For the last three years, I've been involved with The Wild Geese Players of Seattle, an amateur group that does readings of Irish literature, particularly the works of James Joyce and W.B. Yeats. Our big event every year is Bloomsday, June 16th, commemorating Joyce's Ulysses, which takes place on June 16th, 1904. It's a tale of a Jewish everyman, Leopold Bloom, wandering through Dublin one day, and of the young writer (and Joyce's alter ego), Stephen Dedalus. We're working our way through the book, reading a chapter or two each year. In this, our eighth year, we'll be reading Chapter 11, "Sirens" at the Brechemin Auditorium in the School of Music at the University of Washington, on Thursday 16th and Saturday 18th. Congressman Jim McDermott will be reading the part of Bloom on the Saturday.

Last year and this year, I have been the assistant dramaturge, helping to turn chapters into a script to be read by 15-20 readers. In previous years, the director made a photocopy of the book, wrote attributions ("Narrator 1", "Bloom", "Stephen", etc) on the paper, then photocopied that text and handed it out to the readers. Since the script was a moving target, everyone ended up with a set of scruffy, tatty, inconsistently hand-annotated sheets. It was a mess.

I knew there had to be a better way. Now, we've adapted the etext of the 1922 Paris Edition, prepared by Project Gutenberg, which saves a lot of typing. The script is marked up in XML and styled with XSLT to produce an HTML page. After a rehearsal or two, when it's apparent that the script isn't quite right, it's an easy matter to make a few changes, render fresh HTML, and print new scripts.

The XSLT required is fairly straightforward. About the only mildly interesting thing is defining one template in terms of another; e.g., I want all the speakers to share the same styling, so I defined a parameterized speaker template:

    <xsl:template name="speaker">
        <xsl:param name="name" />
        <div class="speaker">
            <span class="speaker"><xsl:value-of select="$name"/>: </span>
            <xsl:apply-templates />
        </div>
    </xsl:template>

which is called thus:

    <xsl:template match="bloom">
        <xsl:call-template name="speaker">
            <xsl:with-param name="name">Bloom</xsl:with-param>
        </xsl:call-template>
    </xsl:template>

The real challenge in preparing the script is dramaturgical. Ulysses is a notoriously difficult and dense text, woven through with Bloom's stream-of-consciousness interior monologue. Each chapter is written in a different style. Sirens, for example, has musical themes running through it, and we'll be accompanied by a piano player this year.

What would you do with this?

Bloom heard a jing, a little sound. He's off. Light sob of breath Bloom sighed on the silent bluehued flowers. Jingling. He's gone. Jingle. Hear.

Here's what we came up with:

N1: Bloom heard a jing, a little sound.
Bloom: He's off.
N1: Light sob of breath Bloom sighed on the silent bluehued flowers. Jingling.
Bloom: He's gone.
N1: Jingle.
Bloom: Hear.

Or with this paragraph?

--Yes, Mr Bloom said, teasing the curling catgut line. It certainly is. Few lines will do. My present. All that Italian florid music is. Who is this wrote? Know the name you know better. Take out sheet notepaper, envelope: unconcerned. It's so characteristic.

We chose this:

Bloom (Aloud): Yes.
N1: Mr Bloom said, teasing the curling catgut line.
Bloom (Aloud): It certainly is.
Bloom: Few lines will do. My present.
Bloom (Aloud): All that Italian florid music is.
Bloom: Who is this wrote? Know the name you know better. Take out sheet notepaper, envelope: unconcerned.
Bloom (Aloud): It's so characteristic.

We ended up with three narrators in this chapter: N1 deals with Bloom, primarily; N2 is mostly for Miss Douce and Miss Kennedy, the siren barmaids; and N3 handles the other characters.

Lest I scare you off, much of the chapter is quite clear and often very funny, even for people who are unfamiliar with the book.

The James Joyce Portal is a good starting point for matters Joycean.

Printf Tricks

It may be old-fashioned, but I still find printf (and sprintf and _vsnprintf) incredibly useful, both for printing debug output and for generating formatted strings.

Here are a few lesser-known formats that I use again and again. See MSDN for the full reference.

%04x - 4-digit hex number with leading zeroes

A quick review of some of the basics.

%x prints an int in hexadecimal.

%4x prints a hex int, right-justified to 4 places. If it's less than 4 digits, it's preceded by spaces. If it's more than 4 digits, you get the full number.

%04x prints a hex int, right-justified to 4 places. If it's less than 4 digits, it's preceded by zeroes. If it's more than 4 digits, you get the full number, but no leading zeroes.

