Way To Hold It Together Ernie

Worth a Look

Here are some posts from the past week on the green page you might find worth a look:

'Dracula' team nearly yanks clothes, props from flop show

NYPOST.com: "The final performances of 'Dracula' last weekend played less like a Gothic thriller and more like the backstage farce 'Noises Off.'
The antics -- which Tony-win ning costume designer Willa Kim calls 'the most bizarre experience of my career' -- began Friday, the day The Post reported that the artistic team was owed $100,000 in fees and expenses by the show's producers.

Posted by David at 1/19/2011 01:31:00 PM 4 comments

Federal officials criticize state safety agency's inaction in fatal fall

ReviewJournal.com: "Federal safety officials are accusing Nevada's workplace safety agency of failing to combat reluctance, evasion and falsehoods from two local employers when the state investigated the fatal fall of a 20-year-old part-time stagehand at the MGM Grand hotel in 2009 .

Posted by David at 1/19/2011 01:32:00 PM 5 comments

Depression On The Rise In College Students

NPR: "Researchers say severe mental illness is more common among college students than it was a decade ago, with most young people seeking treatment for depression and anxiety. A study presented at the American Psychological Association found that the number of students on psychiatric medicines increased more than 10 percentage points over the last 10 years.

Posted by David at 1/19/2011 01:37:00 PM 4 comments

To the Waterbury Board of Education

American Theatre Wing: "To the members of the Waterbury Board of Education:
Stephen Sondheim, a singular voice in the American theatre, famously wrote the lyric, “Art isn’t easy.” I am reminded of this as I read of the current debate within the Waterbury school system over the Arts Magnet School’s proposed production of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone by August Wilson, another singular voice in theatre.

Posted by David at 1/20/2011 03:25:00 PM 1 comments

Belarus troupe to open at Goodman Theatre

Chicago Sun-Times: "Plans are now in place for the Belarus Free Theater Group to make its Chicago debut on the stage of the Goodman Theatre later this month. Although it was announced Monday that the politically engaged company, which is at risk in its homeland of Belarus, would have an unprecedented residency in Chicago for most of February (under the auspices of the Goodman, Northwestern University and the League of Chicago Theaters), the heavily booked Goodman seemed unable to be the first venue to present the company. But the Goodman is now hosting the initial performances of the troupe’s acclaimed show, “Being Harold Pinter.” The members of the company, who recently performed at New York’s Public Theatre, are in peril because in December they actively protested what has widely been determined to be the fraudulent re-election of Aleksandr Lukashenko as president of the former Soviet republic of Belarus.

Posted by Dale at 1/21/2011 12:24:00 AM 0 comments

Syyn Labs's League of Extraordinary Nerds

Fast Company: "We're a sensationalism service," says Brent Bushnell.
Ask cofounder Adam Sadowsky and he says, "We're a one-stop production company: We make physical art that moves people."
"We want to be the 'engineering is cool' group," Bushnell adds.
Another cofounder, Eric Gradman, sums it up this way: "We're a glorified drinking club with an art problem."

Posted by David at 1/23/2011 01:20:00 PM 3 comments

I Wonder If I Got It

Today in Basic PTM class we went over the estimating process. I used the Ellipse Wall from last semester's production of Midsummer.

Here's the Description section:


and then the materials:


and finally the labor:


I was wondering after we went through the exercise if I'd gotten anywhere close. It doesn't really matter for class because the lesson is more about the process and what to do with the numbers than it is about the accuracy of the numbers. But that doesn't mean I can't wonder.

Later on I grabbed the Project Manager and the lead from the show and we looked back at the orders. It looks like I was maybe $100 shy on the materials, and maybe we're a little fat on the hours - although the hours ought to be fat because we figured manual layout and cutting and the show actually did CAD layouts and CNC.

Not too bad for on the fly, six months later and in front of a class.

BTW, here's the piece in the show:

Ellipses...

Steelers win, giving Pittsburgh residents license to wear their football jerseys to work for the next two weeks; as if they needed permission... State of the Union Tuesday night. Not sure I am going to watch. Government has been, as a rule of thumb, lately disturbing to me... The buyer on my spare house thinks I should throw in a flat screen TV, not sure how I feel about that... The people that share our basement, and consequently a utility sink, filled said sink with what appears to be stew; no disposal on that drain, unfortunate... It really makes me wonder that applicants will come to a college interview without knowing their test scores, GPA, and class rank. I can tell you mine and the information is from 1985... Work saw the return of the Weekly Newspage Reader. I wonder if anyone actually reads it??? I downgraded the wet cat food selection. The cats don't appear to care... It sucks to be so out of gas all the time... My wife invented a hashtag for me on Twitter. She's going to try to get it to trend. I predict it will be less than... February is shaping up to be pretty eventful, and probably March, and maybe April. Hopefully things can slow down a little after that (you know, during finals, crits, commencement)... Must, must, must pay bills. Tomorrow, hell or high water... I'd upgraded my Blogger account to the new authoring interface, but I wound up downgrading it. Something wasn't working properly in the image posting... Really, really liked the 4 minute commute today. In the end it will be a fairly expensive luxury, but what's an hour of life a day really worth? A lot... If the righties in the Senate attach their health care repeal to "everything that moves" this could be the year that civility officially retires... I'm thinking of turning off anonymous commenting. It never used to bother me, but lately it's been getting my attention... Bears lost, letting me off the hook for a home town personality schism (like there's any question which way I would lean)...

Could It Work?

Our new house has a staircase we're thinking of replacing with something more... dramatic.


