Dawn Xiana Moon: Randomness

Encores

Dawn — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 07:23:00 +0000

Encores

Performing in cafes you don't ever expect your audience to demand an encore, but last week at the Heartland Cafe I played for a fantastic crowd that wouldn't allow me to leave the stage. The first encore was quite a surprise, and after asking for a vote I played another song on the guitar in honor of my roommate--she's always asking me to play the "French song." Though now there are two. The second encore was on piano, at the request of the the lovely Annah Zaman, who played before me: "You have to play another one on the piano, because I wasn't in the room just now." After two additional songs, I thought the encores were getting a little ridiculous--not so much that people wanted me to play, but rather that I didn't want to overstay my welcome, so to speak--and I had to pay my food bill, since my server was leaving. Annah, however, volunteered to pay the bill if I played another song on piano. Realizing that she was serious, I played number three. Then I ran, because it would have been strange to become another Evgeny Kissin (if I had half his piano chops I'd be thrilled, but I was once at a concert where as an audience we kept clapping just to see if we could make him keep playing--he played six encores that night).

Thanks so much to everyone who came to the concert--you were a fabulous audience, and I hope to see you again soon!

Tidbits

Dawn — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 07:52:00 +0000

Tidbits

It may be due to the fact that I'm an English geek, but the SPOGG (Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar) blog is rather amusing. March 4th this year is National Grammar Day--the first one, I believe, of its kind. Anyone want to celebrate with me?

I've been listening to the soundtrack from Once for the last seven hours.

Last week I was fortunate enough to get comp tickets to the CSO's performance of Ainadamar, a work that hovers somewhere between opera and modern musical theatre--in Diana's words, "I'm on stage for about 90 minutes (of awesomeness) with 14 other Symphony Chorus ladies, members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a flamenco singer and flamenco guitarists and percussionists, a laptop musician, and an opera cast lead by Dawn Upshaw." While the performance reminded me of why actors are always joking about how opera singers can't act, the music was simply stunning. At a couple of points, a gypsy singer appeared on the balcony--and just a few notes were enough to steal the show. I would love to sing like that.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Dawn — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 13:29:00 +0000

Happy Chinese New Year!

Thanks to U! for the fabulous drawing, which he sent me as a greeting card (if you're wondering, it's the Year of the Rat). Have a fantastic year, filled with lots of friends, music, and real Chinese food!

"The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls."

Dawn — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 01:17:00 +0000

"The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls."

The last two weeks of The Daily Show provided some interesting commentary on not just American politics, but the media.

Take, for example, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's "escalating war of words"--since January 19, 2007, the media has been proclaiming that the "gloves are off" in the race between the two Democratic candidates. We could read this as hype, hype, and more hype. As Jon Stewart put it, "You know, if they're going to keep doing that, why do these candidates keep taking their gloves on and off? It seems inefficient."

Or better yet, how about this? CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC constantly proclaim that race is an issue in the Democratic primary, and they've said that Hillary Clinton first played the race card. In actuality, Clinton said that it takes a president to actually make the policy that civil rights activists march for. Seems reasonable--civil rights activists hope to change public opinion and move policy-makers to act. They in themselves cannot change policy or create laws. Our media, however, turned her statement into an incitement of racial tensions. Contrasting Clinton's actual words to the commentary from the major news channels is both frightening and fascinating--her words are miles apart from the commentators' sensationalist accusations.

Then there's Mitt Romney's supposed eruption and Bill Clinton's angry lashing of reporters. Romney played semantic games--this lobbyist isn't running my campaign, he's just an advisor--but his reaction to the reporter's statements wasn't even on the scale of "angry outburst," much less "incensed" (Hardball). And Clinton? He seemed awfully calm for someone who was "throwing a fit" (Fox News). Yes, he did say, "Shame on you." But I couldn't even rightfully put an exclamation point on his statement against the media looking to create racial issues out of thin air. Yet according to CNN, "He lashed out."

All of this brings to mind Indiana University professor Julia A. Fox's study, "No Joke: A Comparison of Substance in The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Broadcast Network Television Coverage of the 2004 Presidential Election Campaign." She found that The Daily Show contained as much substance as network news. "A [second-by-second analysis] analysis of network coverage found considerably more hype than substance in broadcast newscasts. Examples of such hype included references to polls, political endorsements and photo opportunities.... Interestingly, the average amounts of video and audio substance in the broadcast network news stories were not significantly different than the average amounts of visual and audio substance in The Daily Show with Jon Stewart stories about the presidential election."

