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Hi! I'm Zorikh. I started this site on 9/21/98
Alright folks, if you're here, you may have noticed that this journal page is a little old. Have no fear, I merely ran out of space on the page. You can see the newest entries on my new journal page and you can still see the earlier entries at the old journal page. This is all part of the continuing effort to make your exploration of this site more efficient.
2/26/2001: Good, fun, musical weekend. I and my girlfriend (a.k.a. My Reason For Living) went down to Philadelphia to see Eric Johnson and Derek Trucks play at the Theater of Living Arts. It was a very good show of very skilled guitarists. Eric hapens to be one of MRFL's very favorite guitarists of all time.
We also walked around South Street a little bit. We stopped in "Hats in the Belfry," "Beadworks," and another store where we say a 67 million-year-old triceratops skull and several more important fossils.
2/20/2001:I recently got back in touch with a friend of mine from Stuyvesant High School, Allain Atienza. We went out swing dancing with another old Stuy friend, Ivy, at Jack's Joint, a little place on 47th Street. It was great fun, a slightly different scene than the New York Swing Dance Society's Sinday nights at Irving Plaza. Not as many people, and more opportunity to actually meet and talk. The $10-per-person at a table cover charge was a bit annoying when there was so little else room to sit in the place.
Oh yeah, Allain is currently writing Z Lequidre and the Amazing Grendel Conspiracy" sort of the secret origin of my charachter in the time travelling adventure comic I've written and drawn. I recommend that you read the comic and then read the origin story.
2/10/2001: Just got back from the East Kingdom Bardic Champions competition. Didn't quite make it. Wait 'till next year!
2/5/2001: Another interesting week to report. First, on Thursday, I went to a reunion for my elementary school, Manhattan Country School. There I say several old schoolmates, including Lenny Jackson, Nick and Chris Colt, Robert and Sasha Wilson, Katie Whitney, Nicole Lamb, Katie Chevigny, Justine Bartos, Patti Brown, and the former Jeff Donahue. You can see by those who are linked what they've been up to.
On Friday night I went out to see my girlfriend in Pennsylvaniand we ate ata new restaurant in the Reading/Kutztown area called "Slappy's." Then on Saturday we went down to Media, Pennsylvania to see Dave Alvin and Chris Smither play at the Media Theater there. It was an interesting show. Normally I'm used to Dave playing at a bar like Mercury Lounge or something where everybody is standing and rocking and he's backed up by a band. Even when he's played acoustic sets like when he opened for Merle Haggard it's at a bar or club with hip, energetic audience. This was the first time I ever saw him in a theater, playing solo, on an acoustic guitar. The crownd was very much a NPR/intelligencia/educated/tweed jacket/wool sweater/brought the kids along/folk music corwd. At least as many of them were there to see Chris as Dave. Dave performed a lot of stuff off of Blackjack David and rapped about some of his experiences and opinions. He was using an electric tuning device for the first time. Being as he likes to change tunings during a gig, sometimes even during a song, it was funny to see him stop, tap his foot, re-tune his guitar, tap his foot again, and continue playing.
Before the show we looked around for some place to eat, not a difficult thing in the lovely town of Media. We passed by the recently opened Iron hill Brewery (which has an interesting web site,), but decided upon the New Orleans Cafe (which does not have a website). It was a good call by my lady, for the food was excellent! I had the ostrich, which was served with mashed sweet potatoes and a cranberry sauce, but it was a very special cranberry sauce. The ostrich was like beef, and it was cooked perfectly, rare, tender, juicy, and delicious! My lady had the Salmon, and for an appetizer we had a special crawfish tail dish with rice in bourbon sauce. Thi builing used to be a bank, and the decor was very creative, dressing the place up to evoke New Orleans with faux-gas street lamps, ironwork over windoes, and lighting that made it feel like evening-time.
The next day we had breakfas at Chef Alan's Restaurant and Lounge, with it's really good buffet. The we went to the Pagoda on the edge of town. You can see five counties from the top of that 94-year-old structure!
Stay tuned! Next week we'll be going to the Eastern Kingdom's Bardic Champions event!
1/21/2001: About a month ago, I got this e-mail from Magi21.com:
Within these pages you shall find:
Movies, comic books, history, the Society For Creative Anachronism, rockabilly music, Shakespeare, heraldry, theater, swordfighting, science fiction, and obscure sports.
"We are actively seeking a buyer for the company and/or content. Due to the downturn in dot com ventures over the past six months, this may take some time. We request your patience, and that you afford us three months to find a showcase for your hard work. Collectively, you have supplied a body of excellent tutorials and we would like to find an outlet for your talents and knowledge.
"If no buyer has been found within the aforementioned time period, all rights to the materials supplied to Magi21.com, Inc. will, of course, be returned to the authors. Should you wish to have the rights to your material returned before we have had the opportunity to find a buyer, please contact Magi21.com's office at Magi21.com, Inc. 501 Avis Dr., Suite 3,Ann Arbor, MI 48108, in writing so that we can address this issue.
Again, we thank you for sharing the dream. Your time, effort, and support are much appreciated.
