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).

Cruciform

Henry Phillips received a patent for his screwdriver and screws on this day in 1936, as Randy Alfred summarizes. The fastener and tool were designed with power tools and automated assembly lines in mind, and indeed General Motors adopted the system for the 1936 Cadillac. Supposedly it’s harder to overtorque a Phillips screw.

The Phillips cam-out—when you’ve gone far enough and the tool pops out of the screw—has led to plenty of workshop profanity. And loosening a machine-driven Phillips screw with a hand-held screwdriver has apparently reminded many, judging from their language, of the tenacity of a female dog protecting its newborns.

Still, remember Henry Phillips gently. His screws are holding your life together.

Not to mention your set.

A job for the Horn Farm Paste Mob

bit-player asks an interesting question: are there any board positions in Scrabble that are stymied, i.e., in which no additional words can be formed? (Let’s stipulate a two-player game, and that only acceptable words are played. As we know, it’s perfectly legal to invent a word and play it, so long as your opponent doesn’t challenge it; it may be in your opponent’s interest not to challenge a bogus word.) I suspect that such a stymied position, if it exists, uses all four of the S’s. This is actually a two-part problem: find a board position and state of the players’ racks that is stymied, and (harder) find a board position that is stymied no matter how the remaining tiles are distributed.

In proportion

Gasoline prices in the United States continue to be a bargain compared to the rest of the industrialized world, as a short article by Bill Marsh (accompanied by a chart) points out, part of the Times‘s collection of stories this Sunday about consumer energy costs. Back when we were kids, and gas was less than half a buck per gallon, it was explained to us that prices in Europe were much higher (and efficient cars more popular) because of higher taxes. Prices have risen a lot since then, but I was mildly shocked to learn that U.S. taxes haven’t kept pace. Of the current national average pump price of $4.00 a gallon, only 49 cents (12.3%) is taxes. By comparison, Canadians pay $5.09 per gallon and $1.26 (24.8%) in taxes; in France, the comparable price is $8.78, of which more than half, $5.06, is taxes.

Incorruptible: an update: 2

We moved rehearsal props and set pieces into the theater now that the show before us, Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, has closed. The cast got through their first run of Act 1, scene 2 off book, and everyone stayed focused and on task. No small accomplishment, what with two different crews doing construction (mainly deconstruction) work upstairs. Bang! Every time the crews move on to something else, we get a new leak or see daylight through the ceiling. It wouldn’t surprise me to come in one evening and see parts of the lighting grid on the floor.

Meanwhile Andy was making his own noise, working in the shop adjacent to build our set. And I’m trying to feed the cast lines in two different voices, a flutey one for John (Br. Felix) who was scheduled to be out, and a more commanding prompter’s voice, when needed.

The rush hour commute from Sterling to Silver Spring hasn’t been bothering me too much. I’ve started keeping track of how long the drive takes, to confirm my general observation that the congestion gets worse with each passing day of the week. So I more or less know what to expect, and I can be pleasantly surprised when I can get there in only a hour. (?!) The Traffic View of Google Maps helps a lot, too.

At the park: 19

Still one box unhatched as of this morning’s checks. Unfortunately, we’re writing up box #61 as a failed attempt: no eggs, but no shells, so most likely predated. Brief visits from unwanted deer flies as we walked out; I was wet over the tops of my boots as we walked through waist-high lizardtail (Saururus cernuus). Paul found an Orchard Oriole (Icterus spurius) in a bare tree in the middle of the Run.

A point of usage

“And your English lakes—Vindermere, Grasmere—are they, then, unhealthy?”

“No, Frau Liesecke; but that is because they are fresh water, and different. Salt water ought to have tides, and go up and down a great deal, or else it smells. Look, for instance, at an aquarium.”

“An aquarium! Oh, Meesis Munt, you mean to tell me that fresh aquariums stink less than salt? Why, when Victor, my brother-in-law, collected many tadpoles—”

“You are not to say ‘stink,'” interrupted Helen; “at least, you may say it, but you must pretend you are being funny while you say it.”

“Then ‘smell.’ And the mud of your Poole down there—does it not smell, or may I say ‘stink, ha, ha’?”

—E.M. Forster, Howards End, chap. 19

Good advice

Guest blogger Ann Hall advises the hiker on how to deal with t-storms in the field:

The chances for being caught in a thunderstorm at Dolly Sods are good. Avoid these storms if possible. If, however, you are caught in one of these storms make yourself as unattractive to lightning as possible, stay as dry as possible, then enjoy what you see and hear (since you’re already there).

Measure for Pleasure

Woolly Mammoth gives its audience a frisson of what it would feel like to be titillated by a contemporary Restoration comedy with David Grimm’s riff on the genre, Measure for Pleasure. The piece is a post-modern romp through 21st-century sexual tastes, framed by 17th-century theatrical conventions. There are flirtatious poses, elaborate asides, wanton butt shots, nearly unintelligible dialects, and a series of wigs, each one taller than the one before. (Cheers for costume and wig designer Helen Q. Huang!) Long passages are in rhymed verse.

The setting is mid-18th century, and it finds Will Blunt (the fine Joel Reuben Ganz), valet to Sir Peter Lustforth (company stalwart Doug Brown) in dissatisfied love with openly cross-dressing Molly Tawdry (Andrew Honeycutt). When Sir Peter and his randy, dissembling friend Capt. Dick Dashwood (Michael Gabriel Goodfriend, showing completely different colors than he did in this season’s earlier Stunning) both make a play for young Hermione Goode (Kimberly Gilbert), Will sets his cap for her as well (and dons the most fop-rageous hot pink outfit and platform shoes to woo her). Trouble is, Hermione is protected by her Puritanical guardian Tiberia Stickle, a role executed by Kimberly Schraf with a brogue so flinty it could cut peat.

The second act culminates in a set piece that involves a pagan marriage rite, presided over by Sir Peter in ridiculous crested headgear made from a bicycle helmet and the legs from half a dozen Barbie dolls. There is much chasing around the house, followed by much exchange of bodily fluids—and a resolution that reminds us that true love is what’s important.

More bits of fun to celebrate in this production: the set design, which features plaster pilasters that crumble to reveal the steel framework underneath; the tension between the traditional design elements (a wall of clocks for Lady Lustforth’s boudoir) and their 21st-century counterparts (high-top sneakers on the servants, a single electric light fixture); Goodfriend’s cartoon Italian dialect when he is in disguise as the music teacher Fidelio; and the script’s tag names. I really regret that we never get to meet Miss Stickle’s comrade, the Reverend Puke.

  • Measure for Pleasure, by David Grimm, directed by Howard Shalwitz, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Washington