I have not been able to listen to more than a couple of sentences of a Presidential address over the past eight years without changing the channel or leaving the room. The smarmy mendacity of the previous incumbent was just too much to take.
This new guy, though. I'll turn off the dishwasher so I can hear him better. When it turns out he's on the air instead of the tv show I tuned in for--wow! Super! Can't wait for it to start.
Now when are they going to end the terms of some of the idiot commentators who are so wired in to the old right-wing orthodoxy that they don't even realize what they're doing when they recycle press releases as objective analysis? In the coverage going in to Mr. Obama's address to Congress last night, all the talk was about what this Republican and that Republican might think about what the President might say. Like who cares?
And after the speech, the Republican governor of Louisiana attempted a rebuttal that was lame and weary. Probably the big winners within the little Republican camp were the potential future candidates who did not have to give the rebuttal.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
The rehearsal schedule
A friend has asked me to direct his new play, and I just spent a jolly hour creating a proposed rehearsal schedule. I can visualize how it will go (it will not go exactly that way, but still...). I think there will be 22 rehearsals, and my next job is to subdivide the script into sub-scenes so I can rehearse a small part of the cast in a focused way without making the rest of the cast stand around doing nothing.
I can feel the weight of actors' needs, script rewrites, set building, lighting plot, all more comfortably and confidently than I can feel the balance of forces for anything in any of my "real" jobs this decade.
Good skills, but not for this era, I guess.
I can feel the weight of actors' needs, script rewrites, set building, lighting plot, all more comfortably and confidently than I can feel the balance of forces for anything in any of my "real" jobs this decade.
Good skills, but not for this era, I guess.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Self documenting code
I have been struggling all day with an odd Flash template for a website. The website owner wants to change the text (not a bad idea, since right now it is just variations on good old "Lorem Ipsum"), and that's what I am trying to do: write new text and then make the site display it where it belongs.
Except this is a funky template. There are almost no comments in the code, or in the XML file I am trying to work with. The functions I have been trying to figure out do not seem to accept variables in the standard way.
I know part of the problem is that I sometimes don't see the obvious. But a LOT of the problem is that the klutz who wrote the template couldn't be bothered to provide any instructions for it. Not any.
I remember interviewing a candidate for a job one time, and I asked what his opinion was on documenting his code, and he said, "I like to think that my code documents itself." Well. I'd like to think that, too; and it would be nice if my code gave me a back massage from time to time. But it generally doesn't do either: it just lies there waiting for you to grok the secrets of its functioning. And if you are not the author (and even if you ARE the author, six months later), it may never reveal its secrets.
How hard would it be to put together a little instruction that says, "Here's the three things you probably want to do with the text. Oh, and before you do them, make a backup copy of everything,"?
Too hard, I guess, for this guy. So he is off sipping his mint julep purchased with the avails of the sale of his crap template, and here I am a day older and not much further ahead.
Except this is a funky template. There are almost no comments in the code, or in the XML file I am trying to work with. The functions I have been trying to figure out do not seem to accept variables in the standard way.
I know part of the problem is that I sometimes don't see the obvious. But a LOT of the problem is that the klutz who wrote the template couldn't be bothered to provide any instructions for it. Not any.
I remember interviewing a candidate for a job one time, and I asked what his opinion was on documenting his code, and he said, "I like to think that my code documents itself." Well. I'd like to think that, too; and it would be nice if my code gave me a back massage from time to time. But it generally doesn't do either: it just lies there waiting for you to grok the secrets of its functioning. And if you are not the author (and even if you ARE the author, six months later), it may never reveal its secrets.
How hard would it be to put together a little instruction that says, "Here's the three things you probably want to do with the text. Oh, and before you do them, make a backup copy of everything,"?
Too hard, I guess, for this guy. So he is off sipping his mint julep purchased with the avails of the sale of his crap template, and here I am a day older and not much further ahead.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Dramaturgitating
A colleague from Playwrights' Platform asked me to look over her new script the other day. She wanted me to take a part in a staged reading, which I won't be able to do, and to give her any thoughts I might have on the script.
This is work I love doing, even though it sometimes feels at times like pointing out a child's missing toes and teeth to a doting parent. Having acted, directed, produced, and written a ton of plays, I can usually visualize how a script will run, or stagger, in a production.
I printed out the script and read through it, scrawling huge, fierce circles around offending words and phrases. The ?? and !! marks mounted up in the margin. Then I went back over the script and wrote out an analysis (line-by-line comments, followed by notes on stagecraft, scriptcraft, character development, language, and logic), tearing it up in way that I hoped the author would find useful.
