Well, not really--it's a rare species of squid. I know, I know, comparing deep sea critters to space aliens is about as witty and original as a sock, but this squid is freaking creepy: Link via Slashdot
New species of squid, or a sign that Dread Cthulhu will soon rise again? You decide.
Another excerpt from my fabulous textbook:
"Imagine that you are a spy and that your partner is a double-agent. Your innocent conversation reveals that you are both trying to uncover the other's recent whereabouts. Use the preceding two dialogs as models."
This is a real assignment. For reference, Kevin is the fictitious American exchange student in the textbook's obligatory accompanying soap opera DVD.
"When Kevin can't sleep, he thinks of a Russian noun and combines it with an adjective. He says it works wonders! Do you want to try his method? If you are not asleep by the end of the exercise, think of another dozen Russian nouns and combine them with the following adjectives!"
Excuse me, I'm trying to do my homework, not fall asleep! Yes, anyone who has learned a second language knows that endlessly conjugating verbs and declining nouns is one of the most boring things in the world. But gleefully informing us that the exercise is going to be so boring that we'll probably fall asleep, and then telling us to do it over again if we're not--well, that's rubbing salt in the wound, and then sprinkling some lemon juice on it for good measure. Sheesh.
Forgive me this rant, if you will. The southbound #6 bus was extremely late arriving to the State and Lake stop, and the situation only got worse as we proceeded down State, trying to cram the two or three buses' worth of passengers that had accumulated along State into just one bus. We had to leave not one but two guys in wheelchairs waiting on the sidewalk because there was simply no room for them.
Getting to Hyde Park late meant that I didn't start my reading for tomorrow until 5PM, which meant that I didn't leave the law school until 8PM. Then, the northbound #6 had a busted bicycle carrier (a situation which seems to be increasingly common as of late), so I ended up biking up the lakeshore to get home. Fifteen miles and an hour later, I'm tired, sweaty, thirsty, and hungry enough to fly to Alaska and go moose hunting with Sarah Palin just so that I could eat one.
And I still haven't finished my Russian homework.
Apparently a girl in India was so afraid that the Large Hadron Collider would destroy the world that she committed suicide. This leads to an interesting question: if you knew for certain that the world was going to end, would you stick around to watch, or would you check out early? Discuss.
Sorry I haven't posted much recently--I've gotten to that part of the summer where everything has pretty much become routine (Oh, you want us to replace an entire lineset? Yep, been there, done that), so I don't consider as many things interesting enough to write about. At the same time, I'm also tired, so I have less energy to write. However, we're getting close to the end of the summer, and there are some things I want to cover before I forget about them.
First off, last week was Mark Morris Dance Group. For some reason, they traditionally start their performances a day early, which meant that we didn't get a day off last week. That was okay with me, because I ran sound, and I got to work with live musicians, which are kind of a trademark of Mark Morris. Another trademark of Mark Morris is that he's a personality, and he certainly is that--when one of the interns came onstage to give him flowers at the end of the performance, he swooped her down and kissed her full on the mouth in front of 600 people and a bunch of video cameras.
This week we have Henri Oguike, and his choreography is some of the best I've seen this summer--I really like it. I also like the fact that he brought freaking taiko drums with him. The drumming piece is loud and energetic and a whole ton of fun. Apparently the drumming keeps shaking loose bits of wood and dust from the rafters of the theatre, and anything loud enough to do that gets my enthusiastic approval.
A couple notes of interest:
We have a new production coordinator, named John, in the Duke theatre, while Hannah (Rocky) is now the Shawn production coordinator. It's not really my business to say why, but the old production coordinator of the Shawn is no longer at the Pillow.
This week's company is the "Bad Boys of Dance". It's a "project company", which means they were assembled for the specific purpose of doing this one performance. That means that the tech process was a little less smooth than normal, because they're putting this all together from scratch. Most companies come in having performed their pieces dozens or hundreds of times before, so the stage manager and lighting designer know how everything works. With these guys, however, our day and a half of tech time is also what would be the equivalent of tech week at the university level. Today was a bit frustrating, but I think we'll get it all worked out.