Similarly, %d prints a signed int in decimal, and %u prints an unsigned int in decimal.

Not so similarly, %c prints a character and %s prints a string. For wide (Unicode) strings, prefix with l (ell, or w): %lc and %ls.

Note: For the Unicode variants, such as wprintf and friends, %c and %s print wide strings. To force a narrow string, no matter which variant, use the %h size prefix, and to force a wide string, use the %l size prefix; e.g., %hs and %lc.

%p - pointer

The wrong way to print a pointer is to use %x. The right way is to use %p. It's portable to Win64, as well as to all other operating systems.

Everyone should know this one, but many don't.

%I64d, %I64u, %I64x - 64-bit integers

To print 64-bit numbers (__int64), use the I64 size prefix.

%Iu, %Id, %Ix - ULONG_PTR

ULONG_PTR, LONG_PTR, and DWORD_PTR are numeric types that are as wide as a pointer. In other words, they map to ULONG, LONG, and DWORD respectively on Win32, and ULONGLONG, LONGLONG, and ULONGLONG on Win64.

The I size prefix (capital-i, not lowercase-L) is what you need to print *LONG_PTR on Win32 and Win64.

%*d - runtime width specifier

If you want to calculate the width of a field at runtime, you can use %*. This says the next argument is the width, followed by whatever type you want to print.

For example, the following can be used to print a tree:

 void Tree::Print(Node* pNode, int level)
 {
     if (NULL != pNode)
     {
         Print(pNode->Left, level+1);
         printf("%*d%s\n", 2 * level, pNode->Key);
         Print(pNode->Right, level+1);
     }
 }

%.*s - print a substring

With a variable precision, you can print a substring, or print a non-NUL-terminated string, if you know its length. printf("%.*s\n", sublen, str) prints the first sublen characters of str.

[2005/7/19: fixed a typo in previous sentence (%.s -> %.*s). A little elaboration on the syntax: . in a printf format specification is followed by the precision. For strings, the precision specificies how many characters will be printed. A precision of * indicates that the precision is the next argument on the stack. If the precision is zero, then nothing is printed. If a string has a precision specification, its length is ignored.]

%.0d - print nothing for zero

I've occasionally found it useful to suppress output when a number is zero, and %.0d is the way to do it. (If you attempt to print a non-zero number with this zero-precision specifier, it will be printed.) Similarly, %.0s swallows a string.

%#x - print a leading 0x

If you want printf to automatically generate 0x before hex numbers, use %#x instead of %x.

Other tricks

See the documentation for other useful tricks.

Security

Never use an inputted string as the format argument: printf(str). Instead, use printf("%s", str). The former is a stack smasher waiting to happen.

%n is dangerous and disabled by default in VS2005.

Don't use sprintf. Use the counted version, _snprintf or _vsnprintf instead. Better still, use the StrSafe.h functions, StringCchPrintf and StringCchVPrintf, to guarantee that your strings are NUL-terminated.

[Update: 2008/01/25: See also Printf %n.]

I've set up a new personal blog at www.georgevreilly.com/blog. I'll be posting non-technical stuff there and I'll be cross-posting on technical matters to Weblogs @ ASP.net. Here's how I ended up running dasBlog on the new blog.

In the spring of last year, I attempted to install both .Text and dasBlog on my XP Pro laptop. I failed, signally, to get either one working. The details have mercifully faded with time, leaving me only with a residue of frustration.

I've been meaning to put some photos of mine up on the web for a while. A week ago, I went to download nGallery, as I remembered hearing good things about it in the past. I learned that nGallery is now part of Community Server (as is .Text). After navigating through the somewhat confusing portal, I downloaded a copy of Community Server 1.0.

Then I spent several frustrating hours trying to get it running on my laptop. Community Server requires a SQL Server back-end, but you can also use MSDE, the standalone Microsoft SQL Desktop Engine, which comes without a GUI. I downloaded MSDE and the SQL Web Data Administrator, as well as MSDE Query. I can spell "SQL", but that's about where my knowledge of SQL stops. I tried to follow the instructions to create the database tables. I did manage to create the master table, but I could not figure out how to set the various permissions that the instructions demanded. I googled extensively and looked through the archived forums at CommunityServer.org and SqlJunkies.com, to no avail.

Really! If I can't figure this stuff out, most people are never going to get Community Server running on their own systems. Don't get me wrong. Community Server/.Text is a good blogging system, if you can surmount the barriers to entry. I'm a competent, skilled developer, but I've never needed to learn SQL, and I wasn't motivated enough to dig further.

