Napa DeMonk: an evening on Mars thanks to the Bloomington Playwrights Project

*edit* Check the comments for clarification as to who put the show on */edit*
Napa DeMonk was not my ideal Martian Colonial Era Terraforming Opera.
That I walked in to the theater with an ideal Martian Colonial Era Terraforming Opera in my head probably tells you that I was predisposed to like it anyway. You should listen to that voice. It could have been written by Ed Wood and performed by the Saint Abby’s Refuge for the Critically Tone Death’s choir and I would have managed to like it. Happily it was written competently and sung by a number of talented singers. Add to that a really cool slide show to set the mood as the opera goes on.
I don’t know if it was always on purpose, but there were more than a few awesome shadow silhouettes on the globe of mars on the side of the stage.

I assume the show started right on time since I was, of course, running late. I wasn’t the only one to get there after the start, and we waited for a pause in the music to enter. I sort of sat on the risers for the first (and longest) act then wandered up to a center seat toward the back of the hall at the intermission. (For music, assuming there is a decent sound system, I like to sit near the center of the room, back from the speakers a bit. It paid off this time.) I always have a hard time following a story done in song, but happily the program had a lengthy synopsis that helped a lot. The story was more the back story of Green Hills of Earth than John Carter of Mars, more the troubles of an established but not yet independant colony, the day to day people that become the myths of three generations hence (not the Green Hills of Earth the poem, but the stories of the travels of the blind bard who wrote it.) Oh, or Harrison’s old novella Planet Story. It dealt with the personal scale people who the future remembers of heroes even if they were actually bums.
I’m a bit of a planetology and terraforming snob, so there were some bits of the science that bugged me a bit, but I told those bits to sit down and shut up while I was listening to the wonderful music. And I’m not going to let them come out here either.
Every once in a while the lyrics got a little clumsy, but since the only English Language Opera I’ve listened to is Gilbert and Sullivan, everyone’s lyrics are most likely a little clumsy from time to time, and except for G&S I listen to opera mostly to be engulfed by the music, not to nitpick the lyrics, and as a writer, eventually you have to quit letting the perfect get in the way of the good.

It was an excellent show, on a beautiful night, a few minor flaws, but from a community theater group where I am paying 5 dollars for a ticket, I don’t expect or want perfection. I want an enjoyable evening with pretty music, interesting stage craft, and a story that keeps me awake while I sit there with my eyes shut to listen better. I got all that plus a bit of Resnikian myth building. All in all an excellent show.

Tech Review

So I bought a Dell Inspiron 1545 last November. A decent budget laptop, not as rugged as I would prefer, but more than a thousand dollars less than the cheaper models of field intended laptops. The battery is shit, well on its way to dead after 8 months of use, and the power adapter is what you expect of a dell power adapter, pathetic. I started not working when I’d plug it in after owning it for 5 months. I’d have to plug and unplug it repeatedly to get it to provide power to the laptop. (Really the computer is great, just two of the components blow, and not many laptop makers make a keyboard that I am comfortable typing on. The keys are fairly deep and they have 3/4 to full distance action while I am typing with them. That and the tactile separation between each key makes for a pleasant typing experience. (I hate the apple laptop and knock off keyboards with the flat keys without separation and with minimal keystrike depth. Yet another point of hardware interface fail.)
But I’m not here to review the dell. Adequate computer.

I did some research when the power cord finally died for the last time. This particular model is notorious for not working for long. So when it died, I went to best buy to get a universal adapter. Essentially every adapter hey had came in 2 models. Wall and wall+car. I don’t own a car, so I decided to save 30 bucks and get the APA6922US. It is a 90 watt variable output adapter that comes with a bag of tips that determine the voltage of the adapter. The adapter itself is small, shiny, and dense. It has the ability to fold the socket prongs into itself for transport. That makes it really hard to plug it into the child-safe power-strip in my room. But then it is hard to plug regular plugs into it. The other end uses interchangeable power tips and has two attachment points, intended to be used with a laptop and a usb device concurrently.
They offer up to 10 “free” tips when you register. Tips are usually 9.99 and ship for free, while the replacement ones have a 4.99 shipping fee each. So it is actually half priced tips. Still nice, and given the weight of the cord and the fragility of the plastic, that is a good thing since they do crack. Alas for me, the tip I need, the L109? Out of stock. To the bat cave where I taped my old tip to the cord, giving it some more durability and making it so the cord won’t come out of the tip.

Nice small adapter, fragile tips, deceptive “free” offer that I can’t take advantage of. Like the device not thrilled with the company.

