Friday, April 29, 2011

Gertie's New Blog for Better Sewing

I just want to take a moment to recommend a blog I've been reading, a home sewing blog called Gertie's New Blog for Better Sewing. It began as a New York woman who enjoys vintage fashion chronicling her efforts to make all fourteen pieces described in the 1952 book Vogue's New Book for Better Sewing. But now not only does she talk about her work on those projects, she sews many other things as well, including tutorials, examinations of other pieces she finds interesting, sewing and garment terminology and technique, the history of various fashions, and even looks at them through the lens of the feminist viewpoint. She is a talented seamstress as well as a charming writer, speaking clearly and engagingly on all her subjects. I love the way she'll look at a dress and make guesses at how it's put together and breaking down what works and doesn't work for her about it. The way she goes through her endeavors-- even the way she examines the construction of pieces she admires --really speaks to the part of me that loves being witness to the artistic process, and the part of me that just wants to make things, things of all kinds, all day long.

Isn't she adorable? And she made that pretty yellow dress. I kind of envy her life, editing children's books for work while sewing and blogging in her spare time. Her love for the vintage aesthetic tickles me because her name is Gertie, which my grandmother Gertrude was often called, so it's a name I associate with the retro and the old-fashioned. That in contrast with her badass sleeve tattoos really makes mes smile.


If you're at all interesting in sewing, couture, the history of fashion, or just like artists going through their process, I really recommend her. Now that I have more free time again I want to go back to teaching myself to sew, and though I am interested more in costuming than in vintage or even things for daily wear, she is a real inspiration to get going.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Random musings on my admittedly strange eating habits



Sometimes I think God made me get so interested in cooking so that I would get through my fear of food. It helps me not think of food in terms of good for me or bad for me, but as art, as fun, as love.

I do tend to divide things into "acceptable" and "unacceptable" foods. It's different for every body, but my body's behavior is very much a function of calories in versus calories burned, so it's tough for me to just relax about it when I know for a fact that fewer calories will mean a leaner Phoebe. Frankly, I would probably be in my best shape and feeling healthiest if I stuck only to unprocessed fruits and vegetables, lean protein, and maybe a whole grain once or twice a week. Trouble is, the more I insisted on that, the more of my mental real estate monitoring it would take up, and the more people around me would think I was nuts.

It's gotten tougher recently to stay as thin as I want. While I am still pretty small, I miss the spare, whippet-hard midsection I used to have. I don't know if it's because increased time spent busy and increased life stress has made me eat more of the stuff I usually avoid (the big one being starch) or if it's because I've had less time to exercise. Still I dream of the washboard abs I have never actually managed to attain. Have started working out again, so let's hope I can built my old good habits back up again.

But you see, when I'm cooking, I am less hung up. I just focus on making the dish well, to the proper taste, so that it will be enjoyed. I do tend to not cook fattening things often, but it actually helps me achieve a good balance-- most of my food is healthier for having been cooked at home, while allowing some decadent treats in every once in a while.

I'm not that bad, despite what some people think. I love eating, and my urge to eat when I'm hungry is SO STRONG that even I my worst I never just don't eat. Even at my most disgusted with myself, I have never felt any real hatred toward my body. I also don't have the guilt impulses that lead to the binging and purging urge. When I do get upset with myself for eating unhealthfully, I never get too hung up on it and the feelings pass quickly. It's definitely more a fear of eating fattening stuff rather than guilt about when I do it, which I think helps keep me from unhealthy behaviors.

Annoyingly, at my new job I've already gotten the reputation as the Girl That Doesn't Eat Anything. Mostly because I keep turning down the snacks they keep around-- despite the enormous temptation of the sourdough pretzel barrel --and I never want in on any of the lunch orders, which are invariably either junk like pizza or else outside my budget. I learned a long time ago to never explain why I don't want these things-- I don't talk about money with acquaintances, and saying "Because it makes you fat," makes you sound crazy to most people before long --but they tease me about it anyway. It doesn't matter much to me, but it makes me roll my eyes.

I guess it's just abotu what makes you feel better. I personally feel better passing on slice after slice of pizza and being as thin as I want than I would eating whatever I felt like and not being as happy with my body. So that guides a lot of the choices I make. Still, I wish I could do it without it taking up as much of my mental energy as it often does.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Editing Merely Players

Dug out Merely Players today and began some editing. It's looking like it will have performance space next fall, so it will need to be ready to go by no later than the start of next semester. I finally have figured out which piece of Shakespeare the one scene I hadn't figure out will use. I had been looking for some sort of triumphant group scene to convey the troupe coming together but was having no luck. But I finally settled on using the St. Crispian's Day speech, broken up between all the various characters, to convey the scene of unity and working together to achieve something that I was looking for. I just need to figure out exactly how to distribute the lines, and connect it to the other scenes. Also, I used to have a stage manager character that I had to cut because there wasn't enough lines for him, but Bernie suggested he be included as a humorous silent character who acted only in pantomime, which is an interesting idea. So I must figure out where he can come back in, and what funny things he (or she) could be doing in the scene. When the script is finally whipped into shape I think I will post it and see if anyone has any suggestions for it.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

