives on in Barcelona.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on the Internet this past week looking for advice. Maybe you can help me.

• Should I start another Master Cleanse? I’ve been thinking about doing this again for a while now and the start of a new year (right after a gluttonous holiday season) seems like as good a time as any. Pros: I really enjoyed and appreciated the last time I detoxed, it’s healthy, I sometimes find both cooking and eating to be a chore, and it’s a challenge. Cons: I’m afraid of my gums receding like they did last time, I don’t want to risk losing weight, chocolate.
• What new TV show should I start watching? The only time I watch TV is on my commute to and from work. I just finished The Sopranos last week and am looking for a new show to replace it on my ride home at night. I reserve the mornings for my comedy programs so this should ideally be a drama, but it doesn’t have to be. Current options: The Wire, Firefly, State of Play, Life on Mars (BBC).
• Which new camera should I get? I am pretty happy with my trusty Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W1, but it’s almost 5 years old and I really want a camera with image stabilization and much better video quality for crisper kiddie vids. And it’s almost my birthday! The new camera has to have excellent image quality and be easy to carry. I was entertaining the idea of getting a DSLR, but I don’t think I’m quite ready for a grown-up camera yet. Current options: Canon PowerShot SD880 IS, Canon PowerShot SD790 IS, Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3, and Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX37.
• What should we name our next child? It has to be easy to pronounce by both my family in the US and kids and teachers here in Spain. And it has to work with Zamrycki, which is no small order. I’ve perused all sorts of books and been all over the Internet. When we were looking for a name for Emily, I was able to make a short list of five or six options that I liked but the final decision was rather difficult. This time, I can’t find a single name that I like! I find that good boys’ names are harder to find. Or maybe it’s just me. I got nothing. Help!

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…

Those were the only words I ever knew to that song. My whole life! And I would sing them with such bravado and feeling, until I hit the “kitten” part, and then I would just sort of drop off and think, “What in the world comes next?”. And I’d hum – like someone who trips while walking down the sidewalk and then pretends to start jogging, like they did it on purpose. So I finally decided to look up the lyrics. On YouTube. And since Emily was with me at the time, this song is now officially one of her favorite things. We must have watched it 47 times before we both knew it by heart. The “strudel” and “schnitzel” part took a bit longer to learn (we kept mixing them up!) but, in the end, we got there. Now we sing it on our way to school every morning, along with the normal morning repertoire which includes the alphabet, A New Way To Walk, Counting To Four, and selections from Georges Bizet’s Carmen.

On a related note, Emily is very proud of her new newfound ability to autonomously navigate YouTube. It didn’t take much. After getting sick and tired of pressing the Play button on command after each and every one of the 5 bajillion viewings of Five Little Ducks today (four was enough to make me consider hari kari), I showed her how a simple press of the space bar will start the video over again. That blew her mind and bought me about 25 minutes of duck-free downtime.

I finally got around to uploading some photos from our Christmas holiday at Jan’s parents’ house. I’ve already written a bit about what went down while we were there, so I’ll just go right ahead and get to the good stuff.

As always, you’ve got two ways to enjoy the photos:
Fancy-shmancy slideshow
Bog-standard Flickr set

I woke up this morning and my computer wouldn’t boot. This is very bad. I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to take it apart and diagnose the problem, but my gut tells me it’s either a failed hard disk or a zorched motherboard. Looks like I’ll have to do all my personal computing from work for the discernible future.

Public service announcement:
Back up your data RIGHT NOW!!!

Update: after leaving it alone all day, I returned home and she fired up just fine. And then she wouldn’t power down properly. I have no idea what’s going on. I’m using her just fine right now but I’m walking on egg shells. At least I was able to back up all my photos!

Do you guys celebrate The Day of the Kings where you are?

Widely known as Epiphany, January 6 has always flown under my radar here in Spain. I’ve never really seen it as anything other than the extra days attached to the end of Christmas that we get off from work. But that’s because I’ve never had kids before.

Here, El Día de los Reyes is all about the rug rats. This is the day that kids traditionally get their “Christmas” presents. But thanks to the commercialization of the holiday, everyone seems to be exchanging gifts on December 25 now. Anyway, kids are supposed to shine their shoes and leave them out so the three wise men know who’s been good and for whom they should leave gifts. Very sweet.

The presents are all well and good, but what really sets King’s Day apart is the rocking parade. Every single kid in the entire region gathers around the center of Barcelona to see the three kings, along with countless stilt walkers, belly dancers, fire breathers, animal trainers, and tribal warriors marching along the 5 km (3 mile) parade route, all the while waving and throwing candy to the throngs of miniature onlookers. Everyone scrambles and shoves to catch the candy as if they were throwing out wads of cash. Some kids who are tasked with tossing out candy from the floats seem to get real enjoyment from spitefully throwing handfuls at people as hard as they can. The place is a madhouse. They are pretty tasty, though. Oh yeah, and then there’s the camels.

Emily had a great time watching her very first Reyes parade. She spent the entire time either on my shoulders or in my arms. She would have been swallowed by the masses if I attempted to let her stand on her own. My back paid the price the next day, but it was worth it just to see her excited little face as she waved frantically to the passing performers in an attempt to get them to wave back. An Arabian princess blew her a kiss. It made her evening.