First un-post

It took 88 posts, but I finally said something that after a few minutes I re-thought and deleted. I guess I am some kind of E-conformist. Last night I sat here with Marisa and we posted this file I have that we think is funny. A few people saw it and the comments started coming right away, a few people that would definitely get it, and from what they said they did.

But this little composition isn't very secret anymore. I'd thought it was a little more secure, that maybe only some of my upperclassmen or grads new where to find it. But it turns out that this is no more a secret than anything else in the Drama School. So just like an ABC affiliate fearing retribution from the FCC, now I have to filter posts through the lens of explaining them to my boss, or to the parent of a student, or to the Dean of Student Affairs.

I was thinking about this couple in New Mexico that got fired from their jobs because of some pictures they posted on their personal website. Its not like I'd be posting like that, but still, like it or not there are now some kind of standards and practices involved. Always were I guess. My family has had the address from the beginning, and from the start I decided that nothing even close to verging on confidential from work would get published even with names changed. But that had still left me a lot of leeway. Guess last night's post just helped me find the edge of the road.

So, if you saw the post I am talking about I hope you enjoyed it. I have thought since I first saw the thing a couple of years ago that it was just flat out hysterical.

But nothing I want to have to explain away.

Hardwareman II

Dealing with the wonders of commercial scenic fabrication. Enjoy...

Dear Hardwareman,

I was just hired as a Project Manager for a commercial scene shop. Do you have any sage advice?

(Anonymous)


Dear Anon,

While Hardwareman himself is currently deep in meditation (he went into the bathroom with the Enco catalog), a group of disciples has put this list together for you:

1. If the customer says they don’t need it right away, they mean they don’t need it until tomorrow.

2. Your sales people don’t know what your company does.

3. Nobody will remember how they did it the last time.

4. The file contains nothing but fax cover sheets.

5. If they won’t tell you what time you can leave, don’t let them tell you what time to be there.

6. If the client says they think they have it, they don’t.

7. The job lead has a better way.

8. Don’t agree with the lead too quickly, they don’t really want to make the change. They want to convince you they know better.

9. If you can’t open the disk, assume it is blank.

10. Your sub doesn’t have the font.

11. You will care more about the project then the client.

12. The truck will be late, and when it arrives it won’t have bars, straps or pads.

13. Your annual review won’t happen until you remind them.

14. Seeing the client is better than phoning, phoning is better than email, email is better than a fax, faxing is better than nothing.

15. If you think getting the job you’re about to bid will close the shop, then you should say so.

16. If in doubt the client will be gone for the holiday – which is just fine since it is an overtime day for the local anyway.

17. There is no standard procedure.

18. You have to use the existing form.

19. McMaster-Carr can get it for you.

20. If in doubt, do it yourself.

Embrace your inner geek

So I inadvertently started a little bit of a comment thread about books the other day. Strangely none of the titles were anything I had read. I have to admit to a "what are you people talking about" moment. In any case, it got me thinking. I figured it would be a good time for me to pick ten titles from my shelves to highlight. Since the earlier discussion was in the sci-fi/fantasy world I will talk about that - which is fine because with the exception of Robert Parker and Tom Clancy sci-fi is just about all I read.

Ten really good books, alpha by author:

The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Douglas Adams
So right off I am cheating. This is five books, six if you count "The Salmon of Doubt" which I wouldn't. Even without counting it, I would recommend every title Adams wrote. I discovered Hitchiker's as a TV show on WTTW in Chicago and then pounded every single volume. As with a couple of the multi-volume choices here I'm not picking the best of the series. I am very partial to the "bistromathmatic drive" from one of the later books, and Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged and I may be related, at least there's a similarity of personality (better than Marvin the Android I guess). If you haven't read these, run, don't walk to the bookstore.

Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card
This one was a total fluke. I tend to read everything a particular author has written and then switch to another author. I picked up "Ender's Game" when I had run out of whatever I was reading at the time. Amazing book, and once again this is actually seven books. The Ender books run out of gas as the original novels carry on, but Card pick up the zip again when he came back to them to write the Shadow series. I've had a couple of opportunities to read multiple stories of the same plot from different points of view. I think its a real cool literary technique and the Shadow books take advantage of it thoroughly. Card is another author where I would recommend virtually everything he's written, the Alvin Maker series and the Homecoming series are also both excellent - and less scifi than fantasy really. the homecoming books may be a retelling of the book of Mormon. I wouldn't know, never having read the book of Mormon. Card is also cool because he is a theatre guy. He started selling fiction to fund his theatre. Sometimes I think he speaks the same professional language I do.

Fountains of Paradise
Authur Clarke
Clarke is a giant. One of three I think: Clarke, Heinlein, and Asimov. I'm sure that there are giants behind them, Lester Del Rey all the way back through HG Wells and Jules Verne. I'll admit to not having looked into it. This is yet another recommendation for everything in the canon. OK, they're all like that, well, all but one. Can you guess which one it will be? "Fountains of Paradise" is a great story, a story about a technical director really. Its got a nice bracketing short story around the full novel. Clarke does that in a bunch of stories, this one, 2001, Childhood's End; a small story to set the context that really has very little to do with the novel and yet still fits perfectly. This story centers around an engineering marvel, an elevator into geosynchronous orbit. The bracket is about another engineering marvel, one from antiquity that required thousands of people to truck buckets of water up a mountain to make a fountain work. Just all kinds of good stuff. Also check out the other Clarke books, and absolutely seek out the short stories.

Pattern Recognition
William Gibson
Oh My God! I haven't been surprised by a book in a long time. I'd sort of started reading Gibson because I thought I should, what with "The Matrix" and all it seemed like reading "Neuromancer" was appropriate. After that its just standard David behavior, got to plow through the rest. Anyway, I think Gibson is getting better. "Pattern Recognition" is the latest effort. It's near future science fiction, which is a favorite of mine. He also leaves the standard context of the world as he'd set it up in most of the previous books and writes in a world you and I live in. There's a little sideline in this story dealing with 9/11. The technology that is usually just out of reach in Gibson books is contemporary this time and a lot of fun. I actually wonder if there are "cool hunters" like the main character, or if there are usenet groups following movies being released one frame at a time as graffiti. All the details are just so special. This book is awesome.

Mawdryn Undead
Peter Grimwade
So far I haven't really been all that geeky. This will fix that. Again this is three books, not one. The series starts with "Mawdryn Undead" and then continues with "Terminus" and concludes in "Enlightenment." The last two are written by John Lydecker and Barbara Clegg respectively. Right, the geek part: these are Doctor Who novelizations, a three episode sequence from the first season with Peter Davidson as The Doctor. I got into Doctor Who in high school. I use to stay up late sunday night and watch with the sound turned down trying to not have my parents notice that I was still up at 12:20am on a school night. I must have seen "Logopolis," the last Tom Baker episode, four or five times before channel 11 got the next season. When the books for the next season showed up in bookstores before the shows ran on TV I jumped at the opportunity to find out what was going to happen. I actually read these out of sequence because I didn't know what was going on. I read "Enlightenment" first. To this day I think it was probably one of the best Doctor Who stories ever written. It deals with a sailing race, with special ships fitted to run in space but are crewed by appropriate crews stolen from Earth history and piloted by beings described as "Eternals." Its a real good story. The TV production of it was ok, but I am glad I read it first. The same goes for "Terminus" which is also a fantastic story that reads better than it filmed. "Mawdryn" is the weakest of the three, but together they are very cool.

Starship Troopers
Robert Heinlein
The second of the three giants in the list. It was real hard to decide which of his books to cite. I got into reading Heinlein because of the cover of the book "Friday."

