Since August...

Since August quite a bit has happened. I went to UCLA orientation (August), attended MAGIC Live!, which was awesome (August), had another stomach issue (September), fretted about school (September/August), and finally moved into my "new home". You can see photos of this on my facebook dot com profile. Hurray!

Also since August I've been having these exciting allergic episodes. Well, these have been a part of my life since it began, but around May/June it started to get worse as I had a change of allergy medication. I'm allergic to dust, pollen, dogs, mold, cheese, pine, you name it. I can go to a different city where something else is bound to be in bloom to make me sniffle, sneeze, or rash, which is often quite entertaining to those around me. So, off and on I'd have a couple of days where my hearing would dull or vanish altogether, but in August (thus this story being included in this post) things continued to slip downward at remarkable speed. My throat was irritated, and soon my Eustachian tubes were fully inflamed. My immune system is my hero, but sometimes my body tries too hard to fix my problems, damaging other aspects of my life. This time it decided to close my ear canals in order to protect my tubing. During this process, however, in my left ear water became lodged behind the wax build-up. This resulted not only in the complete blockage of hearing, unlike the mere softening of sounds in my right, and additionally in massive infection. All sorts of procedures were performed in order to unclog my ears and disinfect, all of which were very painful: fluid flushed in, peeling skin ripped out (seriously), drops, nose sprays, and tablets... In short, I'm back on allergy meds.

Now, here I am at jolly UCLA, which maintains its own host of stories, (many of which will be relayed here as soon as I'm done with my Spinoza reading,) and I'm living in what looks like a log cabin and is, in fact, surrounded by pine. Leaf blowers and lawn mowers have been ever-present, and my system most certainly has been feeling the consequences, especially today and yesterday. Though really, that's one of the only negatives thus far. I'd say that's pretty darn good.

Summer Rains

Sunday morning I woke up at 7:55am in New Jersey to rain beating horizontally across the hotel room window. It looked like a blizzard. 'Maybe my eyes are fuzzy,' I began to think to myself, but when I heard the rain I knew otherwise. It was like an old black and white film with the rain so intense and out of proportion to other sounds in the scene it seems fake. Seriously, it went there... For 37 minutes. Finally the storm lessened so then it only sounded like the Marine Corps was pelting the window with peanuts. 'How can rain fall horizontally?' I was still working through my waking experience.

Soon enough the lights began to fade in and out. The power generator was surging, setting off the fire alarm. 'Whatev's, I still have to fix my belt.' There was pounding on the door, and a young girl's voice came through, "Peoples! This is an alarm! You need to leave! Peoples..." She went calling down the hall. The hotel was being evacuated. I've never had that happen before. There were five fire trucks outside by the time we made it out. 'It's only a generator surge...'

So we head off to the airport, at least the rain had dissipated. To make a longer story short, our flight was delayed and eventually cancelled. We were on the waiting lists for all of the following flights, and there was a good chance of getting one owing to all of the other flights unable to get into Philly. I set up camp by a window, which was fascinating. You know how weather channels show cloud patters as they move over the land, well, that's how the ground outside looked... White masses circulating around like swirling soap in a bathtub. My goodness.

Hours went by, but we made it on the next flight, which was only delayed an hour, and made it to Greensboro, North Carolina, later that night. It hasn't rained an inch.

Summer Travels

Hey, so (many of my posts begin with "so") I just uploaded some Summer travel photos onto my facebook dot com page, and here's an addition that I neglected:

Tweet, tweet...

Well, it's early, I'm tired... I'm Twitter.com/KrystynLambert. I'm giving it a month, so we'll see how it goes.

Masters of Illusion Delusions

Masters of Illusion Season I has been off the air for a few weeks now, so in this century of instant gratification, it's been a long time. So I figured it’s now admissible for me to reveal some of the inside scoop of my experiences, at least. 

A few interesting tidbits: When I filmed the stage portions I had my appendix removed a about a week before. I mean, I was just out of the hospital, and filming under those conditions marked the first time I had gone against a doctor’s recommendation. 'Well, I can stand up, so I'm okay,' I decided. I had this intense abdominal brace on at all times, except when I was on stage, and it was still difficult for me to walk. It was such a bizarre experience. I’m still not quite sure how I pulled that off. It was totally worth it, though. I mean, those craft table gummy bears were good.

