“And I would bike 100 miles”

Well that’s the plan anyway, and I am now officially registered for my first Century ride on September 21^st. My training has consisted of biking to work (20 miles round-trip) 2-3 times a week since May and then doing increasingly longer rides with the Potomac Pedalers each weekend for the past month. Below is a map I will update with my training rides and then finally the Century itself:

Century Training Rides at EveryTrail
Map created by EveryTrail:GPS Geotagging

Even without riding it yet, the Century has been worth it simply because it got me biking to work (well the Century and Darren showing me the direct route). If you live close enough you should definitely try biking to work, and if you don’t live close enough… move! Humor me for a moment with my bike-to-work spiel:

• No gas: In addition to the monetary and environmental savings, there’s just a rush you get arriving at work knowing that the trip was completely on your own power

• No traffic: It takes me 10 minutes longer to bike each way than it does to drive, and few things uplift the soul more than biking across the 14^th St. bridge next to a line of stopped cars

• Free exercise: Since it only takes 20 minutes longer to bike I get a 20 mile workout in 20 minutes

• Time outdoors: Even with most of my commute in an urban setting, I still get a couple of miles along the Potomac with views of all the monuments

• Free parking: Once I’ve biked to work, I can easily get to any events in the city (happy hours, Artomatic, Fringe, Jazz in the Sculpture Garden etc.) and have free rock star parking wherever I go

And the three most common arguments against biking debunked:

• “I live too far”: You can always pick a parking lot that is close enough to bike from and drive your bike there and still get most of the benefits

• “I’d get to work all sweaty”: If you have a shower at work then you are pretty much out of excuses, but even if you don’t, as long as you can keep a change of clothes at work, some deodorant, and a towel to wipe down with, sweat’s not a problem

• “What if it rains?”: If it’s raining on the way to work, wear rain gear, don’t bike that day, or think of it as extra sweat you wipe down before changing at work. If you get caught in the rain on the way home… well it’s the way home, who cares? If you do care then you can take your bike on metro (outside of rush hour) or put it on the front of a bus, or worst case leave it locked up at work and taxi home

Most importantly though, wear a helmet. As you can see from our photo from the Safety is Sexy blog, “You’d look hotter in a helmet” anyway.

Notes to Jon:

• Hunter’s Head Tavern in Upperville, VA is a great post-ride or date spot with covered outdoor seating and delicious (and reasonably priced) organic meals with ingredients from the owner’s farm.
  


• There’s a dog on Box Factory Rd near Berryville that loves to chase bikes. It’s unnerving but, at least in our experience yesterday, he was more interested in chasing than attacking. I believe the Century goes along this route so hopefully he won’t be in an attacking mood on the 21^st (or at least all the faster riders will have tired him out for me!)

Of BBQs, Bags and Boyfriends

This is how Natalie showed up to my most recent BBQ. If you read the Better Bag post, or are otherwise familiar with my ridiculous obsession with collecting the Whole Foods retro bags, you will appreciate what a perfect and unexpected gift this was. This bag is out of print and was only available in Ohio and yet in her infinite resourcefulness (I can neither confirm nor deny whether she simply emailed Whole Foods!) Natalie managed to get me a brand new Buckeyes bag.

All I got her was a boyfriend: the bag was presented to me on the same porch where Natalie met her boyfriend Matt at our BBQ just over a year ago. I like to think of it as a magical matchmaking porch since I just returned from Ohio where our good friends Jamie and Kevin—who met on that same porch four years ago—were married. And thanks to Natalie, I was able to spend the whole weekend celebrating the wedding rather than stalking Ohio Whole Foods stores trying to trade for a Buckeyes bag :-) Thank you Natalie!

I'll soon update this with a slideshow of photos from that BBQ and the wedding

Darren Decrees

The future of America is at stake. While I jokingly endorse Colbert/Stewart ’08 and seriously endorse Obama/(preferably Richardson or Warner), I suppose it is only fair to let you all know that in the end it won’t matter because the Revolution is coming. See most of you probably think of Darren as my fun-(and-bike)-loving friend (who quite often takes humorous liberties with the English language). But what you don’t realize is that for some years now he has been developing the decrees that he will issue once he becomes our benevolent dictator. After his recent dream vision that Castro was his great uncle, we should assume that the time for the reign of Darren is drawing nigh. While his rise to power is inevitable, in the spirit of the campaign season and as a gesture of his benevolence he is presenting his platform:

Decree #1: There shall be a new Department of Servings. Restaurant portions and supermarket serving sizes will be reconciled to a reasonable moderate size. In addition, the size of a serving shall be printed on menus alongside the prices.

