There are no bad ideas: August 2020

Sunday, August 30, 2020

Worth a Look

Here are a few posts from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time...

Commercials reopening in Hollywood but crews are worried

Los Angeles Times: For Lindsey Clough, June 15 was a memorable date. The wardrobe stylist celebrated her 38th birthday on the same day filming finally resumed after the COVID-19 pandemic had shut down production.

The Eagle Rock mother of two had spent nearly 100 days at home with her family, without even a visit to a grocery store. Then she was back on a South L.A. set filming a commercial for a big brand.
Posted by David at 8/30/2020 11:21:00 AM

Kansas drummer Phil Ehart on coronavirus concert halt hardships

www.cnbc.com: Phil Ehart — drummer, founder and manager of Kansas — told CNBC on Tuesday that the halt in concerts due to the coronavirus has had a chilling effect for the entire live entertainment industry.

“We’re all sitting at home. ... There’s zero income,” Ehart said in a “Squawk Box” interview. “We’re stranded.”
Posted by David at 8/26/2020 10:41:00 AM

Intimacy Direction in the Time of Physical Distance

HowlRound Theatre Commons: The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown into question how to make physical storytelling in an age of physical distancing. This time of uncertainty and unrest has also highlighted the systemic imbalances prevalent in the performing arts—such as who gets to make and be paid for their art, and who is kept on the sidelines, forced back into waiting tables for maskless customers.
Posted by David at 8/26/2020 10:42:00 AM

A day in the life of a custom balloon installations artist

Business Insider: I've always agreed with Winnie the Pooh: "No one can be uncheered with a balloon." Lucky enough for me, after years of working in the wedding industry I was able to walk away from my corporate job, fully embrace my love of balloons, and turn my side hustle of creating balloon installations into a full-time job.
Posted by David at 8/27/2020 06:33:00 PM

What Will We Do When Our World Returns?

TheatreArtLife My last day of work was March 13, 2020, and I’m still just as confused and anxious about it as the day our industry shut down. Since I was 15 years old, I have never gone this long without working, and I really just don’t know how to feel about it. I work in the arts because it feeds my soul, but can I afford that luxury anymore? Is it fair to ask me to get another job? Getting another job for me would mean getting another career, which would mean starting from zero, but I can’t afford to go back to school or pay for new training while I’m unemployed.
Posted by David at 8/30/2020 11:19:00 AM

Friday, August 28, 2020

DP Weekly Wrap Up

WEAR A MASK – WASH YOUR HANDS – WATCH YOUR DISTANCE

https://www.cmu.edu/coronavirus

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

The NBA had COVID right first. Maybe the NBA should be in charge. I hope the NBA doesn't fumble this. Tonight they sure look like they have their finger on the pulse of the nation... I've got three schedules for three classes, and the schedule for the fourth class is coming together - I've delegated it... That shooter crossed a state line for the purpose of committing a felony. That would make it a Federal offense I think. In less interesting times that would be confidence inspiring... Getting a new work computer tomorrow. Going to have to go to campus to get it done... The Hatch Act is a law not a guideline. Our system has no way of enforcing these laws. The system is seriously broken... We folded and bought another bookcase. Not all the books are going away after all. Now I have to do a round of un-culling... The other day there was an entertainment production news article about the Eco-Challenge Fiji race show on Amazon. Now I am watching the show so I can read the article without spoilers. That feels like the long way around... It is possible that messages on Facebook and financial donations are no longer sufficient. I realize I am late coming to that conclusion... I wonder if the RNC speeches will have the same COVID issues as the Tulsa rally or Sturgis. I hope they don't... Classes start on Monday, for me and for Gib5on. His teacher has started to make contact and get us up to speed. I'm glad to have the guidance. Still don't know how many hours of synchronous class he's going to have... Mrs. TANBI used the new upstairs hardline internet today. We've now got a second reliable workspace... I don't know how voters are supposed to navigate their choices when there really isn't good faith campaigning. Spin is one thing. This time around it is something else... Amazon cancelled Altered Carbon. I don't have a great record picking shows lately... The plan to offer the books for sale in batches didn't get any traction... They've pretty much finished repaving the street in front of our house. It'll be nice to wake up to something other than back up alarms... Two days ago that double hurricane scenario looked pretty terrifying. Now it looks like one will be more than enough. Stay safe folks...

