Author: David Gorsline

Lori

We said goodbye to Lori today.

Lori was one of the few people who bothered to read pedantic nuthatch. She once put Karen’s nose out of joint by passing along the tip, “Did you know that David Gorsline is blogging his rehearsal notes?”

Lori and I were connected through a web of theater people in Maryland. We were admirers of each other’s work, but we hadn’t done a project together, or so I misremembered. But Brendan reminded me that the three of us did a role-playing gig for the American Physical Society three years ago. It was an easy mistake, because Lori was so deeply into character as Lise Meitner from the moment we got to the hotel. Her Meitner was a withdrawn woman embittered by years of doing good physics while the men in her profession took the credit and the prizes. It was a committed, crafted piece of acting for something no more consequential than light entertainment for a cocktail reception. But Lori was serious about doing her work.

At the park: 21

As Kevin Munroe notes in the most recent newsletter from Friends of Huntley Meadows Park, some prized bird and plant species returned to breeding status in the park this past year. Birds include Virginia Rail (Rallus limicola), which I got to see in May, and Least Bittern (Ixobrychus exilis), still a jinx bird for me. For the botanists, there was Green Milkweed to be found, and the carnivorous Bladderwort (Utricularia sp.), last seen in the wetland eighteen years ago.

Genius2

Four enjoyable pieces from Washington Ballet, emphasizing the strength of the company’s ensemble work. In Mark Morris’s Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes, an elegiacal group piece sprinkled with some challenges to traditional gender roles, and accompanied by Glenn Sales at the piano, I was impressed by fifth-season company member Zachary Hackstock, who danced his solo breaks with especial power and brio. But reprising this piece from only last season seems an odd programming choice. After the first break: a clean reading of Christopher Wheeldon’s Morphoses—with its interesting lighting effects achieved with cyclorama and travelers—by the quartet of Sona Kharatian, Luis R. Torres, Jade Payette, and Jared Nelson; then a fluid duet by Kharatian and Nelson in Cor Perdut, by Nacho Duato. The evening closes with the spunky Baker’s Dozen, a dance for twelve by Twyla Tharp. The strongest effect in this piece are the masses of dancers rippling across the stage, dressed in white, the women in low character shoes. It’s a casual piece, perhaps to a fault, as it doesn’t seem to come to a proper ending. Pianist Sales didn’t seem to have the right mojo for playing Willie “The Lion” Smith.

  • Genius2 mixed bill, Washington Ballet, Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater, Washington

The refurbished Eisenhower Theater is quite beautiful, the walls faced with warm wood acoustic panels and the seats equipped with the generous armrests that also featured in the Opera House renovation. The awkward enclosure for lighting instruments on the face of the balcony has been removed. Unfortunately, the theater’s setup is more than a little clumsy for musicians playing from the pit, as there appears to be no backstage access (granted, the Ike doesn’t serve the same purposes as the larger space); house management has to shepherd them through the auditorium at intermissions. Although I miss the interlocking E’s of the red act curtain (a plain blue one replaces it), the decoration on the proscenium provides an allusive pattern.

Appalachian Trail: Maryland northern third

trailheadThe day began brisk and clear for a hike of the northern third of the Appalachian Trail in Maryland, from Pen Mar Park just south of the surveyor’s line laid by Mason and Dixon to our endpoint at Maryland Route 77, a line of asphalt laid by latter engineers. We followed the signs pointing to Georgia.

moving upSenior Naturalist Stephanie Mason of Audubon Naturalist Society set a fast pace so that we could cover the 8.5 miles in 7:30. I was grateful for the quick march, because I had underdressed for the newly Octoberish weather on the ridgeline. This stretch of the trail is fairly flat, with just a 600-foot climb to High Rock, followed by a drop from the peak of 750 feet before climbing again to Raven Rock. But much of the footing is fairly rocky, and with a generous litter of Chestnut Oak leaves, somewhat tricky.

We took the loop branching off the AT to see High Rock, but as this viewpoint is directly accessible by road, the towniness of the place is rather unpleasant.

on the rocksfrom the topBetter, and more dramatic, are the views from Raven Rock, a couple of miles to the south.

