Filed by Bil at 4:15 pm under The Arts, The South
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Before we get to our monthly activities recording the unbridled hatred of our anonymous friends and strangers tomorrow, I’d like to just give a shout-out to what surely must be the best blog in the world. There’s a recording of a reading of one of his posts with some psychedelic, spaghetti-western guitar beneath it, and seriously…it’s amazing.
You can close your eyes and just listen.
Filed by Lance at 3:48 pm under General, Hatemail, Shameless Plugs
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…if we only gave you one thing to do with your hate.
Here are two:
(Keep reading…)
Filed by Bil at 7:25 pm under Fightin' Words, Love, Politics, Pop Culture, Religion, The Science
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I read a New York Times Opinion article recently about our human tendency to anthropomorphize machines and assign the badge “Artificial Intelligence” to robots that simply aren’t intelligent. (I suspect he’s referring to articles like this one.) The opinion article is a great read, but it’s kinda long and it seems to conclude in a different place than it starts out, so if I were a high school English teacher, I’d give the essay a B.
At its core, this piece is a warning to us humans not to infuse our technological advancements with religious or philosophical ideologies. And I must say, I completely agree with that statement. My favorite point the author makes is this:
In fact, the nuts and bolts of A.I. research can often be more usefully interpreted without the concept of A.I. at all. For example, I.B.M. scientists recently unveiled a “question answering” machine that is designed to play the TV quiz show “Jeopardy.” Suppose I.B.M. had dispensed with the theatrics, declared it had done Google one better and come up with a new phrase-based search engine. This framing of exactly the same technology would have gained I.B.M.’s team as much (deserved) recognition as the claim of an artificial intelligence, but would also have educated the public about how such a technology might actually be used most effectively.
It punctuates exactly what he’s trying to state before going on to make grander observations about religious wars and the concept of personhood.
However, it did get me thinking – not so much about personhood or religion, but about the meaning of intelligence.
(Keep reading…)
Filed by Lance at 4:40 pm under General, Pop Culture, The Arts
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Through my work with the Bite Size Arts Ensemble, I came up with this idea to get kids actively involved in creating theater.
I came up with a simple “script,” really just a bullet point list of the flow of a scene. I usually based this off of some ideas they had, or fleshed out a story they told me. I then came up with a list of assignments, i.e., Director, Art Director, Cinematographer, Actors, and gave them specific assignments, then turned them loose, guiding them and making suggestions as the “Producer.”
Here’s the results, I’m really proud of these kids:
Filed by Lance at 2:01 pm under General, Hatemail, Pop Culture, Shameless Plugs, The Arts
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Start time: 1:00 PM
Media Personnel in attendance: 1
Pounds of Flesh consumed: 15
Kegs we polished off: 1, plus how many bottles??
Hatemail pieces we recorded: about 5
Pounds of vegetables we grilled: 6
True stories about Kelsey Grammer I heard: 1
New friends I made: 3 or 4
Friendships I deepened: several
Cups of coffee we served: 20
Cups of coffee I drank: 3
Twitter updates we sent: 7
End time: I left Trevor’s at about 1:30 AM
Congrats to you, Bil, and to you, Trevor, our gracious host, for another amazing Hatemail Recording Session! The next one takes place just before my birthday, Sunday, August 29th. Be there! Add to the numbers!
Filed by Lance at 2:45 pm under General, Hatemail, Shameless Plugs
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Filed by Bil at 11:25 pm under The Arts
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The recent yo-yo of heat followed by relieving rain followed by more heat is like the natural world taunting us. And just when I thought we could relax because the heat had cooled off just a little bit, I get word that the basement at Dream Theatre (like thousands of other basements in Chicago) is flooded. FLOODED.
Needless to say, all the free time I thought I had today was instead spent laboring to clean up the joint before our audience arrived tonight. It was a giant mess, but we were able to clean the visible parts of the theatre before our guests came. This is a victory, considering how much there was. There is also much more to do in the basement playing space, so I’ll be heading down there for a couple hours more before coming back north to the Hatemail recording session.
So, after several hours of covering ourselves in sweat and sewer grime, we somehow found the energy to put on a play to make the cleaning worthwhile. And it was the most amazing performance of this show anyone has ever seen. I mean, seriously, everyone was on fire tonight. It was fantastic. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s the kind of show I wish we could do every single night…without the flood first.
And yeah, this pattern I now find myself in (work hard to clean theatre, do awesome show, work hard again to clean theatre some more) seems very much like the weather itself: hot and miserable, cooling and fun, hot and miserable again. And that’s just life, man. Ups and downs. Bad times and good times. It’s all cyclical in scope.
Filed by Bil at 8:04 pm under Depression, Pop Culture
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Some mathematical algorithm thinks I write like Vladimir Nabokov – modern day Nabokov? Sure, I could see that, because modern-day Nabokov is dead, whereas I apparently am too alive to get any writing done.
(Keep reading…)
Filed by Bil at 12:03 pm under Pop Culture, Religion, Shameless Plugs, The Arts
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It’s the Monday before the show opens, so you know what that means: FULL ON SHOW PROMOTION MODE!
“Orestes” opens this Thursday down at the Dream Theatre in Pilsen, the Heart of Chicago. “Orestes” completes the Agon Trilogy, which has won Best New Play of 2010 by the Chicago Reader.
Here’s why you should come see it:
1) It takes place in Hell.
In this play, Hell is cold and dark. Forget what you believe about burning fire and torturous machines. Electra finds her way to the black pit in the second act of this show, and there she finds the long suffering of people in their own private sequestered rooms, tortured by themselves and able only to torture Electra once she finds them. This show shows us not the physical pain of Hell, but the mental anguish of loneliness and lost hope.
2) All your questions about Chorus will be answered.
I’m not giving anything else away. You have to be shown by the cast, not told by a blog.
3) The audience matters here.
In this play, moreso than in any other play I’ve experienced (either as an actor or an audience member), the audience are characters. There is a purpose to the actors’ talking to the audience, not for the simple sake of “breaking the 4th wall” or for any kind of shock value. The audience not only has a presence to the characters onstage, but a history. It’s thrilling and it draws you in as completely as possible, and there’s no hokey “audience participation” necessary. (Read: do not shout out occupations for the cast. They will cut you if you do this. Really.) Don’t be fooled by Tryphosia in the lobby before the show, you will actually be scared by the importance you bring as the audience member.
4) Seeing live theatre is awesome.
You can’t get an experience like this staying at home, and you can’t get it at the movies. It’s not expensive, and it’ll make you think things you never thought you’d think. Don’t be shy. Live a little.
Tickets are here:
Filed by Bil at 12:10 pm under Fightin' Words, Social Issues, The Media
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It’s just as well that LeBron James decided not to come to Chicago. What Chicago does NOT need right now are two things: 1) continued pointless media frenzy over a national-spotlight athlete, and 2) another super-rich celebrity who doesn’t tip his waiter.
(Keep reading…)
