New Play: Thoreau/Twain Brothers on the River

Thoreau/Twain: Brothers on the River

Masonic Hall, 

58 Monument Sq, 

Concord, MA

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

7pm

(immediately after the performance of "HDT's Heroic Journey")

https://www.thoreausociety.org/annual-gathering#Wed

"Be thou my Muse, my Brother--,"

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

Both Henry David Thoreau and Samuel Clemens were by the deathbeds of their beloved brothers.  What happens when one brother is left on the river, and the other has to complete the rest of the journey in life alone?

Come see Henry David Thoreau and Mark Twain meet under new and unusual circumstances; a meeting that never happened in history. Finally, both have a chance to recognize and reconcile their parallel journeys. 

Primary texts of the play are taken directly from primary sources including A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers & Life on the Mississippi, as well as from journals & letters from the authors themselves.

Written by

Tammy Rose

and Henry David Thoreau

and Samuel Clemens

One

Vulnerabilty

----------------

Maybe Writing is Being a Goldilocks

There is a high barrier to entry for being a successful artist/writer/creative in this world.  Time, talent, patience, persistence, the ability to make mistakes. And the ability and space (and money) to start again-or to keep exploring while you are waiting for your seeds to bloom. The UX of a writing career is generally not well designed.

Imagine a writer, thinking herself into insanity. Trying one thing after another-too hot, too cold. Waiting until she can find the thing that is Just Right:

"Okay, so at one point after college, I realized I was a Writer-I had always identified myself as one, always did research and readings, kept a journal, etc-but I realized I hadn't WRITTEN.

So I literally began at my beginning.

I started doing Blogs. And Plays. And Short Stories. TV Pilots, Novels. And lately, I've also started doing Satire.  Short pieces which focus on humor, on a good idea that gets developed-and also gets workshopped among you and your closest writing partners.

New York has hosted several of my pieces, and I've been proud to help others bring theirs forward (helping to produce is helping to pay it forward in your own "work")

Everything feels natural to each of the medium (media), but it's about persistence.  And if something is not working, not breaking through, I'm willing to try the NEXT GENRE-the next pattern of storytelling.  Because it IS all the same urge, just coming out in different frames and formats."

UX Profiles

Derek Walker has spent Black History Month researching and publishing short bios and histories of famous POC in the Advertising industry.

Check out his work here:

https://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/02/17/we-all-know-their-work-history-black-professionals-iconic-advertising


I would love to begin to do the same for the UX industry.  But I believe it would be more helpful in the documentation of how to navigate (and how people have successfully navigated) this area of Tech. 

I am honored to be a part of SUCH an amazing and diverse group of people from a wide variety of personal backgrounds as well as career backgrounds.

I'd like to break it down according to: Undergrad major & College, what they wanted to do, what made them think that UX was what they wanted to do.  A Challenge they faced. A success.  And what kind of advice they'd give to their younger self.  Maybe a bit more.

UX Event in Waltham

There was a terrific event, Jared Spool talking about how to treat hiring as a UX/Design problem and to solve it as such.

Sponsored by ACM, it was held at Vistaprint in Waltham, the real and original Silicon Alley-along Rte 128-THE place to be if you want to get involved with Tech!

That's Entertainment! and Other Greatest Hits Movies

TCM is showing That's Entertainment and its subsequent successes for New Year's Eve.  The hosts are sitting around the TCM set (a fake home-like atmosphere) with champagne, in suits. As if they are watching along with us. An illusion upon an illusion, and lots of us (okay, me!) just eat it up.

These are like the old fashioned TV clip shows, when the show wanted to show off all the hits of the previous season. These tribute movies were like extended commercials, just like others-especially those commemorating the Beatles and other glories of the 60's.

Somehow, I missed that the glorious stars of yesteryear were walking through decrepit and decayed sets of MGM, right before they were turn down. I understood Sunset Boulevard (1950) instinctively.  I knew there was a sad quality to this time gone by-but yet, it was captured.  Those people LIVED and lasted through time, even though most were probably dead by the time I first saw them.

My favorite movie is/was Perils of Pauline (1947), and not only because it was only one of 3 old movies owned by Channel 44 that they put into rotation on the weekdays when I came home from school. My favorite show was/is the Monkees because there was an amazing amount of references, cast members from other shows and movies and things to learn. History was alive, not just in the narrative, but in these people on screen, captured at their best moments.

I saw these as a kid, before I had access to films on demand, before there was even a TCM channel. And even now, there are clips from movies I'm not sure I've seen.  Maybe that was a wish when I was a kid, to be able to KNOW what all these movies were.  All that singing and dancing, the good and terrible plots, the awkward songs and the glorious ones.

To this day, I'm a huge fan of the Great American Songbook, as well as Broadway. And the seeds were planted back then. I'm amazed there is still so much to learn, and how much it still thrills me.