stretching.

{}

i’m a big believer in the “do something that scares you, just a little, every day” adage. i started taking that seriously that a few years ago, and, without wanting to get all preachy or nuthin’, it has made all the difference.

but since i moved to california, there’s something or other in my new job that scares me every day. which means that i’ve not really needed or wanted to pursue other, scary activities in life. working half the evening, then coming home, cooking dinner, writing or zoning out over some tv and knitting, kinda sounds great to me most nights. when the sun was up later i’d go for a hike after work if there was enough light (there isn’t these days, with the winter solstice less than a week away).

but working long hours and hanging out with the cat isn’t really a way to make friends and build a life here. a career, perhaps, but not a life. for a while i was running with a women’s running group, but it closed up shop in october. but with the end of the year coming up rapidly, i was running out of time to do several of the things i had promised myself i’d do this year.

last week i finally checked out a dojo where i think i’d like to train: Aikido of Berkeley. walking into a new dojo, walking in new anywhere, is incredibly hard for me, i’m so fucking shy. but going to class the first time at Shinjinkai was one of the hardest, and best, decisions i ever made. so i went. i’m going to check out another dojo or two, but i’m pretty sure this is a place i’d like to train at.

next on the scary-to-join list is volunteering with One Brick. if you don’t know about One Brick, check them out — they are in the Bay Area, Chicago, DC, New York, Minneapolis, and Seattle*. the idea is that they make it easy for people to volunteer their time – one evening at a time, no long term commitments, and after every event, folks go out for a beer and hang out. do good work, hang out with other cool people. good deal, right? and it was. my burning awkward shyness aside, i did chat with interesting, nice people while we repackaged several hundred pounds of raisins at the SF Foodbank, then went out for Vietnamese food afterward. it made me miss Chicago, where i already had friends and a life and a place and a community, terribly. but it’s not going to get better till i suck it up and find some communities of my own.

next week: going to the community center pool and swimming for the first time in 8 months. i’m not a good swimmer. and gyms are intimidating. but i will persevere, intimidating gym!

*hey, i just realized that i know people in all of those cities.

froggy slippers

{07 December 2009}


felting is an amazing, magical process. these slippers started out as large, loosely-knitted bags, and after 20 minutes in a hot washing machine, turned into slippers. still, felting is an inexact science, so it’s hard to gauge just how big the finished item will come out. i started making these for a friend’s newborn, but it became clear that they were never going to felt down to teeny weeny size. so now they have to find a new, toddler-aged recipient.

credit for the pattern goes here; however, while making the froggy slippers, i temporarily placed one felt eye in the center of the slipper. cyclops froggy! thus was born the idea: my own line of monster slippers. they can have teeth, tufts of hair, fins, even a tail or stubby little arms and legs. we dreamed up a website where customers can design and custom-order their own monster slippers. think of it like Mix My Granola, only for wacky slippers.

my kitchen floors are bitterly cold in the morning, and require slippers (not just socks) to stand on them for any length of time. so i think i’ll start with a collection of guest slippers for the house. which size monster are you?

i went to college for this

{01 December 2009}

so we’ve got this play running right now in which (spoiler alert!) a huge comet hits the earth about 1/3 of the way into the show. nearly all forms of life are obliterated, with the exception of our heros, who are safely tucked in a biolab-cum-bomb shelter underground.

hilarity ensues.

at the moment of impact, even underground, there’s some considerable dust, shaking, rattling of cupboards, and so forth. a critic for SFGate wanted to know how we did all the stage tricks — making a cupboard swing down off the wall, a ceiling panel crashes in, boxes come tumbling down, and so forth. our PR manager asked me if i’d answer the reporter’s questions about how some of the specific tricks worked.

i really tried to be succinct. i did. but when you ask someone in the trenches how things work, well, be prepared for the long answer. sadly, an hour’s worth of email got boiled down to what essentially amounts to: “they used extra lumber and some magnets.” to wit:

what i wrote (it’s seriously okay to skim):

The dropping cabinet —
The dropping cabinet effect had to be taken into account pretty much every step in the design and build process, from analyzing and pricing out the set plans, construction methods and materials, to designing the sequence of cues for the Boom and staging the actors.