Decree #2: Women’s pants’ sizes shall henceforth be designated with length, hip, and waist measurements.

Decree #3: No church shall sponsor a sports team (Darren doesn’t believe God should take any one team’s side in sporting competitions).

Decree #4: Mondays shall now be a day off of work. However, unlike weekends (which Darren believes should be reserved exclusively for leisure activities like biking), Monday is a day to do chores at home, or volunteer. You may choose to go to work instead but you must pay a fine which is donated to charity. The “chores at home” option will be enforced by random home inspections on Tuesdays, violators will be shot—or fined the same amount as those who went to work.

Decree #5: As evidence of Darren’s benevolent nature and responsiveness to his subjects, he has accepted the petition put forth by Sara requesting a new definition for a condiment: A condiment shall be a food topping that can be squeezable. (This has the added benefit of eliminating salt and other spices from consideration, which Darren declares are not condiments).

Decree #6: Tom Collins shall be the official summertime porch drink of the kingdom. Supermarkets shall be required to stock Tom Collins Mix (so that it isn’t so rare that Darren must purchase three bottles when he suddenly finds it on a trip to Assateague after weeks of fruitless searching…)

Decree #7: All Olympic broadcasts shall be required to display the title of the current event at all times (so that when watching on the Royal Tivo, there is no confusion about whether Darren is watching an event final or a preliminary race that can be safely viewed at two times speed)

Decree #8: The Facebook "Friend" Decree: If you see a Facebook friend in public you are required to go over and say hello, otherwise they must be stricken from your friends' list. Let this be your guide when deciding whether to friend or accept a friend request from someone.

Decree #9: No private company shall be permitted to make a profit operating a toll road or a traffic violation camera. All revenue from traffic cameras will go towards education or road improvements in the county where the camera is located.

Decree #10: The sweeping smart growth mandates will be unveiled at the proper time, but for now let it be known that all culs-de-sac and pipe stems are forbidden. (The building in Ballston which is blocking our HDTV reception is also in serious jeopardy).

Decree #11: All Olympic medals shall be made entirely of the metal they represent. (Chairman Darren does not approve of the "white jade" medals being pawned off on our gold medalists. Gold is valuable and we have the trade deficit to think about!)

Stay tuned for updates on what our future holds as Darren documents his campaign platform, rides a socialist revolution into power, enjoys the Divine Right of Kings, and rules as our benevolent dictator…

Don't Push Buttons on Turtles' Bellies

Next year could be interesting. So far I’ve about doubled my attendance at Fringe shows each year of the festival, from three to five to ten. The madness will have to end though as I’m on pace to see all hundred or so shows by 2011… unless the festival keeps growing—not unlike Telly the Turtle in Prototype 373-G. Telly began as a tiny turtle transported in a leftover Lo Mein box… and ended the play as a stage-filling Tortuga bent on world domination. That’s basically what my Fringe experience was like this year…

It started out all fun and innocent with the funtastic I Like Nuts! (the musical) and Love in the Time of GPS in Ball & Chain. Then somewhere between Through the Looking Glass and Power House: The Disco Energy Dance Along Show things got a little strange—just like when the protagonist in Prototype 373-G, Belly, finds a button on Telly the turtle’s tummy (you know the button that unleashes the evil—and hilarious—space turtle Shiggles, and gives him mind-control powers over Belly... who then becomes an interesting “Tube of Flesh” to pave the way for total-tortuga-domination, by readying her apartment for her insemination at the hands tail (I think) of Shiggles; He likes to munch on leafy greens during coitus, so in preparation Belly’s apartment is soon filled with plants, giant bowls of salad etc.… and an ever expanding Telly the turtle who Shiggles will eventually inhabit.) So yeah, it’s sort of like by going to Power House I unknowingly pushed a button that triggered me to become obsessed with Fringe shows and they took over my life this weekend (though hopefully without all of the insemination and turtle-takeover parallels). Well, something possessed me to see six more shows from Friday to Sunday.

