Been working with, and hanging out around Alvin Ailey Dance Co. more frequently these days. Over break, we (the lighting grads) have the opportunity to design for the Ailey School winter performance. Very exciting. So very exciting. In doing my homework on the two choreographers I will be designing for, I happened across a really f-ed up story about a guy, upon entering the Israeli airport, was forced to dance in order to prove his identity with the dance company (the dance company being with him, and also having programs with his face and name in them)

the reputable source

the blogey source

In the rest of the world, school is still pretty darn great. I'm loving it, learning a lot, getting good feedback, learning learning. Friday night, notmyjournal went to see a show that I had designed last year, but not this year. The designer, for the most part used my plot and design and changed somethings up. Watching it, I was surprised by some choices that maybe I made or she had made, that now, knowing what I know about color, I totally wouldn't have chosen. Kinda amazing. This semesters show went splendidly, but still don't know if I can put the video up, nor, honestly do I know how to right now. It's a hunkin big file. Next semester I'm assisting/associating the same guy for lights instead of of projection for Tommy. Also super excited about. And I'm itching to design again. I think this is the longest I've gone without designing something. ::itch itch::

Today is a snow day. I'm watching the plows go by, the kids with sleds heading towards the steepest hill, people slip sliding up and down the street. I'm cleaning, listening to christmas music (it's notmyjournal's fault. Maybe tonight we will see Christmas lights. I guess it depends if we're still in a snow emergency.

::sigh:: it's good to have a life again.

location: kitchen mood: cheerful music: transiberian orchestra

we open the show tonight. Galileo. Been working on a 2 minute sequence that has taken me about 3 months at approximately 10 hours a week to complete. Except for this last two weeks when it was about 10 hours a day. What's the math on that?? 10x12= 120 + 10x14= 140 =260. Yikes. I think I liked it better before doing the math.

Anyway. Huge undertaking. So proud of the video for it. Proud of my video too. Wanna see?

Here.

mood: content

In the last 15 minutes of tech... question for ya'll.
First- transversely, what do you use for your website? Why'd you pick it?

Secondly, to everyone- which do you like better?
Calversion Design
Calversion Lighting
(my first name)(my last name) Design
(my first name)(my last name) Lighting

And do people have good websites? What do you like about them?

Please and thank you.

Otherwise. I'm looking forward to some time off. Tomorrow- i'm gonna sleep as long as I want. notmyjournal, any interest in a hottub? Taking the train home for the holiday. Will allow me to read and do homework that does not require a drafting board. oh. i'm taking a train home because the brakes died on the truck a few days ago. But now trucky is at a reliable mechanic getting everything fixed. This is the last big fix I think for dear trucky. Have begun squirreling for a less old, less falling apart motor vehicle. ::sigh:: i love that truck.

The end for now. 6 minutes left.

mood: productive music: none

I am currently avoiding my school work. You see, just for a little bit, I'm taking a break from doing something that I don't understand, then being told to click this box, do this thing, click here, here and here and ta-da...oh wait...no...click here and here...does that work? oh that works. ta da. there ya go. and then i'm left having no idea what I just did, nor how to redo it, and in the process have completely lost my basic sandbox to play in and don't know how to get it back.

technology and I have been fighting all day. It's one of those, i know i'm not a good communicator towards the technology, and most of the time it amuses me and does what I ask even though i'm asking in a way that would be similar to trying to speak a different language. so, I understand that it's not misbehaving or being a rational, assholish program...but still. it sucks. not even sure this log will make sense, but as a celebration for the first tears shed, (all 3 of them) I post about how me and vectorworks are not friends today. tomorrow we will be friends. and notmyjournal has been wonderful about distracting me, showing me her cleavage when I look super pathetic and generally smothering me with love and sweet whispers when I start muttering like a parrot stuck on the word "fuck."

location: school

a new song that I've been all about. and the video...well...has nothing to do with the song as far as I can tell.

location: school music: arctic monkey

8 years later. Coming home tonight, the original version of this piece was playing on the radio. These are two different pieces. You should listen to them side by side. Everything wears down with age...What happens over years of time.... The dj who came on after was remembering his age (15) in 2001.