A reporter from the local NPR station, WAMC, was here today, which I thought was cool, because it's the first time I've ever seen a radio reporter in the field. Print journalists and photographers carry cameras, laptops, and notepads, but this guy was just walking around with a microphone and some sort of recording device. It was very simple and elegant. I'm going to see if I can find out when his piece airs.
I encountered a frog in the men's bathroom this evening. I caught it and released it in the local pond. There are a couple frogs and a salamander that have taken up residence in the pools of rainwater caught by the tarps covering our piles of platforms. Still haven't seen any bears.
I'm starting to get tired. Not that I don't enjoy being here, but the days are long, and the summer is even longer, so I find that I need more and more alone time and sleep to stay happy and energetic during the days. I'm glad we're past the halfway point--I can at least see the end on the distant horizon.
Inside/Out was actually outside today! Huzzah! I'm glad it was, because today was the performance of the School, and trying to cram all 25 students into the Ruth St. Denis would have sucked. Plus I'm sick and tired of setting up chairs.
I met a very friendly (but somewhat shy) Bichon Frise named Dudley, who was coming to his first I/O performance, and I saw a girl avidly reading the 7th Harry Potter book. The show itself was a toughie--the first half was a bunch of short pieces with quick bits of speaking in between. The show went something like this:
Derek told me today that I did a really good job this week, which makes me proud. Derek isn't really the kind of person that I would normally seek out to work with, but I know he has very high standards for the work he does, and so the fact that I seem to have (mostly) lived up to those standards is pleasing.
We almost managed to have Inside/Out outdoors today, but despite a lovely afternoon, it started to rain at around 5:30PM, so we had to move into the Ruth St. Denis studio again.
The only other point of interest is that I almost ran over Paul Taylor today; he was backstage during the second intermission scene change, and I nearly collided with him as I was coming down the stairs from the fly loft. Oops.
I can't deny that I'm excited for Harry Potter #7, which will hopefully arrive in the mail tomorrow.
Today was our first actual Inside/Out (I/O) performance, but I didn't really do anything--the Chunky Move sound dude did all their sound (even though it was easy and I totally could have done it), and it was raining all day long. That meant I wasn't doing anything during the actual show, and we couldn't do any projects on the I/O space because we would have gotten all our equipment soaking wet.
So anyway, I just sat on my butt all day and read Harry Potter. I finished the sixth book, which is really depressing, and I was doubly depressed because I didn't like sitting around while everyone else was working. It's weird--even though I'm really busy here and am always glad for a break, it doesn't feel good to have a break when all my comrades-in-arms are still busily working.
Hopefully tomorrow will be a little bit less relaxing. ;-)
This week marks the halfway point for me; it is the sixth out of eleven festival weeks, and not only that, but this is my week to work on Inside/Out or I/O. I/O is our third stage--in addition to selling tickets at the Duke and Shawn theatres, we also provide free performances every night on the I/O stage, which is located outside in a natural amphitheatre. Working I/O is a completely different experience from working in the other two theatres, because a) it is outdoors and hence subject to weather and critters, b) there are only two of us running it, instead of a crew backstage and a bunch of ushers in the house, and c) you always get done by 8PM, because after that it's dark and you can't see.
The only weird part is that the guy in charge of I/O is named Derek. Yes, Derek. So when the first company shows up tomorrow, he'll say "Hi, my name's Derek, and this is my assistant for the week, Derek." That won't get confusing at all.
Anyway, Derek can sometimes be a taskmaster, but I know I impressed him today with my carpentry skills when he assigned me to make speaker stands for either side of the stage. Hopefully that'll cut me a little slack if I screw up any during the rest of the week, but I'm actually not too worried, since my responsibilities are mostly sound-related, and I'm good at sound.
Today is photography day! I few days ago I sat down with Rose Eichenbaum, a professional dance photographer. We mainly chatted about composition, and today I took a bunch of photos of the Royal Danish Ballet to try and test out some of her tips. I apologize for the slight blurriness of most of these photos--a point-and-shoot camera, even a nice one, simply isn't made for shooting high-speed dance photos. Still, I think the composition of many of them is a big step up from what I have been doing with dance, so I hope you all can just take a step back and enjoy! This is top-notch ballet, by the way. You may find better photos, but you probably won't find better dancers anywhere, really.