The Daily Show is comedy. Very good comedy. But it's not supposed to be a news show. So it's a little sad when the actual news programs do such a poor job of providing substantive information that a comedy show stands with them on equal footing. Or as Stewart says, "You're hurting America."

The Daily Show Back on the Air

Dawn — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:49:00 +0000

The Daily Show Back on the Air

I'll admit it: I've missed having The Daily Show on the air. Yes, Jon Stewart is back in the middle of the writers' strike, but he and Colbert held out longer than Leno, Letterman, or O'Brien. I admire the fact that both of them continued to make sure that their staff members were paid throughout the strike, even when the show wasn't in production--some other late night shows, meanwhile, were forced to lay off their staff members. Back in December, NBC laid off the non-writing staff members of both Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien. O'Brien paid his staff for another week, I believe out of his own pocket. Late night shows are responsible for employing a host of people--those people aren't writers and don't stand to benefit from any negotiations the WGA makes, however they feel--and the researchers, crew, and others already have a tendency to live paycheck to paycheck.

The first couple of return episodes make it clear that Jon isn't happy about having to return without his writing staff (the show is currently running as "A Daily Show" rather than "The Daily Show" in tribute to the writers); he's also a little "off." But even if The Daily Show isn't in top form, I'm still glad it's back to point out the humor in our absurd political system. Without Jon Stewart and company, American politics is just depressing.

Merry Christmas!

Dawn — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 23:10:00 +0000

Merry Christmas!

Best wishes for a wonderful holiday!

The Demise of Sigmund

Dawn — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 23:18:00 +0000

The Demise of Sigmund

Poor Sigmund, he met an untimely end. He stood near the campus of Northwestern University, and his middle ball was pulled from his body--probably by an undergraduate. And his carrot nose was stolen.

The final insult? Someone's dog left a yellow patch on his bottom ball.

Another Reason to Hate Windows Vista

Dawn — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 13:20:00 +0000

Another Reason to Hate Windows Vista

In an acronym: WGA. My laptop came directly from Dell with the OS pre-installed, and it's validated itself as "Genuine Windows Vista" before. But one day--probably after updating, or failing to update itself--it decided that it couldn't validate itself anymore. So depending on how annoying the OS decides to be, it gives me pop ups every few minutes to every few hours telling me that I "might be a victim of software counterfeiting" and to please click on the link provided to validate my copy of Vista. Sure enough, I click on the link, download and run their validator, and it tells me that I do have a real, genuine, 100% loved-by-Microsoft copy of their product. But does my machine seem to agree? Nope. The bottom right of my screen has a little note that won't go away, the the software counterfeiting notice keeps popping up. Sigh. At least I haven't hit the reduced functionality that other users have complained about.

At least it's comforting to know that I'm not the only one that's had this problem. I heard a rumor that Dell was allowing customers to go back to XP--I don't know if it's true, but if it is, I'm switching. Apparently Vista's now "more than two times slower than the most current builds of its
older sibling."

A Snowman

Dawn — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 04:28:00 +0000

A Snowman

Last night I did something I haven't done in years. I built a snowman.

It was 9:30pm when Bryan called with the idea. A small gathering formed. Two hours, homemade hot chocolate and cider later, Sigmund was born.

The next afternoon, he decided to take a trip.

London Highlights

Dawn — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 09:54:00 +0000

London Highlights

Waking up before anyone else in my family on Monday morning (a rare moment, I know) and sitting in a wonderful caf� reading Time Out London, sipping a latte, and eating salmon and spinach quiche. The patisserie was so crowded that I first shared a small table with a man reading the morning paper and then, when he�d left, a friendly, older woman.

The Tower of London and the accompanying Beefeater tour.

An excellent play at the Young Vic: Brothers Size. Three actors. A chalk circle. An intimate theatre. Excellence.

Unfortunately their performance season was over, but I still managed to tour the Globe Theatre. It's smaller than I expected--seeing that space puts Shakespeare's plays in a whole new perspective.

