McMartin Preschool Confessions

This stuff is horrible, but you knew they had to start coming eventually: the confessions of the little kids (who are now grown up) - the kids whose lies destroyed the lives of the hardworking teachers at the McMartin Preschool in LA, in the most sensational phony sexual abuse case of the 80's:

I think I got the satanic details by picturing our church. We went to American Martyrs, which was a huge Catholic church. Every Sunday we had to go, and Mass would last an hour, hour and a half. None of us wanted to go: It was kicking and screaming all the way there. Sitting, standing, sitting, standing. What I would do was picture the altar, pews and stained-glass windows, and if [investigators] said, "Describe an altar," I would describe the one in our church. Or instead of, "There was a priest in a green suit"—someone who was real—I would say, "A man dressed in red as a cult member." From going to church you know that God is good, and the devil is bad and has horns and is about evil and red and blood. I'd just throw a twist in there with Satan and devil-worshipping.

A Halloween Omen

Only Tesla understood this stuff, so be very afraid:

WACO, Texas (AP) -- A pastor performing a baptism was electrocuted inside his church Sunday morning when he adjusted a nearby microphone while standing in water, a church employee said.

A Dream

Last night, I dreamt we strung together dozens of stage wagons from the set of "Victor/Victoria" and took them on a highway and rail tour of the American West. We would stop at shopping malls, push the stage wagons around, and quickly complete set changes - all while dressed in drag - to the applause of thousands of wildly-cheering fans.

When we weren't performing set changes, we would stop at mineral water and hot spring resorts, where we'd alternate Jazzercise with sensual plunges in mud baths.

I think I'm flippin' tired.

"Victor/Victoria" Weekend Two

Another weekend of experience under the belt! On Saturday, both Brett and Dian complained of crushed toes, but by Sunday, Brett had forgotten about his injury, so it must not have been too serious. Dian, meanwhile, had reinjured the toe that was battered in DMTC's "Cabaret" rehearsal in August, so she remembered her injury only too well.

Saturday featured several close calls. On both Chez Lui exits, the curtain snagged the stool placed on top of the bar. The first time, the stool fell, along with the cups o' gel, but both cups landed upright (!), so there was no gooey mess to confuse matters. The second time, the stool turned sideways, and almost brought the teacup down with it, but Marcy helped steady it (thanks!)

Age was on my mind: Sunday was my 49th birthday! There was an illuminating dressing-room conversation:

Scott: Did you know I'm older than Bob Baxter?
General Reaction: WOW! That's AMAZING!
Me: Did you know I'm also older than Bob Baxter?
General Reaction: (*yawn*)

I continued to learn new things. In 'Louis Seize' on Saturday, I turned around and all the guys had vanished, just leaving the women center stage. "WTF?", I thought, as I stared at the mirrors and the vacant back stage. (Musical theater is an emotional rollercoaster, but no emotion is more dangerous on stage than "WTF?") Then, I remembered an ancient Ron Cisneros dictum, that we were supposed to hide briefly behind the mirrors, before reemerging to assume our decadent poses. I had dropped the disappearing act in the general chaos of tech week, because we hadn't had mirrors to work with until late, and simply had moseyed upstage and posed decadently (and apparently cluelessly). By Sunday, I had picked up on the clue.

On Sunday, after second Chez Lui, I retrieved the chairs and table from under their new hiding place in the wrong alcove of the stage left wagon, in order to move them to the right alcove, but my exit was blocked by the turning stage left wagon, which had wandered too far upstage. I had also been saddled with the awkward larger table. I ended up being sealed behind the wagons, trapped as if in a sarcophagus, with my larger table, plus two chairs (HELP!) It took a while to squirm out of that!

The "Le Jazz Hot" outfits are causing problems for the guys. The satin left leg isn't very elastic - not nearly as elastic as the right leg - so when our quads pump up while we're doing the butt-slap-plie, we bust out the seam on the left leg. On Saturday, Lillian fixed my seam, which ripped on Friday, but, if anything, the fit is tighter now than before. The result is that I'm compromising the plie, trying to save the fabric, my focus, and my dignity. Not terribly comfortable!

In general, though, we are getting better, and having more fun with the show. We are singing louder and smiling more and moving better. The set changes are faster and we are certainly under 3 hours run time (including intermission). We are in the groove!

There were "Victor/Victoria'-related social activities as well. After Saturday's show, several of us went over to Michael Miiller's new house, not far from Sierra II, for a Halloween party. A (friendly) black cat cozied up to me in the street outside (is that bad luck or good luck?) Inside, there was a colorful mix of people, particularly the Harajuku Giantess and her friend.

On Sunday, after the show, several of us went out for dinner at 'A Taste of Thai' on Broadway. A good time! Then afterwards, a more-somber but nevertheless convivial get-together was had with the Forment family (including Page and Charles from Seattle) at 'Old Spaghetti Factory', following the afternoon service in Woodland for Brian Forment.

A Halloween Idea

A cool picture, from God knows where, over at The Poor Man:

Earth Belongs To The Living

A family of unicyclers were enjoying today's pleasant Saturday weather, on the nice, expansive pavement of the Old DMV parking lot, just behind my house, and adjacent to St. Joseph's Cemetery.

Meanwhile, in Woodland, Brian Forment is to be cremated by the Neptune Society, whose local branch is based somewhere in Carmichael. Interesting! There will be a memorial service tomorrow at 3 p.m. at the Woodland Senior Center (630 Lincoln, in Woodland). I won't be able to attend because of "Victor/Victoria," but hope to visit Woodland on Sunday evening.

When I saw Brian on Tuesday, he was in a hospital bed in the Forment family room, with Sally's many Nutcrackers arrayed next to the bed. "Isn't it ironic, at the end, that he is surrounded by Nutcrackers?" Sally said. I thought, 'well, he's surrounded by Nutcrackers, but there's nothing ironic about it.' Upon reflection, though, there is a bit of irony. Brian attended the many needs of Sally's Nutcracker for a quarter of a century, and it's ironic, at the end, the Nutcrackers were attending him.

When I die, I expect to be surrounded by rabbits. It'll be random, though - no particular irony.

Cat? Installed!

Instead of a hot tub, try a feline!

A cat was accidentally built into the walls of a new house in Kansas.

"I thought I heard something earlier that morning," a construction worker said.

...The builder estimated the cat had been stuck in the walls at least three weeks.

"The contractor figured out he was just under the tub and got dry walled in," Vano said.

Workers tore a hole in the wall, made some cat calls, and the scared, tired and thirsty animal crawled out.

"Poor little thing. So sorry we built you into the house," Vano said.

Setting The Stage For Sherlock Holmes

Well, show #4 of "Victor/Victoria" is under our belt. It was a little sloppy, particularly with set changes (chairs anyone?) and my dance steps were a little off-rhythm, but for a second Friday, it wasn't bad, and no one got hurt. For the first time, I enjoyed the 'Victor/Victoria' number, and sang loudly, rather than quailing in fear at the top of the steps while jamming through the steps.

There were some minor problems, of course. Before the show, I spilled some turquoise paint on-stage while moving a paint can with an unsecured lid. Both Scott Griffith and I ripped the seams of our 'Le Jazz Hot' skin-tight body suits (and both on the satin side) at exactly the same time. We must be twins! I know Lillian tends to like a lot of exposed skin in her costumes, but this is not the way!

The audience was small, but Richard Spierto (and Mark) were there, and it was great to see them!

As we were leaving, the Runaway Stage folks were dressing the set for the premiere tomorrow of Storybook Theater's 'Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of the Dark Castle.' Apropos of the season, there is a Halloween theme!

Lip Balm Anonymous

One of those pathologically compulsive rituals, it seems:

Eric Writes: I recently saw on your site that your site was featured in '505 Unbelievably Stupid Web Pages' and was interested in knowing why you're considering taking legal action against the author and publisher? Did they do something illegal? I know the title of the book may be demeaning, but still I'm interested in knowing why you say that on your site.

Eric, it's very simple. When a someone includes us in a book of stupid web sites, an organization like LBA needs to defend its reputation. For all of the good we do, helping people overcome their serious addiction to lip balm, you can call us a lot of things but stupid shouldn't be one of them.

(That's the nice thing about gambling - a pathologically compulsive ritual that is demonstrably harmful, rather than this more-ambiguous stuff.)

Merry Fitzmas!

Let's see who's under the tree:

"A Merry Fitzmas to us all, my dears. God bless us."

Which all the staff re-echoed.

"God bless us every one.' said Tiny Scooter, the last of all.

He sat very close to his boss's side upon his little stool. Dick held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.

"Spirit," said Bush, with an interest he had never felt before, "tell me if Tiny Scooter will escape justice."

"I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost of Conspiracies Present, "in a White House chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will be indicted."

"No, no," said Bush. "Oh, no, kind Spirit. Say he will be spared."

"If these shadows remain unaltered by Fitzgerald, none other of my race will find him here," replied the Ghost. "But so what? Aren't you the one who said that if somebody leaked classified information, they'd no longer work in your administration?"

Brian Forment, RIP

July 13, 1942 - October 27, 2005.

