breakinglight11 | Entries tagged with waste of my life

Well, yesterday was the first truly productive day for writing I've had in a while now. Jared helped me hammer out the final details of the new current plotline for the Burn Notice game, which makes me feel like I'm in pretty good shape for tonight. Jared and I have always been good at working together on this sort of thing, which for me is pretty rare and special since I'm usually a pain to collaborate creatively with, at least when the project is my brainchild. That's the reason I wanted to have him as my brainstorming partner and occasional NPC rather than as a player. All that really remains to do is today before the game I want to write out a rough outline of the events to consult during runtime and draw up some NPCs. I may also send out some back story info to the players for context during the session; since their characters are all pregens they don't always already know everything. Tonight's storyline will be Riker-centric, a notion I've had in my head for a while, and since this will be Michael's first session playing as Riker I thought it might make him a nice entree into the campaign.

I also made some real progress on a play. I was initially going for just a ten-minute piece (I have settled on trying to write a new one every two weeks to set an achievable goal) but my idea bloomed into what could easily be a real full-length. So, because of this, I am allowing scenes of larger works to count for the purposes of a piece-every-two-weeks. I made a lot of progress on two different scenes for this larger play, though sadly managed to finish neither of them. Still, I feel pretty good about what I have. I am hoping to complete at least one of them by the end of the week, and then post it here on LiveJournal. You are of course welcome to give whatever opinion you may have if you take the time to read.

I totally forgot to mention this, even though it's cool news and it happened a while ago now. Jared is going to be in a production of As You Like It! He will be playing Oliver, the wicked older brother of the hero Orlando who initially betrays his brother but ultimately learns the error of his ways. The production is being put on by Theatre@First, a well-regarded local company whom I first became aware of when I saw

oakenguy in their awesome Shaken Up Shakespeare show, a pastiche of pieces by the Bard and reinterpretations thereof. To make it even cooler,

usernamenumber is also in this show, playing Touchstone the fool, probably my favorite character in this play. I have a soft spot for fools, you know. :-) I think he'll be really great at it, which makes me even more excited to see it.

This is pretty cool because this marks Jared's first role with a company other than Hold Thy Peace. It makes me really happy for him that what he learned working with HTP got him to the point where he could audition for a Shakespeare play for a director who didn't know him and sufficiently impress that person enough to earn a part. The show will be going up September 8th through 11th, at 8PM the first three nights and a 3PM matinee on Sunday, at Seven Hills Park. I am planning on attending all the performances if I can, and would love to get a group together to go support Jared and Brad. HTPers, you in particular I'd love to bring along. So mark your calendars now and come out with me to see our lovely and talented friends. :-)

Looking at my calendar, for the first time in quite a while I see a free and clear week with no commitments on the schedule. This will be nice, as I have a number of things I'd like to accomplish this week.

First of all I intend to spend quality time with Jared, who after a long week where we barely saw each other due to his work schedule then spent the weekend in New York visiting

kamianya, so we haven't seen enough of each other lately.

Next I would like to get going on the painting of my bedroom. As I mentioned, the place is a pretty brain-gnawing bright orange color, way too intense for the room I spend most of time my at home in, so I decided to paint. I bought a gallon of a nice light blue shade, a color Disney's paint line calls 100 Acre Morning, which I chose because it has a primer already built in. I'm hoping that will completely cover the orange without requiring a dozen coats. My dad put a package of paint supplies in the mail this morning with the intent of my receiving them tomorrow, which means I can spend the week working on it. Anyone who'd like to drop by to lend a hand, your company would be much appreciated, and I will of course repay your efforts with home cooking.

Thirdly, I must prepare for my upcoming residency period for starting grad school. I have only one week of classes to attend, but it will be intense. The residency schedule looks to be grueling, a solid block of classes from 9AM (or 8:30, in some cases) to 6PM for nine days. It's been two years since I was last in school, and certainly even longer since I had to pay that kind of attention for that extended a period. Hope I'm up to it. I also need to make sure I've done all the preparation and signed up for all the things I should have this week. I'm a little nervous, as I'm seeing things that I don't know how to take care of right now, but I guess I can send e-mails to faculty and ask for direction.

