The biggest difference I've been able to find between American and British "values"--that is, issues surrounding children, religion, and being offended--is the presence of healthy cynicism. Brits have it. Americans don't.
British people openly acknowledge something that far too few Americans do--if you tell a child or teenager 'no' they will go out and do whatever you've denied simply to spite you. For instance, if you tell your child not to read Harry Potter because it's full of the devil's craft, your offspring will pop down to his local library to covertly read it as soon as he possibly can. If you tell your young adolescent that pornography is a dirty sin, she will seek it out, watch it, and may even get hooked on it.
Everyone is aware of this. In the back of every book-banning committee member's mind is a clear recollection of his own teenage porn stash, her hidden copy of The Catcher in the Rye, her own half-burnt bundle of sage that she used to cleanse the air during her friend's Solstice ceremony that one time. Teenagers are quite predictable in their naughtiness--something that cigarette and alco-pop manufacturers bank on.
But in America parents must pretend that they never were young, or that they only were very briefly. They expend a lot of breath declaring that they either "never would have even Considered doing that" or "did all of those things once and got them out of the way." In order to preserve social acceptability in their churches, PTAs, and garden clubs millions of American parents must ignore hundreds of years worth of psychological research and thousands of years of common sense in regard to the adolescent mind. They must voice their belief that strong moral teaching and parental involvement will keep their kids sober, sexually abstinent, straight, and devout despite their own experience to the contrary twenty years before. They must wave their arms around and shout Depravity! every time a book that uses the s-word is included in a high school literature curriculum, despite calling the teacher who teaches it far worse than that at the dinner table. They demand that picture books books like And Tango Makes Three be taken out of their children's sight and put into the up-high and out of the way "alternative family" section of the library to reduce their mind-broadening wherever possible, as young as possible.
I almost wonder if they deliberately do this so that their kids will read these books and challenge their publicly-outlined preconceptions. I rather hope they do. But I sadly doubt it.
Parents in Britain tend to have far more outward comfort in their awareness of the young mind. The cultural understanding is that if you limit a teenager too severely, he will do what you told him not to. I don't pretend to know what goes on in people's homes, but I do know that even conservative parents don't try to restrict the education or freedom of other people's children just because they don't want theirs coming into contact with ideas they disagree with. That's not to suggest that Brits don't harbour hatred or intolerance. They're just as privately back-assward and stuck in their ways as Americans are, but due to their very, very close proximity to the rest of the world they can't really manage insularity. You can't prevent your kids finding out about and tolerating homosexuality when the well-liked head teacher of your school is openly gay. You can't rally too many troops to the cause of blocking the construction of a Muslim cultural centre in someone else's neighbourhood when a significant proportion of your friends and neighbours are Muslim. There aren't many opportunities in London for people to establish single-minded communities, and while they may behave in accordance with the rigours of their culture or religion, people generally don't see a point in trying to convert or impose said rigours on anyone else.
The same may be said of most urban areas in the USA--tolerance is borne, not out of education or morality training, but proximity. People realize here that there's no point in trying to change people's minds or behaviours--there's too many people with too many contrasting views. As long as you just live and let live everyone is fine, but don't dare try and impose your flavour of crazy on anyone else.
American book-banners, prayer-in-schoolers, anti-gays, and other such douchebags simply haven't had to live around people outside of their teeny tiny worlds. Social acceptability in these communities is allowed to be singularly defined because it has been singularly established, uncontested, for many years. Natural, Normal, and Necessary don't need to be taken into consideration when your understanding of human nature hasn't grown since Queen Victoria declared gay sex 'icky' but couldn't comprehend the mechanics of lesbianism. It doesn't matter if you had trouble fighting nature in your adolescence, it doesn't matter if the pastor of your mega-church was caught in bed with a Costa Rican male prostitute--if you are surrounded at all times by the people who established your concept of right and wrong in your infancy, that concept will solidify in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Evidence which is available, yes, but if you prevent it from being seen, not necessary to consider. It is easy to suppress your knowledge, your memories, your instincts when you're rewarded for doing so with status and respect. It's easy to forget that you were once rebellious, curious, and motivated entirely by your libido. It's easy to fall into the trap of believing that if you ban normal actions you can prevent them. If you never have to hear that good people have good lives that are utterly unlike yours you never have to accept that your right is not the only sort of right.
You don't grow a thick skin if you're always right. You don't need tolerance if you're always right. You don't raise your children to seek out the best in others if you think everyone else is wrong.
There's no real way to break up these knots of self-appointed Bests, to force them into diverse communities where their demands are opposed, not by the evil Media or the Government You Didn't Vote For, but by Steve and Gareth upstairs who would be great dads, and the researchers at the local university who can explain why teenagers can't be expected to abstain if you would only listen.
I wish public education could fix the Evangelical problem, but it can't--only experience can teach tolerance.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
Erm..okay.
Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life, eh? I submitted the final essay of my degree last night, returned my library books, and now...feel vaguely uneasy.
Oh sheez I hope I pass.
I put some thought into it--didn't just wait until the last minute like I typically do. I did actual research and did my best to relate the lessons I'd learned from my own project to art that people who get paid to do art have also learnt. My bullshit factor was actually quite low, which, if you've ever read another post on this blog, may surprise you. The essay was limited to 2500 words, so I had to condense my typical 7,000 words of waffle per thought quite a bit to fit. I didn't say 'ergo' or 'therefore' at all.
I'm convinced I've done something terribly, terribly wrong. Misspelt my name or wrote it in Greek or left out half of it... I spent hours agonizing over my references. It is scandalous how quickly citation formats have had to change as the legitimate uses of the internet have grown. Did you know you no longer have to include urls in? Looks much tidier, I think. And you don't have to say when you accessed documents with stable urls, or archives in a database, which I always thought was a bit invasive. It's not any of your business when I did my research.
I'm going to keep an ear out for the rest of the day for the course support office, just to make sure everything is in order--that is, everything I was supposed to submit got submitted to the right people at the right time. They kinda sprung this "oh by the way, you're supposed to submit MOAR web presence documents to us" shenannigan on us right at the last second, so I'm not sure if I sent my link to the right person. Hopefully I'll find out.
By the way, I've come to realize that I adopt different poses for typing depending on what I'm doing. For blogging I almost always sit bolt upright, keep my fingers on the home row, my wrists relaxed--the perfect model of a well-trained touch-typist. For writing research papers, however, I generally rest my head on my knee, type almost exclusively with my left hand, and lean in toward the monitor like a half-blind tv addict. I wonder why.
Oh sheez I hope I pass.
I put some thought into it--didn't just wait until the last minute like I typically do. I did actual research and did my best to relate the lessons I'd learned from my own project to art that people who get paid to do art have also learnt. My bullshit factor was actually quite low, which, if you've ever read another post on this blog, may surprise you. The essay was limited to 2500 words, so I had to condense my typical 7,000 words of waffle per thought quite a bit to fit. I didn't say 'ergo' or 'therefore' at all.
I'm convinced I've done something terribly, terribly wrong. Misspelt my name or wrote it in Greek or left out half of it... I spent hours agonizing over my references. It is scandalous how quickly citation formats have had to change as the legitimate uses of the internet have grown. Did you know you no longer have to include urls in
I'm going to keep an ear out for the rest of the day for the course support office, just to make sure everything is in order--that is, everything I was supposed to submit got submitted to the right people at the right time. They kinda sprung this "oh by the way, you're supposed to submit MOAR web presence documents to us" shenannigan on us right at the last second, so I'm not sure if I sent my link to the right person. Hopefully I'll find out.
By the way, I've come to realize that I adopt different poses for typing depending on what I'm doing. For blogging I almost always sit bolt upright, keep my fingers on the home row, my wrists relaxed--the perfect model of a well-trained touch-typist. For writing research papers, however, I generally rest my head on my knee, type almost exclusively with my left hand, and lean in toward the monitor like a half-blind tv addict. I wonder why.
Friday, September 10, 2010
An Open Tutorial for Letter-Writers
I would like to offer a few words of advice to people who work for banks, utility companies, tax offices, and other groups that regularly send out bills, statements, invoices, and other letters.
There are 3 titles in the English language for women who are neither doctors, members of the clergy, nor royalty. They are Mrs. (mis-sus), Ms. (miz), and Miss (miss). They have three distinct pronunciations and three distinct uses.
Mrs. is used to address women who are married or widowed and use their spouse's last name. It indicates that a woman has chosen to drop or move the surname of her birth from her legal name.
Miss is used to address girls who are not only not married, but are under the age of 16. In years past it was also used in regard to spinsters, but over the past century this has become rude. Unless specifically requested or signed by the woman in question, Miss is a diminutive term for children or women who are significantly younger than you.
Ms. is used to address women you don't know, or whose marital status and age are irrelevant to the content of your letter. All it indicates is that you acknowledge (or believe) the recipient is female.
Many single women of voting age in English-speaking countries do not appreciate being called Miss. They may tolerate it from the elderly or members of their church or family, but it is not appropriate or acceptable to refer to anyone as a Miss in a business-related letter.
Why, you ask? Why would a woman be offended if you pointed out she was single and young in her electric bill? Let's think a moment. It is currently the year 2010. Only in the past 150 years of recorded history (there's quite a bit more than that on file) have any women had the right to handle their own property and finances. Before that women's land, investments, and even wages were automatically transferred to her husband upon their marriage. Before That, women didn't have the right to own any property or receive any wages, and all finances regarding her went straight from her father to her husband upon their marriage. Denying ownership and stewardship to women been a huge component of our legal subordination for thousands of years.
As of now, in all matters relating to business, unless a mortgage payer has decided to guarantee her repayments against the value of a relative's fiscal holdings, she is dealt with not as a wife or daughter but as a customer. Her age and marital status are utterly irrelevant. She does not need any guarantee or permission from a man to borrow, loan, buy, or earn anything.
That said, any woman you meet can tell you stories about dealing with men who ignore or dislike that. Several times I have been told by a workman that he'll only discuss repairs and matters of payment with the "man of the house." I've even replied to this with "I am the responsible party, you can talk to me." and been told no, have him call. (On one memorable occasion, I was living in a university residence and was told this by an on-campus maintenance guy.) Some of these terse conversations have actually ended with the grunt excusing himself with the phrase, "you just give this invoice to your daddy, Miss." or "just let your husband know, ma'am."
Miss is a condescending and insulting term. It suggests you think that a woman is not as wise, experienced, or capable as you. If you're 90, fair enough. You can even get away with calling a 30-year old bachelor 'little master.' But for the rest of us, save it for children. Mrs. is just as bad with strangers--you don't know me. You don't know anything about me.
The fact that a woman has a different name from the man or woman she lives with says nothing about her relationship to him or her. They could be married. They could be room-mates. They could be siblings. They could be lesbians. She could be married to someone else. She could be 80. She could be your mom. As long as she doesn't default on her payments, her age and who she's bonking don't mean a thing to your business relationship.
Gas company, electric company, water company, bank... I wrote Ms. on your forms. But ALL OF YOU BACKWARD, PATERNALISTIC, 19TH CENTURY YAHOOS WITH GERIATRIC CORPORATE POLICIES have sent bills and statements to someone named MISS G. If I wanted to be called MISS, I would have told you I was called MISS. But I didn't. Because I'm not. Because I find it demeaning. I told you the exact opposite. I've SENT YOU LETTERS informing you that I am not MISS. And still you insist. Why? You don't need to know my age or marital status. Why do you give a shit? You don't call Ben 'Master' or 'Son'--why do you think it's okay to talk the fuck down to me?
MS is the girl equivalent of MR. It means you are someone. Just someone. Not a member of a partnership, not a kid, not an old person, not a dependent, not anyone you should treat differently from anyone else. I insist upon calling every woman I contact Ms unless she prefers a different honorific. If she wants to be called Mrs. I'm not going to stop her. If she wants to be called Miss I may look at her funny but that's her right. My grandma still likes to be called Mrs. Kenneth G, and while I find that disgustingly offensive, it makes her happy. So great.
I just want to be addressed as a face-value person. Men are lucky--they're called Mr. Surname from the day they're born. I was born and always will be Ms.Me. Leave it at that.
There are 3 titles in the English language for women who are neither doctors, members of the clergy, nor royalty. They are Mrs. (mis-sus), Ms. (miz), and Miss (miss). They have three distinct pronunciations and three distinct uses.
Mrs. is used to address women who are married or widowed and use their spouse's last name. It indicates that a woman has chosen to drop or move the surname of her birth from her legal name.
Miss is used to address girls who are not only not married, but are under the age of 16. In years past it was also used in regard to spinsters, but over the past century this has become rude. Unless specifically requested or signed by the woman in question, Miss is a diminutive term for children or women who are significantly younger than you.
Ms. is used to address women you don't know, or whose marital status and age are irrelevant to the content of your letter. All it indicates is that you acknowledge (or believe) the recipient is female.
Many single women of voting age in English-speaking countries do not appreciate being called Miss. They may tolerate it from the elderly or members of their church or family, but it is not appropriate or acceptable to refer to anyone as a Miss in a business-related letter.
Why, you ask? Why would a woman be offended if you pointed out she was single and young in her electric bill? Let's think a moment. It is currently the year 2010. Only in the past 150 years of recorded history (there's quite a bit more than that on file) have any women had the right to handle their own property and finances. Before that women's land, investments, and even wages were automatically transferred to her husband upon their marriage. Before That, women didn't have the right to own any property or receive any wages, and all finances regarding her went straight from her father to her husband upon their marriage. Denying ownership and stewardship to women been a huge component of our legal subordination for thousands of years.
As of now, in all matters relating to business, unless a mortgage payer has decided to guarantee her repayments against the value of a relative's fiscal holdings, she is dealt with not as a wife or daughter but as a customer. Her age and marital status are utterly irrelevant. She does not need any guarantee or permission from a man to borrow, loan, buy, or earn anything.
That said, any woman you meet can tell you stories about dealing with men who ignore or dislike that. Several times I have been told by a workman that he'll only discuss repairs and matters of payment with the "man of the house." I've even replied to this with "I am the responsible party, you can talk to me." and been told no, have him call. (On one memorable occasion, I was living in a university residence and was told this by an on-campus maintenance guy.) Some of these terse conversations have actually ended with the grunt excusing himself with the phrase, "you just give this invoice to your daddy, Miss." or "just let your husband know, ma'am."
Miss is a condescending and insulting term. It suggests you think that a woman is not as wise, experienced, or capable as you. If you're 90, fair enough. You can even get away with calling a 30-year old bachelor 'little master.' But for the rest of us, save it for children. Mrs. is just as bad with strangers--you don't know me. You don't know anything about me.
The fact that a woman has a different name from the man or woman she lives with says nothing about her relationship to him or her. They could be married. They could be room-mates. They could be siblings. They could be lesbians. She could be married to someone else. She could be 80. She could be your mom. As long as she doesn't default on her payments, her age and who she's bonking don't mean a thing to your business relationship.
