Lifelong learning

Or, you know, for however long you want.

One of the things we forget when we’re using our computers and phones to tweet and facebook and skype and look at lolcats and YouTube videos is what an incredible educational resource we have now.

Just last week, somebody shared a link to 650 Free Online Courses, and I got a little ambitious.

Right now, I’m taking a course in Computer Science and Programming from MIT, Astronomy from Penn State, Shakespeare from UC Berkeley, Real Estate Finance from Columbia, Marketing from Texas A&M and Chinese from Cambridge—and I don’t have to leave my living room. I don’t even have to leave my pajamas.

Granted, I’m not going to get course credit or a diploma from any of this, but I’m going to learn some things. There’s another 600 plus courses to go when I finish these. And that’s not even counting the online resources of software tutorials, websites on how to crochet or knit or play guitar or lay brick. Plus, you can find DIY info on almost anything you need. (I once saved $150 bucks by repairing a DVD recorder myself with the help of an online forum, a $15 soldering iron, and $5 worth of capacitors. I was amazed the thing didn’t blow up! But it worked for another five years, and I’m going to try to repair it again as soon as I figure out which capacitors have blown this time.)

My point here is that there’s a miracle here. Maybe not quite the full sum of human knowledge, but an awful lot of it is available 24 hours a day. A little initiative, a little discipline, and you could design yourself the most amazing Independent Studies curriculum in all of history.

We are rapidly approaching the point, if we haven’t already passed it, when we have absolutely no excuses for not stretching our brains and our skills. Our worlds are bigger than they have ever been.

Have a ball!

What would he think?

About gun violence today?

Another Smith with timely relevance is Horace Smith, one of the founders of Smith & Wesson. S&W are firearms manufacturers, in case you’ve never watched television or read a book or otherwise seen any reference to any of their products. They are one of the usual issuers of firearms to law enforcement agencies.

Horace has been out of the gun business since 1883, and if he were still alive, he’d be really glad, I think.

The company that bears his name was severely punished by the NRA during the last round of discussions about gun control with a boycott by its members because S&W tried to do the responsible thing and voluntarily incorporate some safety, design and distribution standards.

I think Horace, whose estate established a fund for scholarships, would be appalled by what’s happening with guns just now. I hope so anyway.

A challenge

No names, no pack-drill

This is a challenge without consequences. No prizes, either. But it’s Silly Saturday, so…..

Take a look at this Monty Python sketch

The challenge, of course, is to develop your own silly walk. Start small. Try not to trip over your own feet or fall downstairs or pull a muscle or anything. I also suggest that, unless you live in a houseful of kids, you work on this project in the privacy of your own room—and, unless you are feeling very brave and devil-may-care—that you leave the results there.

But silliness and the exaggeration that comes with it carries in it somewhere the seed of creativity. And it’s probably only when we are willing to be silly in public that we, as artists, begin to succeed.

But it’s okay to start small. And only fair. After all, you don’t think I’m going to show you my silly walk, do you?

Is there anybody

who would say no to success?

If you were asked, do you want to be a success, would you—any of you—say “no?”

I realize that some of you may be holding in your head some idea that “success” means vulture capitalist-type wealth—which we’d probably all like—and vulture capitalist-type behavior—which, I assume, if you’ve stuck around this blog this long, you wouldn’t like. In that event, you may be shaking your head and thinking, “I don’t want to be a ‘sucess’.”

Of course, one of the more useful lessons I’ve learned is that we each get to define success for ourselves. It doesn’t have to be for you what it is for me. It doesn’t have to be, for any of us, the generally accepted idea of success. (I will grant you that going with the generally accepted definition makes it easier to know when you’ve achieved it, but that isn’t necessarily a good enough reason to go chasing after something that doesn’t make you happy.)

However you choose to define success, though, you might get a lot of use out of The Success Principles by Jack Canfield.

Now, let’s be clear. This book does tend to define success in the time-honored way as succeeding at acquiring things. And it is true, as some of the reviewers on Amazon claim, that much of this information is not new. It is also true that one of the keys to success for people like Mr. Canfield is to sell you a book that offers to give you the keys to success.

All I know is that the information is compiled here in a way that is clear and straightforward and compelling. It’s a big book—64 principles don’t come in a pamphlet—and you can choose to read it in snippets or all at once.

I keep it handy. Periodically, I dip into it again. I never do that without being reminded of some helpful idea.

Some of them are inconvenient truths. The idea that you are 100% responsible for your own life—that’s not an easy one. But it’s useful to consider it, just as it is useful to look at the concept of the Breakthrough Goal or the Thirty Things Lists.

So, I suggest you take a look at it. You can check it out of your local library before you buy it. Make sure it’s going to contribute to your success and not just its author’s. There’s a good chance you’ll want to have your own copy eventually.

Too much love.

Dietetically speaking.

So, it’s Valentine’s Day, and what I am thankful for is that it only comes once a year.

This is not out of some cynical dislike of Hallmark holidays or the grumpy bah-humbug-ness of the broken-hearted. It is because I would otherwise not survive the sugar shock of those Conversation Hearts.

You know the ones I mean, right?

The little pastel colored candies with the cryptic messages printed on them?

The thing is, I love those Conversation Hearts. Not the sour ones, or even the fruit-flavored ones. I like the originals, made by the New England Candy Company, in the traditional NECCO® Wafer flavors.

Yum!

It’s no use asking me to just not buy them. I have a certain amount of will-power, but, you know, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke. A person should be allowed some small vices.

Obviously, there may come a time when I will not be able to eat Conversation Hearts. Diabetes does run in my family, so I try to be a little bit careful. But, in the meantime, I do indulge around Valentine’s Day. As I said, though, I’m glad it’s just once a year. (I know you can order the hearts year-round, but I let their availability in stores assist me in keeping my candy habits under control.)

I understand that NECCO® ran a contest recently to determine some new sayings. Things like “Tweet Me” were in the running. As something of a traditionalist where treats are concerned, I don’t know that I approve of that. On the other hand, it’s a little piece of sugar.

Do I really care what’s printed on it?

As long as the sayings are not racist or sexist or otherwise offensive and as long as the candies’ flavors remain the same mild sweetness with which I grew up, I’m good.

But, hey, you know—go ahead and Tweet Me.

Is it the humidity?

Or is it the heat?

I’m not talking about that old thing that everybody says—especially in Florida—about how it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.

I’m talking about this inability I’ve encountered to find a comfortable temperature inside my house. Generally speaking, it is either too hot or too cold for much of the year.

The reason for this is the mild climate, I think. In the high noon of summer, the air conditioner runs. While there is some variation from room to room, the house generally maintains a comfortable coolness. In the day or two of actual winter, the temperature is a little less even throughout the house, but it’s not bad.

But when it’s 70 outside, it’s not hot enough for the A/C and it’s not cold enough for the heat. And what happens then is that it can be too cold inside to wear short sleeves and way too hot for long. In the space of minutes, I go from shivering to turning on fans.

I’d think I was having hot flashes, except that it truly only happens during these interim months. And it doesn’t happen when I travel to other, less humid, places.

So, I’m wondering if it’s the humidity in some way. I do know that the dampness in the air tends to make cold feel colder and heat feel hotter. I just don’t totally understand how it can make both happen within minutes.

Frankly, I’d like an explanation for that.

Well, who are we kidding? What I’d really like is a solution to it. I’m fairly certain, however, that there won’t be one—at least, not one I can afford, anyway—so I would make do with an explanation. Just so I can stop wondering if I’ve suddenly contracted malaria. In the meantime, I keep throw blankets handy for temperature control.

I found something!

Better De-leafing

Earlier this month, I was wondering if there was some special technique to leaf blowing.

Well!

I haven’t found a special technique for blowing of the leaves per se, but I have discovered a slightly better way to pick them up. Familiar to all leaf blowing peoples of the known world, probably, but new to me. (What can I say? I’m slow.)

Use a tarp.

See? Once I say it, it seems self-evident, doesn’t it?

Just use the leaf blower to move all the leaves onto the tarp. Then, pick the tarp up (carefully), and dump the leaves into the bag or bin or whatever.

Now, I will tell you that this method does have some limitations. If your tarp is not big enough, you will, basically, just blow the leaves over it. If you don’t do something to weigh down the edges…goodbye tarp. If your tarp is too big, dumping the leaves becomes an interesting exercise in wrestling with the tarp.

To be honest, I have thus far found it to be easier to proceed thusly: Use the leaf blower to create piles of leaves. Then, put the tarp beside the pile, and use the rake to move the leaves onto the tarp. Then, proceed to wrestle with the tarp as necessary.

The thing about this new (to me) discovery is that picking up the leaves has gone from being the hardest part of the whole business to being one of the easiest. Not counting those times when I just decide to mow the leaves, instead. Or those future times—probably never happening but occasionally dreamed of—in which all the trees have been removed by my most amazing tree guy.

One of the reasons this is not happening is that my most amazing tree guy is reasonable but not cheap.

Plus, I have neighbors with trees, and the wind is no respecter of property lines.