My dad, first brewer, now vintner

I think we sometimes tend to pronounce someone a geek based on what they're interested in-- gaming, science fiction, fantasy, that sort of thing --but I think the one thing that all nerds really have in common is not what they're into, but how deeply they're into it. I would argue that the real signifier of a geek is the possession of at least a slightly obsessive personality, a tendency to delve really, really deeply into the things they like as opposed to just a bit like a normal person.

By that standard, my dad is definitely a geek. He may not care much at all about video games, Tolkien, or other stereotypical nerdy interests, but when he develops a fascination with something, he goes all out. He must learn everything about it, outfit himself with the optimum equipment for the practice of it, and make it the primary occupier of his free time. He even manages to keep them in his life even after he develops a new one, too, though the current one tends to take precedence. Gardening, motorcycles, ham radios, and cooking have all interested him in turn, but right now, my papa is totally obsessed with home brewing. His setup has taken over nearly the entire basement, and currently he has gallons upon gallons of beer of every variety in fermentors, carboys, and freshly filled bottles in various places around the house. Apparently he's becoming quite good, and has been told his output is remarkable for someone who has only been brewing a little over a year.

Now he has branched out into the making of wine as well. In the last few months he has gone through six winemaking kits, each yielding around twenty-five bottles of maturing juice made from some of the most interesting grape sin the world. Today I helped him put two six-gallon carboys through a filtering process and poured another into clean wine bottles. The other day I helped my mom place foil sheaths over the necks of some bottles that were ready to be racked, dipping them in boiling water for a few seconds so the foil would tighten and conform, and printing out adhesive labels that identified them and actually made them look quite fancy. Unfortunately they won't be remotely drinkable for at least a year, but I'm very interested to see how they turn out.


He's also agreed to bring up a selection of his home-brews when he comes up to help me move, so if all goes as planned, you lovely souls there to help me out will be rewarded with delicious homemade beer to refresh you after your efforts!

Julia Child's My Life in France

Christ is risen.

I am reading My Life in France, the autobiography of Julia Child, who was a very remarkable woman. Despite being vaguely aware of her as a prominent influential force in shaping serious cooking in America, I had never really paid much attention to her even when I started studying cookery myself. But when I heard that her autobiography was interesting and charmingly written, full of musings on food and cooking, I thought it might be good to pick up. It turned out to be a great read, chronicling her journey, undertaken unusually late in life, from unserious socialite with no strong direction in life to discovering a passion for the French style of cooking so great that she ended up writing the definitive encyclopedia on bringing that French cuisine to the American kitchen.

She is a remarkably modern-sounding person, despite having chronicled herself so many decades past. She and her husband are adorable, utterly in love and totally supportive of one another's efforts; she moved all around the world for the sake of her husband Paul's work, and he was there helping her every step of the way as her fame and career took off. What I think makes her most special is that she brought real French cuisine to the American public; she was the first person to suggest to average Americans that if they were willing to put in a little effort they could produce dishes from scratch that had that real French character and quality to them. Before her, people did not really think they could learn to cook like that, that it was some mysterious alchemy that only French chefs could enact. In fact, as she was writing her most famous work, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, her publishers at first said no housewife would be interested in learning so much or in doing anything so difficult. What they didn't see was that there are people for whom cooking is more than just the cheapest way to get a dinner in your belly, but Julia gave them what they needed to elevate their cooking to art.

After finishing her autobiography I then found it necessary to examine her seminal work, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which is not so much a recipe book as a reference text for the techniques and theories of French cuisine. I can see why people took to it the way they did, especially those who wanted to really do it right. She explains French kitchen process remarkably well, from how they select their produce to how they pair their meals with wine to a most excellent breakdown of the interrelation of the classic sauces. That section is particularly good, explaining the mechanics of each mother sauce before carrying on into descriptions of the most important small sauces that can be made from them.

As you may know, I am really interested in the process of the artist, how they came to put their work together. I believe by understanding process we can improve our product. So it was particularly interesting to me to see Julia's process of putting the cookbook together-- breaking down French cuisine to the essential principals a chef must understand, deciding which recipes best exemplified those principals and the flavor profiles she wanted to represent, and then the steps of recipe design, painstakingly writing out each recipe then an endless series of testing and retesting for reproducibility in the home kitchen. It was this rigorous process that allowed her to deliver the remarkably high quality product she did, that has been so useful and instructive to so many generations of cooks.

