Trying To Leverage The Vegas Brand

So, what do the folks at the Billboard Dance Music Summit think about Las Vegas?:

Janie Hoffman, head of West Coast marketing/event production company All Things Possible (ATP), offered to organize parties exclusive to the Summit, and reached out to clubs that would already be operational those nights - making the events a no-brainer for organizers, registrants and club management as well.

“Vegas is known for their nightclubs,” says Hoffman, whose strategy for keeping things simple, but accessible, enticed venue management. “They're the stars of the show here. You don't have to go out of your way to do anything special.”

Life By Night parties are to be held at the Palms' pool, Tryst, Voodoo Lounge, Pure, Tangerine and Tao. The biggest of the parties is arguably Monday night at Voodoo, co-organized by Harrah's Director of Nightclubs Pauly Freedman and headlined by Dutch trance superstar Ferry Corsten. Italian DJ Spankox, emerging English act Loose Cannons, and locals Robert Oleysyck and Scotty Boy round out the bill. (A full schedule of nighttime events is included in this issue.)

“This has become the industry standard for around the world,” says Hoffman. “[The nightclub industry] comes to Vegas and goes [back home and says], ‘OK, Vegas my nightclub,' wherever it may be. The original pitch I made to Billboard, as far as the importance of Vegas overall as it appeals to this audience, is, ‘It's fucking Disneyland on acid, the Emerald City on steroids ...'”

Beware of Sopranos!

James McElroy writes: "Did you catch this?"

Alaskan storm cracks giant iceberg to pieces in faraway Antarctica: Study tracks surprising connection between distant events

James adds: "I especially like the simile expressed in the following":

Tiny ocean swells may seem too small to break an iceberg, but the crew of Captain Cook’s Endeavour knew well their hazards. The Endeavour ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef near Australia on a calm night in 1770. "But there was just enough swell to pick up the Endeavour and pound it relentlessly against the coral heads," MacAyeal said. Until his crew lightened the ship, Cook feared it would be pounded to smithereens.

And just like the Endeavour, the iceberg had run aground near Cape Adare and the Possession Islands in Antarctica before the swell hit. "We think that B15A was in the right position where these waves would be fatal to it," MacAyeal said. "The iceberg shattered like a gracile wine glass being sung to by a heavy soprano."

Beware of sopranos! - Jim McElroy

Cinnamon

Page and Charlie Berghoffer got a puppy. So cute!

Hard Work...

...Keeping up with the sexual indiscretions of Republican politicians (but this blog tries).

Retroactive Immunity

From Jim Vanderventer, Jr., a timely message from the Cafferty files.

Trunk Monkey

Call on your trusty chimp.

Theater Notes

From their newsletter, Thistledew Dessert Theater needs short plays:

The Thistle Dew Theatre for PLAYWRIGHTS SPECIAL call: ten to twenty minute plays needed. E-mail submissions accepted: tom@thistle-dew.net. Or bring it to The Thistle Dew Theatre.

Thistle Dew's Playwrights Workshop and Readers Theatre. Our group meets every Monday evening at 7:00pm. If you would like to take part in the playwright's workshop process, please call Tom at 444-8209 or email: tom@thistle-dew.net.

Also, Gil and Lenore Sebastian are performing, but in separate theaters, in Roseville:

Lenore is Mama Rose in GYPSY
September 8 - October 21
Fridays/Saturday @ 8:00; Sundays @ 2:00
Roseville Theatre, 241 Vernon St., Roseville, CA 95678
******************************************
Gil is Oscar in THE ODD COUPLE
September 15 - October 14
Fridays/Saturday @ 8:00; Sundays @ 2:00
Tower Theatre, 421 Vernon St., Roseville, CA 95678

Anniversary

How could I forget? Today is the 30th anniversary of shaking hands with Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter, at Stapleton Airport, shortly after a campaign rally in downtown Denver, during the 1976 presidential campaign.

I haven't washed my right hand since.

Small Gifts

Where was Heather?:

Sometimes in the midst of a national scandal, the smallest and most seemingly innocuous item from an incumbent's legislative history can turn into a political gift. In the scorched-earth Albuquerque race pitting GOP Rep. Heather Wilson against New Mexico state attorney general Patricia Madrid, the Democrats discovered to their glee that the incumbent had served on the five-member board overseeing the House page program from 2001 until the end of 2004, a time when Foley had already been suggestively messaging these young boys. That tendentious bit of guilt-by-timing was enough to produce an Albuquerque Journal story Tuesday morning with the headline: "Wilson Denies Prior Knowledge of Foley E-Mails." As Heather Brewer, the press secretary for the Madrid campaign, said in a phone interview: "This is a nightmare for Wilson. She sat on that page board for three years."

Peter Beinart's Valiant Battle Against Straw

Via Atrios. Frank Rich rips into TNR's Peter Beinart. And he should. Beinart's strange obsession with Michael Moore is inexplicable:

He's also a straw man. It's hard to argue that Moore, a diva whose shtick is hyperbole and provocation, has fomented any movement that threatens to take over the Democratic Party or even Hollywood. Fahrenheit 9/11—seen by less than a third of the audience of leading 2004 hits like Shrek 2 and The Passion of the Christ—did not move election results; it did prompt an outpouring of liberal documentaries, most of which have barely registered at the box office (Gore's An Inconvenient Truth being a modest exception). However many reflexive pacifists there may be in Moore's audience, or at Cindy Sheehan rallies, or on blogs, the number of Americans who opposed defeating al-Qaeda and the Taliban after September 11 was a tiny fringe; Bush enjoyed nearly 90 percent–plus support, including for the war in Afghanistan, with good reason.

The tragedy is that when Bush betrayed the country's trust and hijacked a united citizenry for his own ends there were too many liberals who went MIA, whether in Congress or on opinion pages, at a time, as Beinart concedes, when such a principled opposition "was needed most." That opposition could have rallied around the same principles that are espoused in The Good Fight without succumbing to Bush propaganda about a war that has done more to harm the battle against terrorism than any blogging pacifist has. It would have been a far better thing for the country if liberal hawks had articulated those principles clearly then without compromising them. Their inability to do so was a systemic intellectual failure that Beinart's book only begins to address. And while it's better late than never to stand up for the credo outlined in The Good Fight, what current Democratic leader does not now endorse the same basic national security catechism as Beinart's, from Howard Dean to Hillary Clinton? The only real debate among Democrats today is over the timetable for the inevitable drawdown of American troops from Iraq, not from the battle against Islamic terrorists. So limited is the power of the leftist activists feared by Beinart that they have been unable to persuade most Democratic candidates in tight election races this fall to support any plan for a precipitous Iraq withdrawal.

"Obsession - Radical Islam's War Against the West"

"Hey, Marc, you really should check out this movie! It's full of conspiracy theories concerning 9/11!" That was the promise Keith made. So I watched the DVD. The next day I said, "I'm surprised you suggested this movie: it's 105% pro-George-Bush." "It is?", Keith said, somewhat flummoxed, "I don't know about that. What I liked was all the Al-Jazeera outtakes, showing us what the Arabs actually see on their TV sets, all the anti-Semitism, rather than just hearing about it from Fox News."

"Obsession - Radical Islam's War Against the West" is a movie about the War on Terror from a neoconservative perspective. The movie is partly an inspiration of UK-based activists, and features many leading activists fighting against radical Islam:

From the creators of "Relentless," comes a new film that will challenge the way you look at the world.

Almost 70 years ago, Europe found itself at war with one of the most sinister figures in modern history: Adolf Hitler. When the last bullet of World War II was fired, over 50 million people were dead, and countless countries were both physically and economically devastated. Hitler’s bloody struggle sought to forge the world anew, in the crucible of Nazi values. How could such a disaster occur? How could the West have overlooked the evil staring it in the face, for so long, before standing forcefully against it?

Today, we find ourselves confronted by a new enemy, also engaged in a violent struggle to transform our world. As we sleep in the comfort of our homes, a new evil rises against us. A new menace is threatening, with all the means at its disposal, to bow Western Civilization under the yoke of its values. That enemy is Radical Islam.

Using images from Arab TV, rarely seen in the West, Obsession reveals an ‘insider's view' of the hatred the Radicals are teaching, their incitement of global jihad, and their goal of world domination. With the help of experts, including first-hand accounts from a former PLO terrorist, a Nazi youth commander, and the daughter of a martyred guerilla leader, the film shows, clearly, that the threat is real.

A peaceful religion is being hijacked by a dangerous foe, who seeks to destroy the shared values we stand for. The world should be very concerned.

Today, WWIII is raging, but few are aware of it. War has been declared by Radical Islam against the West, but much of the the West, like Chamberlain did in his time, tends to discount the threat, choosing instead to appease it. Today, even those with courage enough to recognize the conflict, fear to identify the enemy, instead calling it a 'war on terror', as if terror—a means of battle, not an enemy—and not some specific group of people, was the foe.