Mummies

Dawn — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:36:00 +0000

Mummies

My keyboard appears to be British, but as I type it's conforming to an American layout. (Strange--though appreciated--since I haven't changed any settings on the software.) I'm in the basement of an internet cafe right next to the Young Vic, waiting to see their production of Brothers Size, which has garnered rave reviews.

I spent most of today exploring the British Museum's extensive Egyptian collection, with minor detours into Assyria and Greece/Rome. Their placards are actually quite informative; I hadn't known that hieroglyphics were a formal form of writing reserved for monuments and art whereas Hieratic script was standard for everyday use (account keeping, letters, records). Eventually Hieratic became a formal script for religious texts, replaced by Demotic script in daily use.

Looking at the mummies, while fascinating, feels a little odd--these were people, and they've been removed from their carefully prepared tombs. It's a different feeling than just walking through a cemetery or looking at tombs, in which you're a step removed from bodies, different even than wandering through Parisian catacombs. According to Ancient Egyptian beliefs about death, they needed to remain intact in order to be reborn into the afterlife. (Somewhat problematic from the standpoint of bodies moving hundreds and even thousands of years later--when would one enter the afterlife? Wouldn't they have already been reborn? Would one die again in the afterlife if the body here decomposed? Would servants be lost there, assuming they appeared in the afterlife to begin with, if their corresponding statues were destroyed in this life, though so much time has elapsed?) Moving the mummies seems problematic from that point, even though comptemorary people do not share those beliefs.

Welcome to London

Dawn — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 20:11:00 +0000

Welcome to London

Stepping out of the Tube station near my home for the next four days, my first sight of London from street level consisted of Starbucks, KFC, and Burger King. It�s always amazing to me how large cities are so similar even in the midst of their differences: the area near the Knightsbridge stop is home to the iconic Harrods department store�and a host of stores that I can find on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Staples like the Gap hang out next to H&M, and I expect the clothes are primarily the same, with the exception that here they cost twice as much.

I earned a laugh from the man working the Gatwick Express ticket counter at the airport when he told us that we were getting a great deal�two train tickets for free since there was a 2-for-1 deal on our party of four�and I chuckled and said that was good, since �My money�s worth nothing here!� Before leaving Bryan warned me that prices in London look normal. Until you remember that one pound is worth two US dollars. (It�s pathetic when even Canadian money is worth more than ours.) I wonder if Britons traveling to the US experience a similar feeling in reverse (�Wow, everything�s so cheap here!�).

It�s interesting walking around Central London after recently reading Neil Gaiman�s Neverwhere--when I first heard the recorded voice on the Underground say �Mind the Gap!� I nearly burst out laughing. (This would have probably caused my family to wonder if I was insane. Oh wait.) I browsed through Harrod�s imagining an underworld�s market materializing in the middle of the night and disappearing by morning, leaving no trace of sellers who would trade food for ballpoint pens and girls auditioning bodyguards. I know, I�m a geek.

Reality moves a bit closer to Star Trek.

Dawn — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:14:00 +0000

Reality moves a bit closer to Star Trek.

I popped onto Amazon.com just now to update my wish list, and was in for a new discovery: the Amazon Kindle. The Kindle is a real-life version of a PADD. Remember watching Picard read Shakespeare in his ready room from a little computer screen? That computer screen now holds 200 books, newspapers, and magazines and connects to the internet via a free wireless service that doesn't require Wi-Fi (Amazon says it's similar to the technology used on cell phones, but with no service fees). Apparently the screen is highly readable, though it's difficult to say how well that works without having tried one. What I do find interesting is the easy portability of hundreds of books--as my roommate will attest (after moving many boxes of them into our third-floor apartment), I have a sizable collection. And while I don't foresee thinning out the shelves (ever--there's something comforting and homey about having shelves full of good books), they are rather heavy, and traveling with a little notebook-sized device would be much easier than traveling with 3-4 books in a bag.

So here's to the future and digital libraries. Though they won't be as aesthetically pleasing as their predecessors, I suppose it had to happen sometime. The Kindle is a step up from trying to read on the likes of a cell phone or Palm Pilot.

Big Time Entertainment

Dawn — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:14:00 +0000

Big Time Entertainment

Why pay for something when you can get it for free? Even better, why pay musicians when you can get them to pay you in order to play?

