Quite the run-on sentence

Actual TV blurb:

A model child who became a killer: tonight only on Eleven @ 11:00, Scott Dyleski's mother on why she burned his belongings and what her son said after the murder and where to find the best bargains on bay area homes.

What could I possibly add?

Surprising Candor

I opened the paper this morning and read that Donald Rumsfeld says we need to "confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism." I didn't expect him to attack the administration like that.

Ashland

Although many of our friends and acquaintances are regular goers to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, this was our first visit to the festival. I expected to enjoy it, but it turned out to be even more fun than I thought it would be. I had a great time, which Michelle points out may not be clear from the dry report that follows. So, just so you know, every single event was absolutely delightful. Since we didn't want to drive for long stretches or take the extra time for a more leisurely trip with stops along the way, we flew. Our plane from SFO to Medford ("Rogue Valley International Airport") was one of those cute little Embrauer turbo-props. I confess I like them. In case you're wondering, Medford's international airport has three "gates" and a single waiting area that must seat a good seventy people. (A word of warning: once you pass through security, your dining option consists of a vending machine with potato chips and granola bars.) Having waited too late to get reservations at a hotel or bed and breakfast close to the festival, we stayed in a perfectly serviceable Holiday Inn Express. It was only fifteen or twenty minutes from the festival, and my fears about parking proved overblown. On-street parking in the morning wasn't difficult. In the afternoon, we didn't have trouble parking in the free city lot a couple blocks away. There's also a paid city lot near the festival that's quite reasonable. We got in Wednesday evening, rented our car and checked in at the hotel. Thursday morning we drove into town and found the festival with no difficulty. The Visitor Center was staffed with helpful people who told us about the free noon-time "park talks," so we went to see actor Chris DuVal do a short introduction and a lively question and answer talk. Chris plays a couple of comic roles in the productions, but he did seem to react (albeit mildly) to being characterized by one questioner as a "comic actor." He also planted the seed that we might want to see Cyrano de Bergerac, which was not part of our original plan (nor our collection of tickets, of course). Our first play was The Winter's Tale. I wasn't very familiar with it, but the production was very accessible. The stage was quite bare, befitting the wintry theme. There were excellent performances by William Langan (Leontes) and Mark Murphey (Antigonus), and outstanding ones by Josiah Phillips (Old Shepherd) and Greta Oglesby (Paulina). This play has the famous stage direction, "Exit pursued by a bear," but no bear appeared on-stage. There is an animal on-stage in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. We attended a preface talk Thursday evening before we saw it, which gave some insight into the way the theme was interpreted in the design. Crab was played by a local dog named Terwilliger. The program reveals that more than a dozen local canines auditioned for the part. Terwilliger got along famously with David Kelly (Launce), and there was some fun at intermission with chasing a ball. Eileen DeSandre (Speed) was hilarious, and Juan Rivera LeBron (Valentine) did a wonderful job. On Friday we went to a noon-time lecture on The Merry Wives, language, and "citizen comedy" by a guest lecturer from Winchester (I need to look up his name). (Update: it's Geoff Ridden) Friday afternoon we saw King John in the New Theatre, a very intimate performance space. King John is not one of the more frequently produced histories, so it isn't full of familiar lines. (It is the source of the mangled metaphor about gilding the lily, which is originally painting the lily, or gilding refined gold.) Robynn Rodrigues (Constance) delivered a stunning performance of Constance's monologue on grief and madness. I don't think I had ever heard this speech before, but it's richly human and her delivery was quite breathtaking. If I could nominate only one performance we saw for an award, this would be it. Friday evening was The Merry Wives of Windsor. The scenery and costumes were brightly colored cartoons, described by our backstage tour-guide as "Doctor Seuss on coffee." Jonathan Haugen really stood out in his performance as Master Ford. Both of the wives, Tyler Layton (Mistress Ford) and Shona Tucker (Mistress Page) were also excellent. Saturday morning we showed up bright and early at the box office in hopes of getting tickets to Cyrano de Bergerac, but the few tickets available went to the few people ahead of us in line. After that was our backstage tour. We were guided by stage manager Kimberly Jean Barry, who truly amazed us with the amount of work that goes on before, between, and during the productions that we don't see from the audience. She likened it to the tip of the iceberg 90% under water, and I was quite convinced. Saturday afternoon was The Importance of Being Earnest. I would have to say that while all of the performances were excellent, no one stood out above the others, with the possible exception of Dee Maaske (Miss Prism). At five o'clock we returned to the box office area hoping against hope that someone would be selling tickets for Cyrano or that the box office would have unclaimed seats. As luck would have it, at six o'clock, when unclaimed tickets were released, there were only two people in front of us, and we actually got the last two seats for that night's performance. Cyrano de Bergerac was wonderful. The lead was being played by the understudy, Richard Howard. This was only his second performance in the role, and it would have been a fantastic performance even without considering the circumstance. Our only complaint was directed at the playwright: maybe Cyrano didn't have to stretch out his death scene with quite so much dialogue. Sunday noon we heard Greta Oglesby talk, which was delightful. She was well into a career in accounting, of all things, before she discovered that performing was her true calling. We finished up Sunday afternoon with David Edgar's adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We were left with some questions about the playwright's intentions in some aspects of the plot, but the production was stunning. The set design was very creative (which we heard a bit about during the backstage tour), and James Newcombe (Jekyll/Hyde) did an amazing job of transformation (even if his accent was a little inconstant). Now the only problem is that we're sitting in the aforementioned waiting area, grounded by the weather (at least there's free Wi-Fi). But we're definitely looking forward to a return trip next year.

I am shocked—shocked!—to find that business is going on in here!

When I read Tim Bray's posting on "Open Source and Money," I was a little confused. When you're writing about something called "Open Source Business Conference," isn't it a little disingenuous to suggest that people attending need to brace themselves for the possibility that money might be a major topic of discussion? Tim's usually more sensible than this. I don't understand why he seemingly credits Ben Rockwood with some kind of insight. Of course, very little open-source software gets written for money—but why is he equating money with self-interest? Tim's list of reasons for writing open-source software?

• To solve a problem I was facing.
• To solve a problem I heard a lot of people complaining about.
• To win a point in a technical argument, by example.
• The code was interesting to write.

The only one of these that isn't obviously “self-interest” in some form or other is the second one, and let's be honest: Would the second reason stand alone, without the first and/or last? I suspect not. People's interests are not necessarily monetary, and a pure altruist is an awfully rare bird. Encouraging illusions about why people create open-source software doesn't help developers or business-people.

Our National Sick Pet

Mike Jensen of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote: "In just a few days—having suffered his horrifying misstep at the Preakness Stakes on Saturday—Barbaro has gone from being a dominant 3-year-old racehorse to kind of our national sick pet." That seems to capture a lot of the sentiment. We love to root for the underdog—when he has a fighting chance. For many people, the routine destruction of injured horses has always seemed callous. One thing that's come out of Barbaro's story is a better explanation for why a broken leg really is a life-threatening injury to a horse; not just a career-ending one.