Aside from 9/11, we are today witnessing violent Islamic insurgencies erupting all around the world: In Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand. We see the Russians are fighting Al-Qaeda linked rebels in Chechnya, ... Obsession makes clear that we are facing an enemy intent on destroying us.

We’ve been here before. Obsession also explores the current threat and its surprising parallels with Nazi Germany. We can learn about Nazism by listening to Hitler in his writing and actions - he was a clear thinker who knew that he was battling over the moral foundations of Western civilization. Hitler fought against the 'insidious Judeo-Christian ethics' which had been almost victorious over the ancient values of power and 'might makes right'. In going against the West, Hitler determined he must focus on and destroy the Jews as well, the people who he identified as the source of these sinister Western values. WWII, Hitler's war, showed how deeply he believed his ideas.

And what are the Radical Islamists about? They also express themselves clearly, if only we choose to listen. Obsession will help us listen. The Islamists are now acting out their ambitions and threatening the values of freedom, democracy, respect for human life, and other shared ideals of Western civilization.

Much of the Western world today would like to believe that we have arrived at an era of heightened moral refinement, or that Radical Islam has some legitimate grievances that, once solved, would bring peace and stability. But Radical Islam, a dangerous strain of the world's fastest growing religion, believes the time has come for its final violent victory over the Crusader infidels of America and the West.

Like WWII before it, this is an ideological war of aggression against Western civilization, and like WWII, the Western powers are waking up far too slowly.

Our shared values are at stake. The enemies of the West are not mistaken: the West stands for an ethical system of civilization that threatens them. And they have not come to terms with these values. To the degree that the West recognizes that they are ALREADY in a war for the survival of their democratic civilization, they will resist.

An erstwhile peaceful religion has been hijacked by extremists who are seeking to transform our world. Obsession will help people appreciate that freedom itself is at stake today. Western civilization should be concerned.

As made clear by their timeline of terrorist actions, the movie emphasizes that we are facing a single, unified threat.

Nevertheless, there are strange omissions that make one wonder. Film footage shows Bosnian Muslims attacking an unidentified Christian church. The church is probably either Serbian or Croatian, and begs the question of whether the moviemakers feel we should have allowed the 1994/95 genocide against Bosnian Muslims to proceed. Mass killings are one answer to supposed religious extremism, after all.

(Which brings up an old memory - an excellent essay from 30 years ago - was it Czeslaw Milosz? - regarding going through the ruins of a Serbian church desecrated by the Communists - history repeats itself yet again)

Graphic footage is also shown of "American civilians" being burned alive in their vehicle and dragged through Iraqi streets. But these killings are likely not of American tourists on a jaunt, but rather the mob attacks on four Blackwater security contractors - mercenaries who defied U.S. Marines and travelled undermanned through Fallujah, Iraq, in March, 2004.

Constant invocation is made of the threat once posed by the Nazis, and its equivalence to today's threat. There are, indeed, many disturbing parallels, and particularly for people who have lived in Arab societies - Nonie Darwish, for one - their testimony can be compelling.

But it's one thing to resist tyranny from within a society, and to aid those resisting; it's another thing altogether to invade one of the primary centers of the Islamic world from without, with only 140,000 troops, and with the expectation of a cheery welcome.

What I found most galling was the invocation of Edmund Burke's famous quote:

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

and to openly state that every generation has to renew the gift of freedom through sacrifice, and that THIS battle was our generation's task. Very heady stuff, and very appealing to the idealistic young, but whom may I ask, decided that THIS task is ours? To me, it sounds like a call to arms. It sounds like jihad, but a Western variant - the Crusades, 21st-Century version. The movie's title is very revealing: it's about "Obsession" all right, but not just from the radical Muslim point of view.

As the Cold War made clear, the best answer to foreign aggression isn't rollback, and isn't appeasement, it's containment.

And no good 9/11 conspiracy theories besides! What was Keith thinking?

Getting A Grip On Titanic's Fuel Use

I was dumbfounded by the statistics I saw on Titanic's use of coal, and James McElroy was intrigued. Here is his research on the question.

Marc,

This started as a post to your Blog on the Titanic Exhibition but it just got out of hand. If you want to use it feel free. It's just something I like to do.

Jim McElroy

==========================================================
Fun with Numbers

The fuel consumption numbers quoted for the Titanic do appear questionable but the way the statistic was presented is even more interesting. 60 lbs every 1.5 sec? WTF! It is the same mind boggling approach seen every day at the supermarket when asked to compare two products that are $1.98 for 24 oz. or $2.29 for 28 oz. The intention is to confuse.

Anyhow, the quoted fuel consumption is obviously 40 lb of coal per second, 72 tons per hour, or 1728 tons per day. Since the trip across the Atlantic required 6 days, the ship's capacity of 6,000 tons would have run out 3 days and 11 hours into the trip. I think that was before they met their iceberg. That would probably have been a "good thing", at least we wouldn't be visiting various Titanic road shows.

Being incurably curious, I looked up the Titanic's fuel consumption posted in the Titanic specifications listed on the website

http://library.thinkquest.org/21583/to/spec.htm

quoted at 825 tons of coal per day. This means that 4950 tons would be consumed on the trip, much more suitable for the 6000 ton capacity.

This leads to thoughts of global warming. Is there some way to graphically show the thermal cost of this trip? Well, yes, in a general way. Coal has a heat content that varies greatly with the source and composition. It is a raw material, not a manufactured product. Coal of the type used for marine propulsion has a heat value ranging from 11,000 BTU/lb to 14,000 BTU/lb (per Marks Mechanical Engineers Handbook) so we'll pick 12,000 BTU/lb because it is an easy number to work with. For those who studied computer science instead of the real world, a BTU (British Thermal Unit) is a standard unit, dating back to the days of James Watt, and is defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of water from 60 deg F to 61 deg F. From this we can state that the 4950 tons (9.9 million pounds) of coal, would release 118.8 billion Btu's of thermal energy. We could round off to 120 billion Btu's, but what the hell, I have a calculator (score one for Computer Science).

Whee-ooo! That's a lot of Btu's, right? Or not. Is there any way to graphically describe how much heat this is? Well, yes, you knew there would be didn't you. We'll pull out another number from Mark's Handy Handbook and note that it requires 144 Btu's to melt one pound of Ice at 32 deg F. The heat produced by one trip across the Atlantic could melt 825,000,000 pounds or 412500 tons of Ice. To give a more visual perspective we look up another number, the density of Ice at 32 deg F which is 56 lb/cuft. A cube of ice weighing 825,000,000 lbs will occupy 13.22 million cubic feet and will measure 245 feet on each side. An iceberg of this dimension would weigh almost 10 times the gross tonnage of the Titanic and be almost one third of it's length. The top surface of the cube would be 24 feet above water level. This is probably comparable to or larger than the iceberg which did in the Titanic. You think it may have been a preemptive strike? If so it didn't work there either. Icebergs in the northern hemisphere are becoming an endangered species.

What about modern transportation? We can do exactly the same calculation for Air Travel. From the website

http://travel.howstuffworks.com/question192.htm

I acquired a fuel consumption figure of 5 gal/mile for a loaded Boeing 747. The figure was attributed to the Boeing website but I could not confirm. Probably a marketing news release. Anyhow, using 3,500 miles as the distance from New York to London, about the same as the Titanic route, it takes 17,500 gallons of jet fuel(kerosene) to cross the Atlantic once. The density of kerosene is 6.8 lbs/gal and it has a heating value of 19,810 BTU/lb. Jet fuel is a manufactured product and the numbers are pretty precise. Using the same calculation we find that a Boeing 747 flying from New York to London will release 2.36 billion BTU each trip. But wait, a 747 carries only about 500 passengers, while the Titanic carried about 2000. So, it takes four 747's to carry the same passenger load, or 9.44 billion Btu's compared to the Titanic's value of 118.8 billion Btu's to transport the same number of passengers. This is really why you see so few ocean liners on the transatlantic crossing today, not passenger convenience.

From here you get into the details of where combustion products are deposited, at ocean level (next to the world's largest carbon sink) or in the stable stratosphere where they stick around and block heat loss. The same type of calculations can be and are made for these effects, but I'm gonna bail.

Regarding Jim's last paragraph, most climatologists and atmospheric chemists believe that most of the carbon dioxide released by combustion processes remains in the atmosphere. The ocean is nearly supersaturated with CO2, and can only take it up in certain locales, one of which isn't too far away, actually, as Jim mentions - cold, sinking water near Iceland. Another primary sink for CO2, the weathering of rocks on land surfaces, is widely-dispersed, and the numbers are still poorly-understood. That's why CO2 has increased 15% or so, from 315 to 380 ppmv, just in my lifetime - it just accumulates.

Time To Mock The Dead

Via Atrios. It's getting to be that time of year, after all:

Helen Chenoweth-Hage, a conservative Republican firebrand who served three terms as an Idaho congresswoman, was killed Monday when thrown from a car that overturned on an isolated central Nevada highway.

Chenoweth-Hage was a passenger in the S-U-V-type vehicle that flipped just before noon on State Route 376, the main route between her Pine Creek Ranch, in Monitor Valley, and Tonopah.

