I got the jones to make some comics again, and I spent the evening doodling and scripting one-shot comics. I have a sound idea for a non-hero story, and then I have this ginormous hero tale that's simmered for a decade now. I have to get to work. Now that Your Sis will be teaching again, we can both hunch over a desk and empty our brains onto stacks of paper.
We watched the Giants-Redskins game last night (her team won), and then I watched the last night of the GOP convention. Cindy McCain has a better biography than I knew. She founded the American Volunteer Medical Team for overseas work and adopted her daughter from a Mother Theresa orphanage.
Two things about this: 1) This was the same child who was spun by Bush's 2000 campaign to scullte McCain's chances in the South Carolina primary. The campaaign asked folks if they would vote for McCain if they knew he had fathered a black child. He didn't, and they technically never said he did. But the suggestion spooked the bigots, and Bush took the state and rolled to the nomination.
2) I thought kids were off-limits in the campaign.
John's speech had flashes of maturity. He praised the Obama/Biden ticket for their love of country and sincerity to improve the nation. He also claimed he had no obligation to "any party." Then he leaned hard on his POW experience to gain sympathy votes, and that well is gonna dry up if he keeps dredging it.
Palin continues to be a font of gossip (she asked a local librarian about removing books and bounced around five colleges in six years), and I can't wait for the debate against Biden.
The winner gets to boast and wear a customized Burger King crown.
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Football season opens tonight, and John Mccain better hope the opening game doesn't go into overtime. He's scheduled to speak after that game, and one wonders how many die-hard sports fans will be sober/energetic enough to listen to a political speech. I'll stay up to hear him, but I don't expect much beyond playing the military card.
Palin's speech last night was surprisingly weak stuff. It wasn't written well, and that may have affected her delivery. It wasn't the home-run she needed. I wonder how well she can debate Biden. She'll get plenty of education on piolicy matters from her new campaign staff, but can she keep it together? The new conversation on her is whether she'll make it to the election. I don't see her dropping out unless something really big is uncovered. Given the number of disclosures since her coronation, it's not impossible.
Here are the rest of the photos I took. I'm scouring the net for more of them, and I'm finding a decent amount. Hopefully, the official site will post links to the various photo albums and post the convention's commissioned photos too.
Your Sis is still adjusting to the school semester and goes to bed earlier each night. She has her motorcycle safety class this weekend.
+ + +
You've heard the reaction to the Sarah Palin nomination. You've no doubt heard the allegations that have emerged since: the pregnant daughter, the scandal with her brother-in-law, the connections to lobbyists, the membership in a group that wants Alaska to secede from the states, and her comment that she supports "under God" in the pledge because it was "good enough for the Founding Fathers."
So you couldn't miss the questions about how McCain picked this person with so many dangling subplots. McCain is now quoted from his memoirs that he prefers to make quick decisions. There are reports that the vetting committee only talked to her face-to-face the day before she was named. Some are comparing this to the Dan Quayle nomination, and that's not quite fair. Quayle was a virtual nobody when he was named, but he didn't put his foot in his mouth until he was sworn in. He wasn't faced with a cloud of cynicism upon emergence on the national scene.
Palin is in a bad position, and it's not by her doing. I don't blame her for taking the job, but the McCain campaign seems to have been oblivious to the potential backlash to her background. Makes me wonder that the other candidates had in their background to lose the spot to her. Then again, maybe they did just want a young woman for the sake of headlines.
Picture of the Day You might remember parts of Kavalier and Klay where the artist discovered surrealism and montages via the girl he loved. That guy is based on Jack Kirby, the god of comics, and his birthday was last week. Kirby died in the early '90s. You can see his surreal montage work on this page. A later appreciation of this style lead to his broader status as comics' greatest hero artist.
We left Mayberry around 6:30 and be-bopped down the road to Atlanta with nary a bump on the road. Then we hit Atlanta and discovered a dead-stop traffic jam created by construction. We learned afterward that the city decided that they would save much time if they started and finished a specific interstate construction project on the Labor Day weekend instead of doing it during a work week. Never mind DragonCon. Never mind the weekend's biggest college football game (Clemson vs. Alabama) held in downtown Atlanta. Never mind the Black Gay Fair. Or the Woodworking Fair. It was a mess. The southbound 85 was detoured through downtown, right past the convention, in fact, and we made our way to the hotel, near the airport. We arrived much later than we expected but before the hotel bar closed. We split a sandwich and called it a night. We had an early morning.
We got up at 5:45 to shower, ran downstairs for breakfast, ran back up for the basic costume layers, and grabbed a hotel shuttle to the airport. There we took the subway to convention. Unlike our last visit, this years convention spread to an additional hotel, making four major downtown hotels used almost exclusively for the convention. We're talking a lot of people. The con requires memberships for each day's events. Most folks buy their registration on Saturday. We tried that one year, and it was murder. Because this is the majority's choice, it's the longest line. Even if you arrive as soon as the registration begins, you can easily spend two hours in line. We had to register and run to the park to join the parade. Luckily, we registered through TicketMaster.
When we arrived at 7:55 to get in line, it already wrapped around the foundation of the Hyatt Regency. We assembled the rest of our costumes in line, and it wasn't five minutes before someone walking across the street spotted my costume (out of everyone else's) and yelled "SHIPWRECK!" This was repeated dozens of times throughout the day. I knew it would be a fun costume (and that Your Sister's would be equally fun for her), but I had no idea how popular it would be. And all credit for character recognition goes to the parrot. It made people look twice and realize I was a GI Joe.