Teenage boy, jumpsuit, boobies, enough said. Heinlien was also just right to be reading around the end of high school and into college as it is all founded in free love and progressiveness. "Starship Troopers" is a wonderfully detailed scifi story and in some ways a real tribute to military service - another frequent Heinlein theme. I re-read this book right around the time I was finishing undergrad and was trying to figure what to do with my life and darned if I didn't nearly join up. I was so excited when I saw they were making a movie, and so bummed when I finally saw it. The movie is ok, but it misses most of the detail that makes the story special. In a million years Heinlein would never have made that unit "Rico's Roughnecks" at the end, pure movie sap. That and they totally bailed on the technology. In many ways "Aliens" is more "Starship Troopers" than "Starship Troopers" was. Anyway, good good book. One of many great books, and again, check out the short stories as well.

Dune
Frank Herbert
I started "Dune" at least six times before I actually got far enough into it to keep reading. I guess the seventh time is the charm as I think that time I stayed up all night and read the thing through in one sitting. Great story, tight mythology, very detailed, just very good stuff. This is the one author I can't speak to the whole of their work. I never got beyond "Dune" although the next three are sitting on my shelf waiting. Someday I guess I'll have to get to them. Again, by the way, neither the movie or the mini-series does this story justice. There's just too much first person thinking in the text to translate to the screen. As a book though, this one has few rivals.

Beggars in Spain
Nancy Kress
At some time along the way I joined the Science Fiction Book Club. Every year I would buy that years "The Year's Best Science Fiction" and look for new authors. That's how I discovered Nancy Kress. She really writes stories that are very fresh from a scifi perspective, where many plots are either intensionally or inadvertantly derivative. "Beggars in Spain" is a story about genetic engineering. Designer children, genemod for intelligence, looks, and so that they would never have to sleep - a CMU drama dream. The book deals mostly with the social consequences of creating an elite class. Very good book, and the two follow ups are just as good or better. The "Probability" series is also very good. I can't wait for her next effort.

Is it possible I am getting tired of writing this? You are almost certainly tired of reading.

Bellwether
Connie Willis
Buy this book. Period. I mean it. Go, now:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553562967/qid=1100669724/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/002-2760452-4546401?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Connie Willis is another author I found through the anthology. I've read everything she's written and loved every single book. This one is about a research park in Boulder, CO and some of the scientists there. Mostly just about the campus culture. Again there are great details, the main character goes to the library and checks out classics and then just returns them because the library retires books if people don't check them out and all anybody reads these days is pulp novels. There's this statistical researcher who is doing a project to analyze the aspects of prize winning research so that the lab can decide what project to fund that will have the best chance of winning a prize. Its wonderfully cynical. This is one of the few books I have ever bought for another person. Go get it now. You'll like it.

Also, if I may be permitted a sort of American Top 40 long distance dedication before finishing up, Connie Willis has another book called "Remake" which is just perfect. Its about a guy who works for a movie studio removing morally offensive content from old movies, like they have him go through and remove all the cigarettes and smoke. Then when the times change he goes and puts it back. Its a fun book, especially if you like movies. It's short and a real fast read and well worth it. Check it out.

Heir to the Empire
Timothy Zahn
The one that started this very long entry. Again, three books, this plus "Dark Force Rising" and "The Last Command." Zahn makes a great contribution to the Star Wars universe with this trilogy. All those names I rattled off in the earlier post: Mara, Talon Carrde, Thrawn... They're all from these books. If you grew up with Star Wars like I did, these will be irresistible. Good stuff Maynard.

That I think is quite enough for one post. I'll wait until some other time to do movies and TV shows.

More academic comedy

A letter from my files (names have been changed to protect the innocent):

David B
Technical Director
Carnegie Mellon School of Drama
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213


Wednesday, January 08, 2003

In re: June Black & The West Coast Drama Alumni Clan Achievement Awards

For the life of me I cannot understand why June Black would ask me to recommend her for a WCDAC Award. As a prior award winner (undergrad production 1990) I can think of nothing that would devalue my own award more than recognizing her.