Monday, August 24, 2020

Ellipses...

They paved the road in front of the house today. At 4:30 in the afternoon. With no notification. Kind of a crappy time of day to close that street... Going back to the diet next week. I don't think I'll enjoy it, but it seems like the right thing to do... I'm not sure how you can go in front of Congress, acknowledge that things are going downhill significantly and still believe you ought to keep the job... Hoping to be out of the storage unit soon, with everything back into our house or disposed of responsibly. I wouldn't bet on it though... We haven't even gotten the Fall bonus curriculum going yet and I'm on to looking at the spring. This week has always been hectic, but this year is extra special... If we'd known we were going to be working from home exclusively and that school was going to be from home and that daycare was going to be from home, if we'd known all that we'd probably have made different choices about our home... I think I am just going to monitor the convention coverage rather than watching in real time. That will likely give me enough of a taste to know what is going on... More and more I wonder if the nationwide coin shortage is due to some kind of malarkey in the bureau rather than the pandemic... Delete, delete, delete. I wonder if this will ever be like it was once? Probably not... If I replace my car, should I get another car or go back to a truck? Based on all the driving I do now I should probably be giving strong consideration to nothing at all... Just couldn't get in the groove today. I don't know if it is about being home or something else, but crossing things off my list is harder than I remember - and that's without the constant addition of new items... Gib5on's new teacher texted today with some instructions. I texted, emailed, and answered through the new app (that was what the text was about). I fear that we haven't gotten to the first day of class and I may have flagged myself as a problem... I finished "Sea Change." Pretty good book. Nice to read something dystopian that has a new slant to the triggering event... Haven't got my mail in ballot yet. Really wondering about sending it in once I do get it. I guess I can hand deliver it... I was watching the Penguins while they were in it. Then I thought maybe I would watch the Golden Knights, but I think I might have been too slow... No rain tonight. Should probably go put some miles in on the bike...

Sunday, August 23, 2020

Worth a Look

Here are a few posts from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time...

Houston lost 42,500 creative industry jobs and $1.6 billion in sales in 4 months

The Kinder Institute for Urban Research: A new report measuring the damage done to America’s creative economy by COVID-19 shows the South, Texas and Houston are among the most devastated. At the metropolitan level, the Houston area is the largest metro suffering the worst losses.
Posted by David at 8/22/2020 11:04:00 AM

Time for a Change: What If We Cut the Long Hours?

AMERICAN THEATRE: In late July, Baltimore Center Stage artistic director Stephanie Ybarra initiated some big steps to change her theatre’s practices in line with some of the anti-racist demands leveled by the We See You White American Theater movement, among them eliminating “10 out of 12” technical rehearsals—a practice that generally saw actors called to start rehearsal at noon, then released from rehearsal at midnight, with a two-hour dinner break in between—as well as a move to a five-day rehearsal week instead of the traditional six-day week and a commitment to pay playwrights for their time in rehearsal, among other changes. These, according to a press release, were steps intended to “dismantle the systemic exclusion and oppression of BIPOC artists, administrators, producers, and executives in the theatre industry.”
Posted by David at 8/22/2020 11:03:00 AM

In Las Vegas, the show cannot go on

CNN: In those long-ago days of early 2020, business was cranking for Adam Flowers, a former street magician with an enterprising mind.
The owner of a Las Vegas tour business that includes ghost and mob tours, Flowers had just teamed up with 81-year-old Frank Cullotta, an admitted former hitman for the mob. They parlayed Cullotta's violent crimes of the past -- which Cullotta says included murder -- into a schtick, creating a YouTube channel called "Coffee with Cullotta." It racked up thousands of views, which in turn drove visitors to the physical tour.
Posted by David at 8/20/2020 11:35:00 AM

