Guns N Roses

Guess who still got it?

Prepping for the TV show about our Private Eye/Publishing business

This:

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24 Hour Opera Project

5 composers
5 librettists
5 stage directors and 5 musical directors.
20-25 singers.

5 teams: each team is given a theme and 2 props.

Composers and librettists have 12 hours in which to compose an opera.

The following day, musical directors, stage directors and singers have another 12 hours to stage, rehearse and learn their given opera.

At 19:30, on the SCADShow stage, they performed. For our entertainment.

5 operas, composed learned and rehearsed in 24 hours. Each one 15-20 minutes long. It was phenomenal. My vote (there was an audience appreciation winner) was for the Purple team, the first performance. Reasons: their use of props; rather than working them in to a story, they made the story entirely about the props. The music; operatic, highly pleasing and strongly thematic throughout. The performance; flawless on the part of the singers.

As we waited for judges' deliberations, the team staged 3 improv operettas. I had never seen anything like it, and it was simply wonderful. Humorous, of course well sung, highly entertaining. I could watch this every week.

Happy Easter

Words in battle

I attended my first ever word battle this weekend. That's not what it is called, I believe it is Write Club?

In any case, props must be given for creativity.

• Circle of Life outweighed by I walk the Line
• A journey to Squareland
• A treatise on eating children for a good cause
• And a thousand and one nights

Busy Week

It turns out 6 people all in one house is busy and chaotic even if they are all adults.

So here's the drill.

A Friday drive with stops in Covington and Aiken - hello America - and arrival in Charleston. Saturday strolls and night at the symphony with featured R2-D2, storm troopers, Obi Wan, and Bob Gebhardt, concudcting

 

Sunday Christmas Carol service - sing along! - and Monday shopping for last minute gifts. 

Spotlight: entering the cinema to see a film you know nothing about is always fun. When the film is Spotlight it makes for quite an impact. See this film. It is important. 

Have I mentioned the food? Food, wine, limoncello, nocino. And more food. 

Some work, more errands, more food, more presents. More chocolate. Star Wars, of course. And so it goes.

NY Celebrations

Geek: It's the New Black

About a week ago I was at a dinner party, getting to know my neighbours at the table. Well, some of them: I was at the children's table and I confess the only other person I knew at the party (other than the host) was a 19 year old across from me. But that's a different story.

After explaining that his wife is a part-time writer, the long-haired, soft-spoken orchestra-conductor-looking man on my left smiles timidly and confesses - as his tone of voice suggested - that he is a Geek.

You can imagine my joy. I had thought this party would be mainly art curators, reporters and authors, and here I was: seated next to one of my own. My eyes brightened, I smiled and with great warmth and pride exclaimed "So am I!", as Giuseppe remarked enthusiastically "My wife is one of those!"

We soon came to discussing who first made Geek cool (Giuseppe says Bill Gates, I say Mark Zuckerberg). Our dinner-mate says neither: we hate Gates for his anti-open-source practices and Zuckerberg is too showy. Ok clearly he was a Purist Geek. Those are good too.

In any case I stand in the Zuckerberg camp (and hats off to JT for his part in this social shift). What do you think? With all his fame Gates still never quite made it main-stream cool to be a Geek. I won't say Zuckerberg single-handedly did that either, but it is what he represents: the small, almost presumptuous, online startup.