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The photo explained:
Greg is himself, Bridget (behind greg) represents the blur of quck-witted activity that surrounds the production, Ryan (in the kitchen) represents what the audience will look like when they watch the show (starting October 5th–mondays and tuesdays!) and the giant watermelon sangria in the foreground represents the sweet temptation to just be drunk instead of get anything done.
THIS PHOTO IS ONE GIANT AMAZING METAPHOR.
Douglas Adams once posited a theory that for an individual all technology up to a certain age (he said 30 or 35) seems fantastic and incredibly useful and all technology after that age seems useless and stupidly complicated. This may seem obvious to anyone who’s heard a parent rage against their PC, but the heart of his theory is that it’s not a gradual process – that it happens suddenly and all at once.
I’ve always been what they call a “late adopter” – I was the last kid I knew to get a Nintendo, and I came late to e-mail, cell phones, iPods, online music, and still kind of resent texting, so I’ve always been borderline about new tech. But I was feeling like I had hit that magic (old) age recently with the advent of Twitter. I’ve always thought of Twitter as a useless time-waster for people who have neither the attention span nor the taste for real communication, a creepy sign of the apocalypse for human interaction, a media meme that’s gotten out of control, a blog for people too narcissitic or lazy to read or write actual blogs. And I’m not alone. It’s certainly been fascinating to see the speed at which the corporate media have embraced it. I apoloize to Twitter fans who are actual humans, unless you follow Ashton Kutcher, in which case you are part of the problem.
But then, Bridget sent me this. That’s right. Perhaps Twitter will save us from the Zombie Plague and World War Z! Oh wait, never mind. It was just a fad and not the future. At least I hope so. And that’s all from cranky old man central.
You, the readers of this blog, are probably intrigued on what in sam hill was so mind-blowing in Greg’s production meeting last night. And to that I say, “ask Greg. Cause I want to tell you about the weirdiest dream of all that I had last night.”
I will start by saying that my dreams have been non-stop and random all nights in the last week. There are a few factors contributing to my constant dream-state as of late (that phrase rhymes by the way–one point for me). But I digress. Here are the factors:
1. the non-stop coverage of the election on the news–there’s always something new, something absurd and something to “get your goat” at any moment in time. The news cycle on the election has been constant.
2. The absurdity of the election itself. Gun-toting and bridges to nowhere and pipelines and no foreign policy experience and hypocrisy and lies and the lying liars that lie them.
3. We are about to launch our production process for Promiscuous Stories. This is scary and exciting territory.
4. Greg has been a bit like John McCain in that he is a great theatre hero of years ago and now is like a maverick, taking the horns of this crazy beast we’ve created. And, of course, Kaitlin Byrd is much like a Sarah Palin in that she is also a maverick who thinks that women can have it all: a theatre company, a lovely husband, a nice bike and a killer body. Our motto for this campaig….I mean, production is THEATRE FIRST.Â
4. Or perhaps Greg is more like a Barack Obama…a relative newcomer with a way of giving people hope of a theatre experiene beyond anything they have imagined.  He has a way with words and a presence greater than anything we’ve known. He speaks of hope, of a new day, and of bringing you a Promsicuous Stories different than anything even HE imagined. And Kaitlin is Joe Biden.
BUT I DIGRESS…
5. I’m about to leave town for Boston (and New York) for a week’s time. I haven’t done much planning beyond the two baseball games I’m going to see–at Fenway and at Yankee Stadium. I’m a plan-happy person so my nervousness is because I don’t know what to expect. This feeling has been intensifying.
6. I’m feeling myself grow up more every day. I have what I like to call “emotional growing pains.” Always evolving, always moving, I find that sometimes it’s a bit of a scary land.
So…this brings me to my dream last night.
