Monthly Archives: October 2011

Occupy Movement Graphics

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It will surprise few readers of this blog to learn that I support the Occupy Movement (it basically comes down to Corporate Needs aren’t the same as Corporate Greed). If you’re still unsure about the focus of the protests or what people are so mad about, check out this easy-to-read, graph-heavy article that I highly recommend. And here are another couple articles with great, thoughtful responses to people who wonder why Occupy folks can’t just work harder to get a leg up. And here’s an image from the disastrous police response to the Occupy Oakland group last week that shows the scary side of simply showing up to state your discontent with the system as it stands. I encourage you to take a look at http://www.occupytogether.org/ to see what’s going on in your community and how you can get involved. And for a fun way to stick it to the banks and get rid of your junk mail at the same time, check out this video (although I don’t think adding weight to the envelope actually adds to what they pay the USPS).

In the meantime, cartoons! Here are some great images from Facebook about the Occupy Movement. Enjoy!

Oh Monopoly man, your walrus mustache used to be cute, but in this context, well, it's just sinister.

How many people do you think would LOVE to get a job?

Thanksgiving's looking pretty sad for most of the country this year, and how many more years? (Click on the image for 9 more images.)

Okay, I don't agree that the Tea Party is fascist, but I definitely agree that the Occupy Movement is democratic. Celebrate it! Support it!

Image 1 from here. Image 2 from here. Image 3 from here. Image 4 from here.

New Centerstage Review Up

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Profile Theatre’s A Behanding in Spokane was thrilling and discomfiting, but also empty and hopeless. Staged like a particularly well-executed playwriting exercise, we begin truly in media res, as a one-handed man shoots into a closet, calls his mother, and opens the door to let in a frantic young woman waving a dessicated human hand. What. is up. Here’s an excerpt of my play review:

Thad Hallstein’s set is so spot-on, it looks like he picked up the dingiest motel room he could find and put it down in the middle of the theater. Such a room requires a mood as bleak, and Cox sets the tone with his cruel, efficient treatment of Marilyn and Toby, and his singular focus on getting back what is rightfully his.

You can read the rest here.

I’ve never seen a Profiles show before, and while I enjoyed this show somewhat (I think the review came off more positive than I intended, oops), I’m not sure I’ll be back. They have produced just about every Neil La Bute play ever written, and I’m not super interested in supporting a theater that’s that obsessed with putting on La Bute’s misanthropic, sexist, would-be Mametism.

Aesthetically Speaking: Paige Draper

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Please welcome Paige Draper to the Aesthetically Speaking series of artist interviews. I know Paige from wayback, when she was singing in something like four choirs and dancing her way through the halls of our high school. Looks like she’s kept that joy of movement in her new home of Philly. Thanks for sharing, Paige!

What is your name and city of residence?
Paige Draper, Philadelphia

What medium do you work in?
Irish step dance

How often do you work on your art–is it a full-time endeavor or something
you work on in your spare time?
About twice a week–I teach and take lessons myself.

Paige Draper

all gussied up for a competition

How does art fit into your life, in general? Is it something you think about
and talk about every day, or every week, or only in certain situations,
etc.?
Irish dance has always been a huge part of my life and I certainly think about it every day. I would like to be involved in more, but the economy makes it difficult at this point.

When you start on a piece, what kind of end result do you have in mind? Does
it get performed or published, put in a permanent form or is it more
temporary?
Usually if the dance is to be performed I’m mostly concerned about the nature and attention-span of the audience. The material needs to also accommodate the performance space and floor. Since Irish dance is performed in hard and soft shoes, whether or not we use hard shoes depends on whether it’s a hard floor or carpet. In terms of the audience, if they want traditional Irish dance we try to use traditional dances and if it’s more of a flashy show we use music and choreography from Broadway shows such as “Riverdance” and “Lord of the Dance.”

What goals do you set in relation to your art, both short- and long-term? Is
it something you hope to make money doing, or is it something you want to
keep uncommercialized? Does the term “sell-out” hold meaning for you or do
you see the art/commerce relationship as a necessary one?
Teaching Irish dance allowed me to afford graduate school and move to Philly, but now it’s more of a therapeutic part of my life. I someday will get my teaching certificate and hopefully make money as a teacher, but I’m focusing more on my role as a performer and competitor as of now. I’m not the biggest fan of the way Irish dance has been introduced in this country because it is a national symbol of Irish history and culture. “Riverdance” and especially “Lord of the Dance” represent Irish dance in a flashy, Broadway manner.

What role does collaboration with others play in your art, if any?
Concerning traditional Irish dance, we provide jobs and roles for Irish musicians, costume designers, and artists. If Irish dance were not as popular as it is in the US, these individuals may not have as many work opportunities.

How conscious are you of your artistic influences? Who are your artistic
influences?
I know that some children have expressed Irish dance as positive role in their social lives and has given them confidence as a performer and individual. I don’t have very many artistic influences, however expanding my knowledge of the history and importance of the dance has given me a powerful sense of my heritage and culture. I’d like to think that my ancestors smile upon my work to preserve and represent such a significant cultural symbol.

Since this is a travel blog, how does travel relate to or affect your art?
(Themes in what you produce, road trips to perform your music, thoughts on
what happens to your painting when you ship it across the country to a
customer, etc.)
Myself and many others travel great distances to perform and compete in Irish dance, in fact, so much to the point that it costs money and sacrifice.