The Nevada Highway Patrol says the 68-year-old victim was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver, daughter-in-law Yelena Hage, and her 5-month-old son Bryan weren't seriously injured.

N-H-P Trooper Rocky Gonzalez says Chenoweth-Hage was holding the baby and wasn't wearing a seatbelt. State law requires both seatbelts and babyseats. Both Chenoweth-Hage and the baby were thrown from the car but the child had only minor injuries.

October Surprise

Left: Photo via Talking Points Memo.


Everyone falls on their faces as the congressional races get down to the wire. In New York:

The Upstate media today is all about Tom Reynolds' bizarre press conference yesterday, at which he surrounded himself by small children. At one point, reporters asked if he could make the children leave so they could as adult questions, and he refused.

"West Side Story" - Week Three

Left: Maria (Chelsea Baldree), Anita (Amanda Morish), and one of the Sharks (Hermenio Torres).







Bernardo (David Ott) gets ready to practice some "shock and awe" on Riff.

In the back, Andy Hyun (obscured), Ryan Warren, Edward Nelson, Colby Salmon (as Tony), and Henry Holloway.



"Somewhere" Ballet - Chloe Condon, Marissa Casillas, and Edward Nelson.

Third Friday was fairly-rough: Bess got the giggles and folks were breaking character during "Cool." Saturday was great - lots of energy! Sunday was a little more subdued, although I think it was the audience, not the cast. Katy's party the night before notwithstanding, everyone soldiered on with lots of energy.

Familiar Haunts Between Las Vegas And Sacramento

Left: The Las Vegas Strip. The Mandalay Bay Hotel and Resort is in the foreground, where Kelly Daniells performs nightly.


We live in an Age of Miracles, when SO MUCH can be learned just by looking out the window of an aircraft!

Contrail shadow across the land, across the southwestern flank of the Spring Mountains, west of Las Vegas. Highway 160 crosses over Mountain Springs Summit (5,493 ft a.m.s.l.) down there.

The same contrail (above), and its remarkably dark and vivid shadow on a haze layer at the top of the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL).

At first, I thought this was Coaldale Playa, but in retrospect, it's probably Mud Lake, SE of Tonopah. Not many other round playas in the desert (although Willcox Playa in southeastern Arizona and Searles Lake in California come to mind).


What is this crazy place? It may be a salt marsh near Silver Peak, NV, but I'm not sure.

At first, I thought this was the highway intersection between Highway 395 (left-to-right across center of picture), and Highway 3 (bottom-to-middle along right edge). Just a wide spot in the desert, really, but I'm fond of it nonetheless. I had good times playing with my dog Stella, in December, 1993, at this intersection. Stella vanished in February, 1994, and I've been sad about it ever since.

Looking again, I may be wrong. Now, I think this is the intersection between Highway 10 and Highway 395, south of Mina. Also another wide spot in the desert!

Walker Lake, remnant of Ice Age Lake Bonneville. I love this semi-desolate salt lake! Just imagine it one thousand times bigger, and that's Ice Age Lake Bonneville!

Yerington, Nevada, with the East Walker River flowing in from the west (left) and flowing out to the east (right).

Crazy ranchettes near the intersection of Highway 395 and Highway 3 to Yerington, right near the CA-NV state line, about 20 miles SE of Minden, NV. Is that Topaz lake down there? It looks so small! There is a U.S. Marine base just south of Topaz Lake, over the state line in California.

I can't quite figure out the exact attraction of living here - far from civilization, hard-scrabble (wait - I'm from Corrales, NM, not much of a different kind of place, so I should just shut up).

Looking north along the CA-NV state line, just east of Lake Tahoe. Washoe Lake is evident - it's just on the other side of Carson City, NV.

Lake Tahoe, as seen from the southwest, looking past the big bathtub provided by the Sierra Nevada, into the Great Beyond of northern Nevada.

Bridge over the American River, on Highway 49, just south of Auburn, CA.

"Mamma Mia" At Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas

When John Wright and myself handed our tickets to the usher, the usher got excited and said "Oooh! These are special tickets!" Then he showed us where they were: dead center, first row, of the 1600-seat house. Pointing at the conductor and lead keyboardist, the usher said: "Say hi! to Pepe!" We all said: "Hi Pepe!"

I sat directly behind "Pepe" (the program lists him as Michael Brennan). I could easily see the three electric guitarists and three other keyboardists in the orchestra pit. I could comfortably read Pepe's music, and if I didn't like what he was playing, I could easily have leaned forward and smacked him on the side of his head.

Beside us sat a couple from Winnipeg, Manitoba. The fellow was a radiologist, and was a frequent visitor to UCD in Davis. Especially at intermission, they listened appreciatively I told them all about Kelly Daniells, and her start with DMTC, and some of her background in Sacramento-area musical theater.

The show itself, from such a close vantage point, was like being swept away in an explosion of high energy - a nuclear detonation of high-energy singing and dancing, with no end of exciting shocks! I have nothing but the highest praise for the show. Kelly was fantastic as Sophie Sheridan, of course, but everyone else was a phenomenon too: Vicki Van Tassel as Tanya, Robin Baxter as Rosie, and Carol Linnea Johnson as Donna Sheridan. The men were great as well: Jefferson Slinkard, Rick Negron, and Andy Taylor (Taylor played Leo Bloom in "The Producers" when its tour last stopped in Sacramento, and he will be reprising the role in the Las Vegas version of "The Producers.") The supporting corps of performers were just as fantastic, or in some cases, even better.

The only concerns I had were safety issues - I freaked when Vicki Van Tassel skidded towards the orchestra pit, and I was concerned in the Dream sequence at the top of Act II, when Kelly's head was positioned at the whip end of a rapidly-moving bed. My concerns were apparently-unmerited, but in community theater, such moves would be problematic.

At the end of the show, I leaned forward and told the conductor: "Great job! Now, play "Chess"! He nodded and said "Actually, I'd like to play that."

After the show, we lingered briefly in the event Kelly came out early, but we were both hungry and tired and ABBA-blasted, so we departed.

"Titanic - The Artifacts Exhibition"

Left: A silly mortal stands on a recreation of the Titanic's Grand Staircase, at "Titanic - The Artifacts Exhibition", currently at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas.

We are all passengers on the Titanic - Jack Foster, Irish philosopher

"Titanic - The Artifacts Exhibition" has been at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas since June 1st, and was joined more-recently by one of the two (independently-managed) travelling "Bodies" exhibitions. The "Titanic" and "Bodies" exhibitions are side-by-side at the Tropicana.

The ethical circumstances of the "Bodies" exhibition are somewhat murky - did the people whose pieces and parts are on display actually give their permission for this strange afterlife? In any event, the "Titanic" display sounded more interesting, and less-compromised, so I went to see it.

At the exhibition wall, a banner was painted announcing the paired exhibitions. The banner read:

Titanic * Bodies * Titanic * Bodies * Titanic * Bodies * Titanic * Bodies * Titanic * Bodies * Titanic * Bodies * Titanic * Bodies *

I found the banner annoying. I thought, "it was 1,573 bodies, or so, OK? Give it a rest already!"

At the beginning of the walk through, they hand you a White Star Line boarding pass for a real person on the Titanic. I drew Mr. David John Barton, age 22, who was travelling to Rochester, NY, to take a job with Kodak. He had twice-failed a physical exam for third-class passengers, was left behind as his friends sailed forth on other ships, but finally was deemed healthy enough for travel.

The exhibition featured great photographs, plus some film clips, showing the process of hand-riveting steel plates (an older process used in difficult-to-reach places) and the newer, hydraulic riveting process.

The heart of the exhibition was all the various artifacts of daily-life recovered from the depths. Some artifacts are good-as-new, but depending on the exact manufacturing processes involved, some artifacts have suffered salt-water damage over the decades. Well-made artifacts jostle with indifferently-made ones to catch your eye.

There were strange looking items, such as the Titanic's whistles, as well as "Kilroy's Sounding Indicator," which gonged every few minutes, and flashed a number, to signal that one of the coal furnaces in a boiler room needed coal. The Titanic had a first-class gymnasium, featuring dumbbells, a Turkish bath, a squash court that could be rented for $1 per half hour, plus an "electric camel." Mockups of a third-class cabin and a first-class stateroom were presented, as well as a frigid, ultra-air-conditioned first-class promenade deck. A twisted porthole and a decorative ironwork from the Verandah Window Cafe were also shown.

Dining and personal items include: jars, dishes, a chef's cap, a waiter's notepad, tiles, cooking pots, shaving gear, a medicine dropper with a rubber bulb, an eyedropper, a toothpaste jar, a shoe brush, and face mirrors made with faux-ivory plastic backing and handle (plastics were just being invented).

One big surprise is how much paper they recovered intact from the depths. In 1912, the federal government still had not taken full control of the authority to issue money (that was in 1914, I believe), so there were a variety of dollar bills issued by obscure national banks all across the U.S., featuring Indian chieftains, wildlife, and all sorts of people, including the late President William McKinley. Many European banks looked upon this colorful array of paper money with suspicion, so most Americans travelling internationally at the time carried British pounds instead.