The Flat Tax, In Utah

Highly amusing and instructive article, why the flat tax is a complete dud in ultra-conservative Utah. I always did like that state (lived in SLC a year)! There is an accompanying Pat Bagley cartoon that was also in the Wall Street Journal article, and is available, in color, over at 'Mangled Cat' (for some reason I couldn't post it), that is exquisite!

Like the old E.F. Hutton ads, when the Mormon Church speaks, the state legislature listens. Frankly, Mormon elected officials worth their salt do not want to be at odds with the leaders of their church.

This held true for the flat tax. There was some quiet speculation about how the idea would sit with the Mormon Church due to its longstanding support of charitable deductions until Sept. 15. That's when the church reiterated its "support of retaining a state tax deduction for charitable giving." The meaning was crystal clear.

You Know Opening Is Close When....

The Hoblit Performing Arts Center women's restroom gets outfitted....

(photo courtesy of Steve Isaacson)

Tropical Storm Beta

I wondered whether this storm in the Caribbean would reach tropical storm strength...evidently so! It's pretty far south, though....

Virtuous "Victor/Victoria"

An exhortation that somehow seemed apropos for this weekend's "Victor/Victoria" shows. As Gabe says, "live virtuously, for thus says Hesiod":

Vice may be had in abundance without trouble;
the way is smooth and her dwelling-place is near.
But before virtue the gods have set toil,
and a tedious and uphill road.

A Nighttime Visit To DMTC's New Theater

What is the Hoblit Performing Arts Center (under construction) actually like at night, nearing Halloween, just 2 1/2 weeks before opening?


Top: Steve Isaacson tries to persuade a skeptical Erik Daniells that a new orchestra loft would be safer and more convenient than the new orchestra pit.

Center: Erik Daniells paces through the lobby.

Bottom: Steve Isaacson points out staggered light fixtures in the men's dressing room.

Brian Forment in Woodland

Longtime friend Brian Forment is gravely ill. Brian is well-known for his photography, particularly of Woodland Dance Academy recitals, directed by his wife Sally Forment, Christmas ("Nutcracker") and most springtimes, every year since 1979. I've participated in these recitals since 1993.

Woodland Dance Academy is closing very soon. Do not hesitate to pay respects to Brian while he is still with us.

British Piggy Bank Fatwa

Where then to put the stash? British Muslims are split:

BRITISH banks are banning piggy banks because they may offend some Muslims.

Halifax and NatWest banks have led the move to scrap the time-honoured symbol of saving from being given to children or used in their advertising, the Daily Express/Daily Star group reported today....

Salim Mulla, secretary of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, backed the bank move. "This is a sensitive issue and I think the banks are simply being courteous to their customers," he said....

Khalid Mahmoud, the Labour MP for a Birmingham seat and one of four Muslim MPs in Britain, ... criticised the piggy-bank ban. "We live in a multicultural society and the traditions and symbols of one community should not be obliterated just to accommodate another," Mr Mahmoud said. "I doubt many Muslims would be seriously offended by piggy banks."

Wilma's Impact on Tampa

So, 1.39" of rain at Tampa, with a maximum sustained wind speed of 31 mph (with 40 mph gusts). Not bad!

Let's all hope this is the very last the 2005 hurricane season has to offer! Floridians need a break!

A Stick

Last Thursday, while walking to lunch, I was accosted by two well-dressed visiting businessmen sporting work-related badges of some sort. "How are you?" one man asked. "Fine," I replied, "how are you?" "You know," one said, as they both came forward to shake my hand, "you are the first person we've met on the streets of Sacramento who doesn't have a stick up their ass. I mean, what's wrong with this city?"

I found the whole encounter to be rather baffling - I mean, it was a nice day, so why not be friendly? But then I wondered, if everyone in Sacramento has a stick up their ass, and I don't - where can I get one?

"Victor/Victoria" Weekend

What a brutal weekend! Body parts everywhere! If I didn't know better, I'd think this was "Sweeney Todd" or something! For me, this is the toughest show I've attempted at least since DMTC did "Tommy" in 2001, and maybe it's the toughest show I've ever attempted.

By the time Sunday evening came to pass, Robert had a torn rotator cuff in his shoulder, Monica had followed Scott with damaged toes, Bradley had been inadvertently struck in the fight scene, and there were any number of unexplained bruises and aches and pains on people. Earlier in the week, of course, Dian had tumbled over a crate, Kari had twisted her ankle, I had tackled modern-day Hercules (Scott) head-on and lost, etc., etc. And of course, there were the lingering problems from the rehearsal period: Kaitlin's aching back, etc., etc. When I saw the bright red splotch on Bill Trainor's forehead at the end of the show, I naturally assumed it was just another bruise (it was Bob Roe's bright-red lipstick mark).

There are two interrelated problems: the set is too heavy and cumbersome, and there are lots of awkward set pieces to move around. It takes a great deal of energy, nerve, and raw strength to maneuver the set and set pieces around in a timely manner. Set Designer Dave Lack is acutely aware of the set problem, of course. "I guess you guys must hate me," he said. "No, not at all:" I reassured him, "actually, I am in awe!" The set design is clever - even brilliant. Dave sacrificed himself for two weeks, getting only three hours of sleep a night, in a marathon finish, before taking a busy weekend off at Disneyland with his family (how he'll manage to stay awake during the weekend, he didn't say). Dave's profession as a firefighter has prepared him to endure this kind of brutal workload, but even he began to suffer by the premiere, complaining of shakes on the last day. (Mike Mac apparently now has a blog, where he discusses the adventure of assembling the set.)

Constructing this set was a very ambitious project, reasonably-well executed, but the end-result is just too heavy. I'm reminded of a similarly-ambitious project: Howard Hughes' 'Spruce Goose', the largest wooden aircraft ever built, an engineering marvel, but which flew just once.

Friday night's set changes were spectacularly awkward. My favorite part was when I picked up my bar set piece and repeatedly rammed it against the Stage Left set in an ultimately successful but very ungainly exit through the narrowing slot in Act II Chez Lui. I remember doing things I never expected to do, like carrying the baby grand piano set piece offstage, for example, even though I had never been assigned to it. The Chicago bar scene was never set up properly at all. The list of insufficiencies was long.

Just before the premiere, choreographer Ron Cisneros took several of the dancers aside and said what he was looking for the most with the final 'Victor/Victoria' number was a good start. "Everything will flow if you get a good start," he said. The music in the number itself suffered from a couple of false starts, however, and the dancers weren't able to get into position in time for that crucial good start for the dance proper. C'est la vie!

A nice time was had at Lyons' Restaurant after the premiere.

At the end of Friday's show, a set change rehearsal was scheduled Saturday afternoon. Stage management met on Saturday and exchanged views. The set change troubles had damaged cast morale, of course, but I was heartened by hearing of the stage management meeting. Efforts to also incorporate a music and dance rehearsal into the afternoon proceeding failed due to lack of time to address the innumerable set change insufficiencies in adequate detail. Nevertheless, the extra set change rehearsal was helpful.

Things were a little better on Saturday night, but discipline began to break down midway through the second act. For example, the panels were not unlatched and folded properly on the back of the sets during the Act II Hotel Paris scene. We managed to unlatch the panels, and Lauren, Chris, and myself stood in amazingly close quarters as we waited for Marcy to make her exit through the very narrow available exit provided by the unfolded panels, so we could make our own entrances through the narrow slot.

A significant gap between the Hotel Paris set pieces apparently alarmed the audience Saturday night, by exposing Marcy and Mike Mac (and possibly others) to a falling hazard. A friend in the audience said she nearly stormed on stage to halt the show until the insufficiency was set aright. It just goes to show how important it is not to let up discipline, and also how easy it is to lose it.

Discipline also broke down on Sunday afternoon at about the same time in the show as on Saturday, with a bit different assemblage of resulting problems: for example, tables and chairs have yet to be successfully placed at the end of Act II Chez Lui. Nevertheless, the Saturday and Sunday set changes, creaky as they were, and taxing on the audience's attention, ran more smoothly than Friday's.

Maybe discipline is the wrong choice of words....when set changes are not made, despite planning, it usually signifies a deeper organizational problem, like intereference from costume changes that hasn't been adequately accounted for.

The DMTC clan came on Saturday. It was nice to see everyone: Jennifer Bonomo, Julie Kulmann, Chris Neff, Ben and Noel, Ryan and Maria and Melissa, etc. Noel gave me an early birthday gift: a set of coasters arranged in the form of a hamburger: "lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun!" Afterwards, the clan gathered at the Tower Cafe. Roger Clark, who just wrapped up doing percussion for a performance by Lambda Players, came and joined us. Andee Thorpe surprised us with some unexpected hellos.