My mom is giving me her copy of the book to take back with me. I will probably not make many of the recipes from it. Even putting kosher concerns aside, I don't want to introduce that much cream, butter, and starch into my diet. Only on special occasions, perhaps. But I will be glad to have it for reference for when I am trying to understand the building blocks of outing together great dishes, which is the real trick to becoming a great cook.



Friday, April 22, 2011

Birthday iPad


So upon arriving home I found a lovely birthday present from my parents waiting for me, the shiny new iPad upon which I type this now. Though I stand by my previously made statement that it is basically a novelty, an oversized iPhone that doesn't make calls, I am actually really enjoying it and think it will serve my computing purposes well. I'm sure that only reveals just how technologically unsophisticated I really am, but no matter, I am happy. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for the lovely and generous gift (even though you probably should have considered my gift paying to get my car fixed.)

Can anyone recommend a good word processing application for it? I plan to primary use this thing for Internet and for some light writing on the go, and since none of the word processors for iPad I've seen are free, I would like to know which is good before I purchase. I would like it to be compatible with the .docx format so that I can import any files generated here into MS Word on my desktop. Any other app recommendations are welcome as well.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Home for Easter, and pondering my doings

Today I flew home to spend Easter with my mom and dad. I'd been looking forward to it, as I haven't seen them in a long time and after the busy month I've had so far it will be nice to just go with the flow of family time and not have to run around or plan things. So, with a few days ahead of me of nothing more to do than hang out with my mom and dad and let them feed me until I explode, I would like to get something of my own projects done. *Sigh*As much as I crave free time with nothing particular to do, I am compelled to do things. And now I am finding myself planning out the things I would like to do. Not necessarily just over this little Easter break, but other things in the near future.

First and foremost, I want to get started with writing on some plays. I would like to get a head start on things for graduate school, which begins for me at the end of June, by getting to work on one of the major theatrical pieces I have envisioned. The first, I think, will be the Justinian and Theodora project I have been mulling over. I want to start by working out the plot as completely as possible before actually doing the real writing work, but I have a speech in my head that I would like to get out on paper in the near future. Plesser has agreed to act the piece out for me once it is finished, as i find him an excellent choice for this character, so I can hear it performed and improve it based on that.

Another thing that has recently come on my radar is an invitation to audition again for the Gazebo Players of Medfield, the theater group I did Love's Labor's Lost with last summer. I have been wanting to get back to acting, and they're doing Comedy of Errors, a show I enoy. I would like it if I could find some other friends to come out with me this time-- any actors going to be around this summer interested in doing a Shakespeare with me? On a related note, whenever anybody hears about Shakespeare auditions from here onward, please let me know. I really do want to keep at it and continue doing Shakespearean theater. I actually think that the Actor's Shakespeare Project is supposed to be having auditions soon, even one for non-Equity actors, and I'm wondering if it might not be interesting to at least give it a shot. I'm sure I wouldn't get in, given all the professionals I'd be up against, but wouldn't it be a lark if I did. ;-) I think I will look more into that, gather a little more information at least.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

A Midsummer Night's Ballet


This past Friday I went to the ballet with Jared, Charlotte, Plesser, and Dave to see the George Balanchine-choreographed version of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Boston Opera House. I really enjoyed it; I've always really liked ballet and though the ship has thoroughly sailed on my ever doing much of it myself, it's one of those many things that, if I had an unlimited amount of focus and time, I would have loved to study and work at. It was very beautiful, though strangely structured-- though even the real Midsummer is very easy to weight in favor of whichever group you want to treat like the protagonists, either the lovers, the fairies, or Bottom, but this version had an unusually strong emphasis on Oberon and Titania, and the entire second act seemed to be celebratory dancing after the story was concluded. I also really enjoyed Puck, who ran like Jack Sparrow and was portrayed in my personal favorite lusty clown manner, the choreography (eerily similar to Charlotte's in places) representing the lovers chasing, fighting, and rejecting one another. One thing I really enjoyed is that it was not only beautifully performed, in places it was actually quite funny! Like when Titania had fallen for Bottom, and she had her fairies bring her stalks to grass, which the now-donkey kept trying to munch on rather than pay attention to her. I never really thought a ballet could make me laugh before, so that was a pleasant surprise.

I want to see more ballets in the future, more cultural events with friends. This outing was really fun for me, getting dressed up and going out all together. I'm very grateful to Dave for suggesting it, and to Charlotte for organizing. We should do stuff like this more often!

Monday, April 18, 2011

Of risotto

Though by and large I am not a rice eater-- indeed, I tend to avoid all carbs in general --I confess a longstanding fascination with the dish of risotto. It is a surprisingly fiddly and labor-intensive dish, requiring many small doses of hot broth and near-constant stirring or pan shaking over the course of an hour to prepare. It takes a lot of time and effort, but as long as you follow this procedure you will be rewarded with the miraculous sight of seven cups of broth and white wine being drunk by a mere two cups of short-grain rice, which release an amazing sauce that comes from a combination of that cooking liquid and the rice's own starch. So many things about cooking seem like miracles to me, if only because someone somehow managed to discover the precise complicated procedures that yield fabulous prepared foods, but the sauce that emanates from properly cooked risotto rice is particularly amazing to me.