Gas company, electric company, water company, bank... I wrote Ms. on your forms. But ALL OF YOU BACKWARD, PATERNALISTIC, 19TH CENTURY YAHOOS WITH GERIATRIC CORPORATE POLICIES have sent bills and statements to someone named MISS G. If I wanted to be called MISS, I would have told you I was called MISS. But I didn't. Because I'm not. Because I find it demeaning. I told you the exact opposite. I've SENT YOU LETTERS informing you that I am not MISS. And still you insist. Why? You don't need to know my age or marital status. Why do you give a shit? You don't call Ben 'Master' or 'Son'--why do you think it's okay to talk the fuck down to me?
MS is the girl equivalent of MR. It means you are someone. Just someone. Not a member of a partnership, not a kid, not an old person, not a dependent, not anyone you should treat differently from anyone else. I insist upon calling every woman I contact Ms unless she prefers a different honorific. If she wants to be called Mrs. I'm not going to stop her. If she wants to be called Miss I may look at her funny but that's her right. My grandma still likes to be called Mrs. Kenneth G, and while I find that disgustingly offensive, it makes her happy. So great.
I just want to be addressed as a face-value person. Men are lucky--they're called Mr. Surname from the day they're born. I was born and always will be Ms.Me. Leave it at that.
Friday, September 03, 2010
Happy Blogiversary to me!
My very first post on this site was exactly 6 years ago.
Holy crap.
May I share with you a run-down of what's happened in my life since I started? I mean, after all, I did start blogging with the intention of keeping track of my life when I moved to the UK. To quote adorable little 19-year-old me:
"I intend to use this webspace as a journal of my adventures and experiences in the UK and the rest of Europe. I figure its a great way to store my thoughts-there's no paper to get wet or torn, I never need to find a pencil, and it's hard to lose. And if anyone happens to read it besides me...well, oh well. Just hopefully my mother won't, as I at least hope that my experiences abroad will include a couple of non-G-rated scenes."
As it happens, my mom says she only rarely reads this, and mostly just to see pictures of my plants. And a couple of other people periodically check in (though I honestly can't fathom why.) So I suppose it's fulfilled its primary objectives.
But yes. Hm. 6 years. I lived in Canterbury for a school year. I met Ben and fell, giddily, in love. I befriended Sarah, Tom, and Matt, drank too much, and scraped a pass in all of my classes. In summer of 2005 my sister and I went trekking through France and Spain for a few weeks and then went home. In summer of 2006 I finished my last year of school and got my BA, Magna Cum Laude, from the University of South Carolina. My car died twenty miles outside of Columbia in the pouring rain as I tried to move back home. My mom got a new car, I got her old car, and a week later I moved to the Hamptons. I worked as a scenic intern for Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor for four months, usually for 16 hours a day, every day of the week, had a small nervous breakdown, and got Ben to ride with me while I drove to California. I worked for Berkeley Repertory Theatre for the better part of a year as a scenic intern--fairly reasonable hours--learned a ton and worked hard, befriended Kim, Sheri, and Lisa, and Skyped with Ben almost every day. At the end of May, 2007 I moved to Colorado for 4 months to work for the Central City Opera as a props assistant/usher, where I got to dress in period costume and humiliate myself every evening after my my co-worker and I spent the day being harassed by our shop head. I moved back to South Carolina for six months to take an AutoCAD class, decompress, and look for work. After failing to find any gigs that weren't more fucking internships in theatre I went on holiday with my mom and sister to Key West, met a tall ship captain, and fell in love with his job. Just before the beginning of 2008 I sought out sailing gigs and landed a position as Mate on the Skipjack Sigsbee with the Living Classrooms Foundation in Baltimore and had an amazing 9 months sailing, maintaining boats, and teaching kids on the Chesapeake Bay while living on the retired Coast Guard Cutter Taney. Ben and his friends visited New York City and I got a bus up to visit him for a weekend. As the sailing season drew to a close, however, and my captain got her own ship, I weighed my options and began to realize that I couldn't afford to maintain this life indefinitely. I began to look at graduate schools, and in January 2009, after throwing away most of my Taney-scented clothes, I began interviewing for programmes back in theatre. I briefly entertained studying radio journalism, but the industry looked unstable so I chickened out. I moved to New York City at the end of February, found a cheap, if awkward sublet, interviewed with Central, fell in love with the program, and spent another three months temping with occasional theatre work. I had a hard time with loan and visa applications, had another mild nervous breakdown, got a regular temp gig with an investment firm, moved to Bushwick, and didn't sleep again for another 3 months. Ben and Tom came to visit, separately, and I decided if I ever move back to NYC it will be only to live on Governor's Island. In September, 1 week before my scheduled flight to London, the British Embassy approved my visa and mailed my passport to my mom. I moved to Greenwich, started school, Ben and I moved to Ladywell, I was confused and disappointed with school for six months, finally gave up on trying to find any connection between the course I was on and the course I interviewed for, and started doing my own work. Early in 2010 I took Lautes Licht to Shunt, designed lights for all of my classmates' shows barring 1, and thought hard about writing my dissertation. Two weeks ago I took Licht to the Old Vic Tunnels and started writing. Since last weekend I've seen Beirut in Brighton, was offered a lighting gig with Cardboard Citizens, and have put a few thousand words on paper. All of them awful.
(heave for breath)
So there you have it. The summarized contents of this blog (and my academic blog), excluding the mountainous piles of undirected rage that dot the pages like crude oil in a deepwater harbour. Six years.
Right then.
Holy crap.
May I share with you a run-down of what's happened in my life since I started? I mean, after all, I did start blogging with the intention of keeping track of my life when I moved to the UK. To quote adorable little 19-year-old me:
"I intend to use this webspace as a journal of my adventures and experiences in the UK and the rest of Europe. I figure its a great way to store my thoughts-there's no paper to get wet or torn, I never need to find a pencil, and it's hard to lose. And if anyone happens to read it besides me...well, oh well. Just hopefully my mother won't, as I at least hope that my experiences abroad will include a couple of non-G-rated scenes."
As it happens, my mom says she only rarely reads this, and mostly just to see pictures of my plants. And a couple of other people periodically check in (though I honestly can't fathom why.) So I suppose it's fulfilled its primary objectives.
But yes. Hm. 6 years. I lived in Canterbury for a school year. I met Ben and fell, giddily, in love. I befriended Sarah, Tom, and Matt, drank too much, and scraped a pass in all of my classes. In summer of 2005 my sister and I went trekking through France and Spain for a few weeks and then went home. In summer of 2006 I finished my last year of school and got my BA, Magna Cum Laude, from the University of South Carolina. My car died twenty miles outside of Columbia in the pouring rain as I tried to move back home. My mom got a new car, I got her old car, and a week later I moved to the Hamptons. I worked as a scenic intern for Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor for four months, usually for 16 hours a day, every day of the week, had a small nervous breakdown, and got Ben to ride with me while I drove to California. I worked for Berkeley Repertory Theatre for the better part of a year as a scenic intern--fairly reasonable hours--learned a ton and worked hard, befriended Kim, Sheri, and Lisa, and Skyped with Ben almost every day. At the end of May, 2007 I moved to Colorado for 4 months to work for the Central City Opera as a props assistant/usher, where I got to dress in period costume and humiliate myself every evening after my my co-worker and I spent the day being harassed by our shop head. I moved back to South Carolina for six months to take an AutoCAD class, decompress, and look for work. After failing to find any gigs that weren't more fucking internships in theatre I went on holiday with my mom and sister to Key West, met a tall ship captain, and fell in love with his job. Just before the beginning of 2008 I sought out sailing gigs and landed a position as Mate on the Skipjack Sigsbee with the Living Classrooms Foundation in Baltimore and had an amazing 9 months sailing, maintaining boats, and teaching kids on the Chesapeake Bay while living on the retired Coast Guard Cutter Taney. Ben and his friends visited New York City and I got a bus up to visit him for a weekend. As the sailing season drew to a close, however, and my captain got her own ship, I weighed my options and began to realize that I couldn't afford to maintain this life indefinitely. I began to look at graduate schools, and in January 2009, after throwing away most of my Taney-scented clothes, I began interviewing for programmes back in theatre. I briefly entertained studying radio journalism, but the industry looked unstable so I chickened out. I moved to New York City at the end of February, found a cheap, if awkward sublet, interviewed with Central, fell in love with the program, and spent another three months temping with occasional theatre work. I had a hard time with loan and visa applications, had another mild nervous breakdown, got a regular temp gig with an investment firm, moved to Bushwick, and didn't sleep again for another 3 months. Ben and Tom came to visit, separately, and I decided if I ever move back to NYC it will be only to live on Governor's Island. In September, 1 week before my scheduled flight to London, the British Embassy approved my visa and mailed my passport to my mom. I moved to Greenwich, started school, Ben and I moved to Ladywell, I was confused and disappointed with school for six months, finally gave up on trying to find any connection between the course I was on and the course I interviewed for, and started doing my own work. Early in 2010 I took Lautes Licht to Shunt, designed lights for all of my classmates' shows barring 1, and thought hard about writing my dissertation. Two weeks ago I took Licht to the Old Vic Tunnels and started writing. Since last weekend I've seen Beirut in Brighton, was offered a lighting gig with Cardboard Citizens, and have put a few thousand words on paper. All of them awful.
(heave for breath)
So there you have it. The summarized contents of this blog (and my academic blog), excluding the mountainous piles of undirected rage that dot the pages like crude oil in a deepwater harbour. Six years.
Right then.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Lautes Licht: Underwater(loo)
This Saturday (the 21st) the Lautes Licht team will be working in the tunnels under Waterloo Station for the Old Vic's "Red Light Night." This is a 4 hour arts club immediately following the Tunnels' much-touted "Dark Carnival." It will be a loud and raunchy extravaganza of Red Light District themed-and inspired art, performance, music, and more.
For those familiar with my interpretation of the piece, you may not be surprised to find that I think this could not be a more ideal niche for the show. Lautes Licht is the most disturbing PG-rated piece I've ever created--an opportunity to manipulate and exploit other human beings in an eerily non-sexual way. The cast will be clad in frumpy and comfortable pyjamas and trainers while the audience will likely arrive in corsets and fishnets. This works in my head, in a funny sort of way--hopefully it will come across well for the viewers and operators too. Here are these free people willingly clad in the constrictive, restrictive, and frequently bondage-inspired garb of the sex industry, pulling the puppet strings of perfectly ordinary people in attire usually reserved for Buffy marathons.
Except the performers are actually all professionally beautiful people under the t-shirts and flannel trousers, while the audience is actually comprised of ordinary folks with sensible jobs out breaking the monotony of their daily lives for one deviant night. Audiences are out to be entertained, to escape themselves, and debauchery-themed club nights fill a vital role to that end. If these leather-clad Lady Marmalades were like this all the time everyone in the office would be driven to distraction. Everyone knows they're playing dress-up. But sometimes even your friendly and helpful receptionist needs to glam up and indulge her trashy side in a loud, dark place. It's edgy. It's dangerous. It's a well-researched, medically-endorsed cathartic experience.
Art clubs provide a space for responsible adults to look sexy, think with their genitals, and be bad in a supervised and controlled environment. They're a place to have all the dirty fun you imagined the cool kids were having when you were a teenager, except with less risk of getting caught by your mum, arrested, or pressured into sneaking off with that popular guy who expects a blow-job but thinks pleasing a girl is disgusting and degrading.
The point is, you go to the art club knowing full well that, after spending Sunday nursing an expensive hangover with burnt toast and instant coffee, you'll put your tie on and go back to your real life--the same old responsible, upwardly-mobile you.
It is an ideal place to bring a piece of theatre that requires an audience that is willing to manipulate and unapologetically jerk on willing strangers. Particularly when they get a good look at them and realize that they're being handed beautiful, talented willing strangers to command. Not beautiful like a painted prostitute in a picture window, but beautiful in that wakes-up-with-dribble-and-hair-plastered-to-her-face-and-she's-still-hotter-than-you-with-a-makeover-on-a-thin-day way. Beautiful, in short, in burlap.
They're wearing pyjamas to distinguish themselves from the audience, and to showcase the way manipulation is always disgusting, even when it's in completely mundane ways. And these people you're playing like an accordion? They volunteered for this to show you a side of yourself you may not want to see. But the jammies may serve a more sinister purpose, as a reminder to the false-eyelashed audience that for some, even real life is sexy.
For those familiar with my interpretation of the piece, you may not be surprised to find that I think this could not be a more ideal niche for the show. Lautes Licht is the most disturbing PG-rated piece I've ever created--an opportunity to manipulate and exploit other human beings in an eerily non-sexual way. The cast will be clad in frumpy and comfortable pyjamas and trainers while the audience will likely arrive in corsets and fishnets. This works in my head, in a funny sort of way--hopefully it will come across well for the viewers and operators too. Here are these free people willingly clad in the constrictive, restrictive, and frequently bondage-inspired garb of the sex industry, pulling the puppet strings of perfectly ordinary people in attire usually reserved for Buffy marathons.
Except the performers are actually all professionally beautiful people under the t-shirts and flannel trousers, while the audience is actually comprised of ordinary folks with sensible jobs out breaking the monotony of their daily lives for one deviant night. Audiences are out to be entertained, to escape themselves, and debauchery-themed club nights fill a vital role to that end. If these leather-clad Lady Marmalades were like this all the time everyone in the office would be driven to distraction. Everyone knows they're playing dress-up. But sometimes even your friendly and helpful receptionist needs to glam up and indulge her trashy side in a loud, dark place. It's edgy. It's dangerous. It's a well-researched, medically-endorsed cathartic experience.
Art clubs provide a space for responsible adults to look sexy, think with their genitals, and be bad in a supervised and controlled environment. They're a place to have all the dirty fun you imagined the cool kids were having when you were a teenager, except with less risk of getting caught by your mum, arrested, or pressured into sneaking off with that popular guy who expects a blow-job but thinks pleasing a girl is disgusting and degrading.
The point is, you go to the art club knowing full well that, after spending Sunday nursing an expensive hangover with burnt toast and instant coffee, you'll put your tie on and go back to your real life--the same old responsible, upwardly-mobile you.
It is an ideal place to bring a piece of theatre that requires an audience that is willing to manipulate and unapologetically jerk on willing strangers. Particularly when they get a good look at them and realize that they're being handed beautiful, talented willing strangers to command. Not beautiful like a painted prostitute in a picture window, but beautiful in that wakes-up-with-dribble-and-hair-plastered-to-her-face-and-she's-still-hotter-than-you-with-a-makeover-on-a-thin-day way. Beautiful, in short, in burlap.
They're wearing pyjamas to distinguish themselves from the audience, and to showcase the way manipulation is always disgusting, even when it's in completely mundane ways. And these people you're playing like an accordion? They volunteered for this to show you a side of yourself you may not want to see. But the jammies may serve a more sinister purpose, as a reminder to the false-eyelashed audience that for some, even real life is sexy.
Friday, August 13, 2010
NHS musings
I've been going to the NHS for several months now to seek assistance with my skin. My face, chest, and back have until recently been constantly coated with antibiotic-resistant, regularly refreshing acne, and it's taken its toll on my self-esteem. For about 5 years I have felt ugly, ashamed, and sad, which has inhibited my motivation to take care of myself, exercise, wear pretty clothes, or give a damn about anything aside from my fury-inciting reflection.
I started seeing a GP in September, who, after hearing my carefully documented treatment history over the past 5 years in the USA, began me on the exact same treatment I started on 5 years ago in the USA. I came to understand that if you move country, your health records aren't recognized as legitimate. Fun.