Those are my priorities. I am not totally ruling out any other sort of activity, but it will have to be fitted in around these.

Well, neither Jared nor I got into Comedy of Errors. I'm kind of annoyed, but we're more bemused than bothered, because we seriously doubt that a small community theater got many better Shakespearean actors than the two of us. It's probably because we had a lot of conflicts written down on our forms. If that's the case, I have to roll my eyes, because we probably had fewer than HTP has to work with on average, and it never interferes with learning the show. Ah, well. I guess that's what you get when you get too sure of yourself. It's been a while since either of us didn't get into a show we tried out for, so we'll just have to take this as a humility lesson and move on. The major issue here is that was supposed to be a large part of our plan for the next several months, and that leaves a pretty big gap. I did really want to be acting again. I guess some rethinking is in order.

As is typical of me, since I had some empty time ahead of me, by seeking some endeavors and amusements I have already set to overfill it. So now is the time when I choose my projects and stick to them, rather than collecting a million and feeling overwhelmed.

So. Tuesday I had my Gazebo Players Comedy of Errors audition. You will recall that this is the company I did Love's Labor's Lost with the previous summer. This time Jared and I went out together, and though we have not yet heard back, there is a reasonably high likelihood of both of us getting in. In my fantasy I will get Dromio of Syracuse (the Dromio I haven't already played) and he will get Antipholus of Ephesus, as those two interact the most, so we will get to use our knack for portraying a master-servant relationship that is interesting, close, and relatable. At any rate, if we indeed get in, we will be rehearsing for a show from the near future until the first weekend of August. A SHOW would then be committment number one, mostly of the time variety.

Also, as I have mentioned, I am rededicating myself to the work of playwrighting this summer. This will be supported and indeed mandated when I begin grad school for it the last week of June. I have already begun work on a piece meant to be after the style of Shakespeare called Justinian and Theodora, telling the meeting and early life together of the two Byzantine rulers. So committment number two will be PLAYWRIGHTING, as a larger part of completing my requirements for grad school.

Thirdly, I am becoming more and more interested in learning how to sew. The more I read about it, the more I dream of doing it myself. My mom has said she will even send up her sewing machine so I will have the proper tools to practice with. Though I know I will have to start with easy stuff like any beginner, already I am fantastizing about making all the interesting costume pieces I currently lack. So committment number thre will be learning SEWING, as I think it's about time.

Those will be my primary projects over the next few months. Though of course there will be time for socializing and entertaining and fun things like that, I will have to decline to take on any other significant endeavors. For example, that means I will not work seriously on any new larps for the time being. Anything else will have to be of the extremely casual variety, that will not take away focus from these three things.

I have never understood how people make relationships work when they don't have stuff in common. I don't mean you need to be the same sort of people. I haven't had many relationships, but of the few that I've had they've been based on sharing interests and doings. Jared and I are very, very different kinds of people, but we care about many of the same things, have lots of the same interests, and take part in the same activities. We met in a larp, to begin with, and we both are into many of the same things like gaming and theater. We talk endlessly about this stuff, and it makes me wonder what people who don't do and care about the same things talk about. I know you need differences to keep things dynamic, but how do you spend time together when you don't have activities you like to share?

Of course, I do believe that different personalities in a relationship make things work better. Two people in love should complement each other, each strong in ways the other might possibly not be. Jared is sensitive where I am tough, he is smart while I am sensible. We make each other better that way. But it means a lot to me that we have so much in common that we never run out of things to talk about.

Jared had some excellent news the other day when he was offered a job with a mediation firm in Watertown! It's a small operation that he noticed a few weeks ago and decided to stop by and give them his resume in hopes that they'd think of him if they needed any help. Lo and behold, they gave him a call! He's going to be assisting there a few days a week. It's only part-time, and he doesn't know how long it will last, but it's exactly in the field he wants to get into and learn more about, not to mention a great resume-builder. And it's only a few blocks away from his house, so he can walk in even on snowy days like this. So congratulations to him! I am incredibly proud.

