Ah, youth!

The sun, the sun!

A sunny day, which fuels a great mood all day. Lots of necessary chores accomplished.

Retirement at its best on a day like today. No deadlines! No schedule! Little responsibility!

The freezer full of food, lots of salmon, chicken, organic beef, sausages.

Working on an epic poem ha ha! Outrageous. But it's going decently. Hopefully it will take me whatever time I have left. Say the end, and pass. Perfect timing.

Should we get another dog? Harriet wants one. I am less enthusiastic. I'd end up being in charge. I don't need any more responsibility than what I already have.

Damn, I miss Sketch

Memorial Day

"The dead have a lesson to teach us. Memorial Day is for listening — and learning." David Von Drehle

R.I.P. Murray Gell-Mann

Murray Gell-Mann, a Nobel Prize-winning American physicist who devised the “eightfold way” to bring order to the world of elementary particles and conceived the idea of “quarks” to explain the structure of such particles, died May 24 at his home in Santa Fe, N.M. He was 89.

Read obit. 

Damn, I miss Sketch

I'll bake bread for distraction.

The Heirs, a silent comedy

A gold watch for years of service

What would a writer's self-portrait look like? I decided it might look like this. Something tangible, material, like a watch.

Damn, I miss Sketch

Opera browser

Love it! I suppose Chrome had too much juice for my modest computer. I did a search for simple lowkey browser for older computers, found Opera, and it has been working like a charm. Huge improvement. I spent yesterday morning fiddling with Chrome settings but fixing nothing. I knew it wasn't a network issue because my tablets were working online without issues.

Finally occurred to me, hmm, must be the browser itself. 

Mariners

Unreal. After a two week start that broke records, a big crash ... and now in LAST PLACE. Incredible to be a fan.

Damn, I miss Sketch

New browser

Been having trouble with Chrome browser. Giving Opera a try. So far, I like it! Very fast. Basic. 

Designing a Hypertheater

REFLECTIONS ON THE DESIGN OF A HYPERTHEATER

by Charles Deemer

I’ve written seven produced hyperdramas, and each has been performed in a real space, on what would be called “a location” instead of “a set.” But what if a theater company wanted to specialize in the productions of hyperdrama? Would they have to find and rent an appropriate location for each new work? What would the design of their performance space look like if they produced all their hyperdramas “in house”?

  I’ve given these questions considerable thought over the years without much satisfaction. This morning, however, I awoke with the design of a “hypertheater” in my head. If I were younger, I would jump on this because I think it will work. Instead I put down my thoughts for the possible inspiration of younger theater artists.

Read it. 

Calendar

The less on my calendar, the better. After a doc appt today, May is clear. I like it.

Good visit with my cousin.

The bottom line

From CNN ...

Climate change
 

Just how bad is our greenhouse gas problem right now? There's more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today than at any point since the evolution of humans. That shocking bit of news comes from data from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. It says the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is over 415 parts per million. That's higher than at any point in the last 800,000 years, since before the evolution of homo sapiens. Elevated carbon dioxide levels prevent the Earth's natural cooling cycle from working, trapping heat near the surface and causing global temperatures to rise. 

Nebbiolo Wine Bar

Man, this bistro in Oregon City is first rate! Salmon tacos! Calamari! Clams! Highly recommended. Very European feel.

Check it out.

History drama

WRITING THE HISTORY PLAY
Why dramatists lie in the pursuit of truth 

by Charles Deemer

(originally published in Oregon Magazine) 

The recent Hollywood blockbuster "Pearl Harbor," for
all the disappointment of its plodding love and buddy
stories, generated the usual amount of controversy
that arises whenever Hollywood brings history to the
screen. In Letters to the Editor and Op-Ed pieces
across the country, historians were quick to point out
the inaccuracies and historical short-comings of the
film. Typically, many of these comments reflected a
basic misunderstanding of the task of the historical
dramatist, whether writing for film or stage.

Read it. 

August in May

We're having great weather, 80s and sunny, and my So Cal roots feed my delight of Calif weather. How in hell did I end up in soggy Oregon for so long?