So I spent an entire academic year on a trip down memory lane--the same old treatments, the same old failures. Benzoyl Peroxide/clindamycin cream, BP/CY plus lymecycline tablets (topical plus internal antibiotics), Retin-A plus lymecycline tablets, more Retin-A, and finally "I can no longer treat you. I'll refer you to a dermatologist."
Great. 3 months of Retin-A later, my dermatology appointment arrived. I waited over an hour and got a ten-minute appointment in which I was told, "the next step is isotretinoin, but I can't prescribe that here. We'll have to re-evaluate you at the hospital and decide if it is best for you there."
Between starting treatment and reaching this point, I moved. Not a huge distance, but I moved from Greenwich's NHS trust to Lewisham's NHS trust, and continuing to see the same GP was becoming a hassle. After the move I asked if I could transfer my records and progress to Lewisham and was told no. "You'd have to start over from scratch."
I moved 4 miles, in the same country, within what I thought was the same health service (that whole "National" thing kinda threw me) but my records would not follow me. That makes no sense.
Nevertheless, I persevered, and six weeks later I was seen by no less than 5 doctors who all agreed, after I passed a pregnancy test (I suppose? Passing is being not pregnant, failing is being pregnant? Is pregnancy a failure? I mean with some medications it is, but what about at fertility clinics?) liver function test, cholesterol test, blood count test, platelet test, and additional pregnancy test, that I was a good candidate for Accutane. I signed the NO BABY forms, promised I would not remove my IUD, received my first month's supply of medicine, and got a little cold.
What's that about the little cold, you ask? How is that relevant?
See, in order to receive this treatment, for which I am very grateful, I have to go to one of the giant hospitals in Greenwich council. To get my blood tests, I have to wait about 2 hours in a vast, crammed-full lobby with hundreds of other outpatients, all stiff-upper-lipping through their godawful diseases. When my eyes get tired of reading I tend to quietly play "find the sickness" with my fellow patients. With many, it's dreadful diseases of the elderly--painful-looking skin and joint conditions that are both causes and symptoms of a sedentary lifestyle. Others snarf back slime while trying to entertain screaming and oozing children. Still other afflictions aren't apparent until you see the back-pain dance when their numbers are called. (And then there's the otherwise-fine folks like me, feeling apologetically out of place but staunch in our assertions that we deserve treatment too, and dammit, we pay our taxes and we've waited long enough.)
But as with all overcrowded hospitals, feeling fine on arrival is no indicator that you'll leave in good or better health. These people, coughing and even just breathing in your vicinity, are certain to share something during your afternoon in this poorly-ventilated, windowless sick-tank. At least half of them have been there an hour or longer, silently spreading their sickness to surfaces and staff alike. (hopefully not staff, but I couldn't leave the alliteration chain hanging.) The sniffles and subsequent nausea from knowing where that bacterium just floated over from leave me wanting a scour-shower when I get home--something I shouldn't do now that my skin has been made delicate and sensitive by my medication.
The thing is, none of this is necessary. I recognize that medicines such as Accutane are controlled substances, and reasonably so, and as such it may not be a good idea to dispense them at Boots. But there's no reason why they can't be dispensed at offsite dermatology clinics. With the right distribution controls it makes far more sense to provide medications at purposed pharmacies--if you run a general practice, the NHS pharmacy nearby offers a well-rounded supply of frequently requested drugs. If you run a neurology practice, next door you sell brain-related pharmaceuticals. You offer phlebotomy services at GPs, even if you occasionally have to send samples to larger labs for more obscure tests, and you do not make thousands of patients spend entire days waiting in stuffy, pathogen-rich disease transfer centres for testing and medication. That's a huge health risk--indeed, probably the biggest health risk in the entire system. F'ing Ellis Island was cleaner than this.
But no, those tight-fisted money grubbers at stage 2 of funding are fighting tooth and nail to keep that from happening. See, the big cheques come from the government to the hospital trusts, and they like to keep all their money to themselves. They distribute a little bit of it to community GPs and clinics, but the bulk of the cash never leaves the hospital. They account for this by offering all the services that would otherwise be distributed throughout the neighbourhood on-site, but crippled to near uselessness by three-month waits, overcrowding, under-staffing, and poor site management. Worse, referrals into the hospital are complicated by hundreds of different forms used by the hundreds of different GPs who haven't had the money to upgrade to something compatible with the centralized data system, or the last 10 upgrades to the hospital data system. So you walk up with your handwritten phlebotomy form and the receptionist spends ten minutes digging through her notebook of phone numbers to find a contact for the doctor's office who produced it so she can ask them what this form number refers to in the new system. Gaah.
Centralization has never worked. Big hospitals are the biggest culprits when it comes to accidental disease transmission and stress-related malpractice. You just can't cram all those different conditions into one place and expect things to be okay. Even with a huge full-time well-trained custodial staff shit goes wrong, sometimes literally.
Take Outpatients Out of the Hospital. Separate maternity centres from skin disease wards. Let people avoid six month queues by allowing more doctors to practice in more places, and let qualified pharmacists make informed decisions no matter where they are.
If you're curious (and have a strong stomach--otherwise please skip this paragraph), my skin is looking a million times better than it did this time last month. Thanks to it being that lovely time of the month my face is bumpy and my pores are enlarged, but I'm not seeing any of the typical redness, gross inflammation, pain, oil sheen, or pustules. The doctor says the bumpiness and pore enlargement should go away over the course of treatment. I've been getting some red patches on my arms but I moisturise constantly. My cholesterol and liver function are still fine. My hair stays clean for days on end, so I'm saving water, and interestingly--mom, get this--you know all that weirdness in my ears? That's been wet and inexplicable for more than a decade? I still hear the crackling noise whenever I swallow, but I've not had any active dripping all month. Indeed, my earwax is actual wax, not a fluid. Wow. (grossness ends)
Anyway. While I appreciate the NHS, there's a lot that can be done to improve it without increasing costs or reducing safety. If the conservatives can pull off what they claim they'll do in that regard, I'll applaud them. If, however, they let their grand scheme get buried in business-as-usual, I will not be surprised.
I started seeing a GP in September, who, after hearing my carefully documented treatment history over the past 5 years in the USA, began me on the exact same treatment I started on 5 years ago in the USA. I came to understand that if you move country, your health records aren't recognized as legitimate. Fun.
So I spent an entire academic year on a trip down memory lane--the same old treatments, the same old failures. Benzoyl Peroxide/clindamycin cream, BP/CY plus lymecycline tablets (topical plus internal antibiotics), Retin-A plus lymecycline tablets, more Retin-A, and finally "I can no longer treat you. I'll refer you to a dermatologist."
Great. 3 months of Retin-A later, my dermatology appointment arrived. I waited over an hour and got a ten-minute appointment in which I was told, "the next step is isotretinoin, but I can't prescribe that here. We'll have to re-evaluate you at the hospital and decide if it is best for you there."
Between starting treatment and reaching this point, I moved. Not a huge distance, but I moved from Greenwich's NHS trust to Lewisham's NHS trust, and continuing to see the same GP was becoming a hassle. After the move I asked if I could transfer my records and progress to Lewisham and was told no. "You'd have to start over from scratch."
I moved 4 miles, in the same country, within what I thought was the same health service (that whole "National" thing kinda threw me) but my records would not follow me. That makes no sense.
Nevertheless, I persevered, and six weeks later I was seen by no less than 5 doctors who all agreed, after I passed a pregnancy test (I suppose? Passing is being not pregnant, failing is being pregnant? Is pregnancy a failure? I mean with some medications it is, but what about at fertility clinics?) liver function test, cholesterol test, blood count test, platelet test, and additional pregnancy test, that I was a good candidate for Accutane. I signed the NO BABY forms, promised I would not remove my IUD, received my first month's supply of medicine, and got a little cold.
What's that about the little cold, you ask? How is that relevant?
See, in order to receive this treatment, for which I am very grateful, I have to go to one of the giant hospitals in Greenwich council. To get my blood tests, I have to wait about 2 hours in a vast, crammed-full lobby with hundreds of other outpatients, all stiff-upper-lipping through their godawful diseases. When my eyes get tired of reading I tend to quietly play "find the sickness" with my fellow patients. With many, it's dreadful diseases of the elderly--painful-looking skin and joint conditions that are both causes and symptoms of a sedentary lifestyle. Others snarf back slime while trying to entertain screaming and oozing children. Still other afflictions aren't apparent until you see the back-pain dance when their numbers are called. (And then there's the otherwise-fine folks like me, feeling apologetically out of place but staunch in our assertions that we deserve treatment too, and dammit, we pay our taxes and we've waited long enough.)
But as with all overcrowded hospitals, feeling fine on arrival is no indicator that you'll leave in good or better health. These people, coughing and even just breathing in your vicinity, are certain to share something during your afternoon in this poorly-ventilated, windowless sick-tank. At least half of them have been there an hour or longer, silently spreading their sickness to surfaces and staff alike. (hopefully not staff, but I couldn't leave the alliteration chain hanging.) The sniffles and subsequent nausea from knowing where that bacterium just floated over from leave me wanting a scour-shower when I get home--something I shouldn't do now that my skin has been made delicate and sensitive by my medication.
The thing is, none of this is necessary. I recognize that medicines such as Accutane are controlled substances, and reasonably so, and as such it may not be a good idea to dispense them at Boots. But there's no reason why they can't be dispensed at offsite dermatology clinics. With the right distribution controls it makes far more sense to provide medications at purposed pharmacies--if you run a general practice, the NHS pharmacy nearby offers a well-rounded supply of frequently requested drugs. If you run a neurology practice, next door you sell brain-related pharmaceuticals. You offer phlebotomy services at GPs, even if you occasionally have to send samples to larger labs for more obscure tests, and you do not make thousands of patients spend entire days waiting in stuffy, pathogen-rich disease transfer centres for testing and medication. That's a huge health risk--indeed, probably the biggest health risk in the entire system. F'ing Ellis Island was cleaner than this.
But no, those tight-fisted money grubbers at stage 2 of funding are fighting tooth and nail to keep that from happening. See, the big cheques come from the government to the hospital trusts, and they like to keep all their money to themselves. They distribute a little bit of it to community GPs and clinics, but the bulk of the cash never leaves the hospital. They account for this by offering all the services that would otherwise be distributed throughout the neighbourhood on-site, but crippled to near uselessness by three-month waits, overcrowding, under-staffing, and poor site management. Worse, referrals into the hospital are complicated by hundreds of different forms used by the hundreds of different GPs who haven't had the money to upgrade to something compatible with the centralized data system, or the last 10 upgrades to the hospital data system. So you walk up with your handwritten phlebotomy form and the receptionist spends ten minutes digging through her notebook of phone numbers to find a contact for the doctor's office who produced it so she can ask them what this form number refers to in the new system. Gaah.
Centralization has never worked. Big hospitals are the biggest culprits when it comes to accidental disease transmission and stress-related malpractice. You just can't cram all those different conditions into one place and expect things to be okay. Even with a huge full-time well-trained custodial staff shit goes wrong, sometimes literally.
Take Outpatients Out of the Hospital. Separate maternity centres from skin disease wards. Let people avoid six month queues by allowing more doctors to practice in more places, and let qualified pharmacists make informed decisions no matter where they are.
If you're curious (and have a strong stomach--otherwise please skip this paragraph), my skin is looking a million times better than it did this time last month. Thanks to it being that lovely time of the month my face is bumpy and my pores are enlarged, but I'm not seeing any of the typical redness, gross inflammation, pain, oil sheen, or pustules. The doctor says the bumpiness and pore enlargement should go away over the course of treatment. I've been getting some red patches on my arms but I moisturise constantly. My cholesterol and liver function are still fine. My hair stays clean for days on end, so I'm saving water, and interestingly--mom, get this--you know all that weirdness in my ears? That's been wet and inexplicable for more than a decade? I still hear the crackling noise whenever I swallow, but I've not had any active dripping all month. Indeed, my earwax is actual wax, not a fluid. Wow. (grossness ends)
Anyway. While I appreciate the NHS, there's a lot that can be done to improve it without increasing costs or reducing safety. If the conservatives can pull off what they claim they'll do in that regard, I'll applaud them. If, however, they let their grand scheme get buried in business-as-usual, I will not be surprised.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Sprog. (incoherent rant.)
It's no secret that I don't like babies. Women have the right to contraception, so I don't understand why I still have to tolerate people's offspring. I treasure the right to not breed. I live for it. I don't understand why anyone would willingly give it up.
Everywhere around here is swamped with bellies and babies. You can't sit down on a train any more because every dern seat is occupied by a big lady with a "Baby on board!" button pinned to her collar. Worse, some amazing oversight has led to prams being sold on the UK market that don't fit in bus aisles, so hours of commute time are wasted while people heave and cram the stupid things, which are 5 to 6 times larger than the creatures they're intended to contain, over toes and through handbags to the middle of the bus before the driver can continue. Then these same women glance around for the healthiest seated person near their tank and glare at them until they stand up, because dammit they have a right to sit and they'll use it. Even though they quite clearly put their offspring in a box on wheels so they wouldn't have to carry it, undermining that whole "oh my aching feet" argument. I will hop straight up for a Baby Bjorn or a kid in a sling, but you with your screaming urban assault vehicle loaded down with crisp packets and empty soda bottles, cramming at least 5 adults out of your way? No ma'am. You can stand.
The really irksome thing about these parents is that so many of them view themselves as martyrs. You overhear (well, hear--they love shouting this kind of tripe in public transit) them whining, "Oh me, the baby keeps me up all night screaming, I have no time for myself, I have to take it and all of its accessories with me everywhere, I haven't had an orgasm in months--and it's all "take take take" but never gives..." Lady, you had a choice. You clearly chose poorly, but you had the option to prevent this. Do not try to convince me that you didn't realize that babies were stressful, or that they can't understand you, or that they don't recognize that you have needs too. You were a kid once, and unless you met with an unfortunate cranial injury between then and now you remember what a shit you were to your parents. You are not a victim.
In this country, every aspect of kid-avoidance is free. All you have to do is bite the bullet and tell a doctor that chilluns ain't what you're after. I don't know if I approve of the "2 doctors must agree that it's better for you mentally and physically to terminate a pregnancy" thing--generally I think the patient knows far better than the impersonal, faceless NHS machine whether or not they should go through with it.
Because seriously, it's always better for the patient to not go through with it. These days it takes around 22 years to raise a child. 22 years is a long time. A long ass-time. In 22 years I'll be 47. I can't imagine spending all of my 30's and most of my 40's re-living the horrors of growth, puberty, academia, socialization, childhood illnesses, binge-drinking, pseudo-intellectualism, and the cold hatred of adolescence. And that's not even including the emotional and financial drain they cause when they're not even around. Food, school supplies, toys, clothes, summer camp, computers, university fees, bail, flights to visit foreign boyfriends, and financing their first ten years "on their own"--it's a huge expense and a ridiculous mental drain as you constantly wonder if you're doing what's best for them... Of course it's better for the patient. She would be far better off preventing birth and focusing on a lifestyle that benefits Her in some way--An interesting and engaging career that not only matters to her, but can help her save for retirement; a joyful and indiscreet sex life with someone who loves her; sleep and responsibility on her terms; geographic mobility and temporal flexibility...children ruin all of that. If they don't, you've either got enough money for a nanny or you suck at parenting.
