A Child Of Atom

Time once again for the 12 of 12, 12 photos to document my day on the 12th. This is based on an idea by Chad Darnell, and you can see other entries here.


I stayed at Kid Flash's place last night, so getting ready to get dressed is relegated to this pile of clothes. He hasn't given me a drawer yet... choices, choices.



He decided early on that he needed to help me a bit with the project this month so you are treated to this haggard portrait. Aren't I lovely in the morning?



Another Kid Flash special, wrestling me to the bed for another portrait.



Neither of us really had an agenda for the day so we decided to go to the movies. Here is a our breakfast of bagels and juice on the subway platform.



In the movie theatre. I think that's Prince in a pre-movie commercial. We saw Stardust, a great movie that has been horribly mis-marketed. This movie should appeal to any Harry Potter or Princess Bride fan, but you'd never know it from the trailers. The round up of British character actors that filled out the cast were amazing, including Mark Williams (Arthur Weasley from the potter films) and Ricky Gervais (from the British version of The Office). See it if you haven't it is doing poorly at the box office, but it should be doing better. The worst performance in the movie... Robert Deniro. Closely followed by Claire Daines' eyebrows, which were only present for half the movie.



This month's ubiquitous subway shot, on the way home from the movie.



Home again for a few hours work before dinner.



My friend Jim invited us over to see his new apartment, which is just a few blocks from mine but a world away. We stopped by a local taco place for dinner...



And then went to his roof to eat. The building apparently was purchased by a group of artists in the 80's when it was nothing more than a stripped out crack den. They've done an amazing renovation that features lots of exposed brick work accented by silver steel diamond plate around all the doors, stairways and and hallway areas. There is also a great roof deck with several separate seating areas and lots of sculpture and installation art.



Jim and Wendy enjoy tacos on the roof.



After dinner KF and I went back to his place. This cute doggy was out front.



A little pre-bed snack before lights out! Hope you had a great 12th.

If you've been anywhere near a TV today you probably know that NYC went through its own little piece of hell this morning. A thunderstorm that dumped 3 inches of rain in less than 15 minutes. A tornado. Every single subway line shut down. Nearly every bridge or tunnel into or out Manhattan either shut down or jammed with traffic that it may as well have been closed. One of the big buzzwords after the bridge collapse last week is "aging infrastructure" and NYC's aging infrastructure failed a test this morning. I spent 2:30 hours on the Grand Central Parkway trying to get from my place to La Guardia, a trip that usually takes 20 minutes. That picture should explain why. Under that water is 5 lanes of highway that no one was willing to cross. (That car is stalled, and it doesn't really show in the pic but it isn't even pointing the proper direction.) It really was like suddenly being dropped into a third world nation.

Earlier this week I managed to catch one of the few remaining performances of Patti Lupone at the City Center's limited run production of Gypsy. This production has been getting rave reviews all over the city and featured a powerhouse cast of Patti Lupone, Laura Benanti, and Boyd Gaines. The director of the production was the author of the musical's book. There was a larger than standard orchestra. In short everything that a Broadway production would ever need to succeed, right? Somehow though it fell far short of what I was expecting.

First... let me just preface this by saying that maybe I am a harsh critic at the moment. I have spent the last three months immersed in another production of this show so I've imagined the staging and production of this show in many different ways. This production however came up short in almost every aspect that I can imagine.

First, Ms. Lupone. She's great. She has a great voice, an enormous stage presence and a thrilling electricity to her performances. It would seem like this was the role she was born to play, and in fact many have said exactly that. They were wrong. She chewed this role up and steamrolled over it in a way that left no room for sympathy for her. I know Mama Rose is supposed to be a hard as nails bitch of a woman, but jeez... give me some reason to believe that Herbie put up with her for all those years. The worst example of this was the final number, the famous "Rose's Turn." Lupone shredded this song, screaming, sobbing, belting and pounding every note with nowhere for the audience to breathe and nowhere for a character to come through.

