Equus

BRUCE: In my life I’m not going to be afraid to blind the horses, Prudence.

PRUDENCE: You ought to become a veterinarian.

BRUCE (very offended): You’ve missed the metaphor.

PRUDENCE: I haven’t missed the metaphor. I made a joke.

BRUCE: You just totally missed the metaphor. I could never love someone who missed the metaphor.

—Christopher Durang, Beyond Therapy, I:i

Turn in your yogurt cups

Robert Siegel surveys the state of recycling programs in three suburban D.C. counties. He makes a good point about the “stickiness” of programs and what waste they accept—one that should be obvious, I suppose.

County Executive Isiah Leggett announced that Montgomery was going to begin accepting a wider range of plastics at the curb, including tubs and lids. Until recently, the county only accepted plastic bottles.

Montgomery County’s recycling center manager, Tom Kusterer, told me that until a few months ago, there was no market for those types of recycled plastics, but they’ve recently found clients who will buy the plastic to turn it into plastic lumber, plastic pallets and plastic flower pots.

Here’s a catch with recycling: Once a county or a city decides to accept, say, plastic tubs and lids, it’s pretty hard to tell people two years later—sorry there’s no more market for that stuff. So these decisions tend to be for keeps.

At the park: 20

Earlier this month we made our last field trip to monitor nest boxes. The raspberries were ripening, the Typha was eyeball-height, the dodder was showing its bright orange, and Indigo Buntings were singing in the mapletops.

It was a good year for the ducks, with an especially impressive increase in activity from the Wood Ducks. We fledged 97 woodies, a 14-year high. The hoodies did well, too, with 4 successful nests. The area along Lower Barnyard Run was the most intensively used (as it has been for several years), with double clutches in three of the boxes.

A few years ago I started recording our data with Cornell, in what is now the NestWatch program. This year they’ve opened up outside access to the data, at least a little bit. So here’s a map with our summary data.

We also discussed plans for maintenance and box relocation with Park staffer Dave Lawlor. Since construction for the wetland restoration project is now planned for summer, 2009, we’re not going to be doing much work before then—just replacement of a couple of worn-out boxes.

Some lists: 3

Inappropriate Muzak for the food court

  1. “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” by Gordon Lightfoot
  2. “O Fortuna,” the opening song of Carmina Burana, composed by Carl Orff
  3. “Always True To You (In My Fashion),” by Cole Porter
  4. (tie) “Synchronicity II”, by The Police; “In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus),” by Zager and Evans
  5. “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught,” by Rodgers and Hammerstein

Inspired by a lite-jazz something I heard in Chick-Fil-A that sounded for a moment like #3.

From the Director

A Warning:

There will be no gunfire in this production.
There will be no smoking of cigarettes during this production.
No strobe light will be used.
There will be no intermission.
There will be no strong language.

If you are looking for any of the above when attending the theatre, we are sorry to disappoint you. However, we do encourage you to remain.

What there WILL be before you on the stage is a celebration. It is a celebration of the very essence of what makes live theatre such an exciting and engaging art form. There will be two actors acting.

They will use no props. They will not change costumes. The set will not spin around them. They will use their considerable talents to create for you eight characters—both seen and unseen—as they relay one of the greatest ghost stories ever told.

Have I seduced you? Well. God be with you.

—Kathy Feininger, director’s notes to Round House Theatre’s production of The Turn of the Screw, January 1999

And yet… I must also note that this production was excellently, if minimally, designed, by a team of established talents in the D.C. theater community: Elizabeth Jenkins McFadden (scenic), Rosemary Pardee (costume), Ayun Fedorcha (lighting), and Tom McCarthy (sound).

Some links: 29

Amy Cortese spotlights Blaine Brownell’s transmaterial.net, a blog (and associated books) of green building materials and other technological innovations in construction. She singles out plans by Serious Materials to introduce EcoRock, a carbon-neutral gypsum board replacement.

A typical gypsum drywall plant consumes one trillion to two trillion B.T.U.’s of natural gas a year, according to [Kevin] Surace [of Serious Materials].

Later this year, his company—backed by $65 million in venture capital funding—plans to offer a zero-carbon drywall called EcoRock. It looks and performs like traditional drywall and will be priced comparably, but it uses no heat in its creation. Instead, the mix of ingredients, which Mr. Surace would not disclose but said were mainly materials diverted from landfills, are heated through a chemical reaction. “This is brand-new materials science,” he said.

Wash Day

A grim little poem from Allen Grossman:

Water. Well-water
is real cold.
No stove, pigs or not,
is hot enough to bring
well-water to blood heat.
For that you need a heart.

…with an allusion to the first verses of Amos 8:

Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit. And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the LORD unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more. And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord GOD: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence.

Incorruptible: an update: 3

We can see the end of the tunnel. Sonya brought in the remaining props yesterday evening; all we have left to do is to pack the body bags and to dress up the letters. Andy and Andrea simplified the intermission changeover, so Leta and I got through it in seven minutes. The light board is new to me, and I like it better: compared to the previous one, it’s a lot easier to jump back into a cue when you have wandered off somewhere you don’t want to be. (As happened yesterday when I double-bumped the GO to start the second act.) Overall, last night’s run was pretty clean; a little more polishing and cleanup and we’ll be ready for a preview audience on Thursday. I’m not yet sure who my sound operator will be tonight, but we can deal. Neil put together a kit of pictures for the press (link updated 18 August 2008).