(I've since realized that my hosting package at iHostSites includes MySql, but not SQL Server, so this would have been all for naught. I think. Double aargh!)

I gave up on Community Server in frustration, and decided to fall back to nGallery. I got nGallery installed and running easily enough. Alas, it was flaky and it was all too easy to get ASP.net throwing unhandled exceptions back at me. I spend too much of my life troubleshooting other people's bugs, and I wasn't prepared to invest any more time on this avenue.

At this point, I googled for "web album software" and came up with JAlbum. I'm much happier with JAlbum. It worked flawlessly as soon as I ran it and it's versatile. Photos will start appearing on my personal website, www.GeorgeVReilly.com, soon.

Yesterday, I decided to give dasBlog another try. That was altogether more successful. I did not manage to get it running on my laptop, but I did get it running on a XP Pro desktop system, as well as on my public website. I did have a little difficulty getting it to run on my desktop system, but that went away as soon as I ran aspnet_regiis -i to reset ASP.net.

I'm not sure why it doesn't run on my laptop, but the enormous amount of stuff that I've installed on this system surely plays a role. Indeed that may have been the reason why nGallery puked on my laptop. Someday, I'm going to have to flatten the system and reinstall only the important stuff.

Net results:

Album software: JAlbum 1, nGallery 0.

Blogging software: dasBlog 1, Community Server 0.

This is my third blog. I've had a technical blog at Weblogs @ ASP.NET for the last year, and a defunct blog at EraBlog for another year.

I've been meaning to set up a blog at my personal website for a while, one that allows me to post about anything that I feel like. Posting about non-technical matters is discouraged at Weblogs.asp.net.

So here it is. (Assuming I've set it up correctly) I will be cross-posting technical posts to weblogs.asp.net. Other posts will appear here exclusively.

(Originally posted to Home at EraBlog on Fri, 25 Jun 2004 20:47:24 GMT)

After several months of not blogging, I've decided to resume. EraBlog was nice while it lasted, but Mike Amundsen hasn't been paying attention to it for a while. I was always frustrated at the lack of configurability, and I hated the hard-coded limit of three posts showing up on the front page.

I've moved to http://weblogs.asp.net/george_v_reilly/.

Update: See next post. I've long since moved to GeorgeVReilly.com/blog.

(Originally posted to Queer at EraBlog on Wed, 11 Feb 2004 23:48:38 GMT)

George W. Bush, after months of hinting that he would support the Federal Marriage Amendment, has endorsed it. He's desparately trying to change the subject from whether he was AWOL from the National Guard in Alabama.

The Human Rights Campaign is urging everyone to oppose this. They provide a sample letter to send to your representatives, but I threw it away and wrote my own (below), which has been sent to my representatives, via the HRC Action Center.

The Bush Administration pisses me off on so many levels. I'm particularly infuriated about Bush's support for the Federal Marriage Amendment. After hinting that he'd support it for the last few months, he's now trying to change the subject from the charges that he was AWOL from the Air National Guard.

The FMA is a rabble-rousing exercise cooked up by the likes to Donald Wildmon to invigorate the religious right. Once again, the know-nothing bible thumpers are demonizing gay people. I'm sick of it.

Specious arguments about the sanctity of marriage fall flat when you consider that 50% of marriages end in divorce and Britney Spear's frivolous prank has more legal standing than a gay couple that have been together for decades.

The federal government has no business interfering in marriage. That's the states' prerogative.

Several commentators have argued that not only would the FMA forbid gay marriage, it would also void any civil unions legislation that some states may pass.

We should be following the example of most Western European nations and decoupling the civil and religious aspects of marriage. The state and only the state can marry you. A religious wedding has no legal significance. I don't expect this to happen in the US anytime soon. So much for the Separation of Church and State.

I fully expect you to vigorously oppose the FMA.

I would very much like for you to support gay marriage, or at least civil unions.

My representatives are Rep. Jim McDermott, Sen. Patty Murray, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, Jim McDermott is very liberal and needs no urging to oppose it; Cantwell and Murray are fairly liberal, but it does no harm to stiffen their spines. Or for me to vent.

(Originally posted to Politics at EraBlog on Wed, 11 Feb 2004 06:08:52 GMT)

From my email. Origin obscure.

Things you have to believe to be a Republican today:

1. Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.

2. The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

3. "Standing Tall for America" means firing your workers and moving their jobs to India.

4. A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

5. Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.

6. The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

7. Group sex and drug use are degenerate sins unless you someday run for governor of California as a Republican.

8. If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

9. A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies then demand their cooperation and money.

10. HMOs and insurance companies have the interest of the public at heart. Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.

11. Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

12. Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

13. The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George W. Bush's driving record is none of our business.

14. You support states' rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter initiatives they have a right to adopt.

15. Government should relax regulation of Big Business and Big Money but crack down on individuals who use marijuana to relieve the pain of illness.

16. What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what G.W. Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.

17. Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

(Originally posted to Politics at EraBlog on Tue, 02 Dec 2003 08:32:12 GMT)

I sign a lot of petitions. Here's one that I wrote a custom letter for.

First, the background.

From: "John - THE LIST" <john@gayadvocacy.com> Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 6:24 PM Subject: THE LIST: Action Alert - Free Ruslan Sharipov THE LIST - Special Alert for Gay Torture Victim

Washington, DC December 1, 2003

Ruslan Sharipov, a journalist in Uzbekistan, is being imprisoned and tortured because he's gay. His government captors have threatened to rape him with a bottle and inject him with AIDS. But there is talk that the government may soon amnesty a few political prisoners. Let's make sure he is one of them by emailing the 3 key US officials below, demanding they tell the Uzbek government to free Ruslan Sharipov.

I've managed to get the direct email addresses for these rather high-ranking US officials. Let's take advantage of our luck. And if you're not American, no matter - it's still good for them to hear that people around the world are watching America's actions on this important case:

• grossmanM2@state.gov: Marc Grossman, Undersecretary for Political Affairs, US Dept. of State

• AppletonDE@state.gov: David Appleton, Deputy Chief of Mission, US Embassy, Uzbekistan

• cranerlx@state.gov: Lorne Craner, Asst. Secretary, Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, US Dept. of State

You can read more about Ruslan's case at the Human Rights Watch Web site. BACKGROUND

Earlier this year, openly-gay journalist Ruslan Sharipov was given a five-year prison term by the Uzbek government simply because he is an openly-gay advocate for human rights in his Stalinist homeland. In the six months he's already been in prison, the 25-year-old Ruslan has been physically and mentally tortured, and forced to write his own suicide note. WHY YOUR EMAILS MATTER

This month, December 2003, the Uzbek government, under intense international pressure from groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, is reportedly considering freeing some of its 7,000 to 10,000 political prisoners. We need to make sure that Ruslan is among those freed.

I have it on good authority that senior US officials do not believe the American people care about Ruslan's imprisonment and torture. They think we don't care that the Bush Administration is giving Uzbekistan $500 million a year in aid, much of it going towards training the very state security apparatus that tortures gays and lesbians and other political prisoners. And they think we don't care that earlier this year two political prisoners were boiled alive, and that our tax money helps all of this happen. IT'S TIME TO TELL THE US GOVERNMENT WE DO CARE.

President Bush tells us he's fighting for freedom and democracy in Iraq, then supports a brutal dictator next door. President Bush needs to start practicing what he preaches. He should tell the government of Uzbekistan to free gay journalist Ruslan Sharipov. Again, those email addresses are: - grossmanM2@state.gov - AppletonDE@state.gov - cranerlx@state.gov

• grossmanM2@state.gov

• AppletonDE@state.gov

• cranerlx@state.gov

Thanks so much, and please share this email alert with all of your friends and colleagues. I truly believe that if we all get involved now, this is one we can win in no time. (I'm doing this update as a text-only version so you can easily forward it by email to your friends and colleagues.)

JOHN ARAVOSIS Editor, THE LIST and HateCrime.org Washington, DC

PS For more information on Ruslan's case, visit Human Rights Watch Web site.

Here's the letter that I sent.

From: George V. Reilly To: grossmanM2@state.gov ; AppletonDE@state.gov ; cranerlx@state.gov Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 12:03 AM Subject: Free Ruslan Sharipov

The Bush Administration has taken to arguing that the US invaded Iraq to save the Iraqi people from the brutality and torture of Saddam Hussein's regime, and to bring democracy. It's unquestionably good that the torturers of Iraq are gone.

But the Administration has also given $500 million to Uzbekistan, where political prisoners have been boiled alive. Have we learned nothing from the past? Saddam was once our puppet, as were many other dictators in Latin America, Africa, and elsewhere. The CIA helped overthrow Mossadegh's democratically elected government in Iran in 1953, to our lasting cost. Supporting brutal dictators may help our strategic position in the short term, but it makes us look like hypocrites. Can we not do better than this?

I am particularly concerned about the plight of Ruslan Sharipov, the gay journalist and human rights advocate who has been imprisoned in Uzbekistan on trumped-up charges. I ask you to call upon the Uzbek government to free Sharipov and other political prisoners.

