How I Roll

Living outside of the hub of theatrical activity in the major centers of the US, I did not realize that Jeune Lune closed its doors in July. This makes me extremely sad in that of Marni and I's "13 plays in 13 days" excursion to Minneapolis in May of 2007, we saw two extremely magical and amazing productions: Don Juan Giovani and Figaro. Both were a combination of spoken dialogue, seemingly improvisational monologues and dialectic moments combined with fantastic opera, elegant yet complex stage effects, and amazing video scenework.

Figaro was by far my favorite, combining the music of Mozart and the play of Beaumarchais with modern technology of video screenwork, daring monologues and dialogues by Steven Epp and Dominique Serrand. It was a very funny production with a sweet and tragic bite to it. It was one of the most daringly beautiful pieces of theatre I have seen in a long time.

Don Juan Giovanni was a combination of Don Giovanni and the story of Don Juan and set apace with daring opera and fantastic travels. It was fun, frantic, and absolutely beautiful.
Steven Epp will be performing Pinter's The Caretaker at the Downling Studio in the Guthrie, however. If you have not seen him perform (and you can get to the Minneapolis area), I would strongly suggest going.

Here is the information:
The Caretaker
by Harold Pinter
directed by Benjamin McGovern
Featuring Stephen Cartmell, Steven Epp, Kris L. Nelson
October 11 - November 02, 2008 (Opening October 15)
Dowling Studio
Price Range: $18 - $34
Get tickets

Widely considered Pinter's first success after receiving recognition from the public and critics alike, The Caretaker is a provocative piece that elicits a multitude of interpretations and reactions from its audiences. The Caretaker is set in a run-down flat in London shared by two brothers, Aston and Mick. When one of them brings home a talkative, homeless, older man, their everyday routines begin to take uneasy dramatic turns.

Confusions and tensions grow between the hosts and the intruder - who vaguely seems to be an old acquaintance - and as the intruder attempts to define his place in the household, a precarious balance of the brothers' lives is inevitably upset. Pinter's masterful use of dialogue and the play's depth and perception completes this modern masterpiece, dealing with the distance between reality and fantasy, family relationships and the struggle for power.

Python is one of my favorite languages, not just because it has clean and clear syntax, but because its block-based style promotes strong and consistently readable style. This is not only extremely important for production level code in enterprise applications (often not written in Python but utilizing code style practices) but is of utmost importance to new students of programming. Readable code may not mean that it is easy to debug, consistent and clean coding styles provide a much easier means of following programming logic.

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That's right, Motley Crue's Dr. Feelgood is coming to Rockband this Tuesday. Below are the songs from the album so that you can see if you want to pick it up.

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There's an old idiom: the squeaky wheel gets the grease. This traditionally means that the person who complains or comments loudest gets service or at the very least, attendance. This idiom, while interesting, is popular among people who like to note that being loud gets them the service they deserve or justifies their feelings of entitlement. But in many experiences, the act of being a squeaky wheel can also cause you to seriously consider replacing the wheel. After all, if you're spending all your time greasing one squeaky wheel, wouldn't a new, shinier wheel squeak a little less? Maybe it would fit a little better than the current squeaker.

Now, I'm not saying that all squeaky wheels are good to get rid of. The vast majority of squeaks that add up over time are definitely justified and have problems that need to be solved. But there are a very loud minority of wheels that squeak over the competition and require oodles of time. It is these wheels that I'm talking about. Are those wheels causing undue misery for your company or organization not because they are pointing out active and very real problems that should be solved...but because you are not conveniencing them in the manner that they expect or feel they are entitled?

A few squeaky wheels are good. They keep us honest and get things done that need to be done. But wheels that speak due to imagined entitlement that they have neither earned nor deserve...Those wheels should be bound for the junk heap.

I've touted Celtx before, and while it does not have all of the nifty features of Movie Magic Screenwriter 6 or Final Draft 7, it is a very worthy script editor that is worth your time whether you are on a budget or easily have the finances to pick up a more expensive package.

I have used both Screenwriter and Final Draft extensively in the past--with FD as my primary script writing tool since I preferred its interface to Screenwriter. About a year and a half ago as it became noticable that Final Draft was not coming out with any updates soon, I was turned on to Celtx, a free tool for screenwriters and playwrights. I began my own "play a day" experiment, based on Suzan Lori-Parks 365 project. Unfortunately, I was not as dedicated (or talented) a full-time writer as Parks. But it proved to be extremely useful to me.

The "plays," if they could be called that, spanned quite a range of strange ideas that I have daily. Everything from Federico Garcia Lorca being placed on trial by the characters in his plays before his untimely execution to a fictive recreation of August Strindberg, Stanislaw Przybyszewski, Carl Ludwig Schleich, Juel Dagny, and Edvard Munch enjoying time at The Black Piglet to a rather lively (and moronic) parody of Ibsen's works entitled "Hedda Shot the Wild Duck Outside the Doll's House, Mista Gynt". It even included Gogol's Inspector General...though he actually made an appearance in this play. To get an idea of how bad it was, how's this:

INSPECTOR GENERAL

It seems there are numerous skeletons in your closet, Mrs. Alving.