The doors opened, and the line split into three groups. Instead of 200 people in front of us, we now had eight. We knew within minutes we'd get to the parade OK. We were assigned badges and labeled them with our character names. If you don't have the badge, you don't get into the convention events. Like the parade. We walked the mile to the small park and learned we were the first people of our con-determined groups.
Because the convention encompasses so many genres, the parade folk were broken into groups. Were were in the Cobra group, and they hadn't arrived yet. Across the street was the 501st legion, the gigantic Stormtrooper contingent. The group swelled to include any Star Wars in the parade as well. On another corner were the Colonial Marines from Aliens, and behind them was the Battlestar Galactica group. There were Chinese dragons, rollergirls, magicians, superheroes, zombies, the 1960s Batmobile, a rolling pirate float. Name it. It was there. We even had a Santa. Our group walked second in the parade, right behind the small Reno 911 costumes. The parade was led by a bagpiper. As we waited to begin, we mockingly argued with the Cobra troopers (maybe 15) and took pictures of other attendees. We quickly realized we had picked good outfits as the streets got hot before the sun rose above the skyscrapers. We stood in the road, waiting for the command to start, and when it did, we simply strolled through closed roads back to the hotels. Within, a block, we saw the crowds.
The streets were packed. Early estimates say 10,000 people showed up. I believe it. We were told to acknowledge the crowds and wave to the kids. We yelled out to those in costume and told them how good they looked. As we were early in the parade, and following the silent Cobra villains, we decided to be the official greeters. We played it up big, smiling and waving, and thanking folks. Virtually everyone had a camera. We pointed to kids in costume, yelled their character names, and got them to wave back. One kid was dressed as Harry Potter. We yelled to him, and he moved his hair to show his affixed scar and nodded his head like he was sharing a secret.
A news website took a pic of him.
People were shouting "COBRA!" and "SHIPWRECK!" and we would answer with "Yo, Joe!" Behind us, in the bed of a white pick-up truck stood Cobra Commander, and we played up the bookending bad guys.
We walked slowly for maybe 20 minutes, maybe half an hour. About halfway, I heard someone yell my name and there was my hometown comic gang. I had no idea if they would be there. I ran to the curb, hugged and smiled like an idiot and ran to catch up to Your Sister. That alone would have made the day.
The parade ended in the covered loading entrance for the Hyatt, and free water bottles were waiting for us. We ran back to a good vantage point to watch the rest of the parade, standing on concrete planters. The parade took a good hour, if not longer to go by. The organizers say they had more than 2,000 parade folks and a dozen vehicles. When the parade ended, we bolted to grab lunch before everyone else. We found a pizza stand, sat in a good people-watching spot, and gobbled lunch. People would stop us for pictures, and we returned the favor. Then we hit the show for reals, yo.
You can see us walk by on YouTube. We're at the :30 second mark. I'm in the blue shirt. Your Sis is on my right.
The larger rooms of the hotels are used for art shows and contests and vendors. The vendor rooms are crammed full of booths from small businesses selling cards, games, collectibles, toys, jewelry, corsets (yeah, a lot of them too), and anything else a geek nation can need. I bought a GI Joe figure -- the Boston-raised firefighter, but passed on the t-shirts. I'm growing away from them. The aisles crawl along. You have to be polite and patient to get through each room, and the bulkier costumes can get beat up quickly. We got photos for others and posed for them too. This is what I used to go to DragonCon for: the shopping. Stuff you can't find in malls and comic stores. Now we focus on the costume party.
Lots of Jokers this year, to no surprise. Lots of anime and comic stuff. Oddly, there were a horde of Super Marios. Maybe it's just an easy costume to prepare. We moved through the various floors and stores for a few hours, and people shouted when they recognized us. Again, we were never so popular. People were gobsmacked with nostalgia. If they only knew us from the cartoons, the realization must have been heady. We heard a lot of "Shipwreck! Oh my God!" They would see me and ask for a photo. I'd grab Your Sis and ask "we got get Lady Jaye in here too," and they'd all say "Lady Jaye! Yes! Oh my God!"
As soon as we exited the Marriott, I found a message from an online buddy. I called him back, and we met in the hotel across the street. We stopped for caffeine and got acquainted. They were outside the Walk of Fame, a room reserved for celebrity autographs, but we never got in the room. I found a Rocketeer and grabbed his photo, and he made me stay put while he called his friend dressed as Indiana Jones to say he found a Shipwreck. "He has to get your picture," he said. "He's gonna stalk you the whole convention. Shipwreck's his favorite Joe." He didn't reach him, but I promised to keep and eye out for Indianas (and there were a lot) so he could find me.
I caught sight of a particularly good costume and walked over to take a picture. Before the person could adopt their pose, SHE walked up.
She is the worst of the worst, the embodiment of every bad stereotype of geeks, the clown that wrecks the curve. She has her own superhero identity. Mighty Woman or something,. I don't remember. But she is goddamn crazy. She babbles endlessly, she has no sense of decorum or courtesy. She cornered me a few years back and I couldn't shake her. I literally couldn't walk away from her. She ran to keep up and wouldn't shut up. "Oh, my hero does this, and my hero does that." She is a brainless clod, and she ruined my photo, and I hope she catches fire. She never even looked at me, never had a clue she was interrupting a shot. I should be glad she didn't see me; I'd still be stuck talking her even now, days later.
On the other hand, I was approached by Vera Vanguard, the other kind of con con celeb, an attendee of shows nationwide who also makes her living as a model. She ran up to me, proclaimed her love for Shipwreck, and asked for a picture with the two of us together. She was wearing this outfit.
I was a gentleman, I assure you.
My gang all moved to their hotel's executive floor to meet more folks and escape the noise for a bit. Some of them had met up the night before for costumes and drinks, but this afternoon, they were in casual attire, and they were patient as people stopped us to take pictures of our costumes. We met more online people and traded con stories. One of us was a photographer and model who has worked cons professionally as a "booth babe." She shared spooky stories about actors she met at parties.
We eventually moved back to the executive floor to organize dinner arrangements. We had so many people, and we had to determine how everyone would ride over to the restaurant. Our car was back at the hotel, and the subway didn't reach this particular restaurant. It was right after we agreed to this dinner that I got a call from a college buddy in town who wanted to meet up for dinner. We instead agreed to met for breakfast the next day.
We ate Mexican and gabbed for hours. Before we got to the restaurant, we removed our more noticeable costume elements -- the bird, the guns. While the city was hosting the show, we didn't know how well they'd go over in "civilian" establishments. We went low-key. I think some folks thought we were real military, and I worried about them making come comment about Iraq. Didn't happen, but I had a polite thank-you ready if they did.
After dinner, went back to the convention. During the day, the convention is a broad, family-friendly gathering of customers and sight-seers. At night's it's a full-on costume party. This is when people bring out their best outfits and photos are exchanged non-stop. I wanted to milk the moment and see the best costumes. We stayed on one floor of the now slam-full Marriott and made laps. It was a blur of geek, and we were belles of the ball. We even found another Joe character -- Snake Eyes, the ninja -- got his picture and then posed with him as a flood of cameras came at us. I was getting snowblind quickly from the flashes.
The Indiana Jones guy found me and had me pose with his gal who was dressed as a 1940s pin-up gal. He walked off t take the photo and left her standing near me, and neither of us knew what to do. "How do you want to handle this," I asked. I turned to face him, and she sidled up next to me. Again, a gentleman.
Shipwreck was apparently the Han Solo of the GI Joe cartoon.
We had to head back about 10:30 to catch the subway back, but before we could leave the hotel, we were discovered again by my hometown gang. We ran up to their seats, hugged again, and caught up. The husband of the crowd has his surgery scheduled for this fall, but he looks great. We knew about my dad and uncle, and we traded cancer notes. We then had less time to get back to the hotel, and we ran out of the convention. But right before, we reached the escalator, I had one last great moment. I ran into a guy dressed as Sandman, the mid-century hero dressed in gas mask and trenchcoat. I wore the same character a few years back. His was a nicer costume. I nudged him as he approached the down escalator and said "That's a nice Sandman costume." he turned, saw me, and then recognized the costume. Through his gas mask, I heard "Miphrac! Oh muh waugh!" And down the escalator he went, craning to see my outfit.
We made the airport at 11 p.m. but didn't get to the hotel until after midnight. The Atlanta hotel shuttle directions are horrible. We managed to catch a shuttle just as the Clemson fans arrived from the game. It was ugly.
We got up and met up with my college pal and her gal for breakfast at the Flying Biscuit, an all-day joint. We traded college notes and talked about moving heavy furniture. We drove for home around noon and arrived around 3:30. Trying to find a restaurant in Atlanta using road signs and construction detours is a level of hell all unto itself.
But Saturday was an absolute blast. I have Your Sis to thank for our costume success; Shipwreck was her idea.
We are packed and strapped. As soon as I leave work, we head to Atlanta.
Your Sis is dragging. The start of school always comes too early, and she calls it a night earlier and earlier. She suggested her kids watch the Obama speech last night, but she thought it was at 9. She was nodding off at 8. She stayed awake until the very start of the speech, but was out within minutes. I taped it for her.
It was as solid as speech as he can give. He addressed the most common criticisms -- national security, patriotism, ego -- with a novel vigor, and it was good to see. The spectacle of a packed football stadium to hear one man speak is reminiscent of the Billy Graham Crusades our local ABC affiliate has broadcast for 30+ years.
McCain announces his VP choice today, and unless it's Bruce Willis or Ronald Reagan, it's unlikely it'll excite the party. I heard Newt Gingrich's name yesterday, but he carries the same baggage as Thompson and Giuliani: very messy marriages and affairs. Also, the "wither on the vine" sound bite about Social Security from the mid-'90s will hurt his renewed national presence.
If I were him, I'd pick a radio-host with a clean background. But they don't exist. Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage -- they're dingy, and they have no experience away from the microphone. A former governor is almost a certainty, but it can't be Arnold. I think McCain is screwed here.
We both rushed home to check the floors. Everything was dry, and we breathed a sigh of relief.
Your Sis is finishing up the costumes. She's sewing holster straps to a pants leg. I tried to affix it with a velcro strap, but it wouldn't stay in place. I really need to learn how to sew. Her costume is finito, and we'll pack tonight. We signed up to join the Saturday parade of costumes through downtown Atlanta, weather permitting, of course.
As befits a teacher in this area, she doesn't have Labor Day off. We'll drive back Sunday.
The convention speeches have been solid, if generally bland, material. The former president once again showed how invigorating a president can be when he can string along three sentences. Biden wasn't bad. Watching the delegates officially name Obama as the nominee was a truly historic moment unfortunately bogged down by theatrical blowhards. The speech tonight (in a football stadium) ought to be incredible.
I have no idea who McCain can pick to rile up energy for his ticket. The lone celebrity Republicans -- Giuliani, Thompson -- are worthless for a national election. Huckabee and Romney are damaged goods. His best bet might have been Condi Rice, but her tenure as state secretary has been lackluster, and she's never held an elected office outside of college. The guy is screwed.
We thought we had everything squared away Monday. The floor was practically dry, and the restoration folks would take away the giant, loud fans the next day. But we discovered accidentally where all the water was coming from. When the plumbers took away the old heater, they didn't cap the pipes. Whenever we used our faucets, residual pressure was indeed shoving water out the open pipes and onto the floor. We discovered new saturation after I made dinner Monday night and rushed to dry the floor. We couldn't use our sinks and our only source of water was the laundry sink as it has the old-fashion two-valve plumbing. The cold water was independent of the hot, and using that valve wouldn't goose the pipe pressure.
The plumbers came out Tuesday morning to cap the pipes. The restorers took away the fans. I called the plumbers to get the new heater installed, and they arrived at 1 p.m. By 3:30, we had a new heater, installed to code with a new expansion pack, and we could now use our showers, sinks, and laundry machines. Except for the ductwork that stills needs replacing, all is back to normal.
I've watched the convention coverage and was wowed by Hillary's speech last night. Her best delivery and energy level yet. She has to get a Cabinet job out of this.
Our DragonCon costumes are 85% done. We leave Friday night.
Picture of the Day This is me after chasing repair service all day.
-We're still drying the floors. -The restorers think the excess water is the fault on residual pressure inside the pipes. -The floors might be all dry tomorrow, and the fans will be gone. The laundry room will be reassembled, and we'll have our washer and dryer back. - We can then contact the plumber to install a water tank. We'll probably have to rework the laundry room to accommodate the now-required pressure expansion tank. This won't fit in the heater closet. It will either stretch into the laundry room (causing the appliances to move down the wall) or the storage room (going through the dry wall). - We'll still need to fix the soaked ductwork.
But we're still going to DragonCon this weekend. We worked on costumes for the last few days.
Just in case, we called the plumber to confirm he could install the tankless heater. He can't. He can sell us ones he will install, of course, but not one we buy at Lowe's. The price he quoted us was twice what Lowe's charges, and it looks now like we'll scrap a tankless model and get the regular. The tank version is cheaper, and the plumber assured me that he can install it, including hooking up the gas line. Lowe's said they'll switch out the tankless model for the tank heater they already have in stock.
The floor restoration company came by to check the giant fan in the heater closet, and it's almost dried up the whole floor. Unfortunately, it's forced water through the return vent and out onto the floor in the storage room. Now we have two giant, noisy fans to dry out the vent on both sides of the wall. The air company checked the damaged ductwork and will give an estimate on replacement price and time. We're looking at 20 feet of duct to replace.
The cats are living in the bathroom as their food and litter can't stay in the from with the fan.
Did I mention I went through something similar before? The day I moved into my Greenville apartment, the toilet back up. The rug had to be replaced, and I lived with two loud fans blasting the floor for about three days.
Picture of the Day We may charge the new resident rent. Notice also the washer and dryer are kaput until the fan is finished.
Maybe two hours after I got to work on Tuesday, Your Sister called to say the water heater was leaking. There was floor damage. The local plumbers wouldn't touch the heater because it's powered by natural gas. The gas company sent a guy to fix it and offered options on replacing it. Your Sis suggested we try a tankless heater, and we looked at prices at Lowes.com. The gas company only offers commercial tankless heaters, and their tank model is expensive compared to Lowe's offerings. We'll go to the store.
The floor-restoration company won't remove the heater. That means we had to call someone else just to move it, then the floor will be fixed, then we install whatever new heater we buy. Lowe's will install, if we like. We used them to replace our oven just a month after we bought the house. The house came with an 80-gallon heater, and we only use hot water for showers. We can downsize easily.
By the time I got home, a plumber removed the heater, and Your Sis had made an appointment with the restoration company for Wednesday morning. We went to Lowe's and ordered a small tankless model that will arrive next Tuesday. That's a week of sink baths. Cold sink baths. We'll call the plumber to install the model next week.
The restoration company is running a fan to dry the floor, and they say the fiberboard air return duct has to be replaced. We'll hear from another company about that soon. I hope.
Picture of the Day I think I mentioned this at the Szechuan Garden.
The script meeting was something we all enjoyed as the final assembly. We were given two potential season syllabuses. One was what we voted for in the last meeting; the other began with a comedy. We briefly discussed the comedy suggestion, and it won out for a variety of reasons. I'm ultimately happy about it. I like the show as a close cousin of the Neil Simon shows that were killed in the scoring rounds.
The promotional brochure will include listings for three unnamed shows. We know what they are, of course, but we're holding off that information for now. If the season schedule has to change because of costs or location, we won't be locked into infeasible productions. We can change them out with other approved shows.
We've done what we can without definitively knowing where the plays will be held, how much money the theatre will have, and what directors will be tapped. Those concerns arose in our talks, but they're not part of our mandate. We just had to pick the best plays. The result is not a season each of us would have assembled, but it's one we all like.
The question of me directing came up, and again, it was noted that they need me onstage more. Also, I was asked to co-direct a play to get my feet wet. I officially became theatre publicity director. Seems like a fairly easy job. I'll write and send press releases to the local papers. I know how that gig works.
It was our shortest meeting. We're well aware that there will be unhappy, vocal theatre folk who wanted a certain show or type of show represented. I'm willing, and probably too eager, to defend our decisions to anyone. We read a total of 60 plays. I have another one in hand to read even though it has no chance to making this season; the director wanted my opinion on it. We worked. We came up with a marketable season. With limited venues and budget, we have a solid slate of productions.
6 Rms Riv Vu Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge Premature Corpse Don't Dress for Dinner Rainmaker Winnie the Pooh Bell, Book, and Candle Christmas Bus
While we were still squatting in your apartment Saturday, I got a call from our script chair. He wanted to talk about the committee and new developments, and I told him my brain was on vacation. I was also re-reading Watchmen. Priorities.
I called him about an hour after we returned Sunday. He has second thoughts about the opening show (a thriller) after fellow board members pressed hard for a comedy. We had all talked about a comedy, but the best candidate was deemed too dated. It was a play I advocated and grudgingly voted against when it came time to make our final choices. Also, he has found yet another script to pass around. Even if we dismiss this new script, we'll still need to rearrange the proposed season if we change the first play. We can't have three comedies for the season's beginning. We meet tonight to hammer this out and get the new script. Rah.
I think I mentioned that I was offered the publicity manager position during the last meeting. The second half of yesterday's phone call was for the new offer to be the assistant artistic director. It's a big gig. This makes the fifth offer since the murder play: script committee member, director, board member, publicity manager, and now assistant artistic director.
I worry about being seen as the director's guy. A lackey. I need to talk with more members of this theatre and get more experience before I take another position. He was very complimentary though. My pickle was buttered like never before.
We did get back OK. We did the laundry and got groceries when we ran into two students who asked Your Sister about the Clone Wars movie. One had seen it ("I left in tears."), and the other hadn't. We warned him away. We watched some Olympics and crashed early.
Because of constant rain, my garden is much larger. We have real sunflowers now. The squash vines are looking sinister.
Picture of the Day One of Jupiter's moons, Europa. Probably the next best spot for water after mars.
Right after I leave work. We packed last night and led a neighbor through the care of the cats and garden. I have four books and a sketchbook, and we overpacked the clothes for fear of sand invasion. I'd like to take at least one run along the beach. I intend to swim in the ocean every day we're in the Outer Banks. I'll carry brass knuckles in case I have to punch a shark.
Mark is eager to catch the new Star Wars movie, and a post-film conversation about the franchise can go on for days.
I picked up what will hopefully be the last script last night: the musical version of It's A Wonderful Life.
It was written in 1993, and it demands you know the story before you watch the show. Significant things don't happen onstage, and the cardinal sin of "telling, not showing" happens often. The near-drowning, the near-poisoning, the high school dance, every heartbreaking moment where George doesn't get to leave town -- we miss the good stuff.
The play then is a thin scaffolding for the new songs, and the lyrics ain't nothing to write home about. It's been a while since I read a full-length musical script (probably when I was in Sound of Music) but this sucker feels awkwardly designed. The first act is 60 pages long; the second act is 30. That's a LONG first act for an audience that doesn't know the songs, and the songs don't tell the story either. They are Greek choruses of emotional definition.
I like musicals. Good musicals. Without hearing the songs, I can't vouch for this one. It seems like a bad idea. Why not do the straight play? Because a local theatre already does a radio-staging of the play. It doesn't seem smart to compete with that, especially when we have The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge, a sterling comedy version of Christmas Carol.
We are preparing the Big Trip at home. Your Sis cooked out again, and the dinner was delish. But as I was helping her carrying food outside the house, I kinda sorta tackled the screen door. It's stuck and stubbornly moved for a while now, and last night we had to take it off the house entirely to fix it. We managed that, and now it works better than before.
We watched new Mythbusters and some Daily Show and Colbert.
I also rigged up the garden hoses for the gal housesitting for us. I attached a timer to the spigot and attached a double spout to that. That attaches to two hoses and two sprinklers. But we don't have enough pressure to power two hoses simultaneously. The timer will be useless for her, but she can flip the spout control knobs to switch from one hose to another. This will water the whole garden without her moving one sprinkler to cover the plants.
I found a great belt buckle online for my saior costume. I still need a parrot.
Picture of the Day I can't decide if these are lame or cool.
We held what was supposed to be the very absolute, no-matter-what final script meeting last night, and, of course, things aren’t finished.
The problem revolves around the Christmas show, a show we were told initially we didn’t have to worry about. In the standard season for this company, there is one musical in the summer designed to include the kids between school semesters. This dovetails at times with the theatre’s youth “camp.” Also in the season is the Christmas show, and it was specifically not in our catalog of open slots to fill with our chosen scripts. Until about a month ago.
Amongst the committee members is the woman who is nominally in charge of both the annual kids’ show and the Christmas shows. The kids' show also takes place during the summer as a sort of community babysitting project. They just did Velveteen Rabbit wherein the talking horse commands the audience to chant “find the rabbit.” Your Sister and I, however, chanted “find Bob Cratchitt” and “find Bob Saget.” If either of them had appeared onstage, the show would have won 1 million cool points. Alas.
