Fun! Learning! All at once!
Oct. 4th, 2007 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mojosmomA few days ago, I saw a flyer posted in the neighborhood, advertising a performance of Bunraku, Japanese puppetry, at International House. "Oh, cool!", I thought, so I went over there last night. It was absolutely fascinating. There were two troupes, a 300-year old troupe from Japan, and an upstart American-based troupe. They did three pieces, and in between they explained the stories, and how the puppets worked, and some of the history of bunraku. These are not little hand puppets. They're about 3' tall, and have complex moving parts (eyes, eyebrows, hands, etc.). Three people, all dressed and hooded in black, operate them: the main operator moves the head and right hand, then there is a left-hand-operator and a foot-operator.
Two nights in a row at I-House for me, as Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion, The Selfish Gene, etc.) was doing a reading a Q&A. Good thing I got there when I did. I was one of the last people in the main room (they piped the talk into an overflow room), and if someone hadn't gotten up so I was able to get a seat, I'd have had to go to the overflow room as standees weren't allowed (fire department rules). Dawkins was excellent. He doesn't mince words, which of course gets people's backs up, but then critical analysis often does. This crowd was totally with him, though. He's also quite funny.
And speaking of funny:
Explanation: one of the attorneys in the office and one of the office managers are constantly finding silly items with which to amuse each other. Well, the manager came in this morning with that big stuffed fish. She was going to just plop it on Tom's desk, but I said, "Oh, we can do better than that!". At first, I was just going to put it on his chair, but then I realized it would be much funnier if the fish were working away at the computer. Tom now wants to hang it from his ceiling.
Two nights in a row at I-House for me, as Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion, The Selfish Gene, etc.) was doing a reading a Q&A. Good thing I got there when I did. I was one of the last people in the main room (they piped the talk into an overflow room), and if someone hadn't gotten up so I was able to get a seat, I'd have had to go to the overflow room as standees weren't allowed (fire department rules). Dawkins was excellent. He doesn't mince words, which of course gets people's backs up, but then critical analysis often does. This crowd was totally with him, though. He's also quite funny.
And speaking of funny:
Explanation: one of the attorneys in the office and one of the office managers are constantly finding silly items with which to amuse each other. Well, the manager came in this morning with that big stuffed fish. She was going to just plop it on Tom's desk, but I said, "Oh, we can do better than that!". At first, I was just going to put it on his chair, but then I realized it would be much funnier if the fish were working away at the computer. Tom now wants to hang it from his ceiling.