Sincerely,
Jonathon Lin, President"
1/15/2001: I had a wonderful time this weekend. I had originally planned to go tothe SCA East Kingdom’s 12th Night, but my Queen of Love and Beauty really decided she would rather spend time with me here in New York. Normally, I would rather go to an SCA event out of town than do most other things, but I had not seen her here in New York in way too long, and too much of our time together has been spent rushing about.
So we tried to see “This is Spinal Tap” at The Screening Room but got there too late, we went for a walk in Central Park, visited Belvedere Castle, saw the Viking exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, saw Gladiator,” had dinner at a really nice Italian restaurant called “Sesso,” and had breakfast the next day at the Grand St. Bakery & Diner. Meanwhile the New York Giants beat the pants off of the Minnesota Vikings, 40-0 (incidentally, I found an amusing fan site for the Vikings). This is what I would call a wonderful weekend.
The Museum of Natural History here in New York has apparently gone through a lot of changes lately. There is a new wing about space attached to the old Hayden Planetarium called the Rose Center. The dinosaur exhibit has been completely redone, with new interactive features and an emphasis on the study of paleontology.
I found the Viking exhibit especially fascinating. There were many artifacts, some replicas, showing the lifestyles and explorations of the Norsemen. There were examples of many hoaxes, fakes, and mistaken identifications of evidence of Vikings in the New World. Among the most fascinating things were the actual manuscripts of the ancient sagas. They are done with such dedication it really makes you realize that before printing, there were people who really didn’t have anything better to do with their lives than copy books all day.
The final upshot of the whole exhibit seems to be that when the Norsemen met the Inuit in Greenland, it was the first meeting of Europeans and North Americans (by extension, Asians), or to put it another way, the first meeting of two branches of human migration, in the New World. Sort of a closing of a circle of human evolution and migration.
Apparently there was some interaction between the Thule, Inuit, and Proto-Eskimo people who had just gotten to Greenland and the Norsemen who had settled there. The Norse communities apparently were not able to adapt to the chilling of the climate that eventually occurred in Greenland and by 1450 had all left or died. The other peoples were able to adapt and wound up with some of the Norsemen’s stuff. One thing that stuck me was a tiny carving said to be a Thule carving of a Norseman. This made me realize that interaction occurred. It represented, to me, a person creating a representation of someone they say, thereby bringing home to me the fact that these people were as alive as you or me.
1/8/2001: HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY! Whew! It's been a big one! Just read through all the jounal entries and you'll get an idea. And the news isn't stopping yet! I got a promotion at work! I work for Georgeson Shareholder Communications, a shareholder services company in New York City. I've been a proxy gatherer, info dialer, inbound specialist, and more, and now I am a PMC toplister! If you don't know what that is, don't worry, let me just say that things are looking up for me here at work.
12/1/2000:After more months of work than I had expected, I have finished the first batch of tutorial essays on "how to create comics" for Magi21.com, the new on-line university. In fact, the first two tutorials are up now, with more soon to come! 11/7/2000: Well, another year of "William Shakespeare's Haunted House/Ship" has come and gone, I'll have pictures up soon! 10/11/2000: I forgot to mention how before I went to Pennsic I went to the Bethlehem Musikfest in historic Bethlehem, Pa. We ate drank, walked, and saw Brother, an Australian celtic rock band that plays with bagpipes and a deriggidoo (or whatevertheheck you call it) and The Red Elvises, an Russian rockabilly/surf/good time party band whose music can be heard in the movie Six String Samurai. It was a fantastic good time. Click on the names of the bands and the movie to find out more about them.
10/9/2000: Last weekend we had our first on-sit rehearsals for "William Shakespeare's Haunted House" on the tall ship "Peking" at the South Street Seaport Museum and at Belvedere Castle in Central Park. The show this year is going to be ever so slightly different from last year. We've got a lot of new cast members, many returning favorites, and me in a walking cast. Click here to see the schedule of performances for William Shakespeare's Haunted House and Ship."
10/5/2000:I have fixed the problems that were occurring in my comics, so you can now read the time travelling adventures of Zorikh Lequidre loud and clear!
9/23/2000: Two weeks ago, I went to the John Barleycorn event in the Canton of Northpass in the SCA. I fought in the tournament, went 2-2 (plus one bye) and got 18 out of 20 in the written exam portion of Sir Edwards challenge. Then we had the village pillage, and after a few engagements, found myself running through the woods towards the "village", and had just come face-to-face with an adversary when I stepped on a rock the wrong way. I went down with a sharp pain in my left leg. Because I could still move my foot and managed to ballace on that leg, everyone thought it was a pull or a sprain. By Thursday it was still swollen and turning funny colors. The following Tuesday I visited Dr. James Gladstone, a sports medicine orthopaedist. I didn't need a doctor to interpret the x-rays, though: a clean break, right through the fibula. There was space betwen the two pieces of bone. Since I had been walking on it, it was decided not to use screws, I was just put in a half-leg cast and given a pair of crutches (actually, I'm using the crutches from last year that I used when I had pulled my right medial collateral).