And finally, a right-brain question: If your art was a map, what would it be
a map of?
I’d like to think my art is a map of Ireland and its history. The dances represent cultural traditions and historical events that have occurred in the past. It is a wonderful way to teach people about such things through movement and music.

Photo from Paige’s personal collection.

New Series: Be a Grown-Up

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“Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.”
— Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye

It’s a well-documented feeling, that we were expecting to be given a copy of The Grown-Up’s Handbook when we turned 24 or so, and that once this did not happen, we grew very discouraged. You mean to say that we have to figure out all sorts of bizarre adult rituals like buying car insurance and navigating office politics on our own? And once we realized that actually no one else had received the handbook either, and that they’re all figuring it out on their own too, we saw it first as “phew, I’m not the only one,” and then “wait a minute, who’s running this show?”

I’m 28 years old and confident in my ability to run my own life well. I pay my bills, go to my job, host visitors, etc. I like lists and I like my planner. I’m self-sufficient and have been since fall of 2005. But there are some things I have no idea how to do, things that I’m ashamed aren’t in my skill set, because they seem so basic to being a functioning adult or someone who can help out in a scrape (like, say, on a trip around the world).

So for this new blog series, I thought I’d combine learning with fun, just like they taught us on Magic School Bus. I have a Flip video camera and friends who know how to do stuff. I’m going to make videos of them teaching me useful things, and then post them here for your viewing pleasure. You can laugh at my missteps and perhaps pick up a new skill in the meantime. How’s that sound?

Let’s brainstorm what skills I’ll be learning. Here are some things I don’t know how to do that I’d like to (with some suggestions from Hannah and Andy, thanks). This should give you an idea of the scope of things I’m looking to learn:

Fix a hem
Change a car tire
Bake bread
Start a fire
Make coffee
Drive a stick shift
File an insurance claim
Play poker and euchre or other tricks-based card game
Knit a scarf
Tie a necktie
Administer basic first aid
Make an Excel sheet that actually takes advantage of the calculation function, rather than just notes how long it’s been since my last oil change

I won’t necessarily be learning all of these, but it’s a good start. Please use the comments below to suggest a skill and/or offer your services as a teacher. I clearly can’t do this without you. I think this should be one of those inspirational government posters: Together, we can help me Be a Grown-Up.

So go on, comment away. It’s patriotic.

New Centerstage Review Up

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I had trouble writing up the latest play I saw for Centerstage, because I felt so conflicted about what I’d seen. Under the Blue Sky by David Eldridge has received rave reviews everywhere it’s been performed, including here in Chicago. It’s well-written, with natural dialogue and smart commentary.

But the characters were straight out of the Cliché Grab Bag. We had the Emotionally Unstable Woman who frantically waved a knife at her lover rather than let him move away, the Slut Who Only Does It Cuz She Hates Herself, and the Shy Young Man Who’s Secretly a Pervert. Still, the actors played them well, and with a considerable amount of subtlety. And there were some twists that undermined the clichés somewhat. But why make them the premise in the first place?

(Also, the male actor in the final scene seemed to be constantly forgetting his lines, not entirely, just enough to throw off the rhythm entirely. Must’ve been frustrating for his female counterpart.)

Here’s an excerpt of my play review:

And what private moments these are. The first two vignettes show so-called friends at their worst, people treating each other so badly that they even come right out and comment on how ugly the situation is.

You can read the rest here.

The Postcard Project

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I’ve been a packrat for as long as I’ve had possessions. Mom made increasingly futile attempts over the years to get me to throw out illegible scribblings, broken toys, once-treasured stuffed animals long left in dust. It was a holiday in the Findley family when I moved just about the last of my boxes out of the basement and into my Chicago apartment. I’ve gotten a lot better over the years, but I still keep more than I should.

My penmanship will be just as fancy-looking but illegible.

So it was not too surprising when, cleaning up my desk at work a few weeks ago, I found a stack of paper three years old. It was the remains of one of those page-a-day calendars, the theme of this one being “1,001 Places to See Before You Die” (a morbid way of looking at it, and clunkier than “The Bucket List,” but it sure did have a lot of pretty pictures). I’d torn off the pages and kept them in a stack because they might come in handy someday. When? What day would a stack of frayed-edge color landscape photos from 2008 come in handy for anything?

I found a use for them. I decided, in the tradition of the marvelous Mlle. O’Leary, I needed to step up my non-electronic communication, so I’m making postcards out of the old calendar and sending them to friends all over the world. It’s not a hard thing to do, or a skilled one, but it’s fun to sit in front of the latest Parks & Rec pasting photos on cardstock and writing affectionate messages on the back. It’s a good time to pause and think about the person I’m writing and ogle the scenery on the postcard.

I’m sending at least one postcard a week from now until next September when I leave on my trip, so if you want one, just let me know. Don’t put your address in the comments, because don’t put your address on the Internet, good grief I hope you know that, but do drop a note if you’d like a postcard and you can email me your postal address. I can’t promise when or what stunning vista you’ll receive, but I will promise that sometime in the next year, you’ll get a handmade postcard in the mail from me. Here we go!

Image from here.