A wonderfully nerdly performance of mental arithmetic. I found his use of word mnemonics to remember large numbers quite cool.
Tags: Mathematics, performance, TED, Video
I just finished a long overdue upgrade of all the UnhinderedByTalent.com WordPress installs, so everyone’s all spiffy and shiny now.
The photo (from the Green Fair where we met the River Nene folks) is just there to fool you into believing this post actually had content :-).
Someone asked over on Flickr if I knew who this was. I didn’t have a clue who he was until the question prompted me to do my homework. You’re looking at Bob Breeks, the guitarist and singer for The Bad Terrorists, a band here in Colchester. They were played with (I’m assuming) reduced amplification at the fair, so you really couldn’t hear the vocals for crap, but the playing was quite fun.
Tags: band, blog, Colchester, guitar, Music, my photography, performance, Photography, software, UnhinderedByTalent.com, WordPress
The three of us saw an excellent production of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus two weeks ago at the Mercury Theatre (see WeatherGirl’s excellent report), and last night we saw the companion piece, Julius Caesar.
One of the cool things they’ve done is use an all male cast for Coriolanus, and an all female cast for Julius Caesar. Both groups did a great job, and it was wonderful to see how quickly we came to see them as their characters, regardless of their gender. No particular effort was made to act like a man/woman, so no camp voices or crotch scratching. The focus instead was on the text and the characters, and they did a really fine job, showing how a powerful, honest delivery of the text can sell the characters irrespective of the physical bodies they inhabit.
I was also struck by how contemporary the language sounded in Coriolanus. Often Shakespeare can sound very Shakespeare, and you’re constantly reminded that you’re watching something old. Here, however, the (unaltered) text came off as much more contemporary, a tribute again to the quality of the cast and direction.
One might reasonably wonder why they chose to use these mono-gender casts. A decision was made to do Shakespeare’s two roman plays (Colchester is, after all, the ancient roman capital of Britain), while independently a list was being gathered of company members who wanted to participate in this fall’s season. The company list was roughly an even split on gender (a good sign and certainly not to be assumed, even today), while (not surprisingly) the list of parts was greatly imbalanced in favor of the gents. The two women that were organizing the productions (each directed one of the two plays, and assisted with the other) decided to boldly go, and chose to cast both plays along gender lines. Based on the performances, listening to the cast talk about their experiences, and the reviews, it must be regarded as a great success.
Tags: Colchester, drama, performance, Sabbatical, Shakespeare, theatre
For the bored among you, I’ve posted the accounting or the Mutant Variety Show as a Google Doc.
I’m writing the checks to the two organizations as we speak, and we’ve raised (to date) a total of $748, or $374 for each organization (the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF) and the Cancer Kids Fund of the Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota).
People can continue to donate in our name to LAF via their Mutant Variety Show web site, and I’m sure that Cancer Kids wouldn’t argue if you sent them a check.
Thanks a zillion to all our wonderful performers and our incredibly generous audience!
Tags: cancer, fund raising, Music, Mutant Variety Show, performanceAs mentioned earlier, In a little less than three weeks, Sub-Evil Boy and I will be hosting a strange evening of music and fun, with donations going to cancer-related charities.
And so here we have our advertising poster :-).
The octopus image comes from PeeZed’s blog, the photo of Sub-Evil and I from Ellery Fisher, and the banjo shot is mine. The background is a manipulated detail from a photo of some of WeatherGirl’s wonderful art.
Hardly high art, but still it has an antique etching of an octopus, and that’s gotta be worth something!
Tags: cancer, fund raising, graphic design, Music, Mutant Variety Show, performanceSub-Evil Boy and I went over to Joe Alia’s house Sunday to practice as part of preparations for the big concert Sub-Evil and I will be hosting in 3.5 weeks. I brought my camera along and took a few shots of the two of them playing. I’ll probably post several over the week on flickr as I sort through them, but this is definitely one of my favorites.
Joe has worked up a chart of "Misty" for the two of them (Joe on sax, Sub-Evil on battered cornet), and here they’re working on playing it together for the first time. This is a special song in my family, and especially between my dad and sister. Its popularity in the 60’s led to my parents calling my sister Misty (even though her "official" name is Mary), and the song has become part of the powerful jazz bond between my father and sister. Given that the concert is (for me) largely about family and friends (and to raise a little money for cancer charities) to have Sub-Evil play this song is really wonderful. Joe gets huge props for working with us on this; having Tom play with him is essentially private lessons with an excellent musician, and I’m extremely grateful.
Tags: cancer, Family, Music, Mutant Variety Show, performanceIt may be 460 miles from Morris to Wall Drug, but it’s only 28 days from here to The Mutant Variety Show!
Yup - Thursday, 5 April 2007 at 7pm, in the HFA Recital Hall right here on the UMM campus.
This will be a crazy evening featuring all manner of music and fun, all for the good cause of supporting cancer-related charities. Roughly half the program will be Sub-Evil Boy and me, doing both originals like “Taco Man”, “Fat fly”, and “Crabgrass”, as well as covers goofy and serious (”Looking for my leopard”, “Strange fruit”, “Personal Jesus”, and “I’m so lonesome I could cry”).
Your reward for sitting through the two of us, though, is all the other wonderful performers that have agreed to join us, again doing a mixture of (brilliant!) originals and (great!) classics. Huck Brock on the many problems with Barbie Dolls! Joey Iverson drifting out through the solar system and beyond! John Hanson’s love song, complete with bats! Brittney Stone and Eagan Heath leading us in a round of jigs! And, of course, the mighty Jazz Stylings of Joe Alia!
Oh, yeah, it’s gonna be fun :-).
There will also be some cool spoken word (Athena Kildegaard’s excellent “Dirt: A poem in four voices”), a possible short film, and various improvisational silliness! There might even be a celebrity appearance!
All this is free and open to the public, with donations gladly accepted to benefit cancer-related charities.
So mark your calendars now: 7pm, Thursday, 5 April 2007, in the HFA Recital Hall! And then get out there and pass the word!
Props to PeeZed for the most excellent octopus, and thanks to Ellery Fischer for the photo of our performance of “Taco Man”.
Tags: cancer, fund raising, Music, Mutant Variety Show, performance
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