In order to book a show through Big Time Entertainment, you have to guarantee that you'll bring 25 people into a show. Your payment as an artist is based on how many tickets you pre-sell. Big Time is counting on every band on the bill to pre-sell tickets, and they won't promote the show themselves.

Here's their cost breakdown. Click over there and read how ridiculous this is--while trying to look "reasonable." The site looks fancy, but it's deliberately misleading. According to this, the venue gets over 65% of each ticket purchased through this program. Big Time Entertainment gets over 11%, and you, the artist, get 23%. That is, if you manage to sell over 73 tickets. But wait, Big Time isn't giving the venue a cut of the sales. (OK, that's not entirely true--they rent out the venue, so they're paying the venue whatever they've agreed upon as rental for a couple of hours.) So really, the "promoter" is taking a whopping 76% of the ticket sales. And doing nothing: no promotion, no publicity, just renting out a space that provides sound, lights, etc. and convincing a few naive musicians to get on the bill. Big Time certainly isn't paying for venue upgrades or a sound system or almost anything else that they're listing as costs on their end---the venue itself takes care of those.

Out of your percentage as a musician, you need to cover: gas/travel, food, and promotion (press releases, postcards, flyers, websites, emails, etc.)--not to mention that if you're not a solo act, you're splitting your portion amongst various people.

Each band is paid based on their actual draw for the night, according to BigTime's sliding payment schedule. 0-34 is $1 per ticket, 35-49 is $1.50 per ticket, 50+ is $2 per ticket, 73+ is $2.50 per ticket, 86+ is $3.50 per ticket, and 100+ is $4 per ticket.

Since ticket prices for BigTime events range from $7-10 (depending on the market and venue) and every band that plays a BigTime show is paid according to the above schedule, bands are never paid less than 10 cents on every dollar that their fans spend purchasing tickets and in some cases are paid as much as 57.1 cents on every dollar of their fans ticket purchases. Again, 23.4 cents on the dollar is the average band payment from the ticket sales that a band generates.

Let's say you pre-sell 50 tickets at $7 a pop (if you could pre-sell that many tickets at that price, you probably wouldn't be interested in talking to Big Time Entertainment, talking instead to the venue itself or a reputable booking agent, but we'll leave that aside for now). You, the artist, would get $100 to cover all your expenses and split your take amongst your band. Say you have four band members: you're each getting $25 a piece minus promotional, food, and travel costs. You've spent time promoting the show and practicing, and spent money on flyers and such. Big Time would get $250 for giving you the privilege of playing. Remember, without the bands at each show there would be no audience (because Big Time certainly isn't trying to get people to come to the concert) and no act. Which leaves you with an empty room.

In comparison, the Heartland Cafe (a great venue, by the way) charges a cover but doesn't take a cut for themselves--they make money when fans buy drinks and food. So each cover charge goes to the artist: if you brought in 50 people at $7 each, you'd make $350 there for the night, as opposed to $100.

I'm tired of people who prey on unsuspecting musicians.

A Society in Madness

Dawn — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 04:31:00 +0000

A Society in Madness

It's not often that I leave a theatre with just one word on my lips: Wow. But Steppenwolf's current production of The Crucible, Arthur Miller's rendering of the Salem Witch Trials, is, in a word, "Wow."

The production is intense from the very beginning--the house lights darken and the theatre fills with foreboding music and panicked shrieking, and within the first few minutes of the play we're witness to confessions made under extreme duress. Much has been made of the play's exploration of the McCarthy era, and Chicago newspapers have thrown in their two cents about the production's timely relevance to a society that passes legislation like the Military Commissions Act, but for me, the most interesting aspect of the production had to do with its exploration of a society gone mad.

The Salem of the play (which is slightly different from the Salem of history), has a mixture of peoples: Rev. Parris is loath to jump to the conclusion that witchcraft is afoot (primarily due to concerns over maintaining his position as the town's pastor). Rev. Hale, a visiting minister, is an educated, fairly rational man with a conscience: before agreeing to examine a girl who has fallen ill, he tells the townspeople that he will only provide his services if they will agree to abide by his verdict, which may be that no witchcraft is at work. However, a wealthy couple are quick to pronounce the situation unnatural in the midst of jealousy and concerns over their own daughter.