Major Barbara Review A little late

Major Barbara
Final Dress Rehersal
2-25-2010
“You can not have power for good without having power for evil.”
Well dear friends, it appears that I may be getting back to culture blogging. With the Pantree Owl Ep a week or so ago (the ambient track has been completed. V. Nice) Major Barbara this Week, and the Laramie Project at the end of this week, I am making a good start on making up for missing the V-week events. Theater blogging is even harder than music blogging. While I’ve mentioned before that I’ve a distinct lack of technical terms for talking about music,I am even worse off with the theater. At least in the case of music I have some experience creating it and a lot of time spent enjoying it. I enjoy the theater, but I seldom watch it, and reading plays inevitably bores me to sleep. (Similar to any presentation that is overwhelmingly dialogue.)
First things first, Major Barbara was written in 1905, and this particular presentation does some interesting things to bridge the century. The costuming is period, but instead of being period early 1900s, everyone is dressed in the fashion of the late 1960s It maintains the sense of the different that period costume would have given, without the steep temporal dislocation.
Also, the scene changes that started in the Undershaft Manor were done in the idiom of the play with the butler Morrison directing uniformed labour crews. (As an aside, the young lady on the stage crew was really cute.) This instead of the standard crew in blacks trying to be invisible.

I don’t know how much of this was Shawe, and how much was the actors/direction, but Adolphus and Andrew Undershaft totally dominated any scene they were both in. I’m not sure that it wasn’t just them having the best dialog, but they were incredible.
The women’s Salvation Army uniforms, particularly that of Jenny Hill, make me wish that capes and cloaks would come back into general style.
So, this play was written in 1905, the same year that Ayn Rand was born, and yet it has the most coherant objectivist screeds I’ve ever read, mostly from the industrialist Anderew Undershaft. On the other hand, Adolphus’ speeches near the end prefigure Malcom X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech. As do a few portions of Undershaft’s monologues. And we have, in Undershaft, a solid analysis of how to ne an objectivist industrialis and not end up with your head on a pike.
The play speaks to one of the key conundrums of activisim, the tension between the purity of cause and the effectiveness of your work. If you do any activisim at all, I urge you to catch a showing of this play, if not this presentation, then the next time you get a chance.
The set design for the arms factory was awesome.

A few minor issues, from the 5th row I almost couldn’t read the Undershaft Quotes: “if God gave man the hand, let not man withhold the sword.”, “all have the right to fight, none have the right to judge.” “to man the heaven, to heaven the victory.” “peace shall not prevail, save with a sword in her hand.” “nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it’s not done!” and “unashamed”
Also, and it was an aspect of the venue,personally, if you are going to allow concessions sales, allowing people to bring them into the theater seems better than not doing so.

All in all, a very good presentation of a clever script.
It is at the Ruth N Halls Theater in the Lee Norvelle Theatre and Drama Center, Febuary 26, 27, and March 2-6 ay 7:30 with a 2 PM Matinee as well on the 6th. For more informationgo to theatre.indiana.edu

Major Barbara Preview

I have a Major Barbara review. I will post it tomorrow. In the meanwhile, go watch it (If i am going to do theater blogging, final dress rehersal is the way to go so i can get a post out before the play is done, no? thanks Anna.) For now, amusing Objectivist diatribes from the year Rand was born, some bits that prefigured “The Ballot or the Bullet” quite a few decades early. A cool integration of the stage hands in the play (and one really cute stage hand) and awesome 60s costuming and set design.

Pantree Owl EP

While I’ve missed their last several concerts, I was glad to see that Pantree Owl’s first EP was just released on Last FM. The EP is composed of “Fancy Love” and a demo track of their ambient album rehearsal. Now, I happen to like ambient music, so the demo track works for me, but Fancy Love is a real gem. It competes with Horse Song for the position of my favorite piece by them, and it has the benefit of being something I hadn’t heard before. All three tracks can be found at last.fm (http://www.last.fm/music/Pantree%20Owl)
Unfortunately last fm seems to be missing a couple of tracks that used to be there, but my old favorite is still up.

Christina’s voice is haunting and as beautiful as ever in Fancy Love, and their work with electronic processing is spectacular. The instrumentals are top notch, and the quality of the track shows the benefit of being a studio recording. As a warning, the stuff at the end of the song is on purpose. Just like the last concert I went to showed how much Pantree Owl has grown as a professional band, this first studio track shows how of their potential they are really realizing in their art.

Pantree Owl take rather several.

Oh frak. I managed to kill my window and lose the post.I was almost late, but I was saved by the fact that there was a young lady opening for them. Half the band was gone (the whole string section) but I’ve mentioned before that they do very well with a partial group. This time they did a short set, Owls and Ostriches, Horse Song, and one with a name I missed. It took a moment to get the balance right for playing outside, but they started right after the previous musician, and the whole presentation was awesome. Two in a row means I won’t be mentioning that part again unless something goes either absolutely wrong or stunningly right. (I am going to run out of things to talk about though if my posts end up being “well they were totally professional and I adored the music. I guess now I have to actually figure out how one goes about reviewing music. Oh well, it couldn’t last forever.) I will say, for the larger venue of outside, they do need the whole band, but then to sound their absolute best they need the whole band anyway. This makes up for missing their show during Gencon. (Sorry, but it was my first Gencon in almost a decade. Couldn’t miss it.) Pretty awesome.