In the 'Louis Seize' number on Saturday ('seize' meaning sixteen in French, which refers, of course, to King Louis XVI, and his queen, Marie Antionette), I tripped over the base of the Stage Left mirror. In the audience, Ryan Adame described his reaction: "Look, the Fat Man tripped on the mirror! Oh! It's Marc!" (in this particular context the appellation 'Fat Man' doesn't have it's usual sting, because the male RSP dance ensemble is so youthful and trim, almost any middle-aged man set in their midst would become the 'Fat Man', by default). Nevertheless, with just a bit of schadenfreude, Jason said the stuttering trip was unusually amusing, because, I kicked the mirror base, and the mirror moved, and I kicked the base again, and the mirror moved again, and I kicked it yet again: Bah! It was all an unneeded distraction from Marcy, RSP's Mad Marie Antionette du jour.

There was a nice cast party at Bob Roe's house on Saturday night. The high point was Jake Montoya and Chris Scarberry exuberantly throwing cares aside and leaping in the pool for a refreshingly arctic swim.

There were many interesting things going on all weekend long, which would probably require a book to explain adequately, and certainly not by me, since I don't understand it all, given that this is my first show with the company. For me, the most remarkable thing was when orchestra director Joe Velez stated in notes Friday night that the ensemble sang beautifully, particularly in the last number, when that was manifestly not the case. The only thing I could think was that he was overwrought himself, but beats me over what exactly.

As for the show proper, I suspect it was OK: Marcy, Craig, Dave, Lauren, Mike Mac, and Bob all did fine. The audience seemed to have a good time (excepting maybe the Friday audience).

Now, we'll have a few days to recover, before leaping once again on stage!

Wilma Racing For Florida

Here she comes! She's accelerating and seems to be strengthening as she goes (the promised weakening due to wind shear doesn't seem to be occurring). The eye is rather large too, which is generally a good sign: the wind speed is inversely proportional to eye size. Landfall of the Category 2 or 3 storm will be around mid-morning to noon on Monday. Here is a useful satellite picture link.....

The storm will hit further south than previously forecast, probably south of Naples, around Everglades City, or in the Everglades proper. Regarding Key West, I suspect "Fantasy Fest" will be postponed, because the eye will pass just north of there, and Key West will spend a lot of time right in and near the eye wall, and experience pretty much the worst the storm has to offer.

Looks like the first of the rains has started in Tampa. Batten down the hatches, and good luck: the next day will be interesting!

Here is the National Weather Service forecast for Tampa:

Tonight: Rain likely and possibly a thunderstorm, then periods of rain after 2 am. Steady temperature around 76. Windy, with a east northeast wind 18 to 21 mph increasing to between 40 and 43 mph. Winds could gust as high as 63 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.

Monday: Periods of rain, mainly before 11 am. Temperature falling to around 66 by 5pm. Windy, with a north northwest wind 41 to 44 mph decreasing to between 29 and 32 mph. Winds could gust as high as 64 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New rainfall amounts between three quarters and one inch possible.

"Victor/Victoria" Premiere

Well, THAT was interesting, wasn't it?

Wilma Update

The model forecasts are beginning to converge regarding the speed at which Hurricane Wilma will move, which apparently will consist of a very rapid movement towards and across Florida. Rapid movement suggests a more-northerly trajectory. The storm will likely not dither as much as originally thought in the Yucatan (the storm side-swiped the coast and didn't pass that far on-land).

The NOGAPS model now suggests a Monday morning landfall, probably about 8 a.m., in the vicinity of Fort Myers, FL, taking about 6 hours to cross the Florida peninsula. The GFS model also suggests a Monday morning landfall, probably about 5 a.m., in the vicinity of Punta Gorda, FL, also taking only about 6 hours to cross the Florida peninsula.

That means Monday is likely to be quite interesting, with about a 12-hour window in Tampa of heavy rain and winds. If the storm is a Category 2 storm, my guess is the sustained winds will be in the 40 mph range in Tampa. As mentioned before, the rains will be quite intense. But fortunately the storm won't linger - it will come in fast and furious, and then be gone.

Tunnel Vision

Pretty tune:

Glaucoma Hymn
Glaucoma, Glaucoma, Glaucoma
Constricting vision slowly
Halted by progress of science
Vision of a world united
Beyond all science knowing

Lyrics and Composition: Erik Greve
Arrangement: Tom Löwenthal
Production: Joachim Vermeulen Windsant
Soprano: Melanie Greve
June 2005

Big Box Mart

Outsourcers beware! N. suggests:

Go to Jib Jab and turn on your computer's speakers. This parody about big box stores is sung to 'Oh Susanna'!

Melody Davi Update

Or, 'How Rumors Start On The Internet.' It's strange that two sisters end up being the lead of the same touring show, and that can lead to confusion......

I sent Tony Davi the following message:

This morning, I noticed that someone from Aubrey, Texas checked my Web Log while doing a Google search on the phrase "Melody Davi Replacement." I thought that was an odd search to make unless there was some news of which I was unaware, like an illness or an injury, and so I thought to check with you first and see if she's all right.

Tony responded:

Hi Marc,

Thanks for your concern.

No, Mel is doing well and is heading west. They are in Texas at the moment and my guess is that a theatre goer was confused by the playbill (that lists Melody) and the souvenir program. They still are selling the program the (souvenir program) that has Mara plastered all over it until they run out and reprint with the pictures of this years cast. Mel has had a couple of emails from people confused by that. Some have figured it out when they have gone to Mel's website and seen the link to Mara's website and realize that Mara did the same role last year.

In fact, here are a couple of reviews that came out last week. The show is going well:

From RadioPalmBeach

42ND STREET
WOW, those dancing feet! Dozens of pairs stirring up enough energy to power West Palm Beach, home of the revival of "42nd Street." A bunch of chorus gypsies count on one last chance to save the play. This chance comes in the form of Peggy Swayer (Melody Davi) who not only shows her stuff as her character, but as a performer she dominated the stage. Her dancing and singing kept the audience on the edge of their seats. I interviewed Melody Davi prior to the opening and was impressed with her interview, but never expected to see her perform with such timing and charisma as I witnessed tonight.

I would be remiss not to send out thumbs up to the whole cast, but I want to take a minute to single out a few of the members that make this show a exceptionally wonderful performance. Julian Marsh (Ron Smith) came off as the hard nosed director with a soft spot for Peggy, and it was believable. Maggie Jones (Maureen Veronica Illmensee) set the bar for the rest of the cast, she was a show stopper and proved it each time she entered the stage. Last but not least was Dorothy Brock (Natalie Buster) funny thing is she was cast, as having little talent, which only shows her real talent. She was believable till you heard her sing, I am sure that part was very difficult and she played it to a tee!!!

The show, directed with mach speed by Valerie Gardner Rives, sets out to do nothing but overwhelm, all unattainable without the rest of the off stage help. To put on such a performance takes so much talent and here at the Kravis Center they corralled what it takes to do just that. I must say "I couldn't imagine Broadway any Better" ...

Wayne Filowitz


Excerpts from Broadwayworld.com review

Broadwayworld.com Review: 42ND STREET-Sizzling-Scintillating-Spectacular

October 12, 2005 - by Beau Higgins

Were I a religious man, I would consider taking a moment to thank the gods of musical comedy. What the heck! I want you dear reader, to join me in thanking the musical comedy gods for sending us Natalie Buster, Maureen Veronica Illmensee, Melody Davi and Cody Walker. While we're at it, let's roll out a lush red carpet for Randi Kaye's achievement in making the part of Annie in 42nd STREET, sparkle and shine as it never has before. Sparkle and shine are certainly apt words for this production of the 2001 revival of Gower Champion's 1980 Broadway classic, 42ND STREET. Thankfully, glitz, glitter and garlands of talent are not truly blinding. As visually assaulting (in the best sense of the word) and bursting with talent as this 42ND STREET is, I do suspect I will regain full use of my eyesight by morning. This show looks and feels dazzling and darn it, it's good to feel dazzled! A glorious ensemble has been assembled to bring us the fabulous fable of the fired chorus girl who gets to "go on" for the injured star, in the simple backstage story that is 42ND STREET. .......................

Tom Frye is daffy and 'right on' as Bert and Ron Smith is fine as Julian Marsh. Hold onto your armrests when Melody Davi comes onstage. This beauty taps like a champion and sings with a brassy and bubbly belt. Her youthful exuberance is highly infectious. She is at once charming and sassy and simply splendid. The part of Maggie Jones doesn't always attract a lot of attention (although Mary Testa did reap a Tony nomination for the 2001 Broadway revival.) Maureen Veronica Illmensee is wonderful in the role. Her raw talent and sense of joy come through as loud and clear as her exciting singing performances, making this audience favorite's solo moments all too brief for this listener's ears. The gifted and dangerously handsome Cody Walker makes the part of Billy Lawler a star turn. He acts. He charms. He dances, he sings and he commands the stage. Mr. Walker is, at the very least, a triple threat performer, giving an award caliber performance here. Cody Walker is fabulous in 42ND STREET. I suspect this young man will be wowing audiences for many, many years to come. Natalie Buster, where have you been or where have I been? Do you realize how your performance tonight, highlighted by your enchanting and entrancing singing , enveloped and swept away your audience? This writer has never before seen a Dorothy Brock sumptuously and seductively owning the stage every time she appears. In 2001 Christine Ebersole won the Tony award for playing Dorothy Brock. Suffice is to say, had Natalie Buster, Dorothy Brocked on Broadway in 2001, she would currently be maintaining a bottle of Tony award polish in her residence. Bravo, Ms. Buster! 42ND STREET's last performance at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach is October 16. Do not miss it.