Suddenly everything about my life related to Fringe, thanks to the next show I saw: Tales of Doomed Love. Tales and the next show Children of Medea each had links to the story of Medea, as did Argonautika from a few months ago. Tales also retold part of the Oresteia which I saw recently by Constellation Theatre… with the actress from Tales. Finally, Tales had the story of Tristan and Isolde which I was relieved to have no connection to… until it was the topic of a lecture I heard on Saturday! Tales definitely wins the award for most connections, but I wasn’t in love with the show. I found it most compelling when both actors were interacting to tell a story… unfortunately that only happened in one of the five tales.

The connections weren’t finished after Tales though, they kept going with Children of Medea which was the best (if not fringiest) piece that I have ever seen at Fringe. Among those connections:

• Recurring scenes set in Wonderland (just like Sunday’s Through the Looking Glass), including a memorable scene where Alice meets the March Hare…a character I played in High School
• I saw my favorite Fringe shows alone since Darren had opted out of both Nuts and Children of Medea… and would do so again the next day with another favorite, Gilgamesh (no protest by me since I’d picked up the trend and knew it would be good!)
• Darren and I always check our programs for artists whose credits include our favorite TV show, The Wire. Since it was filmed in Baltimore nearly every show we see includes someone (although no one we ever recognize). Medea did not. However, in the audience for Medea was none other than Delaney Williams who plays McNaulty’s boss Sergeant Jay in all five seasons of The Wire. Now I knew Darren would be pissed he hadn’t stayed!

Friday’s final show Lebensraum was good, and the fact I don’t have more to say about it is not a reflection on Lebensraum but rather just how amazing four other shows I saw this weekend were. Children of Medea was the first of the four and was the clear winner for me… until I saw the next three. Now it’s all muddled again. Gilgamesh for example is exactly what I go to the Fringe festival hoping to see: An ensemble show like my high school theatre teacher Mr. Maiden used to take to the one-act competitions. I loved the rhythms the ensemble pounded out during the fight sequence, the interactions between the actors and the projected shadows, and learning about lacunae (gaps in a manuscript such as the epic of Gilgamesh… or detail about Lebensraum and Power House in this blog post).

Sunday broke the curse and I closed the Fringe out with two more fantastic shows… this time with Darren in attendance! We saw back-to-back shows at the Source Theatre: Prototype 373-G and Born Normal. In addition to having the best costumes of any Fringe show (and just about any other show I can think of) Prototype also included a reference to some of my favorite books growing up: The Choose Your Own Adventure series. The characters had a game of taking turns reading the adventures to each other and swapping when one’s choice led to death… unless they died on the very first decision which would trigger the controversial “Too Young To Die” rule!

• If you decide to read more about Prototype 373-G, turn to page 1.
• If you decide to read more about Born Normal, turn to the next page.

If I thought I was all laughed out after Prototype 373-G (and I should have been) I was quite wrong. There were still some connections to be revealed as well such as:

• Both shows featured new kinds (well names at least) of cancer: Ass cancer in Prototype and Wing cancer in Born Normal.
• Sitting down in Prototype 373-G I joked with Darren about whether there were any Wire cast members in THAT audience (he was, as expected, bitter to have missed Delany Williams on Friday). I turned around jokingly to scan the audience… and of course, Mr. Williams was once again in attendance!
• Not only that but between shows we went to St. Ex where we met a chatty drunk woman who was there with her gay husband and his gay friends (no typos in there, just a unique woman). And while she was not at all interested in theatre (making snoring noises each time we discussed shows with a Fringe volunteer who we also met at the bar) her friends did seem to know Delaney Williams who came in for drinks as well!
• The connections also led to a new friendship with Fringe volunteer Elizabeth at the bar who: gave us our tickets at Prototype, had been in the audience of Children of Medea with me, also had tickets to Born Normal, and is moving just down the street in September.

