In the wake of the pandemic, the entertainment industry created a new position on set to help keep outbreaks at bay. […] The demands of the job are big: sanitization, testing, safety equipment and distancing. Cast and crew are split into different zones, based on the frequency of testing and ability to wear masks. 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…
https://youtu.be/CWcEABVWbfA Similar:I sometimes snark at the @Turnitin interface, but…I sometimes snark at the @Turnitin inter…CybercultureCOVID denial: ‘You are welcome to leave, but you will be dead before you get to your car’“If you’ve got a gunshot wound or stab w…Current_EventsHow to fix the internet: If we want online discourse to improve, we need to move beyond…
Bits and pieces from a news article that summarizes recent scholarly studies. Some moderately good news, and a reminder that increased testing means finding more cases, and finding them earlier, which means people get medical treatment sooner. (More testing means less suffering and fewer deaths. For those of us who care about such things.) Over…
My big finish as Alquist in a Zoom-based production of R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). Similar:It’s alive! What NPR learned from turning its @nprnews Twitter account from a bot into a h…My student journalists tell me they lear…CybercultureLounge area of a steampunk villain’s lair. Still needs a light fixture or two. #blender3dAestheticsI didn't ask for the…
Rewatching ST:TNG. The plot, such as it is, quickly gets Picard and Wesley separated from the Enterprise and in the company of a mining shuttle pilot who challenges Picard’s authority. After a few on-location scenes in a bleak desert, the story shifts to the standard generic cave set, where some falling chunks of foam and…
I wish I had the time or energy to get out the telescope and camera, but I did go out for a walk in the neighborhood and got an eyeful of this in the sky. Similar:The barbican at Mickelgate was pulled down in the 1800s but I made a rough approximation f…The barbican at Mickelgate…
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…
There are some sound pedagogical reasons for turning cameras on. Thus, I suggest sharing those reasons with the students before giving them the choice of what to do about their cameras. Explain why you are making your request. For example, being able to see students’ faces gives instructors a quick and easy way to discern whether students are finding the material engaging, at least in smaller classes. One instructor told me that “I asked students to turn their cameras on to say hi to their classmates at the beginning and end of class, and those were the best moments of the class.”
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Obviously I would have preferred to see it live, but the pandemic-era video presentation — with clever graphics that indicate stage actions and pop-up text that augment the recorded performances — was subtle and touching. Similar:In January 2000, I was blogging about dancing paperclips, the transience of literary judge… In January 2000, I was blogging…
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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…
From The Brookings Institution (non-profit, deeply sourced factual writing; has been accused of both conservative and liberal bias; is cited in Congress about equally by conservative and liberal politicians; leans a bit left in terms of loaded language): American institutions are not perfect, of course. We all should want to improve scientific practices, remove bias…
Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 anti-fascist novel adapted for radio by Berkeley Rep. Similar:Analysis | The ‘Kellyanne Conway on the couch’ controversy is so incredibly dumbOne photo from the event shows her scrol…CultureA Simple Plot for a Literature ReviewThere are two things you need any time y…AcademiaIn February, 2001, I was blogging about computer nostalgia, Napster, a…
It was a reporter’s bodyguard, not an anti-fascist activist, who shot and killed a right-wing demonstrator who had assaulted him. The viral spread of those false claims apparently alarmed the Denver Police Department, which had taken Dolloff into custody along with the journalist he was guarding and quickly determined that they were not left-wing…
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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:I had a grand time recording this little story about a misunderstood genius who just wants… The Cask of Amotillado (read by Denn…CultureSeven Guitars ( #AugustWilson #CenturyCycle,…
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