Yellow

The last of the mindbenders...

Yellow is a color. It is a primary color to painters and a secondary color to anyone working with light. It includes shades and tints ranging from buff to goldenrod and can be used to establish a variety of emotions. Depending on the context and subject, yellow can create the feeling of a sunny glow or of a festering wound.

Many people associate the color yellow with Van Gogh's sunflower still lives. These paintings are in a palette of cheery yellows. The earlier paintings are pleasant, with newly picked flowers. A later one, the most famous, is done in warm yellow tones and shows flowers with less petals. Sunny yellow warmth is in both paintings, but the second also utilizes darker yellows in the dying stems.

Shakespeare, too, uses yellow's decaying connotations. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet describes "dead men's rattling bones, with reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls." I found that quote by using "find" on the entire text of Romeo and Juliet, searching for the word yellow. These rotting skulls contrast Van Gogh's sunny flowers.

This essay is so bad, I cannot believe that I passed sophomore English. I mean, this is my rewrite of it today, which is still pretty bad, but, well, the actual thing sucks balls, basically.

Not that I would ever dream of using such inappropriate language.

Orientation

for SHP (which is back on! Wooot!)

In the morning, Mom dropped me off at the station. I waited by myself for a while, pacing in figure eights (or infinity signs) primarily out of boredom. Then, I looked over towards the station. I wasn't wearing my glasses, so everything looked a bit blurry, but I saw someone who looked a lot like Cormac. I tilted my head sideways and squinted, trying to decide if it was him or not. He turned his head sideways to imitate me, so I figured it must be him and said hello. It turns out he's taking a theater class on Saturdays until January, so he'll be on the train most mornings, which is most definitely good news. It's amazing how much faster the rides feel when you're talking to somebody.

I took a cab by myself from the station, since Archie and Helga had taken the earlier train for fear of being late. I was still early, though, so I went and got a delicious cranberry muffin from Nussbaum and Wu, the only deli I've ever been to that sells both sushi and baked goods. I went to Pupin to get my class assignment (cytoskeleton, which Melissa is in as well) and checked a few other people's (Ariadne is in nano, Irving in complex calculus, and Mario in psych) before heading to the orientation for returning students. I found Allana, a friend from last year, who was sitting in the back along with a bunch of Asian guys and one white guy who looked vaguely familiar but I couldn't remember the name of so introduced myself to anyways. We laughed about the ridiculous number of lost looking Asian kids with maps running around outside looking for Havemeyer. Then, the actual speech started.

I paid attention for the first few minutes until I heard the signature four beeps my phone makes upon getting a text message. I then spent five minutes digging through my bag for my phone before I found it and opened it up. I had a new message from Caleb. "Is that you in front of me? I think it is, but I don't want to awkwardly say hi to someone I don't know." I turned around and waved at him before unsuccessfully attempting to continue to listen to the lecture.

Grease is the Word

and it opens tonight. One minute ago, to be exact, but they probably haven't actually started yet.

Genie spent all day with her hair in curlers on the back of her head. She has so much hair, it looked like she'd attached a second head, then covered it with curlers so I couldn't see it.

Vicky came over for about an hour this evening. She leaves for Chechoslovakialondon etc. one Saturday. Have fun, Vicky!

Hola!

Maybe Sturken just won't show up? The rest of his family, but not him. I'm trying to decide whether that would make me happy or sad.

I reread the seventh Harry Potter book today and yesterday. Rather than crying when Harry decides to die, as I normally do, I cried at the epilogue. The epilogue! The goddamned epilogue that is tacked on and completely ridiculous. Harry was being such a good Dad, and the kids were so cute, that my eyes just started welling up. I didn't sob, but I did get rather more teary eyed than I would have liked. I fear that I'm growing into my Dad's crying habits.

