Silsby Samizdat

Let us try this again

Ok. Let's see if I can get these pictures up this time. There are only three of them, you wouldn't think this would be so difficult! Here are a few un-cropped, un-finished, rehearsal shots of the show. As in the last time I posted pictures, clicking on the thumbnail will open a huge version of the picture.

And yes, I am surrounded by showgirls while mixing a drink in that last picture. I didn't realize how much like Dean Martin that song is, until dress rehearsals when I was singing around a bar with sequined showgirls, drink in my hand, sporting a white dinner jacket. Somehow rehearsing the scene without the actual props and costumes didn't make the same impression. Although I have grown particularly fond of the Rat-Pack-meets-Gilbert-and-Sullivan direction of the final version of the scene.

It must not have been meant to be

I've tried three times to post pictures from a dress rehearsal of the show... but each time I've managed to delete the post rather than save it.

Perhaps this is a sign that I should wait until we have pictures from the finished production.

"And thank heavens that's done."

Of all of the lines from the show that could serve as a summary of the show (the others in the running being: "Oh, rapture!"; "It's rather awkward."; "Whichever."), the title of this post sums up my personal feeling of relief at finally surviving opening weekend.

And contrary to my fears in the middle of Stress Tech Week last week, I think the show came together. We just needed those extra couple of days to really get in sync with the orchestra and the tech.

Beyond that, my weekend consisted of sleeping. A lot. To make up for the lack of it over the previous couple weeks.

But now I am refreshed (sort of), with a show opened and now I can focus on my final project for my class and my up coming auditions this weekend.

Tech Week

Not much going on right now. And a lot going on right now.

I'm trying to make it through the day with tech week, massive load of extremely interesting reading for class by Freire and Boal, and my day job.

After this weekend, things should calm down a little. And that means I will have more time to devote to this class. This class that may save my theatrical soul from the ravages of a cynicism in the face of meaningless frivolity and a need for activism in life.

But now I have to run off for a quick small group rehearsal before the main, full dress rehearsal.

Veblenian conspicuousness

Working with computers on a daily basis has usually made me cynical with regards to new technology. I don't get excited about the latest gizmo or gadget. I tend to try and make my existing older technology do what I want, rather than buy a new toy.

Couple this with my detestation of what Thorsten Veblen calls "conspicuous consumption", and you get a computer tech guy that never likes to buy/talk about/spend his time dreaming about new tech toys.

However, for every rule there is a counterexample.

I can't stop talking about my new purchase.

I just received my Neuros digital music player. And I am floored.

Not only does it pay ogg format (the open source, mp3-like format), work on Linux, and have a very friendly support staff (or so I've read, I haven't had to contact them yet), but it has a built-in microphone, transmitter to play to or record from the radio,and is modular in design so I can upgrade it in parts.

I call it my !Pod, as in "Not an iPod", but my friends have started referring to it as my iPod-thingy-that-isn't-an-iPod, dorkPod, or (my personal favorite) the [*postalveolar click*]Pod.

The sweet feeling of accomplishment... or is that caffeine

It has been a long time since I've felt the buzz of a lack of sleep due to staying up to write a paper for a class and only getting a few hours of sleep. There is a palpable altered state that combines a hyper-awareness of the minutia of life (the way the air feels, the sounds of the world surrounding you, the jiggling of the pixels on your computer screen) with the exhausted feeling of accomplishment. Now I know the paper isn't the best I could have done. I realized at about 1:15 this morning that I had bitten off way more than I could reasonably masticate. But that is not entirely a planning fault. The topic of the paper was basically "Can the theory we've read about in the past four weeks to current American society?.... in 2-3 pages (or 3-4 if for graduate credit)".

Yeah. That is quite a topic for such a short paper. I had my bullet-pointed notes that I wanted to cover, all I had to do was fill in around them. Somewhere towards the end of the second page, I realized that I was only 1/3 into my bullet points. In order to do this topic justice, I would need at minimum a doctoral dissertation of a few hundred pages. But I only had two more. At 2:00, I hit the top of the fourth page and decided to wrap it up. This is not the paper I wanted to write, but it is a good start on a longer paper that may eventually get written.

Lost Time

Not as in A la recherche du (at least I don't think Proust was talking about what I am talking about... I can't say for sure, because as I said a couple posts ago, I'm not sure when I will actually get around to reading that book).

I feel like I have lost a couple days this week. Sometimes weeks can seem to go by quickly or slowly, but this is different. I was knocked mostly unconscious by some not-quite-the-flu-like illness. I didn't have all of the symptoms, but I did have aches, sinus problems and an acute inability to remain vertical for extended periods of time (defining "extended" as longer than the trek from the bed to the bathroom).
So most of my last 48 hours were spent asleep.
Which does very strange things to the psyche.

Perhaps not strange enough to make me write a 5000 page novel on the subject, but disturbing nonetheless.