As I said, since I didn't grow up eating rice I don't have much of a taste for it, and I try to keep off carbs anyway, I don't make it very often. And when I do, I make a simple arborio version with sauteed mushrooms and caramelized onions. But someday, when gathering a group of dear ones and I have the money to spare, I want to go to some little North End grocery store and buy myself some shanks of veal and delicate threads of saffron and make a real risotto alla Milanese beneath a flawless osso bucco, the rice made savory with the marrow bones and as yellow as the sun.



Moving: call for help!


You know what's the best part of having friends? They ask you to help them move, yaaaaay!

So as I have mentioned, lovely friends, I will be moving out of Elsinore at the end of May and into what is now officially Illyria, a new residence about the same distance away from Brandeis on the other side. Originally the plan was to split the moving between two days, packing up the U-Haul on May 31st and then unloading everything in the new place on June 1st. Unfortunately the truck is only available on the 31st, so both the loading and the unloading will have to happen in the evening of that day. Harrumph. I suppose that will have to be that. I suppose I will try to have all of my smaller possessions (clothes, books, cookware, etc) already moved in before then, and then have only the sizeable furniture pieces left to move during the time I'll have the truck.

So I am asking for any lovely friends who might be available in the late afternoon and early evening of Tuesday, May 31st to lend the strength of their backs to moving a significant chunk of furniture to be taken to my new place. Someone who is comfortable driving a ten-foot truck (over a distance of about a mile) is particularly welcome. More details will come closer to the date when I make a firm plan on action. To entice you to come, all those who contribute are then invited to what will be my inaugural dinner party at the new place on Saturday, June 4th in thanks for the help.

So, if you are inclined to be generous, or just want in on the reward dinner, e-mail me or comment here letting me know that you're available to help. Thanks in advance for your assistance!

Friday, April 15, 2011

Plesser as Othello

God, I have so many things I want to blog about but am incredibly behind on. One of those things was talking about the acting in Othello. I keep writing a draft of this entry which LJ refuses to autosave (grawr) so I will get through at least a bit, post it, and finish the rest as I can.


The first person whose acting I wanted to commend is of course the title character, the excellent Jonathan Plesser as Othello. I would like to take a moment to recap Plesser's history on the stage for Hold Thy Peace. Brought in at the last moment to take the role of Albany in King Lear, he was to be commended for cramming his lines in the wings at tech week and doing a serviceable job getting thrown into the deep end. He was then cast as Lysander in Midsummer, a role that was good for him but I confess at the time did not do much to grab my notice; I remember thinking he was just okay, maybe even a little flat. But when he became Friar Lawrence in Midsummer, that's when I sat up and took notice. His performance was actually quite good, showing leaps and bounds of improvement in expression and believability. That's what really got me interested in him as as actor, and cued me into his potential to grow. It pushed me to ask him if we would audition for To Think of Nothing, which to my honor he did. Once there, he showed an amazing depth of understanding and insight into his character, and in fact got me to see one of his pieces of the show in a totally different way, which we ended up going with and vastly improved the text. His excellent subsequent performances as Caesar and Polixenes served to solidify how he was growing in skill with every show.

Which brings up now to Othello, his most challenging role to date and a very desirable part in terms of opportunities for an actor to show his emotional range. The part is particularly demanding in that the play really doesn't work if the Othello does not inspire sympathy in the audience, because then they just dismiss him as a monster and the show's tragic weight is lost. Plesser portrayed Othello as a brave, exceptionally talented man and soldier who has had to fight for every ounce of respect and esteem he's ever received. It made it understandable why he would be so succeptible to anything that suggests that he cannot count upon actually being loved for his own sake, that his position is constantly assailed by all manner of affronts to his self-worth. I loved his choice to play Othello as wracked with sorrow as opposed to suffused with rage, which made him worlds more understandable to me. He related well to the other characters, showing real tenderness toward Caitlin as Desdemona, and fantastic chemistry with Lenny in following the path Iago was leading him down. His progression from finally feeling satisfied with his place in the world into wounded suspicious fury worked well, and I especially liked how he spent the final scene sobbing more than raging. In combination with his insecurity, it made me really believe he was dying inside from the thought of destroying what he most loved, but felt that the only way to maintain his fragile self-respect was to see that justice was done. In addition to the huge emotional weight he carried, I also like the small details of his performance, such as the way he even endeavored to push his own limits by creating a different physicality unlike anything that came naturally to him, which I certainly commend. There was also the cool little idea he had about Othello missing the final kiss he tries to give Desdemona before he dies. All these things together show how deeply he got into the character, and how hard he worked to bring him to life.


