Author: David Gorsline

TMLMTBGB: 2

Woolly Mammoth brings the Chicago zanies back for another entertaining, provocative installment of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (previously reviewed). At December 17’s manifestation, the troupe nearly succeeded at packing all 30 plays into the allotted 60 minutes, bailing out only on #11, “Lacquer This to Your Driftwood Clock.” This team—Sharon Greene, Jacquelyn Landgraf, John Pierson, Caitlin Stainken, and Jay Torrence—could be tagged as “Now! With More Estrogen!” as the strongest pieces of the evening were written from a female perspective. Among these were seeking-validation “Let’s Pretend Mommy and Daddy” of universal applicability, the love letter with soap bubbles “Non-Toxic Miracle,” and the, shall we say, informative “One for the Ladies” about toilet seat etiquette. Warning: “Les Lesions Dangereuses” is not SAFD-certified. Fans of the Neo-Futurists’ preposterous titles were rewarded with “Having Missed Its Cue, the Orange Entered Hurriedly, but Once on Stage It Found That It Had Forgotten Its Lines Entirely and Remained Paralyzed Before the Audience for What Seemed Like an Eternity.” At least the orange hit its mark.

  • Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, created by Greg Allen, written, directed, and performed by The Neo-Futurists, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Washington

Some links: 32

Hugh Powell explains how cannon nets work and what can go wrong with them in “Twinkling the Whimbrels.”

Cannon netting consists of firing three projectiles over a flock of birds, trailing a single net that traps the birds underneath. Setting up the cannons is a daylong process that involves digging three separate metal tubes into the ground about 15 or so feet apart and stuffing them with a long, metal projectile, each of which will carry one section of the long nylon net.

When the tubes are dug in and properly aimed, we hook each cannon into an electrical system and place black powder at the base of the cannons. Then we string a set of wires back to a control box strategically placed a couple of hundred feet away in a well-hidden vantage point. After all of that is in place, we dig a trench to conceal the net and cover it with seaweed and other detritus. Then it’s a matter of hiding and waiting for the birds to arrive. Just imagine Wile E. Coyote trying to catch Roadrunner with a big contraption triggered by TNT in the old Looney Tunes cartoons.

Offers

(In response to Via Negativa’s Offers.)

I’ve been offered a job several times, and most of them I have accepted. Before I started writing software full-time, I was offered a number-crunching job by a federal agency on a January 19. The next administration came in the next day and froze hiring.

I was offered the opportunity to join Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. I didn’t.

Bill offered me a ride home on the back of his moped. It was something like six blocks down Lake Street in Minneapolis. I was such the dare-devil, riding without a helmet.

Sarah and Casey offered me leads and advice on getting work doing voice-overs.

Because market rates had fallen so much, my mortgage holder offered me a no-cost, no-strings re-fi—all I had to do was show up at closing. This was a long time ago.

A mediocre university, one of my safety schools, offered me a full scholarship. I turned them down.

Cheryl offered to teach me guitar, and even gave me her old instrument to encourage me to practice.

Over the last twenty years, many directors and producers have called to offer me parts in plays. I think some of us do theater just because we like getting the phone call and the chance to say, “I would be happy to.”

Senior year, G. asked me if I was interested in helping him cheat on an exam. I ended the conversation before he had the chance to offer me something in return.

On the run

Via The Great Beyond, the Carter Center announces that worldwide cases of nasty, painful Guinea worm disease (dracunculiasis) have fallen to 5,000 per year. With the goal of eradicating the disease completely, the Center announces a challenge grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to raise $72 million, along with a pledge of £10 million from the United Kingdom Department for International Development.

Endemic in twenty countries of central Africa and the Indian subcontinent in 1986, the disease remains active in only six. Reported cases have dropped by about half from last year.

There were only 9,585 cases of Guinea worm disease recorded in 2007, reduced from 25,217 cases in 2006. In 2007, both the Ghanaian and Sudanese programs, which together accounted for more than 95 percent of all cases in 2007, achieved individual milestones, slashing cases by more than half compared to 2006.

In the first 10 months of 2008, only 4,410 cases of Guinea worm disease were reported in Sudan, Ghana, Mali, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Niger. Cases are expected to remain below 5,000 for the year. Two countries—Nigeria and Niger—already may have reported their last case. Today, southern Sudan, northern Ghana, and eastern Mali are the main foci of eradication efforts.

The disease is spread through drinking water. Like some other devastating diseases (malaria, for instance), Guinea worm disease can be controlled with relatively simple technology. Simple cloth water filters are key to eradication efforts.

