Saturday, September 28, 2013
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Ellipses...
The new shows are starting to show up on the DVR. Here's hoping I picked good ones... We've started correcting grammar and spelling on Greenpage comments. It's a bigger job than I thought it would be... Last weekend I added an exterior light special to our front facade. Might be able to see the address numbers at night now... The Steelers, not too much to say about the Steelers... My spring schedule seems like it will be more like work. Nothing wrong with that... I have three cats available for adoption. Please take my three cats... Still no Slingplayer for the Roku. That's too bad... First show of the season is into tech and the next couple are starting in the shop... If you ask me, the designer always wins on Love it or List it... I'd really like it if the MSNBC people would stop letting people say "American's don't want Obamacare" on air. It just isn't true... So far the fantasy football season isn't what it could be... The Gib5on trailer is getting a good public response... I caught "The Numbers Station" off of Netflix last night. Quality streamer... It seems like just three days ago we were trying to decide if we were going to turn on the air. Today I turned on the heat... There didn't seem to be anything new in the President's UN speech. I wonder how he thinks he can solve the problems he's prioritized... The world was probably a better place when pharmaceuticals couldn't advertise on TV. "Some people experience adverse outcomes including death." Swell... Ted Cruz, not too much to say about Ted Cruz... Not sure the CA government can legislate a "minor eraser" into existence... The hubbub over the Russia Olympics seems to have died down pretty quickly...
Vote for Comment of the Week
Here are this week's contenders:
Student #1 has left a new comment on your post "NFL Players Association Freaks Out About Tattoo Co...":
As a person with tattoos, and huge sports fan - I find this topic to be both fascinating and incredibly infuriating. Pirating music and other digital media, reproducing printed materials and artwork without a license all seem like logical copyright infringements, but never would I have expected tattoos to be brought into the mix. Tattooing - yes, is a valid art form, however it's also a service that you pay for. In addition to that, the artwork isn't always the intellectual property of the artist performing the tattoo, often the client provides the artwork or concept for the tattoo and requests a service from the artist. Sooo....if Colin Kaepernick presented the artwork to his tattoo artist, then isn't he the owner of those images and doesn't he have the right to determine if they are part of his brand and included in renderings of him on video games? And even if the tattoo artist took some artistic liberty in order to improve or develop on Kaepernick's concept for his tattoos...Kaepernick still paid a for the services of the artist. So where is line drawn? It think it's be interesting to see have this issue pursued in a court of law - but the idea that my tattoo artist could take me to court for royalties to my tattoos if they were part of brand and attributed to my income after I paid him hundreds of dollars for their creation is a little unnerving.Student #2 has left a new comment on your post "(Re)Search: Dramaturgical Catharsis":
This is the second blog post of Bree's that I have read; I appreciate her approach to the work of dramaturgy. There are many people in the theatre community who are confused about the importance of dramaturgs and could benefit greatly from reading Bree's blog. I have been fortunate enough to have been involved in a few rehearsal processes in which the dramaturg was present in rehearsal and was an invaluable resource. As Bree describes in this article, there's no doubt that someone who has put that kind of work into the show has made an impact on what the audience sees. It may not be immediately evident to an audience member that someone had to help the actors with pronunciations, teach them about the play's time period, etc. It's certain, though, that some audience members would notice errors in accuracy. (Audiences are smarter than a lot of people give them credit for.)Student #3 has left a new comment on your post "Stagehand Goes Above and Beyond to Help Disabled M...":
Anyways, I'd like to touch on the idea of "Analog Sundays". I admire Bree for being able to do this. She mentions sometimes not being able to fully honor the occasion because she has pressing emails about a production she's working on, but I believe that there's nothing on a production that can't wait until Monday. Personally, I wouldn't be able to participate in "Analog Sundays" for other reasons, but emails from people about a production wouldn't stop me. Part of the curse of having email on our phones is that we constantly feel that people are nagging us and needs answers right away, but that often isn't true. Most of the time, it can wait until Monday.
The reason that I am in the arts is to make people happy. This article and video make me so proud that the entertainment industry can give so much to this person just to make his experience special. I also like that this practice of giving to this disabled man has been passed on to each person that works for the theater. No matter when they go to the theater they know they will get the access they need and then some.Student #4 has left a new comment on your post "25 Questions That Will Guide You To Find and Follo...":
I worked in house management one summer and I was told by my boss to check tickets but if someone didn't have one or tried to get by without one that I should just let them go because it was more important that they see the show than that the theater got the money. This theater had the luxury not to need the money but it seems to me that they would have had this policy even if they did. I also think that at many other places this sentiment holds true that the individual guests experience is more important than making money or selling merchandize.