Anyone who read my past reviews will know that I have no love for Laura Benanti either, especially her performance in Wedding Singer, but this was the perfect role for her. Her boyish looks and understated performance were great for Louise, and her transformation into Gypsy Rose Lee was amazing. I could really feel her emotion as she looked into the mirror and stated "I'm pretty Mama!" I don't know if it is the way she carried herself, or costuming or what but as Louise she seemed 6 inches shorter and much less endowed than she did as the tall and buxom Gypsy. THIS performance worked.

The direction was a whole different matter, and the place where I think the production really fell down. The performances were often staged much more in the manner of a reading, or a concert, sung out to the audience and in total disregard to the other players on stage. The sisters' song "If Mama Were Married" is supposed to be the moment where these two girls who had long been played against each other by their mother realize that if they work together they have much more power. The staging of this production though placed them on opposite sides of the stage with very little interaction between them, and not so much as a hug at the end of the number. Similarly the climatic resolution of the conflict between Rose and Gypsy at the end of "Rose's Turn" was undermined by a scenery move that was very unfortunately timed, and Gypsy walks away, alone at the end of the number leaving Rose alone on stage. That piece of staging lets you know, here at the end of the show, that it had really been all about Patti all along, and the other performances and players truly didn't matter as much as her moment in the sun.

The set design left quite a bit to be desired as well. I understand that it was minimal and constrained, but several of the choices for what did end up on stage were very odd. The first moment that it caught my eye was in the kitchen at the beginning. The scenery consisted of a door, a table and chairs and a large breakfront. The breakfront however featured several doors that were askew and off the hinges, and drawers with missing pulls. It was grossly overstated to the point of looking like something out of a Loonie Tunes design. The rest of the show didn't fare much better. The strippers' dressing room at the Burlesque house didn't seem dirty enough, and Gypsy's upscale star dressing room at the end didn't seem clean enough.

But the biggest WTF moment of the show was the sheep. This show traditionally features several live animals, a dog, a monkey, a bird, and a sheep. In this performance the dog was stuffed. The bird was cut. The monkey was referred to off stage but never seen. And the sheep... the sheep was a puppet. A rod puppet performed by an actor in dark grey period dress who didn't look at all different from the other dozen performers on stage at the moment. He runs through the scene, performing a running sheep rod puppet, and is chased by the other members of the cast. I've seen shows with puppets, and I've designed shows with puppets, and one of the cardinal rules is that the puppets have to be established. The audience has to know how to think of the puppet. Is the performer to be ignored? Or is the performer just as important as the puppet? Are the other cast members aware that the puppet character is in any way different, or do they accept that this is a real animal? In this case the sheep is the only puppet in the show, and is only performed once. With no previous puppets to help us establish what this thing is supposed to be the performance was jarring and bizarre. If you are going to do it for the sheep, why not the monkey? Why not the bird? Or a cat? It was a bad choice in a sea of bad choices.

Gypsy closed on Sunday so you won't get a chance to see it, but frankly... you aren't missing anything. If, as it seems most of the audience did, you only want to hear Lupone as Gypsy.. buy the inevitable album and consider yourself lucky.

I average 2 or 3 Google hits a day on some variation of the phrase "Nathan Lyon gay." Look... I have no IDEA if Nathan Lyon is gay. Once, long ago when he was on the Next Food Network Star I included him in a list of guys I'd like to kiss. That's all. There is NO reason why I should be the #1 return when this is googled. Go away.

After giving up sodas a while back I've been trying a wide range of juice and tea drinks with my lunches, everything from Burdock and Dandelion to pomegranate and cherry juice to honeydew melon green tea. Today my new search is over. I've tried Inko's cherry vanilla white tea and enjoyed that, and when I reached for it today I noticed this flavor beside it in the cooler: Honeysuckle. When I visited Japan a while back I fell in love with Kirin Rose Life Tea which is a black tea with milk and sugar flavored with rose water. Minus the milk and sugar this is the same idea, a tea infused with the flavor/aroma of a flower, and it just happens to be one of my most favoritest flowers! I used to spend hours in the woods and fields around my grandmother's house eating the nectar from honeysuckles. Since you only get a drop or two from each flower you really can spend hours collecting it and eating it. Now I have a sophisticated, adult version of that flavor to enjoy and I love it.