I shall move on to going over the others' performances as well, but for now, I just want to say how amazing it's been to see Plesser go from neophyte still finding his stage presence to the new leading man of Hold Thy Peace. Well done, sir.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Larpercalia con report

Now for my actual reviews of my experience of Larpercalia as a participant rather than as con chair! Spoilers are minimal.

Friday night was Prince Comes of Age, a game the production of which I had heard a great deal. It is, as you may know, set in the larger campaign setting made up by morethings5*, and in fact included larp versions of five PCs of a game he ran a few years ago. I had a blast in this one as a secretly scheming character who was playing several sides against one each other. One of my favorite things to do in a larp is weave an elaborate lie to achieve my ends that everyone buys into, and that is exactly what happened here. Great interactions included my drug-dealing ne'er-do-well date played by Michael Hyde, and speaking very very earnestly to hazliya* in ways that served me and actually did kind of help her despite the fact that I told many, many lies. :-) I highly recommend this game, written by Kindness, Bernie, and Matt to excellent collaborative effect. There is a lot going on and the writing is very well done, though I think the character sheets could stand some pruning-- there is a little over-enthusiastic background scene-setting that is a bit too verbose. And for those of you who were afraid everyone else would be supporting cast to the characters of that campaign's PCs, worry not, the storylines are well-balanced.

Here is me and my date, Ferlis, who spent most of the evening either high or facilitating the getting of others high.


Saturday morning was the second run of my newest solo game, The Stand. The game went well enough and pretty much everyone told me they had fun, but frankly I thought the Intercon run went better. The first time around nearly all the secrets came out except for maybe two, while in this there was a lot more plot that simply failed to materialize. I was especially disappointed that so little of the emotion-heavy plot that would have been bronzite* 's did not come to be, as it's some of my favorite in the game. One thing that may be to blame was that people seemed really low-energy, too tired from the late night before. Also, as solid as the game may be, I don't think anyone was really excited about the concept. They signed up for it because it sounded neat enough and probably on the strength of my name, as I've built up a pretty decent reputation by now. That's flattering, to be sure, but I don't think anyone really sunk their teeth into the concept. I confess I'm slightly disappointed, as the game is extremely full and well-constructed and I think really demonstrates how much I've grown as a larp writer, which I'm not sure really showed through in this run. Ah, well.

Saturday afternoon I played Ruins of Grandeur by Bernie, Matt, Kindness, and Michael, which I really wanted to like. Unfortunately my particular piece of it was fatally flawed in the design and could not function in the game. I'm really sorry I had such a low time, but all my tricks to get engaged failed me. I think by and large people enjoyed it, but my casting was so broken that I had very few hooks into the plot and literally zero power with which to make anything happen. I'm usually the kind of player who can make something up if her character is a little thin and find a way to have my own good time, but when I tried that absolutely no one really met me on anything I did. I wish I could speak to the overall story, but I saw so little of it that I'm afraid I can't give an opinion. I think most people really liked this game and had a good time, but my character must be completely overhauled before they ever run it again.

Saturday night I ran the most recent game I wrote with Alleged, the experimental larp Resonance, and this time it went amazing. At Intercon natbudin* and I were slightly disappointed with how things went-- we had a fairly gamist set of players who didn't seem to really get that the story is supposed to be allowed to unfold to make for an emotional experience, rather than a problem to be solved. This time we didn't have that problem at all. Our group here went with it smooth as you could be; I especially enjoyed their conversations sharing information and trying to speculate on what it meant. Among many others, in_water_writ* was amazing with a character completely against her type, and rigel* fascinatingly stepped into a leadership role. I spent much of the game watching Jared, curious for his reaction, and was pleased to see him leap into the concept wholeheartedly and beautifully act his parts. At the dead dog, bleemoo* gave us the great compliment of saying it may be the best game he's ever played. I am incredibly pleased with it this time around, and consider it proof that our concept is capable of working out the way we wanted it to.

Sunday afternoon I zonked around consuite and tried not to pass out. So, despite some ups and downs, I consider this to be a typically awesome Festival weekend, made even better by the knowledge that I put it all together. Hope you all had a great time, and will be joining us there next year!

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Housing next year


So after much stress, much wrangling, and much worrying, at last I have my housing situation figured out for next year.

After three years there, I am finally moving out of Elsinore. Though I was pretty contented with what I could do there, it really is time. The landlord is impossible to deal with, the heating bills in the winter have been insane, not to mention a host of sundry other little annoyances that add up to a fair-sized pain. So, especially when it became clear I was not going to find suitable roommates to fill in those who were definitely moving on, I decided it was best to move on too.