The fuel use statistics confounded me: I don't even know if they are correct. One pound of coal consumed per foot of travel, or 60 pounds every 1.5 seconds. The Titanic carried 6,000 tons of coal!

Towards the end of the maze-like exhibition, they played a soundtrack featuring what sounded like New-Age whalesong, which conjured up emotions of aquatic dread. They have a large scale model of what the forward portion of the Titanic looks like today on the ocean bottom. The Titanic is rusting away rather quickly: in 40 to 90 years, the remaining structure will utterly collapse.

The last room features personal items that have been tracked directly to specific people: Adolphe Saalfeld's perfume vials, Howard Irwin's business cards, Marion Meanwell's valise, and items belonging to George Rosenshine and Franz Pulbaum. I saw a woman quietly weeping as she looked at the surprisingly well-preserved black leather shoes belonging to Edgar Samuel Andrew, an Argentine-born English teenager.

Andrew's story was a real surprise. He had been summoned from England by his family to attend his brother's wedding in the United States, but like many others, he had been bumped from his first-choice of trans-Atlantic ship by a coal miner's strike, and he was forced to depart sooner than he wished. Andrew was very annoyed:

Eighty-nine years after the sinking of the TITANIC, a conservation team and researchers from RMS Titanic, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: SOST - news; the company owning the salvage rights to the famous ship) discovered that a suitcase brought up from the wreck site this past summer contained the personal belongings of a seventeen- year-old man named Edgar Samuel Andrew. Mr. Andrew, a citizen of Argentina, boarded the Titanic in Southampton, England, not far from where he was attending school.

Ironically, an exhibit of Titanic artifacts opened in Argentina in March 2001, and researchers were able to locate the family members of Edgar Samuel Andrew. Further investigation revealed a remarkable letter sent by Andrew to his friend in Argentina, Josey Cowan, just two days before he was to board the TITANIC.

Edgar had purchased a ticket to board the Steamship OCEANIC, but due to a coal strike, he was forced to change his ticket and go aboard the TITANIC. He wrote:

"You figure, Josey, I had to leave on the 17th this (month) aboard the ''Oceanic", but due to the coal strike that steamer cannot depart, so I have to go one week earlier on board the ''Titanic". It really seems unbelievable that I have to leave a few days before your arrival, but there's no help for it, I've got to go''.

"You figure, Josey, I am boarding the greatest steamship in the world, but I don't really feel proud of it at all, right now I wish the 'Titanic' were lying at the bottom of the ocean''.

The Titanic Exhibition captures a moment flash-frozen in time - a different, vanished world, just out of living memory, but still intimately connected with every part of our own world.

And Mr. David Barton? Like so many third-class passengers, he did not survive.

Wednesday Night At The MGM Grand

Spent time alternating between blackjack and dancing at Studio 54 And Tabu. The gambling was just horrible, as it often is - continual losses ($565 or so). The dancing was better though.

When I first arrived at Studio 54, there were very few dancers, oddly enough - maybe ten or so. Enthusiasm was low at Studio 54 on a Wednesday night stretching into Thursday morning. So, management sent out the girls to do their fun trapeze act. After awhile, the dancing picked up, and the energy level escalated.

Didn't make any new friends or have any particular zany adventures this time, but I did enjoy myself.

(Left): Projected image from the ceiling onto one of the low tabletops at Tabu.

The music seemed unfamiliar to me at Tabu - energetic but practically from some unknown genre. So I asked the DJ what he was playing. "We play progressive House music," he said patronizingly. "No, no, what are you playing?", I insisted. He said it was 'The Drill,' by "The Edge." I will have to locate that.

The girls do their Cirque du Soleil inspired act at Studio 54. Like the Cirque girls, they rose from the floor on chrysalis-like body wraps, but they are considerably more hemmed-in by the numerous racks of lights above the dance floor than the Cirque girls would be. So they pose a lot, which works just fine for me!

What Plummets In Vegas, Stays In Vegas

John and Mike explained what happened (paraphrasing):

John: We had come out of the bicycle convention and we were walking on the sidewalk on The Strip in front of the Wynn Casino, when we looked up at the escalators people use to get to the pedestrian walkway across The Strip. There was this guy, probably a fellow biker, about 20 years old, who was going up the escalator, but on the outside: his hands were on the rail, but he was stepping along the outer metal flange. I looked away briefly, then *bang!* he fell from the top, 20 feet onto the sidewalk, right in front of us.

Mike: He fell on his side. He didn't move at all for at least 20, maybe 30 seconds, until he started moaning slightly, as his friends gathered around.

John: If we had been back in Oklahoma City, I would have rushed over and said "Oh my God! What happened? Can we help?" But here in Las Vegas, you wonder if this sort of thing is normal, people falling from great heights onto the sidewalk. So, we stepped past and let his friends call the ambulance.

So, what happened? Looking at the top of the escalator, at where the plexiglass barrier would prevent you from continuing further, it would seem like child's play to simply push oneself up and over the handrail and jump back onto the escalator. But if one hesitates, for whatever reason, then you have to start moving your hands over each other, interweaving them, to continually maintain contact with the handrail. It would be be altogether too easy to let go of the handrail altogether for an instant, and if one's weight is also back - if one isn't already standing erect - then you'll fall!

I can see the temptation. It looks SO easy! Looks may be deceptive in this case, however. Not the first time in Las Vegas that looks deceived.

My Trip To Las Vegas - Brave Man In A 21st-Century Transportation Dystopia

Just returned from a whirlwind two-day trip to Las Vegas to see my old college friend, John Wright, who was in town briefly himself to attend the Interbike Bicycling Convention. My head hurts, my feet hurt, I have no money, and I'm SO sleepy - gee, it sounds like tech week at DMTC!

I had three unexpected tasks just before leaving, yet I still managed to make the uneventful Wednesday midafternoon flight (slow traffic helped). Because of poor planning, I left two tasks unarranged: I had no room, and I had no transportation. Fact is, I couldn't decide whether or not my visit was so brief that my usual practice, a car rental, was pointless. Finally, at the Las Vegas Airport, I decided to rent a car, but there were none available: too many big conventions in town. Stymied, I took an ALC shuttle bus to the Strip instead. I sat in the stifling back of the bus, next to a wizened little Jewish man from New York, who assured me that things in Las Vegas just weren't the way they used to be.

Our bus bounced like a pinball from one side of the Strip to the other, from the Rio to the Imperial Palace, to Caesar's Palace, to the Flamingo Hilton, eventually ending up at the Riviera, where John Wright was staying with his bike shop employee, Mike Boyd. At the Rio, I watched a young, harried, apparently-tardy woman employee use her econo-car to nearly bowl over a torpid jogger struggling in the unexpected 90-degree warmth. At Caesar's Palace, we parked in the driveway directly under the upraised tail of a rearing faux-marble stallion. So uplifting!

At the hotel, I discovered they had no rooms: too many big conventions in town. Fortunately, John and Mike just then arrived from their convention, and John offered the spare bed in his room. Whew!

Transportation along The Strip is aided by the presence of a frequently-scheduled, double-decker city-sponsored bus service called "The Deuce." Like all things with card-related names in Las Vegas, sometime The Deuce helps, and sometimes it doesn't.

After dinner with John and Mike, I boarded The Deuce, bound for the MGM Grand for the evening. Shortly after boarding, the bus driver announced to the lower-level, standing room crowd that there were more seats upstairs "for the brave." Never having been on a double-decker bus before, I started with anticipation towards the stairwell. A woman said "Look! A brave man!" People laughed, and started applauding. I pumped my fist in the air to encourage them. When I arrived upstairs, they were applauding too. So silly!

Returning from the MGM Grand, at 5 a.m., the bus was only somewhat-less crowded than it had been earlier. A man in a sleeveless T-Shirt groused about unnecessary air conditioning.

On Thursday morning, I headed back down The Strip again, intending on getting off at Flamingo Rd. in order to thenceforward walk across Interstate Highway 15 to the Gold Coast Casino, where I was going to meet another old college friend and Las Vegas resident, Ira Gershin, for lunch at the buffet - all the time he could afford on a busy workday. Gabbing with a fellow rider, I missed my stop, and ended up at Tropicana Ave. Knowing now how slow The Deuce's return trip could be, I decided to walk to my destination, 2.1 miles, which I made in time, but only because I had an hour to do it.

Flamingo Road has a pedestrian walkway across I-15 on its northern side. I, of course, elected to cross on the primitive, exposed, and dangerous south side. Homeless folks bummed cash from the turning traffic. Assorted trash was everywhere, including a squashed pigeon. The saving grace was a humble honeybee gathering nectar.

