The sound of two books clapping

I have taken a cue from Dave and from Jena. No longer will I waste my one hour (while walking) each morning listening to rock'n'roll. I will listen to audio books.

My first selection may be the Lensman series, beginning with Triplanetary. There are seven books in all, with about ten hours for each book.

This is a series from an earlier time of science fiction, and most galactic sci-fi these days owes a debt to this very series. It's about time I read it. Or listened to it, as the case may be.

Then again, my first selection may be "the Crazy School." We shall see.

Thank you, Dave.
Thank you, Jena.

[update: The first selection was "the Crazy School."]

12 Angry Men

Now we're cooking.
We went to Theatre Southwest last night to see "12 Angry Men," partly to find out if this small theatre in Houston can put on a good play.
The jury has a verdict: yes, they can.
The actors gave us good character development, and believable mood swings. The director (Mimi Holloway) gave us good blocking, which is not so easy with a set consisting of a table and 12 chairs. I found it hard to think critically, because it was so easy to believe that I was in a jury room.

So the good news is that I have a very good (though under financed) theatre to be involved in. The bad news is that it may be a bit harder to get cast - I will have some competition for the juicy roles.

I'm in the upcoming show, Voyages, so I will at least have a chance to prove that I'm more or less reliable, and that I can remember my lines most of the time. That should help.

Roll with the role

I have a role in "Voyages" at Theatre Southwest in Houston. It's a tiny little theatre, even smaller than Backdoor, but I have no idea what their production standards are.
(I could make a joke here and say that I don't want to act in any theatre crappy enough to cast me in a show, but I won't).

The script is locally written, which could be bad or good. The few scenes I saw in the audition tell me that this is essentially Love Boat 2008, which is exactly how the director described it, in front of the author, who was in the audience at the time. The author doesn't like hearing it called that, but then many authors are sensitive about their work, and prefer to see it as having depth and artistic integrity. Me, I figure the idea of a comedy is to make people laugh, and if you have a message in the darn thing, the audience shouldn't be consciously aware of it, and neither should the actors. I remember when we did Wee Care in Ft. Worth (OK, the shortened version of it), and an adjudicator dismissed it as being "a sitcom." I had no problem with that, even though he meant it as a criticism, because it WAS and IS a sitcom. I wanted to make people laugh, and I crafted it that way. So happens it also had a message, but I doubt that anyone was aware of it, which made it all the more effective.

But I digress. I will be playing John, listed as "a Texan," more or less my age. The audition sheet didn't ask my age, by the way. It asked what age range I could play - which I appreciate, because even though I am a decrepit old man, I can play 45 if I shave the beard. So I put down 45 - 60, and let them deal with it accordingly.

Things are very different in this theatre, certainly different than MCT, but also different than Backdoor. This director "does things quickly," having rehearsals only three days a week, for six weeks. You go home on time. We get 18 rehearsals after the read-thru, and we're expected to make use of them. I like this idea - the actors who work for a living then have time to learn their lines at home, plus we save gas, since it's a 45 minute drive each way to the theatre.

They don't do musicals - the stage space is smaller than the second stage at MCT, though a bit larger than the second stage at Backdoor.

There is another, closer theatre in the area, named Fort Bend County Community Theatre. Their website is dead, and nobody seems to know how to find them, or I would at least go see one of their shows in case they are decent. With no more support than they seem to have, I'm afraid it might be some sheet-for-a-curtain garage theatre, where nobody takes theatre seriously. I don't mind a theatre with no money, in fact those can sometimes do marvelous things through sheer artistic will - Backdoor comes to mind. But if you can't even find a volunteer to maintain a minimal website, or at least provide contact info on the web somewhere... I kind of doubt they're going to have any lights hanging.

So I should know pretty soon if TSW will be a good experience. It felt pretty good at the audition, so I have my hopes up.

Be careful out there, ya hear?

When this year's issue of American Caving Accidents (NSS News) arrived in my mailbox, we were frantically packing for our move to Houston, so we packed it away, and I got around to reading it yesterday. I love to read that issue, because sometimes I know the people involved, and often I know about the caves where accidents occurred, but mainly I love to be amazed by the decisions people make sometimes.

OK, I'll admit that I have taken risks in my long caving career (caving since the summer of 1979). I usually weigh the risks against where I want to go, and once in a while I'll do something a bit hazardous. But I think about it first, and that's the point.