The pandemic popped the balloon drop. Here's why we might not miss it

CANVAS Arts: For decades worth of convention-goers, an indoor blizzard of red, white and blue has been an indelible showstopper. When thousands of balloons cascade to the floor, it’s a moment when pure spectacle takes over political persuasion.
Posted by David at 8/21/2020 11:14:00 AM

Column: After this awful 2020, it just makes sense to start a theater season in January — this is our chance to change

www.msn.com/en-us/news: 2020: Annus Horribilis? The Worst Year Ever? If you are in the business of live entertainment, or consider the arts to be the bedrock of life in a great urban center, I will wager you’re all in with that.

But here’s another of the year’s fascinating potential legacies: the permanent destruction of the traditional cultural season that begins in the fall and concludes in the spring or early summer.
Posted by David at 8/20/2020 11:33:00 AM

Friday, August 21, 2020

DP Weekly Wrap Up

WEAR A MASK – WASH YOUR HANDS – WATCH YOUR DISTANCE

https://www.cmu.edu/coronavirus

Thursday, August 20, 2020

Ellipses...

That was swell, but really I was hoping for more... Riding through campus tonight it looks like there are fewer signs than there were weeks ago... Pitt extended remote classes a week past our schedule. Keeping track of this really requires something you can erase... I got 150' of Ethernet cable today. The weak internet availability in the guest room will not last forever... Do you think people would pay $1 per book for a whole box of sorted books? $20 for 20 Star Wars paperbacks? Me either. Books are Kryptonite... There's this guy I have come into class every year and every year for some reason he doesn't get emails from my work account so I have to email him twice, the second time using my personal account. Or maybe I am just an impatient noodge... Firefox doesn't think "noodge" is a word. Google says otherwise... I'm taking a vacation from my diet again. Being stuck in the house all day long I just don't have the discipline to stick to it. I'm not really even hungry. Just have to keep an eye on the scale I guess... Tonight I had the thought that maybe the administration should have told all of us to cut the workload for each of our classes in half for the Fall. I have the feeling that classes are going to be particularly draining in this mode. Of course, in that instance people might want to pay half... I need recommendations for replacement office chairs. The chairs in the home office are not "all day" duty. If you have one you like - that isn't a million dollars - let me know... This morning I played "Life" with Gib5on. On what used to be called "day of reckoning" in the current version you collect $50k/pet and $100k/child. I'm not sure the people that designed the game have pets or children. Or perhaps they don't really believe that the game should be scored with money... In the grocery today I was looking for Little Debbie Peanut Butter Wafers but couldn't find any. Probably a good thing... Also, they had Halloween Candy out. Someone should explain to them that it is August and that holiday is basically in November. That's a pretty far horizon in this day and age...

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

Four Things

Pivot to Remote

Colleges are starting their classes and just as quickly shutting down their campuses. First was UNC - Chapel Hill. Today there was news from Notre Dame and Michigan State. Carnegie Mellon emailed today to tell us that instead of starting on campus on August 31st we will be starting 100% online. That start will only last one week though and as of today our students will be back in their classrooms the following Tuesday. I guess it is possible that the schools that have had outbreaks are the exception and not the rule, but every day that goes by it seems less likely that in person residential college is possible under these circumstances. Two weeks ago I shifted my classes from hybrid to remote. I am still trying to decide if either of the Technical Direction classes will have shop based projects. There's a perceptible desire from the students to get in and get their hands dirty, but I can't decide whether I want to be the one that puts them in that position. Lately it seems like taking a breath makes some of these decisions for us. I'll see what the next week brings.

Different Interests

I don't understand why we're not getting more action out of the Senate. There's this established concept that people in government don't understand what the people they represent go through; that leaders don't know the price of milk. The median net worth of a US household is $93k. The median net worth in Congress is $500k and the Senate is probably significantly higher than that (a quick search failed to find the specific number). There's just no way the average Congressperson can really relate to the average person. It'll never happen, but it seems like there ought to be some wealth caps on Congress (and the President & Vice President). Maybe something along the lines of if you are worth more than 10 times the median worth of your constituency you are ineligible to run. That would mean that someone with a net worth of a million dollars could not be President. That would certainly disqualify a lot of people, but the ones that were available would likely have a better connection to the people they represent. (I also think you should only be paid the median annual income of your constituency too, but that's another story.)

