09 December 2012
A Chat by the Fire
09/12/12 14:20
In my business, IT, I work alone. OK you might THINK you tend to work alone, but in reality most people are part of a management team, a repair team, an accounting team, a nursing team. You have other people you work with, bounce ideas off and that you interact with on a continual basis. It may seem like you are dealing with the issue of the day by yourself but decisions, options, and choices are made with the help of others, even if it’s just saying “Hand me that screwdriver...thanks”. IT on the other hand is a very solitary business. Indeed I think I’ve said before that if the computer tech does their job right, nobody knows we did anything. We slink around behind the walls, doing things nobody else understands, to things that nobody else knows how to work, producing the world all are familiar with.
IT is the Bunraku puppetry of the modern world.
For me, this was highlighted on Tuesday when we lost power at work. There was a big windstorm that took down trees, and as a result power lines, all over the island. I noticed that everyone else was milling around talking about various things, trying to complete a few small jobs, discussing what they were going to do if they got to go home early, and such. I on the other hand was running around keeping critical systems running on battery backup, restoring phone service, and when the batteries ran low scrounging a generator to keep things going. At one point the shipping department needed to make a copy of some documents for a FedEx shipment that was going out at noon. The boss just wanted to plug the copier in but I said no. We had to do this right or the servers would crash, it was a balancing act. We could plug in some things with some things but not with other things. In the end I put a secondary system back on battery power and temporarily brought down the phones while they made copies. Finally around 11:30 BCHydro told us that rather than electrical being fixed by noon, power was not going to be restored until at LEAST 8:00 that night. At that point most everyone else headed for the parking lot, while I found a way to log into the computer systems and do a controlled shut down. Then I downed the phone systems, safetied everything, put away the generator and locked the doors. I was one of the last to leave the building.
Wizards travel a solitary path.
This is why this week has been so much fun. I believe a while back I mentioned auditioning for a play. I got the part of Mike in Memory of Water and we’ve now completed the first round of rehearsals. After a break for the holidays we will start working again in January for a three week run in April and May. The thing about acting is that nothing is solitary. Sure stand-up is by definition something you do by yourself and there are a few people that do monologues on stage but acting in a play is a profoundly social activity. The play is an edifice built by the team, not any one actor. Even my character Mike is not alone. I can’t decide to have him say a certain thing, change an inflection in a certain way, or walk somewhere else on stage, without it impacting the other characters and the other actors performances. We have to operate on both our character’s level and subliminally follow what’s happening with the other actors at the same time. I find this to be an exhilarating intellectual exercise.
This was made especially clear this week. We started out doing what’s called table reading. We literally sat at a table and read our parts while making notes in the script. This was informative. However in the last couple of sessions we started moving around. We used folding chairs and card tables to mock up a set and started running through the play in real space. The difference was amazing. Sure we had read the lines but once we started physically going through the play, the plot of the story came into focus far better. We found that this character had to be in this spot at that time. That this particular prop couldn't be in the location we'd all imaged it would be. We discovered things in the play that were very funny and scenes that were shatteringly dramatic. None of this was apparent just from the words.
One example. I make my entrance through a window. It’s snowing outside and I arrive half frozen. While I’m trying to thaw out one of the characters, Catherine, starts chatting about how much taller I look like on TV. (Apparently I have a daytime doctor reality show or something like that.) We’d read the scene several times at the table and it was fine. It however wasn’t until we’d started working out on the floor that both of us realized that I’m nearly a foot taller than the actor playing Catherine. Suddenly her babbling on about how much shorter I look in person becomes incredibly silly. This is the kind of discovery we’ve been making every night. I am so looking forward to resuming rehearsals in January. Even after a full day at work, the three hours of rehearsal fly by and I leave with more energy than when I arrived. I have absolutely fallen in love with doing this.
Which is an amazing admission for someone who always thought of himself as a fairly shy person.