I filmed the street magic segments in three sessions. For the first one, I was called the day before, and told that I’d need a few tricks that did not use a deck of cards or a table. I had just enough material, so no sweat, I thought. We film, no problem. I was with about four other magicians. We’d rotate to keep the crowd present, and so we could set up our next effects in between performances. I came in with all of my scripts, etc., but the directors explained that in order to maintain the MTV Generation’s viewership, I’d have to scrap my lines in exchange for pure narration of my actions. Anyway, it wasn’t clear if FOX was even going to like the street magic bits, so the first session was sort of a test. However, MOI street magic was a hit.

Within a couple of weeks I was called again, and was told that FOX liked “that blonde magician” and wanted me on every episode. Um, well, it just so happened that that week I had the stomach flu. 'No big deal, whatev’s,' I figured, and I went ahead to shoot. Oh my. When I got to the studio to do the prelim camera rehearsal (which they started doing after the network decided that they wanted to air more street magic) I was told that I needed ten tricks to perform. “Um, uh, I’m sick, and I only have so many more effects that you haven’t already seen,” I felt like saying. Regardless, I was informed that I had an hour break, which, I was assured, would be plenty enough time to find four additional performance pieces. Haha, sure. But I did. Somehow. A couple of weeks later, the same process repeated itself, minus illness, and the rest is now, well, history. 

Not as Bitter about Twitter

Maybe it’s all of the fatigue from travel and shows getting to me, but Twitter doesn’t seem as bad as it once did. Skeptical of a respected friend joining the fad, I visited the website again only to realize that you can unofficially follow people’s posts. That is, read the posts without joining the online community. One thing after another, I was on David Blaine’s page, and found his Twitter technique to be interesting. Whenever he finds an intriguing link or takes an amusing photo, he uses Twitter to share the information. It is for that purpose that I started blogging, however with blogging, one is expected to have quite a commentary accompanying whatever it is being posted. While this is wonderful, sometimes there’s just a funny page that needs little explanation. So, for this, Twitter may be a good option.

Additionally, I’ve been running little experiments with my facebook status updates, and find that the reaction time from me posting to “friends” commenting is very short. I consistently find it difficult to believe that people care about my happenings, but apparently this isn’t always the case. Hmm.

Now, I am a bit concerned that Twitter will become too consuming, and I feel weird perpetuating something for which I don’t stand (i.e. human drama addiction), but you know what, that’s not where my addictions lie, and if people are going to maintain such life styles, practically, there’s not too much I, Krystyn, can do about it. I mean, I can see Twitter being obnoxious if all one posts is mundane tidbits, but I'm pretty sure there are ways around that, and furthermore, one is in charge of whom he follows.

I'll keep you posted.

Adventures to/in Buffalo

  It's really hard to believe I've only been out of Los Angeles for two days. It seems like a week. 

  My mother and I left for Buffalo, New York, for the Society of American Magicians convention banquet Friday, July 17th, at 9:46am. Our flight was at 11:48am, and we got to the airport without any issue, checked our bag, went through security (making sure to take all knives out of my purse first), got on board the Boeing 747, and waited. I mean, waited... Two hours. There was a mechanical problem with the plane, so we sat until it was fixed. (It's a good thing French Existentialism is interesting, because that's pretty much all I had to occupy my time.) 

  So, of course, we missed our connection to Buffalo from Chicago. It was about 10:30pm Central Time then. There were three flights to Buffalo the next day, two of which were filled, and one of which would put us into town too late for the banquet. After having a spontaneous Dixieland dance party waiting in line for customer service, we were put on stand-by for the 7:45am flight, and had tickets reserved for a flight to Rochester from which we could drive into Buffalo. American Airlines put us up in a near-by hotel, and sent us away.

  By this time the baggage impoundment had closed, so we were out of luck there. We were driven to the hotel with nothing but our carry-ons. "Aloft" is where we stayed, which is very chic, modern, and mildly ridiculous lodging. The house music was bumping, people crowded around small tables in the lobby, talking excitedly. A pool game was in full swing, and then the pool itself was in full swing, losing much water owing to so many swimmers, or rather, splashers. 

  When we got to our room, which was in the height of fashion, I'm sure, I tried to start this entry, and this is as far as I got, "I think I'm in Chicago. I'm not entirely sure." I ended up reading Bukowski's Post Office in its entirety. It's an amazing read, and I highly, highly recommend it. (I guess something good did come out of a terrible lay-over.)

  I didn't sleep too well, but at 5am it didn't matter. A strawberry yogurt lite later we were on the shuttle, off to the airport. 

  Only one seat was available on the 7:45am flight, which I took. Poor Mother, on the other hand, flew to Rochester, and then drove into Buffalo. She just managed to wrangle the last rental car the airport had to offer.

