General Musings

Okay, I feel fairly confident in announcing that I am actually employed now! I will be flying out on July 28 to find an apartment and a car in Hawaii where I will be running a theatre for the University of Hawaii at the Leeward Community College campus.

Monday, the old computer will be a guest of UPS and on its way to Hawaii in advance of me. The blog may not be updated for a little while depending on how long it takes me to find a place to live and get internet service.

Finally, I will be able to put my mad theories into practice and sythesize more–all of which I will be reporting to you here. The 2004-2005 season is already pretty much selected, however I will be attending the Western Arts Alliance Conference in Spokane, WA this September to start booking for 2005-06 so look for me there!

Due to a horrendous virus attack I missed making an entry yesterday. (Took me 8 hours to get virus software installed and working due to virus interference.)

Because it is lovely summer time I thought I would make an entry that isn’t so much musings and research on helpful resources as it is about plain amusing thoughts.

Both these links come to me by virtue of Artsjournal.com. The first is a study done in Italy that shows a link between watching TV and playing video games and the earlier onset of puberty. It seems that artifical light and exposure to television and computer monitors lowers the amount of melatonin in your body which has been shown to be a factor in hastening the start of puberty. Regular exposure to sunlight and darkness slows this process.

Now my grandfather always said playing outside in the fresh air would put hair on my chest, but it appears he was just plain wrong!

I was thinking it might be helpful for arts marketers to exploit this study. It would be inconcievable that children would sit quietly in the dark without some form of entertainment, so take them to theatre/ballet/opera/concerts. While the performing arts do use artificial light to illuminate their productions, there is far less of it than sitting in front of a TV or even reading under a lamp. Isn’t it still better that a child be exposed to the arts and extend their youth and innocence just a little bit longer? And with all the sexual imagery on television these day, also preserve their brains’ innocence as well? There is less sexual content in 2 hours of O Calcutta than two hours of television.

On the other hand, late bloomers will probably use the study to rationalize why they should watch more TV.

The second article is an amusing column from the St Paul Pioneer-Press (username: ajreader@artsjournal.com, password: access) The paper’s theatre critic writes a satirical article claiming that NEA chairman Dana Goia has teamed up with the Department of Homeland Security and created a color coded warning system to alert patrons that they might be experience “”heightened and specific” threats to the integrity of a given performance.”

These “threats” consist of sitting next to a person who will make multiple trips to the restrooms, cellophane crinklers, cell phone and pager rings, people who explain and narrate the play to their neighbor, etc.

Protecting the arts patron from the terror of these experiences are marshals armed with tranquilizer and curare darts (the latter reserved for the most heinous offenders) and electromagentic gaget neutralization devices.

It is a fun little article. It is even more fun if you make up your own list of punishments for all the offensive behavior you have experienced while attending a performance. Since even the fines system for offenders in NYC is difficult to practically enforce, if you are going to dream, dream big!

Except for a couple research papers, something I am trying to avoid covering too much here, I haven’t really come across any new and interesting ideas lately. Perhaps it is the summer days making me lazy, but I am actually reading articles as much as I have ever been. However, I don’t know that discussing the success of the Yuengling brewery has a lot to teach the arts at this point. (Though they did weather Prohibition and the Depression so perhaps it offers a lesson in survival during bad economic times.)

On the other hand, it doesn’t take a lot to read my entries these days! I am sure to find something interesting and applicable soon enough so keep on stopping by!

On occasion I have had some crises of faith regarding whether I belonged working in the performing arts. However, I have never had a day when it seemed events were conspiring to tell me to find another line of work as I did yesterday. June 16 being Bloomsday provides a nice rhyme for the title of this entry. However, if you find James Joyce’s writing style to be strange, it might be an apt comparison because the day was rather strange.

I will keep names anonymous and details very general because there are some very nice people working hard to get me a job and I don’t want to seem ungrateful for their efforts.

It all started last week when I was offered a job by a gentleman at Organization A. It was a nice offer at what appears to be a very exciting place to work. However, I had an interview set for June 16 with Organization B which really sounded exciting and captured my imagination to some degree. I was sort of torn between putting Org A off until I could interview at Org B and the idea that it might do a disservice to Org B if I interviewed there knowing I had a job offer elsewhere.

I make every attempt to deal fairly openly and honestly with people. I try not to cynically play people off against each other to exploit a situation only for myself. In the end though, being practical and slightly paranoid, I decided I couldn’t official count on having the other job until I got it in writing.

It was fortunate that I took this stance because the next person up the hierarchy at Org A called me and offered me the job at significantly less salary. Apparently the person who offered me the job went on vacation without noting the salary I had been offered. Much to the superior’s credit, he resolved to personally work on getting me the salary I had been offered.

Meanwhile, I planned my trip to Org B in earnest. I was still intrigued by the opportunity and knew now I was correct in not counting my chickens too early. The trip to Org B was 2.5 hours but I gave myself 3.5 in case of traffic. Worse came to worse, I got there early and wandered around the neighborhood and reviewed my notes for the interview.

About 1.5 into the trip, my car broke down. The really crappy part was that I had taken my car in last week because I heard a sound that implied this would happen. The garage told me I was wrong, the problem was elsewhere and didn’t actually look in the place I felt it originated. However, I was right and a squeak turned into a crunch as my wheel bearing fused to the spindle and I went from 65 to 0 pretty quickly. It took me 4 hours to get it towed and fixed.

By that time Org B didn’t feel it was worth my coming down and said they would try to reschedule. I don’t hold much hope of actually landing the job though. I limped back home, depressed.

Once home I got an email from Org A saying they were sending my appointment before the chief executive for approval. Since I was told the chief executive had to approve the higher salary offer, I found reason for optimism.

Then I got a call in the evening that informed me that the position approval might be delayed slightly as the board had fired the chief executive and it might take the interim replacement a little bit to sort things out.

I have always thought of Fate as a subtle force, but after a day like that, it is difficult not to envision someone really yanking hard on the strings.