10 Mar 2005
The Glass Menagerie
Proving Jeff wrong for once, I’m actually going to blog about something we saw and not just leave it up to him to document it.
We saw a new production of The Glass Menagerie, starring Jessica Lange & Christian Slater and directed by David Leveaux, last night. I found the performances to be overly mannered (except for Slater, a late addition to the cast who seemed to be in a completely different play), which only reinforced my dim view of the creaky old text.
And, as Jeff quoted me, Leveaux’s direction was “so fucking unsubtle.” A bare spotlight on the shelf of glass animals on the darkened stage? Come on. That’s something a high school theatre production would do.
This was a completely colorless production… literally. Many items referred to in the text (like the rose-colored floor lamp or the colorful glass animals) were simply white or clear glass. The one spot of color was an enormous wall stage right, which would unpredictably turn blue. And don’t get me started on the band of fluorescent lights that ringed the playing area…
The one bright spot was the sound direction and use of period music, except for the bizarrely-scored interstitial music cues of wine glasses being played.
Tomorrow we’re seeing Doubt, which is already generating a lot of “Best Play” Tony buzz.
10 Mar 2005
Missing Cube
The enormous cube sculpture at Astor Place mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the night. Apparently, it’s in the shop for repairs.
I’ve never tried spinning the cube on its axis, but my favorite cube annecdote is about the folks who turned it into a giant Rubik’s cube.
7 Mar 2005
TiVo to DVD (or VCD) via Mac OSX
Because I’m relatively new to the Mac world, I had a lot of trouble finding both instructions and (free) software to extract video from my Series 1 TiVo and burn it to DVD or VCD/SCVD. The following is a write-up of the steps I’ve worked out. [Read more →]
7 Mar 2005
The Way Out -> tube map
London Underground map showing which cars line up with the exit at each station. I totally want this for NYC's subways.
0 comments | London, maps, subway |
7 Mar 2005
Recently Seen
I’ve seen a lot of deaf people on the subway recently, ever since noticing two Korean men signing. Last week in Union Square, I saw a group of about 20 men of color who I thought were fighting. As I got closer, I realized they were just animatedly signing to each other. Also last week, I saw two well-groomed white men signing to each other, who I assumed to be gay. Later I wondered if I only thought so because they were highly expressive with their faces and hands.
And yesterday on our way to bunch with his parents, Jeff and I saw an Orthodox Jewish man in his hat and all-black ensemble tooling aorund the Financial District on rollerblades.
4 Mar 2005
McNugget Number
A number which can be obtained by adding together orders of McDonald's Chicken McNuggets (prior to consuming any), which originally came in boxes of 6, 9, and 20.
0 comments | humor, math |
2 Mar 2005
Belief-O-Matic
After seeing Matt P. post his results, I took this online quiz to see which belief system most closely matched my own. Even though I have many strong disagreements with the current positions of Catholic Church, which I was raised in, I was surprised to see it rank so low on my list… [Read more →]