Oh Hai Mark! And Ice Skating in the City

Oh Hai Mark!
Last week Greg Sestero (Mark) from The Room came to Perth to promote his new book, The Disaster Artist, at Luna Leederville.



The first part of the session was a behind the scenes documentary about the making of The Room with interviews from a lot of the cast. It was really interesting seeing the actors describe their shock and confusion about the whole process, and it made me understand the movie a lot whole lot more (zero is a percent!). It seemed like the actors were constantly trying to find out what their character's motivation was, but the most they got from Tommy was to "just go with it" or "that's the twist!". The best example was Claudette's character (Lisa's mum) who couldn't figure out how to deliver the line, "I got the results of the test back, I definitely have breast cancer." There was also some priceless footage of Tommy Wiseau reciting Shakespeare for jeans commercial, what the hell is his accent anyway?



Mark then did a reading from his book as well as a reading with members of the audience from the original script of The Room, which was actually much more insane than the movie. One scene that was way more weird is at the end of the movie (spoiler alert!) where Johnny is crying and rubbing Lisa's dress all over himself; the script describes that he was meant to have his pants off and actually has sex with her clothes. What the actual fuck does this guy think people do in real life! Don't leave your clothes at his house.

It was a really good event, this is the movie that just keeps on giving! Mark is a really cool guy, I think he's definitely figured out how to make the best of a bewildering situation. I can't wait to read his book.

Ice Skating in the City
Yesterday we went ice skating outdoors in Northbridge! So much fun, and very trippy skating while the sun is out and shining.



You'd think it was impossible to keep ice frozen outdoors in the middle of a Perth winter... and you'd mostly be right. The ice skating rink had a decent layer of water on top of the ice which in a way made it more fun - you really had an incentive not to fall over! I felt sorry for all the kids falling down and getting up with drenched bottoms, but they didn't seem to care one bit and got straight back up onto their penguins!

We got there a bit early while the session before ours was still running to scope it out and also get a drink at The Lodge. We noticed that there was a lot of water, especially towards the center of the rink, but people were still managing to skate pretty decently. We thought that when the session ended the staff might squeegee the ice down to get rid of some of the water, but instead their solution was to slide a big Christmas tree in the center of the ice to conceal the big pool of water, very resourceful!





We got our skates on and joined the crowd of kids on the ice for a gentle skate. Despite the surface of the ice and the crowd it was heaps of fun. We managed to get in some fast skating and test out the ice properly at the end when the crowds died down.





Definitely a do again. I think that the rink they had set up at Fremantle a couple of years back was better (bigger and more frozen), but the location of the Perth rink was really cool. Dim sim in the morning, ice skating and a drink at the Mechanics Institute in the afternoon makes for an awesome Perth winter Sunday.

Quick Recipe for a Sushi Costume

My mum and I made this costume for a Japanese themed party we went to. When I say my mum and I, I mean my mum mostly did it and I helped hold the scissors.

Ingredients:

• Salmon: Section of orange felt material
• Rice: White electrical tape
• Rice: White dress (or top and pants)
• Rice: White stockings
• Nori: Green (or black) belt (or scarf)
• Wasabi: A green streamer roll

Method:

• Fold the orange material up into a rectangle that fits comfortably on your back. I originally intended to use an orange pillow but found it was too big and heavy to wear
• Use the white electrical tape to draw V shapes to represent the fat in the salmon. We cut the tape in half lengthways because it was quite thick to start with
• Before you wrap yourself up with the scarf, slip a lacky band through the scarf that can be used to attach the green streamer
• Get a partner to sushi roll you!

Sorcova

I recently thought about something from my childhood that I hadn't thought about for years. It's a Romanian custom called "sorcova" where kids use a decorated... thing... called a sorcova to tap adults on the shoulder while they recite a special poem in exchange for money on the 1st of January. Why not!

I was a bit young to understand the whole thing, in particular the money part, but I remember really trying hard to remember the poem which didn't make a whole lot of sense.

The poem goes like this in Romanian:

Sorcova vesela
Sa traiti sa-inbatraniti
Ca un mar ca un par
Ca un fir de trandafir
Tare ca piatra 
Iute ca sageata
Tare ca fieru
Iute ca otelul
La anu si la multi ani

I realised just how little sense it made when I tried to translate it into English (sorcova is the name of the decorated thing):

Sorcova, happy sorcova,
Wishing you to live and to grow old,
Like an apple, like a pear,
Like a single rose,
Hard like a rock,
Fast like an arrow,
Hard like iron,
Fast like steel,
To the new year and many years to come

Confusing isn't it! One of those things you don't question until you're older and remember it was weird.

My mum managed to find the sorcova and it's still in OK shape although missing some of the parts I remember, including a little man figurine in the center. I remember thinking it was really beautiful when I was little, and maybe it's the nostalgia or the peacock feathers but I still think it's really pretty!



Mina with the sorvoca:


Happy sorcova everyone!