Clearly, I'm Not Going to Get Anything Done Today

 At least I'll finish a blog post!

Not sure what to do with this blog.  It's dedicated to theater set design, with off-shoots into literature and other arts, but not much theater is happening nowadays.

Hence the loooong pause between posts.

To be honest, I've felt depressed and unproductive much of this past year.  A weird, difficult year.  (Mine has been easier than for many - for which I'm thankful.)  But my Blog, like myself, lost its impetus.  

What to do?  Not sure.  For now, I'll just write when - like today - something nudges me.  

So here a few theater design adjacent thoughts:

1) The controversy about that Nazi-symbol-shaped stage at CPAC.  

I think the design was deliberate.  As a set designer I know coincidences happen (I once designed a perfectly innocent sofa one reviewer saw as... something less innocent, ha!).  But I don't believe it here.  Two reasons: first, the awkward "sandtrap" drop offs the stage shape created were a hazard for people on stage and an extra expense... why?  Second and decisive to me, that triangle of red carpet upstage center was what turned the stage shape into the drawn-in-blue-carpet symbol.  That was deliberate. If that bit of red carpet was accidental then why on earth, once the design was questioned, wasn't it replaced with blue?  Quick, easy, defuses the resemblance.  The hotel should have insisted.  The CPAC organizers should have insisted.  THE DESIGNER should have insisted.  I, myself, would have painted that triangle blue myself once I realized!

2)  My own recent non-Nazi design energies have been going into a Minecraft city building project, Illias, The Alabaster Citadel.  You can see videos HERE at Astrophagy MC on You Tube.

It's been a real designer-sanity-saver, a great pleasure, and an unexpected bit of human-contact in my otherwise hermit-y daily life.  Here are a few snapshots...

Various neighborhoods where I've been building (above) and a secret grotto (below):

All images courtesy of Astro and his shaders.  I appreciate him letting me play in his sandbox!

3)  Otherwise?  I'm sketching on a potential hypnosis show and a real life basement remodel and beach house.  Slow progress - mostly mood induced, honestly.  Though Texas' Deep Freeze slowed everyone down.  (Strangely hard to draw in an unpowered, below freezing studio.  Who'd a' guessed?)

4)  But Spring is coming!  The power is back on.  My pipes didn't burst.  The pandemic is... well, improving from terrible and vaccines are now a thing.  Hope for improvement!  (If our idiot governor's repeal of all covid control measures doesn't ruin that hope.  Seriously?)  

With this outward improvement my mood too is brightening.  I'll plant tomatoes again - those were entertaining.  I'll start to drawing a little faster and when my "What's The Point?" meter resets, I'll start in again on the revisions and expansions to my set design book, Alice Through the Proscenium.  (Meanwhile the First Ed. is available HERE at Lulu.com.)

5)  Also meanwhile, lunch is still a nice thing and I'm going to go eat mine in the sunshine.

Then draw.