Today’s (Friday, Aug. 8) NY Times crossword puzzle is top notch. Clues that you have no idea of but would kind of like to. A clever “resolution” once you get toward the end of the two long acrosses. A couple surprises in the some of the answers. Worth working one’s way through if you’re into crosswords.
All posts by drJ
Secrets of the Kenken masters: Kenken Hints
Not secrets, really. Just some useful strategies to make solving Kenken’s more fun!
Good Tom Stoppard quote in NY Times crossword puzzle today
Clue: Tom Stoppard “______ is a series insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.”
Answer: Theater
Ah, yes.
LGBT Film Festival (CineSLAM) at Hooker-Dunham this Saturday, June 21
Rose Spillman of YCN (Comcast local news network) aired an interview with John Scagliotti, originator of PBS’ In The Life series and organizer of this, the Gay Film Festival, now in its 9th year, coming up this Saturday, June 21, at the Hooker-Dunham. http://youtu.be/h63mxHEc2Kc Should be quite an interesting evening! 7:30, 139 Main St. Brattleboro, VT.
The In-Sight Photography Project’s Best of the Best, exhibition and sale of fine photographs from In-Sight’s archives, will be on display in the Hooker-Dunham Gallery in the lobby of the theater. All proceeds benefit In-Sight’s Scholarship Fund.
Added short playlet to “Puzzles and Stories”
Having read so many short plays in selecting one for the 10-Minute Play Festival of ATP, it’s inevitable to catch the bug and write one oneself. Here’s what came from my addled brain: Naked Lunch.
New article on Community added
The process of trying to get the Hooker-Dunham moving as a community of artists, has given me new impetus to think through some of the issues in what community does and does not mean. Too often the word “community” is used so glibly that it loses much of its most significant meanings. Check out Community does not always mean Community for my recent thoughts on the topic.
A couple more quotes from songs…
These have been running through my head lately:
“Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now. “
“Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive your crazy.”
“And I followed my footsteps…”
“Lately, it occurs to me, what a long, strange trip it’s been…”
“I’m trying to as far away from myself as I can…”
Others I’ve jotted down over time are here:
Confluence
I’ve always been thrilled by spots where waters merge: streams to rivers, inlets, bays, fjords. Confluence. What emerges is new, different, often exciting.
In all the arts, this is the moment: When an ensemble joins as a group, be it jazz or dance or theater or video or any artistry, conceives of something that brings together disparate elements to create something new — something that opens the mind to possibility — what emerges is more than the sum of its parts.
Obviously not a goal that is easily achieved, but a worthy aim, all the same.
Act Out at the Hooker-Dunham! — June 6 — 7:30 PM
To the southern New England theater community: Announcing Act Out!
The idea of it being something like a jam session for actors (and directors). The idea is for different groups and individuals to present material they’re working on to to an audience (open to the public) of other actors, directors, etc. The first night I’m trying this is Friday, June 6 (the Gallery Walk Night preceding the Strolling of the Heifers the next day) at 7:30.
Here’s the idea: You choose what you want to perform and let me know how long a slot you want to do it. It can be as short as a two-minute monologue to as long as a 20-minute scene (including the time to set anything you want to use in the scene). Though each group or individual will have an assigned slot, we’ll all support each other by being audience when not on. The whole thing will be two hours maximum. I’m not doing any “selecting.” Whoever signs up gets a slot until the two hours are filled.
Want to try a monologue you want to use for auditions? Fine. Working on a scene of a play that you’d like to perform before an audience to see how it works? Cool! (Off book, please. Scenes should have worked up and rehearsed before performing them.) You’ve written something original and want to see it acted? Terrific! Want to try an improv? Why not? It’s up to you. I’m sure there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy! The only criteria is that you honestly feel that the work has merit and will be interesting for an audience to see.
We may even try a short improvisational piece in which anyone can participate if they choose to.
Everyone, actors, directors, audience, whoever, will be asked to chip in 5 bucks to the kitty to help cover costs of running the theater (lights, electricity, phone, etc.).
Wanna play? My only “requirement” is that once you commit to doing a slot that you stick to it and that you understand that your participation as audience for others is as important as your participation on stage!
Act Out! — Community Theater in Brattleboro
Trickle up!
Presumably, it’s obvious to almost everyone now that “trickle down” was nonsense. But is it possible that good, clear ideas can trickle up?
The 99% / 1% was is a good example. Even though the Occupy movement petered out, the idea that a tiny minority controls vastly disproportionate power and resources percolated throughout the culture. It clarified things to a lot of people, even some who equate Karl Marx with the devil.
People of good faith and bright ideas need to find new ways to spread those ideas. We see the degree to which traditional politics has reached the pinnacle of wealth translating into political power, making a mockery of popular democracy — now neatly stamped and sealed by the Supreme Court.
To try to fight on the plane of money is simultaneously necessary and futile. An internet campaign that nets a million three-dollar contributions is offset in a few clicks on a one-percenter’s banking app. We cannot win the battle of money — and money does indeed translate into votes and power — so we fight despite knowing how uneven the playing field really is.
But in the world of ideas, the playing field is perhaps more open than it has ever been. Those of us who see the damage being done to this planet by its domination by individual and corporate wealth and power have the potential to spread ideas that may take root and grow. In my most hopeful moments, I believe a few good ideas might be worth more than billions of dollars the wealthy pour into political advertising and lobbying.
The Hooker-Dunham Theater: A personal message
A benign madness?
With shakes of hands and the blessing of the building’s owner, I will be taking over management of the Hooker-Dunham Theater as of May 15. (I don’t have control over the website yet, so the site out there is the current management’s site.)
