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Monday, September 14th, 2026 04:00 am
Monday, September 14th, 2026 10:42 am
But first, an update: the playwright-director of the stipended project found me and handed me a check, so my griping about the kinds of directors that don't consider their crew, while remaining a standing complaint as to the general state of the world, is not supported by this instance. I did not inquire whether that'd been the intent all along or if her mind was changed along the way. (The cash is less material than the acknowledgement.)
The mainstage show I'm working on presently is The Lion In Winter, which is a modern (licensed) show about King Henry II celebrating Christmas with his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine (imprisoned by him for her rebellions), his three sons Richard (the Lionheart), Geoffrey (the middle child) and John (the Landless, of Shakespeare's King John). Also present are King Philip of France and his sister, Alais, raised by Henry and Eleanor, treatied to be his heir's bride (whomever said heir turns out to be), and presently Henry's mistress. The play has much snark, much of it anachronistic, and also much meanness. And a little bit of heart sneaking in here and there almost despite itself.
If it sounds like I don't love this play, I don't love this play. Lots of people I know absolutely adore the movie with O'Toole and Hepburn - I didn't see it until earlier this year, and I was highly un-fond of it. I did see a version with Patrick Stewart and Glenn Close, and recall enjoying it, but not the particulars - and now I wonder if I would.
I did love working on it though, because the cast and crew included quite a few of my favorite folks, and the time spent on this play will be worth remembering fondly.
I'm the producer on this one, the stage manager, and![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lonebear and I collaborated on lights once again.
The scene-change stage crew for this one are costumed, and I wear an excellent gown with embroidery and sleeves long enough that I have to be cautious about moving furniture lest I park it on the sleeve bottoms when I bend. I have a pair of strapping lads to do most of the furniture moving, and a alcoholic clergyman who shifts assorted wine containers, while I move pre-set props, and each of us has a brief in-world appearance or character interaction or two. It's tremendous fun. (It also means I can't stay on comm through much of the play, so I change into costume once I open the house, manage the start time, and take off the comm while endeavoring not to disturb the veil-and-circlet arrangement.)
The show opened on Labor Day, which in the city of Greenbelt is an enormous deal with activities all through the weekend. The largest parking lot is occupied by a street fair, and there is a used book sale (which turns into pay what you will by Monday). Saturday is information day, with tables and booths set up for various groups to promote themselves, and the weather was perfect to table for the theater. Sunday tents are replaced by crafter booths, and Monday morning starts with a parade.
Amid all of this chaos we were asked if we might wish to present a set of short scenes on the lawn, and we came up with a trio of offerings. Lonebear directed the killing of Cinna the Poet from Julius Caesar, and I got to be the "Kill him for his bad verses" guy, which is my favorite guy. Gracious Host wrote a prequel to The Lion In Winter where the characters introduce themselves and tell what happens to lead up to the plot, and I got to be Eleanor. And I directed a maximally silly take on Romeo and Juliet "bite your thumb" street scenes, with a translation of the utterly dense language, audience participation, and fulfilling my long-held desire to make R&J characters fight with balloon swords.
Next up, SM and produce Richard II with My Theater Kids directing, and I'm really excited about that!
The mainstage show I'm working on presently is The Lion In Winter, which is a modern (licensed) show about King Henry II celebrating Christmas with his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine (imprisoned by him for her rebellions), his three sons Richard (the Lionheart), Geoffrey (the middle child) and John (the Landless, of Shakespeare's King John). Also present are King Philip of France and his sister, Alais, raised by Henry and Eleanor, treatied to be his heir's bride (whomever said heir turns out to be), and presently Henry's mistress. The play has much snark, much of it anachronistic, and also much meanness. And a little bit of heart sneaking in here and there almost despite itself.
If it sounds like I don't love this play, I don't love this play. Lots of people I know absolutely adore the movie with O'Toole and Hepburn - I didn't see it until earlier this year, and I was highly un-fond of it. I did see a version with Patrick Stewart and Glenn Close, and recall enjoying it, but not the particulars - and now I wonder if I would.
I did love working on it though, because the cast and crew included quite a few of my favorite folks, and the time spent on this play will be worth remembering fondly.
I'm the producer on this one, the stage manager, and
lonebear and I collaborated on lights once again. The scene-change stage crew for this one are costumed, and I wear an excellent gown with embroidery and sleeves long enough that I have to be cautious about moving furniture lest I park it on the sleeve bottoms when I bend. I have a pair of strapping lads to do most of the furniture moving, and a alcoholic clergyman who shifts assorted wine containers, while I move pre-set props, and each of us has a brief in-world appearance or character interaction or two. It's tremendous fun. (It also means I can't stay on comm through much of the play, so I change into costume once I open the house, manage the start time, and take off the comm while endeavoring not to disturb the veil-and-circlet arrangement.)