Oh yeah, I was talking about Born Normal; In which most of the characters are not born normal:

• There’s the mother with wings
• The older sister who can heal animals—provided they a) died of natural causes and b) are under 18 pounds, leading to such lines as “I’ve got a stack of parakeets in the corner I’ve been meaning to get to”
• Younger brother Martin who’s born able to talk and therefore able to answer his mother’s question about his gender: “While I lack the manual dexterity to fully investigate the matter, I believe I am a boy”
• And Sunshine… whose name might be a bit too “on the nose” as the mother would say since it is just a burning glow within swaddling clothes
  

And then there is daughter Jane who actually is born normal. It’s hard to say if I was more impressed with the cast’s acting which was, along with Medea’s Sue Jin Song and Prototype’s Hugh Nees, the most impressive of the festival (well my 10 show sampling of the festival), or the script which was written by Stephen Spotswood who is an MFA candidate at Catholic University. I will definitely be on the lookout for more work by all of them, although with 12 shows in 10 days (including Not the Messiah! at Wolf Trap and my sister Mimsi's terrific turn as Frog in Frog and Toad) I am officially going to take a break from theatre… for at least a week.

Notes to Jon:

• If I hope to get to 20 shows next year I will need them to add shows back on Monday and Tuesday nights, which they took away this year (my biggest disappointment with the festival)

• Supposedly my Fringe button is good for discounts at local eateries all year long and not just all festival long (I’ll let you know when I test that)

• I walked up and purchased tickets to all three shows on Friday (despite rave reviews for Children of Medea) and Gilgamesh on Saturday night, but found many times that I wished I could have changed the tickets that I had already allocated from my 10-ticket passes. So my lesson for next year is to risk the sell outs and allocate the tickets from the passes on the day of the show (and frankly after I’ve read some reviews).

• If I’m ever pulled on stage at the end of Power House, refuse to dance until they try “Contingency Plan 10” on me (aka seducing the dancer into continuing to produce energy). Other than "Contingency Plan 10", the highlight of the show was the Dharma-initiative-esque video in the beginning explaining how they now breed humans who can dance longer so as to generate energy… from the seismic energy produced by the feet, thermodynamic energy from body heat, and hydroelectric energy from collecting sweat (lovely)
  

• Drama is harder to pull off than comedy (probably because it requires the audience to be fully invested) but Berlin in Ball & Chain and Children of Medea nailed it

• Great comedy is still a hell of a lot of fun to go see and I Like Nuts, Love in the Time of GPS in Ball & Chain, Prototype 373-G, and Born Normal were all exceptional comedies

• I’ll never think of the March Hare the same again after Children of Medea. My portrayal in high school was G Rated. Whereas Sue Jin Song’s NC-17 March Hare sung “You put the right ear in, you pull the right ear out… you put both ears in” etc. Quite the naughty hare.

• Medea also contained other favorite scenes about expectations on children, where “Alice” has a nightmare in Wonderland about the SAT and is running across a giant scantron trying not to be sucked into the reader, and how parents named their children Yale, Princeton, and Harvard… and their fourth kid Bob. Sue Jin Song was at her strongest when switching into the character of Julie Ann, who was her family’s “Bob”.

• I wish Darren got to see Gilgamesh, because it was like the theatre we did in high school, but also because it included the story of Shhh… or how The Flood was sent because humans talked so loud they woke the gods.
  
  
• Most of the embedded photos are from the Fringe's official Photo blog and clicking on them will link to the photo blog for that play.
  

• Go see any show with costumes done by the Crafts Action League. It’s tough for costumes to steal a show as good as Prototype 373-G but they nearly did: from the green dresses Belly wore, to the green underwear everyone wore, to the pull off shirt-pants-and-tie worn over identical shirt, pants, and tie, to the leafy green costumes of the ensemble in one scene, and most importantly to the turtle costumes of Shiggles and the ever expanding Telly—who at the very end got to be nearly as big as this blog entry… somebody get the water

You are not "A Better Bag"!

A few months ago, on the way to see Lighting to Unite, we stopped by Whole Foods to pick up dinner. I didn’t have a grocery bag with me, and decided to purchase the latest reusable bag I had been seeing around: the Oysters bag… but they didn’t have it. They only had a slippery and obnoxiously-colored Apple bag with the pronouncement “A Better Bag” on the side.