News of the illness spreads quickly through the village, and it doesn't take long for (believed, though entirely unsubstantiated) rumors to make their way: the girl flew! She levitated from her bed! A pot of soup is taken as a sorcerer's brew since a frog jumps in on accident. Even though Abigail repeatedly tries to convince her uncle that she and the other girls were just dancing in the wood, he is unsatisfied until she proclaims that she has been under the influence of a witch: her uncle's servant, Tituba. This he accepts without question, though he would not listen to the truth. Tituba is an easy target: she's merely a servant, an outsider (a black woman from Barbados in Miller's play, though the historical Tituba was a Christianized Native American). The Barbados songs are taken for incantations and Tituba is given the choice between hanging and confession for a "crime" she never committed. Before long, all of the townspeople's misfortunes and fears are the result of witchcraft. The first targets are like Tituba, women who will find few defenders--the second accused woman sleeps in a ditch.

However, eventually even the most saintly of the townspeople are accused (and the accused all end up hanging or confessing to be witches, turning themselves over). The men who bring the warrants are reluctant, but their hands are tied: they have no choice but to do as the law requires, which includes chaining all the prisoners, some of whom are old, grandmotherly women. In contrast to this, the girls making the accusations enjoy their newfound power--Mary Warren, who serves as a nanny in an era where the head of the house had the right to bar her from leaving the house, starts making demands at home. Abigail, who was on the verge of being ostracized in the village, is now the most important individual: by her word people live and die. And she revels in this.

Mary Warren comes to realize that she has been a fraud and tries to expose the others, explaining that during the trials she did believe she was being persecuted by a witch, purely because the other girls (led by Abigail) were acting as though they were being tormented--in the hysteria, she too acted as they did and believed even though she never saw any apparitions or witches. When the other girls accuse her of witchcraft, she ends up renouncing the truth in favor of joining back with the girls in order to avoid hanging.

Danforth, the magistrate who directs the proceedings, explains his difficulty in the trials to Rev. Hale in a moment that brought murmurs from the audience: a lawyer is useless to defend the accused, because in cases of witchcraft only two parties are privy to what is going on: the witch and the afflicted. If the afflicted produces signs like growing cold, shaking, shrieking, illness, etc., then the witch is obviously tormenting her and must renounce sorcery: the law's penalty for witchcraft is death by hanging, so unless the witch confesses and turns back to God, she must die. It's a form of reasoning that doesn't allow for any real defense, and even though Danforth seems loath to follow his own reasoning at points, it comes to a question of authority: he cannot show mercy for fear of being called soft or unjust. He cannot be wrong.

One wonders why the town does not revolt. The ending of the play makes mention of it (orphans are walking from house to house, cows are wandering without their masters), but it takes that level of social and economic disruption for the town to seriously consider rebellion. As a society, they have a choice to accept or disregard the court's authority--in this case, the tragedy is that they accept the madness with the same acceptance that they gave the claims of witchcraft, never evaluating the situation or holding their leadership accountable.

Lincoln Square

Dawn — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 03:05:00 +0000

Lincoln Square

In an society that's growing increasingly more fractured, I was excited by a small and wonderful surprise today: my neighbor brought over homemade, salmon-stuffed potato cakes and introduced me to her four daughters (very cute Indian girls all under the age of seven).

Lauren, an old friend from the University of Michigan, moved into the apartment half a week before I did--we're now in Lincoln Square, a nice walk from the Square itself with its restaurants, cafes, and the Old Town School of Folk Music. After hours of moving what were primarily boxes of books (the result of or motivation for being a literature major, it's difficult to say) on Wednesday night, I'm now more or less settled. That is, if you don't count the fact that there's a lot of decorating and furniture-acquiring to be done.

This was Move #16 in eight years, and I'm not planning on moving again anytime soon.

Tidbits

Dawn — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 06:57:00 +0000

Tidbits

The best opening line I've ever read in a Washington Post article: "Like worn-out shock absorbers on a car, parts of the human body wear out from age or overuse--often both." Like worn-out shock absorbers on a car. It reads like the lead from an Onion article, not straight news.

The best headline I've read in a while: Ahmadinejad urges world to renounce Satan; U.S. walks out.

This is bad. The State of Michigan is facing such a budget crisis that state services may shut down if a deal isn't reached by Thursday. Schools and local governments aren't sure what kind of support they're going to get from Lansing--some school districts are preparing to borrow money in order to stay afloat. And it's not just the government that's facing a crisis--at 7.4%, the state unemployment rate is nearly double the national average and the worst in the nation. Here's a humorous take on the situation.