Both the upstage wall and the cabinet had to be constructed differently to be able withstand the 8″ drop nightly. The entire wall had to built out of heavier, sturdier lumber than what you’d typically use for a standard theatrical flat. The cabinet, too, was constructed from a steel frame skinned with 3/4″ plywood, then a layer of masonite, brackets in all the corners to help it stay square under the stress of the fall. The cabinet alone weighs about 400 lbs.

Hanging it on the wall was tricky, also — the bottom right corner is a pivot point that allows the cabinet to rotate. The top left corner of the cabinet is a peg that runs through the wall in a curved slot — the top of the slot is where the cabinet sets in its upright position, the bottom of the slot is where the cabinet rests once gravity has had its way. Calculating the path that the cabinet would take as it rotated on its pivot point required some geometry. The other two corners of the cabinet don’t attach to the wall at all — they couldn’t, for the cabinet to be able to swing — so the cabinet has to hang on the wall with only two attachment points. That was one reason for the rigid steel frame construction.

Behind the scenes, on the upstage side of the wall, the upper left corner of the cabinet (the side that drops) is held up with a big electromagnet suspended from the lighting grid above the stage. The magnet we used was rated to hold up to 1400 lbs. It’s a disc about 5″ in diameter. When turned on, it sits flat against a steel plate welded to the back of the cabinet. Our Master Electrician had to rewire the electromagnet to work with the theatre’s lighting system so that it could be controlled by the lighting board (rather than plugged in with an extension cord).

When the moment for the drop comes, the magnet is turned off (there’s a loud clunk sound that comes from the magnet itself — fortunately not a sound that needed to be masked given all the other loud sound cues happening at the same moment) and the cabinet drops 8″ to its bottom resting point.

Inside the cabinet, all the stuff — the boxes of batteries, cliff bars, bottles of bourbon, diapers, etc — had to be glued down inside the cabinet so that when it falls, they don’t roll out. The bottles of bourbon were created from plastic, rather than glass, for safety reasons and also to cut down on how much weight went into the already-very-heavy cabinet.

How the timing works —
Because we’re using an electromagnet, we were able to connect and control the magnet with the light board. Which means that turning off the magnet was simply written into a lighting cue. That way we had very detailed control over the timing of the cabinet drop. The Stage Manager calls the series of light and sound cues that make up the sequence of the Boom to the Board Operator, who runs the light board and the sound computer (which in turn controls the analog sound board). So the light cue was written to turn off the magnet at the exact moment we wanted the cabinet to drop in the sequence. That way the timing is exactly the same every night.

Safeties and backstage —
There are two safeties on the cabinet. Any time the show isn’t running, the corner of the cabinet sits on top of a stage jack, a wooden brace that sits between the counter top and the cabinet. It keeps the cabinet safely upright and steady. Storing it upright reduces stress on the cabinet joints (cabinets weren’t meant to hang at an angle).

As a second safety, there is a chain backstage which hangs from the lighting grid above the stage which clips onto the cabinet’s steel arm and holds it in place should the magnet be turned off unexpectedly.

When Stage Management sets up for the show, they have the Board Operator turn on the magnet with the light board, confirm that it is holding the cabinet securely, then remove the stage jack. The chain safety backstage remains on until about 3 minute before the actual drop. When we get close to the Boom cue sequence, the Production Assistant, who runs the deck backstage, removes the safety chain so it is only being held by the magnet until the moment of the drop.

Also, the Technical Director and Stage Management conduct daily checks of all the elements involved in the cabinet drop — making sure that nothing is bending, showing signs of stress, skewing out of 90-degree square, etc, and that it is hitting the same marks each night.

The boxes —
There are a total of 26 boxes stacked on top of that cabinet. Most of them are assembled into a “box sculpture.” They are attached to one another with several kinds of glue, tape, and thin strips of wood. The base of the box sculpture is lined with plywood, which is in turn bolted directly to the top of the cabinet. That way the cabinet can move and the boxes move with it but keep their orientation with regard to one another. There are seven boxes that aren’t built into the sculpture, and they are the ones that fall. They are stacked up there before each performance by the Production Assistant. Even the falling boxes aren’t random, though — our Scenic Designer and Props Artisan designed a look for the entire set of boxes, and each of the seven falling boxes is numbered and gets preset into the stack in a specific position and orientation according to a photo “map”. The idea is for the falling and fixed boxes to blend together visually so that when they fall, it’s a surprise.

Actor safety —
Though an empty cardboard box is not a terribly dangerous thing, probably no one wants to find themselves under a stack of falling boxes nightly. So we had to work with our performer, Blythe (who plays Jo), so that she was thrown back from the door by the blast into a position where she is clear of the falling boxes. Those physical actions are rehearsed on the set nightly before every performance, to help the actors make sure they hit the same mark each night, keeping them safe and in control.

Another trivia fact —
One of the sound sources that our Sound Designer used to design the rumble of the comet blast was an underwater recording of the Indian Ocean earthquake that caused the terrible tsunami in 2004.

what he wrote:

Stage sets aren’t built to withstand the impact of a massive comet hitting the planet. Few things are. That’s the problem designer Erik Flatmo and the Marin Theatre Company crew had to solve in “Boom,” Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s apocalyptic sex farce in which just such an Earth-shattering event occurs. The actors, sound and lighting effects depict the moment of impact, but the set plays a big role as well – which means it had to be constructed from heavier materials than usual. The cabinet beneath that stack of boxes is a 400-pound steel-frame affair, attached to a solidly framed wall on pivot points that allow a degree of precise movement. An electromagnet (rated for 1,400 pounds), wired into the lighting system, holds it in place until its big moment. For added impact, one of the sound sources used when the comet hits comes from an underwater recording of the 2004 earthquake that generated the huge Indian Ocean tsunami.


(original article, with a set picture)

so there. now you all know. closes December 5, bay area peeps!

thankgiving photoset

{30 November 2009}


(click for more)

thanksgiving was a quieter affair this year, as many of the orphans from Keenans’ Orphan Thanksgiving weren’t orphaned this year, or, rather, have jobs that wouldn’t let them zip cross country for the day. those of us who were there drank moderate quantities of alcohol, pots of decaf coffee in the morning, and no one suffered a raging hangover at any point in the weekend. goodness, are we growing up? perhaps yes. but not outgrowing friends, the extended families of our twenties. things are just…shifting.

it was lovely to be back in chicago, the weather was cold and refreshing but not bitterly cold, trees all bare and crisp sunshine. visits with friends went by much too fast, there were plays to see and there was time to train at the dojo, which left me sore for the rest of the week. oh and B and i made a killer apple pie. his mom’s filling recipe + cook’s illustrated’s pastry dough recipe + Martha Stewart’s presentation (pastry dough cut into maple leaves) + the keenans’ deep dish pie pan are an unstoppable combination. for the rest of the weekend we all ate pie and coffee for breakfast. mmm, pie for breakfast.

i flew back on saturday night with that displaced feeling: which way is home? am i scanning the airport monitor for flights to or from Chicago? to or from San Francisco? i say ‘here’ when i mean ‘there’, and ‘there’ when i mean ‘here’. leaving chicago was harder than i expected, and then getting back to california was easier than expected. it hasn’t been an easy transition, this one. but when i look in the mirror, i am surprised that the face looking back at me doesn’t reveal all the uncertainly and reluctance i feel lodged in my chest. it is a face that looks strangely determined.

coming apart at the (color-coded) seams

{15 November 2009}

Multitasking works? Not really, Stanford study shows

it says more, perhaps, that i’ve been meaning to blog about this article for weeks than the article itself. the study confirms something that i’d begun to suspect – that when i’m multi-tasking, i’m not actually doing any of the tasks as well as when i’m focused on one task. my job demands that i jump around a lot – there is a constant stream of traffic in and out of my office door, phones that ring, reasons why i need to go to the shop and stage and rehearsal room – but i’ve noticed that i’m getting really bad about starting one task and then leaping to another and another, before i finish any of them.