/George V. Reilly

Seattle, WA

May it do some good.

Update: Ruslan was released and granted asylum in the U.S..

(Originally posted to Politics at EraBlog on Sat, 18 Oct 2003 06:46:45 GMT)

I just read an interview on BuzzFlash with Bob Beckel. Beckel is a longtime Democrat political consultant. He's now gone into the business of exposing the right wing's dirty tactics at his website, BobBeckel.com.

We’re in the business of exposing their tactics, some of which I’ve had used against me before -- like mailing official government-looking stationery to blacks in precincts in the South, telling them if they vote in the wrong place, they’ll get a $5,000 fine and a year in jail. It obviously drove down black turnout. That’s one that Jesse Helms’ thugs used against Harvey Gant in NC. One of the missions of bobbeckel.com is to expose these tactics with examples, and also what a campaign should do if something like this happens to them. The problem for campaigns dealing with these guys is the press tends to call it a political fight and not newsworthy.

---

It seems to me that if the institutions that you’ve come to depend on, whether they are Congress or the press, fail to do their job or expose what is undoubtedly a vast Right Wing takeover of the Government, then for those of us who understand them, who’ve been up against them, and who’ve been victims of them – it’s our responsibility to carry it forward. And if it means having to do it the way they do it, we will. We’re not afraid of them.

It’s like Richard Mellon Scaife. The reason I’m after that SOB is he’s trying now, after trying to destroy the Clinton’s, to clean up his image. This guy has been funding dirt projects which are then carried out by people like those involved with the Arkansas Project, a bunch of thugs and crooks. Then Scaife turns his back and says: I don’t know what they’re doing. How much longer are we going to put up with that? We can’t.

(Originally posted to Personal at EraBlog on Sat, 11 Oct 2003 18:15:39 GMT)

I have gout. It's an unpleasant form of arthritis. Once or twice a year, one of my lower joints will swell up overnight. Usually, it's struck one of my knees, though the last few attacks have all been in my feet. The knee attacks have all been extremely painful initially and I've required prescription painkillers to get to sleep at night. Just bending my knee a few degrees is enough to make me break out in a cold sweat. Fortunately, after a few days, the pain decreases to the point where it's annoying but tolerable.

Oddly, the feet attacks have been less painful. I had a few premonitory twinges in my right foot on Thursday evening, so I took a colchicine tablet. I woke up early yesterday morning to find my foot hurting. I can bend my big toe upwards, but it hurts to lift off from my right foot, so I'm hobbling around stiff-footed with the help of a cane. I can drive, but I don't think I could manage it it were my left foot, since the clutch requires more pressure than the accelerator or brake pedals.

This is the first time that I've had a gout attack in my right foot. I had one in my left foot three weeks ago, the day that we were flying back from our vacation in Ireland. I had only one attack in my left foot before that, just as we were about to leave for a two-week driving vacation over last Thanksgiving. Fortunately, the anti-inflammatories brought it under control quickly. Before that, I've had four or five attacks, always in one knee or the other, over the last five years. I've never yet had an attack in the classic locus of the big toe.

Gout is caused an excess of uric acid forming crystals in a joint. Uric acid is a by-product of the breakdown of purines. High levels of uric acid are due to one or more of three factors: consuming too much food which is high in purines, the body generates too many purines, or the body is not effective at eliminating purines.

I have never consumed significant quantities of the foods that are really high in purines, such as organ meats and shellfish, and my consumption of alcohol is quite modest. I'm probably twenty-five pounds over my ideal weight, my blood pressure is fine, and I'm in my late thirties, so I don't really fit the stereotype of a fat sweaty squire, quaffing port by the gallon, a la Hogarth. My doctors have been telling me for over a decade that I have a high concentration of uric acid in my blood.

Some people have a genetic predisposition to gout. My father had an attack a few years ago. My mother's sister reportedly had an attack once or twice, but she's a hypochondriac who's had everything.

I spent most of September and October 2002 limping around because my left knee was swollen due to gout. I couldn't participate in last year's Northwest AIDS Walk, because I couldn't walk very far. I had expected to walk in this year's AIDS Walk, which is tomorrow, but it's unlikely that I'll be up for it.

For more background on gout, see the gout factsheet, the Gout FAQ, the Health A-Z Encyclopedia, or Forbes: The Disease of Kings.

(Originally posted to Toastmasters at EraBlog on Tue, 07 Oct 2003 06:53:32 GMT)

I gave the following speech to Toastmasters on October 1st, 2003, as Speech #5, "Vocal Variety".