But again, we’re back to the Christmas show. About a month ago, she decided she couldn’t make the decision by herself, and the committee was passively drafted to help. This added another show and the accompanying round of reading for each script to consider. The first was The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge. It’s a fun play and, if we can get the rights, a lock to run this year or next. The other holiday script was The Christmas Bus which I read this past week. It’s strictly for a young audience, and I am too old and bitter to embrace it. Two Christmas scripts. Two Christmas slots to fill for this year and next. Seems like a no-brainer.
However.
Because Bus is a musical, the Christmas director said she didn’t like the idea of director two youth-centered musicals in one year, including the youth show that would run the preceding summer. This is what she said, and I have to couch it this way because what she said changed as the meeting went on, which is why I want to punch a horse.
We’re trying to mount the best season possible. We need money to renovate the new building. We want to grab the largest audience we can. That means we need shows with name power. As one of our brainstorms, we suggested that, instead of a traditional Christmas show, we instead present a show that has Christmas in it, but isn’t about the holiday. That would include Bell, Book and Candle (a witchcraft comedy), My Three Angels (a kinder Marx Brothers-style comedy), or Annie.
Now, Annie is a show that draws a crowd both onstage and off. Little girls love the show. They love to be in the show. The show is so popular that there’s an Annie Junior show designed to be easier for kids who aren’t quite ready to star in a full-fledged stage show. I know of no other show with an official tyke-friendly version. We’re talking a popular franchise here.
But the Christmas director said that the bylaws demanded a Christmas show be a Christmas show. It has to center on the holiday, she says. That drops the above three shows. But she so likes the idea of doing Annie that she’s willing to junk the summer youth show if we can do Annie for the Christmas show. She was almost giddy at the notion. But what about that bylaw? Well, that could be ignored, she supposes. Conveniently, I might add. So what about the other two plays, Candle and Angels? She doesn’t like them. Says they’re not family–friendly. I agree on Angels; it involves murder by snake. And Candle is a show for adults but hardly vulgar or shocking. It’s just not a show that will placate the children. We even considered moving The Rainmaker to Christmas. Rename it The Reindeer Maker. The Snowmaker. No, she wants Annie as the Christmas show, and we’ll shrug off the bylaw (if it exists; a quick read of regulations didn’t produce it).
But the committee chair isn’t convinced we can do that. Instead, we are now reading a third Christmas play, the musical version of It’s A Wonderful Life. No, I didn’t know one existed either. There is a problem here. One of the Asheville theatres has staged a radio version of that play for two consecutive years, and I am 80 percent positive it has become their annual tradition. Script publishers restrict the distribution of their plays. If there is one publisher of the Life script and this other show has it annually, we can’t do it. We’re too close to them geographically.
Despite this very significant hang-up, we are passing around the script. Because I leave for vacation in two days, I get first crack. I pick it up from the theatre warehouse tonight, read the whole thing by Thursday evening, and drop it off before we leave town Friday morning. I’m not happy about this. This will be my thirty-ninth script this summer. It’s a play we probably can’t get the rights for, and we already have two Christmas plays in hand to cover this year and next. We’re doing someone else’s job because she doesn’t like the regulations she agreed to nor can she be definitive about her preferences about the shows we already have.
I suspect she’s mad because her favorite show didn’t make the cut. Early on, she espoused A Perfect Wedding, a wedding farce which just happens to be dull and aggravating. It’s written by the same man who wrote Don’t Dress for Dinner, a much stronger farce, and the one I vocally advocated. She and I butted heads about this in previous meetings. But the committee consensus agreed with me, and Wedding is out.
Here’s what we picked, and this is all tentative to location, director, and rights granted by the publishers. We picked alternates for those reasons:
October:Night Watch, a fairly contemporary thriller. It would be presented around Halloween. The Mousetrap would be the back-up. Both plays have simple sets, convenient for our pre-renovation stage space. There’s concern about what shows our pool of directors will agree to, and I was asked if I wanted to direct this show if need be. I again cited my rookie status to this theatre, and there’s no fucking way I’m helming a show in a new space so desperate for repairs. This would be a situation I can write a farce around. And I might.
December:Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge or Christmas Bus or It’s A Wonderful Life. Again, all this is in the air until we either settle the bylaw debate or secure rights for two of the plays. And again, this wasn't part of our job to begin wth.
January: This would run in the gated community where we presented the spring murder show. Apparently, that audience loves farces in winter and can be depended on to buy lots of tickets. Don’t Dress for Dinner is our first choice, followed by Home Free (an affair-juggler with the rare female lead).
March: The same stage would have a mystery/thriller. The Premature Corpse (the modern-day noir) or Murder By Natural Causes would get the nod.
May: The theatre holds an annual new play competition and presents the world premiere of the winning script. Another committee handles that honor.
July: Either the youth show, the annual musical, or neither depending on what happens with the #!%@ Christmas show.
August:The Rainmaker or My Three Angels. I was told flat out that I can’t direct Rainmaker because I need to be in the show. I’m cool with that. Starbuck is a great role.
October:Bell, Book & Candle or Critic’s Choice (a sharp marriage/career comedy). This would be the first show in the completed new building. We need a show to flaunt the new digs. These would do that.
December: To be decided later.
A lot of good shows didn’t make the cut. We have been told that we’ll catch shit for shows that were promised for this year’s season by the previous committee. That’s outside their purview, but I’m sure some vocal folks will want Glass Menagerie or a similar dour drama that allows hams to yell and cry onstage. But the shows we picked have enough meat to them to satisfy open-minded actors.