It's 12 of 12 time. This project was initiated by Chad Darnell, and you can see entries from all over the world here. 12 pictures to document the 12th of each day... let's go.

On the way to work. I'm still doing the 9 to 5 thing, (usually 9:30 to 7 is closer to the truth) but probably for only another week or two at best.


Breakfast at the office, iced coffee and an almond croissant.

This is the space I've been working in. Actually I had a sort of cubicle space until two weeks ago when we got a new suite mate in the office. The office manager got bumped, displaced two of the other designers and as the temp they displaced me. Now I work on the side of the flat files and struggle to figure out what to do with my legs at the computer etc. Maybe it's a good thing this job is ending soon.

This is what I'm working on today. The sky drop needs some minor alterations and to be printed, sounds simple right? The file is in real size at 72dpi. Real size is 44 feet x 24 feet. Just opening the file takes almost 45 minutes and every brush stroke takes a minute or two in processing time to finish. It has to be FedExed today. When (if) I finish that I need to color the image in the foreground, another giant drop but this one is being hand painted not printed so the file is more manageable.

The view from the fire escape where I go to chat with Kid Flash every afternoon so as not to disturb the rest of the office.


This is 6:45 and the sky drop is ready to go. That's the print for color matching, the CD with the file is already in the box. The last pickup at the nearest FedEx is 7. I tell the intern to run and keep an eye open for one of the trucks, just in case.


Home again home again. My ubiquitous subway shot. I try to work one of these in every month.

At the grocery to get dinner.

At home my work day isn't over yet. I still have about 20 cards that need to be drawn and then the 50 that I have have to get painted before I can go to bed. It'll be a late night.


A few hours later I go hunting for snacks. Not much to be had really.


The painting is underway!!

Bedtime, a quick shower to get the watercolor off my hands and to cool me down before bed. (It's a bit hot here and I have no A/C.) And that's the end of my day. Tomorrow it's back to the office to paint that second drop, and then I can begin my weekend, which will include derby on Saturday! Yay!

I'm a fanboy. I admit it. In highschool I probably spent more time drawing superheroes in my notebooks than anything else. After that it was always a dream of mine to draw comic books. In my dreams of course I was working for Marvel Comics, (but the Marvel of the early 90's, not the horrendous Marvel of today). Through art school, and now working in theatre though that dream sort of slid off to the side and became less of a priority. But this week it came true... sort of. I've been spending just about every waking hour drawing superheroes this week, for DC Comics, home of Superman and Batman. The project goes like this... the hot new thing in trading cards is to include a "sketch card" an original piece of art that ties in to the set, and is extremely shortpacked (meaning rarer than the standard card). For this set there will be one sketch card in each box of card packs, so about 1 in 25 or 30 packs I'd guess. the theme is DC Legacy and I was given a list of about 50 characters that were available to me to draw, both heroes and villains, and I was free to draw almost any version of the characters from the long rich history of DC Comics. I'm doing 150 cards, pen and ink with watercolor finishes. It's been a blast! The cards are small so there's not a lot of room to huge grand stuff, and the deadline was tight so I was doing lots of bust shots and headshots, but I'm really happy and proud of how they've turned out, and really proud to be doing something like my childhood fantasy job.

I don't think that I've mentioned it here but my friend Vinnie is currently appearing on the Travel Channel on a show called 5 Takes. It is a reality show, but only in the sense that the stars are 5 ordinary people who have been sent off to explore a region of the world as "Travel Journalists" and report back for the show. Vinnie and crew are seeing the sights of Latin America, and it has been a hoot to watch him. He put the call out on the message boards for the show that he wanted an image for a tattoo to commemorate the trip, something unique to the region he is travelling in, and related to his experience. After some research I found a hieroglyph of a Mayan god, Xaman Ek. He is the god of the North Star and aid to travellers and sailors, so I thought it would be perfect. Vinnie agreed and asked if I could clean up the smallish online image that I had found. Here you have the result. I played with her a bit, simplifying some of the armor and clothing, and changing the weird Mickey Mouse that was on her head, (I'm not kidding, check the link) to a bird, which is what it was supposed to be anyway. I also combined her profile from another image. So... hope you like it Vin! I'm loving the show and can't wait for you to get home.