After a pleasant lunch, I returned the same dangerous way back, this time to see the Titanic Exhibition at the Tropicana. I took two detours. I crossed the street to The Palms, and held the door open as two glamorous women, and one beefy guy entered. Beefy guy uttered into his cell phone 'you are too quick to admit that.' My curiosity piqued - you are too quick to admit what? - I followed the glamorous trio through the casino, but broke off when they entered a cafe. Later, I detoured to try and figure out the purpose of an obscure building, unmarked except for a street number. Seemed like a sensitive place - even the trash bins were surrounded by razor fencing. Was it an exclusive strip club, maybe? I was going to ask the homeless guys, but they had headed off to Del Taco with their 'earnings.' The highlight of the return walk was a car slowing to make a turn. A pretty woman rolled down her passenger-side window and spat just in front of me. Did I look homeless too? Or was it something she ate? Maybe the squab was squashed pigeon? Who knows?

After the Titanic exhibition, and another half-mile or so of walking, I tried to return to the Riviera on The Deuce, but rush-hour crowds had utterly overwhelmed the bus line. Entry was NOT possible. So I frantically hoofed it back through the mob along The Strip, 2.5 miles, from the Tropicana to the Riviera, in an hour. The Deuce was so slow that even on foot I kept pace with it, northwards, nearly as far as Flamingo Rd. Ohmigod! So much walking (2.1 x 2 + 0.5 + 2.5 = 7.2 miles) and the day was not over!

Southbound Deuce was better, as John and I traveled towards the Mandalay Bay in order to see "Mamma Mia." Still, the three-mile trip took an hour, and we counted ourselves lucky. Fellow "Mamma Mia" goers on the bus were getting increasingly-agitated that they might miss the show, despite their best efforts.

After the show, the northbound return trip on The Deuce was just the worst! Thousands of people were being dumped onto the streets from multiple shows all at the same time. The bus driver was crabby and exasperated with the swarm of people he evidently considered stupid, particularly those going up and down the stairwell while the bus was in motion. At one point, several people entered the bus through the exit door, and melted inconspicuously among the packed passengers without paying. The driver threatened to halt the bus altogether until the miscreants paid. The threat was hollow, though: we were barely-moving anyway. John, who is known for his patience, began muttering darkly about how Las Vegas was one big Rube Goldberg machine run amok.

This morning, since the ALC shuttle bus return trip to the airport had to be arranged on the hour, I arose at 5:20 a.m. in order to make the 6 a.m. appointment. Since there were so many no-shows on this driver's appointed route, I ended up at the airport at 6:30 a.m., a full three hours before my flight time. What was I going to do with all this extra time? Fortunately, while buying a newspaper, the morning rush-hour security-screening lines grew from outrageous to darn near Brobdignagian, so now I knew for certain how I was going to spend my time. Amusing TSA videos on an endless loop, featuring well-known Las Vegas celebrities, advised people how to avoid security delays. I wished to throttle these celebrities. A chagrined woman cut lines in order to try and make her flight - I felt for her embarrassment. An unexpected gap in the lines gave me a moment's rest from claustrophobia just when I began muttering darkly about how Las Vegas was one big Rube Goldberg machine run amok.

Las Vegas has a very weak government. Much of The Strip itself is outside the city limits of Las Vegas, and within the amorphous, obscure boundaries of the Township of Paradise, where business rules. Transportation issues have been privatized and corporatized, to the detriment of many, many people. As the decades pass, the federal government is apparently adopting the same kind of approach.

Sad, but one must make one's compromises: Next time, despite the assault on the public weal each additional vehicle represents, rent a car!

Must....Go.....Irresistable.....Pull

John's annual bicycle convention is being held in Las Vegas this week, and he asked if I wanted to meet him there, just like we both did in 2003.

Does a ball roll downhill?

So, the blog will take a brief hiatus. I hope to report back late on Friday.....

Approaching Victoria Crater

Mars Rover Opportunity is close enough to Victoria Crater (which has about 0.6 of the diameter of Meteor Crater, Arizona) that it can see the rim. Oh joy!

Garrulous Clarifications

W. in South Carolina (a high school and college classmate of mine) asks for some more detail regarding some blog entries here:

• I don't remember that shooting at West Mesa HS. Tell me about it.
• Why do you think California's per capita electricity consumption has flattened, and the US consumption has been rising?
• I heard "Air America" is bankrupt. It never ran here, so I don't know much about it. Have you listened to it? Why do you suppose it failed?

What I recall of the West Mesa shooting was that there had been some kind of romantic rivalry going on, and one student waylaid the other in the gym, shooting him in the abdomen, and severely injuring him. But all of this happened before we arrived on school buses to school, so there was no panic at the school. Instead, what I recall - just about the only thing I recall - is the presence of marksmen on the roofs. Unsettling. Wish I could recall what year that happened. The students were from the area of the school, and not the North Valley, and involved no one we knew. It was a harbinger of the black/Hispanic race brawls that started troubling West Mesa the year AFTER we graduated.

The benign California climate helps keep per capita energy consumption low, in general, compared to the rest of the country. New air pollution laws and regulations are probably indirectly responsible for the flattening that started in the 70's. Heavy, electricity consuming industries closed down, one by one, and moved offshore. And the construction of large power plants, particularly coal-powered plants, stopped. California incrementally adopted a different model of power production. Instead of few, large coal-powered plants (the Tennessee Valley model) California adopted many, smaller power plants, most natural-gas powered. Electricity is transported shorter distances, and hence there are fewer losses due to resistance. My suspicion is the California model is more efficient. It's not necessarily the best model (California is far from the Texas and Alberta natural gas fields, and the California gas pipeline infrastructure is inadequate, particularly near San Diego), which is leading to high prices for natural gas, but I suspect it's also leading to better use of electricity.

In the 2001 power crisis, certain that all hell was breaking loose, I quickly outfitted my house with the newly-available compact fluorescent bulbs, and got rid of almost all incandescent bulbs. I was trying to instantly reduce my power consumption, to avoid what seemed like inevitable sky-high electrical rates. Amazingly, my power consumption immediately dropped 45%! Enough people did that statewide that power consumption was depressed for several years, and only now is increasing, mostly in response to higher population.

Interestingly, Sacramento has two Air America stations, both on AM. I've heard these reports that Air America has failed, but I've also heard Al Franken boasting on Air America that the predicted failure hasn't transpired. I have no idea which is correct. Air America has struck me as quite underpowered, available on the broadcast band only on AM, so if it's failing, it could simply be one star's salary (Franken's) and inadequate advertising revenue. In place of ads, sometimes you hear campaign messages on behalf of quixotic crusades (e.g., Impeach George Bush) and so you know that they're starving for revenue. The radio talent is uneven: Al Franken and Randi Rhoades are great, but the recently-fired Mike Malloy was far too brittle and unfunny for my taste. I think there's a market for Air America, but it will require some staying power, a bigger collection of stations, and maybe some better talent. The same could have been said about conservative radio about 20 - 25 years ago.

W. adds:

Are you saying that the compact fluorescent lights are saving you significant money? How much per month? How many bulbs? I imagine the light looks "fluorescenty"?

BTW, I hadn't heard about the race troubles at WMHS. What happened there

In 2001, when I ditched all the incandescent bulbs I feasibly could from the house, the monthly electrical bill fell from $55 to about $30 (~ 40 to 45% drop). It's been creeping up lately - I'm keeping more lights on - but the drop was startling. The number of bulbs changed was about fifteen, so changing one bulb could mean nearly two dollars a month in savings.

What made the compact fluorescents appealing, beyond cost, was that they do much better color rendering than they used to in the past - the engineers have been busy improving the product - so, while they weren't quite as warm and sunny as the incandescents, they were perfectly satisfactory for almost all purposes. The color isn't fluorescenty or clinical. My only complaint was that when they first came on, they seemed a bit dim, perhaps requiring a warm-up. But like I say, the trade-off was more than satisfactory.

In 1975 and 1976, there were several brawls at West Mesa, between blacks & Hispanics. I remember reading about it in the paper. Since we weren't there anymore, and our remaining friends weren't the brawling types, I had no firsthand information on what had happened. What worried people at the time was the unexpected racial component to the fighting.

W. adds:

Al Gore's movie "Inconvenient Truth" is making people think here in South Carolina. Since it came out, many fellow conservatives who are not scientists have been asking me what I thought about global warming, do I think it's real, etc. Quite different from Fahrenheit 911, which I don't think impressed anybody at all around here who wasn't already anti-Bush.

I think Michael Moore is a brilliant propagandist, but he plays fast and loose with the truth at times. I could see how that would be off-putting to people. The worst that can be said about Al Gore is he is practicing bait-and-switch: addressing global warming may not succeed, but it might improve air quality instead.

I've often thought that there is nothing about global warming theories that would be, a priori, offensive to conservatives. Oil people, in particular, have always worried about resource depletion. (People I know), as conservative as they get, and utterly sarcastic about greenhouse gas regulatory schemes, nevertheless seem to be quietly dabbling with investments in Norwegian deep-sea CO2 sequestration.

The auto people are the ones to worry about. They are hard-wired to the lizard brain of the American consumer, the most irrational pack of humans on the planet.

