A Past How-To on Set Building

 I happened across an old web page of mine, a How-To on set building aimed at beginning theater designers and builders: "Theater Set Questions Answered!".  You can check it out HERE on Hub Pages.

I'm starting to read a new (to me) book, Stage Designers in Early Twentieth-Century America, by Christin Essin.  More a history and cultural study than a visual essay, it's very interesting so far...

Other intriguing reading and watching lately: comedian Colin Jost's memoir A Very Punchable Face; David Sedaris's memoir Theft by Finding; essays/demonstrations/rants/performance art? YouTube videos by Karolina Z'ebrowska (for a funny version of a film costume design production meeting watch "Boobs"); and the vid essays of Jacob Geller.  I particularly recommend (to scenic design fans) "The Intimacy of Everday Objects," "Control, Anatomy, and the Legecy of the Haunted House," and also "Art Theft."  But, honestly, they're all great.

If you're missing production meetings, here below is a tiny taste.  (Honestly, I've always been a bit shocked by the blunt talk by costume designers... this is actually kinda... mild.)

Addendum:  How to document a dream - the resin diaramas of Thalasso hobbyer HERE.

Taste in Design

I found an essay on good taste in design - Taste for Makers by Paul Graham.  I agree with much of what he writes... and would love to debate the parts I don't fully agree with.  (A great lunch conversation.)  This is an important but little-discussed subject on which Graham writes eloquently:

"Good Design is Suggestive.  Jane Austen's novels contain almost no description; instead of telling you how everything looks, she tells her story so well that you envision the scene for yourself.  Likewise, a painting that suggests is usually more engaging than one that tells.  Everyone makes up their own story about the Mona Lisa. 

In architecture and design, this principle means that a building or object should let you use it how you want: a good building, for example, will serve as a backdrop for whatever life people want to lead in it, instead of making them live as if they were executing a program written by the architect."

Right on!

Here are Graham's principles:

1)  Good design is simple.
2)  Good design is timeless
3)  Good design solves the right problem.
4)  Good design is suggestive
5)  Good design is often slightly funny.
6)  Good design is hard.
7)  Good design looks easy.
8)  Good design uses symmetry.
9)  Good design resembles nature.
10) Good design is redesign.
11) Good design can copy.
12) Good design is often strange.
13) Good design happens in chunks.
14) Good design is often daring.

Read it the entire essay HERE.

Blogging As Essay

Blogging comes as a surprise.  Not sure what I'd expected... crassly, I guess, just a way to megaphone to the world "Read my Book!"   And it has helped (a teeny tiny little fraction of) the world take notice.  (Sales!  Boris, sales!)  But I hadn't realized the utility of these little essays to me: writing clarifies thought, as Francis Bacon and Michel de Montaigne proved.  A blog post is, I think, a lineal descendant of the essay.

What's shocked  me is that people read what I'm writing.  Readership is UP... reaching scary numbers now.

Thank you, Gentle Readers.  I'll try to make your visits worth your time.

Why read blogs - this or any other?  (Or click on the "follow" button on your right?  Dare ya.)

Well, it's gotta be for either information, opinion, or sheer enjoyment of the writer's voice.  What I like about the essay/blog form, as a reader, is its informal sharing of information and thought.  But what makes me return is its mirroring of the writer: their wisdom, perhaps, but certainly their funny quirks, failings, and odd-ball world view...  As the writer of a blog, this is the terrifying part!  Why attempt this scary thing?  ("Essay" means "attempt.")  Why does my weird opinion matter the least bit?

I comfort myself with Montaigne:

"A straight oar looks bent in the water. What matters is not merely that we see things but how we see them."

Maybe all our "bent" viewpoints matter...
Can we can average 'em together to figure out the "straight" truth?