So now, with lovely friends blendedchaitea* and my current roommate Emily, I will be moving to the other side of Brandeis to a three-bedroom apartment on 51 Morton Street. (Emily is going to be a graduate student at Brandeis next year, so staying close to the school was necessary for her.) This is, interestingly, also about a block away from Albion, where Steph, Plesser, April, Lenny, and Jenna will be living next year. Features of this new place that are a definite improvement over Elsinore are the wide driveway (no need for stacking and therefore constant carswapping), TWO bathroom for THREE people, a huge kitchen with plenty of counter space, new appliances including a dishwasher, significantly cheaper heat and electric bills, and only having to share the place with two others instead of four. I actually have enjoyed living with all of my current group of roommates, but more people means more crowding and more mess, which I will be glad to have to deal with less.

Also, it looks like I will not have to be compromising on bedroom space. I was initally interesting in this really neat-shaped room upstairs with cool nooks and crannies and a whole separate space with a door almost like a walk-in closet for where the bed goes, but after some measurements were taken I realized my bedroom furniture was probably not going to fit. So Rachel will have that room, and I will have the sizeable downstairs bedroom that will more easily accommodate all my stuff. It's one odd feature is that it doesn't have a closet so much as a storage space, of good size but unfinished inside. I am actually okay with that, as I am confident that if I laid down a piece of carpet and got moveable clothes racks I could basically make it into a pleasant little walk-in. I've always wanted a walk-in closet, so that should work out nicely. Also, as it is on the ground floor, that means the ground floor bathroom is basically mine when we don't have guests.

There are some downsides. As it is only a three-bedroom, there is considerably less common space. That probably means while dinner parties can still happen, the big parties I have every now and then probably won't fit. That makes me sad. Also it will probably mean having to get rid of some of my furniture, seeing as pretty much all the stuff in the commons spaces is mine. My baker's rack, for example, may not have a home (unless I repurpose it into a shelf for my planned walk-in closet...). The washer and dryer are coin-op, though I am grateful enough that they are on-premises that I don't really mind. It will also mean something of a raise in rent for me, which I am hoping with my new job won't be quite so burdensome, but we'll see. But the positives outweight the negatives by far for me. I will really miss living with Charlotte, Jane, and Ryan, all of whom someone managed to overcome my hermit tendencies to make me actually enjoy being roommates with them, but I am very excited to live in this new place with Rachel and Emily.

It's going to be kind of a relief to me, to be honest. All it needs now is a name. I myself am partial to "Illyria," but I would also be amenable to Rachel's idea of "Arden."

Monday, April 11, 2011

Posts yet to come

Just to remind myself, what with not being on LJ so long I have a number of topics to post about, so I am making note of them here. Expect them to be forthcoming over the next week or so--

- detailing the acting of Othello
- detailing the makeup and costuming of Othello
- detailing the lighting and other technical aspects of Othello
- report of The Prince Comes of Age at Festival
- report of running The Stand at Festival
- report of Ruins of Grandeur at Festival
- report of running Resonance at Festival
- my forthcoming housing situation

Larpercalia concluded

After organization efforts spanning over the last year, at last the first con I was ever charged with putting on has come to a close. I am very pleased with how it went on, given how many good events occurred and how many attendees enjoyed themselves. Before getting into any review of my own experiences, I will go over the various goals I set for myself and review to what degree I feel I achieved them.

1. Ensure a high attendance.

Handily accomplished, as this Festival had a real attendance of about 120 people, give or take a couple that didn't show up, which is a bit higher than the previous year's of 112. We recently have only been growing by a little bit, but it seems we are still actually growing. I credit this year's numbers to early advertising and early solicitation, so I advise all future con chairs to start recruiting well in advance. 

2. Ensure that every game gets a full roster of players.

This I think I did pretty damn well on. Nearly ever game ended up running with a full complement, which was due to a combination of getting enough signups before the run and by filling the handful of drops that occurred at the last minute. Of the very few that did not, I only know of one game that was missing so many that it was hurt by it. This is closely related to my next goal, which was...

3. Choose the appropriate number of player openings in each available timeslot.
This one I wasn't totally sure about. I know last year's Festival had lots of games that didn't fill, which after some analysis seemed to be because there was a significant increase in the number of player openings per timeslot from the year before without a corresponding growth in attendance. Since Festival attendance has at least mostly leveled off, I decided to go with slightly fewer openings per timeslot than we had last year in an effort to encourage full games. I became unsure of this choice around the time signups first opened, because we had some fairly significant waitlists, so I worried maybed we had too few. To borrow some data kindly compiled by [info]bronzite*, and using my knowledge of how games were actually attended despite the website data, here is how the numbers compared to the previous years'.