June has been a cancer to the department for four years now. Every single thing we do is made more difficult merely by her presence. When she applies herself, then things can become truly miserable. For her entire time here she has demonstrated to the entire faculty that she feels she has nothing to learn from us, that we are all stupid, and not worthy of her respect. She is the only manager I have ever – in my entire career – heard tell a director to “fuck off” right to their face in a rehearsal. June has consistently asked to be excused from every single department requirement. When she does deign to lower herself to our level, she frequently forgets assignments and is absent constantly with “outside projects” – hooking or something, it’s not like she tells me.

I also need to tell you that this past semester June went out of her way to irritate a venerable member of our faculty, and my own personal hero, Dan Maranowski. For some reason, this little undergrad bitch thought she should be instructing a tenured full professor how to teach his class. Unbelievable.

Also, it has been my understanding that the Clan’s preference was to target these awards toward students expressing a strong interest in film. This is certainly not the case here. When June said “I just don’t understand film at all, The Godfather would have been so much better as a Broadway musical” I was simply flabbergasted. To her, film and television are despicable. Truthfully, she doesn’t even respect theatre as an art form. She’s more like one of these pompous performance art pukes. This is not a student with an L.A. career goal.

I swear if you give her this award I will just have to shoot myself.

Sincerely,

David B

Do you think that is what she had in mind? Should have seen her when I showed it to her prior to sending the real one.

Everyone is a comedian

So I get this email from the SM of Animal Farm, the daily rehearsal report:

Animal Farm
Rehearsal Report - Fri. Nov. 12th

Please find the report at:
http://128.2.49.121/ptm/Productions/farm/Reh%20Rpts/AF_RR_11-12.pdf

IN ATTENDANCE
Carlos Armesto, Juliet Brown, Aly Blume, Izzy Buckser, Karen Corcoran, Sylvia Fellin, Mikey Denis, Khaliah Adams, Dan Amboyer, Johanna Brickey, Jesmille Darbouze, Anderson Davis, Susan Goodwillie, Marissa Lesch, PáTina Miller, Michael Strassheim, Tim Wilson and Alex Wolfe. Gerry Dantry.

Today's Schedule:------------Tomorrow's Schedule:
Brown--------------------------Brown
6:30-7:50 Transitions-------10:00-10:45 Moment 15
7:50-8:00 Break--------------10:45-11:15 Moment 16
8:00-9:45 Moment 26-------11:15-12:00 Moment 24
9:45-10:01 Break-------------12:00-1:00 Moment 23
10:05-10:36 Moment 26----1:00-2:00 Moment 18-19

Fitting Schedule
10:00-10:45 Khaliah---------1:00-2:00 Dan
10:45-12:15 Jesmille---------2:00-3:00 Andrew
12:15-1:00 Johanna----------3:00-4:00 Michael

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

Line Changes:
Cut Narrator 3, "and?halted"
Cut Clover "Comrade?death" pg. 63

SET
Thanks for the platforms and Posts.
Will there be another adjustment to the post weight?

PROPS
How does the sign attach to the Posts? Does it need two people?
All of the crates now crash to the floor. Three broke tonight, can we reinforce them?
CUT: 2 Funnels
ADDITION: Bottle of whisky and bottle of alchohol.

COSTUMES
When will Boxer's extensions be ready?
Can we rubber the bottom of Muriels extensions?

LIGHTS

SOUND
Can a time be arranged when you can discuss cue sheets and Board Op notes with Paul?

MUSIC
There is a meeting scheduled at 5:30 on Tuesday to make up for today's missed meeting. DSII

MUSIC DIRECTION / CHOREOGRAPHY
There is a meeting scheduled at 5:30 on Tuesday to make up for today's missed meeting. DSII

PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT
Thank you for the note.
When do expense reports have to be filled out?