Hatha ka bana is a cool, simple organization that's giving women in Calcutta's Red Light District an alternative to prostitution through something they already know how to do: make blankets. The blankets, which are made from recycled saris using a traditional stitch, are beautiful. The website's photography is too.

An excellent poem about modern life. "They tell me that / I can have thousands / of naked women / at my beck and call / slipping unnoticed / through a tiny wire / in my wall." Thanks to Parke for the link.

Linkage

Dawn — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 04:37:00 +0000

Linkage

Even I think this is cute.

I don't know whether these are cute, funny, or disturbing. Especially this one.

A way to play a very cool game I discovered last Thanksgiving.

A cool VoIP concept.

A tree that owns itself. "It is the stated position of the Athens-Clarke County unified government that the tree, in spite of the law, does indeed own itself."

One of the best auctions on eBay.

If only they made this in my size. Or: further proof of my hopeless geekdom.

Or if you like anime.

The Flintstones meet Star Trek. More episodes.

Free parking does not exist.

Dawn — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 22:51:00 +0000

Free parking does not exist.

A full row of cars lined each side of the street, every one paired with its own parking meter. The meters only required payment until 6pm on weekdays, so we were excited to find free parking downtown. But it was not to be.

After about an hour, we returned to the the block and discovered that it was nearly empty. Only two cars were left, and mine was not one of them. My first thought was that it'd been stolen (strange, considering the state of my car compared to the niceties of the neighborhood). Then we saw a sign hidden behind a tree: "Tow Away Zone: 15 minute parking 9pm -9am Saturday-Sunday." What? The SUV next to where my car used to be had three parking tickets decorating its windows, but it was still there. I called the police station to find out what had happened and was put on hold.

As I was waiting to discover the fate of my car, a wizened cab driver pulled up and asked if we needed his services. "You have to get home to your husband. Go home to your husband, he's waiting for you." Creepy. Diana (the other person involved in this misadventure, another twenty-something female) managed to get him to go away after a few minutes.

Shortly after, a trio across the street was exclaiming something about a car, so I asked them if theirs had just been towed, since I figured that was the fate of mine (still on hold). An Asian girl replied that her car was still there, but it was a rental and she was trying to figure out if she needed to pay the ticket. "I'm not even living in this country anymore. But I still have an Illinois license." Her friend said that the area was a trap, and she ranted about Chicago's mob-controlled government.

Finally I got someone on the phone, and he informed me that they had no record of my car being towed. "Go to the nearest police station and file a report. It's stolen." The others thought this unlikely and convinced me that I should try going to the impound lot anyway--the strangers-turned-friends even offered us a ride, which we were grateful to accept.

One discussion about Hong Kong, an hour and a half, and $160 (not including the $50 ticket that looks like it might have been written after the tow truck took the car) later, I had my car back. Ah, the joys of Chicago.

Concert Year in Review

Dawn — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 12:07:00 +0000

Concert Year in Review

September begins a new concert season, and I've been keeping lists of performances I've not only given, but attended for the last seven years. It started when I was interning for an arts presenter and wanted to keep track of what I saw because I went to so many performances (the free tickets were a great job perk). That first season, 00/01, I went to a total of 37 music, theatre, and dance performances. This past season, I made it to 76. Some highlights:

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
The Tempest (the Royal Shakespeare Company with Patrick Stewart as Prospero)
Vienna Teng
Complexions and the Joffrey Ballet
Monica del Castillo
Second City Chicago and ETC
Eurydice (Off-Broadway)
Kara Kulpa
Swing Gitan
Puteri Gunung Ledang (Singapore)
Todd Martin
Phil Keaggy

What performances have you seen in the last year?