Great fun. And she says she is grateful, and exactly what we wanted, and that it will help immensely with the next draft.
But if she never, ever speaks to me again, we will know the real truth of it.
This is work I love doing, even though it sometimes feels at times like pointing out a child's missing toes and teeth to a doting parent. Having acted, directed, produced, and written a ton of plays, I can usually visualize how a script will run, or stagger, in a production.
I printed out the script and read through it, scrawling huge, fierce circles around offending words and phrases. The ?? and !! marks mounted up in the margin. Then I went back over the script and wrote out an analysis (line-by-line comments, followed by notes on stagecraft, scriptcraft, character development, language, and logic), tearing it up in way that I hoped the author would find useful.
Great fun. And she says she is grateful, and exactly what we wanted, and that it will help immensely with the next draft.
But if she never, ever speaks to me again, we will know the real truth of it.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Sitting on a woodpile
My siblings and I gathered last Sunday to talk about stuff, and although there were enough chairs I chose to site on a wooden box by the door. I dunno what it holds, but it made a good perch.
This reminded my older siblings of our Uncle Burton, and how when the family gathered in my grandmother's back yard in Hampton, New Brunswick, he used to spurn chairs and benches and perch himself on the woodpile. I don't know if he actually enjoyed sitting there; perhaps after enough people had made a big deal of it, he didn't see a way to stop.
Monday I heard from one of my cousins that Uncle Burton had died recently. He was getting along in years, of course, but what really put the stamp on it was his falling on ice somewhere on the farm and having to lie there in the cold, unable to get up, until he was found hours later. He lived for nearly a year after that, but evidently he was never the same.
That was one tough guy (not mean tough, sturdy tough). I haven't seen him in perhaps 40 years. But when I sit not on the softest chair, it's usually not out of humility, or to let others take their ease: it's to honor Uncle Burton.
This reminded my older siblings of our Uncle Burton, and how when the family gathered in my grandmother's back yard in Hampton, New Brunswick, he used to spurn chairs and benches and perch himself on the woodpile. I don't know if he actually enjoyed sitting there; perhaps after enough people had made a big deal of it, he didn't see a way to stop.
Monday I heard from one of my cousins that Uncle Burton had died recently. He was getting along in years, of course, but what really put the stamp on it was his falling on ice somewhere on the farm and having to lie there in the cold, unable to get up, until he was found hours later. He lived for nearly a year after that, but evidently he was never the same.
That was one tough guy (not mean tough, sturdy tough). I haven't seen him in perhaps 40 years. But when I sit not on the softest chair, it's usually not out of humility, or to let others take their ease: it's to honor Uncle Burton.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Everything Must Go
Look at that bookshelf. There are books there that I have not opened for so long that the dust on them has incorporated right into the edges of the pages. There are books there that I have meant to read for perhaps 30 years, but have not yet gotten around to them. There are books on that shelf that the shelf probably relies on for stability, so I dare not move them.
Every two years or so I engage in an orgy of simplifying my life. I am a mild sort of person, so the orgy usually works out to filling a rather small cardboard box with some books, broken flashlights, and shrunken-sleeved shirts; then leaving the box by the front door for long enough for one or two second-thought treasures to be retrieved; then consigning the box and its remaining contents to the outer darkness.
I coordinate the FreeCycle group where I live, but often I am ashamed to list this stuff. If it has gotten through the rejection process, including the retrieval-incubation time by the door, I figure it has achieved resignation and no longer cares to be saved. To force it to start a new life with new owners almost seems cruel.
Looking at the bookshelf, I feel the ecstasy of the simplification orgy coming upon me. The backup French dictionary is on the bubble; so is the instruction manual for the camera that is no longer with us.
If only I had not thrown away the cardboard box.
Every two years or so I engage in an orgy of simplifying my life. I am a mild sort of person, so the orgy usually works out to filling a rather small cardboard box with some books, broken flashlights, and shrunken-sleeved shirts; then leaving the box by the front door for long enough for one or two second-thought treasures to be retrieved; then consigning the box and its remaining contents to the outer darkness.
I coordinate the FreeCycle group where I live, but often I am ashamed to list this stuff. If it has gotten through the rejection process, including the retrieval-incubation time by the door, I figure it has achieved resignation and no longer cares to be saved. To force it to start a new life with new owners almost seems cruel.
Looking at the bookshelf, I feel the ecstasy of the simplification orgy coming upon me. The backup French dictionary is on the bubble; so is the instruction manual for the camera that is no longer with us.
If only I had not thrown away the cardboard box.