We’re mostly done. We should be completely done. I’d like to start my vacation with this all behind me. That’s not going to happen now. Therefore, I shall drink a lot.
EDIT: Forgot to mention. I was asked about attending Board of Director meetings at noon (could I get off work to meet?) and becoming the new publicity director. I said I had to mull them over.
Picture of the Day I have to cram my mouth full to keep from yelling.
I drove all through downtown Asheville to find costume props. The old reliable costume-rental shop under the interstate on-ramp is no more, replaced by The Daily Planet. That would be a fantastic paper name if it weren't a weekly. Which it is.
Also, the nature store in the Grove Arcade is gone. I need to find a parrot stand-in. Something that isn't obviously a sleeptime snuggle toy. I realized that we can use paintball and pellet-gun holsters, and they are both available at large department stores. K-mart gave us one holster, and I need another of the same kind for my musket. We're a bit worried about the weapons regulations for the city and the convention. We've seen hundreds of folks carrying weapons in years passed. The online rules say this:
Please abide by our weapons policy: All weapons must be non-working and peace bonded. No functioning projectile weapons includes water pistols, silly-string guns, and ping-pong pistols. Bladed weapons must be cased or sheathed at all times. No clowning around or showing off in the common areas. Any weapon used in an offensive manner will be confiscated and rule #7 enforced [roughly: don't be a jerk or we'll chuck you]. We expect you to use good judgment; with your help, we can continue to allow peace-bonded weapons - thanks!
We have an obvious toy gun for her and an orange-barreled musket for me. I don't think we'll have to adapt them. Also, we don't have to wield them. So long as they fill the holsters. I still need a leg-holster as the toy design commands. And of course, the parrot. We'll bury the toys in our backpacks as we move through the Atlanta subway system. We have seen Klingons carrying their cardboard swords. But they're Klingons. You don't ef' with Klingons.
Speaking of which: the Great Debate has emerged. Who would win in an all-out fight: Starfleet or The Empire? I say Empire. Bureaucracy would stymie Starfleet. Also, one borg ship almost wiped out humanity, and the Empire can make Death Stars.
The giant national comic convention a few weekends back featured some women dressed as the same character, but they half-assed it. Behold:
The gals in green are close, but they together might make a decent costume. They are both wearing jumpsuits. Your Sister, however, has a flight suit. BIG difference. She has the hat, has the pilot pin, has the holster and gloves and boots. She's going to embarrass any other Lady Jayne who might dare approach us. Also, she looks like the character. That's the superior playing card. Too many gals go to conventions dressed as vampy versions of characters. They are infidels. Hot, trashy infidels.
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I mowed the lawn yesterday in this hair-melting heat. The garden is still OK, and I'll need to stake the tomato plants before we leave for vacation. I have a splinter from a squash plant. Some varieties are packing nasty thorns for the vines to cling.
Picture of the Day I'm eager to swim on vacation. I haven't swum since the Washington bed-and-breakfast. A year ago.
I rented a U-Haul truck to pick up the Granny piano on Saturday. When one calls to make the truck reservation, one supposes the truck will be at that dialed location. No. I was called Friday and told where the truck would be. This is only a problem because U-Haul charges by the mile when you surpass the initial allowed distance. The place I called was much closer to Louis's house. This new location was a few exits up the interstate.
I've driven their trucks before when I went to ECU and from houses to apartments and vice versa. It's easy once you gets used to the mirrors. And how they handle in wind. Otherwise, a cake of piece.
Mom was running the Louis yard sale, and we arrived midway through the festivities. The garage and its (literal) pile of tools was very popular, but folks were milling in the house to bid for whatever was available. We dragged out the piano with the help of some very big guys, and I spent about 20 minutes lashing it to the truck interior with cords and tarps.
Louis had a stack of great 33 rpm albums, ranging from gospel to Bill Cosby to Johnny Cash Fulsom Prison disc to music for strip-tease parties. I'm not kidding. I hovered over the albums with mom's cousin, and we tried to tell her they would sell. Sure enough, the very next guy to look at the records carried the Cash album in his hand. Louis's record-player wasn't working right or I might have nabbed that contraption.
We left the truck at his house and hit the military surplus stores in our Greenville for the DragonCon cotumes. We hit paydirt. Your Sis picked up a flightsuit and leather boots; the latter can be used with her scooter. I picked up the sailor hat. At another store, we found my navy shirt and pants and some sleeve patches we'll modify to match the toy. At yet another store, we found a pilot pin and more patches. We drove back to my hometown to meet Mom for dinner. We fetched the truck and drove back up the mountain.
Now we knew handling a piano ourselves was a big job. A huge job. But we gots the brains, and we have yet to fail at a project. Until now. We almost almost had it in the garage entrance to the house, but the garage wall angle was harsh enough to block it. I mean, we had it up the makeshift ramp, and the front wheels were tasting the conditioned air. That close. We tried to get it up the front stoop, but the angle is too high. We stopped before we hurt ourselves, either through exercise or butting heads. The piano now sits in our storage room, and we're hiring piano movers to master the last 50 feet of this project. I moved a bookcase away from the proposed piano space last night.
While I was doing that, Your Sis made alterations to the costume pieces. She tightened the large flight suit and hemmed the Navy pants. She put a lot of time into that last night while I watched the first exhibition game of the NFL season. She spent the earlier chunk of the day at school while I worked on my feeble tan.