I was remembering how right after the towers came down, there was 4 choices of what to do with the footprint. What have we done with the footprint? What are we going to do with it? In class we picked a building. I remember printing out Self Evident as part of my class project that we were working on about 9/11.

Well. So that's that.

Tonight I went to see "9" with a bunch of classmates. An animated movie by Tim Burton. I enjoyed it. It was scary at moments. I think I'm chock full of apocolyptic imagery. There was a message of hope...a bit far reaching as far as I'm concerned...but it was a nice bow for a downer of a movie.

And I think that's it for the moment. Should find some "cheery" work to work on a bit before bed.

location: my desk mood: reflective

and i'm still loving grad school.
the work has been a nice steep uphill grade, but not a massive dump, therefore feeling a little more...managable.
I'm taking a set design class where we will design 3 shows in the span of a semester. first up: "The Rivals" by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Old school, romantic comedy that takes place in neo-classical Bathe. Then- "Rabbit Hole" by David Lindsay-Abaire. A newer play I think...no idea what it's about yet. Lastly, "Three Sisters" by Anton Chekov.

Lighting Design class is doing "Our Country's Good" by Timberlake Wertenbaker. At least I know of this play, have seen it when we did it in undergrad. I believe in the black box space. Great show. Miserable show. Convicts shipped from England to New Wales Australia to form the first penal colony. Then they decide to have the convicts perform a play.

For an independent credit, I'm the assistant to projections for "Galileo" by Bertolt Brecht. I love Brecht. Love love love. I have done projections exactly once before, only a few months ago. This is projections on a mammoth scale. A 19'x20' screen that at times gets split into about 12 smaller screens. Lots of hard imagery. Like war, and various atrocities of the 20th century. But also stars and Hubble imagery. But i'm working on the atrocities section. I think for a 2-3 minute piece of the show, we'll flash multiple hundreds of atrocities of various shapes and sizes. I'll need lots of flowers and happiness when working on this to make up for delving into hours of death and horror. But I'm really excited for it. I think it will end up being awesome. But there is also a steep, steep, almost straight up learning curve of the programs to make all this work.

Speaking of steep learning curves. Also working next door at the recital hall and teaching myself the light board. Godbless the internet and the company's choice to put the training dvd online. I just sit next to the board and do what the little man on the puter tells me to and it's amazing!

What else....color theory. Relatively simple. No death and horror. Merely taking gel books from 3 companies and compiling them into on, sorted by color. and hue within that. Don't know what a gel book is?

Kinda like a paint sample book.

So that's me. What about you?

location: scouts masters couch mood: excited music: pandora radio

when I look on facebook of pics from summer work and my stomach flips. and not in that good, twitterpated way.

just sayin...

now to find something to make the stomach flip back over into the good way...

mood: annoyed

Tonight my dad and niece (herein referred to as "the kiddo") came up for a visit for a few days. This is very exciting as I'm still settling into my new place, and so happy to have them up here. The kiddo has not visited me since 2003, in Pittsburgh. We taught her how to say "monongahela". She was about 3...

Right now however, we are watching the Rocky Horror Picture Show and she knows all the words, even if she doesn't understand them, and thinks that Rocky is "hot". This makes me feel very strange at the least. I fell in love with this movie when I was maybe 15...and haven't watched it since last Halloween at the Academy for the midnight showing, where I felt very, very old, and left before the movie was over.

So, in conclusion: this is weird. It's great to have them here. I think tomorrow we'll go to the Eric Carle museum. I start school in about 2 weeks, life is settling in here at the new place and it's been hotter than hell. But love being in the middle of nowhere, as the temperature drops a good 5-10 degrees to nice and cool at night.

location: new living room mood: weird music: RHPS- hot pattootie

firstly, for the record, tranversely and rumorofrain are the sweetest sweets ever. letting me stay in their spare spare bedroom so that i don't have to travel home (30+ now miles) for a two day gig that is >5 miles from old place.