People Who Can't Remember S***

Keith Drum describes a world where no one remembers even the basics about how things happen. Wasn't it FDR who said that, in the political world, nothing happens by chance? Rachel Morris describes how White House staffers have been trying to figure out where the Talk Radio kerfuffle regarding illegal immigration came from:

Staffers listened to hours of talk radio and found that the obsession with illegal immigration on talk radio had appeared virtually from nowhere.

Appeared from nowhere? Give me a break! KFBK's DJ Mark Williams, in Sacramento, started on the illegal immigration bandwagon almost immediately after the California Recall Election, in October 2003. By November, 2003, it was a staple of Sacramento Talk Radio - the next enthusiasm, after the California Recall. It was a meme consciously placed on the air waves by the usual suspects of the California Right - Howard Kaloogian, et al.

Appeared from nowhere? You bet your fat A it came right from right-wing central!

Obsession

It's getting harder to blame her though:

Well, I know you're getting tired talking to the cops, especially after I fell asleep in the shed the other day, so when she pulled up in the drive way, I high-tailed it out the back way, out the walkway into the front yard. But she followed me, and started throwing things at me from the front yard. So, I went around the corner and parked my bike at the curb - one street corner is just as good as another when you're homeless - but she followed me, and stared at me, and I figured she'd called the cops, and if she threw things at me again and hit me, I'd press charges (although I wouldn't actually do that), so I just moved on.

A Letter To SARTA

Juan Ramos sends the following letter to SARTA. I reply:

Your opinion is widely-held among many people, maybe even a majority, and it's odd that SARTA takes little action on it.

It was great seeing you last night! That's what the Ellys do best - bring together everyone in one place, even if only for a night. - Marc

Here's Juan's letter:

In the fall of 2000, I attended my very first Elly Awards Ceremony. After enduring four hours of assault to my eardrums from the screaming audience majority under the age of 18 and a very sore bottom from the dreadful wooden seats at Luther Burbank High School auditorium; I decided to write a letter to SARTA. Just to make sure I was taken seriously, I also included a check for $500.00. I strongly suggested that two separate ceremonies be held: One for youth, high school and college productions, essentially educational theatre. And one for community theatres only. This would allow the youth element to thrive in their . . . youth at their very own ceremony and in the process bring much needed dignity and sophistication to the community theatre element, allowing for things like a pre-ceremony cocktail hour, silent auction, etc. Much to my surprise my letter was published in the SARTA newsletter and SARTA was set to have two separate ceremonies in the fall of 2001. Sacramento Bee Theatre critic Marcus Crowder read my letter and thanked me for voicing some of his concerns regarding the ceremony. Unfortunately for all of us, 911 put an abrupt halt to that and justifiably so. The unity and support was essential to our healing, so it was consolidated back into one ceremony.

I attended the 2006 Elly Awards Ceremony only because I was a nominee. Not an uncommon reason to attend, I suspect. I had not attended one since my first experience in 2000. Although a more streamlined version in a more appropriate venue, some of the same problems still exist and a new one has been created. The youth and education categories again brought the ceremony to almost four hours. This was particularly hard in my case because my partner is in a wheelchair with two fractured ankles and his elderly mother also had problems sitting for such a long time. I noticed several empty seats after intermission. Despite the attempt by the presenters to extol the audience to hold their applause until after all the nominees were announced, it was pretty much a hopeless cause halfway through. The loud audience response was very appropriate and not a problem for me. It's good to see and hear support groups cheer on their winners, that's part of the overall excitement.

I was however, particularly bothered by the fact that community theatres were grouped with community colleges in the same categories. Although not so much an issue in the Drama and Comedy categories, it was particularly evident in the Musicals category. Of the 11 awards given, community colleges received 7. This included all of the technical awards, choreography, costumes, direction, musical direction and overall. I find that totally unfair. It comes down to the fact that every area community theatre struggles financially, because they rely totally on volunteers, their respective patrons and audience members. Musicals in particular require extra financial resources to cover the added demands of lighting, set design, costumes and musicians. Community colleges have a reliable source of income plus directors and technicians (professsionals) who are paid to do their work. The actors and technical assistants for the most part are students who are doing it for school credits and in my experience even non-students have to enroll for at least one credit if they are cast. Several exceptional local community musical theatre productions were also conspiciously absent from the nominations this year, I believe in favor of community college productions. Please don't tell me that there is a shortage of local community theatres or community colleges to warrant separate categories because I know that is not the case. Community colleges compete with each other in sports, they can compete with each other in theatre awards. Local community theatres also need to compete with each other to creatively enrich and stimulate their respective productions and audiences . . . on a level playing field. This is an inbalance that needs to be addressed.

Thank you for allowing me to voice my opinion for what it's worth. Thank you for the vital and essential services you provide to the local theatre community. Thank you for the Elly Awards.

Juan Ramos

2006 Elly Awards (aka Chelsea Baldree's Big Night)

Left: Chelsea Baldree on her big night! Chelsea won in the Child: Young People's Musicals category, for both Leading Actress (in "Crazy for You") as well as for Supporting Actress (in "Godspell"), both at Magic Circle Theatre.


(just as a technical aside, it's interesting how colors are rendered by a digital camera - Chelsea's dress was turquoise, but with so much gold in the background, the color came out here as lime-green.)


Courtesy of MikeMac, here is the link to the full list of nominees and winners.

The Crest Theater was filled to overflowing with the various theater groups, with the seating turf informally divided - El Dorado Musical Theater here, Woodland Opera House there, etc. When favorites won, the screaming girls carried the pitch to 'Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show' levels. I sat with the DMTC crowd. Monique McKisson was in fine fettle. After letting out a big whoop during applause, she said, "I am so NOT vocal! (was that my outside voice?)"

The show got off to a good start, with Sonny Sorrels from Lambda Players, discussing his utter surprise at winning. "I hated my character," he said. "The challenge grew every night." He also described his performance as 'shitty.' Everyone loved it!

Strange things happened. Paul Tomei won for Costume Design for "Much Ado About Nothing" at El Dorado High School, but apparently he had rented his costumes from a theater in Ashland, Oregon. Kelly Daniells won an Elly Award for Supporting Actress in "Nunsense" at the Woodland Opera House, but since no one from there leaped to grab it, RSP's Bob Baxter grabbed it instead, and plugged for "Mamma Mia" in Las Vegas. The Solano Community College representative mused aloud about the irony of getting a nomination for Lighting Design for a show entitled "Wait Until Dark." Cathy Rasmussen, who won for RSP's "King Arthur," talked about her previous two Elly Awards, one for playing a mole and another for playing a mouse.

Many friends won. Hail Ketchum-Wiggins. Emily Jo Seminoff (twice), on her 18th birthday. Denise Miles, Stephen Hatcher, Michael R.J. Campbell, etc., etc.

DMTC got only two awards (Robert Coverdell, for Supporting Actor in 'DMTC's "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and Emily Jo Seminoff for Supporting Actress, Child: Young People's Musicals, in "Fiddler on the Roof, Jr."), but SARTA handed out many others Sunday night.

There were three musical presentations: the Prologue and Epilogue to The Acting Company's "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change," 'Snuff That Girl,' from San Joaquin Delta College's "Urinetown," and 'Beautiful Candy,' from City College's "Carnival." Very good presentations!

Buffee Ann Gillihan and Kaitlin Flint both glittered as they did the plaque tote thing. There were several groups of co-presenters, including a girl from St. Francis I took a dance class with just the other day: Karissa Meagher. Michael R.J. Campbell and Stacy Johnson were very funny as they 're-enacted' a supposed brawl from when they both won the Elly Award for Set Design last year.

At intermission, I started wandering the Crest Theater with my bucket of popcorn, engaging others in conversation. S. & B. from Magic Circle expressed a common complaint, one frequently-expressed at DMTC, that the educational awards category made the evening too long. 'They should schedule it at a different night, or a different time, like they do with the technical awards at the Academy Awards. Also, colleges shouldn't be included - they have huge budgets compared to community theater, and are really in a different league altogether.' I heartily agreed, and expressed my best wishes.

Then, I wandered over to the Natomas Charter School area with my popcorn, and talked to Chloe Condon and friend. I congratulated her on her nomination for 'View from The Bridge,' and expressed the opinion that I was glad the educational category was being so well-represented tonight, and how supportive SARTA was of schools in general.

Afterwards, I felt a gnawing uncertainty about my statements, which, to the disinterested observer, might seem to be - contradictory? - but the feeling soon subsided. You learn many things in theater - the importance of consistency, hard work, emotional expression - but the most important thing you learn is: the importance of principles.

There were disappointments too, as there always will be on a night like this. Dave Lack didn't win for Set Design for RSP's "Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of the Dark Castle" - Juan Ramos deserved Set Design and Leading Actor awards for "The King and I" - etc., etc. *Sigh* What can you do? Sometimes the Ellys seem like a roulette wheel. Next year, I place all my bets on 'Red.'