If anyone has any questions or concerns please let us know.

Thanks for everything,
Stage Management

and so having seen the invitation for questions or concerns, I send this:

I am concerned about the recent developments in the political leadership of the country. This also leads to the question "just what were all those people thinking when they vote the way they did?" and "do we really have to live with this, or is there something we can do about it?".

I am concerned that we will go in so many bad directions, foreign policy, economic policy, environmental policy, education policy. Really I guess I am just concerned about everything.

Yes, I have a concern. I am concerned about everything.

I have some other questions too...

Is it ok to have just a fish choice and a veggie choice at a wedding, or does there have to be a meat or chicken choice too?

If there is over 100,000 miles on a car, is it time to buy a new one, or keep driving this one till it quits?

If not filing taxes quarterly, can one still claim to be an independent contractor?

Why does the blogger spell checker think "blog" isn't a word?

Do cats have feelings?

Are there too many Cirque companies in Las Vegas?

Is Listerine really as good for your teeth as flossing?

When dining at Eleven, should one order the Veal and Lobster or the Seafood Tasting?

Who drives on the right side of the road, Americans or the English?

If I think of any more I will be sure to send them.

db

Some times I crack myself up. I've so far gotten no response from Stage Management. Maybe they think its not their job. But then, really, she shouldn't have asked.

For my Dad

I've never been all that good with birthdays. So I just wanted to say happy birthday to my dad.

He's been real great to me. I don't think I will ever fully appreciate all he's done for me. I love him very much.

I hope you had a great birthday and that I get an opportunity to see you real soon.

Survivor's Quest

by Timothy Zahn



When I had the idea to start the blog I thought mostly I would talk about TV, and have a place to review movies. With the exception of talking about some election coverage I've never really gotten to TV or film, but curiously here is another book review. I haven't been reading enough. Years ago, while doing stock, I came to depend on reading as a stress management tool. Even mid install I would always have a book that I'd fall back to during breaks. It was a real welcome distraction. I could use more of that these days.

Being, as I have said before, from the Star Wars generation I think it makes perfect sense that I would be reading these books. So far to date I have read some ridiculous number of Star Wars books. There are so many of them that for a stretch it was difficult standing in the bookstore to remember which ones I had yet to read. I've read five prior publications of this author which I had really enjoyed. So much so that I think I've read at least another five non-Star Wars titles of his as well. He's a good writer.

Once again, Zahn is working with the Chiss and the mythology around Grand Admiral Thrawn. Thrawn was a great character and I think Zahn is bummer out that he had to kill him off in the first group of books he wrote. The second pair of books brought us a clone of Thrawn. This book doesn't go that far, but Thrawn is there in the background for the entire story as the events taking place are all fallout from a great battle years before, orchestrated by - it could only be - Thrawn.

The story is also nice because I think Zahn has a special attachment to Mara Jade. The Mara from before she was Mara Jade Skywalker, the Mara who worked for Talon Carrde. Since I really liked that character its nice to read a story where she's more like she was at the start.

The whole plot revolves around Luke and Mara going with a party of Chiss to the wreckage of "Outbound Flight" which was a deep space exploration mission launched just before the Clone Wars by the Jedi. They were looking for undiscovered civilizations and for possible colonization worlds. The legend went that soon after leaving Republic space they were obliterated by Thrawn. Luke is hoping as usual to pick up some piece of the Jedi's history.

Its a nice set up and worth reading for that if you're a fan. If you're not one of the indoctrinated though its a fairly average sci-fi story. A lot of it is derivative of "Universe Common Sense" written by Heinlein half a century ago. The story mechanism of a lost ship and its insulated culture is one that has been repeated many times. Zahn repeats it here somewhat to middling effect. It's not nearly as good as "Heir to the Empire" and its follow ups, or the "Conquerors" series of non Star Wars book he wrote after that.

Good enough for the fans though.

Ugh.

