Seen on Shakesville:
Archive for BC Holmes
Questioning Content
Interesting… We’ll see where this goes.
Single Page Application
I’m increasingly finding the idea of the Single Page Application mind-expanding. I think there’s a tendency to think of it as “the type of application you might write in an easy domain”, but I find it interesting try to imagine how any application you might write would look different if you thought about it in terms of a single page application.
This Way
The other day, I was walking home via a slightly different route than I usually take, and I stumbled upon this sign:
World Building
The course description for my Monday night “Writing For Comics, Part 2” class reads thusly:
A master class on practical writing. Students will learn the standard applications of tropes and genres, the rules of pacing and scene work, the secrets of world building, character bibles, supporting casts, sub-plots, comedy writing, ongoing series and much more.
So. “Standard applications of tropes and genres.” That could be a very freighted thing. Last class we were freighting World Building.
As I said, before, Ty’s approach to teaching writing is very much about, “here is the template; fill it in, and you’ll have a sturdy foundation for your story.” His approach to world building for stories is no different. We spent the first third of the class working on the Successful World Building Formula. He wrote nine points on the board, and said, essentially, “make interesting decisions around these nine points that really speak to the story you want to tell, and you’ll have a compelling world.” Points number four and five were the ones that I thought were interesting.
iPad in my Pocket
My iPad Mini arrived today. I am all in love. My purse will be much happier carrying this, rather than the big one.
Poppies
Last night, during the show’s intermission, I was chatting with two women who were visiting from out-of-town. One was from New York (state?) and the other was from Chicago. And the one from Chicago asked about why so many people were wearing red flowers on their lapels. I guess I knew that this isn’t an American thing, but the question still caught me by surprise.
La Cage
Sio and I saw La Cage aux Folles at the Royal Alex last night — it was a fun production with great costumes, fun dance numbers, and all the romp and farce that you might expect from this show. I wasn’t especially happy with George Hamilton as Georges. I thought he acted the role well, and sold me on both his love for Albin and his willingness to go along with Jean-Michel’s assholish request to banish Albin from meeting the future in-laws. But his singing was subpar, and he wasn’t really providing any dancing. I think that Albin is clearly the more delicious role, but Georges’ role, I think, requires greater subtlety. Like I said: Hamilton sold me on the acting, but I would have preferred a stronger singer. The only role more disappointing was Michael Lowney as Jean-Michel — a stiff, awkward turn as the love-struck son.
On the other hand, Christopher Sieber was wonderful as Albin — camp, funny, prima-donna-ish, and also vulnerable. Act 1 ends with Albin’s number, “I am what I am”, and Sieber nails it perfectly. He channels so much hurt and at the same time pride — it’s an emotionally potent act closer.
I was also really fond of Jeigh Madjus as the butler/maid, Jacob.
There were a couple of scenes in the first act that felt a touch long — especially the “La Cage aux Folles” nightclub scene just prior to the Act close. The second act was far tighter (although I think Sio thought “The Best of Times is Now” just kept going on and on).
I’ve had the soundtrack to La Cage for twenty years, but I’ve never seen a production of it (but I’ve seen the French movie, and The Birdcage). So it was good to finally see a production. It was a good show, and I’m glad I saw it, but I still feel like it could have been stronger.
Thought for the Day
I am hearing a great deal of talk about “appealing to Hispanics” and “appealing to women.” But I am not hearing much about endorsing actual policies. What happened last night is not a matter of cosmetics. This is not false consciousness. This a real response to real policies. Mitt Romney actually endorsed Arizona’s immigration policies. You can’t fix this by flashing more pictures of brown people.
This is not a “branding problem.” This is a “problem problem.”
— Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Latino Vote: Wide Awake, Cranky, Taking Names”
WisSched for Android
Made some good progress tonight. I’m going to hafta make some decisions about how much theming I’m gonna do. Frinstance: here is a snippet of info from the “Con Info” part of the app:
Internally, I store the content as simple HTML, and on the iPhone, I apply a bit of CSS glory to get a look and feel that approximates an iPhone feel (although I’m getting tired of that grey pinstripe background). Pop the HTML into a UIWebView and we’re golden.
The same general strategy works for the Android: throw the HTML into a WebView. But, in general, my Nexus tends to make very different default theme choices: showing white text on a dark background in non-HTML parts of the app. So I gave the Android version the most basic of CSS styles. This look fits in better with some of the other widget defaults. I’ll probably do some tweaking as I get closer to having a finished version.