After our, oh so delightful flight(s) to Prague we arrived nearly 7 hours behind schedule. Originally I had planned to take mama to see the castle, and a few other locations on our arrival day, simply as a way of getting her feet wet. She'd never been outside the US before, so I wanted to ease her in and show her around a bit. Unfortunately that didn't happen. Because we were renting a private apartment and not a hotel room we had to meet the owner to receive the keys, and by the time it was all done we didn't have time to do much beyond eat before we wanted to see the bed. We decided to hit the local grocery and get provisions for the morning, have a sandwich and go to bed. The idea was that to save money we rented an apartment, and planned to eat at least two meals a day at the apartment rather in restaurants.

If you haven't had the joy of shopping in a country where you don't speak the language, let me tell you... it's fun. Simply relying on the few cognate words that you can figure out, and the pictures on the box leaves you open for all sorts of surprises. After our culinary adventures we hit the sack and prepared for adventures the next day.

Part of the reason that I wanted to go back to Prague was an event called the PQ, the Prague Quadrennial. This is an international theatre design conference, possibly the only one in the world, that occurs every four years. 40 or so countries participate and send the best of their design work from the past four years. I love it because it is all about the design, not about performance the way most theatre conferences end up. So we set out for the exhibition grounds, only to be turned away because the conference was only open to members on the first day and the general public wouldn't be allowed in until the next.

We decided instead to start the sightseeing. We hopped on the tram, (you can see my discussion of the Prague transit system over here) and headed towards the Old Town. The first stop was St. Nicholas Church, an amazing baroque church that is a huge confection of marble and gold leaf that simply overwhelms you when you enter. It was actually a very good choice to begin with I think. Mama has a great affinity for old places, but old places in the US means 1800, or possibly 1700. In Prague it can mean 1500, or 1300 in a very few rare places 900. It blew her mind a little bit, and it was incredible to watch. We also made our first run at the Castle, but only managed to get in St. Vitus Cathedral before the museums started closing down for the day.

The next day we saw the PQ at the beginning of the day. I must admit that the PQ is an amazing sight. Each country has an allotted floor space to build their displays in and most of them go all out building huge complexes and towering displays full of models and videos and mannequins with their best costumes. Some even make interactive theatrical experiences, like the Czech booth that put the viewer into the role of performer manipulating puppets, sometimes unknowingly, whose performances were visible to the other people within the booth. As a theatrical designer it is amazing to walk through and to see what design looks like in Korea, Lituania, South Africa, Croatia or Ireland. A great, great experience.

After the PQ we decided to try and finish up the Castle, so we headed up the hill to take that in. This time we managed to see the museum attached to the castle, telling the story of the castle complex from 900 or so to present. And again we managed never to set foot inside the Castle proper! I was beginning to wonder if we would ever manage to see all of the things that the castle complex has to offer, but we had seen the Royal Gardens and the moat area, things that I hadn't seen on my previous trip to Prague four years ago.

The next day we went south to an area called the Vysrehad where we saw the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. This is a Gothic cathedral that stands on the area where another of Prague's original castles had stood. The interior though has been plastered and painted by Art Nouveau painters with gorgeous patterning and portraits of the various saints associated with Prague. Prague has an interesting relationship with it's saints, by the way. St Nicholas, St. Wenceslaus (who was martyred in Prague which you can see the site of), St. Ludmilla (who was part of one of the Prague royal families), and my mom's personal favorite St. John of Nepomuk.

Jan Nepomuk was martyred in Prague as well, and is considered the patron Saint of the city. He was martyred after he refused to reveal the confession of the Queen to the King, around 1393. The King tortured him to death, then pitched his body over the Charles Bridge, the most famous bridge in town to date. When he hit the water 5 stars appeared in the sky and so he was thereafter declared a saint. His body rests in a nearly 20 foot tall solid silver mausoleum at the main alter of St. Vitus cathedral. You can find depictions of him all over the city.

Prague has an interesting relationship to its mythology in general actually. The city is full of stories and legends that fill the place with tis great air of mystery and wonder. It's part of the reason that I love the place so much.