Better than what? Definitely not better than the perfectly designed retro bags that Whole Foods has been selling for several years. Those retro bags are huge and they stretch, they have the perfect handle length and are durable (my Sack-o-Potatoes bag has already served me well for a couple of years), and the designs are fun, yet neutral enough that anyone could be happy to carry one around. Not so with this new plasticky sack. The “Better” bag doesn’t stretch and more importantly neither do the handles so they aren’t the right length for carrying on your shoulder. But even if the unpleasant feel and improper proportions were fixed, this bag would clearly never work. Look at it. The bag is way too perky. I can not walk around carrying that.

Hopefully this was just a one-off bag created to satisfy the niche market of overly-perky people. Surely the retro bags aren’t being replaced by this “Better” bag… then I remembered this is the same company that closed down my beloved Jamba Juice bar inside their store. They really could be that stupid. I turned to the internet to find out; convinced there would be hordes of outraged shoppers like myself. I’ve never felt more alone. Even people who are looking for someone to eat can find likeminded nuts on the internet, but no one was talking about the potential demise of the polyfabric Whole Foods bag. In fact, no one seemed to have talked much about them at all. I couldn’t even find out which ones were out there. People had talked about an “I am not a plastic bag” designer bag that had caused riots and was selling on eBay for hundreds of dollars, but really all that could be found about the retro bags was that the Reusable Bag Lady sells them on eBay.

So I am apparently the only person on the planet who cares about this, but I do have a blog so I decided to have some fun. My goal is to catalog all of the bags in the retro series… which means that I must first collect all of the bags in the series. A quick inventory indicated that I had Potatoes, Clementines, Lemons, Flour, and Grapes (which had even served as my extra luggage to bring back gifts from Russia!). I knew about Coffee, Honey, Apples and Oysters. Oysters was easy since it was still for sale at some Whole Foods (thus giving me hope that the series would continue).

Next was Apples (the cool Anniversary retro Apples, not the wannabe Apples on the “Better” bag) which turned out to be the most enjoyable of all. I mentioned my fun little obsession to Laura at a performance of Prairie Home Companion and she joined in whole-heartedly (see how angry she is about the impostor Apple "Better" bag!). We started noticing just how many of the different bags were represented there on the picnicker-packed lawn at Wolf Trap. Towards the end of the show we stood and sang the Star-spangled Banner… and as we did a Honey walked by! Resisting the unpatriotic urge to rush after it, we waited until the song finished… but couldn’t find Honey anymore. Then suddenly Laura was up and running after an Apples she had just spotted. A minute later she came back to grab the Oysters we had brought to carry our picnic. Apples was willing to trade for Oysters! Laura really came though and as much as I enjoyed getting Apples, I think the family we traded with were just as excited to be helping in the quest to collect them all. We talked to them for quite a bit afterwards; about the bag quest, about their recent trip to Italy, and we found out that they received news during the show about the newest addition to their extended family (and even managed to get Garrison Keiller to announce it during intermission).

Turns out we were right to continue singing the National Anthem as I was doubly-covered on Honey when the very next day my sister (who was now also in on the hunt) informed me that she had a Honey she could give me, and at virtually the same moment I received a text from Laura that she had managed to get Honey off of a customer at Starbucks. Only Coffee remained.

That same night at Jeff’s block party, Mattalie showed up carrying a Coffee that belonged to Jeff. Since Jeff had forgotten he’d left it with them in the first place, he eventually decided I should have it to complete the collection. Finally, Sara came through with a refresh for my Clementines which had sat out in the weather for the past two years as the official Bocce ball carrier. The collection was complete.

Thanks to all of you who played along with me in trying to document these great bags. That basically wraps up the standard collection which I have documented below but I’ve since learned about an insulated Pickles bag, a Banana-Split cooler, and the limited-edition Ohio-only Buckeyes bag! While I could “Buy it Now” for about $20 from the Reusable Bag Lady on eBay that seems like cheating so I will instead rely on my friends or try to hunt down the elusive Buckeye on my own when I attend a wedding in Ohio in mid-August. Update: And of course I chose wisely!