Also, I have proof that techies don't even register on the radar of actors. Yesterday, I was painting a sign in the blackbox before rehearsal ended. Then, when it did, people came rushing in. I assumed that they were just getting their stuff, but there was an awful lot of rustling around and male voices. I peeked over my shoulder, curious. The first thing I saw was a couple of shirtless guys. I turned beet red and went back to my work. A couple of painting techies clearly didn't qualify as a dressing room breach of privacy. I could still hear them talking and changing behind me. The guy who played Danny (the one I'd seen when I turned, who was not all that fit) was making jokes about his need to work out. Then, a girl walked in from the hallway. I think it may have been one of the kids in Genie's grade, but I'm not sure. Someone made a protesting noise, and she responded with a flippant "It isn't anything I haven't seen before." I heard a muttered "that's what worries me," but the sound didn't reach her. They eventually trickled out, leaving the other painter and I in silence.

Grease

Today, I went to our high school and painted sets for Grease. We were painting in the blackbox, right near the rehearsal space, and, right behind me, Danny and Sandy (played by emily) were rehearsing the scene in the drive-in. This scene basically consists of Danny trying to get into Sandy's pants.

First there were kissing noises, which made me chuckle a bit, then the director started telling them to do things (wait a minute for the hand. Good. Okay, Emily, keep doing what you're doing, Danny, you want it more. Show a little more passion.) Then, they eventually started talking. (just because you gave me your ring doesn't mean we're going to go all the way!) and making random exclamations of pain (Danny, you're hurting me! was said with absolutely no provocation. The director immediately decided to cut it. Danny's response was 'at least it'll be a bit less rape-y)

This was after yesterday, when their dance included "crawling with pelvic thrusting" and some faintly disturbing shimmying from Danny on "it's electrifying!"

Also faintly disturbing is the hamburger man, who we've been painting for the past two days, that will descend from the sky for the diner scenes. He definitely isn't mentally stable.

Busy Me

I've been writing my butt off for the U.S. portfolio, so I don't really have a full post in me. Instead, you can have a few messed up quotes from last year's theater homework. First is my writing about Beauty and the Beast, which I only viewed from the pit orchestra, where I was playing. However, I was still required to write a lengthy analysis of the production.

The first question, required a summary. I wrote most of it, then added "At that point, the show segues into 40 pages of constant music. I was unable to see much else until right at the end, when Belle tells the beast she loves him, and the spell is broken, reverting him and the others to their natural forms."

• "In my corner, I could only really hear strings, the drum set, and the louder brass notes. However, I could tell that we improved greatly during the rehearsal process, and complemented the actors by the end of it. However, we could have been quieter." (this is a reference to the brass section in particular, who enjoyed blowing my eardrums when I sat over there)
  
• "The spotlights on the speaking characters on the wraparound that caused sun spots on my eyes if I happened to look up were undoubtably bright enough to draw the audiences attention."
  
• "The pit orchestra was often unconcentrated" (we had too much pulp, apparently)
  
• In response to a question asking who I admired in the production. "As a member of the pit, I saw very little of the actors or the technicians. However, I did admire some my fellow pit people. The one I was able to see the most was Harry, the keyboard II, who sat directly in front of me. I admired how focused he was. He talked very little, instead concentrating on his music. When my keyboard was unplugged by an overzealous cellist, and I accidently flipped off his trying to turn it back on, he managed to continue playing and not get lost, unlike me, who missed the entirety of Be Our Guest trying to catch up."
  
• "My least favorite moment in the play was in the Gaston reprise. I had to play octave As with my right hand extremely quietly, while staying on tempo. Unfortunately, my amp was far about 6 feet away from me, and I couldn’t hear myself. This made it immensely difficult to stay on the same tempo as the bases, who were right next to me, and I ended up not playing the As at all."
  
• "The fog during the transformation smelled bad."
  

From Romeo and Juliet, which I wrote a second paper on, later in the year, I leave you with one quote

"Forming styrofoam bricks using a cheese grater is surprisingly time consuming."