SPOLIN GAMES

Spolin Games. That sounds like it could be a new set of titles for the Xbox.

Far from it.

The Spolin Games are a set of improv theater games invented by Viola Spolin in the nineteen-thirties, and refined by her for the next six decades. These games are used in improvisational work, to help bring out creativity and spontaneity. Viola's son, Paul Sills, founded the Second City improv theater company in Chicago back in the nineteen-fifties.

I was first introduced to the Spolin Games last year. Two friends of mine are actors. They had both become involved with a local improv troupe, the Spolin Players, who have occasional runs at the Northwest Actors Studio, at 11th and Pike, in Seattle.

I got interested enough that I later took an improv class from the troupe's director, Gary Schwartz.

I've been to several shows put on by the Spolin Players. Each one is quite different. During a show, they'll play a dozen or so games, from their repertoire. Usually, there are six-to-eight actors from the troupe.

The show often opens with a game called Emotional Symphony. Each player is assigned an emotion by the audience, such as fear (oh no! I'm terrified! I just want to hide!); lust (ooh, baby! You're hot!); anger (I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!); or confusion (but, but, but, I don't understand). The director acts like a conductor, pushing the players through an overture, bringing them in louder and softer, growing in a crescendo to a climax!

This energizes the players and wakes up the audience.

The Gibberish Relay is another game that's usually played early on. Three players sit on chairs at the front of the stage. The one on the left speaks one dialect of gibberish, the one on the right speaks a different variety, the one in the middle interprets.

Left (tapping wrist): Herk, koffa picku? Akno bigu karpak! Interpreter: Say, what's the time? My watch has stopped! Right (rubbing tummy): Maru plenio seletto bulioni. Molto chiani. Interpreter: It must be lunchtime. I'm hungry. Left: Plokka kaloka, ragutz ni globbak. Interpreter: In my country, we never eat lunch. And so on.

After a minute, one of the players leaves, the other two shift over, and a new player joins them, until the entire cast has cycled through each role.

One crucial element was missing from the demonstration that I just gave you. Spontaneity! In a real game of Gibberish Relay, none of the three players know what's going to happen next. They're feeding off each other, creating a scene out of whole cloth. They're off-balance and they're fully engaged. It's like going to a sports game. You don't know what's going to happen next or who's going to win. The not-knowing keeps you interested and in the moment. There's give-and-take at play. Each player is following the other's lead. Surprise is the gift that playing produces.

Magic Music is another game that's often played. One of the players is sent offstage, out of earshot. The audience decides a complex task that the player must accomplish on a prop-laden stage, such as climbing onto a chair, turning counterclockwise, and putting a flowerpot on their head. When the player returns, the audience are singing a simple song, such as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." The audience sings louder as the player grows "warm" and softer as the player gets "cold", until the player figures out what to do. Often, the game is repeated with a volunteer from the audience.

The game of Camera involves focus. The audience decides upon a scene for two of the players, such as a teacher and a parent, or two people in line for a concert, or a mugger and a vigilante. As the two players work through the scene, the director calls out "Camera!", alternating between the two players, "Both camera!", and "No camera!". For "George Camera!", I would look intently at the other player, as if I were a TV camera, tracking her every move. For "Mary Camera!", Mary would look intently at me, while I would play the scene naturally as if there were no camera at all. The act of focussing heightens the scene.

Now, let's demonstrate one game, Last-Letter Expert, with the help of Phil here.

In Last-Letter Expert, I am a genius who can expound on any topic of your choosing. The only catch is that my brain is so overpowered that it seizes up occasionally in mid-sentence. My assistant Phil will interject a word to help me out. I have to use the LAST letter of his word as the FIRST letter of my next word. So if I were to say, "There are many varieties of ice cream that ..." and Phil says "suddenly", then I have to pick a word that starts with the letter "Y" and continue from there, like "Yelp loudly" or "Yet delightfully".

Please, give me a topic, such as volcanoes, shoelaces, ice cream, walking on your hands, daffodil farming, the color yellow, ...

[Reconstructed from a recording. Phil hadn't quite got the idea of Last-Letter Expert. The interjected word should make some kind of sense in the context of the preceding sentences. "Tempest" was the Word of the Day.]

Audience: Chairs!

George: Chairs. Fellow members of the audience, chairs have been used since time immemorial. They are extremely...

Phil: Repairman

George: Nowadays, we. Repairman? Nowadays, we sit on them. In times past, chairs were used to elevate people above the common level of ...

Phil: Soda machines

George: so that you could do something extremely silly like this. And...

Phil: Tempest

George: To begin again, without such useful help, I would like to say that chairs are...