Now I have been cast, yet again, as Tybalt and Mark Antony in this year's edition of the Faux Real Theater Co's "William Shakespeare's Haunted House." I should be out of the cast just in time for openning weekend. It will be interesting to see how we can work this with what will undoubtedly be a weak leg by then.
9/6/2000: Well, another birthday, another year. This was a particularly eventful one. I was in several stage shows and independent films, saw a lot of the country, won a tournament and a helmet, had a "girlfriend transferrence," and got a start on a new writing career. There were some downturns, but I'm choosing to view them as opportunities to make improvments.
I found a review for "Two Fisted Camp: Mose/Das," on a New York theater website. I encourage you to go read it!
8/29/200: At the regular Tuesday night fighter practice at Union Square tonight, a crazy lady wearing dark glasses ran into the middle of the fighters and started yelling "don't hurt each other! No hurting!" She almost lefft but came back and interjected between two fighters saying "This is the 21st century! We are not retro! No Hurt!" She eventually went away, but then a cop car came up with a sergeant from the 13th precinct asking to see permits. He shut us down (we were done for the night anyway) and indicated that we may not be able to do this anymore. We did have a permit one year, but since a change in some office in the parks department, we haven't gotten a new one. The sergeant gave us some tips on what we can don, so we'll be back next week and see how it goes.
8/27/2000: Got back from Pennsic last week. A very interesting time was had by yours truly. I fought a lot, helped build some things, and served as courtier for her highness, Princess Isabella of York. I got a few pictures, not many, but I've got heaps from previous Pennsics. You can see some of them and the beginning of an article about Pennsic XXV here.
8/4/2000: After several suggestions and a surfing of other sites on the web, I decided to make my home page a little bit smaller and faster-loading by moving the links and webrings to a new page!8/24/2000: I got back from a week and a half at Pennsic on Sunday. It was an intrteresting and educational experience. There was also some good fun. I don't have the time to report on it fairly now, but there will be more details and pictures soon.
7/31/2000: I spent this past weekend adventuring around town with some old friends from France. On Saturday we wound up at downtime on Albion/Batcave night. That's one of the big Goth/Vampire/industrial/fetish scenes here in NY. Surprisingly, my mom was there and enjoyed the heck out of it. The band Cruxshadows was playing and were very good, bringing the black-clad and heavily made-up crowd to an excited frenzy. I also ran into and old friend, Joe Kern, whom I haven't seen in years.
On Sunday we stopped by the Lakeside Lounge, where Gravel Train, a band from Detroint, was playing. Before you ask, "Gravel Train" is not a pun on "Gravy Train," though I think it works well that way. A gravel train is a type of double trailer semi that hauls gravel and apparently is a big hassle in Michigan. They opened up with a cover of "See How You Are" by X! They played a set of great American roots/folk/rock etc. The leader, Mitch, thanked the both of us for coming and gave out free CDs to the entire audience (both of us). There was some banter between us. It seems that on Saturday they were in Washington DC playing with members of Lynrd Skynrd and Blackfoot. The Bass player had a picture of himself on his bass that looked like the picture of Bill Bateman on the Blasters "American Music" album. It turns out that Mitch is good friends with my favorite songwriter of all time, Dave Alvin. So after his set we swapped Dave Alvin and John Doe and Blasters and Civil War stories (it turns out that Dave's great-great-grand uncle or something died in Andersonville and that's why he wrote the song "Andersonville"). Maybe next time I'll join them on harmonica and we'll do "So Long, Baby, Goodbye."
7/19/2000: That's right, this is the last week of what will probably be your last chance to watch Zorikh Lequidre tread the boards before William Shakespeare's Haunted House this fall!
For those who don't know, I am playing the lead in "Mose the Fireman," a campy send-up of 19th century heroic comic opera inspired by a real-life 1840's Bowery Fireman named Moses Humphries. He rescues kittens from burning glue factories! He saves heroines from dastardly villains! He sings and dances! He hits his head on the ceiling and gets laid out flat! (Well, that was an accident, and the show went on, but with that low cieling over the stage, it's always a danger!) This show is part of a theatrical double feature called "Two Fisted Camp." The second feature is "Das Presley," the story of a bad Elvis impersonator who thinks his dreams of taking over the world are about to be fulfilled. The action centers around the Cafe Schweindhundt, a dive located somewhere between Cold War Europe and the Twilight Zone. The supporting cast includes Alfred Jarry, Klaus Blues, the Avant-Garde puppeteer, Dr. Otto, and Natasha Wolf.
This show is at Todo Con Nada, a.k.a. Nada, Inc., on Ludlow St, just south of Houston. Ludlow street begins on the south side of Houston Street between where 1st Ave and Ave A begin on the north side. This is the same street as Katz's Deli of "Harry Met Sally" fame.
(Show times deleted. The run is over. You missed it, you piker! Too bad.)
Ludlow St. is part of one of the hottest nightlife neighbrhoods in NY today, and my mom's coming to the Sunday show, bringing friends from France, Mexico, and elsewhere. So it's sure to be an exciting time, whenever you come. Don't miss it!
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