I won't go into the cave diving fatalities, except that there were very few in 2006, which is the year covered by this issue. There were four accidents or incidents that especially got my attention this time. The countdown:

4) July 2, Airman's Cave, Texas. 1,000 feet into the cave, a woman "can't or won't" come back out. Now, Airman's cave is not a hazardous cave. It's long and crawly, mostly featureless, and they let just about anybody go in. So the other cavers go out and call 911, and the rescuers go in, and then she is "motivated," and comes out on her own. It sounds to me like she wanted some attention, and then got a bit more than she counted on.

3) September 18, Fitton Cave, Arkansas. I like this one because I know the cave. A guy in the Tennari Room makes the four foot jump into the room and breaks his tibia. He crawls and hops back to the Manhole entrance. With some help from his friends, he climbs out the Manhole on a rope ladder. Friends, I had trouble getting out of the Manhole, and my legs were both fine. Hats off to Jeff Holt.

2) December 9, Hoya de Guaguas, San Luis Potosí, Mexico (above photo). Alejandro Vera Morales was the senior instructor in a technical caving course. Now, understand what the Sótano Guaguas is. The entrance drop for Sótano Guaguas is 490 feet - nearly a tenth of a mile - just so you have the scale. Now, Alejandro is the last one in, and he forgets to lock his carabiner. His rope comes unattached, and he falls to his death, with plenty of time to think about his fatal mistake. Now, we'd all like to think that we would never make that mistake. But the thing to remember is that yes, we could, if we don't take the time to double, triple check everything when it really matters.

And now the best:

1) December 29, Antonia Pit, Missouri. Dave Wiegand, age 45, decides to go down a narrow pit he knows nothing about to look for arrowheads. He ties a rope to a nearby fence post. His wife and three friends are with him, watching. He goes down into the manhole sized pit, hand-over-hand, with no helmet, no light of any kind, and no idea how deep the pit may be. It happened to be 71 feet to the first ledge, then another 30 feet after that. Now, this is a very bad idea on several levels. You never go into a cave without light or helmet, because you need to see where you're going and you need to be prepared for rocks falling if on rope. You never hand-over-hand down a rope for any appreciable distance, because nobody has the strength to come back that way - try it sometime, I don't care if they do it in the movies. You never start down a rope unless you know it will reach the bottom, even if you have rappel gear, unless you tie a knot on the end and happen to be really good at changing directions while on rope. It took several fire departments to recover the body that afternoon. The comment in the article: "Need it be said that people should not hand-over-hand down a rope without a light where they can not see the bottom?" The amazing thing to me is that among his wife and three friends, nobody tried to stop him.

I suppose that the Accidents issue is the only sick, morbid recreation I allow myself. So cut me some slack, OK?

Gardener / Lawn guy

I have a lawn guy now.
I can't believe the deal: only $25 a week, and he comes by and mows, mulches, edges, and generally takes care of the lawn. You may recall that this was one of the conditions I set on moving to this hot, humid climate - that we hire somebody to keep the lawn mowed so I don't have to work in the heat in the summer.

As a bonus, he brings me yard clippings from other places he's worked and puts them in my compost bin. This saves him from having to dispose of them, so it's a symbiotic deal for us, and today he put the first batch in. And oh, my, it's finely shredded already. It will compost beautifully.

The soil here is an odd, marbled mix of clay and sand. The sand runs as veins through the clay, which tells me that maybe they added it back in the day when this was a sugar cane plantation (hence the name Sienna Plantation, which is what they call our planned community). This is good, because the best soil you can have is a mix of clay, sand and organic waste (compost).

The yard is already planted in St. Augustine grass, which is an awful choice in Midland because it needs lots of water - but a fine choice here in Houston because it will get lots of water, and because St. Augustine doesn't look too bad in the event that it skips a mowing. It also spreads well.

So far I have tomatoes, garlic and bell peppers in my tiny little garden. I put some cilantro seeds in there too, and we'll see if they germinate and give me some nice yummy cilantro.

So far so good. I haven't gotten any utility bills yet, so I don't know how they are going to go.

Oh, the good news: as of yesterday, we have a contract on the house in Midland. We could close as early as two weeks from now, but no later than the end of this month. We can get all the loose ends done, and then we'll have no ties to Midland except our friends and the theatre. And that's what it was all about all along.