Sadly, my hopes that the “Better” bag was a mistake that Whole Foods would abandon in favor of continuing the superior retro series were shattered at Jazz in the Sculpture Garden last Friday. I saw the new I-used-to-be-a-plastic-bottle “Better” bag. Thankfully the colors are not as obnoxious, but I still feel much cooler carrying around the retro bags (what do you mean they all look like a purse on my shoulder anyway… and that I’ve never looked more foolish than when I brought one to carry my lunch on a climbing trip—before learning I’d need to have both hands free to hike to the base of the cliffs—hey, I looked stupid alright, but the stretchy straps do allow it to be worn as a backpack! Try that with the “Better” bag).

Why am I so vehemently against the “Better” bag? Well, mainly because it is fun. But also because I really did find the old bags more versatile and fashion-acceptable and don’t care much about the supposed improvements of the “Better” bag:

• It is washable: Frankly I’ve never felt inclined to wash the old bags, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they held up just fine too.

• It is made from recycled bottles (well 80%): Great, no wonder it feels like a plastic bottle—which is not a pleasant feeling for a bag. For the number of times I reuse these bags, it’s more important how well they work than how they are made.

But for all my mock hatred of the “Better” bags they are much better than disposable plastic bags (which Whole Foods has stopped using) and that really is the most important point. If you don’t know why check out the plastic soup that’s twice the size of the continental U.S. Thanks to my friend at Ocean Conservancy (do I have the updated name right Sarah :-) ) for pointing that out.

Below are the fruits (and other assorted foods) of our labor. Ideally I’d like to include the order and time period that each of the bags was released, so if any readers have that information please pass it along. All I know is that Potatoes was first, I think Clementines was second, Grapes was next to last and Oysters was last.

Viva la Whole Foods retro bags!

#1 Potatoes (Released 2005)

#2 Flour (Released 2005)

#3 Apples (Released 2005)
Bag provided by Laura

#4 Coffee (Released 2005)
Bag provided by Jeffrey

#5 Lemons (Released 2006)

#6 Pickles (Insulated Lunch Bag-smaller) (Released 2006)
Bag provided by Mimsi

#7 Clementines (Released 2006)
Bag provided by Sara

#8 Honey (Released 2007)
Bag provided by Laura and Mimsi

Still looking for #9, the Banana Split cooler and limited edition place mats!

#10 Grapes (Released 2007)

#11 Buckeye (Limited Edition for Columbus, Ohio only) (Released 2007)
Bag provided by Natalie!

#12 Trick or Treat Bag (smaller) (Released 2007)
Bag provided by Mimsi

#13 Oysters (Released 2007)

#14 Earth Banana (Released October 2008)
Bag provided by Jeffrey

Virile as a particularly attractive mountain lion

It’s generally a good thing when you leave a musical and find yourself singing the closing number as you exit the theatre. It can be a bit disconcerting though when that theatre is near Dupont Circle and the chorus of the song is “I like nuts! I like nuts in my mouth”. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but that’s not the attention I am looking for.

So what had me singing in the streets? I like Nuts! (the musical). The first of three Capital Fringe Festival shows I checked out this weekend. Nuts was my favorite and only a notch below last year’s favorite Cautionary Tales For Adults and the Many Adventures of Trixie Tickles. For me, Nuts was basically Trixie Tickles without the clever props and my audience crush on the lead actresses. Featuring a quest for Nutty Knowledge to secure a job in a nut factory, the cast included two angry squirrels, a pirate, a robot, and a vegan vampire—and the show was just as delightfully ridiculous as it sounds. From a staging perspective, it was one of the few shows I’ve seen that was in the round, so between laughs I was fascinated to see how they set up the blocking so the entire audience could enjoy the show (exit aisles in each corner are key). While I can’t say I gained any enlightenment (other than some useful trivia regarding legumes, drupes and seeds) I was laughing hysterically for most of the hour. That’s well worth the price of admission and probably a much healthier way to spend an hour than at Anger Therapy—which the squirrels want to start so they can share their hatred with the world.