The Vysrehad also contains the oldest existing church in the city, a small Romanesque rotunda that was built in the 900s. How cool is it to lay hands on the stone of a building that was started when no one but the Indians knew that America existed? Before the Renaissance. Before the Middle Ages even.

The park also includes an amazing cemetery that is home to some of Prague's most famous people like Dvorak. The graves are often elaborate affairs with statuary and monuments, surrounded by vast mosaics of biblical scenes. The people buried here are the heroes of the Republic, and it is an interesting reminder that the country is small enough, and compact enough that all of these people can be buried in the same place with no problems.

In the middle of all this we visited the Old Town Square to see the Astronomical clock which has been keeping time in the square for almost 600 years. Besides keeping track of four different types of time, the positions of the sun and moon, and the current astronomical signs every hour the clock features a parade of the Apostles and reminders against greed, vanity and sloth. It's really quite amazing to watch knowing how long it has been operating, (give or take some stoppages due to damage during WW2, etc.). And the face of the clock with its complicated overlay of dials and faces is gorgeous to see. It is a beautiful piece of machinery and really really worth seeing in person.

We also visited several of the more unusual sights in Prague. The Lorreto housed two of them, the Casa de Santa Maria that the convent is named after and a statue of Saint Wilgefortis. The story of the Casa, or the "House of Mary" goes like this: In the 17th century infidels, (read: Muslims) were threatening the house in Nazareth where the angel had spoken to Mary. Angels appeared and mystically airlifted the house to safety in Lorreta, Italy. The residents of that town immediately built up a sort of cottage industry making replicas of the house and selling them to Catholic establishments all over Europe. Prague has one of them enshrined within a larger stone structure at this convent. I'll tell you... it doesn't really LOOK very much like a house that I'd imagine being anywhere near Nazareth, but who am I to speak.

St. Wilgefortis has to be one of the most unusual saints you'll ever read about, and there is a shrine to her just a few yards from the Casa within the Loretta. Wilgefortis was a young noblewoman, who had been promised by her father to a local pagan king. She had converted to Christianity, and intended to be a nun, so she prayed to God to save her from the marriage. Her salvation came in the form of a full grown beard that miraculously appeared on her face the next morning. The pagan king was suitably horrified and refused to marry her, but it enraged her father so much that he crucified her. She is often depicted with her shoes off because the first miracle attributed to her had to do with a golden shoe that miraculously fell off of a statue of the saint when a young girl prayed to her for help in getting out of her own unwanted wedding.

Like I said, Prague is full of stories like this. Another church has a mummified arm hanging from a chain in the foyer that was supposedly cut from a thief sometime in the 15th century. It is said that the thief tried to steal gems from the statue of Mary on the alter, but the statue grabbed his arm and held him so tightly that it had to be amputated by the priests in the church. Other churches in town feature gargoyles that are said to be street urchins petrified by the curse of a mysterious stranger that they taunted from the roof of the church. The Charles bridge has a host of legends about it including the eggs and cheese that were used in the mortar for the bridge, buried treasures, and mystical swords contained it the buttresses. You have to love a city that contains so many stories.

On our last day in the city we visited the Jewish Quarter, the small area of town where Prague's Jews had been confined over the years. Several of the more interesting synagogues are still standing including Pikas Synagogue which is now a memorial to all of the Jews from Prague who died during the Holocaust. The Old New Synagogue, which is where the best known Rabbi in Prague history, Rabbi Loew taught. Rabbi Loew is the Rabbi in the mythical story of the Golem and the Old New Synagogue is where the remains of the Golem were supposedly hidden after its rampage through town. Another of Prague's amazing legends. Also in the Jewish Quarter is the Old Jewish Cemetery which is simply an astounding sight.

Prague is a great, great city full of architectural wonders, mythological fantasy, and surprises all over the place. Not to mention good food, and great beer. (The beer is cheaper than water there. Really.) It is an easy city to navigate, with more public transport than you can shake a stick at, all around the city. If you've made it to the end of all this and you are still interested I would seriously recommend looking into a visit to the city. Besides being a great destination it is still relatively cheap, especially the food. If you can go after the high season the prices of rooms drops pretty dramatically too.

Go. See. It's amazing.