In November 2000, I was blogging about Ursula K. Le Guin Why we perceive mirrors reversing things left/right but not up/down Pioneering blog Arts & Letters Daily (just a year older than my own blog) Nick Montfort’s constrained poem “Upper Typewriter Row“ The 2000 US Presidential Election controversy (ballot design, hanging chads, recounts, political cartoons)…
All 3 acts and the epilogue to R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) are now available on YouTube. I’ve loved this quirky play for almost 30 years. I’m thrilled that I got the chance to play Alquist, a humble builder who witnesses the Robot rebellion and its surprising aftermath. (I also designed the set backdrops in Blender…
It’s striking to hear her audience erupt in laughter at the comedy bits in the opening scenes. I assume they didn’t know what they were in for! Similar:People hate reading instructions, and will only glance at them after they are already frus…I already bought the thing, and I’m only…BusinessI Made My Friends Test the…
I’m proud of the daughter for her involvement in this Equity audio production. (Some of the screams mentioned by the reviewer are hers.) One would be hard-pressed to find a more perfect production for the pandemic, as the radio drama comes with no visuals and forces one to shut out the outside world for the…
My big finish as Alquist in a Zoom-based production of R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). Similar:The Comic Sans SongComic Sans is a typeface, not a font. I …AestheticsFinding downtime during orientation week is not a walk in the park. Except when the downti…PersonalSo glad to be attending another live theatrical production. @quantumtheatre never disappoi…Projections, live music, sounds,…
In October 2000, I was blogging about The F. Scott Fitzgerald Short story “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” (background; full text) A biography of Virginia Woolf The precarious status of English as a global language A call for papers for a special issue of Text Technology devoted to interactive fiction (I have a copy on my shelf…
The daughter plays Laertes in Seton Hill’s free, live Zoom production of Hamlet (with a film noir theme) which opens tonight at 8. (The first half will be performed tonight and next Friday; the next half will be performed Saturday and next Saturday.) Free tickets to Seton Hill’s livestreaming video production of Hamlet Through the…
Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 anti-fascist novel adapted for radio by Berkeley Rep. Similar:A Word About Group ProjectsOkay, students… who loves group projec…AcademiaRenata, Carolyn and Alex in a scene from this weekend's Pippin.CultureAlike (2015)This short film reminds us why art matte…AestheticsRhinoceros in Love (World Drama — China, 1999)The blurb for a 2011 English version of …AcademiaOriginal Mickey Mouse…
For my birthday I treated myself to Episode 2 of RUR (Rossum’s Universal Robots) — the play that introduced the word “Robot” to the world 100 years ago. Similar:Idlewild's Story Book Forest Improves Its SignageIn the past, I have pointed out copy-edi…AestheticsDo Black Holes Create New Universes? Physicist Lee Smolin InterviewCan’t wait until we get…
One of the weirder ways this debate has played out since Barrett was first discussed as a potential Supreme Court nominee is the fight over whether or not People of Praise, the group of which she is a member, is also one of the inspirations for The Handmaid’s Tale. In Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel (and its recent TV adaptation), fertile women are forced to live as childbearing slaves called handmaids. The book isn’t an established inspiration — but the story has developed legs anyway.
Similar:More world-building props for a fantasy #steampunk #Blender3D project.DesignShutting the Door on the Hard-Knock LifeIn sync with the resurgence of labor act…BusinessJust an elegant retro keyboard for a #steampunk #cgi project. Procedural materials mean I …AestheticsIdeal Homeschool Summer Day: Studying Latin, Justifying Nilla Wafers, and Making a Duct Ta…Today, I managed to get in a…
I’ve read about 11 of the Edger Rice Burroughs John Carter / Barsoom series. When my kids were small, I would spend an hour or more at bedtime, reading to them and then turning off the lights and leading a steampunk adventure that lasted for years. I drew lots of pulp adventure details right from…
In September 2000, I was blogging about The nerdy, 3-person 1990 play PICK UP AX The full text of Edward Bellamy’s Utopian fantasy Looking Backward (written in 1888, set in September 2000) The papers of William Butler Yeats (donated by his son to the National Library of Ireland) An elitist press release from Jupiter Communications…
Similar:Students in “A.I. and the Future of Literacy” are presenting now in Cecilian Hall. @setonh…PersonalCanon Australia video: 1 man; 6 backstories; 6 photographers; 6 photosCanon Australia wants to sell cameras. T…AestheticsFirstborn (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 21) Worf prepares his reluctant son f… Rewatching ST:TNG Worf awkwardly rehe…CultureIt's unfair to treat every gaffe…
Bee walked on six spindly legs to the spot where Spider had stopped moving. Bee, whose job was to record the doings of the lab, had been across the room, but its video feed had captured the moment. The tiny arachnid-shaped bot had been monitoring the bio-nanobot colonies when it teetered and fell, alone. “Can…
One of the few harsh critics of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, which premiered 70 years ago. Mr. Bentley, who was also a playwright, was an early champion of modern European drama in the 1940s but had little use for American plays. Source: Eric Bentley, Critic Who Preferred Brecht to Broadway, Dies at 103…
block of American society. But for critics of how the term is used today, Judeo-Christian is vague, historically flawed and even inflammatory. These opposing views reflect a deep rift in American society and illuminate very different fundamental political beliefs.
“This is a term defined by exclusion,” said Shalom Goldman, a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, arguing that the term is often used to reject secular values and Muslims.
“It’s essentially saying our values are not the values of the Enlightenment or the Constitution, but instead our values are the values of the Bible,” he said.
Rabbi Jack Moline, president of the Washington-based Interfaith Alliance, called the term a “generalization” and said it is one “Christians in particular use to put a patina of universality on a certain Christian culture in the United States.”
I regularly teach Flannery O’Connor, and assign a whole book of her short stories when I taught an American Lit 1915-Present course. Now that I’m teaching “American Lit 1776-Present” I keep her stories in rotation, but I have more material to cover, so I have to be more selective. O’Connor’s fiction contains many themes and…
It seems that an unusually high percentage of links I posted to my website in July 2000 no longer work, but here are a few links that I could find via the Wayback Machine: The guy who invented the “pet rock” won the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest for really bad writing. Humorous courtroom transcripts Q: All…
Similar:Scaring People Can Make Them Healthier, But It Isn't Always The Way To GoAs my freshman writing students assemble…CultureThe case for puns as the most elevated display of wit Geary admits that he often makes pun i…Culture"You work for the @CollegeBoard?" the bright-eyed teen behind the fast food counter asks. …”Unsweetened tea. And can you…