Japanese Tart

Based on the Japanese Slipper, this is another fruity drink that I greatly enjoy.

1 oz Midori
1 oz orange juice
2 key limes
1 oz triple sec

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker half full of ice. Shake and strain into an Old Fashion Glass full of ice. Garnish with a piece of honeydew melon.

If you want a slightly larger drink, double all ingredients except the limes. They will still be tart enough to keep the midori in check.

Pantree Owl

There were several other bands at this one, though unless one of them just blows me away, I’m a gonna stick to writing about Pantree Owl. Concert’s a benefit for the Indiana Forest Alliance, hosted by Rachel’s, and it started right about 8:00, the first band’s sound check may have run a smidge over, but it was pretty close. Not really my thing, and a little loud at times. Good, but not spectacular.
I am very tired and I hope that Pantree Owl is the 2nd band not the 4th.

Oh yay! Ms. Papania is playing a piano and singing… signs look good for operation “get michael home so he can sleep before work!”

Whole band is here today. This should be good. Shortest sound check so far. They haven’t started their first song, and already they are showing much improvement on the “running a good show” aspect of being performing artists.
Sounds like they are about to begin. Time to close my book (Polgara the Sorceress if you were curious.)

The Strings are spectacular. I wish that every band I randomly went out and saw was half as awesome as Pantree Owl.

Oh you know what the internet is for?
No, not that. but that isn’t at all a played out joke. I mean no one has ever quoted avenue Q at me.
No the internet is for letting me direct you to things I am talking about.

Oh one of the songs where they do their sampleing in the middle of the song!
Hum… I think they should have kept the audience request for beer bottles instead of bringing their own (well bring emergency bottles in case, but do the request thing, Possibly seed the the audience with bottles just in case.) (see below)

Oh yeah, talking about…
http://www.myspace.com/pantreeowl especially Horse Song, (I haven’t listened to the version there, but it is listed as a rehearsal. Horse Song is one of their environmental sampling pieces.)

I do eventually want a cd, but I would need a lot more sound system to get any part of the experience of their performance.

Owls and Ostriches:
<3 I have an almost unbounded love for gentle strings in my music. Pantree Owl delivers. Ms. Papania's voice is, as well, most excellent, especially in pieces such as this. (V., B., and really anyone else, we must go to one of their concerts after you get back to school.)

Oh, I was wrong about the song previously. The beer bottle song is coming up. Nevermind. Horse Song! Yays.
This is why I need to be wealthy enough to do things like sponsor artists.

By the way, when I say "environmental sampling, I mean sampling from items in the concert's immediate environment. They also have a lot of sampling from other sources. Everything or almost everything that they play has sampling or sound effects from environmental sources. (Babydoll reminded me of this.)

Their stage craft has finally caught up with Pantree Owl's musical skill. This is a most excellent occurrence, and I am glad that I didn't decide that I was just too damned tired to go to a concert tonight. Now I must post and depart. The sleep monsters are going to eat me.

Aqua Slipper

I’ve decided to go twice weekly with the cocktail posts and as I feel like it with the others.
I keep forgetting to include extra sugar for my experiments with vanilla vodka. But that is a note for another post I suspect.

1 large blackberry.

3 key limes

1 oz blue curacao

1 oz midori

Served in (frosted) Martini Glass

Squeeze the blackberry so it just starts to drip into the martini glass then place it at the bottom of the glass.

Squeeze the limes into an ice filled cocktail shaker.

Add curicao and midori.

Shake until well mixed and strain into the frosted martini glass.

This is a variation on the Japanese slipper, with the key lime giving it a different sort of kick from the original cocktail and the blue curacao giving it a very pretty aqua color instead of the greenness of a Japanese slipper. The blackberry should be only lightly mashed to add a little bit of flavor but mostly whole so you can eat the newly infused droupe at the end. This cocktail is not improved in the least by the addition of 1/2 oz of vanilla vodka. (Vanilla and berries and melon and oranges sounded like a good idea at the time.)

Next either a layered drink or possibly something with rootbeer. (Where next = some time after this Friday.)

Whiskey Tart

Not my favorite drink, but it has a history of going over very well at parties, this is a variation on the Whiskey Sour.

2 oz Bourbon Whiskey
2 key limes
1 oz Simple Syrup

Halve the limes and squeeze them into a shaker half filled with ice.
Add whiskey and syrup, then shake well. Serve on the rocks in a low tumbler or old fashioned glass (or other 6-8 oz glass.) You won’t want to use more than a few ice cubes for this one, though with crushed ice, you can fill it pretty full. Traditionally this one is garnished with a maraschino cherry or half an orange slice. You can also “garnish” it by giving it a lid, either of the bourbon you are already using or of an overproof bourbon.

For a Boston Tart, add a dash of egg white to the shaker. Whenever using eggs in a cocktail, remember to shake extra well.