An FYI on Audience Participation

 

Please don’t.

 

Okay, so I’m admittedly a traditionalist on this issue: 8 years of concert band will do that to a kid. But there is a time and a place for everything, and often the time and place doesn’t include the audience.

 

Hence the word “audience” instead of “participant”.

 

Audience (Photo credit: thinkmedialabs)

 

Sighing over the in-girl -guy in movie theaters? I’d prefer you keep your preference to yourselves, but sure, so long as you’re not too obnoxious. A thirty decibel difference in the clapping vs screaming at a high school graduation? The poor kids have suffered enough through high school that those who’ve pulled together an entourage are the ones who don’t need it.

 

All those shrieking people outside Good Morning America (and similarly, anything televised)—do you ever feel the least bit silly?

 

These, though, I can grudgingly accept as a consequence of the total lack of subtly in our culture. Or our total lack of culture, which ever way you want to look at it.

 

After the Aurora, Colorado shootings, President Obama used the platform of one of his intended campaign speeches to address the nation. That’s fine. Just as well he suspend campaigning on a day like that and it’s standard practice that the president make a speech after such tragedies. It’s sad that we have such a precedent.

 

But that’s absolutely no excuse for all those audience members, especially those standing behind him, to start squealing and hollering in today’s Hollywood ‘applause’ I get to see the president! That should have been a time of horror—respect and honor for the victims. Contain your fan excitement and understand there’s a world outside of you.

 

Sometimes silence says most of all. OK?

 

Help, I’m Trapped Online and I Can’t Get Off!

Heh, it's called "Sleep Disorder"

So I’m up too late again, if only because I didn’t quite get enough sleep last night after watching Inception (after setting it up) but could only do so after going to play practice, and Inception is a very long movie. Once you get past the first hour and a half, it’s compelling, interesting story! And then I woke up too early after a fabulous dream, and although I might have been able get back to it enough to remember exactly why it was so fabulous, I was called in to sub for PE.

I remember I didn’t like PE in school. If I had to do high school over again knowing what I know now, I’d be much better at it, but I’d never be in that situation in the first place. I don’t have a high-school soul. Not like the Cullens.

Anyway, I got home. And subbing is always tired, I don’t know how teachers aren’t perpetually unconscious. So I got online, although only after finishing an art thing for my friend (yay me, I got something done!). Anyway, then I got online, and then I ended up on tvtropes.org, which just linked and linked and linked and now I have way too many tabs to catch up on when I’m not trying to write a blog post while falling asleep at the keyboard.

At least I’ve learned many interesting things.

For instance, that the only reason they could show her bellybutton was because Roddenberry got the censor drunk.

Spock Must Die!

Image by Morgales via Flickr

This picture has nothing to do with anything. But I can’t get rid of it. If I try, the entire post is deleted.

Dear WP, I hate you, M.

It’s been one of those days.

Spock Must Die! So goes the title of my newest Star Trek novel. You may see the appeal. Just the sort of campy over-the-topness I enjoy. And, as it is the Corgi British edition (1974 of course), it has the best cover ever:

But frankly, I just don’t feel like blogging today.

There isn’t even much to talk about. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours sketching out a picture, and then nearly eight working with in in Illustrator. Which then crashed. So I had to do it again, and though it went faster I was still up to midnight. End product was awesome though.

But then I had to get up early to sub at the high school, which is cool and all but exhausting. And always weird, since so many of my former teachers still work there, and the others think I’m a student. It probably doesn’t help that I don’t feel like a teacher, which I’m not, but not even like substitute teacher. Anybody else remember elementary school, before you learned a teacher’s name, what you called them?

Teacher.

Students, I think, don’t see any particular person-hood in their teachers, not even in high school. They are starting to, but there are certain parameters of behavior that are expected, and I’m constantly afraid of violating them. It’s a disorienting experience.

I need to get back to writing on Plinky. The daily write-ups definitely kept up motivation and interest.

The Community at Large

Image via Wikipedia

Since mostly all I do is read online and off, and am not working, I’ve been trying to push my boundaries.

That’s mostly been volunteering at the library and theater, or trying to make myself exercise. Or sending hand written letters to friends, which is all the harder when there is no subject matter because I do so little.

My brothers are good at doing community-type things. One such thing is acting. Both were in drama club in high school, and are excellent actors. When I was in high school I read all the time and never managed any extracurricular activities except when band had required events like playing for the football team. I just read all the time.

However! the Modoc Performing Arts Theater (M.P.A.T.) group is putting on The Curious Savage at the local theater. The play focuses on Ethel Savage,  a wealthy widow who checks herself into a sanatorium called The Cloisters, which has some rather bizarre

I really, really did. And actually, wasn’t as nervous as I thought I’d be. Whether that’s in spite of, or because, there were only the casters(?) and no one else showed up to audition, remains to be seen. At any rate, I was reading for the part of Mrs. Paddy, who is an uncomfortable character, in that she doesn’t speak at all because her husband ordered her not to years and years ago—except on the five occasions she reminds everyone that she hates “everything in the world” and then lists them in random order, like “broken glass [and] eels” (except she likes to go on). Or as I tried to read it, “broken eels”: although if she hates everything, that would still be perfectly valid.

Anyway, see that number? The five? That’s why I auditioned for her part.

1. However random her lists, that’s only five times she has to speak, and only after being addressed. My brother assures me it’s easier to remember your cue when you aren’t the first one to speak.
2. Despite the whole not speaking because your husband told you not to, she sounded like a fun character. Sometimes I hate everything too!
3. This is not the same as the first. But only five lines! I like small numbers, when it comes to things I’ve never done before.

And it wasn’t much of a risk to try, because even though my brother told me they didn’t have many people showing up to the auditions, I’ve never had anything to do with drama before. Well, other than attending my brothers’ plays. It seemed fun to try out because it’s practically family tradition! At least I’m pretty sure both sets of grandparents were involved in the community theater. I need to look more into the details of that, although I’m pretty sure my paternal grandparents were once really active in their theater. But I’ve never been particularly inclined to act, am often shy (or at least oblivious), and have been told I’m inaudible in general conversation.

So I wasn’t particularly worried about getting cast. It’d fun to audition, yeah, but probably safer if I didn’t actually participate.

I just got the call a few hours ago. I’m not Mrs. Paddy. They cast me as Mrs. Willie.

She’s a better part. Mrs. Willie is part of the staff at The Cloisters, who is very kind to all the residents, and is even married to one. Except her husband has no idea who she is, so she pretends she’s single. Yes, she’s loyally waiting for her husband who doesn’t remember a thing about her, and resides in a sanatorium—but hey, the play debuted in the fifties. What more can you expect?

So I’m going to be on stage.

This is me not freaking out. Yet.