Bob Mondello and Leonard Maltin on Monday's "All Things Considered" about the role of the critic in reviewing summer blockbusters. Mondello has a pragmatic viewpoint very close to mine. He says that the least important judgement a film or theater critic makes is good/bad, thumbs up/down. What's more interesting is the critic's riff on the material, analysis of how the film does what it does. He says (paraphrased), "I hated Cats, but kids love it anyway. Maybe if they have a good experience, sometime they'll come back to see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. It's not my job to keep people away from the over-marketed mediocre stuff. It's my job to get them to go to the good stuff."

posted: 10:06:23 PM  

We've had some problems with a couple of the wood duck boxes this season, especially nos. 6 and 7. Three or four times we've come out on a Sunday to find a door open; in one case, it was torn off its hinges. Boxes 6 and 7 are semi-accessible by land from the Kings Highway entrance to the park, but they're not adjacent to any trail. The doors are easy to open, just screen door hook-and-eye closures. Nevertheless, we'd figured it was malicious kids who were responsible.

We found some new evidence this past Sunday, and it doesn't quite add up. The door to box 6, which is standing in about 4-8 inches of water, was open. There had been a clutch of 10 eggs; most had hatched; I counted no more than 8 egg membranes and remnants in the nest. Then James noticed some scratches on the side of the box behind the open door. We looked further, and found a sizable chunk of wood scratched out from around the entrance hole. On the far side of the box, we found a muddy pawprint, a tiny hand, with matching claw marks in the wood.

My best reconstruction of events: Seven or 8 eggs hatched and the precocial ducklings departed. A water-resistant raccoon, his attention drawn to the nest by the hatchlings, went looking for a snack. After scratching at the hole, he flipped open the latch and took away the remaining 2 or 3 eggs. We found no residue of eggs that had been eaten on the spot.

posted: 9:46:04 PM  

We got through the 40-minute tech at the Reston Community Center just fine. It helps a lot when there's a minimal number of cues, and you just bring the measurements of your set pieces for spiking purposes, not the real thing. Lynda was always there for me, covering my butt.

The only tricky bit is the top of the show, which is timed to a music cue. We got to run it once, imperfectly. But now I've got some idea how long the grand drape takes to come out (a 5-count, Chuck says, is the fastest he can go), so I know more or less where to call that.

posted: 9:34:13 PM