  The reason why I was brought to the banquet, as I have yet to reveal, was owing to the fact that I was the recipient of the Melbourne Christopher Most Promising Newcomer Award, which was a true honour. It is so special how magicians envelop youth into the community, and I feel like the phrase "it takes a village to raise a child" is largely true. 

  Anyway, it's late over here on the East Coast, or very early morning, as the case may be, and I think that for once in what seems like three weeks, I'm going to sleep at a decent hour. Tomorrow morning before our flight, which hopefully won't cause us any problems, we're going to drive up to Niagara Falls to go on the Maid of the Mist. I'll keep you posted.

Apparently I'm Fit

So there's this European fitness channel, LA Muscle TV, and they're online, too...

Well, on one of their latest webisodes I'm sure you can guess who's featured, especially since the theme of the week on this blog seems to be shameless self-promotion. Haha. 

Regardless, here's the link.

Autographs

Frequently I field requests for autographs. Thanks to the interweb and the U.S. postal service, Team Krystyn has created a handy-dandy way to facilitate this. Now all one has to do is click this link, follow the instructions, and tah-dah: a signed photograph can be coming in no time! Hurray!

"Visit Los Angeles!"

Well, it is officially Summer, and is has been since June 21st. 

Regardless, I've received a number of messages seeking advice about visiting Los Angeles, primarily about where to stay.

If you or a loved one is considering traveling to LA, please take a look the following links for some laudable (and award winning, for that matter) lodging. 

http://www.VeniceSuites.com
http://www.VeniceBreezeSuites.com
http://www.VenicePalomaSuites.com
http://www.AdmiralSuites.com

And if you're considering a weekend get away, or even a week get away on beautiful Catalina Island, why not visit http://www.TheAvalonHotels.com ?

"All the cool kids are doin' it!"

Our beloved facebook dot com news feeds have become inundated with quiz results. It reminds me of what drowns MySpace profiles, except I can't avoid them. To what is our virtual community coming? What do you think this represents?

Some quizzes are interesting though, but they're not on facebook dot com. I was perusing the Internet, wondering which dinosaur I should be (because, sure, I can be a dinosaur), and while I'm not sure this would be my personal choice, it's a good character match. I was informed:

"You are a pyroraptor! Similar to the velociraptor, you are quick-witted and fast, but your main weapon is your claw. Ok, I know you don't really have a huge claw, but think about it. A human equivalent to a claw is ambition. You are a leader. You are a traveler, too, and have experience with the world. You are wise and intelligent, and also love your family."

By the way, how cool is that picture? I mean, pterodactyls firing laser beams out of their eyes... in outer space! That's some crazy stuff, pals.

Oh well.

I have been acquainted with a local youth literary and art magazine, and in it are many pretentious pieces, specifically poems. Much of it is what one can deem "deep" and "meaningful" merely because of the faint resemblance to what actually does make something "deep" and "meaningful". (I mean, that's why its ultimately deemed pretentious, haha.) So my "bffl4eva" and I wrote a poem to comment on this phenomenon. It's been denied print three times now.

Oh my gosh! My life!

This is probably one of the most phenomenal events about which I've recently heard. A dear friend of mine actually experienced it first hand, as it occurred again this year. I cannot even begin to express how fortunate that human is, and how desperately I desire to have been there.

Zombies, as previously stated, are a substantial preoccupation of mine, and more literature and links regarding them will be published here soon.

"Did ya' hear?" cont.

So I read an interview with Rob Pattinson, and in it he talks about how he dresses down so that he's not swarmed with fans. He said, "The funny thing is that I’m always going around trying to look as inconspicuous as possible I find that people are always really disappointed when they actually recognize me. They are like 'Oh! At first I thought you were a bum, but then I realized who you were.'" 

Reading the rest of the interview brought me to his main fan forum, where there were comments left about this interview. 

In response to the quote I just shared, "Erin" wrote, "Poor guy needs a serious self esteem boost".

 Poor girl needs a brain with which to analyze information. The thing is, though, is that this is a shinning example of who posts on such forums. 

"Did ya' hear?"

Get this, I just heard (and credit to Max for telling me) that Krystyn Lambert got some form of plastic surgery in the last year (but we're not sure what), that there are two Krystyn Lamberts in magic (one who does street magic and one who does stage magic), and that Krystyn Lambert really is a married adult with a teenage daughter. 

Who knew?

What a riot. Magic forum rumors can be so entertaining!