Soooo. I was going to audition to be Officer Lockstock in a production of Urinetown next spring. There was a good chance I'd get it, too. It was with a group I've performed with before and they liked me.

But when I found out that it would conflict with Intercon and a cruise I'm taking with i.scrib for our 5th anniversary, I started to consider other options.

Specifically, Max Bialystock in The Producers. And as a bonus, I've convinced raging_apathy to audition with me. I cannot tell you how much we would rock as Bialystock and Bloom. I'm less likely to get that part since they don't know me, but you never know, right?

But they just announced the Urinetown auditions with a show schedule that does not conflict with Intercon or the cruise. So I'm going to audition for both plays (with the same song and everything).

So, what should I do if the unthinkable occurs and I'm offered both parts?

I'd rather play Lockstock than Bialystock, but Bialystock is for a more well known group. Also, people are more likely to see The Producers than Urinetown.
But I like the group that's doing Urinetown, too. They were good to work with on Seussical.
Obviously, working with raging_apathy trumps all. I wonder if I can get him to audition for Urinetown too.
I ...could... accept both parts since the shows aren't opposite each other, as long as the rehearsal schedules synced. But I feel that way lies madness.

What should I do?

(Yeah, I know I'm counting chickens before they're hatched, but I have a really good feeling about Urinetown).

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/okWE6zajXS8/roman_populace_constantly

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/roman_populace_constantly?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

While the practice of racing chariots on circular or oval tracks enjoyed extreme popularity in the Roman Empire, particularly in the rural Southern provinces, historians claim its legitimacy as an athletic event was often a topic of heated debate among contemporary sports enthusiasts.

Friends,
Thanks for all the greetings yesterday which somehow brighten a
day...else was on the road with black ice for three hours going
15 miles. space becomes very different, and time too,when cars
are inching forward and halting. But got home safely, should not
have been on road but the weather forecast had been insufficient.

But all is well. Now I am thinking about flamenco and wondering if
there is any to be seen in New York between now and mid January
when I will have some evenings free?This to anyone knowledgeable.

The performer I would most like to see is gone now. Antonio de
la Santisima Trinidad Nunez Montoya known as El Chocolate,he
died in 2005. Will you watch with me again or for the first time, this
video from the film Flamenco by Carlos Soara? There is also the dance
of Farruco,his son Farruquito and at the end their dance together.



With Chocolate what remains to me is his voice of course,as he says
flamenco singing began perhaps with the crying out Ayyy of the first
man who fell down... I know not much about flamenco but for me his voice
embodies cante jondo 'deep song', beyond that his face, and maybe
above all his hand grasping and closing in the air again and again as if
to hold something perhaps which no man can hold..

This is the duende Lorca spoke of, which has no place in academic
critique of the art by a neomarxist whose book I looked in, whose
thought was limited to social resentments and who could not hear
that primordial crying out, and no place in the "music business"
when money and praise come first...
You may find a brief biography of El Chocolate at:
http://www.andalucia.com/flamenco/musicians/el-chocolate.htm
the younger Chocolate singing for fandagos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqYhmJH8eLw
So just this for today, really nothing I have not said before
but I wanted to watch this and thought you might too and it
needed a word of introduction for anyone new,
and as always I welcome all yours on this or on anything else
at all, yours
+Seraphim
.
'el "duende" no viene, hay que ir a buscarlo.' El Chocolate
"Duende does not just come to you, you must
pursue it."

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/ysy5odEt_YY/conquerors_you_may_have

http://www.theonion.com/content/infograph/conquerors_you_may_have?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

Sigfried the Insecure: Viking who finally mustered...

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/Ax1aYKIw8x8/smarmy_under_performing_a

http://www.theonion.com/content/from_print/smarmy_under_performing_a?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

News In Photos

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/ivkFEENZbws/neanderthal_man_flocking_to_caves

http://www.theonion.com/content/amvo/neanderthal_man_flocking_to_caves?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

All over Western Europe and Central Asia, Neanderthal man is inhabiting caves in record numbers. What do you think?

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/JbPGAqqWeUI/deaths_of_550_000_confirm

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/deaths_of_550_000_confirm?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

Following the lethal poisoning of more than a half million people over the course of several millennia, cultures across the globe finally learned how to identify which mushrooms could be safely consumed.

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/lTVnV_M5bec/four_or_five_guys_pretty_much

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/four_or_five_guys_pretty_much?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

Following 1,000 years of cultural decline and societal collapse known as the Dark Ages, the 15th century brought forth the Renaissance, an unprecedented resurgence in learning and the arts, which four or five guys pretty much just strapped onto their backs and carried the whole way.

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/MEgEkQQDq2A/fire_setting_everything_in_sight

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/fire_setting_everything_in_sight?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

In what was perhaps the most meaningful discovery ever made, early man exited the safety and shelter of his prehistoric cave, struck two stones together, and for the first time in history created fire.

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/ytuUFTqNuOE/either_ming_or_yuan_dynasty

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/either_ming_or_yuan_dynasty?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

In one of the most important events in all of Asian history, either the Ming dynasty or the Yuan dynasty seized control of mainland...

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/TFdFci1REhQ/industrial_revolution_provides

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/industrial_revolution_provides?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

After centuries of chronic unemployment, millions of small children across the United Kingdom saw their lives drastically improve when the Industrial Revolution at long last provided them with steady factory work regardless of age, size, or experience.