She flutters downstage center.

ALVING

Not skeletons...

(tremulous whisper)

Ghosts!

Anyway, the main reason that I initially enjoyed Celtx was because it has a clean workflow. Final Draft's is simple as well, and Screenwriter 2000's seems cluttered by a necessary but unwieldy interface. Celtx's interface has gotten more complex over time. Compare:

The project library is a nice feature when it comes to working with different versions of a script or something akin to a television series or webisode guide. It takes up a fair bit of screen real estate, but is a nice feature for larger projects. For a base script, however, it can be largely wasted space.

The central workspace is where you write your script. You have all of the basics needed to write any type of document you like, though it is not a fully fleshed-out word processor (and was not necessarily designed to be one). A nice addition that was not available when I was first using it is the dual dialogue button. This is a staple that I use in Screenwriter and Final Draft often, and it was sorely missed when I started with Celtx.

The central interface also has a series of buttons on the bottom of the screen which allow you to view the script in different ways. The Script button is your basic draft writing template (similar to draft mode in Word). The Typesetting button is more like a print preview (Print view in Word). The scratchpad allows you to write notes in certain sections. The index card view is nice for production management should you be writing a screenplay or workshopping your play. The title page is pretty self explanatory, though I still am somewhat irritated that there is a separate area for it in all of the programs. This irritation stems from script standards, however. The Cast button shows you the different cast members that speak in a scene. And finally, the Reports button allows you to view different reports (duh) such as scene elements and notes and such. Unfortunately the reporting is not anywhere close to Final Drafts report generation, but good things come to those who desire it (or write it themselves).

The right sidebar can be moved into or out of frame and is mainly there to provide organization of media, notes, and scene breakdown information. I haven't used it much and usually keep it hidden. I only had it open in that screenshot as an example.

One of the nicest features of Celtx is its web services. You can not only save the script locally, but on the Celtx site. You can also share it with others for collaboration. It is not as streamlined as Final Draft or Screenwriter's collaboration features, but it is a nice addition. All of them could take a lesson from Google Docs and Word 2007's collaboration features.

365 Days / 365 Plays
Price: USD 12.21

48 used & new available from USD 4.99

Getting Tutored...

Usually I seem to post about RockBand releases, which are fun, or the amazing amount of work Marni and I are doing on our new house (new being a very relative term as we are discovering). But I thought I would take a moment to post about the vasectomy that I had on Monday. Marni and I both took it off work, which was a very good idea since there was no way I could have driven home in my Valium-induced stupor.

Dr. Bohus is a great doctor to work with. He has a jovial and fun bedside manner that kept us smiling as he described the procedure. Make no mistake, he was extremely professional, but his manner instantly set us at ease. Since we had long discussed not having children, much of the preliminary discussion came across more as a quick lecture on the pro's and con's of a vasectomy.

Marni left the room so as to not be squeamish at the actual operation. It took about 20 minutes (if that) of prep and operation and stitching and I was done. The only pain I felt in the entire procedure was getting the Valium shot and the local anesthesia shot near the operation point--and that one was dulled significantly by the Valium.

It's Thursday and I'm bruised--one of the necessary consequences--and healing nicely. I've had no pain or discomfort, which I'm surprised about. I was expecting at least some...not that I wanted any pain, but was expecting it. I've been taking it easy to a point, though I've been painting up a storm at the house. We're trying to at least get the primer coat of Killz on the walls before the flooring teams come in.

So that's one "big thing" down with one to go before we head out on our cruise. The next is happening on the 20th when I go in for an edoscopy to see what might be the problem with my stomach. Anyone who has eaten out with me has probably noticed that 1) I don't eat a lot and 2) that whatever I do eat doesn't agree with me. So I'm going to an internist (Dr. Evans) who is going to take a looksie and sample to run tests on. From my preliminary discussion with him he thought it sounded like Celiac's disease, though in its initial stages. I'm really hoping that it is not that since it requires not only a strict diet, but directly giving up the some of the things that I love most (mainly bread and beer and a number of soup bases that use gluten as their thickening agent!).

So I'll have medical bills for the first time ever. Whoo-hoo! I can hardly wait!

I know that no one reads this site, and I don't really expect them to. It's just a place where I blather about stuff. What I'm going to blather about for an instant this time is how much my cast rocks. They're pretty awesome anyway.

Yup. There was a wall between the dining room and the living room that just didn't need to be there. Plus, the previous owners had built it on top of the carpet for some reason better known to them at the time.

Alright, every since Marni and I picked up RockBand, I've thought that it would be wicked awesome if they had AC/DC on it. In Novemeber, they will have a very sweet exclusive with 18 tracks! Oh, and this is this week's lineup (which is wicked sweet), followed by the AC/DC tracks!

This is going to be a great week. The Offspring pack is a lot of solid fun, with Gone Away having long been one of my favorite Offspring songs. The addition of Bad to the Bone, Nearly Lost You, and Push it is merely the icing on the RockBand cake!

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