Along the way, we stopped for close looks at Common Witch-hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) in wispy flower (the common name Winter-bloom makes a lot of sense), a handful of Redback Salamanders (Plethodon cinereus) under logs, and the fine white stripes (visible under hand lens) on the needles of a White Pine. Much of the Hay-Scented Fern, so much in evidence on September’s walk, is now dried and brown. Generally, when Stephanie stops to point something out, she will ask, “Does anyone know what this is?” and she will follow up with hints and questions, as needed. On this trip, most of the geology questions were answered by the group, since we had my car pool mate Bret along (a staff geologist with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) as well as others who knew their rocks. We looked at a lot of leaves and nuts: bright red Sourgum, Sugar and Red Maple, Sassafras, Sarsaparilla, Yellow and Black Birch, Eastern Hemlock (a few specimens looking almost healthy), Hickory, some sapling American Chestnuts, Tuliptree.

Stephanie paused at the fall of a rather substantial oak to point out the niche ecosystems and topography—so-called pit and mound—formed by treefall.

Flappy

At my local Whole Foods, by the check stands, there are six banners hung at their corners from the ceiling, sort of like the championshop banners at Boston Garden. By a quirk of the HVAC in the building, one of the middle banners (third from the right) is perpetually caught in the air flow, swinging back and forth from side to side, looking like it’s having much more fun than the rest of us.

CityDance Ensemble: Next

Some highlights from CityDance Ensemble’s mixed bill of six works by choreographers new and old:

The evening begins with a period piece, Sophie Maslow’s Folksay (1942), set on folk songs in the Woody Guthrie tradition and spoken word, in part by Carl Sandburg. The opening dance is a genial barn dance with flexed feet, punctuated by alarmingly vigorous foot stomps, the more so for the feet being unshod. Musicians Andrew Ratliff and John Ratliff perform the score on voice and guitar, and gamely execute certain passages of down home banter that would make the writers for Hee Haw blush. Still, there are some sweet passages, like the phrase, “Sometimes when I think about you, I think my heart will strip a gear.”

The evening then shifts into a darker mood, much of it costumed in black slashed with red. Han (2006/2007), scored in part by taiko drums and choreographed by company artistic director Paul Gordon Emerson, is typical of the company’s strengths: high energy, go-for-broke phrasing, themes of struggle. Jason Garcia Ignacio does well with Jason Hartley’s Nocturne Monologue (2003), a dimly-lit, muscular sketch with allusions to yoga postures as well as classic dance poses.

The evening closes with the most wide-ranging work, Christopher K. Morgan’s Ties That Bind (2002). There is a particularly lovely, languid passage in which a pair of women exchange energy almost as easily as if they’re doing a warm-up improvisation—hints of Pilobolus here. There are also human puppets, an odd solo with a parasol and veil, and a section that could be read as a particularly nasty game of Red Rover.

The standout dance, however, comes in the first half: Kate Weare’s Drop Down (2006), masterfully performed by Giselle Alvarez and Maleek Makhail Washington. Set on a score by Katie Down that sounds like sonically processed Astor Piazzolla, it’s a breathtaking power struggle of a duet. Equal parts deconstructed tango and exercise in especially violent martial arts, the opening sections are marked by a slow/snap quick rhythm. The climactic section takes place mostly on the floor, and is all the more powerful for having nothing but silence backing it up.

Can’t argue

If a child’s diaper is changed six times a day until he is 30 months old, he will have had his diaper changed more than 5,400 times. Anything a child experiences 5,400 times is an important part of his life for him and for those who create the experience.

—Diane Trister Dodge et al., The Creative Curriculum for Infants, Toddlers, and Twos

A green line

I got a chance to read Tyler Colman and Pablo Päaster’s white paper, “Red, White, and ‘Green’: The Cost of Carbon in the Global Wine Trade,” which is summarized in Colman’s post.