Larpercalia:
Friday: 74 (2 waitlisted)
Saturday Morning: 65 (13 open)
Saturday Afternoon: 66 (1 open, 5 waitlisted, 3 pinch-hitters)
Saturday Evening: 77 (3 waitlisted, 1 pinch-hitter)
Sunday: 54 (2 open, 4 waitlisted)

Which is adjusted to actual player counts of:
76  52  73  81  56

As compared to Vestival:
Friday: 83 (10 open)
Saturday Morning: 69 (5 open)
Saturday Afternoon: 83 (13 open)
Saturday Evening: 78 (3 open)
Sunday: 57 (2 Waitlisted)

We can adjust this total to actual player counts of:
73 74 70 75 59

As compared to FestEvil:
Friday: 58 (2 open, 2 waitlisted)
Saturday Morning: 36 (5 open, 3 waitlisted)
Saturday Afternoon: 68 (6 open, 1 waitlisted)
Saturday Evening: 46 (3 waitlisted)
Sunday: 45 (4 open)

We can adjust these totals to:
58 34 63 49 41

Which is actually not to bad for us this year. We had minimal failures to fill, and the only serious discrepency in required players versus available players was in the morning, which I believe is due to the nature of a particular game rather than a failure of my estimate. There are a handful of players who were shut out of all games in a slot, but by the time of the Festival there were not many who still wanted in, and I don't thnk they were enough to justify putting more games on the schedule-- at that point, we probably would have had more failures to fill. So I am satisfied with my schedule balancing abilities.

4. Have as many new games as possible on the schedule

This is the goal that I feel was best achieved. We had nearly every game there be a first or second run, which meant as many options as possible for even experienced larpers to play. Completely avoided the problem of "But I've already played everything in this slot." As [info]natbudin* once mentioned to me, an intention of Festival's that has never really become a reality before is to encourage the writing of new games, particularly by new writers. Several games were written specifically for this year's Festival, including a couple by writers who have never produced larps before. I think I am proudest for encouraging this of everything I did for this con. Again, I attribute it to soliciting games from people early.

5. Get things done in advance

This helped enormously to make this con as successful as it was. Start bugging people to sign up early, ask them for games early, release the schedule early, allow signups early. Have the schedule finished and full by no later than the beginning of January. I also sent out lots of reminder and explanatory e-mails to keep people aware and understanding what was going on. Future con chairs, take note!

6. Institute the pinch-hitter system.

This one I was kind of displeased with, if only because I don't think it got a good enough test to consider it a success or failure. Not a lot of people signed up to pinch-hit, which made it tough to whether or not it was actually helpful for GMs to fill drops. There was also the question of whether not the workings of the system were clear enough in the minds of the people who were being asked to sign up for it. I would like to try and work the kinks out of it and try it again next year. If anyone has any feedback or suggestions, please let me know.

So overall, a real success, I think. Again, I am interested in everyone's feedback on your experience, so please don't hesistate to contact me or [info]ninja_report*, to whom I have passed the chalice and will be chairing next year's Festival. Thanks again to everyone who helped make this amazing con a reality, and made it so damn much fun.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Larpercalia is at hand

At long last, Larpercalia is here and it is time to see everything we've worked on over the last year come to pass. I am very pleased with myself, and with the hard work everyone on the con com has done. We have a full, balanced schedule of almost all brand-new games that by this point have nearly every slot filled! Hooray! Congrats to everyone who contributed to making that happen.

I am really looking forward to all this, not only because Festival is one of my favorite weekends a year, but because it will be extremely validating if the things we planned and the ideas we used go off without a hitch. Some things were done a little differently this year (the idea of pinch-hitters, for example) so I would be pleased to see them work the way I hope they will.

Got Prince Comes of Age tonight. I'm so glad for Bernie, Matt, and especially Kindness that they put this together. After briefly being held by Ryan, the title of Newest Game Writer to Come Out of Brandeis now goes to Jonathan. I think I will enjoy my character and the chance to wear my pretty costumes. I would like to have pictures of me in it that I don't hate, if someone would be kind enough to take them, and patient enouh to put up with my whining.

Kludge powers activate

I am not particularly technically savvy. I think when I was a kid I was a bit ahead of the technology curve for my age, as I had my own computer way before the vast majority of my peers and therefore picked up a lot more earlier than most of them did. But by now, with so very many friends who are accomplished techies, often professionally, I am something of the Luddite in my social group.

Still, if I have one particular ability related to computers and technology, it’s that I have a knack for getting around a problem by finding a kludgey solution. If there is an awkward, inelegant, improper way to make something achieve the desired end result, I will probably find it and use it to laboriously and at length end up with the final product for which the process was begun. I almost certainly will not have succeeded at fixing the problem, or even at making the process in question something more educated people would consider truly operational, but I will probably have gotten the thing for which I engaged the process in the first place. My recent experience with a video subtitling program called Inqscribe comes to mind, in which I figured out a rhythm of activating the various functions that managed to get around its profound propensity toward freezing. Today I set up the computers in my office to connect wirelessly to the new printer by plugging them into the printer, getting the computers to recognize the printer's existence, and then taking out the wire and requesting that it attempt to reach said acknowledged printer over the network. Wonder of wonders, it worked!