Note the stump.
Not dance, but super cute. It's not just a red squirrel, it's a baby red squirrel.
This is our stage manager/lighting designer Mårten (pronounced Morton). His superpower is that he can balance a chair on his chin.
Hope you've liked the photos. By the way, there were two bear sightings today, but I managed to miss both.
I spent today reading the entire fourth Harry Potter book, since I didn't have call until 6:30PM. It was pretty good; I'm going to be happy when the fifth arrives in the mail, although one of the people here inadvertently told me what happens at the end of it because she thought it was the fourth book. Oops.
Anyway, the Royal Danish Ballet is going well; the slang term here is "lights 'n tights", and that's pretty much all it involves. The dancers put on their tights, we turn on the lights, and off they go. It's nice and simple, which makes me glad, because when things get difficult, people get snippy, and I'm still kind of recovering from Aurelia, which, though it was a good show, had a very stressful setup period.
A couple of the Royal Danish Ballet's dances have stood out. There's a world premiere called "My Knees Are Cold" (the dancers are wearing shorts and not-quite-knee-high socks) which I really like. It certainly has a similar style to what Yuri choreographed for Gala: a little bit of a fusion of ballet, jazz, and modern styles, and upbeat, fun music.
There's also a more classical work about two horse jockeys having a race, which I always find hilarious, because the two dancers prance around carrying riding crops and wearing ridiculous striped jockey jerseys.
Those are probably my two favorite pieces, although a couple others are enjoyable. The really classical stuff just kind of puts me to sleep, although finding out that one of their tutus cost $10,000 was pretty interesting (and they don't even store it properly!).
One of the things I love about theatre is the quirky things you are sometimes required to do; today's quirky activity started when the Royal Danish Ballet showed up and immediately asked us to procure a tree stump.
Yes, a tree stump. One of their shows is a pastoral piece about a guy dancing with pixies in the forest (kind of like Belladonna, except without him getting eaten at the end), and so in order to give a sense of the setting, they decided to put a tree stump on stage. Preparing that seemingly-simple piece of scenery actually required a lot of work.
First, we had to find a tree stump. A couple Operations interns went out to the bonfire wood pile and found a nice big one. Once they gave it to us, we first prepped it by cutting off a loose bit of wood on the bottom. Next, we covered the bottom with a felt-like fabric called duvetine so that the wood wouldn't scratch the marley floor. We cut the duvetine so that it approximately matched the contours of the wood, and then stapled it to the sides of the stump (not the bottom of the stump, or the staples would scratch, and not too high on the sides because we don't want the duvetine to be very visible). Next, we wrote on the staples with black Sharpie so that they would be black and not stand out against the duvetine, and finally, we brushed down the entire stump to get as many loose bits of bark and sawdust off before we took it on stage.
We had to talk to the dancers to find the appropriate position and orientation of the stump, and then we had to put spike tape on the floor and on the stump so that we can put it back into the same position every night. Once the stump was spiked, we carted it off stage right. During the show, at the appropriate time, Jason will wheel it onto the stage on a dolly. I will assist him in putting it onto the stage from the dolly, and I will bring with me a dustpan and a brush to sweep up any bits that fall off in the process of lifting the stump. Once we have the stump set, I will sweep up the loose bits of wood and store the dolly with me stage left. When we strike the stump after it has been used, Jason and I will put the stump back onto the dolly, and then Jason will cart it back to stage right, while I sweep up any more wood bits that have landed on the floor.
As you can see, a fair amount of thought goes into simply putting a tree stump on a dance stage, so if you ever see one, you'll know some of the things that had to be done to get it there.
I had a long talk with Brian and Mark today about the state of computers in theatre, and it seems that the theatrical world is a strange mix of low and high tech. For instance, ETC, the dominant maker of lighting consoles, still produces and sells DOS-based lighting consoles, long after DOS has ceased to be even a remotely viable operating system. Not only that, but even though all consoles have the capability to store a show to a floppy (!) disk, there is no standardized format for storing shows, and no one has made a translation program.
