To The Moon

Game Review: To The Moon
Ted Puffer review: 5 Stars

I really can't recommend this game strongly enough. It will make a fan out of anyone who doesn't think that a solidly constructed computer game can hold its own against any work of literature. This extends even to Roger Ebert.

Pool Chalk For Music Man

Here is the graphic I made to hand out at Music Man for 'favors' for the cast. The image is sized correctly to be printed out and used to replace the standard wrapping on a cube of pool chalk. I've just printed out a dozen and I think they look great!

Why Stephen King is Overrated (Part MXVII)

"You were in quest of me?"
"I was."
"Have you anything to inquire of me?"
"Much"
"Speak, then."
'This is no place."
"No place? Poor wretch, I am independent of time and place. Speak, if you have anything to ask or to learn?"
"I have many things to ask, but nothing to learn I hope, from you."
"You deceive yourself, but you will be undeceived when next we meet"
"And when will that be?" said Stanton grasping his arm; "name your hour and your place."
"The hour shall be midday," answered the stranger, with a horrid and unintelligible smile, "and the place shall be the bare walls of a madhouse, where you shall rise rattling in your chains, and restling from your straw, to greet me-- yet still you shall have the curse of sanity, and of memory. My voice shall ring in your ears till then, and the glance of these eyes shall be reflected from every object, animate or inanimate, till you behold them again."
"Is it under circumstances so horrible we are to meet again?" said Stanton, shrinking under the full-lighted blaze of those demon eyes.
"I never," said the stranger, in an emphatic tone- "I never desert my friends of misfortune. When they are plunged in the lowest abyss of human calamity, they are sure to be visited by me."

"Melmoth the Wanderer" by Charles Maturin, 1820.

Et tu, anvil? (Part II)

With impending dread, I see the last line of the scene coming up, and realize there is no way to gracefully do this. Cleaning up the scrap metal has to be done front and center, not quietly off to the side because that is impossible at that point. Trying to hide the fact that I'm picking up the pieces of a prop would just draw more attention to it. So I've got to charge ahead and resist every urge to flee the stage as quickly as possible.

The last line is delivered...

I immediately fall to my knees and start stuffing the scrap metal into the remains of the suitcase while muttering aloud about how much I have it in for the Music Man and how much I can't believe how easily the people of River City are taken in by him. I look up during the tirade and realize that the Music Man and his sidekick have fled the stage leaving me to my own devices. HA! I can't blame them in the slightest, I'd have been sorely tempted to do the same thing!

When the last piece is finally put away, I growl something and stalk off the stage into the comforting edges of the stage. Thankfully this is the last scene that I need the anvil for, and we don't have any more performances for the rest of the day. All in all, it was by far the most exciting opening night I've ever been involved in!

Et tu, anvil?

Ok, here is the full story of what happened.

I made the suitcase/anvil for my character Charlie Cowell for the play "The Music Man". My character is a traveling anvil salesman who has a suitcase with "ANVILS" painted on the side in big letters. The humor of the prop is that whenever he puts the suitcase down, there is a massive crashing noise like a pileup on the highway. Slapstick humor, essentially.

For this prop I took a travel case for an old slide projector. The case is made out of plywood or some similar substance, and I added a form around it to give it the shape of an anvil. After some spraypaint the prop looks fantastic. I then loaded it up with scrap metal to give it some weight, but mostly to give it the ability to make a massive clamor when the case is slammed down on the stage. After a few trial runs, I determined the effect to be perfect. It was light enough to carry easily, but makes a huge racket when thrown around.
There are three scenes where I drop the suitcase. It was in the third scene during opening night for the S.R.O. production of the play when the catastrophe happened.

Here is how the scene is written.

Music Man is in the center of the stage.
Charlie Cowell enters, slams down the suitcase and yells at the Music Man.
Charlie Cowell picks up the suitcase and storms off.

(end scene)


Simple, right? This is the smallest scene of the whole play and was the one I practiced the least because I only have two or three lines. There isn't any coreography really, just stand and deliver the line. With me so far?
Here's how it went wrong.

Music Man is in the center of the stage.
I enter, give him a glare and say my line:
"Crazy? I'll say I'm crazy! Missed my train, probably lost my job!"
I slam down the anvil. The anvil goes off like a bomb. The bottom of the case splits and an avalanche of scrap metal spills out at my feet. My mind is racing with the usual adrenaline of being on the stage, so I quickly improvise the line "And you broke my anvil!"

Then I go with my line "But I've got the goods on you... etc." At this point my mind is on autopilot because I'm in the routine of the script and the scene is going forward exactly the way it should. However, I'm madly trying to think of how this scene is going to end. Because the way the playwright wrote the story, Charlie storms off the stage taking his anvil with him. He DOESN'T leave a pile of scrap metal behind!! Also, in about two minutes the next scene is going to happen, and leaving a prop on the skirt of the stage would just... well... it's just not done. Somehow I've got to gather up all these pieces and get them off before the next act begins, and do it while everyone in the audience is watching, including the director.