Barack Obama was fundraising for his campaign and speaking in the courtyard in the back of my building. There was a lot of hub bub and then Barack came into my studio to relax a little bit out of the public eye and I remember feeling so hopeful and excited.Â
People were standing on top of one another (literally on each other’s shoulders) at the rally so that the capacity was far beyond anything realistic. From this scene came one of feeling isolated and alone. I start walking “home” (though I was already “home” in the dream, but you know how dreams work)…and come upon a large beachside. A dude grabs me (kind of looks like a mix of two guys I know) and says, “do you want to see my thesis at work?” Before I can utter a ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ he throws me onto the waves of the sea and I go on a ride that is at first scary and then entirely thrilling. I am on top of the water with no board, but I am afloat. I begin to understand that the water’s giant wave is fast and unknown but that the ride is ultimately safe and is loads of fun. As I come back in on this circular wave (think that this would be like the “boomerang of waves”), I look behind me and see Joe Biden (in a full suit) and his wife also on top of the fast whirl of waves. He smiles (of course), and I say, “It’s Joe Biden! You are a wonder, sir!” and when I get back to shore, I tell the dude that set me on the waves that I just saw Joe Biden and about how much I was exhilerated by the whole experience and he nods, knowingly.
Suddenly, I am on a dirt road heading back to home and I look behind me to see Barack Obama at age 2 or 3 on a tricycle. He is just a foot or two behind me and he keeps peddling and saying, “Can you believe it? Can you believe I’m going to be president of the United States? Can you believe how far we’ve come? Can you believe it?” and I just keep saying, “Yes, yes I can believe it. Of course I can believe it.” And he keeps asking, over and over, if I can believe it and seems to be in a state of disbelief himself. It’s just unreal. Barack Obama at age 2 on a tricycle behind me. And suddenly I get scared for his safety. I worry that someone will try to shoot this 2 year old off of his tricycle. I then consider that no one recognizes that this little boy is Barack Obama at all, and so I go back to walking a step or two ahead of him on this dirt road. I’m on foot. Barack is on trike.
And then I wake up.
Wow.
I think the Joe Biden part is my favorite.
Did little Barack Obama look like current Barack Obama with a little kid body? And was the trike blue? If so, I was totally there.
I think I cried a little…even your dreams are cooler than mine.
this is hard to read. I wish it weren’t. i think it looks funny and SO INFORMATIVE. maybe my blogs would really take off if I had this diagram.
Fixed. This should be bigger and funnier now.
Bigger and funnier…
Hmmm….
Picture it:
It’s December 2nd. You’re feeling really good. You want to feel even better. You just happen to have on some dancing shoes and you ask yourself, “What’s stopping me? I mean, really, WHAT’S SO DANGEROUS ABOUT DANCING?!”
That’s where we come in.
WHAT’S SO DANGEROUS ABOUT DANCING?: a night of fun with the Plagiarists
Danny’s in Wicker Park (Damen and Dickens)
Sunday, December 2nd, 9PM
Dance Contest at 10pm with lots of fun and prizes. The music will be hip hop and new wave and it will be a most delicious time!
So, pencil it in. Hell, go ahead and PEN it in! Cause you gotta be there!*
*No, seriously, you better be there…or Ian will come after you with his mad martial arts skills, Lindsay will come after you with her rolling pin, Kaitlin will run you over with her bike, Justine will booty-shake you ’til you’re hurtin’, Layne will sketch your face til it’s black-n-blue, Greg will blow your mind and James will…well, he’ll do somethin’ REAL BAD.
BE THERE! CAUSE WE CAN’T WAIT TO DANCE WITH YOU!
Getting Started:Congratulations!You’ve made it to the future of the internet (finally.) Gone are the days of static web pages created by an single person or Microsoft. You are now to the web what Johannes Gutenberg was to printing. Let’s get started, shall we? The first thing you will need to do is register through WordPress. WordPress is the engine powers the blog. It is also the interface you will use to write posts, upload pictures, post videos, and all kinds of fun things. Click on the word “register’ at the bottom right of this page and you will be taken to a log-in window. Click the “Register” button bellow the log-in box and create a user name. WordPress will send you a temporary password that you’re going to change in a minute. Check your email and follow the prompts. When you make it back to the WordPress site, click on your profile in the upper right hand corner and change your password to something more interesting that a bunch of numbers you won’t remember. Now you’re ready to go! When you want to write a posting you’ll have to log in to do so and use the WP interface. Commenting is a bit easer and can be done without having leave the plagiarist site. Play around a bit. It’s fun!Next week’s topic: How to post images and media
Plagiarist Gregory
1:32 pm on September 9, 2009
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I am a metaphor for myself. Awesome.