Phil: Flat

George: Therefore, they are very easy to sit upon.

But enough of that. We're running out of time.

Viola Spolin's work is used by many actors and directors to help increase their creativity. There are many other games, but I don't have time to describe them here. Go to spolin.com if you're interested in learning more. S-P-O-L-I-N. Spolin.

I was also the Table Topics Master for that meeting. We played Last-Letter Expert. It took a while for people to get the hang of the game, but it was a big hit.

(Originally posted to Politics at EraBlog on Thu, 14 Aug 2003 06:40:32 GMT)

Good article on how the Bush administration is using language to influence public opinion.

Some examples:

Civil service reform means "flexibility" to replace civil service protection with cronyism and patronage.

Privatization justifies the notion that corporations are more likely to serve the public interest than publicly owned utilities, schools and prisons.

Support the troops, a brilliant concept, suggests that if you question foreign policy or war policy, you have the deaths of our finest young men and women in uniform on your hands. Objective: to stifle public dissent.

(Originally posted to Politics at EraBlog on Sun, 27 Jul 2003 02:22:19 GMT)

I found an interesting piece about what makes a political conservative.

Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:

• Fear and aggression

• Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity

• Uncertainty avoidance

• Need for cognitive closure

• Terror management

This was linked to from the Dean Blog's copy of Howard Dean's July 25th speech, The President Has Misled Us.

(Originally posted to Home at EraBlog on Fri, 25 Jul 2003 06:50:20 GMT)

As I mentioned in my Toastmasters' speech about naturalization, I decided on September 11th, 2002 to become a U.S. citizen.

This morning, I had my interview with the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS, formerly known as the INS).

This afternoon, I was sworn in as a U.S. citizen at the Seattle INS Office. Eighty-three other new citizens were sworn in at the same time. Many were Filipino, Vietnamese, Mexican, or Eastern European. Only three others, all Brits, were from Western Europe. We were gathered into a stuffy room with an overflow crowd of relatives and friends. It was not a deeply moving ceremony, but it was clear that most of us were sincerely glad to become Americans. If my interview had come a month sooner, I would have chosen to participate in the massive July 4th ceremony at the Seattle Center.

Woohoo! Now I get a vote for the first time since 1986. As my youngest brother Mark, who became a citizen last year, just told me, I now have an opportunity to get the Bush kleptocracy out of office.

(Originally posted to Iraq at EraBlog on Wed, 23 Jul 2003 06:25:56 GMT)

[Found in my email. Original author unknown.]

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ('AP', played by John Cleese) walks down the street carrying THE IRAQI INVASION (played by an empty parrot cage). He walks into THE WHITE HOUSE (played by a cheesy storefront) and addresses COLIN POWELL ('CP', played by Michael Palin).

AP: Excuse me... boy!

CP: (turns around and stands up) What d'you mean, 'boy?'

AP: I'm sorry; I have contact lenses. At any rate, I wish to register a complaint!

CP: Sorry, squire, I can't talk to you now. It's Code Orange! (he hastily starts to put up a sign)

AP: Never mind that now, my fine fellow. I wish to register a complain about this military action, which you sold me just a couple of months ago.

CP: Oh yes, the Iraqi invasion. Lovely little war, that was. What... uh, what seems to be wrong with it?

AP: I'll tell you what's wrong with it. It's empty, that's what's wrong with it.

CP: Oh, no, no, no. It's not empty at all. It's served its purpose, it has. Freed the oppressed people of Iraq, fed the homeless, brought everlasting fame and glory to our bulging leader.

AP: But when I purchased this dreary little police action from you, you assured me that the whole and entire purpose was to disarm Saddam Hussein and take away, quote, his vast stockpiles of ready-to-use weapons of mass destruction, end quote.

CP: Oh, there's some mistake. We went in to liberate the poor oppressed people of...

AP: Listen, mate. I took the liberty of recording your voice when you sold me that thing, and here's what it says. (produces tape recorder)

Tape: (CP's voice): "We know just where they are. We know just what they've got. They're buried in these bunkers right here, which our surveillance satellites have photographed not more than twenty minutes ago. They could not possibly be used for any purpose other than the storage of hideous, slime-dripping nuclear anthrax chemical weapons of mass destruction. Say, are you recording me?"

AP: Right. And when we "liberated" those poor bastards, the bunker was found to contain little more than a twenty-year collection of Penthouse and Hustler magazines, plus a dozen lava lamps and a mini-bar.

CP: Well...

AP: Well?

CP: Well, of course they'd cleaned it out before they left. Sold it all to their chums in the Taliban, they did.