No work for me today due to the snow. I'm glad, I'm not feeling well and I want to get things done around here. I have already shoveled out half of the driveway, even that accursed bump churned up by the snow plow pushing aside the snow on the road. I hate that stuff, it's slushy and grimey and much heavier than regular snow. The one thing I'm pleased about is that it forces me to get some exercise, I can really feel it in my abs. I'm not that sore afterward from it, though, which I guess means I'm not as out of shape as I thought, and it's probably not going to have a huge effect. But whatever, at least I'm working my abs.

Finished my third character sheet last night. Today I aim to get another one done, and either a second one or the bluesheet. The bluesheet actually might be a good idea, so that I can get it out to everyone sooner rather than later.

If my life was a video game, I would have ragequit this week. The difficulty curve is too steep for my level. I'm not having fun anymore. Unfortunately for me, it would be in very bad taste to ragequit being a person for the sake of all the people whose unenviable task it is to deal with me, so I am trying to be normal and find some way to deal. In the meantime, forgive me my grumbling and growling.

So, other stuff. Jared got back last night, which was nice. I made veal marsala in honor of it (a favorite of mine, very special for me to actually buy veal) and we spent some time hanging with my roommates and with each other. The rest of the week is filled with nice stuff for us to do together, which I hope will lift my spirits a bit.

I have put myself on a strict diet. Lots of vegetables, lean protein, whole grain only. No fatty stuff, nothing fried, no refined sugar, no potatoes, no pasta, no white flour. I have kept it up for a week now and though I miss tasty bad things, it's not that tough to abstain and physically my body feels better, noticeably more energetic. Bernie recently introduced me to edamame, which I enjoy a lot more than I thought I would, and satisfies my search for a non-animal protein that I actually like eating. Let's see if I can just get some exercise in there besides the occasion bout of shoveling snow.

There has been a lot of bad news bearing down on me recently. Signs are indicating that something else is going to not work out like I planned very shortly. I'm out of cope at the moment, but unfortunately things don't seem to want to go easy on me for it. Let's see how I do.

Jared and I have been together for four years today. Four years with my wonderful, loving, brilliant, brave, sweet, fun, fascinating, maddening, complicated, beloved best friend in the world.

I don't believe we've ever actually been in physically the same location on our anniversary before-- hell, we even got together over the phone. But we always just celebrate when we get back. Still, the day itself is worth a mention.

Happy anniversary, love.

Since Jared has gotten back, my eating habits have taken an unexpected turn for the better, and accordingly his have too. We've resolved to help each other stick to a sensible budget, and I am proud to say we have cooked dinner and made most lunches almost every day since we've been back in Waltham. We've been very busy, what with all the errands we've needed to run in order to get his new living situation in order, so we have been active and without a lot of extra time to snack between meals. Also because we haven't had a lot of time, we've been eating a lot of salads because they are quick and easy to prepare. My vegetable intake has been way up, and my calorie intake has been way down. Physically I feel better and healthier than I have in a long time. I'm hoping that if we keep it up we will both take off the little bit of extra weight we've put on. Plus, a pleasant side effect of cooking at least once day is that it forces us to keep up with the dishes, because we know we will be needing the kitchen clear again shortly when we prepare the next meal.

Had a very lovely Christmas with my family. We celebrated in much the usual way, by spending time together and cooking mountains of food. We did our traditional seven-fish Italian Christmas Eve dinner, though since this year we had shrimp, crab claws, raw oysters, smoked salmon, fried haddock, seared scallops, calamari in linguine, and my mother's peerless lobster bisque, we technically had eight! Christmas was particularly special, because Jared came to my parents house all the way from Chicago to spend it with me! Then we got in his car and drove back to Boston. What brought this about? So he can move back into town. :-)

Yes, Jared is finally back for good! He found a really nice house in Watertown with one roommate that I think he will be very happy in. He's still looking for a job, but he thinks it will be easier once he's local, and in the meantime he can at least do temporary work if need be. This week we will be getting him all the furniture and things he needs to move in. He's excited to get back to spending time with friends, so take note if you'd like to see him.

Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever)

1. Jared

2. My mom

3. My dad

4. I'm going to count Steph and Jenn as one in this spot, as I want to put them both down for the reason of being "friend Phoebe actually confides in."