The only reason I can think of as to why people intentionally have children is to punish themselves for what they did to their own parents. If that's the case, I guess I feel no urge to start a family because I'm an arrogant shit who believes I don't have to do my time.
I'm regularly presented with this rather pathetic spectacle--on one side of the train is a happy, glowing, woman idly rubbing her bump, and right across from her are two exhausted, embarrassed, angry new parents violently jerking their pram back and forth in a misguided attempt to quiet their thousand-decibel spawn, while passengers two cars away try to staunch the bleeding from their ears.
Is this lady oblivious to the suffering these people have brought to everyone else, or did she knowingly jump onto the "torture-commuters" bandwagon? Are pregnant people and new parents magically baby-deaf? Everyone else in the train wishes that these people would have exercised their right to not conceive.
Contraception is sadly under-encouraged among married couples. Just 'cos you're hitched, 27, and financially stable doesn't mean you ought to be parents. I want to start a protest and wave signs like "It's Screaming. Pick It Up." "No Parents But Good Parents." and "22 years feels like eternity? CONDOMS."
Everywhere around here is swamped with bellies and babies. You can't sit down on a train any more because every dern seat is occupied by a big lady with a "Baby on board!" button pinned to her collar. Worse, some amazing oversight has led to prams being sold on the UK market that don't fit in bus aisles, so hours of commute time are wasted while people heave and cram the stupid things, which are 5 to 6 times larger than the creatures they're intended to contain, over toes and through handbags to the middle of the bus before the driver can continue. Then these same women glance around for the healthiest seated person near their tank and glare at them until they stand up, because dammit they have a right to sit and they'll use it. Even though they quite clearly put their offspring in a box on wheels so they wouldn't have to carry it, undermining that whole "oh my aching feet" argument. I will hop straight up for a Baby Bjorn or a kid in a sling, but you with your screaming urban assault vehicle loaded down with crisp packets and empty soda bottles, cramming at least 5 adults out of your way? No ma'am. You can stand.
The really irksome thing about these parents is that so many of them view themselves as martyrs. You overhear (well, hear--they love shouting this kind of tripe in public transit) them whining, "Oh me, the baby keeps me up all night screaming, I have no time for myself, I have to take it and all of its accessories with me everywhere, I haven't had an orgasm in months--and it's all "take take take" but never gives..." Lady, you had a choice. You clearly chose poorly, but you had the option to prevent this. Do not try to convince me that you didn't realize that babies were stressful, or that they can't understand you, or that they don't recognize that you have needs too. You were a kid once, and unless you met with an unfortunate cranial injury between then and now you remember what a shit you were to your parents. You are not a victim.
In this country, every aspect of kid-avoidance is free. All you have to do is bite the bullet and tell a doctor that chilluns ain't what you're after. I don't know if I approve of the "2 doctors must agree that it's better for you mentally and physically to terminate a pregnancy" thing--generally I think the patient knows far better than the impersonal, faceless NHS machine whether or not they should go through with it.
Because seriously, it's always better for the patient to not go through with it. These days it takes around 22 years to raise a child. 22 years is a long time. A long ass-time. In 22 years I'll be 47. I can't imagine spending all of my 30's and most of my 40's re-living the horrors of growth, puberty, academia, socialization, childhood illnesses, binge-drinking, pseudo-intellectualism, and the cold hatred of adolescence. And that's not even including the emotional and financial drain they cause when they're not even around. Food, school supplies, toys, clothes, summer camp, computers, university fees, bail, flights to visit foreign boyfriends, and financing their first ten years "on their own"--it's a huge expense and a ridiculous mental drain as you constantly wonder if you're doing what's best for them... Of course it's better for the patient. She would be far better off preventing birth and focusing on a lifestyle that benefits Her in some way--An interesting and engaging career that not only matters to her, but can help her save for retirement; a joyful and indiscreet sex life with someone who loves her; sleep and responsibility on her terms; geographic mobility and temporal flexibility...children ruin all of that. If they don't, you've either got enough money for a nanny or you suck at parenting.
The only reason I can think of as to why people intentionally have children is to punish themselves for what they did to their own parents. If that's the case, I guess I feel no urge to start a family because I'm an arrogant shit who believes I don't have to do my time.
I'm regularly presented with this rather pathetic spectacle--on one side of the train is a happy, glowing, woman idly rubbing her bump, and right across from her are two exhausted, embarrassed, angry new parents violently jerking their pram back and forth in a misguided attempt to quiet their thousand-decibel spawn, while passengers two cars away try to staunch the bleeding from their ears.
Is this lady oblivious to the suffering these people have brought to everyone else, or did she knowingly jump onto the "torture-commuters" bandwagon? Are pregnant people and new parents magically baby-deaf? Everyone else in the train wishes that these people would have exercised their right to not conceive.
Contraception is sadly under-encouraged among married couples. Just 'cos you're hitched, 27, and financially stable doesn't mean you ought to be parents. I want to start a protest and wave signs like "It's Screaming. Pick It Up." "No Parents But Good Parents." and "22 years feels like eternity? CONDOMS."
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
TATERS!
my first harvest. MMMM tasty! We enjoyed a handful of them for dinner and they were just right--crisp and mud-scented before the pot, soft and flavourful on the plate. A few were afflicted with "scab" but I looked it up and its just a cosmetic thing from the soil going dry on occasion and does not affect their flavour or safety. So I've learned--keep 'em wet, silly girl, or they go a bit ugly.
My courgettes and spinach have officially failed. Well, a courgette plant is essentially alive, and I keep watering it, but I've given up hope. I composted the spinach after I realized it was more bolt than plant. I should take a class to learn the difference between "useful leafy plant" and "it is now a weed" and how to prevent this.
In other news, I've begun a course of Accutane, and am drying out like a dishcloth. I've also undertaken another lighting gig for classmates which should get started tomorrow at the People Show Studio, and have submitted proposals to several festivals and events for my own piece.
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Flowers Flowers Flowers!
Particularly, tomato flowers. At the time of writing the tallest tomato plant grazes my chin, so I guesstimate that makes it 4'7". They're all bursting with buds, and many flowers have begun to emerge.
The fabulous blue flowers finished and have embarked upon their bulbous seed pod stage, which is just as fascinating as the flowers themselves. They are still putting out flowers lower down on the stems, but I didn't need to show those off again.
I'm not sure if I should show you this, as I may be jinxing myself, but my sole surviving courgette has decided to make...a courgette! Isn't it precious? It's about half the length of my little finger. I went out and checked a few minutes ago and the little fuzzy light green one lower down is bigger, slightly darker, and less fuzzy. I'm so proud. The plant is so far not exhibiting signs of cucumber mosaic, but I'm always on the lookout and the green flies are out in force.
Potato flowers! I just think they're the prettiest thing. For some reason I always assumed potato flowers were blue. No idea why, but these have been a pleasant surprise.
Even the hosta has decided to join the parade.
The first few times this pansy bloomed it was a deep, vibrant purple. The more it blooms, though, the more interesting its flowers get. I can't help but wonder if its DNA code is breaking down.
How about those rosebuds that surprised me last week? Well here they are, in all their splendour. The blossoms are about the size of a cabinet knob.
Any idea as to what this is? It is growing in my yard. It's pretty, whatever it is. Oh the joy of discovery in rental properties. Did I mention we recently found a blender in the kitchen? Win!
And this little beauty is a sweet rocket--inedible, but a lovely gift from Deirdre. (but all you're thinking is "why on earth did she crucify her plants?" regular stakes weren't holding them up effectively, so I innovated a way to hold the string in place up high. It didn't really occur to me that it looked so...symbolic until Issie asked if there was a dead animal at the bottom of the pot. But it works, so I'm not gonna fix it.)
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
More Plants (Yay!)
Today's update:
Discovered lovely rose-like flowers on assumed-dead plant. Very pretty, very surprising. No idea what it is, seems too small to be a rose.
Flower buds now visible on all potato and tomato plants.
Sole survivor of 3 courgettes is growing and looks happy. Have been keeping greenfly off and removing diseased-looking leaves. Next year I'll just grow them inside.
7 survivors of 15 sowed aubergines looking pretty battered, but a few have new growth. All very small. My neighbour Malcolm suggested that the soil may be too acidic for them, which would inhibit growth and reduce snail resistance. I'll leave them inside next year too.
All tomato plants sown are growing and happy. Most are 1m or taller and filling out nicely. (patio chair included for height comparison)
The hosta is happy and has no bites taken out of it, I believe thanks to a copper strip around the base of its pot. Neat innovation.
I pruned my forsythias, holly, and border shrubs. They look more tame, and we now have more space in the garden. I didn't have the nerve to cut the forsythia back to the ground, but it looks nice, I think (and a bit sacred).
I staked up my spinach plants to keep them out of the potatoes. Naughty spinach.
Herbs are lush and bountiful, and I appear to have everlasting pansies. Is it normal for them to keep blooming this long? They've been up to it since January. I still like them, but I can't help but wonder if they're confused.
And some inedible flowers, in my kitchen window-box. I grew them from seed too!
Discovered lovely rose-like flowers on assumed-dead plant. Very pretty, very surprising. No idea what it is, seems too small to be a rose.
Flower buds now visible on all potato and tomato plants.
Sole survivor of 3 courgettes is growing and looks happy. Have been keeping greenfly off and removing diseased-looking leaves. Next year I'll just grow them inside.
7 survivors of 15 sowed aubergines looking pretty battered, but a few have new growth. All very small. My neighbour Malcolm suggested that the soil may be too acidic for them, which would inhibit growth and reduce snail resistance. I'll leave them inside next year too.
All tomato plants sown are growing and happy. Most are 1m or taller and filling out nicely. (patio chair included for height comparison)
The hosta is happy and has no bites taken out of it, I believe thanks to a copper strip around the base of its pot. Neat innovation.
I pruned my forsythias, holly, and border shrubs. They look more tame, and we now have more space in the garden. I didn't have the nerve to cut the forsythia back to the ground, but it looks nice, I think (and a bit sacred).
I staked up my spinach plants to keep them out of the potatoes. Naughty spinach.
Herbs are lush and bountiful, and I appear to have everlasting pansies. Is it normal for them to keep blooming this long? They've been up to it since January. I still like them, but I can't help but wonder if they're confused.
And some inedible flowers, in my kitchen window-box. I grew them from seed too!
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Men and Urine. Discuss
A couple of weeks ago my local leisure centre (my YMCA, run by the city) embarked upon some much-needed paint work. For some reason, while they were painting the ladies' changing room, they swapped us into the men's room. (Ben suspects it was because women might actually mind if we get paint on our clothes.) This was a little confusing for everyone, but we shuffled into each other's facilities and continued as usual.
This gave me an interesting opportunity to get a good whiff of the men's changing room.
It Smells Of Wee.
I went from changing-stall to changing-stall to try and find one that didn't smell like a diaper, but there wasn't one. They all smelled of stale urine. Cloyingly so. Thickly, disgustingly so. I didn't want to take my shoes off for fear I'd step in a puddle. It made my eyes red and my lunch try to escape.
I feel I should mention that the only unpleasant odour I tend to find in the ladies' room is mild dirty feet, but it is kept clean and people track pool water in there so it mostly smells of chlorine. The men's changing room backs onto the pool too, but any smell of pool chemicals is completely masked by the gag-inducing stench of piss.
I've had to use men's restrooms before, due to crowding, cleaning, plumbing, and my own impatience. I'm no stranger to the stink-wall, but I had no idea it extended to Every place reserved for exclusive use by men. This is a changing room. A big one--certainly a bigger floorspace than my entire house, with 20' ceilings and plenty of ventilation. It does have showers, and a restroom off to one side--with a clear separate entrance. There's no excuse for men to wee in the changing stalls.
The leisure centre's rules are pretty relaxed on boys changing in the ladies' room with their mothers. Boys under age 10 are generally let in, and most of the time I don't mind. They're noisy, but they're not nosy, and while they do hog the showers for hours on end they do not stink the place up. While I of course can't vouch for the behaviour of children who change with their fathers, boys in the girls' room aren't really a problem.
Except.
Except now that the changing rooms have swapped back, the ladies' room smells like pee. All of the stalls have a slight musk to them, as though a tramp slept in each one in turn a few months ago. While it's not nearly as bad as the gents', I'm disgusted and feel a bit violated.
OUR CHANGING ROOM. OUR RULES. NO PEE ON THE FLOOR.
Come On Males, it's the 21st century. There's no excuse to mark your territory like this any more--you do that with lease agreements and fiscal exchange. You stand erect and have a fairly smooth brow. I know you all can't help the body hair issue, but that is not an indication that you should behave like lemurs. Your woman will be attracted to you even if you don't scent your tail and wave it at her--indeed, she'll probably be More attracted to you if you don't. Is this like the "money shot" thing? Why do you need to demonstrate your dominance over people or ownership of things by coating them with your DNA? Why does this dominance always have something to do with penises?
It is time for men to evolutionarily catch up to women. Because frankly...eew.
This gave me an interesting opportunity to get a good whiff of the men's changing room.
It Smells Of Wee.
I went from changing-stall to changing-stall to try and find one that didn't smell like a diaper, but there wasn't one. They all smelled of stale urine. Cloyingly so. Thickly, disgustingly so. I didn't want to take my shoes off for fear I'd step in a puddle. It made my eyes red and my lunch try to escape.
I feel I should mention that the only unpleasant odour I tend to find in the ladies' room is mild dirty feet, but it is kept clean and people track pool water in there so it mostly smells of chlorine. The men's changing room backs onto the pool too, but any smell of pool chemicals is completely masked by the gag-inducing stench of piss.
I've had to use men's restrooms before, due to crowding, cleaning, plumbing, and my own impatience. I'm no stranger to the stink-wall, but I had no idea it extended to Every place reserved for exclusive use by men. This is a changing room. A big one--certainly a bigger floorspace than my entire house, with 20' ceilings and plenty of ventilation. It does have showers, and a restroom off to one side--with a clear separate entrance. There's no excuse for men to wee in the changing stalls.
The leisure centre's rules are pretty relaxed on boys changing in the ladies' room with their mothers. Boys under age 10 are generally let in, and most of the time I don't mind. They're noisy, but they're not nosy, and while they do hog the showers for hours on end they do not stink the place up. While I of course can't vouch for the behaviour of children who change with their fathers, boys in the girls' room aren't really a problem.
Except.
Except now that the changing rooms have swapped back, the ladies' room smells like pee. All of the stalls have a slight musk to them, as though a tramp slept in each one in turn a few months ago. While it's not nearly as bad as the gents', I'm disgusted and feel a bit violated.
OUR CHANGING ROOM. OUR RULES. NO PEE ON THE FLOOR.
Come On Males, it's the 21st century. There's no excuse to mark your territory like this any more--you do that with lease agreements and fiscal exchange. You stand erect and have a fairly smooth brow. I know you all can't help the body hair issue, but that is not an indication that you should behave like lemurs. Your woman will be attracted to you even if you don't scent your tail and wave it at her--indeed, she'll probably be More attracted to you if you don't. Is this like the "money shot" thing? Why do you need to demonstrate your dominance over people or ownership of things by coating them with your DNA? Why does this dominance always have something to do with penises?
