DeMizio's Journal

Friday/Saturday Tech Weekend [by the numbers]

"The Visit" Tech Weekend Thus Far:

Hours on Friday: 9.5 (1:00-10:30)
Hours on Saturday: 14 (8:30 - 10:30)
Hours so far: 23.5
Light Cues Programmed Friday: about 85
Light Cues Programmed Saturday: about 85
Total Light Cues: around 170 (counting all the decimals [52.1, 46.5, etc)
Number of Notes to Self written on White Gaff Tape and Pasted to the Wall Above The Board: 4 (thus far)
Number of Non-Dim neon signs: 1
Sound Cues: 50+
Cast: 27
Crew [not including designers]: 15
Number of pieces of Luggage: 50+
Numbers of coffins: 1
Temprature of overly-cramped lighting booth (Farenheit): 85
Drinks on Friday night: 2
Cups of coffee thus far: 4

Number of days until open: 3

Call on Sunday: 9:30AM
Finish on Sunday: 10:00PM

Plays to read for upcoming week: 3
Plays read thus far: 0

The sun came up this morning.

This will be the last of my political "rants" for a while... again, not directed at anyone specifically, but feelings I keep getting in general. We'll be back to normal tomorrow.

The most irrational hate I keep hearing is from people who had so little to lose with the election. I'm a registered democrat. I lean ideologically towards the left. I wanted a change yesterday, personally. However, to lash out with irrational hate-mongering ideals at the outcome yesterday is so asinine as to border on stupidity. What good comes from hating the so-called "red" states? What good comes from bad mouthing the voters in these other places? All they did was exercise the same basic right that you did. They're different from you: know a different way of life, have their own vision of reality. I tend to see most of my friends in an "elite" class of Americans: college educated (or in college) from comfortable, middle class families. We're not the majority - we instead factor into the minority. We can hope for our own version of the "best", and act to educate others as to why we think our "best" is what's best for the country, but if we force our version of the "best" on people because we "know" it to be "right" then we ourselves become the tyrants denying the freedom of expression and choice that is the most fundamental tenet of our system.

I still have to concede that the decision yesterday reinforces my faith in the system, and my own liberal ideals: the people have spoken within the confines of the system and have made a choice. It's not the choice that I wanted, but the system worked.

This isn't to say that change can't still be worked for. The Constitutional checks are still present in the system for the most part. One can still run for local (or national) office and work to effect change.

It sucks. But the sun came up again this morning, and chances are good that the same will happen tomorrow morning as well.

--
And that's all. For some reason, that's been bothering me the most all day: moreso than the result itself.

In other news, I got "drafted" into working on "The Visit", running lights for all but one show. In 2 weeks, I'll have 2 of the 3 practicums done that I need to graduate, and theoretically could then spend more time devoted to classes coming up. The cast is huge too, (25?) and most of the rest of my class is in it. It's good to be back with them in a non-classroom setting.

Although, it's gonna be tough. "Art" was an hour and a half, no intermission. "Visit" currently runs 3 hours even (with the hope to get it down to 2:40.) "Art" - cast of 3, crew of 5. "Visit" - cast of 25, crew of 10(ish).

So if you need me before Thanksgiving, I'll be at 'Nova, in Vasey, somewhere in the theatre...

I searched for a quote for this entry, and came up empty...I really wanted something from Emerson, Thoreau, Dewey, Rorty, Moynihan that I could work in, but I couldn't find anything specifically by them, so I leave with:

Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness. - James Thurber

If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

unfettered optimism

"It ain't over 'till it's over." - Yogi Berra

It's all a headache. As Dan Rather so succinctly put it, an "Excedrin-sized" headache.

(Dan Rather, btw, has restored some of my faith in the media in this country. Others claimed along side him, notably CNN, that they don't want to make the same mistake as 4 years ago and jump the gun.)

But what happened the last time the country jumped the gun? Why hasn't that lesson settled in as of yet?

Two hours, Two days, ten days from now, I may be wrong. I just see and hear so much despair at this moment in the people I've talked to online....and it's not yet over.

I don't know. I'm always the optimist I guess...

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things and no good thing ever dies."

I'm tired and I want to sleep. This thing hasn't been decided yet. Not with 175,000 (250K?) provisional ballots open in Ohio. Not with problems that are being reported in Iowa. Not with a stalled celebration motorcade sitting outside the White House. Not with white states still on the board. Not with "projected" this and "estimated" that.

It ain't over.

No regrets...

I usually try and strive for a a daily life without any regrets...it may be my biggest personality flaw (because of the general awkwardness that commences from not leaving things unsaid and the like...but I digress)

However, last night has shaped up to be a bad idea...a mistake for me. It's not a regret, per se, because I can (and I have) learn from it and move on. But it was a dumb idea, and the attempt just made me sick in the short run and has screwed up my timetable for this week.

Today was interesting, getting back on track and vowing never to do it again...I did make it to classes and got my set drawings done for tomorrow, so it wasn't a total wash. But ugh...I'm still hurting from last night's idiocy.

So that's it.

Quote for the day, again from the play for tomorrow, used more for it's fame than it's meaning (which is kind of intimidating...)

"There is no present or future - only the past happening over and over again - now. You can't get away from it."
-Eugene O'Neill, "Moon for the Misbegotten."