Above: Leading Man and Set Designer for "Victor/Victoria", Dave Lack (right), rehearses Wednesday night with the RSP Orchestra, led by Joseph Velez (left).

Below: Sparky recounts his haircutting adventure at Canine Cottage Wednesday afternoon.


"Victor/Victoria" Rehearsals End

Well, we've gotten all the rehearsals we'll get! I hope we do well!

The injuries are beginning to mount. Last night, Stage Manager Kari Pruitt twisted an ankle, and Dian Hoel fell over a dark crate that was hard to see in the stage gloaming. I felt guilty because I had just hurriedly placed the crate in her path while substituting for someone else in the set change: I garnered no blame, since the crate was about where it should have been, but STILL! People are fragile!

Stubbed toes are a problem. A doctor drilled a hole in Scott Griffith's big toe toenail, to release a little geyser of blood from the pool that had gathered underneath, allowing him to walk again. Monica and Angela both have stubbed toes, and I know there are others. If I hear "break a leg!" again, I'll kick them (no I won't: that would mean just another stubbed toe).

Alas! Sparky was cut from the show! Sparky was supposed to have a walk-on part, and, in anticipation, I took him for a visit to the dog groomers (Canine Cottage: Castro & Riverside). He was supposed to look like a pampered Parisian dog, with ribbons and bows, but basically he looked like a shorter-haired Sparky. He seemed to be adjusting to the stage, but I'm sure he had no earthly idea what it was all about, and the frantic energy of the backstage area sometimes unnerved him. As mentioned, people are getting hurt falling over objects on stage, and as nice as Sparky is, he posed another hazard. Plus, they are trying to simplify the show, and Sparky's feeling weren't particularly hurt by being left out.

I'm still in some pain from when I collided head-on with Scott Griffith. There is no evident bruise, but I must have damaged the pleural lining in some way. I wonder if I cracked a rib after all?

Farewell, Paradise!

The eye of Hurricane Wilma has just reached Cozumel, and Cancun may be next!

Slow Down, Wilma!

The models are beginning to diverge again, mostly regarding the speed at which Hurricane Wilma will move. The NOGAPS model suggests a Monday evening landfall, probably about 6 p.m., in the vicinity of Naples, FL, taking about 8 hours to cross the Florida peninsula. The GFS model suggests a Monday mid-morning landfall, probably about 10 a.m., in the vicinity of Punta Gorda, FL, taking only about 4 hours to cross the Florida peninsula.

I'm skeptical that a hurricane can whip across Florida that fast, so I support the NOGAPS interpretation.

A slower storm movement benefits Tampa, because the big trough in the U.S. mid-section has more time to sweep east before bringing the storm north. Anything that will delay the storm will be a help.

The rainfall pattern will be unusually lop-sided, with heavy rains on the north side of the storm. Tampa is bound to get some heavy rain, but, once again, the slower the storm moves, the briefer the period of heavy rain will be in Tampa.

"The World Is A Stage"

Hey! Andrea St. Clair has a brand-new, theater-oriented blog! Let's all wish her the best on her new endeavor!

As a blogger with a little experience (since 2002!), my main advice to Andrea and any other newcomers is to exercise a little care. In blogging, most of hard stuff actually isn't technical at all, it's mostly finding the right words, or the right tone, especially when trying to criticize a performance or an actor. Actors are more-than-able to accept criticism, but more than most people, they don't like being blind-sided by unfounded criticism. So, if I have a critical remark, I ground it in detail about the background leading to the critical remark. So, say "it was a dumb choice of set color, a choice that led the leading actresses' blonde bouffant to disappear into the yellow background" rather than "the dumb blonde's bouffant disappeared in a yellow haze." (and maybe that isn't good enough either - some words, like "dumb" are loaded!)

The nice thing about blogging is that it is facile enough to keep up with the fast pace of the day, and, like theater, it can be a moment-by-moment art. Andrea's signature line, borrowed from "Rent", says it all about theater and blogging: "No Day But Today."

Modern Media

Best quote of the month, maybe the year:

If politics is show business for ugly people, then I guess corporate journalism is intelligence work for stupid people.

Paranoid Chavez?

Is Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez paranoid for believing the U.S. wants to conquer Venezuela, or just realistic?

Remember, the Bush Administration was sympathetic to the April, 2002 coup attempt, and was diplomatically unprepared when the coup attempt failed. Given the U.S. invasion of Iraq a year later, what else could Chavez think?

Realistic!

Wilma Update

The forecast has changed a little bit....landfall in Florida is likely to be Monday night, rather than Saturday night.

The steering currents in the western Caribbean are weak at the moment, and so Wilma is likely to dither a long time on the Yucatan Peninsula, wrecking resorts like Cancun and Cozumel, but also losing some strength. The steering currents won't remain weak, though: the trough that is moving in from the western U.S., and digging southwards as it goes, is forecast to be the largest of the autumn season so far, and it will certainly grab Wilma and push it, hard, NE towards Florida.

The computer models, good and bad alike, continue to point the storm, laser-like, towards Punta Gorda, Florida. My thought is that Wilma will come into Florida as a Category 3 hurricane (the storm will weaken over the Yucatan, strengthen again over the Gulf, but won't be able to attain current strength because of too much wind shear along the frontal boundary of the trough).

South of the eye, storm surge is a big danger (particularly Key Largo, at the pointy end of Florida Bay).

North of the eye, where Tampa is, rainfall is the big danger. The cold front will be in the vicinity of Tampa when the storm comes through, which, when combined with a hurricane, means rains of Biblical proportion. The only saving grace is that Wilma will move across Florida rather quickly, so the heavy rains won't persist. In the Tampa area, sustained winds are likely to be in the 40-50 mph range, probably for about 10 hours.

Wilma will race up the Atlantic seaboard. Very heavy rains will parallel the coast, but are likely to intrude onto land significantly only in the Outer Banks of NC, at least until the storm becomes part of the trough itself, eventually wreaking damage on New England and Newfoundland.

Jumbo Jet

Have you ever watched a truly large plane, like a C5-A military transport, which can haul tanks around, take off, and wondered how it was even possible? 'Victor/Victoria' is a bit like that. It's going to pay off - the 'cat and mouse' comedy sketch went off brilliantly last night in rehearsal - but boy! what an effort! Zeroing in on the details is daunting.

Last night, I collided head-on with Scott Griffith, and his fist went into my ribs (I was attempting a new way to cross the stage in a hurry, and I took Scott by surprise). I don't think I broke a rib, but it was close!

Sparky is going to have a walk-on part. Today he's over at the dog groomers. He's supposed to look like a pampered Parisian dog, with ribbons and bows. The dog groomer wasn't certain regarding my wishes, and so I told her to be creative!

Just Asking....

At 'Victor/Victoria' set change rehearsal yesterday, Bob Baxter assigned Set Designer Dave Lack and myself to move a bed during a blackout, but Dave was momentarily unavailable: he was screwing a panel onto a mobile base. So, I asked, "Does Dave finish screwing before or after he joins me on the bed?"

"Daddy, I Want Another Pony!"

Poorman, meet Veruca Salt:

Republican woes have been a boon for the pony markets, which have seen prices soar to historic highs due to increased demand from ecstatic liberals. This spike in demand has led many experts to warn of a near-term pony shortage, and led to fears that the world may be approaching “Peak Pony”, the point at which nations are no longer able to meet their vital pony needs.

For most of the 20th century, ponies were primarily used as imaginary companions for giggling pre-teen girls. However, the market base for ponies has expanded considerably in recent weeks and months, as liberal euphoria has reached such giddy heights that only brightly-colored, silken-maned, magical sparkly friendly talking flying ponies are capable of expressing.

“The problem is two-fold,” explains Goldman-Sachs senior pony analyst Holden. “A combination of irrational Bush-hatred among liberals and irrational exuberance among pony speculators has led to this spike in demand for what is, after all, a finite resource. At the same time, decades of complacency on the part of the world governments has let a manageable problem evolve into a full-blown crisis. Now the Congress wants to open the Strategic Pony Reserve to try to bring prices under control. It’s too little, too late.”

For The Daring

The AM/PM convenience store at the intersection of 21st and Broadway in Sacramento is looking for counter help. Must be 21 or older.

Cloudy, The Lop-Eared Rabbit, Visits The Vet

Her conjunctivitis has gotten pretty bad. The folks at Midtown Animal Center in Davis recommended more powerful medications than I got last May at the other vet, and hopefully we can get this under control. I need to crush antibiotic tablets into a banana paste and inject the glop into her mouth with a converted syringe. Fortunately, she's a big fan of bananas.

On the way back to Sacramento, she picked the lock on her pet carrier, which was sitting on the back seat, and escaped into the passenger compartment, coming to rest on the floor behind the driver's seat. All she really wanted was a head scratch and a nice quiet corner where the car's soothing vibration could put her asleep. So cute!