The show opened on Labor Day, which in the city of Greenbelt is an enormous deal with activities all through the weekend. The largest parking lot is occupied by a street fair, and there is a used book sale (which turns into pay what you will by Monday). Saturday is information day, with tables and booths set up for various groups to promote themselves, and the weather was perfect to table for the theater. Sunday tents are replaced by crafter booths, and Monday morning starts with a parade.
Amid all of this chaos we were asked if we might wish to present a set of short scenes on the lawn, and we came up with a trio of offerings. Lonebear directed the killing of Cinna the Poet from Julius Caesar, and I got to be the "Kill him for his bad verses" guy, which is my favorite guy. Gracious Host wrote a prequel to The Lion In Winter where the characters introduce themselves and tell what happens to lead up to the plot, and I got to be Eleanor. And I directed a maximally silly take on Romeo and Juliet "bite your thumb" street scenes, with a translation of the utterly dense language, audience participation, and fulfilling my long-held desire to make R&J characters fight with balloon swords.
Next up, SM and produce Richard II with My Theater Kids directing, and I'm really excited about that!
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Sunday, September 13th, 2026 10:46 pm
ough ough ough
Friday, September 11th, 2026 04:46 pm
Turns out, electrical tape does not actually work as a rim strip. I got a flat today, and after popping the tube out and finding the hole, I discovered it was kind of on the inside, so I examined the rim, and the electrical tape had slid in various ways exposing the little holes. I went back to the bike store and said "wah wah wah". I got a different clerk, and she said "I wouldn't have done it this way", and proceeded to use something that wasn't electrical tape. It was some other mounting tape for some bicycle wheel purpose, but it wasn't for rim strips, but it did work. (Well, the electrical tape worked for 100 miles, so I don't actually know yet. This stuff has worked for 4 miles so far.)
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Friday, September 11th, 2026 04:00 am
Friday, September 11th, 2026 03:55 pm
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Friday, September 11th, 2026 08:14 am
I was in a tap class at the Dance Inn. I will be in the same place this morning for the 25th anniversary - essentially the same class is now on Friday mornings instead of Tuesday. The dancers in my class who were old-ish even then are long gone, but the teacher is the same. I didn't have a cell phone until 2006, and things weren't as connected then, so the news hadn't reached the dance studio. My usual habit on Tuesdays was to walk home from class, stopping at the video store on the way. I walked in and rather than a movie on the screen above the cashier, there was the unbelievable footage from Manhattan. I went to a payphone to try to call Arthur but there was no answer at his office. When I got home I discovered it was because he had heard the news and turned around, and was staring at the TV. Flo was in middle school then. The decision (by the superintendent?) had been made not to close the schools or in the case of Flo's school, at least, even to tell the students what had happened. It was left to the parents to do so when the kids got home. Was that the correct choice? I still don't know. In 1963 when President Kennedy was shot, the principal went room to room and told the teachers to tell us, rather than waiting.
Two of the planes left from Boston
https://lauradi7dw.dreamwidth.org/524602.html
I didn't know anybody who died, but know several people who lost acquaintances, or in one case lost a relationship. A friend broke up with his boyfriend because BF didn't even check to see if B (who worked in Manhattan) was OK. I emailed B the other day. He said that the bad boyfriend has been with his subsequent partner (now husband) since just after that time, so maybe the breakup was meant to be (not my words), but that he still feels hurt that BF didn't even try to check on his well-being. B was one of the people who did the long walk home from downtown. More famously, Sarah Bunting wrote this long post about her experience. (follow-up: several years later, citizens of the web managed to track down Don, who helped her through the experience).
https://tomatonation.com/stories-true-and-otherwise/for-thou-art-with-us/
I became teary while texting family members this morning, but I don't have time for a serious cry, so I will wait until later to re-watch "The Man in the red bandana."
I hope the commemoration this morning in NYC goes well, without Islamaphobes messing it up. I hope that Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump take a long walk off a short pier. (that's not one of the scheduled events).
Two of the planes left from Boston
https://lauradi7dw.dreamwidth.org/524602.html
I didn't know anybody who died, but know several people who lost acquaintances, or in one case lost a relationship. A friend broke up with his boyfriend because BF didn't even check to see if B (who worked in Manhattan) was OK. I emailed B the other day. He said that the bad boyfriend has been with his subsequent partner (now husband) since just after that time, so maybe the breakup was meant to be (not my words), but that he still feels hurt that BF didn't even try to check on his well-being. B was one of the people who did the long walk home from downtown. More famously, Sarah Bunting wrote this long post about her experience. (follow-up: several years later, citizens of the web managed to track down Don, who helped her through the experience).
https://tomatonation.com/stories-true-and-otherwise/for-thou-art-with-us/
I became teary while texting family members this morning, but I don't have time for a serious cry, so I will wait until later to re-watch "The Man in the red bandana."