It is time for men to evolutionarily catch up to women. Because frankly...eew.
Friday, June 04, 2010
Thank You, Daily Show
The BP Cock-Up, the Korean Cock-Up, the Gaza Cock-Up... we're getting all the news here, but I've been having a hard time gathering what real people's opinions are about these events. It's hard to discern what sane people think when the only views you hear are the rantings of lunatics in "have your say" bits and the carefully chosen really extreme views of a few noisy morons on the tv and radio. I know what the defence ministers are saying, I know the President is angry, and I know that Julie Smith from Biloxi is annoyed at all the tree-huggers for rescuing birds when they should be putting that money into saving precious unborn babies, but do any people without a political agenda, a conspiracy theory or an IQ below that of a cabbage have any views?
The next time I come across someone saying "Stop it! Leave my gulf alone!" or "Bad Israel! Just free Palestine!" I think my heart will give out from the sheer futility of modern education. Have history and philosophy told us nothing? Do people genuinely think that Israel is peopled with evil automatons with no concept of the hardships that surround them, or that BP isn't currently trying to rectify the problems their negligence has caused? "Just stop leaking oil! What's wrong with these people that they can't put a stupid lid on the pump?" Believe it or not, scientists don't actually have that many opportunities to do research on the structural integrity of hastily-welded, purpose-built emergency blowout protector caps under a mile's worth of water pressure. Yes they've failed, but it's certainly not for want of trying.
BP is not actively seeking to ruin the ecosystem of the gulf coast, and neither is the President. What would you have Mr. Obama do? Throw money at it? Send out the National Guard? The rig companies have the know-how to repair it--yes they're out of their depth, but they're better prepared to tackle the problem than an armed SCUBA team. This isn't the kind of thing that people outside of the field have any competency in, and it's ludicrous to think that "if we all come together and put our collective minds to it" we'd have any more luck than people who have maintained and repaired ocean floor pumping equipment in the past. Do You know how to fix it? Do I? No. We will get in the way.
There Will be an inquiry into the decisions that led to the explosion and the deaths of the rig workers, and into what could have been done to ensure the pipeline failsafe actually activated. There Is an inquiry into why the aid ships were boarded by soldiers armed with paintball guns and real guns. People are trying to figure out what the hell is going wrong.
But it is important to remember that Israel is surrounded on most sides by countries who wish more than anything for them to be wiped off the map. While their military leaders have made numerous dangerous blunders, we can't refuse them the right to defend their borders from real threats to their people. Just as any aid to Israel is a threat to Palestine, any aid to Hamas is a threat to Israel. It's not a question of good and evil. And 1 in 6 pension plans in the UK is directly linked to BP's stock market value. "Kick them out, Shut them down, they're bad" is not the helpful suggestion in this case as millions of elderly people would then be put in harm's way. "Hold the responsible parties accountable" is more useful, and "have a contingency plan in place for the failure of any company or governing body that cannot be allowed to fail" is even better.
Companies, governments, religions, borders...none of these things are absolute. None of them are right or wrong--but they are inherent to our species. Most of them exist for or through greed and power-lust, but any attempt to detach or distance anyone's nature from greed is an act of naivety or a lie. The same area of the brain that seeks the key lime pie with extra meringue is accountable for encouraging inspectors to overlook half-assed safety equipment. You can call it evil, I'll call it typical. The only way to change the behaviour of governments and corporations is to change what it means to be human.
So thank you, Daily Show. Thank you Jon Stewart, for keeping in mind that truth is never unbiased and what is appropriate is not always what we want. Thank you for reminding me that we're not all simple, shouting apes with no long-term memory. Thanks for giving me hope for America.
The next time I come across someone saying "Stop it! Leave my gulf alone!" or "Bad Israel! Just free Palestine!" I think my heart will give out from the sheer futility of modern education. Have history and philosophy told us nothing? Do people genuinely think that Israel is peopled with evil automatons with no concept of the hardships that surround them, or that BP isn't currently trying to rectify the problems their negligence has caused? "Just stop leaking oil! What's wrong with these people that they can't put a stupid lid on the pump?" Believe it or not, scientists don't actually have that many opportunities to do research on the structural integrity of hastily-welded, purpose-built emergency blowout protector caps under a mile's worth of water pressure. Yes they've failed, but it's certainly not for want of trying.
BP is not actively seeking to ruin the ecosystem of the gulf coast, and neither is the President. What would you have Mr. Obama do? Throw money at it? Send out the National Guard? The rig companies have the know-how to repair it--yes they're out of their depth, but they're better prepared to tackle the problem than an armed SCUBA team. This isn't the kind of thing that people outside of the field have any competency in, and it's ludicrous to think that "if we all come together and put our collective minds to it" we'd have any more luck than people who have maintained and repaired ocean floor pumping equipment in the past. Do You know how to fix it? Do I? No. We will get in the way.
There Will be an inquiry into the decisions that led to the explosion and the deaths of the rig workers, and into what could have been done to ensure the pipeline failsafe actually activated. There Is an inquiry into why the aid ships were boarded by soldiers armed with paintball guns and real guns. People are trying to figure out what the hell is going wrong.
But it is important to remember that Israel is surrounded on most sides by countries who wish more than anything for them to be wiped off the map. While their military leaders have made numerous dangerous blunders, we can't refuse them the right to defend their borders from real threats to their people. Just as any aid to Israel is a threat to Palestine, any aid to Hamas is a threat to Israel. It's not a question of good and evil. And 1 in 6 pension plans in the UK is directly linked to BP's stock market value. "Kick them out, Shut them down, they're bad" is not the helpful suggestion in this case as millions of elderly people would then be put in harm's way. "Hold the responsible parties accountable" is more useful, and "have a contingency plan in place for the failure of any company or governing body that cannot be allowed to fail" is even better.
Companies, governments, religions, borders...none of these things are absolute. None of them are right or wrong--but they are inherent to our species. Most of them exist for or through greed and power-lust, but any attempt to detach or distance anyone's nature from greed is an act of naivety or a lie. The same area of the brain that seeks the key lime pie with extra meringue is accountable for encouraging inspectors to overlook half-assed safety equipment. You can call it evil, I'll call it typical. The only way to change the behaviour of governments and corporations is to change what it means to be human.
So thank you, Daily Show. Thank you Jon Stewart, for keeping in mind that truth is never unbiased and what is appropriate is not always what we want. Thank you for reminding me that we're not all simple, shouting apes with no long-term memory. Thanks for giving me hope for America.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Lautes Licht
Just to let any reader know, I have a show opening up on Thursday entitled "Lautes Licht" at the Shunt Lounge, London Bridge Station. (quite literally, it is directly under London Bridge Station, in these neat old vaults) It requires audience participation to work--you, the emancipated spectators you are, get to set the light levels, thereby telling the characters how to play! Make them run! Make them dance! Make them create beautiful music! You may have fun, you may feel cruel...you may step back and see that somehow all these separate performances seem to relate to each other, and tell you a very individual story. Take a moment to set the action and enjoy your show, then let another guest take a turn. Be sure to watch while your friends conduct their own pieces--you might see something new.
It runs Thursday through Saturday, May 27-29 and June 3-5. All shows start at 8pm but will have a variety of performance times and durations (at least 2 1-hour runs each night, as it relates to concurrent pieces in the space). Tickets to the Lounge are £10, £5 concession for students, the elderly, and the unemployed on Thursday and Friday. There will be loads of other performances, art installations, demonstrations, and opportunities to drink and be merry all through the night.
I acknowledge that most readers of this blog do not live in the UK. I won't be heartbroken if I don't see you.
----
As with most of the work I'm up to these days, Licht is a proposition. An experiment, both for me and for you. It is an opportunity for you to see exactly what you want to see, and an opportunity for me to see if you enjoy that. Does the power to control the action excite you? Scare you? Disappoint you? Why?
Lautes Licht (in English, Loud Light) is also a study of the musicality of language. Our multi-national cast will be speaking and singing in a variety of tongues, playing instruments, and communicating visually, each performer on his and her own. I'm excited to see if you find narrative and meaning emerging from the juxtaposition of their actions the way I have. The performers in the space will change regularly throughout the night, so be sure to come back often to try new configurations, new levels, and new stories!
It runs Thursday through Saturday, May 27-29 and June 3-5. All shows start at 8pm but will have a variety of performance times and durations (at least 2 1-hour runs each night, as it relates to concurrent pieces in the space). Tickets to the Lounge are £10, £5 concession for students, the elderly, and the unemployed on Thursday and Friday. There will be loads of other performances, art installations, demonstrations, and opportunities to drink and be merry all through the night.
I acknowledge that most readers of this blog do not live in the UK. I won't be heartbroken if I don't see you.
----
As with most of the work I'm up to these days, Licht is a proposition. An experiment, both for me and for you. It is an opportunity for you to see exactly what you want to see, and an opportunity for me to see if you enjoy that. Does the power to control the action excite you? Scare you? Disappoint you? Why?
Lautes Licht (in English, Loud Light) is also a study of the musicality of language. Our multi-national cast will be speaking and singing in a variety of tongues, playing instruments, and communicating visually, each performer on his and her own. I'm excited to see if you find narrative and meaning emerging from the juxtaposition of their actions the way I have. The performers in the space will change regularly throughout the night, so be sure to come back often to try new configurations, new levels, and new stories!
Sunday, May 23, 2010
4 Legged Poop Machines and other garden poems
I love cats.
I hate other people's cats.
My cat would never think of pooping in my vegetable garden.
As with other people's cats, my cat poops in other people's yards.
Because, hey, you don't shit where you eat.
----
I hate snails.
I hate other people's snails.
They hate snails too.
----Greenfly, greenfly, scourge of courgettes
You gave the zucchini a disease.
My birds don't eat you.
I used insecticide.
A plant died.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Garden Update
Three of my aubergine plants have been eaten down to the stalks. There's still several more so I'm not too upset, but I can't imagine what ate them. Several of the stakes in that bed have been uprooted and some of the plants have been banged about, so I can't help but think it was one of my neighbors' vile cats. They use my backyard as a town square/toilet and no amount of shouting or chasing after them has convinced them that they're not welcome. I need a super-soaker.
My courgette plant looks sick. It is flowering prettily and regularly but the leaves are not in good shape. I keep popping off the ugly ones, and it keeps having fewer leaves. Oof. It might have a disease. I'll see what the fruit looks like, if it produces any. It lives in a pot and has garden-center soil, and it was really big and happy until I put it outside. But there was no room inside--it got so big it blocked the skylight from the seedlings.
Tomatoes are looking healthy but not getting bigger, but it has been stupidly cold out--apparently this is the coldest, grayest May in 20 years. We actually caved and put the heat on tonight. This is ludicrous. I am very, very unhappy with the weather.
Spinach plants are growing and happy. They were getting eaten by bugs so I sadly had to invest in some anti-bug, which I didn't want to do, but it was either that or not have any for me. I hate bugs. And British weather. And my neighbors' cats.
I'm not sure if I like gardening.
My courgette plant looks sick. It is flowering prettily and regularly but the leaves are not in good shape. I keep popping off the ugly ones, and it keeps having fewer leaves. Oof. It might have a disease. I'll see what the fruit looks like, if it produces any. It lives in a pot and has garden-center soil, and it was really big and happy until I put it outside. But there was no room inside--it got so big it blocked the skylight from the seedlings.
Tomatoes are looking healthy but not getting bigger, but it has been stupidly cold out--apparently this is the coldest, grayest May in 20 years. We actually caved and put the heat on tonight. This is ludicrous. I am very, very unhappy with the weather.
Spinach plants are growing and happy. They were getting eaten by bugs so I sadly had to invest in some anti-bug, which I didn't want to do, but it was either that or not have any for me. I hate bugs. And British weather. And my neighbors' cats.
I'm not sure if I like gardening.
Friday, May 07, 2010
comment moderation: oh
Wow. I just found a 3-month long queue of comments waiting to be moderated. I may have forgotten I turned it on. And here I was thinking nobody read my blog or loved me. Whoops.
Thanks for the helpful tips regarding the garden: what I've been doing so far is starting seedlings in my study under a big skylight, then putting them outside when I (hope) think that they're big enough to fend for themselves. I've got several tomatoes and aubergines out in the ground, and so far I haven't exactly murdered anything.
Since the beginning of April I've noticed that the sun was reaching the ground over the fence in the morning and has been staying there at least half of the day. We had a good two weeks of warmth and sunshine in the middle of the month (I went out without a jacket one day!) and, hopeful and excited, I put a bunch of plants out. As of this past weekend, however, it's returned to early March conditions--cold, cloudy, and bleurgh--and the more delicate plants got a bit of a shock. I went out and apologised with tomato fertilizer and stakes and they're perking up a little.
I've been chasing caterpillars and snails away from my edible leaves--Lisa, I had no idea how much of a blight they are until I started gardening in this climate! Guh-Ross. At least snails come with handles. I've been keeping the concrete around my potted plants unappealingly salty and it seems to be keeping them at bay. I don't know if that's a tested method or not. Any recommendations for keeping munching bugs away? I don't have much money for fancy nets, chemicals, or laser beams, and want to be sure my spinach will still be edible for humans.
My soil is fairly penetrable for roots and spades and is pretty wormy, so I think the kids will be able to spread out and get comfortable. I have a beautiful burst of bluebells in bloom, but the minute their show ends I intend to pull them and leave more room for growth. They spread like wildfire and I'm sure I won't catch them all, so I'm not hugely bothered about preventing their performance next year.
The potato plants are huge. I should probably look and see what to do with them soon. They seem very happy both in their gro-bag and the ground, and seem to be about an inch taller and leafier every few minutes. No flowers yet, but awesome.
I've started some cilantro and basil in the study. My mom said she'll be impressed if I can get basil to succeed from seed. I'm not sure what will make it difficult, but they look like they're working hard at getting bigger. Aww.
----
I'm glad you don't remember the ring going missing. We tried to remain calm. I eventually found it in its little box, in its little muslin bag, in a black bodega bag filled mostly with crumpled receipts and snipped pricetags at the end of mom's bed. (Ben and Ben turned the house inside-out looking for it. Amusingly mine went up to the game room in search of it and found uncle Chet, hat-over-eyes, hiding out. He lifted the hat, asked, "what's gone wrong now?" and, informed of the ring, neatly replaced it.)
----
I've gone through the house and filled every mouse-sized hole and gap I've been able to find and cleaned up the poop. There's one area in the back of the closet-under-the-stairs where the floorboards miss the wall by about two inches all the way across, and i've been unsuccessful in my attempts to cover it, so I resorted to traps, and eventually poison--I don't think I've killed any (these mice have been around this house longer than I have and have defeated other occupants) but I think it may serve as an un-welcome-mat.
----
School has been insane. I'm not entirely sure what I'm studying anymore. I want to hide. More specifically, I want to hide in a prop shop and spend a month making fake trees and breakaway furniture and try to think about what I want out of my education.
----
Ben makes good corn bread...for a limey.
