Author: David Gorsline

Close enough

When reality gives way to art: somewhat fanciful behavior is pictured in a splendid poster (ca. 1926) by Oscar Rabe Hanson promoting commuter rail service in Chicago, part of a long article by J. J. Sedelmaier. The ducklings following the adult Wood Duck would more likely be single file, and more closely bunched. More critically, the little ones would be following a hen, not a drake.

On deck: 9

and one not picturedWell, I knew that Kent Minichiello’s Conservation Philosophy class would have a lot of reading, but I’m not sure that I planned for quite this much. This is the reading list, including my two book report books, but missing Santos’ prohibitively priced Managing Planet Earth (loaner copies will circulate) and various offprints.

My presentation on the Cooper is in two weeks. Too bad I don’t have a long commute to carve out reading time for me.

Not in the percents

“But to-day, for instance, Mr. M’Choakumchild was explaining to us about Natural Prosperity.”

“National, I think it must have been,” observed Louisa.

“Yes, it was.—But isn’t it the same?” [Sissy] timidly asked.

“You had better say, National, as he said so,” returned Louisa, with her dry reserve.

“National Prosperity. And he said, Now, this schoolroom is a Nation. And in this nation, there are fifty millions of money. Isn’t this a prosperous nation? Girl number twenty, isn’t this a prosperous nation, and a’n’t you in a thriving state?”

“What did you say?” asked Louisa.

“Miss Louisa, I said I didn’t know. I thought I couldn’t know whether it was a prosperous nation or not, and whether I was in a thriving state or not, unless I knew who had got the money, and whether any of it was mine. But that had nothing to do with it. It was not in the figures at all,” said Sissy, wiping her eyes.

“That was a great mistake of yours,” observed Louisa.

—Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854), book 1, ch. IX

Flexible, neutral, but not slimming

Joshua Dachs offers a provocative look at a fixture of theater in the last half-century: the black box.

This attempt at neutrality is contradictory. It’s hard to imagine anything less neutral than a completely black room. At best you may find it mysterious, elegant and dark. At worst it may feel uncomfortable, enervating, lifeless and depressing. The black mood of a black space establishes a strong first impression, not a neutral one, and sets a specific emotional starting point for a show.

Leesylvania State Park

I was flipping through Barbara Noe’s guidebook of easy hikes around the D.C. metro and I realized that I had never visited Leesylvania State Park before.

This compact park, a one-hour drive from home, lies on a nose of land jutting into the Potomac and bisected by a CSX railway line (the RF&P subdivision). I took the walk highlighted in Noe’s book, which follows the Lee’s Woods Trail, a two-mile loop across the headland of Freestone Point.

the view from MarylandThe point is composed of sandstone, a building material so easily quarried by previous-century settlers that, so the local lore goes, it’s as if someone had posted a sign that read “free stone.”

crossing the lineThe commonwealth-state boundary runs close to the Virginia shore here, so the fishing pier just downriver is technically in Maryland. The river breeze out of the south was quite fresh, so I did not linger long on the pier.

The trail requires only grippy, sturdy sneakers: some gravel road, a little climbing, and a little mud. Chestnut Oak (Quercus prinus) can be found on the ridgetops. There are ample opportunities for river overlooks. The big natural attraction along this stretch of the river, of course, is Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), and I spotted birds three times. At least twice I heard an odd whickering vocalization that could only have come from the eagles, sort of a “whee-whee-kir-kir-kir.”

2012 MCTFA

Silver Spring Stage presented the first act of Brian Friel’s Lovers, subtitled Winners, as well as Audrey Cefaly’s original work Stuck at the 2012 Maryland one-act festival, under the auspices of MCTFA.

ready for tech-inThe festival was held at the home of The Newtowne Players, the Three Notch Theatre in Lexington Park. It’s an interesting repurposed space, formerly a public library, in service as a theater for only the past half dozen years. There’s no enclosed tech booth, so you’re really better off calling the show from the deck (unless you want everyone to hear that a cue is coming up). I’ll know better next time. The playing space is a two-sided thrust with audience seating in a nice arc around it.

Over the course of Saturday, we had to contend with noise for the nearby naval air station only once. Jet flyers screaming overhead, scaring the terrapins, as my late navigator friend Jim might say.

The adjudicators were quite generous to the Stage, tapping both shows (along with two others) to move on to the combined festival for and new and published works to be held in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., in April.

Funniest light cue ever: Montgomery Playhouse’s Pillow Talk.