5. Bernie

Played in Leash this past Saturday. I must say, though I had my reservations, I ended up really enjoying it. My character had a strong BDSM element to it, and while I was not bothered by that fact, I knew it was going to take some boldness on my part to be able to act like that toward other people in public without feeling totally embarrassed. But I relished the acting challenge of contrasting that part of the character with her normal quiet, more goody-goody personality, so I figured there was no point in doing it if I didn't do it all the way. Jared helped me make a costume that would be easily hidden under my big old rust-colored suede blazer (really need to get that thing tailored), and I decided that it would be best if I arranged with someone who I was comfortable with and vice versa to have a little scene. I settled on morethings5 as a personal who fit that bill, and would make the scene interesting. So, though I had a wee bit of trepidation, in the end I just went for it.

Looks like I got over my reservations, I guess. :-) And Jonathan was an excellent scene partner. Thank you, dear, for rolling with me! I also ended up going off on

bleemoo, with whom I did NOT confer beforehand, but I think that turned out okay as well! Again, thanks for being such a good sport!

Beyond that, the game is good overall, with good plot and lots of reasons for characters to interact. I like how the powers and mechanics were just very flowy, and yet did not interfere too much with each other. I liked it very much and would recommend it, provided you're comfortable with dark and mature themes. There was more intense stuff than just my character's, and a lot of it was kind of twisted, but I enjoy that stuff so it didn't bother me. So my compliments,

hazliya and

elenuial! I am suddenly now particularly interested in Better Off Dead when it runs at Festival, but I doubt I will have time for it with all my other committments. :-(

Also, on Sunday I played in Lise's FantasyCraft game. The mystery is really starting to emerge, and I think the plot she designed is really very clever. I love being Ophelia and getting to say inappropriate things. I also am really happy about the company being who it is, which makes the game even better. Jared tagged along to the game this time and then we all went out to dinner afterward, which was lovely. All in all, this was a fantastic weekend full of lovely lovely gaming.

Jared is going to be in town this weekend! He has an interview at a nonprofit in Springfield, which is sadly a bit of a drive away, but at this point I will just be happy to have him within driving distance. He'll be closer and more accessible than he was in Chicago at least, and for that alone I am happy and optimistic. But after the interview Thursday he'll be coming into Waltham to spend the weekend.

I also got a silly little writing gig on a website called Examiner.com, where you write a few short little articles a week on a topic you're interested in, and depending on a lot of factors including pageviews, you get paid something for it. My first two articles have just been old LiveJournal entries I've adapted to fit their guidelines, which I did because I should be busy this weekend and I wanted to make sure I got in at least two before the end of the week. I don't expect a lot to come of it-- I think I've made twenty-nine cents so far --but who knows, I guess it's worth a try. This is my profile if you'd care to toss a click to two my way. Much obliged.

Even before Jared was coming, my weekend promised to be busy. Saturday will be Like Putting a Leash on a Rocket Launcher in which I have a pretty out-there character that will require some pretty, uh, uninhibited behavior. Heh. Ah, well, it will be an interesting challenge, and we'll see how it goes. I'm playing one of the E-phos and as such have a dual personality. I'm wondering if there's an easy way to represent that with costuming. At the moment I'm thinking I'll wear my black leggings and tall boots, but not sure about what to go with on top. Maybe I'll wear two layers of top such that the inner layer represents the alternate personality and can be revealed whenever I switch. And then there is the next session of

captainecchi's tabletop game on Sunday. Must check on where we will be meeting for that.

All in all, it should be a very fun, active weekend. Also, it will mark the last weekend in the "I am totally booked up" series, and I will finally have some free time on Saturday and Sunday again. Knowing me, I will immediately fill it all with activities.

For the first time in days, today I woke feeling somewhat refreshed. I don't know if I actually slept better or if I'm finally catching back up, but it's good to not get up feeling almost as exhausted as I was when I went to sleep. Still, I plan on taking it easy today. My only responsibility is to see that Jared gets to the airport okay. It was a lovely visit, and so nice to have him around for the show. I'm very pleased with how well we used our time together, him being helpful and supportive when I had to be at the show, and spending quality time together when I didn't. He even helped me with all the chores I neglected in favor of build and rehearsals this past week, so now I am almost caught back up. With any luck he will be back again soon, so I am in a fairly positive mood.