Monique McKisson, Juan Ramos, and John Hancock. Both Juan Ramos and Marguerite Morris were nominated for "The King and I" (as well as Steve Isaacson for direction). I'm happy that John Hancock was out and about, though - his road has been a long one, and his mending continues.

Sacramento City College presents 'Beautiful Candy', from "Carnival." I really like that show, and I was happy that City College had such a large, colorful cast. Nevertheless, Monique chastised me: "it's not 'CAR-ni-val,' it's 'Car-ni-VAL!" Then she did that guttural French thing, that "cho-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o."

El Dorado Musical Theater wins big. Debbie Wilson, Jeanette Caruso, and the gang.

Walking to the Crest Theater, I met Jeanette Caruso for the first time, and we talked about theater. She occasionally ushers for DMTC, and, disoriented by the bright lights of downtown Sacramento, she first mistook me for Steve Isaacson. I laughed and said that was because Steve and I have nearly-exactly the same eyeglass prescription. A fun, involved person, with a talented daughter (Lauryn). I will have to get up to see an EMT show soon!

"West Side Story" - Second Weekend

Left: Lieutenant Schrank (Mike Jones) gives the Jets a piece of his mind.


Second weekend of shows. Friday seemed to lack some energy, most notably during the 'Mambo.' Chino (Nick Peters) got a foot and/or ankle injury during the opening number, and limped around the rest of the evening. Ryan hit Henry a bit too hard on the head in the Krupke number, and afterwards, over at Applebee's Andy brained himself on a low-hanging light fixture. According to Steve, long-time community theater players David & Lori Holmes showed up for a final hurrah before moving to New Mexico (Rio Rancho???), where David will be managing a Verizon Wireless store.

Saturday was more energetic, but suffered a strange problem: the bass player decided, on a whim, that she was going to play drums during the Krupke number, and the odd percussion knocked the singers completely off-beat. Embarrassing! David Ott's family all showed up, though, which was great.

On Sunday, the bass player was let go. A reasonably good show, although Tony was a bit off the music at times. In the frightening near-rape scene in Doc's shop, Anybodys (Chloe Condon) got a bit excited and slapped Anita (Amanda Morish) in a breathtaking wayn - that realistic-sounding slap sounded real for a reason.

Talk to the hand!

Some pictures from Sunday's show:

"Cool"






Bernardo (right, David Ott) knifes Riff (Robert Coverdell).





Tony (Colby Salmon) and Maria (Chelsea Baldree) in the "Somewhere" ballet.



Tony (Colby Salmon) and Maria (Chelsea Baldree) in the "Somewhere" ballet.

Windstorm

The big windy time we had of it on Thursday and Friday complicated things, particularly with the terrible wildfires in Yolo County. It was hard to sleep too: branches brushing across my window became demons in my dreams, and the air filled with resuspended dust that had gathered on the tree leaves over the rainless prior six months. Cloudy the Rabbit liked the storm, though, because all the thrashing of tree leaves shook loose an entire salad of goodies into the back yard for her comestible entertainment.

The only notable story I had was something I saw driving to work, about 10 a.m., on Friday. As I was driving past a bus stop at 21st and Capital, a man standing under the bus shelter abruptly darted into 21st Street, just as a huge branch fell very close him from a large tree. A very close call! Hope my reflexes are as good as his when the big lumber comes for me!

Too Big

The Australian Army bought 18 Abrams tanks. Trouble is, they are just too large to get them to their base in Australia's interior:

THE army's newest frontline weapon, the Abrams battle tank, arrived in Australia yesterday and immediately encountered problems, with no rail transport available to carry the tank to the Northern Territory.

Its deployment will be further hampered because, at 68 tonnes, the Abrams is too heavy to travel across road bridges in the Northern Territory.

As the first 18 of the tanks were delivered to Port Melbourne, the operators of the Adelaide-to-Darwin railway said they lacked the equipment to carry them. Adelaide-based Freightlink said the tanks were too big.

"Freightlink has participated in a rail study with the implication for new rolling stock to be acquired," the company said.

It did not say when or if it intended to acquire the required rolling stock and suggested it was waiting for contracts to be signed with the Defence Department before going ahead with the purchase. A total of 59 refurbished tanks were bought from the US for $500 million.

Transporting them north by road is likely to be problematic.

A senior Northern Territory shire engineer said road bridges in the Katherine Shire had a maximum capacity of 50 tonnes, 18 tonnes less than the weight of one Abrams tank. Road trains weighing up to 50 tonnes are able to use the bridges by disconnecting a trailer, he said.

The tanks, described by federal Defence Minister Brendan Nelson as the best in the world, have a fuel economy as low as 200m a litre.

Cosmic

She may be wobbly, but she's a cosmic electrician:

An astronaut from the space shuttle Atlantis collapsed twice Friday during a welcome home ceremony, a wobbly return that officials attributed to the adjustment from 12 days at zero gravity.

Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper left the hangar at Ellington Field through a side door but was not taken to a hospital. Officials said she was doing fine.

...Piper, a 43-year-old from St. Paul, Minn., is a commander in the Navy and was a mission specialist and cosmic electrician aboard the shuttle. She carried out two of the spacewalks, joining an elite club of only six other U.S. women and a single Russian woman who have made spacewalks.

Panda Bites Man, Man Bites Back

Via the Daily Rotten, an animal story:

A drunken Chinese tourist says he bit a panda who attacked him after he jumped into a zoo enclosure to "hug" the bear.

Zhang Xinyan, 35, had drunk four draught beers before deciding to enter the Beijing Zoo pen belonging to six-year-old male panda Gu Gu.

The startled Gu Gu bit both legs of his intruder, who responded by biting "the panda on its back", Mr Zhang was quoted by state media as saying.

Mr Zhang said he had not realised pandas could be violent. ..."I bit the panda on its back but its fur was too thick," Mr Zhang recalled. He went on: "No one ever said they would bite people. I just wanted to touch it."

Beware! There are more of them coming!

Courtesy on an E-Mail chain letter forwarded by my sister, Marra:

SICHUAN, China -- One zoo in southwest China has its hands full with 16 baby pandas.

The Sichuan Wolong Panda Protection and Breed Center is dealing with the results of a breeding boom -- 16 pandas have been born since July, 2005. The brood includes five sets of twins. The cubs are weighed and measured every five days by a special panda nurse.

The heaviest tips the scale at just over 24 pounds, while the lightest weighs about 11 pounds. The pandas are due to stop being suckled by their mothers in February, 2006 just about the time they'll start learning to walk. Once weaned, the panda cubs will attend panda kindergarten. In the meantime, more little ones are expected at the center, since 38 giant pandas were artificially impregnated.

Rio Linda High School Craziness

E. calls today, at noontime, and says that all hell has broken out Rio Linda High School. Yesterday, they caught a student with a gun. Today, with reports that shooting is imminent, dozens of screaming parents are demanding that their kids be released from classes, cops are swarming the campus, students are being hauled into a stockroom for confidential questioning, and both KXTV-10 and KCRA-3 television trucks are present, with reporters filing video feed.

Ah! The good olde days! Reminds me of my high school, in Albuquerque. I remember one morning in 1973, when one student shot another in the West Mesa High School gym. When our school bus rolled up to the school to let us off, marksmen were on all the rooftops. But we were tough. None of us dreamed of calling our parents.

Tough - or stupid?

William Baker, Stylist, Is Back

If rumor is to believed, he had been urging Kylie to get out of her comfort range before everything all fell apart.

I'm glad he's back.


Left: Kylie Minogue, endeavoring to get out of her comfort range, preparing for her upcoming revised "Showgirl" tour (and taking a few Calendar shots as well).

Così Fan Tutte - Sacramento Opera

Left: Intermission, Tuesday night


Went to the Sacramento Community Center Tuesday night and saw "Così Fan Tutte."

What a wonderful show! Great voices! Cute, and silly and risqué.

According to Wikipedia:

Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti, K. 588, is a dramma giocoso by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was written by Lorenzo da Ponte.

Written and composed at the suggestion of the Emperor Joseph II, the libretto was originally intended to be set to music by Mozart's colleague Antonio Salieri who completed only parts of the first act and then broke off his work. The first performance of Mozart's setting took place at the Burgtheater in Vienna on January 26, 1790.

Mozart and Da Ponte took as a theme "fiancée swapping" which dates back to the 13th century, with notable earlier versions being those of Boccaccio's Decameron and Shakespeare's play Cymbeline. It also incorporates elements of the myth of Procris as found in Ovid.

The plot did not offend Viennese sensibilities of the time, but throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries it was considered risqué. The opera was rarely performed, and when it did appear it was presented in one of several bowdlerized libretto. After World War II, it regained its place in the standard operatic repertoire.

There are many recordings of Così fan tutte, and it is frequently performed, being the fifteenth most performed opera in North America according to Opera America. The play Così, written by playwright Louis Nowra, features mental patients acting this opera. Many extracts from the opera were used as incidental music in the 2004 movie Closer.

