Lindo y Querido

I suck at Scrabble. I thought I was pretty good at the game, but noooo, sir. I downloaded "Words With Friends" which is a Scrabble app for the iPhone and I haven't won a single game. I'm trying. I really am! I've even cheated a few times, using online word builders, but the closest I've come has been a five-point loss. 349 to 344.

The most humiliating defeat has been the most recent. I lost to jeremo95 by over 200 points. No, that's not a typo. Not twenty. Two hundred. Two hundred and two, to be exact. 392 to 190. I don't even know how he did it. He scored 40 points with 'gox.' 52 with 'whamo.' Whamo. He ended up getting two double word tiles with that. I thought I was doing great with words like 'faquir' and 'donga.' Nuh-uh. A small ravine with steep sides isn't enough to beat onomatopoeia.

WHAMO!

BLAM!

¡PUM!

That last one's in Spanish. Why? So that I could segue into the next paragraph.

My mom came to visit me this weekend. It was perfect timing because not only was the Latino Film Festival going on, but so was the Chicago Improv Festival. So many festivals, so little time. It all worked out though. We saw a few movies and then we saw a performance by IMPROTOP, an improv troupe from Mexico City. What does that mean?

It means I saw improv in Spanish this past weekend! It was increíble. In French, it would've been incroyable. But, as is, it was only increíble. It wasn't completely in Spanish. Since about 95% of the audience didn't speak a lick of Mexican, the troupe had to say things twice, once in Spanish and then again in English. Surprisingly, it worked out well. As opposed to doing word-for-word translations, it was more of a quick summary of what they just said, as if to emphasize their point. For example (18 POINTS!):


"Tictal, ¿qué estás haciendo con este hombre? No es un guerrero. Es un artista. Un poeta. Él no camina por la selva como el jaguar o brinca de los árboles como el lémur. Él no tiene valor o la fuerza de un elefante. Debes estar con un hombre como yo, Tictal. Vamos."

would then be followed by

"Tictal, he is not brave. He is weak. Let's go."

Which actually worked out really well because they had pretty thick accents. Also, I think one of the guys only had a basic grasp of the English language. His dialogue consisted of a very few words. Like "hot dog." Or "Yes!" That guy was my favorite though. Probably because he had a style similar to my own. Lots of physicality.

Not saying that every movement was made in an exaggerated motion. He just did a lot of physical comedy. When one of the other performers slammed a door, he was the door. When one of them put on a jaguar mask, he used his hands to form the mask over the first guy's face. His miming was impeccable. He started a fire and you could see exactly where he tossed the twigs, where the stones surrounding the fire were, how high the flames burned. It was magical and the audience ate it up.

I liked it so much partly because it was in Spanish, partly because of the physicality, but also partly because it was very similar to the shows put on by Slow Burn. It had a somewhat structured format, basically being a modified Harold with the organic games being replaced by "offerings" (written suggestions from the audience) to the Mayan gods. The three initial scenes were all intertwined, connected and wrapped up in the end. And the final scene culminated in the jaguar slicing out Tictal's still beating heart and then biting off a huge chunk. Just like in all of our shows!

A lot of the shows I've seen tend to be montages which is a nice way of saying "We're going to do several scenes which probably won't be connected in any way whatsoever!" And half the time, those scenes are filled with inside jokes that only other improvisors would understand or, even worse, inside jokes that only the people performing understand. Don't get me wrong, I've seen some that are absolutely amazing, but most of the time, some structure would help the show out a lot. It was great to finally see a show do something like that.

¡PUM!

At the Latino Film Festival, we saw one Mexican movie and then a Colombian one. I had low expectations going into these. Very low expectations. Growing up, I used to watch a lot of Mexican films. They mostly involved horses, long gunfights, la india Maria, and mariachis. I loved them, but Schindler's List they were not. This clip is pretty typical of the films I grew up on:



How times have changed. Cinco dias sin Nora was brilliant. Everything about it was brilliant. The cinematography, the music, the dialogue, the way the protagonist was developed. The only complaint I had was the cop-out cheesy ending, but I was blown away by the rest. It dealt with Jewish Mexicans! I had no idea they existed, but apparently they're a pretty prominent part of Mexico, even with all the Catholics.

Oh, Mexico. You're all grown up. I'm so proud!

¡PUM!