vote!

So excited to learn that my brother, Frank Little, is up for artist of the month at Renderosity. He does amazing things with computer art, and one of the things that I especially like about his work is that it's so much more than just a lovely and intriguing visual. It's all a part of a world he's created. You can even see a map of the place on his gallery.

Check him out and vote for him, eh? Renderosity is quick to create a user name for and free. You can click here to go directly to the voting page. It has link to all the artists up for the November artist of the month, and Frank is FCLittle.

Took me a while to find the place to vote, but somewhere under the part with the little bars showing the percentages of the current voting, there's a little line that says log in and vote... or something. Anyway, vote, vote, vote! His work is graceful and unique and subtle in ways that most of the other stuff I see just isn't. Here are a couple more examples of his work...




Also, you can click here for an earlier blog post on his work, plus my tattoo, which is written in one of the languages from his world.

the body show benefit: spotlight on brad fortier

It's number four in my series on stealing things off of Nora Robertson's website to shamelessly promote The Body Show Benefit, an event I'll be reading in, along with some amazing writers and performers, on Wednesday, November 3rd. Come on, people! Donut-eating contest! OK, the next voice you'll hear will be Nora...


Brody Theater’s Brad Fortier recently was invited to Amsterdam to give a talk on the Anthropology of Improvisation for the 2010 Applied Improvisation Network conference. Besides being somewhat jealous of his being in Europe, where they serve fries with mayonnaise, I also was super intrigued by his interview on the anthropological roots of improvisation.

Check it out here.

Brad is something of an anthropologist, in fact. Brad holds an MA in Interdisciplinary Studies from Portland State University focused on the anthropology of improvised theater. His book, Long-Form Improvisation: Collaboration, Comedy and Communion, is a social science analysis of, well, long-form.

As an anthropologist, Brad bounces between doing archaeological contract work for Willamette CRA and continuing his ethnographic studies of improvised theater. His performance career has included shows in the US, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, and Slovenia. He is also known for his duo work with Fort Hal and Uncle Trouble with comedy partner Nate Halloran. Brad can also be found onstage with Icarus and, occasionally, Funnybusiness PDX. He is the Education Director for the Brody Theater in Portland, where he has been teaching since 1998. Brad has also directed several shows for the Brody Theater: The Bards - an improvised musical, Generic Hospital – an improvised soap opera, and Starhole 3060. He also directed “SexyNurd” in Portland’s 2010 ‘Fertile Ground’ Festival of new works.

For more of Brad’s work, check out his collaboration here with director Alden Morgan, or, on a more frivolous note, come see him eat doughnuts stylishly for the Body Show Benefit’s Voodoo doughnut eating contest, Wednesday, Nov. 3rd, Someday Lounge, door at 7PM, 7:30-9:30PM, $5-15 donation

color

Blue + White = Light Blue... Blue + Black = Dark Blue.

Green + White = Light Green... Green + White = Dark Green.

Purple + White = Lavender = Light Purple... Purple + Black = Dark Purple.

Red + White = Pink, only Pink, never Light Red, only Pink, which I find hilarious and confounding.

Yellow + Black = some color that you might mistake as Green and you might mistake as Brown but no one would ever call Dark Yellow. I love that color.

sniff #2

When I linked my post on favorite tear-jerkers onto Facebook, I asked the group at large what their favorite tear-jerkers were, and I enjoyed those comments so much I thought I should incorporate them into a tear-jerkers post number two.

You know you're going to get great responses when you have so many friends who are smart writers and smart readers.

To start things off, I said:

"First that came to mind for me was when we were in the car on an hour drive and I was weeping uncontrollably, reading the end of Of Mice And Men. I don't think that story was what taught me how luxurious sadness can be, but it sure reinforced it."

#

Right away, writer Evelyn Sharenov weighed in with: Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. In fact, if you click into her webpage, you'll see that she has it listed there first under her favorite books. Evelyn is also nonfiction editor of Thumbnail Magazine.

#

My Mom said:

"I remember that day, Gi.. we were on our way to Northridge, just the two of us, to go with Kat and Heather to a fancy dinner.. Some women's charity event, I think.. and you were just dissolving in the seat next to me... for me, hmm.. there have been many over the years.. I remember a pretty good cry reading Sophie's Choice.. all you kids were little and I recall being obsessed with the horrible concept.. that was during a period when I read many many books about WW II... probably cried a lot..."

#

Monica Drake (who's best known for Clown Girl) said:

"Of Mice and Men never quits being absolutely heart breaking. Another is The Dollmaker by Harriette Arnow."

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Evelyn Sharenov jumped in again:

"Gigi - I read your blog entry - I reacted the same way to Garth Stein's Racing In The Rain (I have a shelf of books about dogs that I refuse to read because I know I'll be reduced to tears at the end - Merle's Door is one of those as well); Sophie's Choice comes in my top five tear-jerkers."

#

Fellow Dangerous Writer Brad Rosen said:

"I also cast my vote for Of Mice and Men. A haunting sadness. Also The Prettiest Girl in Town by Burkowski comes to mind. You can feel his personal pain through his prose."





















of mice and men movie poster

My aunt Kathy wrote:

"Oh.. Yes.. I had forgotten the impact Of Mice & Men had on me.... and about the same age.. when I was about 12-13... I read The Diary of Anne Frank and that was HUGE for me. as well.... I am such a wimp that just about anything that portrays true human cruelty towards any weaker creature or person just dissolves me... then I also cry at happy triumphant stories of overcoming adversity etc.. so I'll pretty much cry at anything!!"