The authors perform a detailed analysis of the carbon footprint (in terms of greenhouse gas emissions) of the production and distribution of a bottle of wine for consumption in the United States. The independent variable in their computations is the location where the wine is produced—Australia, France, Argentina, or California. Although they also analyze the effects of different agricultural practices (organic farming as might be typical in the various regions) and other links in the chain (such as CO2 released by fermentation), it turns out that the predominant carbon contributor is the means of shipping the finished, bottled wine and the distance that it must be shipped. For instance, for delivery to Chicago, a hypothetical 750ml bottle of wine from the Napa Valley produces almost 4.5kg of carbon dioxide; 3kg is accounted for by truck shipment from California. By contrast, wine from France, which is shipped by relatively efficient container ship, produces 2.0kg; and even here, shipping accounts for more than half of the total. The other significant components include the production of bottles, land use, and consumption of oak for in-barrel aging.

The results enable the researchers to draw a “green line” across the Midwest and South: to the east of this line, it’s more emissions-efficient to consume wine shipped from France than trucked from California (or Washington, presumably). Of course, if you’re fortunate enough to live in a state that produces its own drinkable wine (like I do, in Virginia), an even better choice would be the local tipple. Buying by the 1.5l magnum also helps: as they say, “shipping wine is often really about shipping glass with some wine in it.”

Two other asides: First, a footnote gives the nod to the general sustainability of cork as a bottle closure. Second, the writers note that growing grapes requires a lot of water for what you harvest: 1.2 to 2.5 megaliters per hectare, or 550 kiloliters per ton of grapes. This is partly due to the fact that grapes don’t yield a lot of mass per hectare, compared to a crop like corn.

Blog Action Day 2008

As a small contribution to Blog Action Day, this year concerned with the problem of poverty, some notes on books from my library, all three worth the read. Each one, in its own way, puts a personal, human face on the abstraction of poverty.

The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood (1997), by David Simon and Edward Burns
I reviewed this book in 1999. It is a fascinating, horrifying report on the drug culture of today’s inner city, specifically the streets of West Baltimore in 1993. Co-author Simon, creator of TV’s The Wire, got his start as a reporter and his journalism informed the TV series Homicide: Life on the Street). Reading this book was like watching a train wreck. It is a shock to find tender photographic portraits of the key figures at the center of the volume. You know in the bones of your head that it its inevitable that some of these people will die by the end of the book.
The Working Poor: Invisible in America (2004), by David K. Shipler
Shipler casts a wider net, interviewing working class citizens from cities and small towns, from D.C. to Los Angeles, from New Hampshire to North Carolina, who are just scraping by. He focuses on what has succeeded in our efforts to job-train the poor into the mainstream of productive work, and what has failed.
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, (1941/1988) by James Agee (text) and Walker Evans (photographs)
The controversial, seminal book, now back in print. A forerunner of the narrator-involved New Journalism. Agee’s expressive, polemical, romantic, rambling prose pictures of the lives of sharecroppers in the rural South during the Depression, as powerful as they are, nevertheless are outdone by Evans’s quietly eloquent photographs. Evans and Agee recognize in these lives of grinding dirt and drudgery a serious dignity.

Blog Action Day

Pragmatism

I’m catching up with the Cornell Lab’s new birding blog, Round Robin, so this posting on Ken Otter’s research into wildlife impacts of wind turbine facilities has been out there a little while.

Even though wind power is a green energy source that we’re right to feel enthusiastic about, it does have a cost that can be minimized. Different settings – shapes of ridgelines, prevailing wind patterns, migratory routes – mean that each new wind farm will present different hazards to birds. But with a little forethought and brain power, we can reduce the costs birds pay to satisfy our own energy demands.

Improvisation

please be gentleThe lobby of the building where RFB&D has its Washington offices on the third floor is being renovated. Scaffolding and plywood platforms everywhere. Somehow the workmen have rigged up a dual-direction call button for the elevator. I count five different hands adding instructions and admonitions to the board. Judging from the cutout, I think the original idea was just to frame the existing two-button panel, but frass happens on a job site.