This means that if you are a traveling show, and you want your show to run at a theatre, but that theatre has a different type of lighting console than you do, then you either bring your console along with you (there is a standard for how consoles control lights, thank goodness), or you have to print out all your lighting cues and have someone manually type them in once you get to the new place. There is another piece of annoyance in getting from design to execution. The design program that most lighting designers use is called VectorWorks, and it has pretty advanced lighting design and management capabilities when combined with a program called LightWright. It can deal with circuits, dimmers, channels, hanging positions, and instrument types. Unfortunately, there is no effective way to go directly from a VectorWorks plot to a lighting console and have it work.
These all sound like problems that could be solved with not very much trouble, given enough time and effort. I may make theatrical programming projects into a hobby of mine next year, to keep my hand in.
We had to store the A-frame ladder outside tonight, and because it was wet and raining, when we brought it back in, it was crawling with slugs. Several people got slugs on their clothes, and we had to pick several of them off the floor. Yep, that's pretty much the only interesting thing that happened today.
Oh, and there was a bear sighting--but not by me, sadly.
Guy, of Club Guy and Roni, made a really interesting comment last night during a question and answer session after the Inside/Out performance. An audience member asked what language they use when rehearsing, since they have company members from all over the world. The answer, unsurprisingly, was English, but then Guy commented that he found it interesting to be in the US—because everyone here speaks English as a first language. I imagine that after speaking in English almost exclusively with people who did not speak it growing up, and then finding oneself in the middle of a country where everyone spoke it growing up must be rather jarring. You no longer have to work as hard to communicate since everyone understands you nearly perfectly, and suddenly people are using new vocabulary words, new idioms, and talking twice as quickly as you're used to. They're probably feeling how a Classical Studies major might feel if he or she were suddenly dropped in the middle of the Roman Empire.
Tonight's performance went well, except for the fact that it has been pouring rain all evening. That didn't really affect us at all, although Rocky, our production coordinator, told us that in the event of a power outage, we were to immediately stick our flashlights out the windows of the booth in order to provide light for the audience to calmly use the nearest exit. Yay for being a technician; I'm tempted to keep wearing my gear once I get to law school, just so that I can be the one guy walking around with a wrench, gloves, flashlight, multi-tool and Sharpies in his pockets. I think that'd be pretty amusing, although I might run out of pockets; I don't carry my cell phone or wallet with me here, since they're essentially useless.
Happy Fourth of July, everyone! My holiday was marked by lots and lots of rain, but at least I got to see a cool dance concert. Club Guy and Roni did an excerpt of their full piece for Inside/Out, our free outdoor performance (which was today Outside/In because it was raining a lot), and I ran lights.
I really liked the piece, at least from what I saw of it. It was humorous, it combined multiple forms of performance, including speaking and singing, and the choreography was powerful. We didn't do the full light cues tonight, but the dance didn't really need them; it stood on its own. One aspect of the dance that especially stood out for me was their jumps. The dancers leapt into the air from almost every conceivable position, and they jumped high. Seeing someone suddenly fly three feet into the air from what appeared to be a nearly prone position was incredible.
The piece also featured a stuffed pheasant wrapped in Christmas lights. When asked about the significance of the bird during the post-show discussion, Guy, the artistic co-director replied "Absolutely nothing." Plenty of other things in the dance had lots of significance, so it was nice to see that he had plenty of irreverence to go along with his message.
Not much of interest happened today; we mainly just did changeover for Club Guy and Roni, which was just a lot of lighting work. We did lay a giant faux-wood floor, which was kind of cool, and apparently they're using a black light, so I'm excited to see that. Otherwise, the first three Harry Potter books arrived in the mail today, so I'm going to dive in and see if I can get all six finished by the time the seventh is released. I'm about halfway through the first book already, which is nice, but as we all know, they get much longer as the series progresses, so I'm not holding my breath that I'll finish. We'll see.