Reviewing Cloudy's records, I now recall her birthdate: July 22, 2000. She's five years old now!

A View From The Bridge Chloe sent out an E-Mail regarding the latest offering at Natomas Charter School - help support the folks over there at Natomas:

Hey everyone! Just sending out an email to everyone letting you know the dates for A View From the Bridge.. the show is coming along really well, and I'm sooo excited to be a part of it! Hope you can come.. miss you all! -Chloe As some of you may already know, the NCS Drama Department was chosen by the American High School Theater Festival to represent the United States in Scotland at the Fringe Festival. This event is the LARGEST theater festival in the world, and to be chosen is quite an honor. At the Festival, we have the extraoridinary opportunity to perform our major production, Arthur Miller's "A View From the Bridge". Your chance to see this great play is coming soon! Performances open in the NCS Black Box Theatre on Thursday, November 3rd. This stunning story about betrayal, revenge, and the human spirit will transport you back in time to Brooklyn in the 1950's. For ticket information, call 928-5353. Performances: November 3-19. 7:30 curtain thurs, fri, sat. No performance November 11th (due to holiday). Instead, matinee Nov 12, 1:30 curtain (as well as 7:30 that night).

And I Thought Fred Was The Neanderthal

Forecast thinking is pretty much unchanged this morning regarding Hurricane Wilma....landfall after sunset on Saturday in the Fort Myers, FL area. It is interesting how quickly the forecast thinking coalesced, going from scattered to lockstep in less than a day.

In the Tampa area, it will mean a lot of wind (I'm thinking 40 mph sustained winds, with 50 mph gusts), and a lot of rain, from sunset Saturday till at least sunrise Sunday. Power outages are likely, so stock up on batteries, flashlights, ice, water, fuel, etc. The situation doesn't demand that Tampans flee (not yet anyway), but they should at least mentally-prepare where to go (right now, going south seems to be a bad idea).

Here is what the National Hurricane Center says:

THE INITIAL MOTION IS ESTIMATED TO BE 320/5. THERE HAS BEEN LITTLE CHANGE TO THE TRACK FORECAST THINKING. THE MID- TO UPPER-LEVEL LOW THAT HAD BEEN OFF THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA COAST IS NOW MOVING NORTHEASTWARD...AND AS IT PROGRESSES HIGH PRESSURE OVER THE GULF OF MEXICO IS EXPECTED TO WEAKEN...ALLOWING WILMA TO MOVE THROUGH THE NORTHWESTERN CARIBBEAN AND ENTER THE SOUTHEASTERN GULF OF MEXICO IN ABOUT THREE DAYS. ONCE WILMA MOVES NORTH OF THE SUBTROPICAL RIDGE AXIS AND ENCOUNTERS MID-LEVEL WESTERLY FLOW...AN ACCELERATION NORTHEASTWARD IS EXPECTED. MODEL GUIDANCE HAS NOT CHANGED MUCH AND REMAINS IN VERY GOOD AGREEMENT...AND THE OFFICIAL FORECAST IS VERY SIMILAR TO THE PREVIOUS ADVISORY AND CLOSE TO THE DYNAMICAL MODEL CONSENSUS.

Only Nine?

Nine cases of brain-wasting disease in Idaho. 'You're living in your own private Idaho' indeed!

Ralph Reed

Publius takes on Ralph Reed:

There is more than one level of absurdity here. First, you have Reed taking steps to protect gambling interests because he was paid to do so. Second, Reed’s strategy for protecting gambling was to attack opponents who supported an anti-gambling bill as being soft on gambling (thus exploiting sincere opposition to gambling by lying). That’s truly amazing – his entire strategy was to lie to anti-gambling activists and assume that they would be completely ignorant about the content of the bill. Third, he was willing to undermine elected (though vulnerable) social conservatives – his supposed comrades-in-arms – in order to protect gamblers. That’s truly amazing stuff.

The big losers here are the social conservatives who have once again been treated like fools. Reed was apparently convinced that these people were so stupid that they could be rallied under the banner of anti-gambling even though their efforts were being used to protect gambling interests.

A Place I Spend Far Too Little Time

"Borderland", by Deborah McMillion-Nering

Here We Go Again!

Last night, I wasn't worried about Tropical Storm Wilma's path, but today is a different story. The original forecast track showed the storm hitting the coastline of Belize (and fading away there), but today's forecast shows the storm clipping the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula instead, making an abrupt 90-degree change in course, and crashing into the southwestern Florida coast, somewhere along the Naples - Fort Myers - Punta Gorda coastline, around sunset Saturday October 22nd. The model guidance is still not very good yet, this far out, but I'm worried that both NOGAPS and GFS models are telling essentially the same story, and this Florida landfall location is uncomfortably close to Tampa.

If this works out as forecast, one helpful feature is that the winds in the Tampa area would be principally from the east, and thus there wouldn't be a storm surge along the coast, and flooding would occur entirely from rainfall.

Keep an eye out (and I'll keep an eye out): this storm could easily make a run for Tampa instead!

The 'Victor/Victoria' Set

When I was a kid, about age 7 or 8, we'd often play next door, where there was plenty of spare, scrap lumber. We assembled cabins from bark-covered planks out behind the main house. The cabins were small, even by kid standards. Sometimes we made two-story cabins. Some were furnished with bookshelves, scraps of carpet, and makeshift chimneys, where we'd cook white-bread toast over open flames. We organized the cabins into a township we called Farmsville. Nighttime fires of mysterious origins destroyed many of the small cabins, but nevertheless, we had a lot of fun!

When I first heard of Dave Lack's vision for Runaway Stage Production's 'Victor/Victoria' set, it all seemed rather abstract - actually, totally abstract - but the set apparently had two levels, with the upper level dedicated to the bedrooms. I was reminded of the cozy, rough-hewn two-story cabins of my childhood. I grew nostalgic for Farmsville.

After this weekend, helping the RSP crew bring Dave Lack's vision into existence on the stage at the 24th Street Theater, it is clear that Dave has never heard of the cozy Farmsville-scale of community development. Instead, the scale of the architectural work taking shape is Brobdignagian. The question now is whether there is enough room left to dance......

Maybe the decor will help with the coziness - bookshelves, scraps of carpet, and makeshift chimneys....

New York Times Explains Judith Miller

While working today with the rest of the RSP crew on the 'Victoria/Victoria' set, I'd sneak looks at today's New York Times' Hail Mary extravaganza effort to explain it's side of the Valerie Plame affair (before the indictments start rolling).

I can say that I haven't heard such a convincing story since O.J. Simpson pointed his gloveless fingers at shadowy drug dealers, the 'real killers' of his wife and Ron Goldman.

Does The New York Times think we're all just a bunch of chumps, or what? Salon and Daily Kos and Greg Mitchell and innumerable others are hot on the story. I'm not nearly as charitable as Billmon is regarding The New York Times' truthfulness:

But Sunday's little game of charades did pretty much blow away the New Pravda's propaganda campaign on behalf of Judy Miller, First Amendment martyr. And it certainly made a circus clown out of Bill Keller, who promised to give his readers the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about Miller's involvement in Plamegate, just as soon as the lawyers would let him. At the moment, though, it looks like Gray Lady wouldn't recognize the truth if it came up and slapped her right in her five o'clock shadow.

Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride"

Just glorious....better even than "The Nightmare Before Christmas!'

There was a song reminiscent of 'Sally's Song', called 'Tears To Shed'. Both songs express apprehensive yearning, rejection, worthlessness, forlorn loss - adolescent heartfelt pain - but this song is more interesting, featuring three singers (the Corpse Bride, plus two friends.

The ending is slightly perplexing, but it's hard to miss the clean flame of love, and the disintegration into butterflies....

Tears To Shed
Oh those girls are ten a plenty,
You’ve got so much more
You’ve got, you’ve got
You’ve got a wonderful personality!
What does that wispy little brat have that you don’t have double?
She can’t hold a candle to the beauty of your smile.
How about a pulse?
Overrated by a mile!
Overvalued!
Overblown!
If he only knew the you that we know!
*sigh*
And that silly little creature isn’t wearing his ring!
And she doesn’t play piano,
Or dance
Or sing
No she doesn’t compare
But she still breathes air!
Who cares?
Unimportant
Overrated
Overblown
If only he could see how special you can be
If he only knew the you that we know!

If I touch a burning candle I can feel no pain
If you cut me with a knife it's still the same
And I know her heart is beating and I know that I am dead
Yet the pain here that I feel, try and tell me it's not real
And it seems that I still have a tear to shed

The sole redeeming feature from that little creature is that she’s alive
Overrated!
Overblown!
Everybody knows that that’s just a temporary state
Which is cured very quickly when we meet our fate
Who cares?
Unimportant
Overrated
Overblown
If only he could see how special you can be
If he only knew the you that we know!

If I touch a burning candle I can feel no pain
In the ice or in the sun its all the same
Yet I feel my heart is aching
Though it doesn’t beat it's breaking
And the pain here that I feel
Try and tell me it's not real
I know that I am dead
Yet it seems that I still have some tears to shed

Better even than 'Sally's Song'!

