a.) When I retired a bunch of people tried to convince me that I needed to get onto Facebook, so that I could keep “up to date” with “everybody.” Having observed how much time many of my students were spending on Facebook, and having heard horror stories about the kind of junk which can circulate on it, I was dubious, to say the least.
Just in the last couple of weeks, however, I have given it some further thought, at least as far as getting a basic “instruction” book from the library and reading a good deal of it. The “free” Facebook account basically gives “them” (and that’s ANYBODY [including the Facebook company] who can get to your page) the right to copy whatever they want and use it for whatever purpose they wish. I’m not a lawyer, but that makes me as nervous as I tried to make my students about having stuff posted on line; especially since once it’s “out there,” it will NEVER really go away, no matter what you do. Once it hits a server, it’s PERMANENT!
I’m still debating whether I’ll get on Facebook. It could be fun. IF I do, however, I’m going to be extremely careful about what I post and who I “friend.” I know this blog sometimes has some opinions which might not be popular with everyone and it’s just as permanent as a Facebook posting, so I suppose I’m being silly, but I’m still not sure that I want to devote the time to being “active” on Facebook – I seem to manage to keep reasonably busy without one more thing to do. We’ll see….
b.) Bonnie and I went to see the Midland University production of Quilters the other evening. It was actually quite a nice production and Bonnie, who said she has very little memory of seeing the one we did at Western in 1989-1990 was surprised find that some bits and pieces seemed a little familiar. As her book club recently read a book about some women’s lives during the Dust Bowl, she was, perhaps, more moved than I by some of the more depressing bits related to the suffering and hardship of pioneer life on the prairie, but she says she was glad to have seen it and enjoyed it a lot.
Typical of many college productions (even at Western, I’m afraid), some of the cast were significantly easier to understand than others, but I didn’t have much trouble following the story (having designed the set, light and built the show meant that I had studied it a good deal, even if it was a good while ago now). The setting featured a much-oversized quilting hoop which hovered over the stage. I thought that it worked pretty well. The series of small platforms which made up the rest of the set worked pretty well, also, but I wasn’t excited by the choice of quilt “blocks” they used to decorate the tops of them. The colors seemed too intense and “modern” and they didn’t seem to be traditional quilt block patterns, although they might have been. They were a bit hard to see clearly even from our seats which were well elevated above the stage floor.
The music was quite well done, the musicians seemed adequate and the cast was beautiful to hear. I think I understand why they chose to use a cast of twelve instead of the seven called for in the script and they were used pretty well, so that really only bothered me because the same character seemed to shift from person to person at times, which I found a bit confusing. However, since there is a certain amount of character “doubling” written in the script, it wasn’t a serious problem. And, the extra voices made the songs stronger and prettier.
Probably the only thing I was really confused by was the choice to use twenty blocks to form the “legacy” quilt for the finale. The show, itself, is divided into sixteen “blocks,” so it seemed inappropriate to use twenty in the final quilt. Yes, I believe that the other four are mentioned in the script, but the play is Sarah’s story describing the stories behind the blocks she chose for her “legacy” quilt, so I didn’t think the inclusion of the others made sense in this important visual.
I confess that I liked my “back of a quilt” raked floor better (Boy, was that a pain to make, but it looked good) and I didn’t find the prairie fire sequence too effective, but it was fun to see what someone else could come up with to solve the problems of this show, and it did work pretty well, overall.
All things considered, I’m glad that we went and had a pleasant evening in the theatre.
c.) I suspect that it’s just the weird sense of humor I seem to have acquired from my wife, but I have become quite interested/amused/fascinated by the names of churches recently. No, not the traditional St. Peter – Paul – James –Matthew – or whatever; nor the fairly common “covenant,” “evangelical,” “calvary,” “living,” “zion,” “tabernacle,” etc. These are names I grew up with and which I think I understand. No, I’m talking about the “new, hip” names which are being used by many churches now. What’s amusing about some of these, at least to me, is that they suggest things which I don’t think were really intended. Anyway, listed below are some of the names I’ve found and what they suggest to me. If this offends anyone, don’t read on….
Element Church – We worship the Periodic Table.
First Love Church – Divorcees NOT welcome!
Kinetic Church – NOBODY sits still here!
Rhythm of Life Church – We started out in San Francisco and our pastor’s name is “Big
Daddy.” We’re praying the authors of Sweet Charity don’t want royalties.
Red Church – We’re really Communists, but we don’t want to admit it.
Tapestry Church – We’re really into Carole King songs.
Celebration Church – We don’t do funerals, except in the New Orleans branch.
Awakening Church – We only do sunrise services!
Ignite Ministry – the place for pyrotechnics
HeBrews: where your cup runneth over – a church and micro brewery
Journey -- "Don't Stop Believing" is our theme song.
Boring Seventh Day Adventist Church -- Pastor Elder Dull (This one is apparently true, so
I’m not going to touch it, but I think it needs no explanation.)
Discovery Church -- Our sacred symbol is the sextant
House of God, Inc. – Is this a non-prophet?
The Lighthouse – We worship tall, phallic buildings with tops that light up and flash!
Laboratory Church of God – we’re experimental.
Country Club Church – Get in a round of golf while you pray. (Is that redundant?)
Designers’ Church – No actors, techies, etc. allowed.
The Sketch – ‘cause it’s not quite finished yet.
Reality Church – Does this mean that its beliefs relate to those of other churches the way
"Reality” TV relates to actual reality?
I have more, but I think I’m going to save them for future moments. This is an interesting sampler, I think. Readers are welcome to send me others. Some of these I discovered by myself, others I found reference to on the Internet and I don’t know if they are real, or not. Some, I suspect are not, but I find them amusing, in any case.