AP: I happen to know that their 'chums,' as you so colorfully put it, hate their guts and have referred to them repeatedly as "scabrous lackeys of the internationalist secular state," end quotation.

CP: Well, they have to say that, don't they? I mean, it's all part of the grand scheme. Lovely little war, wa'nit? Liberated all them poor...

AP: Stoppit! All you've done is make their lives worse than before. That's why they keep killing our soldiers.

CP: Oh no, squire. They're grateful. That's why they pulled down that statue.

AP: I've seen the footage of the event, and the only Iraqis in the picture appear to have had their feet nailed there.

CP: Well, of course they were nailed there. If we hadn't nailed them, they'd've been crushed by the falling statue, wouldn't they? It was for their own safety. That's why we liberated the...

AP: Shut up. Did you or did you not allege on several different occasions that we had found the weapons of mass destruction and that therefore the entire ill-advised escapade was a rousing success?

CP: What, them trailers? Well, of course they was weapons of mass destruction. They could've used them for germs, or chemicals, or...

AP: In fact, they were used for hydrogen, and precious little of that. They didn't even have walls, for pity's sake.

CP: Well, hydrogen's pretty dangerous, isn't it, Squire? It could power tanks or jets or... and what about that Hindenberry thing? Let's see you stand in a room full of liquid hydrogen with nothing but a ripe boysenberry to defend yourself with, and you'll soon see mass destructive. Wouldn't want to be in your shoes then! And anyway, we liberated the...

AP: Liberation don't enter into it, mate. It was a bleeding sham.

CP: No, it was liberation!

AP: Sham, sham, sham! And you didn't find any weapons of mass destruction!

CP: Well, of course we didn't, Squire. They was... they was looted.

AP: Looted? LOOTED?

CP: Yeah. When our boys was busy not looking at the museum, they looted all them weapons out from under their noses. And anyway, we liberated...

AP: You're saying that starving peasants with no resources of their own simply looted vast stores of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons? With What??

CP: They carried them off on their bicycles.

AP: But a missile weighs several tons, and a bicycle can only carry, at most, a couple of hundred pounds.

CP: They used two bicycles, with a bungee cord between 'em. They're a nasty lot, Squire. Not like the ones that sang songs to us when we liberated...

AP: Will you shut up? Since when is it liberation to leave a people destitute, without food, water, electricity, or law enforcement?

CP: Those things was all shackles on them. We freed 'em, I tell you! They're grateful to us. They're singin' songs...

AP: Those aren't songs, you parsimonious prevaricator, they're protesting in the streets, and shooting at our soldiers.

CP: They're just exuberant. Like to fire off their guns a lot, now they're free and all. They don't mean nuffin' by it. They're just so happy to be liberated, with Hussein gone. You mark my words; he was the real weapon of mass destruction his own self, why, he...

AP: That's another thing. You didn't even get him, did you?

CP: Well...

AP: You don't even know where he is, do you?

CP: We got a tip...

AP: You've been blowing up caravans and bombing cities and striking about blindly, because your yahoo cowboy boss refused to listen to any intelligence that contradicted his beliefs. Which, when you come down to it, precluded the use of any intelligence whatsoever.

CP: I see. Quite. (pause) Well, then, we'd better replace it, hadn't we?

AP: With what?

CP: Well, them Iranis are gettin' pretty swaggery, ain't they?

AP: I thought you were encouraging them to rise up against their religious leaders, now that they aren't accepting any more cakes from your lot.

CP: Fair enough. How about something in a nice little Afghanistan?

AP: You've already done that one. Worse than Iraq, if I recall.

CP: How about... coming up to my place and re-electing my boss?

AP: Why in the world would I want to do that? Why wouldn't I just vote for the Democrats and chase you idiots out of office, once for all?

AP: Oh, no, Squire! No, no, no, no! You wouldn't want to do that, trust me on this one.

AP: And why not, if I may be so brash as to query?

CP: Well, they're a bunch of psychopathic liars, they are, always Whitewaterin', 'aving sex in the Oval Office, taking' expensive haircuts on Air Force One, trashing the White House, murderin' poor ol' Vince Foster, and claiming they invented the Internet.

AP: Point taken! Well, then, I'll have a North Korea to go, please.

CP: You won't regret it, Squire! I'll just wrap it up. (tears an American flag off of a roll and clumsily wraps up the same cage the AP carried in.) Come again!

(Originally posted to Humor at EraBlog on Thu, 10 Jul 2003 05:12:39 GMT)

Nippon TV made a very funny Matrix-style parody of two people playing table tennis.