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/zTvgupeUG24/great_monuments_to_human

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_in_photos/great_monuments_to_human?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

Slideshow

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/gQva0B1Nyo8/sports_becomes_increasingly

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/sports_becomes_increasingly?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

According to prominent sports historians, the modern-day practice of allowing a losing team or athlete to live has significantly lessened the intensity of sports as a whole in the centuries since the execution of defeated competitors has fallen out of vogue.

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/4FX2vtDu0ss/thomas_edison_invents

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/thomas_edison_invents?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

Famed inventor Thomas Edison changed the face of modern life in 1879 when he devised the groundbreaking new process of taking ideas pioneered by...

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/B7UFC96mCaY/timeline_the_evolution

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_in_photos/timeline_the_evolution?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

Slideshow

A reader asks: A few years ago, you posted a link to an article talking about early speculations into the impossibility of space travel (something about how, in the vacuum of space, there will be no air to react against or some such). I've tried to locate it, and seem to have been unable to. Do you recall what it was? Thanks!

A: Yes. Here is the article I wrote: http://johncwright.livejournal.com/2008/07/16/ Full text is below.


I heard this story on Paul Harvey, and was so bemused, that I rushed home and looked it up. It is true. The NEW YORK TIMES has not changed a bit.

In 1919 Goddard published a monograph A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes where he described the multi-stage rocket, and proposed it would be possible to send such a device out of the earth's atmosphere and reach the moon. His idea was to set off an explosive charge during the new moon, with a flash brilliant enough to be seen by powerful earthly telescopes.

The January 1920 edition of the NEW YORK TIMES wrote an editorial calling Goddard's knowledge and honesty into question.

Science fiction fans still chortle over this one. I recall a short story by A.E. van Vogt which dealt with a professor-astronaut trying to explain to dimwitted newspapermen that a rocket, to fly in space, does not need air for its explosive charges to push against. (Go, go gadget Internet! The story was "The Problem Professor", published as "Project Spaceship" in 1949. If you wonder what I mean by 'professor-astronaut', keep in mind that in SF stories, like the Wright Brothers, the inventor was usually the test pilot. )

The money quote from the 1920 TIMES article is this:

"… after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its longer journey it will neither be accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left."

It goes on

"That Professor GODDARD with his "chair" in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react—to say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."

Note the scare quotes to refer to Goddard's chair at the college. But the TIMES now must question the great scientist's honesty:

"But there are such things as intentional mistakes or oversights…."

The TIMES then turns from calling Goddard a liar to critiquing science fiction. Here is the paragraph:

" ... JULES VERNE, who also knew a thing or two in assorted sciences—and had, besides, a surprising amount of prophetic power—deliberately seemed to make the same mistake that Professor GODDARD seems to make. For the Frenchman, having got his travelers to or toward the moon into the desperate fix of riding a tiny satellite of the satellite , saved them from circling it forever by means of an explosion, rocket fashion, where an explosion would not have had in the slightest degree the effect of releasing them from their dreadful slavery. That was one of VERNE 's few scientific slips, or else it was a deliberate step aside from scientific accuracy, pardonable enough in him as a romancer, but its like is not so easily explain when made by a savant who isn't writing a novel of adventure."

Forty nine years afterwards—one year shy of half a century— on July 17, 1969, the New York Times published a short item under the headline "A Correction," summarizing its 1920 editorial mocking Goddard, and concluding:

"Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton in the 17th century and it is now definitely established that a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error."

Of course, this was one day after the launch of Apollo 11.

The TIMES is good-natured about the old mistake, mentioning that this principle has been known since Newton. But the TIMES is, as it turns out, behind the times: centuries late when it comes to physics, and decades when it comes to printing their retractions. (Better late than never—they still were swifter than the Roman Catholic Church pardoning Galileo.)

Just keep this sort of thing in mind when you read newspaper stories about stem cell research, global warming, the 'Star Wars' strategic missile defense initiative, diet fads, Alar, DDT, the ozone hole, or any other bit of science reporting. The newsmen really don't know what they are talking about, and they like to sneer as if they did.

"Coupling operations will now take place. Please remain seated and ensure that you have secured your personal belongings. There may be a slight bang. The doors will operate shortly to enable coupling."

This has to be deliberate, right?

So, I've actually gotten into the whole zombie-movie thing lately. I've sat down to watch Quarantine, Night of the Living Dead, both versions of Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. I've recently seen The Omega Man and I Am Legend and Day of the Dead, not to mention the spooky French movie They Came Back (Les Revenants). Now I'm opening the floor up for suggestions. This is a rich and complex genre. It is both the last genre where pure, unspeakable horror is possible, and, paradoxically, the genre most capable of making broad statements about civilization and its fragility. That is, it is both the dumbest and smartest of genres. I haven't ventured very far outside of acknowledged classics, and barely at all into the realm of low-budget exploitation (the closest I've come to that is Robert Rodriguez's gonzo tribute Planet Terror). I saw one Robert Fulci movie a long time ago, but otherwise have not seen a foreign language zombie movie and wouldn't know where to start. I ask my strong-stomached readers to recommend their favorites.

http://www.iheartbeijing.com/blog/?p=821

Last Thursday night I attended the BritCham Christmas Party with my very own 007 (pictured above) and I’m very surprised (and not-so-secretly pleased) to have discovered our photo in today’s Global Times. Best thing about the evening (other than the dancing, of course) was running into several of the crew members from the BBC shoot I did last year for their Chingles web program. Also, while the traditional English Christmas treats were delicious (though hardly a comparison to their American counterparts, sorry!) it was also the fantastic conversations we had at the table that made the evening such a joy. I do so love English wit. And the bad puns that come along with said wit