The title literally means "Thus do all (women)" but is often translated as "Women are like that". The words are sung by the three men in Act II, Scene xi, just before the finale. Moreover, da Ponte used the line "Così fan tutte le belle" (thus do all beautiful women) in an earlier opera with Mozart, Le Nozze di Figaro (in Act I, Scene vii).

Jennifer Lin and Tom Osborn, Ambassadors for Sacramento Opera, ambassadize away at intermission. At left edge of photo, Sacramento Opera Executive Director Rod Gideons.

Jennifer says that of the three shows this season, "Così Fan Tutte" has the smallest cast. The other shows, "Aida," and "Carmen," are much larger.

Jerry Frink, with the most innovative fashion statement of the night. Why did Jerry decide to attend the Opera (by the way, the best-dressed crowd I've seen in Sacramento) in a pink boa?

Jerry is a frequent protestor against the Iraq War, whether daily at the 16th and J street corner, or on Broadway, or elsewhere in the downtown Sacramento area. He was infuriated, and politicized, by the Bush Administration's efforts to place a gay marriage ban in the Constitution. Hence, the pink boa: the personal becomes political. Jerry goes everywhere with the pink boa these days.

Jerry opined that America was becoming something of a fascist state, susceptible to Orwellian double-speak, and that people must protest that trend, as was done to greater effect during the Vietnam War. I started expounding my theory that the so-called "War on Terror" was even better suited to totalitarian purposes than the three empires Orwell foresaw when he wrote "1984" in 1948 (I've discussed some these things here), since maintaining static empires is a big drain on resources, whereas the "War on Terror" is much easier to maintain - a pocket kind of war.

I began excitedly getting into the politics, but then I noticed Jerry was beginning to politely edge away from me, as if maybe I was just a wee bit too rabid for his taste. *sigh*

I need to get a boa - maybe a rainbow boa, since Jerry has cornered pink in Sacramento.

Tribute

Left: Bindi Irwin

"My daddy was my hero - he was always there for me when I needed him," she said, reading from a piece of paper.

"He listened to me and taught me so many things, but most of all he was fun.

"I know that Daddy had an important job. He was working to change the world so everyone would love wildlife like he did."

She said her father built a hospital and bought land to give animals a safe place to live and she wanted to continue his legacy.

"I don't want Daddy's passion to ever end," she said.

"I want to help endangered wildlife just like he did."

Bindi said she would miss her father.

"I have the best Daddy in the whole world and I will miss him every day," she said.

"When I see a crocodile I will always think of him and I know that Daddy made this zoo so everyone could come and learn to love all the animals.

"Daddy made this place his whole life and now it's our turn to help Daddy."

Steve Irwin State Memorial Today

In Queensland, with 5000 guests. 300 million are forecast to watch on Australian and international TV. PM John Howard, among many others, will attend. Speculation focuses on whether or not Irwin's daughter, Bindi, will speak.

Listening to B105.3, I've been trying to log the advertisements they feature on Brisbane's premier pop music station, for a variety of products, including:

• a weight loss program;
• a credit card;
• a Comedy Club;
• B105's 'Shag Me, Bag Me' amateur beauty promo;
• a theme song contest for 'Neighbours';
• two different kinds of sun tan body lotions;
• the Hard Rock Cafe;
• Harvey Norman stores;
• career opportunities for personal trainers;

but most surprisingly, given the radio station's demographics;

• a self-help, will-making kit.

Hmmm...... Something Irwin could have used, but perhaps neglected to do.

Chubby Bunny

Beware the Chubby Bunny:

LONDON, Ont. -- A 32-year-old woman was in critical condition yesterday after choking during a marshmallow-eating contest at the city's Western Fair.

Paramedics were called to the fairgrounds just after 7 p.m. Tuesday after the woman began to choke and collapsed.

The unidentified woman was taking part in the Chubby Bunny contest, in which contestants stuff as many marshmallows as they can into their mouths.

California Electricity Consumption Per Capita

Interesting graphic, via the Washington Monthly, from The New York Times (and the California Energy Commission):

No Power

I know I'll spend my retirement years getting into fixes like this:

A mall security guard who noticed a "call 911, help" note in a car window likely saved the lives of two elderly women who became trapped when their vehicle's battery died and the automatic locks failed, according to a Local 6 News report.

Officials said two women in their 80s were recovering Saturday from heat stroke and heat exhaustion after spending several hours trapped inside a Cadillac at the Volusia Mall.

Arrogant Governmental Intrusion? Or Time To Lose The Jelly Belly?

In Australia, government and entertainment seem to be even more intertwined than in the U.S.:

Radio shock-jock Sandilands attacked contestant Jessica Mauboy about her weight during the second elimination show last night.

Mauboy, who was wearing jeans, a white T-shirt and black jacket, appeared stunned by the advice that she "lose the jelly belly".

Victoria's Youth Affairs Minister Jacinta Allan said Mr Sandilands' remark was humiliating and had the potential to do significant psychological damage to all the young people in the audience.

"Kyle sent a message to millions of young viewers dreaming of a career in the music industry – don't bother if you're not stick thin," Ms Allan said.

She said mental and physical health issues relating to negative body shapes were already common among young people.

"Young people are bombarded with images of impossibly thin models and then have to sit through insensitive assessments such as the one delivered by Kyle on Australian Idol.

"It amounts to an assault on the self-esteem," she said.

"Australian Idol promotes young Australian talent ... unfortunately it can also indulge in needless humiliation with the potential for negative flow-on effects to its audience."

"West Side Story" Opening Weekend

Seemed like a good opening night. People had a few bumps and bruises. Scene changes mostly went OK. I believe Arthur said there were 134 in the audience, 6 shy of the number in the audience for "Wizard of Oz", making "West Side Story's" opening night the second-most-popular so far in the New Theater.

One strange thing was Katherine Vanderford rear-ending someone just short of the Yolo Causeway on Friday night (in the stop-and-go traffic, the woman ahead of her stopped just too quickly). It's always been my fear that I'd have an accident just prior to a show and couldn't make the show in time. Fortunately, Katherine's accident wasn't so bad, and she didn't miss anything.

I'm surprised by the different number of teenagers asking me about Lieutenant Schrank's reference to the "DTs": delirium tremens. According to Wikipedia:

Delirium tremens (colloquially, the DTs, "the horrors", "the shakes" or "rum fits") is an acute episode of delirium that is usually caused by withdrawal or abstinence from alcohol following habitual excessive drinking. Delirium tremens can also appear after a rapid reduction in the amount of alcohol being consumed by heavy drinkers, or as a complication of withdrawal from benzodiazepine or barbiturates. It only occurs in individuals with a history of constant, long-term alcohol consumption. Delirium tremens typically manifests about 18 to 24 hours after discontinuation of alcohol consumption, but can appear on the second or third day of abstinence.

Five percent of acute ethanol withdrawal cases progress to delirium tremens. Unlike the withdrawal syndrome associated with opiate or stimulant addiction, delirium tremens (and alcohol withdrawal in general) can be fatal. Mortality can be up to 35% if untreated, though if treated early, death rates may be as low as 5%.

The fact that most teenagers today DON'T KNOW what the DTs is a statement about what a happy society we really live in, and how few people are familiar with end-stage alcoholism. A similar group of teenagers, 50 or 80 years ago, would have known all too well, through bitter personal experience with parents and other relatives, just what an evil it is. I knew about the DTs as a teenager (early 70's), but only because it had a special horror for my father, and he talked about it - A LOT!

Oh, happy age!

Then again, those teenagers of olde never heard of AIDS either, so maybe there is a conservation principle at work - Conservation of Pain in the World: exterminate smallpox, and you get hantavirus instead.

On Saturday, the Cokes spilled after the Scene I Doc's Shop scene. The two Shop carts bumped into each other, and the Cokes spilled. The ensuing Rumble scene was more tense than normal as a result, because there was no time to inform the Jets and the Sharks of the danger. Only Andy stepped in it, though - he said he never knew there was anything wet on-stage at all.

On Sunday, Dannette got skinned knees after getting hit from behind and falling, while removing clothes dummies from the bridal shop scene. It's so easy to get hurt during scene changes!

Speaking as Officer Krupke, my nightly tumble backwards went OK, for the most part, but I bruised my upper hip on Saturday night. I generally practice beforehand, tumbling backwards several times in the dressing room, but on stage, Andy (who is on all-fours right behind me as Ryan pushes me from the front) gets in the way, so the tumble over him is generally clunky and awkward. Buffee said she thought it looked painful. Sometimes, yes!

Las Cruces Under A Cloud

Extortion:

LAS CRUCES, N.M. -- Las Cruces police are warning residents that someone threatened to randomly shoot people if city leaders failed to hand over what they described as a "substantial" ransom.

The city received the second of two threatening letters Friday afternoon, but police remained tightlipped about details of the demand, including how much money was involved. They did say the demand called for a "substantial amount."

At a news conference late Friday, Lt. Randy Lara said he didn't want to alarm residents but he urged them to watch for any suspicious activity.

"The letter did reference that Las Cruces residents will be shot at random if the city didn't comply with the extortion," Lara said.