General Musings

I realized I had neglected to remove the line in “About The Blog” that refered to me being unemployed. That has, of course, been changed. I also changed the About the Author section because that too was essentially gauged to advertise my qualifications and help me find a job.

The blog actually worked to help me find a job. Some of the folks on the search committee commented on the blog during the interview and even now that I have started work. Some of them continued to read it even after they hired me so I have to watch what I write.

I had asked a career counselor if she suggested people list their blogs on their resumes (the entry is somewhere back in time, I will have to dig it out). She said since I was looking for an employer who would value my innovative ideas, etc, I should absolutely list it. Sort of the idea that I will attract the employers that deserve me. Well, I have to say, 10 days or so in the process. I am really feeling like I am working for a place that deserves me. (Lucky them!) I think I even wrote at one point that I started getting interviewed by places that deserved me/whose ideals and philosophies were aligned with mine.

We will see how far this impression bears out now as time goes on.

In my last entry, I mentioned how I was trying to resist using quotes from newspaper critics because it made me feel lazy to borrow someone else’s thoughts. I also doubted the power of such quotes to sway people because the phrases they employ seem over used.

I came across an article in the London Telegraph that refers to a list that the editors compile of over used phrases they felt they could do without seeing. The list applies to book reviews, but if you look at them, you will see quite a few that make an appearance in regard to live performances and art shows.

It should come as no surprise to any of my readers that the first week of a new job at an arts organization doesn’t leave much time for actually writing blog entries. To say that I have spent my last three days writing up a calendar listing for local media makes me sound like a lazy bastard. In reality, I have been doing more than meeting new people and been becoming familiar with the details of my job.

In the pursuit of trying to write up calendar listings, I have essentially been developing my budget for the year. The budget had been set up to a certain point, but there have been additions and substitutions. To simply advertise a ticket price in a newspaper calendar, I have had to develop (read: make educated guesses) a fair part of the budget from incomplete information. And of course, since the info is incomplete, I spend most of my time asking a lot of questions that lead to answers which lead me to ask a lot of other questions about things not actually related to my original purpose for asking, but simply flesh out my knowledge of what the heck I am actually doing here.

I don’t have much new wisdom to impart today except to point people in the direction of some really exciting groups that I will be presenting over the coming year. Some are more familiar to me than others, but all seem pretty interesting.

First you have world renowned folks like The Flying Karamazov Brothers (http://www.fkb.com/) and Ladysmith Black Mambazo (http://www.mambazo.com/).

Really high energy international musicians — New Zealand’s Te Vaka (http://www.tevaka.com) who surround the traditional pate (log drums) with acoustic and electric guitar and toss in high energy and dance which makes it tough to sit still. I also think it will be hard to sit still during Les Yeux Noir’s (http://www.lesyeuxnoirs.net/) visit as well since their part gypsy, part klezmer, part swing jazz music is described as infusing the audience with their frenetic energy.

My theatre is known for the dance performances it puts on so we will be hosting the Dayton Contemporary Dance company (http://www.dcdc.org) and Rennie Harris Puremovement (http://www.rhpm.org/). All that time I lived near Philadelphia and I had to travel to Hawai`i to hear about them!

This isn’t everyone we are presenting–I will link to my website once I finish building it–but these are among those which look exciting enough to spread the word about.

Okay faithful readers, I am back at the keyboard after my move to Hawaii. I haven’t offically started my job yet, but thanks to the help and support of the theatre staff, I have been able to use the office to store my shipped stuff and call around for apartments. I am in an apartment and making the usual arrangements to get phone, cable and electric hooked up.

One interesting observation I have made already is that the theatre is organized under the Office of Continuing Education rather than fine or liberal arts. This shows the orientation and focus of the theatre right off. The building is a tool for community outreach first and then a place where performances occur. From talking informally with the director of continuing education (he actually put me up in his apartment for a week while I was searching for a place to live) I have found him to be incredibly supportive of the people in his department and eager to empower them to do interesting things. He absolutely wants financial accountability, but he also wants to provide his charges with a great experience and the freedom to do a little experimentation. A lot of administrators say that, but are really more conservative in practice. I honestly think I may end up being too reserved for his vision.

It will be interesting to see how things develop. I hope not to end up working so hard I can’t write at all. I do expect I won’t be able to write as extensively as I did while unemployed. Some of the research and writing I did involved 3-5 hours of my time. On the other hand, I will be able to offer advice from a more practical stand point now.