Had my first meeting with the Resonance team last night. I was given the whole rundown of the game and how it works, and I am very impressed with the concept. It was described by emp42ress as a "choose-your-own-character amnesia game," which means that we won't know what kinds of characters will end up being in the game until the players choose them, and then "remember" more and more about who they are as they make their choices. And in addition to being experimental, it's going to be intense-- the storyline is a real emotional wringer. As always, I am honored to be asked to work with them-- they are such talented larp writers, and they encourage me to expand my horizons into nontraditional, experimental styles that I probably would not have attempted on my own. The writing process for this game is different than any previous one, so I'm excited to try my hand at it and see how I do.

I have a lot to get done today, so I must be quick. I just wanted to mention that I signed up for Clockwork Cafe at Intercon for the first round and for Snaf U in the second. Clockwork is a Brit game, and not only do those fill fast but also I don't get a chance to play anywhere except Intercon, so I'm very happy about that. I chose Snaf because it's a Brandeis classic that has run a million times and I haven't played it yet, so I didn't want to miss it again, who knows when it'll run next? My Saturday afternoon and evening slots are taken up anyway by GMing The Stand and Resonance, so by the second round my morning slot was all that was left to decide. I think that will be all for me this year. One of these cons, I'm actually going to manage a light schedule.

Jared signed up first for Clockwork Cafe as well, which pleases me because he's never played a Brit game before, and it'll be nice to have a game together. His second choice was Never, Never Again because it sounds cool and he likes the work of Andy Kirschbaum. He'll have to tell me how it is; it really does sound cool. (I have to write that Peter Pan-themed game at some point.) He hasn't decided what to do third; at the moment I think The Stand is his first choice, but I'd be okay with him waiting to play it locally.

Heh. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard or seen on my LJ Friends page "I want to play in the Stand but I'll probably wait for third round/Festival," I would have already paid for my hotel room this year. :-D Thanks for the interest, guys. Waiting until Festival is totally cool with me, but at this point it looks like it'll have to be the all-Stand Festival in order to accomodate everyone. ;-)

Build for Winter's Tale has officially begun. We were very fortunate this time around, in that the show in the theater before us was a dance piece that did not have a set that needed striking. I saw the performance, it was pretty and fun. It also meant we had a nice early call of 4PM to get in there and get to work.

As Plesser said, "I'm a big fan of tech week." I love the collaborative aspect of everyone working together, contributing their effort and various skills to help build the show. I also like the chance to make things that I don't normally I get to do. I enjoy making all kinds of things, and where else do I get a chance to put together pieces of wood into useful structures using power tools? I was pleased by the wide variety of tasks I participated in yesterday, including platform-building with screw guns, hemming costume pieces, and cutting gels for the bottom set of cyc lights. I like when my theater experience gets to run the gammut like that; I feel like I'm contributing and learning more and more of the process of building theater.

We got a good chunk done yesterday. While there was no previous show's set that needed to come down, we needed to do a total light strike. I'm always impressed by the people who know their lighting stuff well enough to work on them. I'd always deferred to those with more experience and knowledge then myself, figuring I'd be more useful elsewhere. Helping Charlotte cut out those gels was the first lighting task I'd ever participated in. Perhaps someday I'll have to make a point of actually learning more about it, though I don't want to hold up the process during tech week. Hang was completely finished by the end of the night, and today we hope to get focus done as well.

We also made fantastic progress on build. This is the most structurally complex design (excepting one, but that was our only unsafe set to date :-P) we've ever had, with platforms stacked on top of each other in irregular ways requiring legs of different lengths even within one frame. Plesser is our master carpenter, and he's really doing a phenomenal job and has learned a lot about building a set and leading a build crew. He's working so hard that I'm hoping he doesn't wear himself out. But thanks to his efforts and those of our merry band, everything is built and anchored to the stage. Today will be painting and fronting, something I plan to help with once I can get over to the theater.

I'm proud of Bernie as well. He's seeing to it that people learn how to do these technical tasks for themselves, and doing more in the leadership capacity. He's organized things very well, even working out blueprints of Jenna's set design in a drafting program that also allowed him to make the plot for the lights. He's doing a wonderful job as a leader, and I am pleased and proud.