The man who wrote this article is in his late twenties, making him a little bit older than me, but even at the age of twenty, I feel like I no longer have time to figure out who I want to be. Society pressures us so much into knowing a plan for our life even before we graduate from high school. It's quite frightening and intimidating, but everyone goes through it. In high school I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I loved writing, art, science, and theater, but I knew that I couldn't study everything, If I wanted to be successful at anything. When I applied to college I decided to study architecture, and although I was happy with my choice, after time I realized that was not where my true passion lied. Now that I'm in the school of drama, I feel better than I ever have about what I'm studying and spending my time doing at college. It really is important to pinpoint your passions and follow them , especially when you are still young.Student #5 has left a new comment on your post "In Small Spaces, Theater-Makers Are Telling Big St...":
I really like this concept of doing multiple plays or performances that can stand alone and yet link together. It allows the audience to enter as deeply as they wish into the play, but without pressure to see all of them if it is not possible. However, the one problem I see with this is the time and monetary commitment it demands of the audience. Seeing one play is generally affordable. It doesn't take too long, and even though tickets are expensive they are generally pretty reasonable. However, seeing multiple performances in a short space of time would be expensive and demands a lot of an audience member's schedule. I would be cautious of alienating people who could only afford one show or one night, and so would think "oh what's the point of going to one of these if I'm going to miss all the rest?"
This is not an inevitable result, but it is possible. Overall I think the concept is great, just that it should continue to be stand-alone performances that can be linked together if desired, but don't demand multiple nights and multiple tickets of audience members.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Worth a Look
Here are a few acticles from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time...
What Is Your Mission?
HowlRound: I made an error in the last article I wrote on color blind/conscience casting. Not in the position that I took that the practice is antithetical to full inclusion. I stand by that assertion. The error was in not reiterating the framework in which I am attempting to have this conversation about diversity in the American theater. So let’s go back to the beginning of the conversation…the definition of the word diversity.
Making Safety of Women in the Construction Industry a Priority
Occupational Health & Safety: Due to the unique challenges that women face in the construction industry, the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) has signed a two-year alliance with OSHA, according to Safety.BLR.com. The alliance will create targeted training materials and resources for companies to use with their female employees.
NFL Players Association Freaks Out About Tattoo Copyrights
Techdirt: You'd think with all the threats facing the NFL and American football, such as Twitter-spoliers on draft picks and the impending SkyNET takeover, the powers that be in America's most-watched game wouldn't have time to deal with more minor threats from non-sentient-destructo-machines, but here's the stupidity of copyright on tattoos to prove me wrong yet again. You may recall that former athlete/tattoo issues have included Mike Tyson's face being visible in The Hangover 2, as well as UFC fighter Carlos Condit being depicted accurately in a THQ game.
South Africa's 'theatre of struggle' appoints first black artistic director
World news | theguardian.com: When he was cutting his teeth as an actor, the only place James Ngcobo knew equality was on stage. "Towards opening night you sit with the director, getting notes, and then you look at your watch and you just know, 'My last bus has gone, I can't get back home,'" he recalls. "I had moments where you finish rehearsals at night and you go with the white actors and have a glass of wine or two and go and sleep in the park because I didn't drive then, there were no buses going back to the township and sometimes it was dangerous to go back to the township."
In Small Spaces, Theater-Makers Are Telling Big Stories
NPR: Monologist Mike Daisey has a new story to tell, and if you want to hear it, then you'd better settle in. It's going to take a month to get through it. In one sense, All the Faces of the Moon, starting Sept. 5 at the Public Theater in New York, is a collection of 29 different monologues, which Daisey will perform consecutively and for one night only. Each piece has its own narrative, so even if they see just one installment, audiences can have a complete experience. Pull back, though, and the project becomes a single massive opus — one that runs about 44 hours.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Do You Know What This Means?
Yes? Well that makes you at least that much more PC savvy than some of my coworkers.
Last week I was at a meeting where attendees are often required to look at online content during the course of business. I got there on time and plugged my machine into the brand spanking new power grommet in the center of our conference table. Once I started up I got the lovely update screen and remembered that the computer had downloaded a bunch of updates when I shut down the night before.
All of which is fine.
Fine until one of my esteemed colleagues decided that they were also going to plug into the same power grommet and that their plug wouldn't fit with mine plugged in. And so with a concurrent "I have to unplug you" my power was cut.
See how above part of the instruction is not to unplug? Turns out they mean it. My machine immediately executed a shut down and when I tried to restart it would dump into a DOS screen.
Thanks for that.
The cocked up OS meant I had no working machine, which in this particular case meant I had no Teacher's Machine for the next day's CAD class which I wound up cancelling. But I didn't cancel until I had maybe 3 hours into trouble shooting the thing. It seemed like after a while that booting in safe mode and then going back to a restore point would do the trick.
Unfortunately it wasn't the trick I was hoping for. For a minute it looked like it worked, but then after windows did successfully boot the machine dumped into a Blue Screen of Despair. That was the moment I decided I was going home and that class wasn't going to happen.
The next day with the help of our IT guy we figured out what the new problem was, and with some fairly good troubleshooting found the correct procedure to repair things. We had to re-register part of Windows and then change the boot mode to delete the virus software. That took around half a day to accomplish.
I learned not to unplug things without asking first when I was in high school. I unplugged a bass players amp without telling him. He gave me a proper chewing out and I haven't forgotten. Someone ought to chew out my colleague.
So do your friends a favor. If you need to unplug their computer, give them a few seconds heads-up first - and maybe glance at their screen in case there are crystal clear and totally unambiguous instructions to follow.
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