Tales From the Loop

I finished watching Tales From the Loop on Amazon. It wasn't what I was expecting. The promos they run seem to cast it in the mold of the SyFy show Eureka. They show lots of scientists and a robot that looks like a scout walker and high tech gear and families and you get the vibe that it is a fun science fiction show like we've seen before. It really isn't. In some ways I thought it was a lot more like The Twilight Zone. It has a series of loosely connected, very small stories with fantastical elements, but it is anything but zany like Eureka. It is slow and deliberate and... sad. The soundtrack is often just a single cello and that absolutely meets the mood, expresses the tone of the storytelling. I didn't notice until the end that the composer is Philip Glass. Toward the end there's a scene where one of the schoolteachers asks one of the kids about a book she'd given him and he says he thought it was "sad, but beautiful." The writers were almost certainly talking about their work as much as the book in the story. Is it worth watching, sure. Is it what you're expecting, no. If you do watch it, reach out and tell me. I'd love to talk about it, but I don't want to give anything away.

To Do List

The first day of class - remote or not - is coming up quickly. This year has been sneakier than in the past as there is still a part of me that is sitting, waiting in March of this year. I know we ended the Spring semester and then moved on to an abbreviated Summer program and that the Fall is bearing down on us right soon. I know that, but I don't really feel it. We had an opening faculty/staff meeting this week. Usually the year kicks off with a cocktail of some sort that would normally still be a week and a half off. This year is obviously different. So the clock is ticking and I need to make my list. I've got schedules to do for three classes and then a mountain of PowerPoint decks to compose. I did 8 or 9 as part of the summer but I could be looking at more like 40 for the fall (that's the first time I did that math - that is a big number). I'm behind because all the work time I have had so far has gotten applied to COVID and RJ and BONUS CURRICULUM tasks. All the extra stuff has made it hard to dig down to the regular stuff. Time to get to that part of the list (I need a project checklist I guess).

Monday, August 17, 2020

Ellipses...

I took a week off. Did you miss me? Tell the truth, you didn't even notice I had stopped... We had a work meeting today about coming back to work. I didn't leave the meeting feeling much better about it than I did going in. Not a whole lot worse either... Screw the wireless. We've had enough. I am running Ethernet upstairs... The light on my bike doesn't appear to me to be doing much good. Thankfully I haven't been riding in the dark... I listened to the first night of the DNC. I don't miss the stuff that isn't there (although I would if I were trying to sell them scenery)... The "crowdsource" class has a name: "And One More Thing." If we do it again in the Spring maybe I'll call it "And One More One More Thing." Or maybe not... The median net worth of an American family is less than $100,000. The median net worth of Congress is more than $500,000. Maybe there's something there that needs fixing... MSNBC cut off Billy Porter singing. Guess I'll need to find it on YouTube... UNC - Chapel Hill reverted to 100% remote classes after only one week of school. The 2020 version of "The Old College Try"... I finished "Tales From the Loop." It looks like there's a new season of "3%." Maybe that'll be next... Finding a ride in my neighborhood that doesn't include climbs would consist of riding in a circle in front of my driveway. And even that isn't totally flat... The boy went back to Camp Corona today. We've got maybe three more weeks until school starts for the fall. We're still waiting to find out exactly how that will work, but we're confident we have an infrastructure to handle it. Fingers crossed... The announcement came today that Spring production will be remote. Now we're back to determining what that means for Technical Directors... I don't think you can paint it more brightly than "If you don't think things can get worse, they can." Now it just comes down to if people are listening... Those cube storage things from Target; they're not really intended to mount horizontally on the wall. Going to have to come up with a modification... I took the kids for a walk this morning and fully expected that when we walked by the mailbox at Wilkins and Shady that it wouldn't be there. It was. Today...