Thanks for the helpful tips regarding the garden: what I've been doing so far is starting seedlings in my study under a big skylight, then putting them outside when I (hope) think that they're big enough to fend for themselves. I've got several tomatoes and aubergines out in the ground, and so far I haven't exactly murdered anything.
Since the beginning of April I've noticed that the sun was reaching the ground over the fence in the morning and has been staying there at least half of the day. We had a good two weeks of warmth and sunshine in the middle of the month (I went out without a jacket one day!) and, hopeful and excited, I put a bunch of plants out. As of this past weekend, however, it's returned to early March conditions--cold, cloudy, and bleurgh--and the more delicate plants got a bit of a shock. I went out and apologised with tomato fertilizer and stakes and they're perking up a little.
I've been chasing caterpillars and snails away from my edible leaves--Lisa, I had no idea how much of a blight they are until I started gardening in this climate! Guh-Ross. At least snails come with handles. I've been keeping the concrete around my potted plants unappealingly salty and it seems to be keeping them at bay. I don't know if that's a tested method or not. Any recommendations for keeping munching bugs away? I don't have much money for fancy nets, chemicals, or laser beams, and want to be sure my spinach will still be edible for humans.
My soil is fairly penetrable for roots and spades and is pretty wormy, so I think the kids will be able to spread out and get comfortable. I have a beautiful burst of bluebells in bloom, but the minute their show ends I intend to pull them and leave more room for growth. They spread like wildfire and I'm sure I won't catch them all, so I'm not hugely bothered about preventing their performance next year.
The potato plants are huge. I should probably look and see what to do with them soon. They seem very happy both in their gro-bag and the ground, and seem to be about an inch taller and leafier every few minutes. No flowers yet, but awesome.
I've started some cilantro and basil in the study. My mom said she'll be impressed if I can get basil to succeed from seed. I'm not sure what will make it difficult, but they look like they're working hard at getting bigger. Aww.
----
I'm glad you don't remember the ring going missing. We tried to remain calm. I eventually found it in its little box, in its little muslin bag, in a black bodega bag filled mostly with crumpled receipts and snipped pricetags at the end of mom's bed. (Ben and Ben turned the house inside-out looking for it. Amusingly mine went up to the game room in search of it and found uncle Chet, hat-over-eyes, hiding out. He lifted the hat, asked, "what's gone wrong now?" and, informed of the ring, neatly replaced it.)
----
I've gone through the house and filled every mouse-sized hole and gap I've been able to find and cleaned up the poop. There's one area in the back of the closet-under-the-stairs where the floorboards miss the wall by about two inches all the way across, and i've been unsuccessful in my attempts to cover it, so I resorted to traps, and eventually poison--I don't think I've killed any (these mice have been around this house longer than I have and have defeated other occupants) but I think it may serve as an un-welcome-mat.
----
School has been insane. I'm not entirely sure what I'm studying anymore. I want to hide. More specifically, I want to hide in a prop shop and spend a month making fake trees and breakaway furniture and try to think about what I want out of my education.
----
Ben makes good corn bread...for a limey.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
hurricane free
Ben and I attended his cousin's wedding yesterday, and, far from floodwaters, the Thames was actually at very low tide when the reception kicked off.
With a few pleasant surprises it was your standard wedding-in-a-box event: Catholic ceremony with a few hymns (and lots of giggling from the heathen congregation and bridal pair), a kindly if cynical priest ("For the past 37 years I've performed weddings on Saturdays, given Mass on Sundays, and sat on the parish annulment board on Monday mornings. I think I know more about marriage than most married people."), a creepy photographer straight out of the 1970's (complete with beige vest covered in big pockets) and a big beautiful white dress (with a fuzzy fur shrug that seemed a bit out of place given the day's unseasonably warm and bright conditions). They rented an old RouteMaster bus to haul the guests from the church to the reception hall (at a yacht club on the river) which was fun--mostly just for the dumbstruck faces of tourists in Greenwich) and we had drinks and group pictures out on the patio before sitting down to a wonderful dinner (start from the outside and work your way in with the cutlery, dear), followed by embarrassing speeches, champagne toasts, the cake-cutting photo op, and a brief dance party highlighted by--you guessed it--the Macarena and aunts doing the Electric Slide. Except it wasn't the Slide per se--just as bad, but it was some other awful 80's song with a correlating sequence of repeated kicks and turns that middle aged women seem to go gaga for. I stood by the door, ready to bolt, just in case the chicken dance or the hokey pokey came on, but the only other offensive dance-specific track was the Time Warp. There were disposable cameras on the tables, screaming children running amok, comprehensive seating arrangements, and white ribbons attached to every vertical surface. The vegetarian appetizer was to die for, and the dinner was fabulous. (I think I managed to be the only veggie, so I was fussed over a bit.)
As this was my first British wedding I wanted to do a quick breakdown of elements which were precisely like American package weddings, and those which varied, but honestly there were only about two things that I found different from any of the dozens of nuptials I've attended in the past few years: the cake, rather than being something inoffensive and crowd pleasing, was a traditional, industrial-strength fruit cake iced in marzipan, and there were no bridesmaids--not even kids, as I'd learned to expect. The ring bearer was a well-behaved French nephew who carefully brought them in on a white pillow, and after the kiss there was a flurry of confetti (not rice or birdseed) and snapshots.
The bride did not wear a veil, but I've only seen a couple of those lately in the States, and her dress had millions of tiny buttons up the back (and I did not see a zipper--you go girl!) and a dramatic seam across the front from the hip to the knee which offset the smooth fabric of the skirt from the attractively pleated and beaded upper half. I drunkenly commented on the genius of this seam, and how it cleverly provided movement by directing the eye to take in the entire dress in sequence, and was appropriately called a theatre dork. Her train was removable, and rather than bustling, the fullest point of her skirt was fitted with a wrist loop.
The assorted matriarchs of the clan all sported either big hats--complex polygonal affairs outfitted with feathers and flowers to match the wearer's dress--or other colourful, feathered hair accents which gave the feel somehow of a Southern Baptist church service combined with a subdued luau. Men wore suits, some for the first time in a long time, and enjoyed comparing linings among themselves.
All in all, it was exactly what I expected a wedding to be, which is not really what I expected. I actually found myself near tears when the newly married pair did their first dance while a ruddy-faced dj encouraged the guests to cheer them on in that energetically apathetic way they have. Everything was all right and nothing hurt. Stress levels remained at ceremony-normal. Everybody got drunk and taxis delivered us safely home. Plan A worked just fine--so fine, in fact, that nobody even needed a plan B. or C. or L. or plan "I got myself ordained to be your backup minister, just in case." How dare you have a normal wedding? An "oh that was nice" big day? An evening of lighthearted, forgettable speeches and Abba? This wasn't special, this wasn't a day to tell your kids about, or your national weather service... Why not have a big day worth remembering? What's wrong with a catastrophe? "and he lost his cufflinks!" is not a disaster, natural or otherwise. "My sister was out in the driveway with a meter stick trying to plot a track that was under less than two feet of water on the morning of the wedding--and then my ring went missing!" is a story worth mentioning at cocktail parties.
Oh sister of mine, you win. No other wedding will ever measure up, or mean so much. I'm sorry we had to go through it to make the memory, but I'm glad we have it.
With a few pleasant surprises it was your standard wedding-in-a-box event: Catholic ceremony with a few hymns (and lots of giggling from the heathen congregation and bridal pair), a kindly if cynical priest ("For the past 37 years I've performed weddings on Saturdays, given Mass on Sundays, and sat on the parish annulment board on Monday mornings. I think I know more about marriage than most married people."), a creepy photographer straight out of the 1970's (complete with beige vest covered in big pockets) and a big beautiful white dress (with a fuzzy fur shrug that seemed a bit out of place given the day's unseasonably warm and bright conditions). They rented an old RouteMaster bus to haul the guests from the church to the reception hall (at a yacht club on the river) which was fun--mostly just for the dumbstruck faces of tourists in Greenwich) and we had drinks and group pictures out on the patio before sitting down to a wonderful dinner (start from the outside and work your way in with the cutlery, dear), followed by embarrassing speeches, champagne toasts, the cake-cutting photo op, and a brief dance party highlighted by--you guessed it--the Macarena and aunts doing the Electric Slide. Except it wasn't the Slide per se--just as bad, but it was some other awful 80's song with a correlating sequence of repeated kicks and turns that middle aged women seem to go gaga for. I stood by the door, ready to bolt, just in case the chicken dance or the hokey pokey came on, but the only other offensive dance-specific track was the Time Warp. There were disposable cameras on the tables, screaming children running amok, comprehensive seating arrangements, and white ribbons attached to every vertical surface. The vegetarian appetizer was to die for, and the dinner was fabulous. (I think I managed to be the only veggie, so I was fussed over a bit.)
As this was my first British wedding I wanted to do a quick breakdown of elements which were precisely like American package weddings, and those which varied, but honestly there were only about two things that I found different from any of the dozens of nuptials I've attended in the past few years: the cake, rather than being something inoffensive and crowd pleasing, was a traditional, industrial-strength fruit cake iced in marzipan, and there were no bridesmaids--not even kids, as I'd learned to expect. The ring bearer was a well-behaved French nephew who carefully brought them in on a white pillow, and after the kiss there was a flurry of confetti (not rice or birdseed) and snapshots.
The bride did not wear a veil, but I've only seen a couple of those lately in the States, and her dress had millions of tiny buttons up the back (and I did not see a zipper--you go girl!) and a dramatic seam across the front from the hip to the knee which offset the smooth fabric of the skirt from the attractively pleated and beaded upper half. I drunkenly commented on the genius of this seam, and how it cleverly provided movement by directing the eye to take in the entire dress in sequence, and was appropriately called a theatre dork. Her train was removable, and rather than bustling, the fullest point of her skirt was fitted with a wrist loop.
The assorted matriarchs of the clan all sported either big hats--complex polygonal affairs outfitted with feathers and flowers to match the wearer's dress--or other colourful, feathered hair accents which gave the feel somehow of a Southern Baptist church service combined with a subdued luau. Men wore suits, some for the first time in a long time, and enjoyed comparing linings among themselves.
All in all, it was exactly what I expected a wedding to be, which is not really what I expected. I actually found myself near tears when the newly married pair did their first dance while a ruddy-faced dj encouraged the guests to cheer them on in that energetically apathetic way they have. Everything was all right and nothing hurt. Stress levels remained at ceremony-normal. Everybody got drunk and taxis delivered us safely home. Plan A worked just fine--so fine, in fact, that nobody even needed a plan B. or C. or L. or plan "I got myself ordained to be your backup minister, just in case." How dare you have a normal wedding? An "oh that was nice" big day? An evening of lighthearted, forgettable speeches and Abba? This wasn't special, this wasn't a day to tell your kids about, or your national weather service... Why not have a big day worth remembering? What's wrong with a catastrophe? "and he lost his cufflinks!" is not a disaster, natural or otherwise. "My sister was out in the driveway with a meter stick trying to plot a track that was under less than two feet of water on the morning of the wedding--and then my ring went missing!" is a story worth mentioning at cocktail parties.
Oh sister of mine, you win. No other wedding will ever measure up, or mean so much. I'm sorry we had to go through it to make the memory, but I'm glad we have it.
Friday, March 05, 2010
more mouse
ew. we found another mouse-hole last night thanks to an ill-timed run for it by a furry squeaker. from the looks of it it's been there for years.
gross. gross. gross.
There's just something irresponsible about building a pantry with floorboards that don't quite reach the walls. it's like an invitation on the part of the house. "c'mon in, eat the people food!"
We had a chat last night about what animals would not want to live in a people-house and eat people-food. The only ones we could come up with were large herd-animals like cattle and gazelles. Bears in particular would love to live in people-houses, and eat people-food, and eat people.
On the up side, last night we avoided the rodents by heading uptown to the Luminaire where we enjoyed the folk musical stylings of Spiers and Boden, of Bellowhead. Who knew a fiddle, an accordion, and a couple of feet could create such complex and beautiful tunes? I always assumed on their albums that there were other instruments contributing, but nope. What I mistook for a bass was an accordion, and drumming was done by stamping on a box. Nice.
It would have been the perfect evening out if it hadn't been for the presence of the Maths Club Alumni* in the audience--five or six middle aged shut-ins wearing t-shirts printed with song lyrics shouting random comments, whooping and singing along in the perfectly tone-deaf style of the offensively loud. I'm always astonished when I see groups of people with no social skills--how did they get to be friends in the first place? This cluster also succeeded in clapping along with such poor rhythm as to confuse and exhaust the players, which I found frustrating.
To Misters Spiers and Boden, I wish to apologise for not elbowing them in the face. I'm just too nice. If they come along again please feel free to chuck a brick. We'll all applaud.
(After the show, as the performers were packing away their antique instruments and crew were coiling cable, Captain Awkward Obnoxious made a beeline for the stage and could be heard asking, "so when do I get to meet Les Artistes? You're not going to stop me!" I hope nothing was broken in the rush to get away from him.)
To any interested party, The Luminaire's webpage hosts the most enjoyable Frequently Asked Questions (and Seldom Asked Questions) of any business I've ever encountered. The walls of the venue, similarly, are a delight to read, both in the house and in the ladies' room. (I've heard the men's room is likewise enjoyable, but can't personally vouch for it.) The atria of the restrooms in particular boast a remarkable archive: white lx tape, crammed with sound configurations from past shows, peeled off of audio desks after gigs and re-stuck over the doors.
In other news, my practice group put on a piece of theatre on Wednesday evening.
That is all.
*I don't actually know if these people were ever in a maths club, but it seems likely. It also seems likely that several, if not all, express traits in the Autistic spectrum. While I do feel some pity for these people's lives and the difficulty of their mental states, it still pisses me off that they chose my concert to ruin. It also disappoints me that folk musicians are too nice and patient to ever chuck a bottle at them.
gross. gross. gross.
There's just something irresponsible about building a pantry with floorboards that don't quite reach the walls. it's like an invitation on the part of the house. "c'mon in, eat the people food!"
We had a chat last night about what animals would not want to live in a people-house and eat people-food. The only ones we could come up with were large herd-animals like cattle and gazelles. Bears in particular would love to live in people-houses, and eat people-food, and eat people.
On the up side, last night we avoided the rodents by heading uptown to the Luminaire where we enjoyed the folk musical stylings of Spiers and Boden, of Bellowhead. Who knew a fiddle, an accordion, and a couple of feet could create such complex and beautiful tunes? I always assumed on their albums that there were other instruments contributing, but nope. What I mistook for a bass was an accordion, and drumming was done by stamping on a box. Nice.
It would have been the perfect evening out if it hadn't been for the presence of the Maths Club Alumni* in the audience--five or six middle aged shut-ins wearing t-shirts printed with song lyrics shouting random comments, whooping and singing along in the perfectly tone-deaf style of the offensively loud. I'm always astonished when I see groups of people with no social skills--how did they get to be friends in the first place? This cluster also succeeded in clapping along with such poor rhythm as to confuse and exhaust the players, which I found frustrating.
To Misters Spiers and Boden, I wish to apologise for not elbowing them in the face. I'm just too nice. If they come along again please feel free to chuck a brick. We'll all applaud.