Word for the Week: Hen Do. This is what a Batchlorette Party is called in England and Ireland. It could be worse though. In Australia and New Zealand, Hen’s Party is the common term. Worse yet in South Africa the event is called a Kitchen Tea even though generally it’s not held in the kitchen and almost certainly tea is not the beverage of choice. Fortunately Canada uses the American vernacular for this sort of event.
Doug & Marsha
Pix: Surfer Birds
IT is the Bunraku puppetry of the modern world.
For me, this was highlighted on Tuesday when we lost power at work. There was a big windstorm that took down trees, and as a result power lines, all over the island. I noticed that everyone else was milling around talking about various things, trying to complete a few small jobs, discussing what they were going to do if they got to go home early, and such. I on the other hand was running around keeping critical systems running on battery backup, restoring phone service, and when the batteries ran low scrounging a generator to keep things going. At one point the shipping department needed to make a copy of some documents for a FedEx shipment that was going out at noon. The boss just wanted to plug the copier in but I said no. We had to do this right or the servers would crash, it was a balancing act. We could plug in some things with some things but not with other things. In the end I put a secondary system back on battery power and temporarily brought down the phones while they made copies. Finally around 11:30 BCHydro told us that rather than electrical being fixed by noon, power was not going to be restored until at LEAST 8:00 that night. At that point most everyone else headed for the parking lot, while I found a way to log into the computer systems and do a controlled shut down. Then I downed the phone systems, safetied everything, put away the generator and locked the doors. I was one of the last to leave the building.
Wizards travel a solitary path.
This is why this week has been so much fun. I believe a while back I mentioned auditioning for a play. I got the part of Mike in Memory of Water and we’ve now completed the first round of rehearsals. After a break for the holidays we will start working again in January for a three week run in April and May. The thing about acting is that nothing is solitary. Sure stand-up is by definition something you do by yourself and there are a few people that do monologues on stage but acting in a play is a profoundly social activity. The play is an edifice built by the team, not any one actor. Even my character Mike is not alone. I can’t decide to have him say a certain thing, change an inflection in a certain way, or walk somewhere else on stage, without it impacting the other characters and the other actors performances. We have to operate on both our character’s level and subliminally follow what’s happening with the other actors at the same time. I find this to be an exhilarating intellectual exercise.
This was made especially clear this week. We started out doing what’s called table reading. We literally sat at a table and read our parts while making notes in the script. This was informative. However in the last couple of sessions we started moving around. We used folding chairs and card tables to mock up a set and started running through the play in real space. The difference was amazing. Sure we had read the lines but once we started physically going through the play, the plot of the story came into focus far better. We found that this character had to be in this spot at that time. That this particular prop couldn't be in the location we'd all imaged it would be. We discovered things in the play that were very funny and scenes that were shatteringly dramatic. None of this was apparent just from the words.
One example. I make my entrance through a window. It’s snowing outside and I arrive half frozen. While I’m trying to thaw out one of the characters, Catherine, starts chatting about how much taller I look like on TV. (Apparently I have a daytime doctor reality show or something like that.) We’d read the scene several times at the table and it was fine. It however wasn’t until we’d started working out on the floor that both of us realized that I’m nearly a foot taller than the actor playing Catherine. Suddenly her babbling on about how much shorter I look in person becomes incredibly silly. This is the kind of discovery we’ve been making every night. I am so looking forward to resuming rehearsals in January. Even after a full day at work, the three hours of rehearsal fly by and I leave with more energy than when I arrived. I have absolutely fallen in love with doing this.
Which is an amazing admission for someone who always thought of himself as a fairly shy person.
Word for the Week: Hen Do. This is what a Batchlorette Party is called in England and Ireland. It could be worse though. In Australia and New Zealand, Hen’s Party is the common term. Worse yet in South Africa the event is called a Kitchen Tea even though generally it’s not held in the kitchen and almost certainly tea is not the beverage of choice. Fortunately Canada uses the American vernacular for this sort of event.
Doug & Marsha
Pix: Surfer Birds