LLAP
Just in the last couple of weeks, however, I have given it some further thought, at least as far as getting a basic “instruction” book from the library and reading a good deal of it. The “free” Facebook account basically gives “them” (and that’s ANYBODY [including the Facebook company] who can get to your page) the right to copy whatever they want and use it for whatever purpose they wish. I’m not a lawyer, but that makes me as nervous as I tried to make my students about having stuff posted on line; especially since once it’s “out there,” it will NEVER really go away, no matter what you do. Once it hits a server, it’s PERMANENT!
I’m still debating whether I’ll get on Facebook. It could be fun. IF I do, however, I’m going to be extremely careful about what I post and who I “friend.” I know this blog sometimes has some opinions which might not be popular with everyone and it’s just as permanent as a Facebook posting, so I suppose I’m being silly, but I’m still not sure that I want to devote the time to being “active” on Facebook – I seem to manage to keep reasonably busy without one more thing to do. We’ll see….
b.) Bonnie and I went to see the Midland University production of Quilters the other evening. It was actually quite a nice production and Bonnie, who said she has very little memory of seeing the one we did at Western in 1989-1990 was surprised find that some bits and pieces seemed a little familiar. As her book club recently read a book about some women’s lives during the Dust Bowl, she was, perhaps, more moved than I by some of the more depressing bits related to the suffering and hardship of pioneer life on the prairie, but she says she was glad to have seen it and enjoyed it a lot.
Typical of many college productions (even at Western, I’m afraid), some of the cast were significantly easier to understand than others, but I didn’t have much trouble following the story (having designed the set, light and built the show meant that I had studied it a good deal, even if it was a good while ago now). The setting featured a much-oversized quilting hoop which hovered over the stage. I thought that it worked pretty well. The series of small platforms which made up the rest of the set worked pretty well, also, but I wasn’t excited by the choice of quilt “blocks” they used to decorate the tops of them. The colors seemed too intense and “modern” and they didn’t seem to be traditional quilt block patterns, although they might have been. They were a bit hard to see clearly even from our seats which were well elevated above the stage floor.
The music was quite well done, the musicians seemed adequate and the cast was beautiful to hear. I think I understand why they chose to use a cast of twelve instead of the seven called for in the script and they were used pretty well, so that really only bothered me because the same character seemed to shift from person to person at times, which I found a bit confusing. However, since there is a certain amount of character “doubling” written in the script, it wasn’t a serious problem. And, the extra voices made the songs stronger and prettier.
Probably the only thing I was really confused by was the choice to use twenty blocks to form the “legacy” quilt for the finale. The show, itself, is divided into sixteen “blocks,” so it seemed inappropriate to use twenty in the final quilt. Yes, I believe that the other four are mentioned in the script, but the play is Sarah’s story describing the stories behind the blocks she chose for her “legacy” quilt, so I didn’t think the inclusion of the others made sense in this important visual.
I confess that I liked my “back of a quilt” raked floor better (Boy, was that a pain to make, but it looked good) and I didn’t find the prairie fire sequence too effective, but it was fun to see what someone else could come up with to solve the problems of this show, and it did work pretty well, overall.
All things considered, I’m glad that we went and had a pleasant evening in the theatre.
c.) I suspect that it’s just the weird sense of humor I seem to have acquired from my wife, but I have become quite interested/amused/fascinated by the names of churches recently. No, not the traditional St. Peter – Paul – James –Matthew – or whatever; nor the fairly common “covenant,” “evangelical,” “calvary,” “living,” “zion,” “tabernacle,” etc. These are names I grew up with and which I think I understand. No, I’m talking about the “new, hip” names which are being used by many churches now. What’s amusing about some of these, at least to me, is that they suggest things which I don’t think were really intended. Anyway, listed below are some of the names I’ve found and what they suggest to me. If this offends anyone, don’t read on….
Element Church – We worship the Periodic Table.
First Love Church – Divorcees NOT welcome!
Kinetic Church – NOBODY sits still here!
Rhythm of Life Church – We started out in San Francisco and our pastor’s name is “Big
Daddy.” We’re praying the authors of Sweet Charity don’t want royalties.
Red Church – We’re really Communists, but we don’t want to admit it.
Tapestry Church – We’re really into Carole King songs.
Celebration Church – We don’t do funerals, except in the New Orleans branch.
Awakening Church – We only do sunrise services!
Ignite Ministry – the place for pyrotechnics
HeBrews: where your cup runneth over – a church and micro brewery
Journey -- "Don't Stop Believing" is our theme song.
Boring Seventh Day Adventist Church -- Pastor Elder Dull (This one is apparently true, so
I’m not going to touch it, but I think it needs no explanation.)
Discovery Church -- Our sacred symbol is the sextant
House of God, Inc. – Is this a non-prophet?
The Lighthouse – We worship tall, phallic buildings with tops that light up and flash!
Laboratory Church of God – we’re experimental.
Country Club Church – Get in a round of golf while you pray. (Is that redundant?)
Designers’ Church – No actors, techies, etc. allowed.
The Sketch – ‘cause it’s not quite finished yet.
Reality Church – Does this mean that its beliefs relate to those of other churches the way
"Reality” TV relates to actual reality?
I have more, but I think I’m going to save them for future moments. This is an interesting sampler, I think. Readers are welcome to send me others. Some of these I discovered by myself, others I found reference to on the Internet and I don’t know if they are real, or not. Some, I suspect are not, but I find them amusing, in any case.
LLAP
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