(After the show, as the performers were packing away their antique instruments and crew were coiling cable, Captain Awkward Obnoxious made a beeline for the stage and could be heard asking, "so when do I get to meet Les Artistes? You're not going to stop me!" I hope nothing was broken in the rush to get away from him.)
To any interested party, The Luminaire's webpage hosts the most enjoyable Frequently Asked Questions (and Seldom Asked Questions) of any business I've ever encountered. The walls of the venue, similarly, are a delight to read, both in the house and in the ladies' room. (I've heard the men's room is likewise enjoyable, but can't personally vouch for it.) The atria of the restrooms in particular boast a remarkable archive: white lx tape, crammed with sound configurations from past shows, peeled off of audio desks after gigs and re-stuck over the doors.
In other news, my practice group put on a piece of theatre on Wednesday evening.
That is all.
*I don't actually know if these people were ever in a maths club, but it seems likely. It also seems likely that several, if not all, express traits in the Autistic spectrum. While I do feel some pity for these people's lives and the difficulty of their mental states, it still pisses me off that they chose my concert to ruin. It also disappoints me that folk musicians are too nice and patient to ever chuck a bottle at them.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
It wasn't Meditative
it was boring. You may attempt to reconcile these two very different emotions in an attempt to not appear a philistine, but I work in theatre and hold education and experience in this field and can confidently and helpfully state that Peter Brook's "11&12" at the Barbican was two of the most boring hours of my life. (and do you know how many hours I've spent in departure lounges?)
Helpfully? (you ask, eyebrow slightly raised) Yes, I'm helping you. I can think deep thoughts. Abysmally so. As a postgraduate I spend all day every day studying and developing ridiculously heavy theories, then rescinding them in recognition of their post-colonial viewpoints or Utopian ideologies. I have long-winded and delightfully deconstructivist discussions with my professors on a regular basis--debates which leave me red-cheeked and wild-eyed and feeling vaguely as though I've torn out a page of my practical knowledge and replaced it with excitingly useless philosophical nonsense. (a degree in philosophy and 75p can buy you a tiger loaf at Tesco. mmm) To the point--it's my job right now to think about, analyze, engage critically with, and discuss the ethics of everything that goes into theatrical production.
And I say it's boring. Therefore, you too can admit that you found it boring, and let that off your chest. There was nothing deeper for you to get, nothing you should be embarrassed for missing or not appreciating. It was dull, and even the woman across the aisle with the opera glass and the pensive frown thought so.
Its this insistence upon not admitting to oneself (I wasn't bored, I was entranced by the tone and smooth line delivery. no no, I must be smarter and more worldly than you because I was distinctly Not bored.) and one's friends that one was bored of his or her skull by a piece of theatre that allows bad theatre to continue to be made. I'm not suggesting we need every show to have explosions or song-and-dance numbers, but there is no excuse for boring theatre. Theatre, by definition, exists primarily (and in most cases, solely) to Entertain. If it is dull, it is not entertaining. Therefore it fails.
At my school we produce heaps of boring theatre. We justify making it by calling our pieces "artistic explorations" or "studies of the performer's inner struggle." but on the inside we all know (well, maybe not the performers themselves, who continue to insist upon doing these sorts of things) that it's just pointless navel-gazing that leads even the most pretentious audience member to crave the solitaire app on his phone. Performance is narcissism--if you are dating an actor you may want to keep that in mind next time you find yourself feeling small. While all humans have to some extent a "look at me!" need, most of us don't need 500 people 6 nights a week to do so to satiate it. (oof, sorry, bit of a tangent there.)
The biggest problem with making boring theatre, though, is that it is offensive. (jigga-wha?) It is not hugely difficult to make interesting theatre, but it is really, really easy to make it boring. If the eyelids of half the audience are drooping it shows you didn't put an ounce of effort into your piece--not just into writing it, but staging it so that it is visually and aurally engaging. This is doubly true for ethnically sensitive pieces, where you're making a show about a culture you aren't a member of and you're fairly confident your audience won't be. Making a show about the Other that is painfully dull tells the audience that you don't quite give enough of a shit about them to make your piece watchable. Which is a dual shame--one because it makes you look like just another arrogant Westerner, and two because you've just passed up an opportunity to give your audience some culture.
Yep--I wish to redefine the "cultural experience" right here, if you don't mind. If a night of culture is so dull, incomprehensible, or simply unwatchable that most of the audience exit the gallery thinking only "damn I want my money back" they have not had a cultural experience. They didn't get your point or moral and they didn't pay attention to your history lesson or showcase. They did not leave with more information, tolerance, social awareness, or interest than when they came in. You have not cultured them in any way.
So. I may appear a bit jaded, but honestly, this is my area of study--audience impact. I want my audience to want to be there to see my piece. I want them to take something away from it that isn't just boredom or a new appreciation for the glowing hands on their watches. I want the show to not need big-name actors in order to draw a crowd and I want theatre to go back to its roots--its real roots. Entertainment. Fun. Contrary to Dryden's views, I do not believe theatre's first obligation is to educate. No one who makes theatre is qualified to teach, and any attempt to do so by a theatre practitioner is a misguided effort at best, a dangerous and unethical display at worst. Most theatre types don't know if what they're presenting is ethnically or historically accurate, and really don't care either way. Theatre's first obligation is to entertain, but if someone is likely to learn something from it (Because it's interesting to watch) what you present needs to be right.
When I sat down to watch "11&12" the first thing I saw was a sparsely-decorated stage, yellow streaks under a big red blanket and a collection of carved tree trunks on dollies. Not a good start. While the play does take place in Mali, recreating a desert wasteland--even an abstract one--is not a good idea. The stage was eventually shown to be covered in sand. Most people in Mali do not live in the Sahara, and the piece takes place in the south-central Mopti region, which has a decent agricultural base. (e.g. your average villager does not desperately seek shade under petrified trees as the wind whips sand into his weathered face.) Yes the nation is poor, but presenting this barren landscape sets me as an audience member up for a story of people clinging to life in spite of everything--not a babbling, meandering discourse on religion. At one point a character is shown riding a boat down a river...in the desert. Right. As it is, the sparse, monochrome set does nothing to liven up the staging used--mostly people sitting around--and the unchanging amber wash likewise encourages the eyes to look elsewhere--but there's nothing else to see.
Most audience members chose to either look at the inside of their eyelids or at each other (one particularly meditative audience member to my left was so entranced by the play that he began to snore lightly) but not in a judgmental, "oh look at the world I live in, I should feel grateful that I do not face persecution for my religious beliefs." way, but in more of a "honey, that haircut really doesn't fit your face" manner. I've studied pieces which intentionally toy with audience attention and practical applications of boredom and I can confidently say this was not one of them.
The one active scene in the show is a depiction of violence. Now, in a show about French colonialism and interference in Islam and the wave of massacres linked to this instance you'd assume they'd have plenty to work with of oppression and torture, but the one display is, you guessed it, villager infighting. Great. Way to encourage the audience to empathize with the underdog. Colonial and modern France give you so much fodder--religious intolerance comes to mind--and yet in your piece they come out smelling like a bed of roses. Sheez--the French aren't even in the audience to defend themselves! You could say Anything! But no, instead we're treated to a view of anger within an oppressed community, just like the BBC chose to show the day after Haiti's catastrophic earthquake, reinforcing the subtle notion the West likes to tell itself--these people need us to come and save them, even from themselves.
Nanny-stating aside, scenographic probing aside, the staging was dull, the accents were all over the map, the costuming could have been less beige but I honestly haven't studied early 20th century Malian fashion so I can't reasonably comment, the music was interesting and well performed but had nothing to do with the time, place, or people, and the colourblind casting was nice but honestly why did you give the only line including the phrase "us black people" to the only white guy on stage? Come on. That's tacky.
Actually, that really about sums up my whole experience. I've been to worse theatre, certainly, but rarely by people as well-esteemed. Many of my classmates attempted to justify the piece's choices by quoting this and that theory about how by being dull and ethically dubious it provoked thought, research and argument, but I'd argue against that--most audience members don't watch theatre like theatre workers. They take it for what they see, and what they saw was dull.
Helpfully? (you ask, eyebrow slightly raised) Yes, I'm helping you. I can think deep thoughts. Abysmally so. As a postgraduate I spend all day every day studying and developing ridiculously heavy theories, then rescinding them in recognition of their post-colonial viewpoints or Utopian ideologies. I have long-winded and delightfully deconstructivist discussions with my professors on a regular basis--debates which leave me red-cheeked and wild-eyed and feeling vaguely as though I've torn out a page of my practical knowledge and replaced it with excitingly useless philosophical nonsense. (a degree in philosophy and 75p can buy you a tiger loaf at Tesco. mmm) To the point--it's my job right now to think about, analyze, engage critically with, and discuss the ethics of everything that goes into theatrical production.
And I say it's boring. Therefore, you too can admit that you found it boring, and let that off your chest. There was nothing deeper for you to get, nothing you should be embarrassed for missing or not appreciating. It was dull, and even the woman across the aisle with the opera glass and the pensive frown thought so.
Its this insistence upon not admitting to oneself (I wasn't bored, I was entranced by the tone and smooth line delivery. no no, I must be smarter and more worldly than you because I was distinctly Not bored.) and one's friends that one was bored of his or her skull by a piece of theatre that allows bad theatre to continue to be made. I'm not suggesting we need every show to have explosions or song-and-dance numbers, but there is no excuse for boring theatre. Theatre, by definition, exists primarily (and in most cases, solely) to Entertain. If it is dull, it is not entertaining. Therefore it fails.
At my school we produce heaps of boring theatre. We justify making it by calling our pieces "artistic explorations" or "studies of the performer's inner struggle." but on the inside we all know (well, maybe not the performers themselves, who continue to insist upon doing these sorts of things) that it's just pointless navel-gazing that leads even the most pretentious audience member to crave the solitaire app on his phone. Performance is narcissism--if you are dating an actor you may want to keep that in mind next time you find yourself feeling small. While all humans have to some extent a "look at me!" need, most of us don't need 500 people 6 nights a week to do so to satiate it. (oof, sorry, bit of a tangent there.)
The biggest problem with making boring theatre, though, is that it is offensive. (jigga-wha?) It is not hugely difficult to make interesting theatre, but it is really, really easy to make it boring. If the eyelids of half the audience are drooping it shows you didn't put an ounce of effort into your piece--not just into writing it, but staging it so that it is visually and aurally engaging. This is doubly true for ethnically sensitive pieces, where you're making a show about a culture you aren't a member of and you're fairly confident your audience won't be. Making a show about the Other that is painfully dull tells the audience that you don't quite give enough of a shit about them to make your piece watchable. Which is a dual shame--one because it makes you look like just another arrogant Westerner, and two because you've just passed up an opportunity to give your audience some culture.
Yep--I wish to redefine the "cultural experience" right here, if you don't mind. If a night of culture is so dull, incomprehensible, or simply unwatchable that most of the audience exit the gallery thinking only "damn I want my money back" they have not had a cultural experience. They didn't get your point or moral and they didn't pay attention to your history lesson or showcase. They did not leave with more information, tolerance, social awareness, or interest than when they came in. You have not cultured them in any way.
So. I may appear a bit jaded, but honestly, this is my area of study--audience impact. I want my audience to want to be there to see my piece. I want them to take something away from it that isn't just boredom or a new appreciation for the glowing hands on their watches. I want the show to not need big-name actors in order to draw a crowd and I want theatre to go back to its roots--its real roots. Entertainment. Fun. Contrary to Dryden's views, I do not believe theatre's first obligation is to educate. No one who makes theatre is qualified to teach, and any attempt to do so by a theatre practitioner is a misguided effort at best, a dangerous and unethical display at worst. Most theatre types don't know if what they're presenting is ethnically or historically accurate, and really don't care either way. Theatre's first obligation is to entertain, but if someone is likely to learn something from it (Because it's interesting to watch) what you present needs to be right.
When I sat down to watch "11&12" the first thing I saw was a sparsely-decorated stage, yellow streaks under a big red blanket and a collection of carved tree trunks on dollies. Not a good start. While the play does take place in Mali, recreating a desert wasteland--even an abstract one--is not a good idea. The stage was eventually shown to be covered in sand. Most people in Mali do not live in the Sahara, and the piece takes place in the south-central Mopti region, which has a decent agricultural base. (e.g. your average villager does not desperately seek shade under petrified trees as the wind whips sand into his weathered face.) Yes the nation is poor, but presenting this barren landscape sets me as an audience member up for a story of people clinging to life in spite of everything--not a babbling, meandering discourse on religion. At one point a character is shown riding a boat down a river...in the desert. Right. As it is, the sparse, monochrome set does nothing to liven up the staging used--mostly people sitting around--and the unchanging amber wash likewise encourages the eyes to look elsewhere--but there's nothing else to see.
Most audience members chose to either look at the inside of their eyelids or at each other (one particularly meditative audience member to my left was so entranced by the play that he began to snore lightly) but not in a judgmental, "oh look at the world I live in, I should feel grateful that I do not face persecution for my religious beliefs." way, but in more of a "honey, that haircut really doesn't fit your face" manner. I've studied pieces which intentionally toy with audience attention and practical applications of boredom and I can confidently say this was not one of them.
The one active scene in the show is a depiction of violence. Now, in a show about French colonialism and interference in Islam and the wave of massacres linked to this instance you'd assume they'd have plenty to work with of oppression and torture, but the one display is, you guessed it, villager infighting. Great. Way to encourage the audience to empathize with the underdog. Colonial and modern France give you so much fodder--religious intolerance comes to mind--and yet in your piece they come out smelling like a bed of roses. Sheez--the French aren't even in the audience to defend themselves! You could say Anything! But no, instead we're treated to a view of anger within an oppressed community, just like the BBC chose to show the day after Haiti's catastrophic earthquake, reinforcing the subtle notion the West likes to tell itself--these people need us to come and save them, even from themselves.
Nanny-stating aside, scenographic probing aside, the staging was dull, the accents were all over the map, the costuming could have been less beige but I honestly haven't studied early 20th century Malian fashion so I can't reasonably comment, the music was interesting and well performed but had nothing to do with the time, place, or people, and the colourblind casting was nice but honestly why did you give the only line including the phrase "us black people" to the only white guy on stage? Come on. That's tacky.
Actually, that really about sums up my whole experience. I've been to worse theatre, certainly, but rarely by people as well-esteemed. Many of my classmates attempted to justify the piece's choices by quoting this and that theory about how by being dull and ethically dubious it provoked thought, research and argument, but I'd argue against that--most audience members don't watch theatre like theatre workers. They take it for what they see, and what they saw was dull.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Glass Attacks and Slippery Junk Mail
I just watched a short video on the Beeb regarding a product development firm who had been commissioned by the Home Office to invent shatter-proof pint glasses for pubs. The video included a brief demonstration of how they work and sounded like a genuine effort to improve safety when glasses are inadvertently dropped.
Then the 'related videos' menu started rolling, and I saw a quick glimpse into just how many news reports had been done recently about people getting attacked with broken glass in pub fights. Dozens.