I hope the commemoration this morning in NYC goes well, without Islamaphobes messing it up. I hope that Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump take a long walk off a short pier. (that's not one of the scheduled events).
Thursday, September 10th, 2026 09:52 pm
it's a pun, you see
Thursday, September 10th, 2026 01:18 pm
an introduction
i'm back again for this venerable game
to post my wit and words so wise…
wait.
to /read/ some wit and words so wise
i'm proud to be here
back again
glad to share what my fingers spew
poet, witch
mother, friend
partner, wife
where does it end
i'm just here to keep it going
maybe find a little more of who
I am
pretend to be a poet noble and true
hoping that this is not just drivel i'm writing here
i don't know how to do an introduction
without lists of things i am
or sounding like a personals ad
so here i am with hair very newly green again
telling you
that poetry is power
and i have it
i brought it here to stay
(i'm told)
and take a bow
(slipping in my own cocky blood)
hoping i am not too anemic these days
because poets bleed ink
with every strike of the keys
and i am no different
no better
no worse
welcome friends and opponents new
this should be fun
let's bring gary some shit
Watch me read it here: :
https://youtu.be/oVCXTq_7zI8?is=p4fwZ_BxtfoVvwAq
Thursday, September 10th, 2026 03:18 pm
I went to my primary care about my back a couple weeks ago, and he didn't have any ideas. He had me get x-rays so the spine center would have them when I go next week. He also recommended going to PT. I was like "but we don't know what to ask them to do" and he said "sometimes they have ideas". So I went to PT. She poked at me and had me do some things and naturally when I tried to demonstrate the problem it didn't happen. It didn't happen at the primary care either. I don't know if I'm doing something different when I'm trying to make it happen because I know it's going to hurt so myubconscious gets in there and refuses. Anyway, the PT gave me some random exercises to stretch the lower back and strengthen small muscles in the lower back. She also did some massage work, and did say that there was quite a lot of tightness in the area. So now I have some PT appointments, and I get to waste 20 minutes of my day on random exercises. As usual, many of them have relationship to yoga poses. And I had in fact noticed that it didn't happen as much if I'd gone to yoga recently. So maybe there's something to be said for all the stretching. We'll see what the spine center says. Maybe it really is not skeletal.
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Thursday, September 10th, 2026 03:09 am
Many years ago, I was sitting on the steps of the MIT Student Center, eating my Tosci's ice cream after SCA dance practice, when a young philosophy major I was mentoring ran up to me and exclaimed, "I just realized! You're not a platonist! You're an empiricist!" I cracked up. To this day I have no idea what ever might have lead him to think I was a platonist in the first place.
I think about that from time to time, moving in the worlds of smart sciency people. One of the things I often feel sets me apart from most of my conspecifics in my cognitive approach to the world is that I am an empiricist. I've been described as "Rationalist-adjacent", which is fair enough, but I am not a small-r rationalist. I love reason – but I love data more. Reason can be great stuff, but without valid data to reason from, it's just a way of going wrong with confidence.
This came round on the guitar again lately with regard to the US cyclosporiasis outbreak. At least one reasonable medical professional whose judgment I generally respect has announced they feel it's safe to go back to eating lettuce, because usually the cyclospora season ends at the end of August. That would be some of that them there reasoning I am dubious about.
I can't help but notice that usually we don't have a cyclosporiasis outbreak like this at all, so reasoning from what usually happens seems to maybe not be so warranted. Sure, maybe all the new cyclosporiasis cases will fall off dramatically in the immediate future because of some seasonal effect. But we don't know why this outbreak happened in the first place, so we don't know what will stop it. Like one of the possibilities here is something climate change related, that, thanks to climate change, will not be dropping below whatever threshold until later in the year than usual.
Personally, I'm going to wait for the data to come in showing that lots of people aren't getting new cyclosporiasis cases.
Now, because of the enormous lag between infection and symptoms, and symptoms and testing, and testing to reporting to health authorities collecting the information, and then publishing it somewhere I can see it, chances are that by the time the new infections numbers go down, lettuce – and the other suspect produce I've been avoiding – will have been safe for weeks.
That's fine. I'm not hurting none. I've had lettuce almost every day this summer, and blueberries too, because we've been patronizing our local farmers market here in Massachusetts, far from the epicenter of the outbreak. Blueberries are out of season now, so I'm on to peaches which to my surprise are apparently in season here to the end of September. When we get takeout, we get thoroughly cooked food. If this goes on, I might get a countertop hydroponic lettuce kit. I don't see a huge need to rush back to eating grocery-store lettuce. I don't think it's some sort of tragedy if I avoid bagged lettuce that retroactively turned out to have been safe for a month or two.