so- today in no paricular order I did or had:
-2 bugs fly up my nose. not at the same time. but the same nostril i think.
-finally finished reading angela's ashes. bout time now that he's dead.
-oscillated on stage in front of hundreds. (we were using big words and I was acting them out.)
-i then masticated on stage.
-came out to 2 coworkers as trans who I thought knew but apparently didn't.
-also informed them that I'm going to grad school. (kinda more serious in terms of fear of repercussions for me)
-learned how to tear down a drum kit.
-couldn't find my tool bag and had to re-purchase gloves, flashlight and crescent wrench this morning.
-felt like I was cheating on my crescent wrench all day. I've had that one since 1999.
-realized that a few weeks ago I was working next to a merry-go-round, and today was working next to the slab of concrete that that merry-go-round had once sat on.
-worked a one day free music festival on the day of the 40th anniversary of woodstock. not quite the same...

and will now be going to sleep.

mood: pleased

i'm gonna go thru my list of friends and narrow down to much less.
if you'd like to stay in my goings ons...lemme know.

mood: tired

in the last week I have had a innie canadian visitor, gone to PGH, got caught in a hail storm, packed up all my possessions and moved them to a new state in under 8 hours.

now...I'm at some dear dear friends who just bought a lovely ranch this early summer. we watched star trek 4 (the search for whales). I think transversely and I would have been best friends when we were 6.

tomorrow I will clean out the old place, go back to the new place, clean up and unpack the new place and then have a date with notmyjournal. I am excited for this. I will not be going to Alaska like we theorized(sad panda to not see automata. I will not be having a lay over in any western sea-board city, unfortunately. (sorry elizafae.)

I will write more about innie canadian visitors later. needless to say it was very nice.

the end.

mood: happy

I have not posted in forever. Life is good. So fucking good it's kinda unbelievable.

On my way out right now to head to Hartford to be picked up to head to Pgh. All company for the weekend is amazing and wonderful and hot. And i'm very excited to head back to Pgh with Scout and show her another chapter of my life.

::flounces off with stupid happy feelings::

location: green chair mood: super fucking excited. music: london still- the waifs.

dear world.
life is good. slacker me has been busy enjoying life and catching up on life after festival. i am in tech for a show. A good looking show. Hopefully tomorrow we can implement video, which will work flawlessly the first time.

So, my life in the past weeks...I got a great apartment for school in the fall. In Stafford Springs. The 2nd floor of a great victorian. It has a turret, plastic dinosaurs in the garden in the back, the landlord lives downstairs, a nice quiet guy with a great old dog. it's a less than 5 minute walk from the heart of "downtown" over the railroad tracks and over a small bridge. I'm totally in love with it. Excited for school.

Overall life is ridiculously good. Getting over a cold. Had a great birthday where I got a GPS and the Catherine Opie book that we saw at the Guggenheim this winter.

More when I have a little more energy. A weekend of seeing new houses by new homo-owners.

location: living room mood: loved music: t.v.

heard a rumor today that Texas is going to/ or has/ reframed the definition of a "lighting designer"...so now you must be a commerical certified electrician or architect in order to design lights for theatre.

can anyone confirm or deny this???

mood: blah music: none

i am back from Canada, and the wonderful wedding and the wonderful people and the general wonderfulness.

so, i haven't posted in forever. i've been in south carolina again, working my butt off for the same festival. i was really happy and excited to be returning, though it meant leaving the people i love for 8 weeks. but i had faith that i'd be working with a friend, that it would be hard, but good, and it would be a good time. this has not been the case. without dragging it all out, i have become the runt of the litter so to speak with my crew here. there is nothing, no matter how hard i work, that will be right. i will screw up everything, and anytime anyone else screws up, it will be my fault.

with 4 weeks of this under my belt, i really needed this weekend. i went to canada for the wedding of dear Bear and j. it was beautiful. just what i needed of the good queers who i think of often and miss, especially here in south carolina. not to mention the girlfriend. that was more than everything. i missed her greatly and do now too.

that's the long and the short of it. got home. didn't need to go back to work like i expected to. maybe it's better. gonna upload pictures of the wedding now and come back and post them.

here's some love everyone. i think we could all use it.

mood: grateful music: jones and leva