Sally's Song
I sense there's something in the wind
That feels like tragedy's at hand
And though I'd like to stand by him
Can't shake this feeling that I have
The worst is just around the bend

And does he notice my feelings for him?
And will he see how much he means to me?
I think it's not to be

What will become of my dear friend?
Where will his actions lead us then?
Although I'd like to join the crowd
In their enthusiastic cloud
Try as I may, it doesn't last

And will we ever end up together?
No, I think not, it's never to become
For I am not the one

KVIE Phone-Banking

DMTC volunteered to do phone-banking work this morning at KVIE TV-6, the local PBS affiliate. The arrangement was a bit hasty, at least for me. First, there was Ryan's original announcement:

I would like as many Board members to help out with this upcoming KVIE phone banking as possible.

to:

I had to cancel phone banking due to lack of volunteers, but thanks to those who signed up....

to:

KVIE finally got back to me, and without mincing words let me know that we must supply volunteers tomorrow morning....

I wonder if KVIE threatened to force the DMTC Board to watch commercial television unless we showed up......

In any event, we all showed up and 'brought in' $26,000.00 during our shift. I was surprised at how enthusiastic people were to buy Wayne Dyer's 'The Power of Intention.' (I had never heard of the fellow until today.) Also, there was a Mariachi show on the other PBS channel, and so the phone lines were hot with people ordering a variety of merchandise.

A few transactions didn't go through, though. One woman had to cancel her order because we couldn't accomodate monthly money orders (she had lost her checking account privileges and was facing eviction.)

(Sometimes it's better, I think, given the real burdens people are faced with on a daily basis, if certain transactions don't go through.)

Storm Pictures, Attributed!

Aha! Those fabulous storm pictures are indeed from the Midwest!:

Storm chaser Mike Hollingshead hasn't been paid or given credit for the photos that have appeared in the Netherlands, Canada, Australia and Brazil, among other places. Furthermore, the photos of tornadoes in Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa are being passed off as Hurricane Katrina pictures.

Many people received the photos in their inbox. They've been sent thousands of times. Hollingshead has link after link on his Web site to all of the other sites, chat rooms and e-mails where his pictures have appeared.

The pictures were mostly taken in 2004. All were snapped within a few hundred miles of Omaha.

Hollingshead takes the pictures for a living, and about nine months ago, he started getting e-mails from other storm chasers telling him his pictures were appearing around the world.

"People started selling them to magazines like Weatherwise, then a Dutch magazine about weather, then to newspapers and TV shows," Hollingshead said.

He said he tried to correct the Web sites, but it just kept spreading.

So Who Spread All The Lies?

What really was going on at the New Orleans Superdome after Hurricane Katrina:

New Orleanians have been kind of cheated, because now everybody thinks that they just turned to animals, and that there was complete lawlessness and utter abandon, when that wasn't the case. Because if there was, we would have completely lost control of the Dome. And we never did. People just kind of hung on, through the heat and through everything, until they got on a bus and left.

Scientists Try Chicken Little Again

I get very tired of these clarion calls for the production of more scientists and engineers:

The proposed actions include creating scholarships to attract 10,000 top students a year to careers in teaching math and science, and 30,000 scholarships for college-level study of science, math and engineering; expanding the nation's investment in basic research by 10 percent a year for seven years; and making broadband access available nationwide at low cost.

"America must act now to preserve its strategic and economic security," the panel's chairman, Norman R. Augustine, retired chairman of Lockheed Martin, said in a statement. "The building blocks of our economic leadership are wearing away. The challenges that America faces are immense."

The underlying goal, the panel said, is to create high-quality jobs by developing new industries and new sources of energy based on the bright ideas of scientists and engineers.

History repeats itself again (and again and again and again). In the early 90's, Leon Lederman made exactly these same points, calling for the creation of more scientists and engineers, callously ignoring the inability of the economy to absorb these new highly-trained workers and the inevitable disillusionment that settles in when the new highly-trained workers end up selling shoes or driving taxis instead. Before Lederman, there was a host of others saying exactly the same thing, in the 80's, the 70's, the 60's, the 50's, etc.

Each university researcher requires a steady stream of new recruits, and when the stream seems to turn into a rivulet, that's when the call goes out. There are more students than ever, but if the pool of researchers is growing even faster, then each researcher gets proportionately fewer students. It looks like a drought of students, but it isn't so!

Our big problems don't have to do with too few scientists, they have to do instead because we are governed by idiots. Science education could surely help in the idiot department, of course, but reflexively increasing the number of students is the wrong approach.

Cruel as Lederman's call was in the early 90's, Lederman himself was no fool: he clearly realized the paradox the scientific community found itself in then - and now - and wrestled with it as best as he could. Are today's leaders as well-informed? (from an interview with Lederman, in 1996):

We are told that science and technology are important for the future of the nation's competitiveness. The real managers of the economy think otherwise, however, as the great corporations (including AT&T and IBM) have either scaled back or shut down entirely their central laboratories. The economy has gradually shifted from manufacturing to service industries such as insurance and banking, which do not support very much scientific research. ... Finally, the academic expansion that transformed us from a nation of elite higher education to a nation of mass higher education is clearly over forever, with more than half of our kids already going on past high school.

... In this country we have what I call the paradox of the scientific elites and scientific illiterates. The Golden Age of science produced genuine excellence in American science. As a result, we have without any question the very finest scientists and the very finest science in the world today. On the other hand, the U.S. has the most poorly educated and scientifically illiterate public in the Western World by any rational measure....

I think this paradox springs from the nature of science education in the U.S., which is not a pipeline as portrayed in the earlier metaphor, but really a kind of mining-and-sorting operation. We, the existing scientists, search through the humans that come our way, looking for "diamonds in the rough" that can be cut, polished and cleaned into glittering gems just like us. But we have no interest at all in all of the rest of them, who we throw on the "slag heap." The mining-and-sorting model of science education explains, for example, why there are so few women and minorities in science: we white male scientists who are doing the mining and sorting do not realize that they will look just like us once they are cut and polished and cleaned. It also accounts for the exponential growth, because exponential growth is what occurs when the number of scientists we turn out is proportional to the number of scientists there are for recognizing new ones. Above all, it accounts for the paradox of scientific illiterates and scientific elites, which occurs because the entire system of education is designed to produce exactly that result, i.e., we pick out the people who are going to be the scientists and ignore everybody else.

... Every professor in a research university turns out something on the order of 15 graduate PhDs in the course of a career. You really cannot get very far away from that number 15. If you have a career spanning 30 years and have an active research group, somebody is bound to graduate every couple of years, making about 15. Everyone of those 15 students, given their inherited aspirations, would like to become a research professor just like their professor and turn out 15 more PhDs. You must realize that in a "steady state" world of science the only reproductive responsibility of a research professor is to turn out one professor for the next generation. Therefore, so you can see the engine of exponential growth right there.

Whenever the leaders of American science seriously try to come to grips with this problem, which does not happen very often, they come up with some variant on what I call the "Harold Brown" solution. ... It was around 1970, when the "Crunch" started, and I had noticed that things had changed in some way. I began to do some research to figure out what had changed and why, when I read Price's book and realized what had really happened: We had saturated the exponential expansion, changing the world in an irreversible way. I wrote a memo which I passed around among my colleagues at Caltech explaining the situation and saying that we at Caltech ought to set a dramatic example for everybody else by reducing radically the number of graduate students we were training for PhDs....

Harold Brown's more creative solution was that everyone should be required to get a PhD in physics before starting any serious career, just as classical Latin and Greek had once been required for the British Civil Service. That would at least put the problem off until the middle of the next century, when we would have more PhDs in physics than we have people....

...Graduate students in science are a source of cheap labor. ... By their second year, graduate students are doing demanding and technically difficult work at salaries lower than those of entry-level clerical help. On the one hand, we really need them if we are to keep up the machinery of the research university. On the other hand, from the point of view of the students, it is a kind of genteel poverty: They are, after all, young enough to survive on beer and pizza. Nor is it an embarrassing kind of poverty, since they have not lapsed into poverty as a result of a failure, but are preparing for a better life in the future. Therefore, it is respectable poverty, for nobody holds it against them and it is not such a terrible time.

We have been told in the past that the increase in efficiency due to automation and so on would lead people to have more leisure time, that the work week would reduce from 40 hours to 30 hours, and so on. We all know that that has not happened. Instead there are permanently unemployed people, and others who work harder than ever. Perhaps, though, this is part of the solution to the problem. If everybody had to get a PhD and do a post-doc or two before starting any other career, while it would not reduce the work week from 40 hours to 30 hours, it might reduce the work life from 40 years to 30 years, which might have the same effect.

It is true that, during this period of being a graduate student and then a post-doc, one is unencumbered and free to do research without all of the responsibilities that come during later portions of one's career. As a matter of fact, it may be much more extreme than that. There are some people who think that scientists today are much like professional athletes: They get all of their real science done before the age of 35, after which they go into some other line of work. Or if they stay in science, they really become science managers, fund-raisers whose activity allows younger people to continue doing research. In this view, the difference between the scientists and the professional athletes is that the athletes understand that, once they get to be 35, they no longer belong on the playing field. The scientists have not figured that one out yet.