i do think that multi-tasking is a pretty key skill for the nature of my job, but being good at it/flexible about its demands has been giving me permission to multitask even when it’s NOT necessary. i have two monitors on my desk*, and i starting using mac’s spaces function, thinking that it’d be handy to sort my applications into different screens: one for communication — to-do list, email and calendar and quick web research (that’s multiple tabs on multiple firefox windows), another for excel, another for word documents — what i’m realizing is that it’s giving me permission to have even more projects going at one time.

i’m also facing a larger workload than i’ve had in a long time, probaby ever, and feeling the pressure to be really efficient with the way that i work. i’ve been thinking about picking up a book on efficient working practices.** so tonight, on a get-lost-in-a-bookstore-date with B, i wandered over to the business section (steered clear of the self-help section) and looked at some books on time management. i picked up The 25 Best Time Management Tools & Techniques: How to Get More Done Without Driving Yourself Crazy, and this is the blurb on the back:

You get the benefit of the top twenty books on time management in one easy to read book. The authors took an interesting approach to writing this book. They started by reading the Amazon.com customer reviews for over 40 time management books. Then they bought and read the top 20 of these books. The key points from these books were then summarized as 25 clearly described tools and techniques and grouped into five areas of focus.

…and that just kind of horrified me. the quantity vs. quality notion. the approach that we can strip down tasks to make them as efficient as possible. that a book on time management was made by leap frogging off of other people’s books and reviews on time management and then repackaged. i’m…having trouble putting into words exactly what seemed wrong about this to me, but something’s definitely missing. i do need to find ways to do a large work load efficiently and in the lowest-stress manner possible. but i’m not sure i need a list of ways to color-code and organize my post-it notes. i need to think through the philosophy of putting my head and my values in the right place. this job is always going to be hard, always going to be too much work for too little time and pay. the question is whether i can get my head in the right place to work hard, be proud of what i’ve done, and let go of the things that i can’t do. i guess i should be browsing in the philosophy section instead.

PS. it took me almost two months, from the time i started it, to finish this post. and it started out being about multi-tasking, and ended up being about why i’m working in the arts and whether it makes me happy. QED.

* i’m not that fancy – it’s just that both are tiny and i need real estate for spreadsheets

**maybe i can read it while i watch a movie and check my twitter account.

{01 November 2009}


san francisco at dawn

one of the things i like best about the part of califonia i’ve moved to is the variety in flora: on the hillside surrounding my apartment, the following plants are growing: palm trees, deciduous trees: cherry, live oak, eucalyptus among others, coniferous trees: redwoods and others, ferns, bamboo, blackberry bushes, wild grasses, cactus, agave, and ivy. what do all those plants have in common? basically, nothing, except that they all live in my front yard. its kind of an amazing climate.

the other thing about northern california is that the colors of the seasons are all mixed up. growing up in the Idaho rocky mountains, the seasons work thus: summer is green, fall is golden, winter is brown, and spring is…mostly more brown. the same general rule applies to Chicago. but here, everything works backwards: there is so little rain in the summer that everything turns golden brown by july, and stays that way until the rains start in october or november. then suddenly everything turns green, and the morning fogs cease and the skies are deep dark blue, and the world continues to green throughout the winter. spring brings flashes of color as the early flowers bloom. i remember being so surprised by this pattern when i came to northern california for college. being away for eight years, most of which i spent in chicago (or idaho) i’d forgotten how upside down the color palettes are here.

mind you, i’m not complaining. it’s november first, and i woke up to sunlight from my south-facing windows at 7am. by 8am it was warm enough to have the front door open, an zeke went out and slept in the sun on the porch. B and i spent the morning hiking in the hills above MV. recent rains have caused the ferns to spring out of the ground in force, whole hillsides of lime-green fronds unfurling in the shade. the trees that do respond to the changes in light are throwing down their leaves, crunchy, a smell of rotting leaves that evoked some memory from childhood.

but golden gate park shows no sign of impending winter:


too beautiful out for ghouls: halloween game of frisbee in golden gate park