I’m taking this on because I think the theater itself is a marvelous asset to the town of Brattleboro, one that can serve many people’s needs. It’s done that for a long time by being open to be rented. I will certainly continue this fundamental structure.
I am not taking this on as Artistic Director. I am managing the space. I am giving my time to this. If a miracle happens and the theater earns more than it costs to run, I solemnly promise to put that money back into the theater. The theater is not currently fully accessible. Perhaps, if the right lights shine on this cavern of a theater , it will one day be safely accessible to all. That is a goal.
My wildest dreams?
That some combination of actor and directors will take root in the theater.
That video artists might find it an interesting space to work with.
That a group or groups of musicians might find it a nice place to play.
That people living around Brattleboro or coming into town will think: I wonder what’s at the Hooker-Dunham tonight?
That it will be a place where performers of all kinds will feel they have the opportunity to stretch their legs and try their wings.
That a few New Wave or Jim Jarmusch or Film Noir or whatever film fanatics will find a comfortable home.
That we’ll have a kind of playground for myself and others who enjoy a stage — or a seat in audience — a space where we can explore whatever we’d like to explore…
…and see what we come up with.
I won’t bore you with my fears. You could probably imagine them easily enough.
I’ve committed myself for giving it a go for a year.
If you’ve never seen the Hooker-Dunham, there are pictures of it on its website.
For some additional thoughts about community theater, check out these essays:
Audiobook Recommendations
List of great audiobooks
I cannot recommend too highly listening to audio books, especially if you have any long drives in your life. I have listened to books I’ve never dreamt of reading, and never would have, if it weren’t for books on tape, cd, or digitally downloadable. The readers are not uniformly wonderful, but most of them are damn good. They give life to the books without taking them over. They are fine actors yet also subtly in the background of the authors of the amazing array of marvelous literature that’s out there.
Audiobook recommendations:
Most of what I’ve read has been entirely courtesy of the public library. If your library is tiny and doesn’t have a big (or maybe any at all) collection you can download from the internet, you may have to resort to something like audible.com where you have to pay a monthly fee and can only download a book or two per month. (This might seam unimportant, but it’s nice to listen to a book for a while to see if you’re going to want to continue listening to it for hours to come.) Public libraries are much better if you have one that’s accessible to you.
Right now I’m listening to Neil Gaiman reading his own book, “The Ocean at the End of the Lane.” I’m not in love with it, but I’ll hear it through. It’s a fantasy through a child’s eyes. Certainly well-done but not quite right for me.
This is a list of those books I’ve found absolutely amazing to listen to, hour after hour:
Snow – Orhan Pamuk
Brothers Karamazov — Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fury — Salman Rushdie
Bleak House; The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club; Charles Dickens
Kafka on the Shore Haruki Murakami
Tooth and Claw (short stories); Talk Talk —. T. Coraghessan Boyle
East of Eden — John Steinbeck
The House of Mirth — Edith Walton
I, Claudius — Robert Graves
Moby-Dick — Herman Melville
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn — Mark Twain
Lolita — Vladimir Nabokov
Lord Jim — Joseph Conrad
More audiobook recommendations:
An unusual detective novel: Wife of the Gods
And a science fiction novel: Ringworld — Larry Niven
And also Chronic City, by Jonathan Lethem
Stranger in a Strange Land — Robert Heinlein
A Passage to India — E. M. Forster
Brave New World — Aldous Huxley
Saving Fish From Dying Amy Tan
The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
To the Lighthouse — Virginia Woolf
Our Kind of Traitor — John le Carré
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell — Susanna Clarke
The Tragedy of Puddinhead Wilson — Mark Twain
Invisible Monsters — Chuck Palahniuk
Audiobooks that I found that, for one reason or another, I couldn’t quite get through.
The Brief Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao — Junot Diaz (I got sick of this adolescent’s miserable experience after a while.)
Atonement — Ian McEwan: Foreshadowing upon foreshadowing; way too much; You can see everything coming from a mile away.
Freedom —Jonathan Franzen: Never have I met so many unlikeable characters I don’t give a damn about,
The Women — T. Coraghessan Boyle: I love his writing, but found this slow to the point of tears
Age of Innocence — Edith Wharton: A good book, but nowhere near as powerful as House of Mirth
Beloved — Toni Morrison: With Apologies to those who love this book, I did make it through, but what a unutterably dreary and painful trek.
Repeat winners:
Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes tales — the master
The detective novels of Andreas Camilleri — always amusing, I’ve found
(I couldn’t take the reader, by the way, for the “Wallander” series of detective novels, so that one didn’t work for me.)
A Contrarian’s Solution to Winter
A lot of people (and birds) like to go south for the winter. I often prefer to head north. My mind begins to view winter differently: as an opportunity to see sometimes stark, sometimes specular beauty. Warm clothes, warm hat, warm gloves, warm chair by the fire: “Oh, wouldn’t it be loverly!” as Eliza Doolittle might exclaim.
Maybe it’s because I come from L.A., where a nearly uniform warm but smoggy haze enveloped the city more or less year round, but I love the dramatic beauty of winter. Going north reminds me to enjoy winter’s beauty instead of bitterly complaining “when will spring ever come!”
To the Arctic Circle!
From the Ice Hotel in Kiruna, Sweden to Abisko Sky Station (also Sweden), the fjords of Tromso, Norway and then down to Oslo. A contrarian’s concept of an ideal break from winter in Vermont! No aurora borealis, I’m afraid, but gorgeous all the same. Accompanied by jazz and Bach. Enjoy!
Arctic Circle — Ice Hotel, Kiruna to Abisko Sky Station to Tromso & Oslo Norway from Jon Mack on Vimeo.