Run, Stanley, Run!

I am a big fan of the Official Flat Stanley Project. A lot of my friends have been asked to house Stanley on different legs of his world wide tour but I have never been asked and I'm not afraid to tell you that I get a little envious. Imagine my delight when Media Guy told me that The Notify had inadvertently participated in the project.

Tipped off by a second grade class in Ohio (Or possibly Indiana, I really should have checked that fact before I posted. Sorry class! My apologies!) that Stanley might be attending events in NYC, Media Guy has been scouring the internet with his special photographic enhancement software (as seen on CSI, CSI:Miami, CSI:NY, Navy:NCIS, Without a Trace & pretty much every crime busting show since Quincy) to find some evidence to send back to the classroom. It turns out that in last week's Marathon Wrap Up post he found what he was looking for.

I present you with the appropriately enhanced photo:



Congratulations Stanley! We knew you could do it.

Edited to add that the second graders in question are from Indiana. Go Hoosiers!

Hope & Prior planning with a side of minor disappointment

You can clear your calendar for the afternoon of November 19th, we've had to postpone the reading until January or February.

I was really excited about this and it was helping to keep my spirits lifted as we careen into the holiday season like a tipsy Ice Capades chorine. So, it's a bit like taking the carrot out from in front of the donkey.

On the other hand it's not canceled canceled it's just postponed.

Secondly, the one on one meetings with the actors have gotten me to thinking a bit and I might want to make some more slight revisions. Having more than 2 weeks in which to make said revisions is a good thing.

Thirdly, a cast member has to have oral surgery so, you know, I'm thinking having all three actors not be in chronic pain is going to be nothing but good for the overall value of the production.

So, disappointing, of course, but the right thing to do.

Watch this space for updates on our progress.

Marathon report

It would be very easy for this entry to become a whiny sort of a rant about how I need a new camera. No amount of whining will win you over, though, because if I had a better camera there'd be even more pictures and you'd be clicking over to something else so fast you might crash your computer. Let me sum up with, if I had a camera that actually took the picture when you pressed the button even these few pictures would be way better and I would have gotten shots of the guy dressed as Magnum PI, the breast cancer survivor, the guy dressed as Wonder Woman, the guy with the shirt that explained that he ran the DC marathon last week, a close up of the front running women....well, you get the picture. Er, idea.

I think these people are crazy to run a marathon. I think the whole idea of it is nuts and pretty gross and every year when I see them it makes me choke up. I defy you not to get a tear in your eye when you see a guy with "Team Daddy" on his shirt or the senior citizen with a photo tee on that proclaimed "Go Grampa Budy" or, you know, that woman in the Breast Cancer research tee with "SURVIVOR" emblazoned across the top.

Anyway, I love watching the marathon and here's what I saw this year.

I see this guy every year. He's turkish and his companion (with the beard) does a great job berating the crowd into making enough noise for his liking.



The frontrunning women. I have no idea who won either gender's race in the professional categories.



Frontrunning men.



Here's a new one on me. I believe he was running to promote "men's cancers". Yes, that's what he's dressed as. Yes, really.



There are always at least 2 rhinos. This year there were three. This was the first year that I saw why they run as rhinos. They're running for a web site that helps save rhinos from extinction.



There's a lot of action in the bleachers, too. This guy was waiting for a friend who was running in the race and his wife had taken the squirmy toddler home so he had to hold the sign, tilt the bottle and keep an eye out all at once. Multi-tasking Brooklyn style.



There were a lot of kilts this year. Not sure what that's about but I liked it.



These women, or at least members of this same group, run every year. I believe they're from Britain, I assume they are promoting breast cancer awareness. Also, one of these people is not a woman, but they are all wearing very cool spangly bras.

And now something about me, Me, ME!

I have written a play.

Like the Moon is a historical one act about the family of Playwright, Anton Chekhov. Chekhov was chronically ill for much of his life and was cared for by his sister, Masha. His illness also kept him from living in Moscow where his wife, Olga Knipper, was a member of the Moscow Art Theatre. In this play I explore the heightened emotion that grips the trio as Chekhov's disease begins to take him over.

Wow, that was so stilted and icky. I wrote this play it's about that famous Russian playwright dude and his wife and his sister. He had to live most of his life in Yalta and his wife worked in the theatre in Moscow so they spent most of their courting and married life a 2 day journey from each other. (Some might say the perfect way to spend one's courting and married life.) It also made for some serious tension since Chekhov's sister ran his house in Yalta and spent more time with him that Knipper.

Better.

This summer Like the Moon was given a reading in the theatre portion of the Marblehead Festival of Arts. It was a wonderful blessing and spurred me to revise the play and find some ways to have it performed again. Interest has been shown from a number of venues in the US and Canada so I've decided to up the ante a little with a New York reading.

The reading is free and we will be serving vodka and cookies. I want to have as many people as possible hear the play and give me feedback for some final revisions before I begin work on a full production and publication.

Saturday, November 19, 2005
3:00pm
New Perspectives Theatre
750 Eighth Avenue
Suite 601

We'll be in the studio.

Who is this we of which I speak?

I have been blessed again with my 3 first choice actors for this reading.

In alphabetical order:

Paul Daily as Anton Chekhov
Julie Flanders as Olga Knipper
Libby Hughes as Maria Chekhov

It's at this point that I feel I should have asked them all for bios. Oops. (Guys, if you have bios, please send them and I'll update the post.) Suffice to say they are actors of high standing in the community, coming from diverse backgrounds and training and whether you like the play or not you will be compelled by the performers.

For more information or to RSVP e-mail me at kbrob (at) juno (dot) com. Now, you don't have to RSVP but it'd sure make me feel better to know that people were really coming.

Something else scary

I know that Halloween is over but here in New York City that's only the beginning of the scary things. I mean, really, have you ever seen the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular?

This coming Sunday, November 6, 2005 an enormous number of truly insane people will run 26.2 miles (in a row!) as fast as they can.

I do honestly think they're insane and yet I love to watch them do it. It's like that movie, what is it, Cosi? The one where a group of asylum inmates put on Cosi Fan Tutte. You're gonna go, you have to go, but you aren't exactly going for the music.

So, I don't really watch to see the winners or anything, although I do find that interesting. I watch to see all the runners and for that you have to watch it live. If you ever have an opportunity to watch this marathon in particular live you should jump at it. I'm told, by people who follow this much more closely than I, that the act of spectating the event, and therefore the act of running in it, are different here than anywhere else. I'm guessing you don't get a whole lot of cheering as you run through the wilds of Alaska. I watched the women's marathon in the last summer Olympics (not live, obviously) and by my crude estimation there weren't as many spectators on the whole route as there are in a mile of the NYC marathon.

Despite living in NYC if I hadn't lived close to the runners' route I bet I still wouldn't have seen it. However, one time, not realizing it was marathon weekend, I walked from one side of 4th Avenue in Brooklyn to the other and found that I couldn't get back to my home side for over an hour due to the throngs of people chugging along. It's like a tide! It's unbelievable.

A short time later, and totally coincidentally, I moved to an apartment that overlooked the route at about mile 8. I'd heard it was amazing to see but I had no idea. The first year I was home during the marathon I stayed in my jammies and planned to sit in my window and watch. The crowd below was so compelling I had to go down to the street level. My normally taciturn neighbors were down there bouncing up and down and yelling and screaming and clapping encouragement. The guy two doors up has a party every year that includes a DJ and a sound system. The DJ plays inspiring music and gives commentary on the runners he knows as they pass. He also will lead the crowd when he thinks their audible support is waning, pumping everyone up. Did I mention that the goes on for like 2 hours?

A word about the runners. Diverse.

OK, but seriously, you have people of all ages, all races and I'm sure all religions. Well, OK maybe not all but 9 out of 10 religions surveyed, I'm certain. There are at least 2 guys every year dressed in full on Rhino costumes, and while they aren't in the front of the pack they're not in the back either. 26.2 miles in a huge Rhino head and carapace. 'Cause 26.2 miles in the skin the good lord gave you isn't enough.

However, you're not here for a play by play of every weird, cool costume and outfit I've seen (women in fuzzy bras, 90 year old man in a turban), you're here to hear what to do.

Come watch the marathon live.

I, personally, recommend calling me and coming to my neighborhood and watching with me for maximum enjoyment. (Technically for maximum enjoyment you should watch with Marky B who, it turns out, knows how to yell encouragement in 13 different languages and rotates them based on the flags being displayed by the runners.) I promise we don't have to stand on the corner by the high school band that plays the theme from Rocky on endless loop this year. But, if you don't want to go that far then I've got some tools for you to find your own spectating spot.

Check out the ING New York City Marathon site. There's a timing chart and a map of the route so you can calculate what time the runners will be hitting your preferred viewing location. Be prepared to cheer a lot and take some pictures and maybe, just maybe, if you're a big old cotton commercial wussy like me, to shed a tear at the triumph of human crazy over the part of one's brain that knows that after a few miles the lactic acid starts actually eating your own body for fuel.

SAVE THE DATE! I mean it, too!

November 19, 2005
3pm
Location to be announced

3 marvelous actors will be reading my new play, Like the Moon. The reading is free and we plan to ply you with vodka and cookies.

Please join me and give feedback and generally enjoy yourself.

Cast:
Paul Daily as Anton Chekhov
Julie Flanders as Olga Knipper
Libby Hughes as Maria Chekhov

More info as it becomes available.