Playlist
Had a longish drive on Monday, and spent part of it pondering what my playlist would be if all other options fall through and my best bet in this economy would be to take the banjo and the tin cup out to a street corner somewhere.
I started thinking through the pieces I can play pretty well. Stephen Foster's "Hard Times"? Stan Rogers' "The Mary Ellen Carter"? I am not sure you want to remind passing folks that times are hard or their ship has sunk when you are trying to pull money out of their pockets. Woody Guthrie's "Union Maid", or "Red Wing" if it's just an instrumental? I am surprised at the number of people who claim to know the dirty lyrics that go with that tune, and that leads me to think that you have to be careful about the thought process you set off in your audience.
A streetcorner musician who hopes to avoid being pelted with rotten fruit by the grocer on the corner is going to need a larger playlist than I have right now. I saw in The Banjo Newsletter once a list of the 100 tunes any banjo player needs to know if he is planning to play with or in front of others. Guess that would be the place to start.
When I have 90 of them down pat, I will go find the tin cup.
I started thinking through the pieces I can play pretty well. Stephen Foster's "Hard Times"? Stan Rogers' "The Mary Ellen Carter"? I am not sure you want to remind passing folks that times are hard or their ship has sunk when you are trying to pull money out of their pockets. Woody Guthrie's "Union Maid", or "Red Wing" if it's just an instrumental? I am surprised at the number of people who claim to know the dirty lyrics that go with that tune, and that leads me to think that you have to be careful about the thought process you set off in your audience.
A streetcorner musician who hopes to avoid being pelted with rotten fruit by the grocer on the corner is going to need a larger playlist than I have right now. I saw in The Banjo Newsletter once a list of the 100 tunes any banjo player needs to know if he is planning to play with or in front of others. Guess that would be the place to start.
When I have 90 of them down pat, I will go find the tin cup.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
The more things change
I got a chance to see a great production of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School for Scandal the other day, at a Waldorf high school in a suburb of Boston. I have a fondness for this script, as I got to play Sir Peter twice back when I still thought I had a chance at a career in theater.
The play premiered back in 1777, but I found myself thinking how little in human nature has changed since then, and how the worst pressures of human society keep reasserting themselves.
One thread in the story is the corrupting effect, not so much of money, but of the distance between the money one has and the money one feels one should have. Joseph Surface latches on slimy piety to recommend himself to his distant patron, in hopes of a huge inheritance and marriage to an heiress. Lovely Lady Teazle marries Sir Peter six parts for love...but at least four parts to get out of the country in and among the glittering baubles of the city.
Another thread concerns the perils of idleness. The 'school' at Lady Sneerwell's house are mostly clever people, even if they think far more of themselves than they really should. But they have nothing to do, nothing with which to occupy their active and questing minds, except speculate and gossip about their acquaintances. Oh, yes, and have affairs with them when the occasion arises.
But there is a third thread, touching on the enduring virtues of friendship, honesty, and duty (in this story, the test case is whether to offer charity to a distant relative who can do nothing for you in return). That he exhibits these traits redeems the otherwise-dubious character of Charles Surface, the wastral brother.
As I watch the US economy lurch away (perhaps) from governance by greed and better things (perhaps) raise their heads, I find in Sheridan's writing a very modern tale in which the good guys came out on top. A hopeful tale, then.
The play premiered back in 1777, but I found myself thinking how little in human nature has changed since then, and how the worst pressures of human society keep reasserting themselves.
One thread in the story is the corrupting effect, not so much of money, but of the distance between the money one has and the money one feels one should have. Joseph Surface latches on slimy piety to recommend himself to his distant patron, in hopes of a huge inheritance and marriage to an heiress. Lovely Lady Teazle marries Sir Peter six parts for love...but at least four parts to get out of the country in and among the glittering baubles of the city.
Another thread concerns the perils of idleness. The 'school' at Lady Sneerwell's house are mostly clever people, even if they think far more of themselves than they really should. But they have nothing to do, nothing with which to occupy their active and questing minds, except speculate and gossip about their acquaintances. Oh, yes, and have affairs with them when the occasion arises.
But there is a third thread, touching on the enduring virtues of friendship, honesty, and duty (in this story, the test case is whether to offer charity to a distant relative who can do nothing for you in return). That he exhibits these traits redeems the otherwise-dubious character of Charles Surface, the wastral brother.
As I watch the US economy lurch away (perhaps) from governance by greed and better things (perhaps) raise their heads, I find in Sheridan's writing a very modern tale in which the good guys came out on top. A hopeful tale, then.
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