I'm also proud of Steph. She has done so much planning and worked so hard, and she's now seeing it all come together. I have really admired how organized she was, and how much thought an effort she put into the planning of the show, all the while working to respect and honor her actors and crew. I am hoping she is pleased with the final product; she deserves to have the show of her dreams.

And finally, Jared will be coming up to see the show! For a while he thought he wouldn't be able to make it, but at the last minute he got a flight and he will be here for the weekend. I wish I'd had a bit more notice to plan things; since this is tech week I'm afraid I'm going to be obligated for a lot of that time, and I want us to actually be able to spend some time together. Maybe he'll be willing to help out. We'll see what I can figure out in a couple of days' time.

One of my favorite small pleasures that comes with directing is getting to put together the curtain call. It's akin to a little piece of decadent candy for me; small, not terribly important, but immensely delicious and satisfying. Curtain call exists pretty much solely as a reward for the actors, their moment to be acknowledged for their hard work. I also like using it as a way of deconstructing the relationships in the show, composing it in such a way as to display to the sharp-eyed audience member how the character relate to the plot and to each other. And while I guess I put entirely too much thought into it, but as I said, doing it just so gives me a great deal of pleasure.

Here is my theory of how curtain calls are best organized. There are two factors to consider, order and grouping. Order is the procession in which the actors appear, with the most important characters emerging later than the others. As an actor, I've always found it's really an honor to emerging in the last three waves of bows, with the coveted final one the most ego-boosting of all. If (n) is the number of waves of bowing, the most significant characters tend to appear in waves (n), (n-1), and (n-2). I firmly believe that the most significant deciding factor on where to place people is how much influence they have over the course of the plot. Role size I do feel is a factor to consider, but I find it much less important than plot significance. I would rather a smaller character come out later if they matter more to the story-- or if they are a particularly notable part, like Mercutio or Palamon --than strictly gauge by how many lines they have, or by how much time they spend onstage.

Groupings, as in, what combination of people come out at what time, I feel should be determined by character-relatedness, the similarity of the service they provide to the plot. Obviously characters who feature together and are roughly the same size parts should come out to bow together. But that also means that if they're doing the same kind of thing for the story, even if they don't interact much onstage, grouping them together makes sense. For example, if there are two parallel figures who both provide support to the main characters but don't deal much with each other, I like to have them come out together. Opposites-- such as Edgar and Edmond in Lear-- also make sense.

Let's use the curtain call of Romeo and Juliet as an example. I thought having Frances as Tybalt and myself as Paris come out together and fairly early made sense. Even though our characters don't have much to do with each other onstage, we served the same plot purpose-- immediate antagonism --and our roles were about the same size. By contrast, I felt like instead of having the Nurse come out alone in position (n-1) and Friar Lawrence come out alone at (n-3), they should have both come out together at (n-1)-- again, they had the same plot purpose of facilitating the efforts of the two leads, and had about the same time spent onstage. Sacrificing the solo bow I believe would have been worth both of them moved up to acknowledge their significance by the order.

The solo bow is a bit tricky. Normally I only give it to the most important characters (as in, the primary support comes out at wave (n-1) alone, and then the lead comes out at position (n) alone) but it's also a way to acknowledge the uniqueness of a supporting role. I find it appropriate for the fan favorite in a show, such as Palamon in To Think of Nothing, to get a moment for the audience to express their particular appreciation. Sometimes a compromise can be made status-wise by having certain character come out earlier, but alone. The solo bow is kind of an honor, so sometimes you can balance acknowledgement of two different groups' significance by having the earlier wave contain just one person bowing by himself, and the later wave come out with a group. This is what I did with Horatio; he appeared earlier in the order than Laertes and Ophelia, but he got the honor of bowing by himself. And sometimes you just have a character who doesn't go with anyone else in the show, and simply doesn't make sense in any grouping with anyone else.

For HTP, I designed the curtain call for both of the shows I directed, plus King Lear. I only sort of remember what I did with Lear; anyone who wants to remind me is welcome. It was remarkably difficult to design a curtain call for To Think of Nothing because everybody was pretty much just as important to the piece as everyone else. Hell, everyone being constructs of Cassander's brain, everyone literally IS the main character! So I couldn't use my normal formula there. What I settled on was that it would reflect the depth to which each character penetrated Cassander's thoughts. Which meant that even though Damon and Selene are respectively the second- and third-largest parts in the show (at least by line count), I decided they should be the first to come out.