I'm wondering if these treads are too small. Guess maybe we'll need to tape it out.

David Boevers Day Off

I took a mental health day today.

When Ferris Bueller took his day off he scammed a too cool sports car, had a four star lunch at a fancy restaurant, went to the art museum, attended a Cubs game, and was in a parade.  I think also he went swimming.

David's day off consisted of answering email, posting to my work website, scraping snow off my truck, lunch by myself at a sub shop, and then shopping at the pharmacy for some ointment.  There was no swimming.

I think maybe I'm doing it wrong.

Worth a look

Here are posts from last week's green page you might find worth a  look:

A Fire in MoMA's Belly: The Modern Buys David Wojnarowicz's Censored Video

Yahoo! News: "The censorship of the late artist David Wojnarowicz's 'A Fire in My Belly' at the National Portrait Gallery has touched off a wide-ranging solidarity campaign from museums and other institutions, screening the video to protest its repression. Now the furor has provoked a still stronger statement: Glenn D. Lowry, director of New York's Museum of Modern Art, announced this morning that the institution has acquired both the 13-minute version of 'A Fire in My Belly' and a 7-minute edit made by Wojnarowicz. According to a press rep, MoMA acquired the work through New York gallery PPOW, which represents the artist's estate, and the museum claims to be the first institution to collect the video. It goes on view immediately.

Posted by David at 1/17/2011 02:23:00 PM  

Spider-Man and Equity: By Nick Wyman, AEA President

Actors' Equity.org: "I have been very disturbed and distraught by the serious injuries sustained by our member Chris Tierney at the December 20th performance of SPIDER-MAN: TURN OFF THE DARK. My thoughts and prayers have been with him for the past ten days, and I have been in touch with him by phone and e-mail. Chris is a study in toughness and grace. Hemingway defined guts as 'grace under pressure.' Guts is what Chris Tierney has consistently displayed both before and after his accident.

Posted by Dale at 1/15/2011 12:11:00 AM  

Dangling by a thread – SPIDER-MAN: TURN OFF THE DARK in Theory and in Practice

THE RYAN DIXON LINE: "“The Ancient Greeks reserved a special word for the sort of arrogance that makes you forget your own humanity. That word was Hubris.” — From an introductory essay included in the Playbill of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.
Note to Julie Taymor, Bono and The Edge: When creating a $65 million dollar musical beset by more accidents than those found in the diapers of my nine-month old niece, it’s not a good idea to feature an essay in your show’s program about Hubris.

Posted by David at 1/12/2011 01:57:00 PM  

Peter Gabriel enjoys Yellowtail on Vimeo

Vimeo: "This is an excerpt from Peter Gabriel's March 2010 'Full Moon Club' video, in which he discusses how he enjoys using my 'Yellowtail' software as one of the graphics systems of his Spring 2010 tour.

Posted by David at 1/12/2011 01:55:00 PM  

A Change of Scene

Theatre Communications Group: "Several years ago I attended one of those weekend exhibitions affectionately known to stage designers as the Clambake—produced and organized by Ming Cho Lee and his wife Betsy, and now unfortunately defunct—devoted to showcasing the portfolios of graduating Master of Fine Arts designers from certain selected programs in an effort to introduce them to the professional world. The overall finish of their work, I noticed, was extraordinarily high—much higher than portfolios of my generation—and with few exceptions almost all of the design work in these portfolios was for theatre or opera.

Posted by David at 1/12/2011 01:54:00 PM

Keep Up Momentum

I think this:



Looks like an alien from Star Wars.

Maybe it's just from that angle.

Another Reminder I am Getting Older

I'm not 100% certain, but I think this Kresge model box was built while I was a CMU Student.

Now it's hanging on for dear life trying not to wind up in the compactor.  I guess now that Music has the Kresge we don't have much of a need for it anymore, but it is a shame.  I can remember thinking how cool it was the first time I saw it.

Bummer to see it in this shape.  I hope I look better.

Ellipses...

One week down, 15 to go...  That "I wanna new computer" feeling is creeping up again: i7, SSD, huge display, soon...  The computer in a Toyota Camry that knows you are skidding?  Makes it really hard to finesse your way up a frozen hill, and beeps at you the whole while to boot...  There are people in a room thinking "how can we make people talk about Sarah Palin today?"  They are really good at what they do...  We have like 30 shows set to record any new episode on our DVR, but there's like nothing recorded, curious...  Today I briefly thought, again, that I'd screwed something up in my Dad's affairs, but it looks like I didn't.  Maybe...  All things being equal I just wouldn't choose to build scenery in that way, or in that order, or with those materials...  My wife and I used to go to the movies a lot...  These days it's rough keeping the Greenpage from being all Spiderman all the time...  When we got our new furnace we wound up keeping our old furnace.  It wouldn't fit through the door...  I think Richard and Marcel got a pass this week.  Better start bringing their A-Game...  Today I was asked what I would buy for our shop if I could have anything and I couldn't come up with something...  The snow?  Yeah I'm through with it, they can take it away...  I was out a whole day this week and I still put in more than 40...  This is stupid, right?  But I liked the preview in the old Blogger interface better - it was faster...  My old iPod won't take a charge anymore.  So much for that...  I found someone aside from me to do taxes in my Senior class this year, and liability too.  Still looking for someone to cover starting a business...  That woman from Comcast, she said she would call but I bet she won't...  The Frosh came back to CAD from break a little rusty, but I think we got them back up to speed...  I hope the Steelers get it done tomorrow.  Somehow games against the Ravens are always nerve wracking...  This page really needs a makeover.  I'll have to put that on my list...