Plus, I like trees.

I just would prefer it if they would drop their leaves all at one time—or during the same season, at least—instead of from October to March. Six months of leaves is too many.

And don’t get me started about the sweet gum balls!

Producing without pain

Or money

Producing, in the theatre, is a risky business. Most shows never recoup their investment, so losing money is a very real possibility. We still have producers, though, because it is also possible to make a lot of money. They say (I’m not sure who “they” is), ‘You can’t make a living in the theatre, but you can make a killing.’ So, there’s that. A high stakes gamble.

But, mostly, we still have producers, because it’s a lot of fun. A challenge.

I like almost everything about producing except for the part about raising money. Which, unfortunately, is probably about 90% of the job. In the course of trying to get my play, Angels and Ministers of Grace Defend Us, off the ground, I got involved in an organization called Theatre Resources Unlimited. TRU is devoted to helping producers learn to be better producers. I found their seminars and readings and boot camps to be enormously helpful.

I wouldn’t mind being a producer.

Except for that part about the pesky money.

So, it is a miracle that I get to do a lot of producer-type things with Round Robin Shakespeare. Finding a space, making sure that all the needed materials are on hand (needed to acquire a few copies of The Collected Works, remember?), doing the PR. I don’t have to cast it or find a director or get a set built, and I’m not heading toward opening night and make-or-break reviews, but it’s a really good way to start small.

Playwrights are always their own first producers. Nobody will back your script like you will, nobody knows it better. We have to learn those skills, much as some of us might want to be left alone to write.

You can do that. Got a room? Got a pencil? A little piece of paper? You’re good. But if you want anybody to see it, there’s going to be at least a little marketing involved.

Learning all I can about that can only help me.

So, here I am, with this other kind of “production.” The library as “co-producer,” gets us a free space. Choosing Shakespeare gets us royalty-free material. Choosing a round-robin format spares us rehearsal costs in time and money. But the organizing and preparing and publicizing?

That’s producing.

And I get to do it. And I don’t have to ask anyone for money.

And that’s a miracle.

Trade and Mark

The Bearded Brothers

It’s flu season and an unusually bad one, they say. Therefore, today’s Smith is really two Smiths who are never thought of separately, so perhaps they are one, after all.

Confused? You won’t be after today’s episode of Smith Sunday!*

The Smith Bros. have one of the most famous trademarks and logos in history: the two bearded brothers facing each other from either end of the cough drop box. Remember?

Coincidentally, the story goes, the word “Trade” appeared under the picture of William Wallace Smith and the word “Mark” appeared under the picture of Andrew. (Can you tell their family emigrated from Scotland?) This gave rise to one of the only bits of whimsey one could imagine from such dour-looking figures. The brothers became known as Trade and Mark and were referred to by those names by customers and newspaper articles alike.

The company, started by their father in 1847, became known as the Smith Brothers in 1866. It still exists although it has passed out of the family’s hands and left Poughkeepsie, NY. (Not only Smiths, but New Yorkers!)

If you want to know more about the Smith Bros., you can go to their website (and you should, because the thought of the Smith Bros. even having a website makes me giggle). And/or you can listen to a Talking History recording of a NYS Dept of Commerce radio program on—you guessed it!—trademarks and, of course, the Smith Bros.

Either way, you should get a flu shot, if you haven’t already, and avoid a closer relationship with the products of Trade and Mark.

* Tag line borrowed from the brilliant 1977-1981 TV comedy, Soap. Never seen Soap? What are you waiting for?

Yesterday–different.

Today–just weird.

As a writer, I think one of my weaknesses is plot. I’m good with words. I’m good with characters. I just don’t always have any ideas for what those characters should actually do.

So, I try to pay attention to real life news stories—in hopes that, like many other writers, some obscure tale will provide a spark of inspiration.

I have to admit, so far, it hasn’t happened. Sigh. But, one place I’ve looked that seems to have potential (although now, of course, you will all rush out and use any possible plots lurking here) is the News of the Weird column.

Now, beware. Some of these items are…well…less than appetizing. It all depends on what’s happening in the world that can be classified as weird that week.

The column was originally—and still is, probably—a newspaper feature edited by Chuck Shepard. At some point, however, it began to appear online. Mr. Shepard himself does not vouch for the authenticity of all the stories, so I imagine some of them are true and some of them aren’t. All of them are weird, however, and many of them qualify for me linking to the column here on Silly Saturday. (Criminals especially seem to have a high “silly” quotient.”)

An interesting feature of the website is an interactive map. You can click on your state and get localized News of the Weird.

Have fun!

Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

Monthly Archives: February 2013