Sunday, August 16, 2020

Worth A Look

Here are a few posts from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time...

Berskshire 'Godspell' opens as a test for COVID-era theater

Los Angeles Times: It’s a musical theater production like no other, in a summer season like no other.

Masked audience members had their temperatures taken. Actors had their noses swabbed three times a week during rehearsals.

Now, opening night for Stephen Schwartz’s “Godspell” is finally here. Except not in the Berkshire Theatre Group’s 780-seat Colonial Theatre but in a 100-seat tent in a parking lot next door, with plenty of room to breathe easy.
Posted by David at 8/10/2020 10:51:00 AM

Walt Disney World and Equity Settle COVID-Fueled Feud

www.backstage.com: Walt Disney World in Orlando announced Aug. 12 that it will be providing an on-site COVID testing center for employees and their families. This announcement came after more than a month of back-and-forth between the mouse and Actors’ Equity Association, which had called for Disney to provide its employees with COVID testing, in order to ensure the safety of Equity members who work in the park. Disney World initially reacted to that request by not re-hiring the 750 union members it normally employs.
Posted by David at 8/14/2020 08:18:00 PM

"Le Reve" to Close Permanently at Wynn Las Vegas

vitalvegas.com: The inside word is the popular show at Wynn Las Vegas, “Le Reve,” will close permanently.

“Le Reve” is water-based, Cirque-style show (no association with Cirque du Soleil) and has been closed for several months due to the COVID-19 crisis.
Posted by David at 8/16/2020 04:36:00 PM

The Impossible Stream: Why You Can't Just Stream the Lincoln Center Archive

www.broadwayworld.com: After cultural institutions the globe over were forced to shut their doors due to COVID-19, theatre professionals and fans quickly sprung into action, tirelessly dreaming up new ways to get their theatre fix, or more crucially, to generate revenue in unprecedented times.
Posted by David at 8/10/2020 10:53:00 AM

Neil Young’s Lawsuit Against The Trump Campaign Ventures Into Legally Uncharted Territory

www.forbes.com: Since announcing his candidacy for president in 2015, Donald Trump has been using Neil Young’s songs in his political rallies—despite consistent objections from the artist. This week, Young filed suit against the Trump reelection campaign to prevent his music from being used “as a ‘theme song’ for a divisive, un-American campaign of ignorance and hate.”
Posted by David at 8/10/2020 10:51:00 AM

Friday, August 14, 2020

Weekly DP Wrap Up

WEAR A MASK – WASH YOUR HANDS – WATCH YOUR DISTANCE

https://www.cmu.edu/coronavirus

Sunday, August 30, 2020

Commercials reopening in Hollywood but crews are worried

Kansas drummer Phil Ehart on coronavirus concert halt hardships

Intimacy Direction in the Time of Physical Distance

A day in the life of a custom balloon installations artist

What Will We Do When Our World Returns?

Friday, August 28, 2020

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Monday, August 24, 2020

Sunday, August 23, 2020

Houston lost 42,500 creative industry jobs and $1.6 billion in sales in 4 months

Time for a Change: What If We Cut the Long Hours?

In Las Vegas, the show cannot go on

The pandemic popped the balloon drop. Here's why we might not miss it

Column: After this awful 2020, it just makes sense to start a theater season in January — this is our chance to change

Friday, August 21, 2020

Thursday, August 20, 2020

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

Monday, August 17, 2020

Sunday, August 16, 2020

Berskshire 'Godspell' opens as a test for COVID-era theater

Walt Disney World and Equity Settle COVID-Fueled Feud

"Le Reve" to Close Permanently at Wynn Las Vegas

The Impossible Stream: Why You Can't Just Stream the Lincoln Center Archive

Neil Young’s Lawsuit Against The Trump Campaign Ventures Into Legally Uncharted Territory

Friday, August 14, 2020

About Me

Popular Posts

Blog Archive