She left home early today to sign up for the motorcycle training class, and she got in. She's giddy. She bought her helmet a week ago in preparation.
The garden took a giant leap this week. I fed the plants coffee grounds from Starbucks (free most mornings; first come, first serve) and we had respectable rains for the last week. Combined, they have Garden Power! After months of not much, suddenly we could actually eat from our backyard.
The first green pepper:
now looks like this:
Also, it's officially the "first" pepper, as other tiny ones are blooming.
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Our first squash plants have come in. These look like acorn squash (which, baked with brown sugar and a bit of rum is FANTASTIC): I didn't know squashes grew from the bulb under the blossom. Once the flowers die off, the bulbs swell.
This might be butternut squash. I planted from a medley seed packet, and there's no telling what we're going to ultimately grow.
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This is the largest pumpkin plant. You can see the glove for scale. Pumpkins and other squash plants sprout vines and tiny tendrils hook them into place.
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Here's some corn stalks with the glove as scale. They have launched within this week.
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This was the patch where the wild berry bushes sat. I cleared them away to give me a decent garden corner, and I put in grass seed.
Now it looks like this. I got some ground cover mixed in, and that's fine. So long as it's not a dead swath.
Your Mom gave me grilling cedar planks for my birthday. I got my confirmation for the U-Haul rental for this weekend. We're bringing Granny's piano from Louis's house up to Mayberry. I'll need to take lessons to play it before the year is over.
That script was indeed a quick read. I finished it in a half hour. I had plenty of time to troll about Barnes and Noble to drool over Broadway DVDs and magazines.
I made myself run for at least 35 minutes, and I think I reached a full 5k. I used the boot-camp jog to save my legs.
I made a pretty good dish last night using some of the curry your sent from Snazziland.
Here's how it works:
1/8 teaspoon of ground ginger 1/8 teaspoon of ground cumin 2 teaspoons of a curry powder 1 medium onion 2 pieces of meat (steak, pork, chicken) 1 cup sour cream or yogurt 1 cup of pineapple chunks
With a smidgen of oil, warm the meat for 15 minutes over medium heat. Drain the oil. Add the onion and 2 teaspoons of water. Sprinkle meat with salt. Heat to a boil and let simmer for 20 minutes. Remove the meat and keep warm. Add the cumin, ginger, curry, pineapple, and 1/4 cup of water. Bring to a boil until the majority of water is gone. Turn the heat down to simmer and add the yogurt/cream just until it gets hot. Remove and pour over chicken. I also added rice.
It's filling and yummy. I used the Tiakka curry.
Art News of the Day New X-ray Technique Unveils Art Under Art
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) -- A team of European scientists unveiled on Wednesday a new method for extracting images hidden under old masters' paintings, recreating a color portrait of a woman's face unseen since Vincent van Gogh painted over it in 1887.
For years, art historians have been using x-rays to probe artworks hidden underneath other paintings, a technique resulting in a fuzzy, black-and-white image. But Joris Dik, a materials scientist from Delft University, and Koen Janssens, a chemist from the University of Antwerp in Belgium, combined science and art to engineer a new method of visualizing hidden paintings, using high-intensity x-rays and an intimate knowledge of old pigments.
The pair used the new approach on "Patch of Grass," a small oil study of a field that Van Gogh painted in Paris while living with his brother Theo, who supported him.
While not exact in every detail, the image produced is a woman's head that may be the same model Van Gogh painted in a series of portraits leading up to the 1885 masterpiece "The Potato Eaters."
The new method will allow art historians to obtain higher quality and more detailed images underlying old masterpieces. In Van Gogh's case, it could reveal details of works that were painted over. For other works, it could provide new insights into the studies that the artist built a painting on.
Dik and Janssens used high-intensity x-rays from a particle accelerator in Hamburg, Germany to compile a two-dimensional map of the metallic atoms on the painting beneath "Patch of Grass," which is part of the large Van Gogh collection in the Kroller-Muller Museum in the Netherlands.
Knowing that mercury atoms were part of a red pigment and the antimony atoms were part of a yellow pigment, they were able to chart those colors in the underlying image.
"We visualized - in great detail - the nose, the eyes, according to the chemical composition." Dik said. Scanning a roughly 7-inch square of the larger portrait took two full days.
Though his paintings are now worth millions, Van Gogh was virtually unknown during his lifetime and struggled financially before committing suicide in 1890. He often reused canvas to save money, either painting on the back or over the top of existing paintings, and experts believe roughly a third of his works hide a second painting underneath.
The painting under "Patch of Grass" adds weight to the theory that Van Gogh mailed paintings from the Netherlands to his brother Theo, and, after moving to Paris to join him, found the old works and painted over them.
Teio Meedendorp, an independent Van Gogh expert in Amsterdam, said the underlying woman was probably painted between November 1884 and March 1885, while Van Gogh was living in the Dutch village of Nuenen. In that period he painted a series of heads in what Meedendorp called "oil lamps and candlelight," followed by the famous "Potato Eaters" of April 1885.
Both Dik and Meedendorp were excited about the prospect of using the technique to probe paintings by Van Gogh and other famous artists such as Rembrandt and Picasso.
"I was really surprised by the quality of the image, which is really promising for the future of research," Meedendorp said.
However, scanning other paintings may be difficult since the technique requires a particle accelerator, and few exist in the world and none in the Netherlands.
Dik and Janssens' scientific paper was published online Wednesday in the Journal of Analytical Chemistry.