I'll agree that grocery store lettuce is safe to eat again when I see data that indicates that.
I think about that from time to time, moving in the worlds of smart sciency people. One of the things I often feel sets me apart from most of my conspecifics in my cognitive approach to the world is that I am an empiricist. I've been described as "Rationalist-adjacent", which is fair enough, but I am not a small-r rationalist. I love reason – but I love data more. Reason can be great stuff, but without valid data to reason from, it's just a way of going wrong with confidence.
This came round on the guitar again lately with regard to the US cyclosporiasis outbreak. At least one reasonable medical professional whose judgment I generally respect has announced they feel it's safe to go back to eating lettuce, because usually the cyclospora season ends at the end of August. That would be some of that them there reasoning I am dubious about.
I can't help but notice that usually we don't have a cyclosporiasis outbreak like this at all, so reasoning from what usually happens seems to maybe not be so warranted. Sure, maybe all the new cyclosporiasis cases will fall off dramatically in the immediate future because of some seasonal effect. But we don't know why this outbreak happened in the first place, so we don't know what will stop it. Like one of the possibilities here is something climate change related, that, thanks to climate change, will not be dropping below whatever threshold until later in the year than usual.
Personally, I'm going to wait for the data to come in showing that lots of people aren't getting new cyclosporiasis cases.
Now, because of the enormous lag between infection and symptoms, and symptoms and testing, and testing to reporting to health authorities collecting the information, and then publishing it somewhere I can see it, chances are that by the time the new infections numbers go down, lettuce – and the other suspect produce I've been avoiding – will have been safe for weeks.
That's fine. I'm not hurting none. I've had lettuce almost every day this summer, and blueberries too, because we've been patronizing our local farmers market here in Massachusetts, far from the epicenter of the outbreak. Blueberries are out of season now, so I'm on to peaches which to my surprise are apparently in season here to the end of September. When we get takeout, we get thoroughly cooked food. If this goes on, I might get a countertop hydroponic lettuce kit. I don't see a huge need to rush back to eating grocery-store lettuce. I don't think it's some sort of tragedy if I avoid bagged lettuce that retroactively turned out to have been safe for a month or two.
I'll agree that grocery store lettuce is safe to eat again when I see data that indicates that.
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Wednesday, September 9th, 2026 10:08 pm
Wednesday, September 9th, 2026 08:37 pm
My previous electric meter has been replaced with a "smart" one
https://www.wbur.org/news/2026/09/09/massachusetts-smart-meters-eversource-national-grid-time-of-use-rates
Supposedly. one can get information from looking at the hourly results (available online) and adjust one's lifestyle to save electricity. But it's not so smart. It informed me that my biggest use this summer was cooling. I have fans in almost every room but no air conditioning. I admit that the basic components of a dehumidifier are similar to that of an air conditioning unit, and it is surely the case that my usage goes up in the summer because I'm keeping the humidity low in the basement.* It gives an option for telling it more information about oneself to make its usage predictions more accurate. Not gonna.
* When the oil burner is on in the winter, it keeps it non-humid in the basement, so the dehumidifier is off.
https://www.wbur.org/news/2026/09/09/massachusetts-smart-meters-eversource-national-grid-time-of-use-rates
Supposedly. one can get information from looking at the hourly results (available online) and adjust one's lifestyle to save electricity. But it's not so smart. It informed me that my biggest use this summer was cooling. I have fans in almost every room but no air conditioning. I admit that the basic components of a dehumidifier are similar to that of an air conditioning unit, and it is surely the case that my usage goes up in the summer because I'm keeping the humidity low in the basement.* It gives an option for telling it more information about oneself to make its usage predictions more accurate. Not gonna.
* When the oil burner is on in the winter, it keeps it non-humid in the basement, so the dehumidifier is off.
Wednesday, September 9th, 2026 10:02 pm
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Wednesday, September 9th, 2026 11:32 am
This is my announcement. I'm in.
Wednesday, September 9th, 2026 04:00 am
Wednesday, September 9th, 2026 07:02 am
There's a lot going on this month, and here's tomorrow night's plan: Cole Sarar's SciFi Reading Hour at the Bryant Lake Bowl in Minneapolis!
That's right, 7:00 tomorrow, cool SF stories by me and Cole Sarar, read with specially composed musical accompaniment by Martin Law! Come on out to the Bryant Lake Bowl if you're local, it's going to be a good time!
Tuesday, September 8th, 2026 10:03 pm
woomy
Monday, September 7th, 2026 09:51 pm