First past the post

So the reblogging game is to name your favorite films by these indie auteurs of the 30 years or so: the Coen Brothers, Wes Anderson, Hal Ashby, Kevin Smith, and Quentin Tarantino. kottke.org adds Stanley Kubrick, P.T. Anderson, and Errol Morris to the list. All well and good, but a few of of these guys worked only one seam, and if this is to be a revealing personality test we need some directors with a wider range of material. Offhand, I can think of Woody Allen, Robert Altman, and Steven Soderbergh. So here’s my list:

  • Coens: Blood Simple
  • W. Anderson: Bottle Rocket
  • Ashby: none (Harold and Maude is for adolescents)
  • Smith: Dogma edges out Clerks
  • Tarantino: Reservoir Dogs, also by a slight margin
  • Kubrick: 2001: A Space Odyssey
  • P.T. Anderson: Magnolia
  • Morris: Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control
  • Allen: Hannah and Her Sisters
  • Altman: Nashville
  • Soderbergh: sex, lies, and videotape

Some links: 31

Christopher Dykton is directing and choreographing Follies for The Arlington Players. In anticipation of auditions later this month, he is blogging his preparation and the backstory of the characters of the play—in formidably articulate detail.

Because music and dance are basically mathematical, the first step in choreographing is a rather dry one. You count. The song begins with counts and ends with counts. There are a limited number of counts to a song, and movement needs to fit to these counts. How much time a movement takes needs to be calibrated and it must fit the counts. Choreographers count and demand that their dancers count, and if you do not count it like the choreographer, you will be corrected. As a choreographer teaching a dance, you count my counts. It’s my way or the highway. I have the counts—you have to learn them. I don’t need interpretation—I need you to dance my counts. But if you do count it right and practice it over and over and over again, it may perhaps transcend to something that’s art and dance.

But first you count.

Two into one

Via The Economist, recent research published by Evan Preisser and Joseph Elkinton yields an interesting result to those concerned with the conservation of Eastern Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) trees. From Virginia to Connecticut, the species has been getting clobbered by an invasive hemipteran, Hemlock Woolly Adelgid (Adelges tsugae), native to Asia. However, comes another sap-sucker, Elongate Hemlock Scale (Fiorinia externa), also invasive, to feed on the hemlock. According to the paper, in experimental infestations, trees inoculated with both bug species fare better than those inoculated with just the adelgid.

A solar-powered bicycle tour?

Via ArtsJournal, Steven McElroy reports from the launch of Broadway Goes Green, an effort sponsored by the New York mayor’s office and the Natural Resources Defense Council to reduce waste (paper, electricity, etc.) in the professional theater and promote a sustainable stage. Turns out that the effort is already underway.

The mayor’s office approached the Broadway League in March about working with theater owners to study the efficiency of their buildings and to find ways to decrease the load on the overburdened electrical grid of Midtown. “They were very surprised to learn that all of our theater owners were already in the middle of doing things on their own,” Charlotte St. Martin, executive director of the Broadway League, said of the city representatives.

Appalachian whiskey

The Scots-Irish seemed little moved by the magnificence of the Great Forest. The Germans were just as brutal to the land, only neater and more law-abiding about it. The English had already swept away coastal pineries to build tobacco plantations run by slaves. They all took from the forest without thinking of anything but their own desires, certainly not thinking that there might be anything sacred there. In this the new Americans were solidly in the mainstream of Western thought. What is distinctive about Appalachia is not how it differed from the rest of the country, but how it distilled the American experience to moonshine clarity. And how long the hangover is lasting.

—Chris Bolgiano, The Appalachian Forest: A Search for Roots and Renewal

Changes, again

Well, I can’t say that I’m overwhelmed by the changes to the profile system provided by Six Apart. What was a TypeKey Profile is now a TypePad Profile.

The profile page is burdened with upsell messages. The shrouded e-mail address feature is gone. Despite what the instructions say, URLs in the About Me section are not auto-linked. And URLs in the Around the Web section don’t render nicely under Safari (woof! it looks even worse under Win/IE7!). Other than that, it does the same job for me that the old system did.

Or, How a mistake by the fabrication shop became a design element

Via The Morning News, Paul Shaw tells “The (Mostly) True Story of Helvetica and the New York City Subway” in a deliciously-illustrated nine-page essay, which includes digressions into the history of the system map, the Chrystie Street Connection snafu, and a refresher on 1970’s-era type technology.