Saturday night was Journeymen Threater’s Ball & Chain at The Universe, which as the house manager stated “is warm” and he was glad to see we had all received our “fans” (the programs) at the door (The Universe is the basement of a church without AC … and highs on Saturday topped 100°). The show was actually seven mini-shows which had been written about the theme of love and marriage, and while not all seven lived up to the caliber of the hilarious introduction by the house manager (technically I believe I recall he was Marketing Director Matt Dunphy) a couple of them more than made up for the rest. Michael Harris’ Love in the Time of GPS highlighted the humorous side of love. Illustrating what might happen if your GPS was in love with you and got jealous of the new girl—[Proceed straight for 100 yards, and drive over that pulsating red mass in the road… that is my heart]. Or if you threatened to toss the jealous GPS (which has been bitterly insulting you) right out the window and she needs to recant she might say—[You are virile as a particularly attractive mountain lion]. Admittedly I have a much higher standard for enjoying a dramatic piece than a comic one but as I failed to get drawn into some of the more dramatic mini-plays in Ball & Chain, I wondered if that standard was unrealistic… until the final piece, Emily Steel’s Berlin, restored my faith. This poignant piece juxtaposes a girl’s obsession with Berlin with the divisions—and hope for reunification—of her divorced parents. It was a simple but powerful connection. Playwrights outnumbered actors in Ball & Chain 7 to 2 and I fear that ratio may increase if they don’t get a new costume for Krista Cowan (there is a legitimate danger that The Universe will melt her in that sweater). While I still yearn for a piece to rival Journeymen’s 2006 Fringe entry Bartleby, those two sections made Ball & Chain worth enduring the heat (plus, unlike the actors, we were given fans!)

Omniumgatherum’s Through the Looking Glass rounded out the weekend. I had mixed opinions about this show. On the one hand it was an ensemble piece where the actors create the set pieces, which is the type of theatre that I particularly enjoy (and don’t get to see much of outside of Fringe). In addition I have fond memories of bounding around stage in a six-foot rabbit suit as the March Hare for our high school production of Alice. Unfortunately the show was rather short and not as whimsical as I had hoped it would be (most likely because my Alice impressions are colored by Disney more than Lewis Caroll), but mainly I found myself frustrated by the blocking which left me craning to see a scene in the center aisle (while the stage behind lay empty) or staring at the actors backs. Nonetheless, there were plenty of interesting moments to sooth my initial terror when I realized from the program that everyone in the production seemed associated with University of Maryland Theatre. While I am sure they have a great program, my only association with their theatre is the 2006 Fringe show, The Play About the Hurricane, that Darren and I use as our baseline of unpleasant theatre-going experiences. This was no Hurricane and had plenty of fun moments including:

• Representing Alice’s reflection by pushing a mask into an elastic silver cloth creating an effect reminiscent of the water creature from Abyss.

• Two Wonderland creatures do battle by contorting themselves around each other without touching until one loses their balance and falls over

• Having the cast create a door where two members represent the frame, one the door in the middle, and another sticking an arm though to serve as a doorknob which Alice turns

• An exchange along these lines between Alice and talking flowers in a garden:
• Alice: How come you talk and other flowers don’t?
• Flowers: Feel down there
• Alice (feeling the dirt): It’s hard
• Flowers: Yes. Most flower beds are soft… so the flowers are asleep

I’ve learned some more lessons about how to better enjoy the Fringe festival but I’ll save them for my conclusions after next weekend’s round of shows.

60-Finger Salute

Congratulations to 60-Finger Sanchez (Mary's volleyball team that I've been subbing for) for not only making it to the playoffs for the first time in their storied franchise history but for advancing all the way to the championship game (what happened after that is sort of irrelevant). The victorious season was not without consequences though as both Mary and Aaron now share matching fractured ankles :-( I believe Sanchez plans to revel in this season's success and regroup for another run at the championship in the fall. In the mean time we've got plenty of work to do to get Casual Sets into the playoffs in our Wednesday league on the Mall. While I won't claim any credit for being the reason that Sanchez got to the championship game this season, I also won't take any blame for the discovery yesterday that my former softball team (Raising Arizona) is now suddenly in first place in the Congressional League... the year after I stopped playing!

Enjoy a few of Mary and Sara's photos from the Pat Powers clinic and Sanchez's run at the title (note how I move so fast that the camera can't even keep up with me :-p) Ole!