As the opening phrase of the following essay indicates, it was written on the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon; this explains why the title may seem out of sync appearing here now. Because this piece first appeared elsewhere, before I...

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  • September 10, 2011

A couple of weeks back I stumbled upon Beloit College’s annual “Mindset List.” Every year since 1998, a faculty member and a (now former) administrator at Beloit have collaborated to assemble a list of cultural and historical touchstones that the incoming freshman class would take for granted, having never known...

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  • September 6, 2011
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Every March, tens of thousands of people obsessed with technology, music, and film gather in Austin, Texas for 10 days of learning, hand-shaking, business-making, art-creating, and of course, debauchery. Some call it Nerd Spring Break. Others, South-by. But one thing is clear: The Interactive Conference at South by Southwest (SXSWi)...

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  • September 1, 2011

Here’s the first of several spotlights on British stage directors.  Have a great remainder of the week! Meet Darren A. Furniss Current Town: East Midlands, UK Theatre Affiliation: Artistic Director of 4FRONT Performance Company 1.  What does a director eat for breakfast?    I usually don’t eat breakfast so I...

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  • September 1, 2011
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I promise, this is not another premature eulogy for Steve Jobs. I saw this on Google+ this morning. This is an old video of Steve Jobs responding to a critic at the World Wide Developers Conference in 1997, shortly after Jobs returned to Apple. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF-tKLISfPE[/youtube] One thing immediately jumped out...

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  • August 30, 2011
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All of meme. Meme, myself and I. Auntie Meme. Do, re, meme, fa, so, la, ti do. I meme of Jeannie. I could go on. And on. For hours. I won’t. One of the more interesting entertainments to arise from the spread of social media is the propagation of memes,...

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  • August 29, 2011

The non-profit model is living on borrowed time. The current model is dying. Even still, I think we spend more time trying to figure out how to fund a show than actually making the show. Read: The way we make money to make art is not sustainable. Insanity: Doing the...

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  • August 24, 2011
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