#

One last side note: I hadn't remembered where we were going that night that I finished Of Mice and Men - I was too deep in the book to remember much about my surroundings - but sounds from my mom's post like it was the night we went to a dinner for the National Organization for Women. Same night I accidentally on purpose bumped into speaker Barbra Streisand so that we could brush shoulders in the bathroom...

hidden

So, I realized this morning one of the coolest things about the movie Killer Bait. Which I saw under the title of Too Late For Tears, but how can someone call a film noir Too Late For Tears...


I love this film--well, half of it. The half that consists of Lizabeth Scott and Dan Duryea and Arthur Kennedy I love love love. The half that consists of Don DeFore and Kristine Miller is limp limp limp. But the man crush I have on Lizabeth Scott

and the girl crush I have on Dan Duryea

so make up for it that when I think about that movie, all I think is I love it. Then I think, oh yeah, there's the stuff about the sister. And then I forget about that stuff and want to put the DVD on.

Anyway, suddenly it occurred to me this morning that one of the coolest things about that film is that Jane Palmer (Lizabeth Scott), who wants so much to have money so that she can wear lovely dresses and furs and not feel poor and worthless around other people, has to hide the lovely dresses and furs she buys with her ill-gotten gains under the sink in the kitchen so her husband won't find out... so even with all the money, she doesn't even have what she really wants.

Nice.

spotlight on the body show benefit: girl in cake

Less than two weeks from the Body Show Benefit, and over on Nora Robertson's website, she's included an excerpt from the story I'll be reading, along with a graphic I put together in a frenzy of frosting and photoshopping, to commemorate the upcoming event. [The next voice you hear will be Nora's...]


A woman decides to jump naked out of a cake to surprise her husband for their anniversary, and quickly ends up baking hundreds of sheet cakes. Gigi Little’s writing has appeared in the anthologies Portland Noir and The Pacific Northwest Reader, and she has written and illustrated two children’s picture books, Wright Vs. Wrong and The Magical Trunk. She works as In-Store Merchandising and Promotions Coordinator for Powell’s, and before moving to Portland, she spent fifteen years in the circus. To hear more of this story, check out Gigi at the Body Show Benefit, Nov. 3rd, door at 7PM, 7:30-9:30PM, $5-15 donation.

EXCERPT

I never thought I’d be the kind of person who’d like frosting a cake in the nude. But, oh, I do. First is the smell of the sugar all around. Then there’s the way it feels. Trust me, if you think running a knife along frosting is kind of sensual, try doing it with nothing but air against your skin.

I say cake, but actually this is one of those giant novelty cakes a girl hides in and then jumps out of in a pink teddy. Or in my case, naked. Naked because today is our fifth wedding anniversary, and I don’t just want to celebrate, I don’t just want to give Andy a little surprise. I want to make an exceptional gesture.

That’s what he called it when he bought me that dress, the red one that cost like five hundred dollars. He could have bought me the sweater I asked for, but he wanted to make an exceptional gesture. So, this year, I’m doing something special for him. Something classy. I’ve got a bottle of thirty dollar champagne and the table in the corner is set with silver and candles. I constructed this cake all by myself—could have rented it from a costume shop, but then it might not have even had real frosting and definitely would not have been an exceptional gesture—at least not nearly exceptional enough.

Almost seems like I should open the champagne and have a tiny toast before Andy gets here. Because, if I do say so, this cake looks great. Well, mostly it looks like I frosted the washing machine. I tried to make it round, but somehow it came out with corners. Oh, it’s way wider than a washing machine and goes all the way up to my chin, so even if it’s not completely cakelike, at least it’s enormous. Guess it’s also kind of lopsided. But as soon as I decorate it with rosettes, it’ll be perfect.

I take the knife across the living room to the table. Balance it butt-end on the edge so the icing won’t get all over the tablecloth. The bottle is hard and a little wet—I twist the cork, let it pop, and wow—I never noticed before, but opening champagne is sort of suggestive of something. I don’t want to smudge the crystal glasses, so I swig right from the bottle. Shimmery crisp. A different sort of sensual from the soft of the frosting knife, different from the chill air on my skin. It’s an icy prickle of sexy in my mouth, so I’ve got to take another swig.

Frosting a cake naked does take some restraint. If you’re not careful, you might end up wanting to roll your body all over that smooth, lovely frosting. So I step back. Just in case. Andy’s not due for another fifteen minutes at least, but who can say when he’s driving all the way from Seattle. That’s the real reason I’ve got my clothes off. The minute I hear his key in the lock, I’m taking a nose dive into that cake. The thought that he could show up any second makes a tingle like champagne in my stomach. Makes me want more. So I go and pour myself exactly half a glass and take it back the couple steps to the cake. Then I drink it down in one go. Which feels a little excessive, but I have to keep my hands free for my work.

Usually these big novelty cakes are made out of wire and cardboard or something, but mine is an exceptional gesture. Andy always says I go overboard when I get excited, but this time he’s going to have to admit it’s worth it. How can a woman hope to be sexy jumping out of a cake made out of wire and cardboard? If you want to be sexy, you want to go real all the way. And what could be sexier than cake?

sniff

I thought it would be fun to do a display on favorite tear-jerkers. I asked some of my friends around Powell's what their favorites were--just to get a list of books--and all of the sudden I had all these great, tiny reviews, these personal accounts of relationships with books.

Here are a couple of my favorites:

Shawn D. on The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein - "I sent it to my mother last year for her birthday. When I called her a week later to see if she liked it, she broke down crying hysterically. At first I was worried that a friend of hers may have died, but through her sobs I could just barely make out, 'I loved that book sooooo much.'"

Kevin Sampsell on Happy by Alex Lemon - "Alex's struggles made me cry. Alex's mom's love made me cry. And when it was over, I thought about how grateful I am for everything and I made myself cry."

Had fun, too, with the graphic I made for the window...


I interspursed some of the little blurbs people wrote with some pulp novel images that I changed up a bit to go with the theme...