Recipe for a Birthday Trip to New York

Dawn — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 11:29:00 +0000

Recipe for a Birthday Trip to New York

1 Missed flight due to Bryan's last-minute caulking-the-tub project
2 Bumps from overbooked flights
1 Lost boarding pass
1 Additional night in Chicago
3 Total visits to O'Hare
3 1/2 Days in New York City
1 Cute pet rabbit that doesn't utilize his litter box as much as he should
1 Off-Broadway theatre production (the excellent Eurydice)
1 Free Lincoln Center performance (Kristjan J�rvi�s Absolute Ensemble--it was forgettable)
1 Breakdancing performance in the subway near Times Square
2 Visits to Chinatown
3 Trips in search of quality chocolate and/or ice cream
1 Viewing of performance art that was less interesting than the view from a skyscraper (Dean Moss and Ryutaro Mishima)
1 Street performance by Chinese musicians (they were terrible)
38 Photos (the camera battery died)
1 Helping of Birthday Night

Birthday Night:

1 Concert in a tiny jazz club/restaurant (Moto)
2 Borrowed birthday candles from the neighboring table
1 Dedication of "Happy Birthday" by paid-off jazz duo
3 Birthdays (at two tables!) in the same night at a jazz club that holds less than 25 people

Throw all ingredients except Birthday Night into a weekend and mix until just blended. Frost with Birthday Night. Serve warm. Sure to please singer-songwriters!

Wealth is in the eye of the beholder.

Dawn — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 23:52:00 +0000

Wealth is in the eye of the beholder.

Wealth is relative. And writers at the New York Times apparently make (or just spend) a lot of money.

Exhibit #1

The paper's vote for Best Not-Cheap-Feeling All-Day-Long Cheap Date costs roughly $150. I'll grant that this does include a museum, lunch, a movie, dinner, and a drink for two, but frankly, that's more than half of what I spend on food in an entire month. Not exactly cheap. They could have recommended a free film (available at least in the summer in New York) or concert (again, readily found), or browsing through a cool bookstore (maybe reading Dr. Seuss books out loud, alternating lines--seriously, try it), or watching the sun set over water (the beach is free in Chicago). For food, they could have suggested cooking together or bringing a picnic (instead of buying sandwiches elsewhere)--if the person planning actually makes the food, he'll get extra points for being sweet and cooking. I could think of lots of ideas that wouldn't feel cheap, but would cost much less than $150.

Exhibit #2

The New York Times recently published an article that profiled New Yorkers who showed exceptional financial discipline in saving money in order to buy homes. It's filled with choice excerpts like this:

The couple found that they spent the most money when going out in a group for drinks. So they would suggest meeting their friends for brunch or heading to Chinatown, where they could buy meals for less than $15 each. ... They said that it was hardest not to spend in the beginning: in one case they missed shopping so much that Mr. Ag�ero splurged on a pair of $300 Prada shoes. After wearing them a few times, he realized they didn�t really fit, so he sent them to his brother in Spain.

I can't even conceive of spending $300 on a pair of shoes--especially a pair of shoes that don't fit. And while $15 isn't necessarily a great deal to spend on dinner, it's not exactly cheap, a cost-saving measure.

Here's the next person the article profiled:

She worried that on her annual salary of about $85,000, she couldn�t buy anything for more than $250,000.... �I would look,� Ms. Wegenaar said. �I would print out the info, and then I would start to cry. I would say, �This is never going to happen as a single person.� � ... In 2004, she started saving $400 a month...

Wait a minute. Let's do some calculations here, shall we? After taxes, Ms. Wegenaar has roughly $60,000 a year, not including "raises and bonuses." The article says that she pays $1550 a month in rent, and we'll give her $500 a month for utilities. Let's assume she eats nearly every meal at a restaurant and spends $1000 a month on food. Being a New Yorker, she probably takes the subway, so we'll give her $200 a month for the train and cabs. We'll even give her $400 a month to shop, see concerts, or other fun stuff, and $400 for expenses I can't think of. After saving $400 a month, the amount the article states, she still has an extra $550 a month that I can't account for. She has a grand total of $11,400 a year, free and clear, to put toward home ownership. And we've given her a rather generous budget--I think I've grossly overestimated her expenses--rather than a financially-disciplined one. Yet after more than a year, she'd saved "nearly $10,000." It took her about two years to save $17,000. I just don't understand where the money went. She's crying about not being able to afford an apartment, which just doesn't seem reasonable given the price range she's considering and the amount of money she makes (keep in mind that we didn't try to guess what her "raises and bonuses" were worth).

At that point, I stopped reading. I'm just not going to learn about saving here.

