theater, natural history and conservation, the utterly mundane, and Etruscan 8-tracks
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So we’re halfway thru the run. Tomorrow we pack up most of the set and dressing and all of the key props for a one-morning-only performance at a nearby high school. That aspect of the production has been its own adventure.
This is the first show that I’ve “called” where I’m running sound and light cues from QLab. So mostly I’m just pushing a GO button like George Jetson. In the booth, I have only a sound board operator (to turn body mics on and off) and a staff member from the center (on hand in case anything goes south). On the deck, I have two crew members, an ASM (Michal) and a running crew member. I have good visibility for what’s happening on stage, so the only comms I have with Michal are to send actors on stage at the top of each act.
Hearing what’s happening on stage is another matter. There’s a huge rumbly A/C unit running all the time. I’m reduced to hand-cupping my ear that isn’t on headset.
Michal has been my rock. She has handled detailed rehearsal reports as well as plotting the peregrinations of what has turned out to be a lot of props.
Some takeaways:
Some posts about gratitude and the big picture:
[A] phase transition would start in some random spot in the cosmos and race outward at the speed of light, containing within it a brand new kind of universe almost certainly incompatible with the kind of life, chemistry, and even atomic physics that our Universe has managed to concoct.
Because this phase transition bubble expands at the speed of light, there would be no warning of its arrival. One day, we would simply be going about our business and then blink: The new Universe takes its place. Whatever particles had composed our bodies and whatever forces held them together would vanish, to be replaced with a new quantum configuration.
Sleep tight.
So, here’s to dwelling in the doing, learning how to love the very things we spend most of our time doing. Happiness itself is like this. It’s not the surge of joy we feel when we find what we’ve been searching for, cross the finish line, or finish building the boat. It is, rather, a way of living in active engagement with the good, meaningful things that make up our life. Your friends, for example.
And one simple way to make a time machine: Dinosaur Comics #4283, by Ryan North.
We are already looking ahead to moving into the theater and making all the tech happen. I think that no one will miss working in RLT’s rehearsal space/construction shop/costume and prop loft—it’s nothing but a glorified two-story shed. At least there’s heat.
What is still an uncertainty is how smoothly we’ll move into RLT’s temporary performance space, the Kreeger Auditorium at the Bender Jewish Community Center. The team toured the space back in October: it’s a good size for a show like this.
I hope that younger audiences (i.e., 30 and under) connect with this material. The line that really punches me comes from Evelyn (Act 2, scene 2):
You can’t let people who hate you tell you what you are.
The context is whether a woman born to a Jewish mother, long since quietly converted to Christianity, should consider herself Jewish. But Evelyn’s words apply to so many other situations.
The graphics and statistics are a little goofy in this year’s incarnation of Metro in review. But it’s interesting to know that I’ve entered/exited 24 of 98 stations this past year.
Still looking to do a Metro Challenge one day. When all the lines are in full service, and the weather’s nice, and…
Another middling successful season of monitoring nest boxes at Huntley Meadows Park, Fairfax County, Va. I performed invasive management at Elklick Woodlands Natural Area Preserve, Fred Crabtree Park, and Fraser Preserve, Fairfax County, Va.; Clifton Institute, Fauquier County, Va; and an few other places in Fairfax County that I don’t remember.
One more time leading Seneca’s sector 14 (fourth time) and Central Loudoun’s “Old Ashburn” sites in sector 11 (third time).
We found 49 species in the Seneca sector on a day that ended with rain and sleet; my feeder watchers detected Orange-crowned (good documentation) and Black-throated Blue Warblers (notes but no photo). Our American Robin count was way down, and we were shut out on Cedar Waxwing. Stream reconstruction at Lake Fairfax Park is ongoing.
We were scuffling with rain in Ashburn as well, but the Graves Lane ponds turned up Redhead (Aythya americana), Bufflehead, Gadwall, and an intriguing pair of ducks that were likely Mallard hybrids, and the pond at Ashburn Library yielded a pair of American Black Ducks (Anas rubripes). One of our private property sites has changed owners, so we didn’t make it to that location.
And we all must wake, again and again. And we all must wake others. And we all must leave wakes, in the water and for other people.
In the winter holiday break, I Amtraked up to Philadelphia to take in the Barnes Foundation (underwhelming: the pictures can’t breathe) and reacquaint myself with the Duchamp room at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. And to be a bit of a transit flâneur.
Changing plans at the last minute, I staked out a loop with the Market-Frankford line1 (heavy rail), the 102 line toward Sharon Hill (light rail/streetcar), and the Wawa line (commuter rail2). The interchange at Clifton-Aldan is apparently an afterthought, as there is no streetcar platform and the operator warned me to look out for cars passing the streetcar on the right. Here’s two shots of the 101/102 rolling stock at 69th Street.
To get to the Museum of Art, I took my old beloved rattletrap subway-surface line3 to 22nd Street to catch a bus up to Fairmount Avenue.
In the vicinity of my hotel, I spotted a fun tailor shop window,
and a lovely fire escape.
And I photographed my first bodega cat! This is Chaucer, mascot of Book Corner, for the benefit of Friends of the Free Library. I found a Joseph O’Neill that I’d been casually looking for.
1SEPTA is rebranding the subway and light rail lines, but apart from colors on the signage, nothing is carrying the new designations.
2Somewhat confusingly called “regional rail” by SEPTA. Philadelphia’s gonna Philadelphia.
3The subway-surface would drop me right at the corner of Chestnut Street for Grad Towers. It’s not as rattly as I remember.
Small accomplishments during the year, not otherwise accounted for. Not major milestones, but bigger than inchstones.
Plus multiple venues out-of-town in New York: five jazz clubs big and small, David Geffen Hall, and The Shed.
Moar travel!
Overnight stays in 2024:
More ID’s, not as many observations. Still scuffling with that Trillium cuneatum in Huntley Meadows Park; quite chuffed to find the Coral Hairstreak (Satyrium titus).
It’s a little late in the year for tax-deductible recommendations, but here’s my list anyway. I dropped off one organization that appears to be dormant, and added five new ones.
What organizations are worthy of support? Please give some consideration to this list.
These are the groups and projects to which I gave coin (generally tax-deductible), property, and/or effort in 2024.