Things like this may end up wasting a lot of time which might have been saved if I just found somebody more knowledgeable, but I am proud of my ignorant self for figuring out how to get it done anyway. And none of the people in my office (business and sales guys, mostly) could figure it out, so I feel particularly good about it now.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Set for Othello

I really liked the set design. It is a spin on the oft-used lego-block platform configuration of several HTP sets, with some major alterations that made it actually look very different. First of all, the platforms are not fronted, instead painted with dark wood stain to make them look more like real structures. The open air beneath them gives them a very different look, as does the stain. I also approve of not having to deal with fronting, or having to use the router to cut the fronting to size.


I have experience with wood stain, so I got to lead the crew on that particular task. It really isn’t hard, just paint it on in the direction of the grain and wipe off the excess, so once you know that it’s easy. We didn’t bother with multiple coats because it doesn’t have to be perfect for the stage, besides the fact that it had to be dry enough to rehearse on by the next day. I’ve always loved the look of stained wood (so much more elegant and expensive-looking than when painted) and it ended up quite lovely. To steampunk it up, we bought metal corner pieces that we screwed onto the front edges of all the platforms.

Also to that end were the streetlamps. These were especially cool given all the various theatrical departments contributed to them—lighting, props, and set crew. They found these great lantern tops which were placed on top of PVC piping spray painted black on the poles and bronze at the joints, with a cord running down through them that when plugged in actually made it possible to turn them off and on. They looked really lovely burning softly up there, and I am pleased to say that they will be saved in the Hold Thy Peace storage locker for possible use in another show.


The crew working on the show this time around was fabulous, both the dedicated techies and the actors doubling as set builders. Plesser in particular must be commended for his work as master carpenter, especially since he gave his all at that and then turned around and threw himself into four amazing performances as Othello. He is shaping up well in the position and is learning to be a real crew leader, so props to him. As a matter of fact, we had a remarkably competent group of people around, most of whom had developed some technical theater skill in building, working with lights, or anything else that needed to be done. It was a lucky thing, too, as some of the materials we used ended up using turned out to be harder to work with than what we were used to, such as the four-by-four legs that were so dense they required a lot more strength and finessing than the two-by-fours to attach to the platforms.

The only real criticism of it is the use of the moving bits. This is the first dynamic set we've had since Hamlet, which consisted of metal painters scaffolds that rolled around. They were reconfigured in various positions to represent different places in and around the castle of Elsinore. In Othello, there was a freestanding platform that represented the bed, among other things, a bridge in the middle that pushed in and out of the stage right platform cluster, and a low roller that came out of the front of that side. While the bed mover worked pretty well, I feel like the other two didn't do a huge amount to change the shape of the set. The front mover in particular didn't much affect anything. But I like the idea of dynamic sets, so I think we need to work this into the design with more mind as to how it will be used in the blocking and what change it will make to the look of the set.

Turned out not half-bad, now, didn’t it?


So I feel like a real stride forward has been made in HTP set design and construction. Hopefully what was learned here will be used to push the envelope even farther for the next show.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

I hate birthdays


I have a birthday coming up on Sunday. I keep having people asking me if I’m doing anything for it and the answer is trying to wish it away. Truth is I’m feeling even more distaste for it this year than usual. Great, one year older, one year closer to my metabolism slowing down and my skin losing its resilience. I’ve looked bad enough lately, rough and lifeless and dull, and if I’m getting to this point at twenty-fucking-four it’s all downhill from here.
I hate birthdays, fear of aging aside. I say that every year, though I think I’ve reached a record high for hatred this time around. I don’t believe people should be feted just for existing. I’d rather celebrate you for something you did, and I’d prefer the same for myself. Frankly I could use a whole mess of people paying attention to me and treating me like I’m special, pathetic as it is, given how badly I’ve been feeling lately, but I’d rather it be for something estimable I did rather than something I had nothing to do with. Plus my parents just spent a bundle to fix my car and are still trying to buy me a birthday present, which just seems disgustingly wrong to me. I’m not four, for Christ’s sake, I’m twenty-four. I no longer must be treated as if my simple existence is something worth rewarding.
Bah. Stupid birthdays. Stupid aging. An I just die at twenty-nine before I hit the ae wall like a ton of bricks?

The longest I've ever gone without posting

Wow. This is the longest I've gone without posting in my LJ in literally years. Two weeks ago I was consumed by crushing depression (something that nobody needs to see written about day after day), last week I spent all my time in the theater helping with tech week for Othello, and this week I guess my daily posting habit was broken by the last two.

I will try to catch up on the interesting stuff, particularly about Othello, which went fantastically well. It may take me a little time, but I hate not posting and not keeping a record of my doings and thoughts, so I'm going to make the effort.
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