In good company

Found online:

讀者的閱讀有著某種自由權。在超文本作品中，作者在情節發展的每一個轉折點都為讀者提供了多種閱讀選擇，讀者的選擇不同，事件的發展過程就不同，結局也因而五花八門，或者說根本就沒有結局，你什么時候讀累了，什么時候停止閱讀。甚至可以說，在對同一篇作品的閱讀過程中，因讀者的閱讀選擇不同，使一篇作品衍生為多篇作品。嚴格說來，超文本小說是不能用“一部”或“一篇”之類的詞來描述的，因為它事實上是許多文本的排列組合。這是一部實在意義上的接受美學。在這樣的情勢下，讀者閱讀作品，成為作品得以展開的必要條件。作者在此成了網絡互動的導演者。閱讀這樣的文本的經驗更像是查地圖，或看油畫、看照片，而不像是讀書。讀者可以沿著作者已經給準備好的許多路徑向任何方向移動，在一些超文本文學中，讀者甚至可以沿著自己所設計的路徑去閱讀。全部這些，正如一幅油畫，使作品就像在建構中。在前電腦時代，就已經有人進行過超文本實驗。法國新小說派的羅伯一戈里耶就曾創作過活頁小說——你讀完一遍就像洗牌一樣把小說的各頁打亂，再讀又是一部小說。這樣讀下去，在這些頁碼的排列組合范圍內，隨你讀多少遍都不重樣。拉美作家博爾赫斯的《歧路花園》也體現超文本精神。但畢竟只有在電腦中，這種隨機性閱讀才真正成為可能。最早的超文本小說是美國作家米歇爾·喬伊斯（Michael Jovce ）創作于1990年的《發生在下午的故事》（“afternoon，a story ”）（注：作品的網址為：http://www.eastgate.com ）和斯都爾特·墨斯羅普（Stuart Moulthrop）創作于1991年的《勝利花園》（“victory garden”）（注：作品的網址為：http://www.eastgate. com/catalog/VictoryGarden.html），后來波特（Bolter）、喬治·蘭多（George Landow）、羅伯特·庫佛（Robert Coover）和瑞日克（Rizk ）等人也紛紛加盟。 超文本小說在超文本中首開先河， 繼之， 查爾斯·狄墨（CharlesDeemer）也開始了超文本戲劇（hypertext drama，hyperdrama ）的實驗。獨幕劇《芭拉的遺曲》（The Last Song Of Violeta Parra）與傳統戲劇一樣，既能讀又能演。“整出戲實際演出長度為30分鐘，地點安排在一棟二層樓房里，八個人物分批在各式房間進行對話，有時因劇情需要而上樓或下樓，并順勢參與另一房間進行中的對話。依時間次序，最后一幕在第二客廳匯集了所有角色，直接向觀眾交代了一些后續發展。還原成劇本的文字閱讀，這些上下樓或轉換房間的動作即是超連結的設定處”（注：引自李順興：《誰來共譜〈巴拉的遺曲〉》，中國時報開卷版1998年4月9日。）。如今，臺灣的李順興等人也在搞超文本實驗。他的《圍城》及《文字獄》等作品可以看作是中文超文本小說的典范（注：見《歧路花園》，hppt://benz. nchu. edu.tw/～garden）。早期的超文本小說是在每一段情節之后，排列出幾種選擇讓讀者挑，后來則發展為在小說中設置多處鏈接，你愿意鏈接就進入新的天地，不愿鏈接就繼續往下讀，這些鏈接處就象論文注釋的標志一般，不過，這種標志既可以是文字本身，也可以是圖畫，還可以是某些特殊符號。如今，超文本與多媒體相結合，使網絡小說的敘述日新月異，出現的新可能令人目不暇接。

Hyperdrama as entertainment

WATCH OUT, MAMA, HYPERDRAMA'S GONNA 
MESS WITH YOUR PITTOCK MANSION! 

by Charles Deemer

(originally published in Oregon Magazine) 

The moment I remember most, when theater became so real that an unsuspecting family called the cops to shut down the play, happened on a summer evening in 1986. 

Read it.