like slammed through the hourglass, thus go the days of our lives

I watched the miniseries premiere of the modern Battlestar Galactica yesterday afternoon/evening, and I was pretty enthralled. It's a great story, but I kept laughing insanely every time they said "the lords of Kobol" or just [C|K]obol generally. It's pretty dark, though, but I love darker stories. The Starbuck being a woman doesn't bother me, but the Apollo/Starbuck love interest thing seemed a little overdone.

I think Gelitin will be the next big european arts collective everyone goes nuts over, their big rabbit installation is pretty astounding.

Recently, I finished Stephen R. Donaldson's Runes of the Earth. So far, this is a better story than the First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, but probably not as good as the second. It's not as good a story as the Second Chronicles, but I would recommend reading this if you liked the second chronicles. It's a pretty good read as far as the other books on the market go. (The first series can be fairly emotionally grueling to read, which may be harder to get through if you're not in a state of teen angst like I was when I read it, though. It's in some ways better than the LOTR, but violates a lot of fantasy genre conventions concerning flawed heroes and I can remember people recommending banning the first book at points in the distant past.)

However, one thing that I found curious about it is that Donaldson's ear for dialogue seems to be completely shot in this book, and to have some extent returned to the narrative and conversational styles of the first books while losing some of the poetry and clarity. So, I'm hoping that this is due to his long stint with modern detective novels (which had excellent dialogue) causing the fantasy dialogue to be slightly creaky, rather than an ongoing thing.

Donaldson's stories tend to revolve around despair vs. hope, and passivity vs. action, if you're just sitting down to read his books, I'd recommend the imaginative and well-written Mordant's Need books, which have covers like crap romance novels but are great, innovative highish fantasy. If you like martial arts and detective novels, you might prefer The Man who Fought Alone, also by the same author; it deals with many of the same themes in a contemporary context.

The Machine

Here are three good pictures of The Machine that I came across. I picked these at random because they show off the construction part that I was responsible for. They're all by Chris Pfeifle.



One of the things that I wanted to do with the 'tech lighting' on the arms was to create a big envelope of light in the dust without diminishing the theatrical lighting on the inside of the sculpture. I'm pretty sure that this picture above displays the effect I was trying to achieve actually working.



Originally, there were going to be eight arms up there, of which four were removed to reduce the wind load on the structure -- you can still see the stubs of the arms that weren't raised. You can see the stubs in this picture. The idea was that these shining arms would form a slowly rotating beacon high enough off the playa floor to draw people to the sculpture. With all eight, it probably would have been as bright as the man. Four arms were visible out on the gate road as a discrete light source. So, it achieved that goal that I set for it.

This picture also allows you to see the theatrical lighting better -- this is right before the performance, and much of the theatrical lighting (like the can lower right-center) has been pulled out further from the structure so it won't be crushed in the fall. That wasn't my responsibility, it was done by a lighting designer that was working with us; it's what is giving the blue/red coloring to the lower part of the structure.



This is another picture showing how the lights worked as a beacon for the structure -- high enough on the arms to be seen, and not conflict aesthetics-wise with the gearing, but visible for a long way off.

All in all, I think this was a minor but very effective part of the sculpture, and achieved the goals that I set out for it. Thanks to people who helped me with acquiring various parts needed for it, and to drjohn for helping me with earlier designs for the lighting (that may reappear on other projects in the future.)

There are some other views of it that I'm hoping people took pictures of, I might share those in coming days.

shakespeare quoting

When you see this in a friends' journal, quote Shakespeare.

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure, and, when I have required
Some heavenly music, which even now I do,
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book.
Tempest, V.1