Been that kind of day. That kind of week. More like that kind of two weeks. Really the last month hasn't been stellar.

I need a very large drink.

Anyone care to come along? You can tell me what you think sucks and then I'll tell you what I think sucks. Maybe after it won't seem to suck as much.

Now where's that bartender?

Don't the red states get cable?

Tom Hanks may have saved Private Ryan from the Germans, but he seems to have been no match for Janet Jackson and the FCC. This evening tuning in to ABC for the movie I was amazed at how much it looked like "Far and Away." I could have sworn that that was Tom Cruise and not Matt Damon.

Do we really live in a country where you can't run Saving Private Ryan on over the air TV on Veteran's Day because of violent situations and a few bad words?

Don't the red states get cable? The news on CNN is more violent then a lot of movies, and its real. Movies are make believe, aren't they, or have I been confused for a real long time.

Is it possible that this is the beginning of the end of over the air TV? How long will it be before Steven Bochco and David E. Kelly come to the same conclusion as Howard Stern and take their efforts over to satellite or cable where they won't have to worry about moral censorship? No. I think its likely that there will always be something on over the air TV. It might very well be the beginning of the end of anything worth watching on over the air TV. Well, there should at least be sports. Or maybe not, are directors going to have to pixelate over the mouths of athletes now?

I guess I am jaded. I watched every episode of OZ. Its possible that my meter may be out of calibration, but it would seem that a movie like Private Ryan, offered as a memorial to the service and loss of so many could be interpreted in the context it was produced and that we can all deal with the coarseness of reality for the time it takes to appreciate it.

Spilled milk or fried egg?

The Air America people have got me thinking. There's bit quite a bit of discussion on the radio about whether or not the election this year was "stolen." They bring out all kinds of just this side of conspiracy theroys that occasionally sound like they would make more sense if I were hearing them on Art Bell. Things about how electronic machines tallied votes for Bush even if you voted for Kerry, and how they did a "dry run" with a primary in Florida, and and and and...

(Art Bell had a radio show that talked about UFOs and all the like that you would see on X-Files. I just checked and there isn't an Art Bell anymore, although his show "Coast to Coast" is apparently still running with another host. Post for another day.)

Anyway the whole thing gets me thinking like this: if these people are right (big if), and if they are in some way able to prove it (bigger if), and if they are able to get some court to listen to them, is the election spilled milk or is it a fried egg?

I had this bio teacher in high school, Mr. Boyum, who used to drill it into our heads. It was about denatured proteins (which he was also telling us is not the same as "killing" them, they were unfolded, there was nothing to kill in the first place) and how once they were unfolded you could not put them back.

So if the election is spilled milk, I guess if there is genuine demonstrable fraud with intent, then maybe we can soak it up and put things right. But do you remember the last time? The rush to get through it?

I never understood during the whole Bush/Gore thing what the hurry was. I mean I get that there are constitutionally mandated deadlines and that they are likely somewhat tamperproof to discourage fraud, but should the system be so bulletproof that it cannot react to legitimate problems? We should never get to the point in our process where we say "well, there just won't be time to count the ballots." If we're not going to count the ballots, why did we bother to vote?

My recollection of the last time is that the people involved don't have the gumption to do what is necessary in order to make sure we count all the votes. Actually, I think it is likely that the real problem is that releasing the deadlines would take the out in the open action of the congress, an elected body, and that's a fairly rigorous position for anyone in an elected body to take. And, aside from that, in both cases now expediting the process has favored the party that controls the legislative agenda. Why on Earth would they want to extend the process if by truncating it they can simply declare their man the winner?

So, even if the investigators really do find the smoking gun that proves that there was an orchestrated, and successful, effort to steal the office of the President, I think they are likely to find that it is more of a fried egg than a puddle of spilled milk. Don't get me wrong, its not like I don't want to know the truth about what did or did not happen. I just think that knowing probably won't change anything in the end.