It is certainly true that having these young people come up through the ranks of PhDs and post-docs advances science; there is no question at all that this is a good thing. They also acquire "deep knowledge," which is to say that they come to know a particular subject better than anybody else in the world. Maybe the experience of having understood something so deeply is by itself a good thing, regardless of what it is that they have understood. The real question is whether all of this training in how to do research adds any value to these people that they would not have had were they not trained specifically in how to do research. We have all heard stories of physics PhDs who do wonderfully well on Wall Street. No doubt there are such people, but I wonder whether their success comes because they were trained to do research in physics, or because they were very smart in the first place.

The real "Crunch" comes when you have to advise students regarding their professional direction. Recently, I was on another visiting committee at a university that I thought should not be giving out PhDs in physics. I was, in fact, prepared to tell them that they should do away with their PhD program. I talked to their graduate students, asking them if they were aware of the job market, particularly for people from a university like theirs. They said, "Of course we are aware of it; we understand acutely well how difficult things are for people out there." I asked them if they were therefore resentful and wanted to get out of this business. They said, "No, we love our professors, and think we are getting a great education. We would rather get our PhDs and take our chances." Well, if that is their attitude, I am certainly not going to be the one to tell them that they should not be getting any more education.

The Iron Maiden Sings

'Attila the Hen', better known as Baroness Margaret Thatcher, finally comes out in opposition to Tony Blair's justifications to rush to war:

Baroness Thatcher has criticised Tony Blair for taking Britain to war in Iraq on the basis of flawed evidence about Saddam Hussein's weapons. The former prime minister's embarrassing criticism emerged as Mr Blair was among the 670 guests who attended a party to mark her 80th birthday.

Although Lady Thatcher remains a strong supporter of the decision to topple Saddam by invading Iraq, it is the first time she has questioned the basis for the war. Yesterday's Washington Post reported that when asked whether she would have invaded Iraq given the intelligence at the time, Lady Thatcher replied: "I was a scientist before I was a politician. And as a scientist I know you need facts, evidence and proof - and then you check, recheck and check again."

She added: "The fact was that there were no facts, there was no evidence, and there was no proof. As a politician the most serious decision you can take is to commit your armed services to war from which they may not return."

The article was written by the journalist Tina Brown, who said she had been told Lady Thatcher's view by Lord Palumbo, the former chairman of the Arts Council, who asked the former prime minister about Iraq when he had lunch with her six months ago. Lord Palumbo was also among the guests at last night's party at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel near Hyde Park, London. The guest list, which was headed by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, included many former members of Lady Thatcher's cabinets as well as prominent figures from industry, arts, showbusiness and the media.

The Tory leader Michael Howard and the two right-wing candidates for the leadership, David Davis and Liam Fox, were present but the two moderates - Ken Clarke and David Cameron - had not been invited.

Lady Thatcher's office did not dispute her reported remarks but said she had been - and remained - in full support of the decision to oust Saddam by military means, which she always believed would be the only way to remove him. Aides said she wished that had been achieved by the first Gulf War, prompted by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, which took place shortly after she was forced to resign as Prime Minister after losing the confidence of her cabinet.

Her criticism of Mr Blair's methods comes as a surprise given her staunch backing for the conflict. In 2002, on a visit to America, she said she was "proud that Britain stands where we all must stand - as America's surest and staunchest ally". She told the Heritage Foundation in Washington: "Prime Minister Blair and I are, as is well known, political opponents but, in this vital matter, I salute his strong, bold leadership."

Although Mr Blair condemned Saddam's record in the build-up to the war, he did not advocate "regime change" because that would have been illegal. Instead, he sought to build a case on the ground that Saddam's arsenal put him in breach of United Nations resolutions. After no weapons of mass destruction were found after the conflict, Mr Blair sought to justify it by arguing that the world is a better place without Saddam in power.

Andrew Sullivan And The Liberal Straw Man

It's hard to credit blogger Andrew Sullivan for much, when he cluelessly gets things backwards (note: I'm not talking here about DMTC drummer Andy Sullivan - if Andy gets things backwards, everyone knows it instantly, including himself).

Andrew Sullivan makes lazy references to 'Kossers' - the people who read and support The Daily Kos, a leading liberal blog - and how it would drive them crazy to support Supreme Court Justice nominee Harriet Miers, because she is the probably the best nominee liberals can expect from George Bush. Sullivan teases the Democrats to support Miers, and states:

That, of course, would drive the Kossers up the wall. But the Kossers are a central reason for Republican dominance of the polity. The Miers nomination is therefore a golden opportunity for a potential Democratic presidential candidate to take on the far-left base. C'mon, Senator Bayh. He needs two core messages: he deeply values Miers' religious faith and personal integrity and believes there should be an up-or-down vote in the whole Senate. Out-Bush Bush, vote for Miers, and then sit back and enjoy watching Sam Brownback squirm. In general, I have always given presidents the benefit of the doubt on judicial nominees. I do again here - but want to see how Miers performs in the hearings. If she's really incompetent, we'll find out and she should be cashiered. But if she's just a meticulous nit-picker who believes that courts should intervene in politics as little as possible, why not vote for her? It's not as if she'd be the first mediocre crony in the court's history. For Dems, she'd be a lot better than most of the alternatives. And by her mere ascension to the court, as another reader points out, "these deep cleavages we are now seeing on the Right will be frozen in place, like a prehistoric fly trapped in amber." Wedge away, Dems.

So, what do they say over at The Daily Kos? Something rather similar!

We filibuster Miers, which might be successful with possible Republican defections, and then what? We got Janice Brown? Priscilla Owens? We filbuster them, then what? What's being accomplished? What's the end game? To drive home that Miers is the product of Bush cronyism? The Republicans are already doing that. That she's a tool of Big Business? Sure, let's make the point. But to try and filibuster a candidate who is not an extremist, as far as we know, does little to advance the Democratic agenda. And even if successful, we'd likely end up with something far worse.

It's early, and information may arise that makes Miers unacceptable, but that hasn't happened. Not yet. Crying "filibuster" at this point, merely because she was nominated by Bush, makes little practical sense.

Ask tough questions, definitely. Highlight the cronyism, corporatism that pervades everything Bush touches, sure. But knee-jerk opposition without regards to the facts on the ground is not healthy. Let's enjoy the Republicans eating their own for now. And if information arises that places her in the extremes of American jurisprudence, then we open up.

So, why is it that Andrew Sullivan can't be bothered to read what people write before he criticizes them? What is it with Sullivan's liberal straw man?

First Principles

Catching up with news from earlier this week, I was impressed at Cheryl Bly-Chester's skill at using a piece in the Sacramento Bee to expound upon first principles upon assuming her position on the State Reclamation Board: she was provided with a pulpit, and she seized upon it!

Cheryl Bly-Chester, a Roseville civil engineer who said her years of competitive kayaking make her sensitive to river environments, wants to find ways to take builders' needs into account.

Bly-Chester is wary of "things thrown up as obstructionist flak" to stop a project, and would rather look for innovative engineering solutions.

She's been researching ways that Gulf Coast states build for their floods, by designing first floors that can stand up to inundation, for example, and wants to stay open to anything that protects public safety while ensuring land is put to its optimum use.

She anticipates dropping about a third of her clients to avoid potential conflicts between their development interests and her decisions on the Reclamation Board. The post pays $100 per meeting, up to a maximum of $4,000 per year, plus expenses.

Davy Jones' Slots

All those one-armed bandits, drowned! Enough to get the crocodile tears flowing!

When Hurricane Katrina leveled the Gulfport and Biloxi area, it silenced about 18,000 slot machines at Mississippi's floating casinos. Some of the one-armed bandits were washed into the sea. Looters ran off with others. And the vast majority — about 75 percent — were destroyed.

... Inside the Copa, battered and broken slot machines littered the casino floor, forming row after row of metallic corpses. All the favorites were there: The Wheel of Fortune, Lobster Mania, Enchanted Unicorn and Cleopatra. A pair of Regis Philbins were still standing in one corner. "It's hard to write off Regis," said McClendon, casino services manager in IGT's Gulfport office.

...And in one area of the casino, a dozen or so buckets were filled with thousands of nickels. "Quite frankly, the priority was getting the paper money out," Quinn said.

Dan Lee, chairman and chief executive of Pinnacle Entertainment Inc., said thieves sneaked into his casino and tried breaking into the machines and security carts that hold money. He said they almost got lucky — coming close to discovering roughly $400,000 that was inside a locked cash cart and left in the casino during the storm. Pinnacle recovered the money, Lee said. Armed guards now protect the casino.

... With people always devising ways to cheat the machines, IGT may have to rewrite the slots' software. The fear: People could have broken into some of the machines and stolen the software with hopes of coming back to a casino and rigging a jackpot.

