Review #1

Have I mentioned how much I love technology? "AmeriKafka" just opened on Thursday, and last night at the bar after the show I was able to use my phone to browse Metromix and read the cast the review by Chris Jones of the Tribune :)

I'm having trouble linking to it from here, but if you go to http://www.metromix.com and click on "Critics' Reviews" in the upper right, it'll be the first one on the list, titled "Fascinating 'AmeriKafka' is deliciously messy."

It's certainly a relief to see that people are open to and even interested in a show like this. It's the kind of thing that I would love to watch as an audience member, and it's comforting to know that there are others out there like me!

Controversy

Well, it's happening again. Flag burning is in the news. Haven't we been through all this before?

I know that this statement is sure to offend some people, but the best comment I ever heard on the flag burning debate was from former Saturday Night Live writer A. Whitney Brown, who said once:

"A country that loves freedom so much it allows its flag to burned for it reminds me of a God who loved His people so much He allowed His son to die for them."

Amen.

Misc. T

Hmm. I don't have much to say today, but it's been too long since I said anything. Let's recap the last week:

"AmeriKafka" rehearsals are going well. Only 5 more left before we open next week! Check out the Trap Door Theatre website for details. I can't wait to find out what people think of it. If anyone wants tickets, just let me know!

Adrian Ahern, one of my best friends from high school, was in town over the weekend (he lives in Minneapolis now). We had a great time hanging out and catching up. I did my best to convince him that he needs to move to Chicago, but I'm not sure how well it worked.

My Aunt Sherrie got married on Saturday and I was able to attend the reception (though not the ceremony, due to a wrong turn on the highway). It's always nice to see the extended family. I have a lot of relatives that I only seem to catch up with at weddings and funerals!

Here's an interesting story. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about it right now -- at the moment I'm on the "Do they really expect me to believe this?" side of the fence.

So. That's my life in a nutshell for today. Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow.

Blogosphere.

You know, I've been tempted at times to think of a blog as a sort of diary. Somewhere to get your thoughts down, and thus out of your head. But now that I have one, I understand better why they are being treated as a form of journalism: unless you have your blog hidden away and never give anyone the address, then you're always writing for an audience. And the problem I have is that I don't know who that audience will be. I know some of my friends and my family check it occasionally, but I also know that, for example, this blog can be found by "Googling" my name, and people I barely know have mentioned that they read it because of that. So it's sometimes hard to know what to NOT say here that I might otherwise like to say, because I don't know who I'm saying it to. Does that make any sense? I mean, what if I start venting about my job, and some of my students read it? I think about that kind of thing. It may also have something to do with my desire to compartmentalize people -- or to compartmentalize myself, rather. There's no "absolute Shane" that anyone can see; instead there's "friend Shane" and "family Shane" and "work Shane," etc. I've always been that way. [It's one of the things that makes me suspect I may suffer at least slightly from Asperger's syndrome.] But I have to find a Shane to be the voice of this blog who can relate at least partially to all of the people who know each of those various other Shanes, as well as to strangers. Yikes!

ANYWAY, I had a terrible day today. And I'm not going to share all of the details, because of the reasons mentioned above, but it was one of those days where a thousand little things go wrong. Like you forget your keys and have to go back to the house even though you're already running late because you overslept because you couldn't fall asleep until after 1:00am because it's so hot in your tiny attic bedroom and then once you got to the train station you had to put more money on your train card because your monthly pass that you've already paid for isn't working for some reason and so you miss the train you were hoping to be on because you were busy paying twice to get on it. One of those days where you spill things, and you drop things, and your cd player skips, and you get bad news, and you roll a piano over your big toe. Yep. One of those days.

Road trip to Canada, anyone?

I heard about this on NPR this morning. I think this article says it all. "It hast been one week since thou look'd at me....." :)

Niet zo gezellig.

Because I spent a couple of years living in Amsterdam, I have a special affinity for the Dutch; and have been following their recent referendum on the EU constitution as closely as I can (given the lamentable state of international coverage in the American media). For those of you who don't know, they voted against it -- just days after France did the same. Many of the news reports mention that the Dutch are afraid of losing their national identity if the European "super-state" becomes too all-encompassing. This seems like a pretty reasonable concern to me, since they seem to have already lost their national identity in America..... In today's Chicago Tribune Red-Eye edition, the article on the Netherlands referendum was headlined "Denmark rejects EU constitution." [emphasis mine]

Sigh.

Intelligence and design.

Wow. I just accidentally came across this story from '92, and was struck by its implications for the current debate over the teaching of evolution.