A Cool Feature in Vista

Dawn — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 06:09:00 +0000

A Cool Feature in Vista

Now that I've ranted about what's annoying in Windows Vista, here's a new discovery that's actually pretty cool: the Windows Sidebar and assorted gadgets. It's well-known that I'm a fan of Firefox, primarily because of its customizability. Vista offers its own version of something that I believe Macs have offered for years--the ability to install useful little programs onto their own sidebar, which stays on the desktop (click on the link for a photo--it does look rather Mac-like, doesn't it). Sometimes the gadgets are just an easier way to access other programs, sometimes they're links to websites (I have one-click access to finding synonyms for any word that I type, for example), sometimes they're tools in their own right. Currently my sidebar shows an alarm clock, a hibernate button, a calculator, the thesaurus, weather, and a wi-fi hotspot finder.

International News of the Weird

Dawn — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 19:05:00 +0000

International News of the Weird

With an unintentional focus on Asia.

The Thai police will now wear Hello Kitty armbands as punishment. Late for work? Wear a hot pink armband featuring everyone's favorite Sanrio character. Hey, it's more amusing than a dunce cap.

A woman in Germany had a pencil removed from her head after 55 years of being bothered by headaches. She fell on the pencil at the age of four and it's been lodged inside her head ever since.

In India, police fed a thief chicken and rice hoping he would defecate the gold necklace he'd swallowed. They first fed him 40 bananas, a trick that had worked with a thief who swallowed an ornament a few months before.

And finally, we make our way to China--I'll leave the headline alone since it's brilliant: No more crispy duck served at toilets. "Food stalls attached to Beijing's public toilets will be removed in good time for next year's Olympics." Obviously, when I use a restroom my first thought afterward is, "Gee, I'm hungry."

Annoyance and Windows Vista

Dawn — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 06:23:00 +0000

Annoyance and Windows Vista

Warning: I'm going to geek out for a few moments. At long last, I now have a laptop, and while I love finally having one, the last month has also given me a few headaches with Windows Vista. My top irritations:

1. Windows Update. Don't you hate it when your computer has a mind of its own? I've customized Windows Update so that, in theory, it will only reboot the computer to "finish installing updates" when I tell it to. Unfortunately, that's not the case in reality--as I discovered after multiple attempts to download a large file, attempts that resulted in a only acquiring a small percentage of the file after Windows decided to reboot my computer (and since it's having trouble installing the updates, it ended up restarting every 10 minutes to 4 hours, depending on whether I was around to catch the pop up window in time to tell it to shut up for a few hours). After doing some searching on the problem (which popped up this amusing invoice to Bill Gates for �1,200), I ended up editing my registry, as there's apparently no other way to make the program stop randomly rebooting the computer. Thus far Windows Update looks like it's back under control. Finally.

2. Not only do you need log into your account and make yourself the administrator of your computer in order to do certain tasks, like install most software and edit hidden folders, but you also need to declare yourself the owner over every file in every drive. This is a fairly automated, but time consuming process.

3. Windows Explorer (you know, the piece of the OS that lets you open files and folders on your computer) crashed a lot when I first got the laptop. (Fortunately, one of the updates seems to have remedied the bug.)

4. I'm running a dual-core processor on this computer, but about 50% of the time it still takes a while to open up the Control Panel.

5. When you close a program that's stopped functioning, you'll get a little window that says, "Checking for a solution to the problem." Don't check for a solution (it has yet to find one), just close the program and don't waste my time.

6. If you double click the top of the Task Manager screen, all of the tabs and menus disappear, leaving no apparent way to close the program (it doesn't list itself as a running application, and closing it from the Taskbar doesn't work--the only way to close the utility without the menu is to restart). This can be rather confusing, particularly if you don't realize how the tabs and menus disappeared, or whether they were even there in the first place given that this is an unfamiliar OS. Double click again and everything appears returns to normal, but I don't like this "feature."

7. For some inexplicable reason, Firefox crashes. Often. I never had such problems with the program on XP. That said, I'm still not willing to use Internet Explorer--what would I do without my extensions?

And a funny bit: I know, built-in troubleshooters aren't usually terribly helpful, but Windows Help and Support is amusing. One of the "solutions" reads, "If an error has occurred, it will be displayed with an error code that you can use to search online for help." Translation: "We have no idea what's wrong, but maybe Google does. Because thousands of other users are probably having the same issues with our buggy software."