The Last MX Missile

So, they've finally decommissioned the last MX missile in Wyoming! (NY Times Select article link)

I remember the MX from working at the Kirtland AFB Weapons Lab in the late 70's. The Lab had been tasked with carrying out and analyzing explosive tests on mockups of portions of the underground racetrack network, and also carrying out a number of computer simulations to aid in the design of the network.

The Big Idea was that vast - and I do mean vast - areas of the rural, western U.S. would be riddled with underground tunnels, through which large MX missiles would move, night and day, in a cat-and-mouse game to prevent the Russians from ever locating the missiles closely enough to make a first strike practical. If we needed to nuke the U.S.S.R., hydraulic rams would break through the tunnels, punch through the overlying dirt and prop the missiles up. Then the missiles' solid fuel rockets would quickly take the nuclear warheads to where they could do the most damage.

The desire was to make the U.S. nuclear deterrent invulnerable to a Soviet first strike. Improvements in Soviet missile guidance, coupled with huge Soviet warhead sizes, were calling into question whether the U.S. land-based missiles could survive a Soviet first strike.

There was a fantasy element to the whole project. The first-strike potential was worrisome, of course, but since we already had missiles on virtually-undetectable submarines, the urgency of the project seemed overdrawn - doubly so given the small size of the individual American MX warheads (tens of kilotons, if I recall correctly) doing the attack.

Fantasy-like elements reared their heads up all the time. One day, I asked my boss what he was doing. He said he was trying to evaluate, if a hundred Soviet nuclear warheads detonated simultaneously in a typical western U.S. Basin-and-Range valley, whether one could simultaneously drive a tank through a mountain pass into the valley, or whether the tank would be blown off the winding road by the winds howling through the pass. "Oh," was all I could muster in reply.

The Reagan Administration eventually decided to place the MX in silos instead, and severely cut back on the number of missiles ordered. The NY Times article implies the decision to back off the underground-tunnel idea was forced by western governors, who did not relish turning a quarter of each of their states into military reservations for the MX tunnel network. And who could blame the governors? I have no doubt that there was some pressure there.

Nevertheless, my memory is of something quite different. I heard a story that the engineers had discovered a horrible fact: the interlocked tubular network exposed a new vulnerability. The tubes could be designed to withstand the tremendous overpressures of shock waves travelling through the tubes resulting from Soviet atomic detonations in the network, but the underpressures immediately following the shock waves were another problem altogether: the tubes would crumple instantly, like a Bill Murray anti-gopher 'Caddyshack' fantasy, trapping and damaging all the American missiles at once. One well-placed Soviet bomb could wipe out an entire network.

So, then, the hawkish fantasists of the Reagan Administration were forced by an inhospitable political environment and an uncomfortable technical reality to scratch the tubular network, and treat the MX program not as a technical revolution but as just a missile upgrade, and put the missiles into still-potentially-vulnerable silos.

Billions spent, and pretty much wasted!

I wonder if the even-more hawkish and even-greater fantasy-ridden Bush Administration could ever be forced by an uncomfortable reality to scratch a particular approach to a weapons program (missile interceptors, anyone?)

Pointing Out The Obvious

Ever since the bottled water fad raised its expensive head (as I recall, in 1982), it's been little more than a massive scam, but one in which just about everyone was complicit. Doesn't bottled water make you feel special?

Heck, I buy massive amounts of bottled water and jeopardize my health by lugging the dense fluid up the back porch steps. When I drag myself and the bottled water into the kitchen, I can finally sit down, rest my wounded muscles, and swill the expensive drink in peace (all the while ignoring the city's own low-cost tap water pouring out of the faucet).

Now, this author is sounding the alarm, but forgive me for ignoring the worrywort: the woman clearly doesn't feel special enough to smile at the rip-off. She's worried about money, corporate ownership, toxins, and a whole lot of other non-special stuff:

Greater Boston spends 1,364 times the cost of perfectly good public water for Aquafina, despite indistinguishable differences, and Bostonians are not alone. Similar patterns repeat themselves across the United States.

Other scientific studies show that bottled water is no safer than public water, and often less safe, sometimes with high concentrations of toxins like arsenic and mercury. Food and Drug Administration rules for bottled water quality are quite poor compared to Environmental Protection Agency rules for tap water. But if bottled water is not necessarily cleaner or safer than public water, why have bottled water sales doubled in the United States over the past decade? And why do one of six people in the United States only drink bottled water?

The industry, led by Pepsi, Nestlé, and Coke is trying to dupe us. Misleading advertising is fueling the explosive growth of this industry. According to the most recent statistics available, in 2002 bottled water corporations spent $93.8 million to portray their products as “pure,” “safe,” “clean,” “healthy” and superior to tap water.

... Water bottling, is a fast-growing $55 billion a year business. Corporations take water from underground springs and municipal sources without regard to scarcity or human rights, and are setting out to replace our public water with a high-priced, aggressively marketed product.

... Corporations like Pepsi, Coke, and Nestlé are seeking to transform water into a commodity that can be sold for profit to the highest bidder. Instead of buying into this approach, people across the United States should be demanding that our public water systems are well maintained....

Warmer Than Usual Winter To Come?

So sayeth the National Weather Service. I wonder how accurate this forecast will prove to be?:

Government forecasters on Wednesday predicted a warmer than normal winter, offering hope to much of the Midwest and West as concern grows about the rising costs of heating during cold-weather.

The National Weather Service said there is a 60 percent chance of warmer than normal weather in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, north Texas, northern New Mexico and southern and eastern Colorado.

States adjoining that area, plus Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Hawaii also have a chance of being warmer than usual.

Other regions could be warmer or cooler than usual but no area was singled out to be especially cold.

The Miers Nomination

Christmas is early this year!

Reid planted this bug in Bush's ear, and whether he saw this disaster or whether we got lucky is irrelevant. It's been great fun watching it unfold.

Strange, Conservative Confessions

So, Jonah Goldberg has a thing against Jello, because it's gelatinous and wiggly? Well, I don't like scrambled eggs, because they are gelatinous and wiggly, but Jello and I get along fine.

"Victor/Victoria" Promo Pictures

The printed pictures were available over at RSP today (here are the Web versions). Just gorgeous! Handsome people plus good costumes (plus a dash of touch-up) equals great pictures!

(Thanks to Andrea for pointing out the SacBee Ticket promo picture).

Still Kicking!

Still some action left in the season...

Tropical Storm Vince is heading for Portugal.....

A tropical storm is being born east of Puerto Rico, and will head north and likely crash ashore in New England during the weekend...

Plus, a new Bahaman tropical storm may appear by the weekend.

Guatemalan Mudflow Damage

So all-encompassing from the recent heavy rains (aggravated by Hurricane Stan) that entire communities were lost:

Guatemala's death toll from torrential rains last week associated with Hurricane Stan stood at 652; 384 were missing.

The worst-hit communities will be abandoned and declared graveyards, officials said, after they stopped most efforts to dig out increasingly decomposed bodies.

"Panabaj will no longer exist," said Mayor Diego Esquina, referring to the Mayan hamlet on the shores of Lake Atitlan covered by a half-mile wide mudflow as much as 15 to 20 feet thick. "We are asking that it be declared a cemetery. We are tired, we no longer know where to dig."

Pictures from the wings: the "Kit Kat Klub" backdrop, and Jessica Hammon (Sally Bowles) sings "Cabaret."

"Cabaret" Closes

Nice cast! Nice show! Everyone did a real good job! Nevertheless, there were a few problems. Rachael hurt her ankle on Friday, but the sprain didn't really become manifest until Sunday. And hopefully that is our last performance at the Varsity Theater! Whether it was having the City waiting until hundreds of people were in the theater before attempting to clean out the sewer line (and incidentally depriving the cast of running water), or the troublesome electrical plug that repeatedly sabotaged the video feed to the orchestra, or the chancy air conditioning, we had a number of reminders why a unified management of the facility and the theater company might be desirable.

Wells Fargo Donation

$10,000 donation to the Young Performer's Theater! Jusdging from the pictures Dannette took, the check presentation at the performances of "Fiddler on the Roof, Jr.) went very well (unfortunately, I wasn't there - the weekend was pretty packed).

"Victor, Victoria" Rehearsals

Continuing! It's a bit awkward this last week and weekend, with inevitable conflict with the "Cabaret" schedule and DMTC Board meetings. But it's fun!

On Thursday, when I left the rehearsal space, the door must have been left open: Lauren Miller was in full comic mode, and you could hear her clear across 24th Street!

Squirrels On Crack

First, it was alien American gray squirrels muscling out native English red squirrels. Now, it's an American urban phenomenon that's popping up in the UK:

The furry animals are thought to be behind a new drugs turf war in Brixton - stealing rocks of crack hidden in front gardens.

Tough police action to rid the town centre of dealers and addicts has seen crackheads abandon their usual drug stash hideouts.

... Drug addicts are known to be hiding small stashes of crack rocks in people's front lawns late at night.

Squirrels have been spotted in the same front gardens, seemingly hunting out the buried narcotics.

... "It was ill-looking and its eyes looked bloodshot but it kept on desperately digging.

"It was almost as if it was trying to find hidden crack rocks."