got a gig doing lights for the monkywrench puppet laboratories “Halfpenny Opera” which i’ve been hearing about and seeing bits and pieces from (at the late night cabaret, with seanjohn as Mack the Knife) for the past year. the performances are coming up pretty soon, and they’re going to be at a “professional” venue, the rendezvous jewel box on second avenue. i’ve never done lights for a “professional” show before, but the concept isn’t too difficult to understand, and i’ve run a light board before, so it won’t be anything new. it even pays a little bit, although my guess is that i’m going to be paid with comp tickets and alcohol a lot more than with money.
trolloween is coming up soon and the theme this year is "the trials of trollmetheus", and it’s a trouser affair. the fremont trollharmonic is going to perform, as well as a bunch of trolls (of course), the fire-breathing troll gods, vamolá, and the usual suspects. i’ve recently made a new acquaintance who is turning out to be a tremendous source of inspiration to me. he’s put me one step closer to being able to create the ganesha mask that i’ve been fantasizing about for 10 years or so (i’m probably going to take his mask-making workshop this spring), and is even more interesting because of his apparent survivial in spite of not having a “regular” job outside of making masks and puppets for the fremont arts council.
i recently got a catalogue from Art & Culture, which is a predominantly vaisnava resource outlet. i’ve been considering adding some of what they’ve got to the selection of stuff at hybrid elephant, but i haven’t decided what yet, although i’m not sure that i’ll offer things like the marble radhakrsna set (temple-style, for dressing and decorating) for $1800, until i’ve got some more reliable business… they’ve got everything from tablas, mridangams, sitars and tamburas to yantras, incense, t-shirts, murtis, books, and everything else imaginable. i’m slowly getting the last of the old inventory on the web site, and i’ve still got a bunch of new stuff for which i’ve still got to write pages.
the vegetable sacrifice was tremendously disappointing, and i’m still upset about it. not only that, but i’ve applied for 11 jobs so far this week and have gotten no responses, and a recruiter called me with a testing position that i’d be perfect for, except for the fact that it requires a level of coding that i’m not even close to… it’s becoming quite difficult to get beyond being depressed about things. if it weren’t for the fact of the show, and the minimal positive bump i’ve gotten from the mask-making connection, and the fact that it’s so boring to be depressed for any length of time, i’d be headed in that direction very strongly at this point… at the same time, i suppose that the fact that i’ve been able to identify the fact that i’m depressed, and i’ve been able to identify specific steps i can take to alleviate that depression is a step in the right direction.
meme to be added with a (non-windoesn’t) system that is unicode compliant… which would be linux this time.