Broken Glasses and Boring Musicals June 2. 2005


My glasses have broken (again). One of the little pads that secure the apparatus to my nose broke off. I had fixed it two weeks ago with some super glue but the glue broke. So now I'm wearing my driving glasses that have glare reduction lenses but are not nearly as trendy as my other glasses. I need to head to Walgreens and get some super glue and just cake it on. I had tried tape yesterday and that was a disaster. Oh well, "human kindness is overflowing and I think it's going to rain today."

On another sour note, I'm doing the musical again this summer. We did a read through of the script Tuesday and the show itself is horrible. What makes the show fun is all the sex and earthy-ness but because the production is being put on in Rensselaer, IN we are cutting out a quarter of the show (literally; songs, pages of dialog, etc.). I love my part though. I play a straight laced, stuck-up, white, old, and uber conservative Washington official. Now imagine that type of person... got it... I have one of the funnier scenes in the show. If this show is going to be any fun at all for people to watch the entire cast is going to need lots and lots of energy. I pray we have it. Oh, by the way, we are doing "Kiss Me Kate".

Power is not a binary force relationship. Power is rather a web of relations that has no central authority that either has or doesn't have power. Rather power is something outside the control of all relations and in fact those who feel they have power over others are really under the control of the power of the web of relations for a society (wow that's a lot of prepositions). The web of society that holds people up in that society actually traps them as well. Even those who oppose the power are actually under it's control because all that those who can oppose oppose are the things that the power defines and thus those who oppose the power really reinforce its force and structures. I wonder if anyone is able to escape from the web. One might ask where did the web come from. That is a good question for I believe it has evolved just as culture and society evolve and thus wields power outside of society while completely supporting it by hiding its existence through abstractions. (just some thoughts I'm thinking about now-a-days)
| Top Exits (0)

Vote for articles fresher than 14 days!
Current karma: 0, 0 vote(s) 758 hits
David  Thursday, June 2. 2005 @ 09:43
3 Comments Link to entry

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

They seriously had to censor Kiss Me Kate? Didn't that debut in like the 1940's?

Secondly, on the issue of power, I have been reading and considering the writings of postmodernist Michel Foucault about power, language and dialogues of power that attempt to shift the locus through cultural and social means, mostly centered on language. Also, the writings of the structuralists and deconstructionalists like Derrida are also helpful. As you may imagine, historians are interested deeply in the nature of power in societies and cultures; these are some of the works that I have encountered and found useful.
#1 Will Shannon (Homepage) on 2005-06-06 21:15 (Reply)
Seriously! We can't say "dammit", "helleva", talk about "sex" that is too obvious and in a song one of the words is "bastard." Well the soloist is going to sing "Bas--" then have a person put their hand over the soloist's mouth and the chorus is going to *gasp*. I just hope we can build the energy we need to pull the show off and not make it a compete bore! I mean... I fall asleep in one of the scenes (liturally.. in the show).

As far as Foucault and Derrida... You have convinced me to find a Derrida work to read. Jesus has been throwing that name at me all over the place. Friends from seminary, waking up early in a friends house and the only dvd avaliable to watch (no cable or tv signal) was a documentory on Derrida, a new book I purchased, Poststructuralism and the New Testament: Derrida and Foucault at the Foot of the Cross, you! The list goes on... would you recomend any of his works over another?
#1.1 David (Homepage) on 2005-06-08 10:02 (Reply)
Sorry. Didn't realize that you are reading two books by Foucault. Duh.

His books Discipline and Punish, Power/Knowledge, and the Archaeology of Human Sciences are also fascinating.

As is anything by Jean Baudrillard. What an entertaining, odd Frenchman.
#2 Will Shannon on 2005-06-06 21:18 (Reply)

Add Comment

Enclosing [B][/B] marks text as bold ([B]some words[/B]), underscore are made via [U]some words[/U], italics are made via [I]some words[/I], hyper-links are made via [LINK]URI[/LINK].

Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA