A Different Kind of Bug

When I was pursuing my degree in Computer Science, I took an English class that detailed the history of theater. My intent being I wanted any easy class; something I could show up for and pass with little or no effort. Unfortunately, no one told the instructor it was supposed to be an easy A. The professor was very serious in regards to the theater; most likely because he was a member of Actors’ Equity and he played a priest in a funeral scene at the end of one of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies.

I had no idea there was so much history regarding the theater. I had a passing knowledge of Shakespeare – I knew I’d pass up the opportunity to read anything written by the Bard – but that was it. We went over everything from the origins of Greek theater through present times. We discussed various types of theater, such as the black box, proscenium theater and theater in the round.

I learned there is a fourth wall—the invisible wall between actor and audience.

Holy smokes! Who knew?

In hindsight, I suspect this class laid the groundwork for my current love of the theater.

The Drama Studio, in Springfield, Massachusetts, is a conservatory style training ground, aimed at young people ages nine through eighteen. They offer classroom instruction and performance opportunities. It’s a great place for young people to express themselves in a judgment-free zone. Many of the kids go on to major in the arts in college.

The Drama Studio also has a smattering of adult offerings. It was here that I wrote my first play, The Devil You Know, upon which I based a short story of the same name. I also had the good fortune to see the play put up for a weekend during the Studio’s Winter Shorts in January, 2010.

The Drama Studio creates an intimate setting, seating less than 100 patrons. The audience is literally on top of the actors.

On two separate occasions, I had the pleasure of performing in the Drama Studio Winter Short productions. I had not felt such a rush since I played bit parts in high school. There’s something about performing live, even in front of a few people, that gets the blood flowing.

This past weekend, I partook of an adult acting intensive at The Drama Studio. It had been a few months since I had been to the studio and I didn’t realize how much I missed it. I admit, there was some trepidation about spending a chunk of my free time in acting classes, but once I got there, I remembered why I love the theater.

Make no mistake, I will never be confused with De Niro, but it doesn’t matter … I still had fun. I know, it’s not Broadway but it’s the next best thing for me.

Anyone else have the urge to walk the boards?

Fact or Fiction - It's Still Interesting

When I was a kid, there were all manner of stories about Nazi war criminals. In some tales, they evaded capture by living in obscurity in a South American country or incognito in some out-of-the-way place, plotting to rejuvenate the Nazi dream or just rotten people leading lives of ill repute.

For example, in Marathon Man, Sir Laurence Olivier plays a former Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel) dentist who tortures Dustin Hoffman’s character by yanking his teeth and tickling the exposed nerves. The Boys from Brazil tells a fictionalized account of Dr. Josef Mengele’s attempts to resurrect Adolf Hitler and establish a Fourth Reich.

In doing some research for a short story, I came across a bit of conspiracy theory from World War II regarding Nazi Germany and Antarctica. There was a belief that the Nazis had established a secret base in Antarctica and they were conducting research to develop advanced propulsions, well after WWII ended.

Scribd reports that at the end of WWII, the last two Nazi u-boats to surrender didn’t arrive in Argentina until August, 1945—the Germans had surrendered in May, 1945. Conspiracy theorists contended the u-boats had made a stop at the secret Antarctica base to offload treasure. The belief that a base existed was further bolstered when “in the southern summer of 1946-1947, the US Navy appeared to ‘invade’ Antarctica using a large force.”

I’m a fan of conspiracy theories. It’s fun to look at things from a “what if” perspective and my curiosity has been peaked regarding an Antarctic Nazi presence. I’m going to investigate these rumors some more and report back in a future blog.

What do you think? Is there a Nazi treasure lying beneath the Antarctic surface?

Automatons are Old Hat

Many of Martin Scorsese’s movies, such as Goodfellas and Taxi Driver would be deemed inappropriate for a younger audience. In an Oscar interview Scorsese said he wanted to make a movie his daughter, Francesca Scorsese, could watch. Hence, he directed the movie Hugo, based on the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. The movie garnered five Academy Awards in 2012.

Hugo, set in the early 1930s, is about a twelve-year-old boy, the son of a deceased watchmaker, who lives in the walls of a train station in Paris, France, maintaining the station’s clocks and struggling to repair an automaton rescued from a museum attic by Hugo’s father. WHEW!

I liked the movie. The acting and dialog was good. The cinematography was brilliant; colorful and fantasy-like. But the star of the movie for me was the automaton; a machine that looked like the bust of a young boy that drew pictures. It fascinated me because the automaton was driven by a series of cams; obviously, being the 1930s, there were no electronics available to drive the unit.

I don’t know where I’ve been but I had never heard of automatons. They are machines that perform a specific task based on a set of coded instructions and they’ve been around for centuries. The closest I may have come to an automaton might be the parks of Disney World in attractions such as The Hall of Presidents, Pirates of the Caribbean® and Country Bear Jamboree.

Automatons, or the plans for automatons, have been around for centuries. According to the World’s Strangest website Leonardo da Vinci created plans for an automaton in the 1400s but there wasn’t any proof that he had ever built the machine. At some point after 1950, someone built an automaton based on da Vinci's design and it produced a number of a humanoid movements.

The Franklin Institute reports that the automaton in Hugo was based on Henri Maillardet's automaton. The real Maillardet automaton was severely damaged and required a massive effort to rebuild it. In the movie, Hugo doesn’t know the origins of the automaton until he rebuilds the machine and it signs the name of its creator at the end of its drawing program. In reality, the origin of the Maillardet automaton was doubted until it wrote, “written by the automaton of Maillardet.”

I just think it’s cool. In 2012 we make robots that perform a variety of tasks and it seems commonplace. Yet, inventors have been creating these things for hundreds of years. Maillardet was born in 1745 and according to the Online Enyclopedia, Maillardet’s automaton, built in 1805, was believed to have “. . . the largest cam-based memory of any automaton of the era.”

More than 200 years ago an inventor created a device capable of producing these amazing drawings. I’m continually blown away by the creative genius of humans. The mind, the thought process, required to develop this piece of technology boggles my mind.

What do you think; is my awe misplaced?

Eat Your Vegetables?

Meals, Ready-to-Eat (MREs) or C-Rations or C-Rats, as most of us called them, were first introduced during WWII to provide our troops with a nutritional meal that was fairly easy to lug in a pack.  I got my first and only taste of C-Rats when I was in the Marine Corps.  As I remember, a meal was comprised of a can of meat, some kind of vegetable, bread of some type, crackers and a dessert.  I seem to recall some kits had a little can of sterno that you could use to heat the meal if you so desired.  I do know that I was one of the few that actually liked C-Rats; but then, no one has ever accused me of having taste.

Plus, it had this cool little John Wayne (P-38) can opener.  No idea why it was called a John Wayne, but this tiny piece of hardware had a variety of uses including can opener and screwdriver.  And tough?  I used that thing for tasks it was never designed for — it couldn’t be destroyed.  I’d still be using it if I hadn’t lost it in the move to our new house in 2001; but I managed to hang on to it for more than 20 years.

Obviously, nutrition is an important aspect of any endeavor and the MRE provides enough caloric intake to allow soldiers to perform their duties.

What do astronauts consume to maintain their vitality while on a mission?  If you asked me that question 40 years ago I’d of said Tang.  Ah, Tang.  I remember the commercials from my childhood.  I wanted to drink Tang because it’s what the astronauts drank.

Tang wasn’t invented for NASA.  According to “Today I Found Out” William A. Mitchell created  it in 1957.  NASA adopted its use in 1962 for the Mercury program to add flavor to John Glenn’s drinking water.

Astronaut meals have come a long way since the 60s.  In the early days of the space program, astronauts dined on food from squeezable aluminum tubes.  Nutritionally sound, but not very tasty.

The Lunar and Planetary Institute website details some of the dietary challenges astronauts face.  In space they lose bone mass so they need diets rich in calcium.  They might not get enough to eat because they’re just not as hungry, the food is not appetizing, or they are too busy to eat.  Most lose about 5% of their weight during a typical Space Station stay of four to six months.

NASA has a Nutritional Biochemistry lab with highly educated personnel and according to their website, they conduct a variety of studies including nutritional assessment studies, particularly in the field of bone metabolism and develop vitamins using HPLC-electrochemical detection methods.

According to Oprah.com, NASA also has a laboratory at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, which is a combination kitchen/lab.  Here, they’re developing food that could be used on a three-year mission to Mars.

I’m a pretty picky eater but I’d like to be one of the guinea pigs that tries the NASA concoctions.  Anyone else feeling brave?