As a side note, I have always been a fan of the "call out"-- when the actor or actors who came out in the previous wave remain just slightly to the side of center stage and make a gesture to "call out" the next wave and sort of present them to the audience as they take their bow. I have used it in the three prior HTP curtain calls I organized, specifically with the last two waves to emerge, with Claudius calling out Hamlet, Cordelia calling out Lear, and Andromeda calling out Cassander. I like it as a concept because it acknowledges the way actors and characters need each other for their plots to be interesting and their performances to be strong. It highlights the fact that Claudius and Hamlet, for example, need each other for the conflict to be meaningful, and the way Frances and Jared used each other's performance to make their own better. The call out allows Claudius to show his gratitude to Hamlet for that, and keeping Claudius present during Hamlet's bow acknowledges his own contribution. It's a moment where the actors actually get to demonstrate out of character, "And we thank each other for working together." I have never actually used it except between solo bows for the last two characters, as a sort of tribute to the lead and to the primary support, but I can imagine other contexts for it as well. Perhaps between a group that is strongly connected to another group, but who's contribution to the show as a whole is of a different nature.

Maybe I am unnecessary overcomplicating things, but I really enjoy thinking about this stuff. It's fun for me. :-)

Saw Secretariat this week and really enjoyed it. He's always been my favorite racehorse. As great racehorses go, people tend to disagree whether Secretariat or Man O' War was the greatest of all time. Man O' War had the better, more consistent record of winning races, but I have always preferred Secretariat because when it came to sheer equine speed, he was beyond any other horse that ever lived.

Big Red, you see, was impossible. He was capable of moving at speeds that, before him, people had believed no horse could. He was strangely fickle about unleashing that speed; his winning record was far from perfect, since some days he just wouldn't break it out. But still, he could sprint so fast that he could hang back at the rear of the pack and explode forward for the win. He was what was known as a pace stalker, a horse that just barely matched the speed of his opponents for the majority of a race and then kicked into gear to beat them at the end. The kind of speed he opened up with broke records that have never been equaled-- he won the mile-and-a-half Belmont by a shocking thirty-one lengths. The announcer yelled out at the time, "He is moving like a tremendous machine!" He really was, after all. When they autopsied him after his death, they found he had an enormous twenty-two pound heart, which people theorize delivered so much more oxygenated blood to his muscles than any of his competitors. He was a freak. He was a miracle.

It's a good film, well-made and interesting to watch. The dialogue was a bit cheesy in places, but they didn't squishify the horse too much and the dramatic tension built during the races was awesome. I spoke with Jared afterward about it. He'd also liked it but he said he was a bit weirded out by their choice to play "Oh, Happy Day" over the last few strides of Red's Belmont win, jokingly asking if they were saying the horse was Jesus. I laughed that no, but I still found it an appropriate song-- that too was impossible, and yet. It was a really beautifully set up shot up, too, with silence as Red went into the curve and then bursting into the song as he exploded into the final stretch. Very beautiful, and about a truly amazing animal.

Parents will be coming into town today. The timing is good, as they will be claiming the majority of my time from now until Sunday evening, so I will be busy during the same period Jared is busy in Albany visiting Sharone. That means I will have less time to call him at the same time as he has less time to call me. He should be busy doing fun special things like one does on vacation, rather than sitting around on the phone with one's girlfriend like one does at home. I just need to confer with Mom and Dad to figure out what our plans will be. Two possibilities include visiting Salem and my taking them to Kind Richard's Faire, neither of which we are settled on. Tonight, however, I will be going to the next session of captainecchi's Fantastycraft game, which I committed to a long time before they told me they were coming up. They tend to prefer I clear my schedule when they visit, since they see me so rarely these days, so I can't tell whether or not they're annoyed with me. Ah, well. Tonight should be fun. I will enjoy getting to be Ophelia again, and must make certain to think of lots and lots of fun inappropriate things to say.

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All Eyes on Me

"Do you know why heroes boast? Because it makes them brave."

Entries tagged with waste of my life

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