It just goes to remind me. Brits may not have guns, but they're just as freaking violent as anyone else, they just don't have access to clean, purpose-built weapons. They stab, maul, batter, and smash their foes and victims with whatever they have on hand--glass, kitchen gadgets, paving slabs, the occasional car--which means they may have lower rates of specific "gun crime" and "knife crime" but just as much "violent crime" as anyone anywhere else.
----
I'm trying to make an effective sign to put on my letterbox (hole in the door, not mailbox) that will actually cause leafleters, menu distributors, charity bag shovers, "charity" bag shovers, and all the other garbage pushers actually stop, notice, and not put crap through my door that I slip on and hurt myself when I come home. "Royal Mail Only, all others use side door" (we don't have a side door) seems insulting enough that I might actually get even more junk on the floor. "NO" is a bit too blunt and may put off the postman. "If It Doesn't Have My Name On It, It Doesn't Go Here" is too wordy, and I'm sure leafleters are in too much of a hurry, are too illiterate, or are too arrogant to heed it. I've tripped slipped, and skidded on junk mail so much I'm getting the pelvis of a 90 year old woman.
That's the thing--if it was a mailbox I probably wouldn't care so much. But they don't do that here. The "letterbox" is a 1"x6" window into your house. Every time someone rattles the gate and shoves his "People are Starving in Africa--won't you give us your old clothes?" packet through the flap I feel a little more violated.
The problem is, menu-stuffing kids aside (who are utterly heedless of people's requests), most people who cram unsolicited crap through the door seem to think they're doing a good deed. Raising awareness, and all that rot. This stuff doesn't come in the postman's bundle--people go around distributing garbage one at a time. I've come home to ten or twelve items of spam on my floor per day.
I feel they all need to be addressed separately, so as to ensure that everyone knows, pointedly, that their solicitation is not "the good kind."
"This newsletter from the Labour party will keep you informed as to what we're doing to improve your area." (Sign: Foreigner Lives Here. Cannot Vote. Don't Waste Your Time.)
"Did you know that 1/3 of all deaths are from cardiovascular related diseases? Your small donation will help us save the world!" (Sign: Student Lives Here. Broke. And "Old Age" Is Considered a Cardiovascular Disease. Don't Waste Your Time.)
"Your street's home prices are on the rise! Have you been thinking of selling? Our real estate agency would love to appraise your property!" (Sign: Renters. Owners Live Overseas. And Do the Words "Fixer-Upper" Mean Anything to You? Don't Waste Your Time.)
"Jesus Jesus Jesus! Jesus Jesus! Jesus Jesus JEEEEEESUS (money) JESUS!" (Sign: We actually use Hellfire to power our boiler, and we stock it with this sort of pamphlet. You're just encouraging Satan's influence on this street. Have you no morals?)
"Please put your unwanted items in this bag and we'll ensure that they're collected and sold, at whatever price we deem valid, to whoever will buy, whether or not we're a registered charity." (Sign: I Have No More or Less Unwanted Stuff than Last Time I Tripped on One of These. Do You Think I Buy Shoes and Tire Of Them Weekly? You're A Moron And This Is Either a Profiteering Scheme or a Plain Scam. Fuck Off, Tripping Hazard Shover. If You Think You're Doing A Good Deed Working For This Company, Perhaps You Should Read Your Mission Statement.)
Then the 'related videos' menu started rolling, and I saw a quick glimpse into just how many news reports had been done recently about people getting attacked with broken glass in pub fights. Dozens.
It just goes to remind me. Brits may not have guns, but they're just as freaking violent as anyone else, they just don't have access to clean, purpose-built weapons. They stab, maul, batter, and smash their foes and victims with whatever they have on hand--glass, kitchen gadgets, paving slabs, the occasional car--which means they may have lower rates of specific "gun crime" and "knife crime" but just as much "violent crime" as anyone anywhere else.
----
I'm trying to make an effective sign to put on my letterbox (hole in the door, not mailbox) that will actually cause leafleters, menu distributors, charity bag shovers, "charity" bag shovers, and all the other garbage pushers actually stop, notice, and not put crap through my door that I slip on and hurt myself when I come home. "Royal Mail Only, all others use side door" (we don't have a side door) seems insulting enough that I might actually get even more junk on the floor. "NO" is a bit too blunt and may put off the postman. "If It Doesn't Have My Name On It, It Doesn't Go Here" is too wordy, and I'm sure leafleters are in too much of a hurry, are too illiterate, or are too arrogant to heed it. I've tripped slipped, and skidded on junk mail so much I'm getting the pelvis of a 90 year old woman.
That's the thing--if it was a mailbox I probably wouldn't care so much. But they don't do that here. The "letterbox" is a 1"x6" window into your house. Every time someone rattles the gate and shoves his "People are Starving in Africa--won't you give us your old clothes?" packet through the flap I feel a little more violated.
The problem is, menu-stuffing kids aside (who are utterly heedless of people's requests), most people who cram unsolicited crap through the door seem to think they're doing a good deed. Raising awareness, and all that rot. This stuff doesn't come in the postman's bundle--people go around distributing garbage one at a time. I've come home to ten or twelve items of spam on my floor per day.
I feel they all need to be addressed separately, so as to ensure that everyone knows, pointedly, that their solicitation is not "the good kind."
"This newsletter from the Labour party will keep you informed as to what we're doing to improve your area." (Sign: Foreigner Lives Here. Cannot Vote. Don't Waste Your Time.)
"Did you know that 1/3 of all deaths are from cardiovascular related diseases? Your small donation will help us save the world!" (Sign: Student Lives Here. Broke. And "Old Age" Is Considered a Cardiovascular Disease. Don't Waste Your Time.)
"Your street's home prices are on the rise! Have you been thinking of selling? Our real estate agency would love to appraise your property!" (Sign: Renters. Owners Live Overseas. And Do the Words "Fixer-Upper" Mean Anything to You? Don't Waste Your Time.)
"Jesus Jesus Jesus! Jesus Jesus! Jesus Jesus JEEEEEESUS (money) JESUS!" (Sign: We actually use Hellfire to power our boiler, and we stock it with this sort of pamphlet. You're just encouraging Satan's influence on this street. Have you no morals?)
"Please put your unwanted items in this bag and we'll ensure that they're collected and sold, at whatever price we deem valid, to whoever will buy, whether or not we're a registered charity." (Sign: I Have No More or Less Unwanted Stuff than Last Time I Tripped on One of These. Do You Think I Buy Shoes and Tire Of Them Weekly? You're A Moron And This Is Either a Profiteering Scheme or a Plain Scam. Fuck Off, Tripping Hazard Shover. If You Think You're Doing A Good Deed Working For This Company, Perhaps You Should Read Your Mission Statement.)
Monday, February 01, 2010
starter garden
Hey readers!
I've never gardened before. Well, I've dug holes for my mom, but that doesn't really count. She always did the thinking and planning and pruning and maintenance and she's always had the patience and memory to go out and actually take care of the things. I just dig holes, then go back inside and read.
But now I have this whole back garden and it's kinda mine (well, and Ben's, and it does belong to the people we're renting from but they've never really done much with it and said if I want to grow stuff in it, go ahead.) I really don't want it to go to waste, but there's a problem.
It's very, very shady. I think this photo describes what I'm dealing with:
That's right. No sun where the plants would start growing. (This was taken today, at 12:30pm, February 1, 2010. I'm not about to take out my garden fence, or the hedge pictured, as they're the privacy barriers between us and our neighbors, and really, I'm sure they want to see me in my jammies just as much as I want to see them.
There are some bulbs coming up along the bottom of the hedge. I don't know what they are, but they may be daffodils.
This is round the side, looking back at the house. This might get sun at high noon in July but at every other time of year it is shaded by two complete houses.
Whole garden, at noon. The upper parts of the plants on the one side get light for the second half of the day, but everything else is in the dark most of the time. The plants that are out here are happy and flourishing, mostly because they're hardy, cold-loving, shade-tolerant, completely-inedible decorative shrubs.
So, my question to you, dear reader, is: based on the information provided, and my answers to any inquiries you may have: is it worth it to try and raise fruits or vegetables in this dark den? I really want figs, spinach, and tomatoes, but if they're just gonna wilt I won't torture them. Do miniature fruit trees grow well indoors? I have some big pretty skylights in the study. Maybe in summer I could open them and let the plants get some "outdoors" during the day? I don't know. Is it even worth it to have a garden if its just in the dark all the time?
I've never gardened before. Well, I've dug holes for my mom, but that doesn't really count. She always did the thinking and planning and pruning and maintenance and she's always had the patience and memory to go out and actually take care of the things. I just dig holes, then go back inside and read.
But now I have this whole back garden and it's kinda mine (well, and Ben's, and it does belong to the people we're renting from but they've never really done much with it and said if I want to grow stuff in it, go ahead.) I really don't want it to go to waste, but there's a problem.
It's very, very shady. I think this photo describes what I'm dealing with:
That's right. No sun where the plants would start growing. (This was taken today, at 12:30pm, February 1, 2010. I'm not about to take out my garden fence, or the hedge pictured, as they're the privacy barriers between us and our neighbors, and really, I'm sure they want to see me in my jammies just as much as I want to see them.
There are some bulbs coming up along the bottom of the hedge. I don't know what they are, but they may be daffodils.
This is round the side, looking back at the house. This might get sun at high noon in July but at every other time of year it is shaded by two complete houses.
Whole garden, at noon. The upper parts of the plants on the one side get light for the second half of the day, but everything else is in the dark most of the time. The plants that are out here are happy and flourishing, mostly because they're hardy, cold-loving, shade-tolerant, completely-inedible decorative shrubs.
So, my question to you, dear reader, is: based on the information provided, and my answers to any inquiries you may have: is it worth it to try and raise fruits or vegetables in this dark den? I really want figs, spinach, and tomatoes, but if they're just gonna wilt I won't torture them. Do miniature fruit trees grow well indoors? I have some big pretty skylights in the study. Maybe in summer I could open them and let the plants get some "outdoors" during the day? I don't know. Is it even worth it to have a garden if its just in the dark all the time?
Friday, January 08, 2010
idle musing of the hour
How do you like your coffee? _____: like I like my men.
Potential answers: rich, tall, smooth, black, hot, dark, white, Colombian, Irish, Mexican, Ethiopian, strong, effective... "Iced" has no place in this list unless you're a professional widow, so "iced" is not an appropriate way to have your coffee. This goes too for bitter, gritty, weak, tepid, and artificially-sweetened.
Potential answers: rich, tall, smooth, black, hot, dark, white, Colombian, Irish, Mexican, Ethiopian, strong, effective... "Iced" has no place in this list unless you're a professional widow, so "iced" is not an appropriate way to have your coffee. This goes too for bitter, gritty, weak, tepid, and artificially-sweetened.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Snow Fairy
The heaviest snowfalls southern England has seen in the past 10 years have been when I've been here. It is currently both the first time I've been in London for Christmas and the first time it has snowed at Christmas in over 25 years. This past January I visited London for a week and, lo and behold, there was snow. Canterbury was mounded in over a foot of snow during my erasmus year there. More to the point, there has not been significant snowfall recently in this area without me.
For a while I thought this phenomenon was somehow linked to my curse from Ralph, the God of Plumbing, but I'm willing to concede that this is just global warming and good timing as I have not, to my knowledge, affected snowfall in the US. Dieties of Disasters, Drainage, and Ductwork are not beholden to mankind's political boundaries.
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I haven't updated much lately because I've been very busy and very happy. I tend to not feel moved to blog when I'm in a good mood, which I may have mentioned before probably gives an unfair impression of me to the unassuming reader.
Today I'm content but idle as I'm unwilling to brave the riot that is Christmas shopping again if I can help it. Yesterday I started at noon, when the mummies of fussy children were smiling and indulging their spawn's screeched demands for cake and entertainment. I eventually ran for home at 5, by which time the unrelenting screams had passed through the 'ignore the brat' phase and had finally caused even the sweetest of mummies to start shouting and throwing things. I hid my wallet in a high inner pocket and more than once had need to shoo little sticky probing hands away from my bags. I'm learning restraint though, I think--I merely murmured "smack your offspring unless you'd like me to do it for you" rather than grabbing the face of the breeder who's sprog I had just prised off of my purchases and shouting it at her. It wasn't easy, though.
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Kristen's News of the Asinine: I won the video game Portal recently on Ben's x-box. It was difficult because i'm awful with buttons and joysticks--my character spent most of her time slamming headlong into walls and tended to crouch when I needed her to run, so she got vaporized and drowned a lot. I like the way the game saves though--no matter how many times you get killed, you can just go back to the most recent autosave and try again, no harm done. If it weren't for this feature I'd still be on level 4. Also fun with this game is the player's ability to go into disused spaces unworried about being pursued or running out of time, most of the time, so you can pick things up and toss them around and look at the details of the graphics. The last time I played a video game before this one it was Super Mario Brothers on a black and green game boy--I lost level 1 until the batteries died--so I'd kinda missed out on developing the hand/eye coordination needed to play these things with the finesse required to win. Thanks, Valve, for making a game for me to enjoy.
And the cake isn't really a lie.
----
Friday I get to be appraised and re-appraised by even more members of the Boy's extensive kinship group. Wish me luck.
For a while I thought this phenomenon was somehow linked to my curse from Ralph, the God of Plumbing, but I'm willing to concede that this is just global warming and good timing as I have not, to my knowledge, affected snowfall in the US. Dieties of Disasters, Drainage, and Ductwork are not beholden to mankind's political boundaries.
----
I haven't updated much lately because I've been very busy and very happy. I tend to not feel moved to blog when I'm in a good mood, which I may have mentioned before probably gives an unfair impression of me to the unassuming reader.
Today I'm content but idle as I'm unwilling to brave the riot that is Christmas shopping again if I can help it. Yesterday I started at noon, when the mummies of fussy children were smiling and indulging their spawn's screeched demands for cake and entertainment. I eventually ran for home at 5, by which time the unrelenting screams had passed through the 'ignore the brat' phase and had finally caused even the sweetest of mummies to start shouting and throwing things. I hid my wallet in a high inner pocket and more than once had need to shoo little sticky probing hands away from my bags. I'm learning restraint though, I think--I merely murmured "smack your offspring unless you'd like me to do it for you" rather than grabbing the face of the breeder who's sprog I had just prised off of my purchases and shouting it at her. It wasn't easy, though.
----
Kristen's News of the Asinine: I won the video game Portal recently on Ben's x-box. It was difficult because i'm awful with buttons and joysticks--my character spent most of her time slamming headlong into walls and tended to crouch when I needed her to run, so she got vaporized and drowned a lot. I like the way the game saves though--no matter how many times you get killed, you can just go back to the most recent autosave and try again, no harm done. If it weren't for this feature I'd still be on level 4. Also fun with this game is the player's ability to go into disused spaces unworried about being pursued or running out of time, most of the time, so you can pick things up and toss them around and look at the details of the graphics. The last time I played a video game before this one it was Super Mario Brothers on a black and green game boy--I lost level 1 until the batteries died--so I'd kinda missed out on developing the hand/eye coordination needed to play these things with the finesse required to win. Thanks, Valve, for making a game for me to enjoy.
And the cake isn't really a lie.
----
Friday I get to be appraised and re-appraised by even more members of the Boy's extensive kinship group. Wish me luck.
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