Emergency preparedness tips from Damon Darlin. Tip one: if you do nothing else, stock up on water.

(Thanks to 11d and Susan.)

posted: 5:54:17 PM  

Well, Leta thinks it's annoying, but I find Dictionaraoke amusing. I like the remixed "I Got You, Babe" better than the original.

(Thanks to Bookslut.)

posted: 5:10:29 PM  

I made my first field trip along the Blue Mash Nature Trail, near Laytonsville, Maryland, with Mark England as leader. Centuries ago the location was a wetland known as the Blue Marsh, and it served as a hideout for slaves travelling the underground railroad. Later it became a landfill (no longer in active use, but access to certain areas is closed). Habitat includes woodland, old fields, and sedimentation ponds (all of them fenced); most walking is on gravelled paths, but getting to one of the ponds calls for some bushwhacking. This part of Montgomery County is still in transition from agriculture to subdivision. The heard-only domestic Chicken was not countable.

It turned out to be a good day for raptors and vultures, with good views of adult Broad-Winged Hawks (Buteo platypterus) riding thermals on their way to Mexico and up-close looks at two dozen Black Vultures (Coragyps atratus). We caught a whiff of what had probably brought some of them into the area. We also saw Osprey, accipiter representatives, and Northern Harrier. A little light on the warbler species, as the group saw only half a dozen. The group also glimpsed Philadelphia Vireo (Vireo philadelphicus), but I didn't see it well enough to check it off my list.

Mark is talking about sparrows for October's trip, including American Tree and Lincoln's. Time to study up!

posted: 5:02:37 PM  

Two plays at two venues from Caryl Churchill, master of the fantastical gesture, that probe questions of identity and the relationships between parent and child. Her new play is A Number, a one-act sequence of encounters between a man and three identical clones of his son. Which, if any of them, is the original, and which are the copies? Churchill leaves that question for us to decide, and if we're dissatisfied with the answer, the third, most well-adjusted, clone offers the lamest of apologies: "Sorry." It is the third clone who can offer the most specific information about himself in order to validate his identity, and yet (as his father cavils), all of his offered facts of self are nothing but instances of his relations with other people.

In this Studio production, seen early in the run, Ted van Griethuysen and Tom Story appeared a little tentative. Story, as the cloned son, had difficulty making Churchill's challenging start-and-stop dialogue sound organic.

The revival is Top Girls from 1982, a play with daunting technical requirements that are generally well met by Fountainhead Theatre and its modest resources. The first act presents a fantasy dinner party given by Marlene in celebration of her being named Managing Director (CEO to us in the States) of an employment agency. Her guests are figures from history and fable in full-blown costume: Pope Joan in robes and jewelled mitre, Victorian explorer Isabella Bird in a dour black feathered hat, 13th century Japanese memoirist Lady Nijo in court robes, and others. (A program insert provides background for the curious.)

The second act swings into the here and now of 1980s Thatcherite Britain, where Marlene and her staff perform screening interviews for all manner of women desperate to escape their lots—gormless young girls, dedicated middle-aged team players repeatedly passed over. First-act players double in the second act, by Churchill's design, so that we see the bones of Chaucerian Patient Griselda and Bruegelsesque Dull Gret in the faces of job candidates, seeking to balance modern ambition and ancient demands of family.

And indeed Marlene herself has family issues: an embittered working-class sister in the country and a teenage niece Angie who, it must be admitted, is "a bit thick." And what exactly is Marlene's responsibility for Angie? A well-constructed flashback scene reveals more, leaving Angie with the chilling last word: "Frightening."

Lindsay Haynes stands out in the double roles of Kit, Angie's too-young playmate, and Shona, perhaps the world's most brazen resume-padder. The set, which must swing from restaurant to offices to kitchen, is marred by noisy platforms, and the scene between Angie and Kit has major sightline problems. Director Dorothy Neumann and cast take charge of Churchill's tricky dialogue, with points of overlap established by the script. When two more more people are talking, Neumann always makes it clear who the dominant speaker is, just as a musician manages the multiple voices of counterpoint.

posted: 4:20:48 PM