Walter's Online Diary

March

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03/01/03 Saturday: Today I spent the day at Circomedia. I arrived around 10:30am, and met up with Javier so that we could rehearse the compere job we had in the evening. We didn't get in as much reheasing as we would have liked, but we both felt comfortable going in. The show itself was very successful. It was the Circomedia Cabaret. This Cabaret is put on by the second year students (the teacher trainers,) it also included a piece from the first year students (an aerial piece.) Javier and I compered the show, and did a lot of improv between the ideas that we had. It was very successful, we had a good audience, and I recieved many compliments after the show. In fact, Javier and I were offered another cabaret compering job in mid march, and this one is a paid gig. I'm very excited about this. My night ended by discovering I had a flat tire. I caught a ride home from Mandy, who had come to see the show. I would end up fixing my bike the next day.

03/02/03 Sunday: Today I headed up to Circomedia to do the cleaning. My plan was to clean all three spaces (gym, studio2, south wing.) I was only able to clean the gym and studio2 because there was a workshop going on in the south wing. After the cleaning, I spent some time working on my juggling. Eventually, Michel, Annette, and I went to Studio2 to help Annette with her piece. She is doing a traffic control officer character, and she needs Michel and I to roll and bounce balls across the stage (as if they were cars in traffic.) After the rehearsal I went home.

03/03/03 Day Ninety-one:I got up extra early this morning because I needed to finish up the John and Ethelyne Pauley Scholarship application. I gave myself enough time to finish it up, and create an online version of it (since all my portfolio material is in storage.) My plan was that I do a good job of this application, and then I would have a week or two more to work on the Albert and Mildred Van Duzer application. I don't know where I got the idea that the Van Duzer Scholarship was not due for another week. Upon examining the application this morning (thank goodness I did,) I noticed that it too was due on March 3rd. In a panic, I set out to complete that application as well, and create an online version of it as well. It wasn't hard to do. I basically copied almost word for word the other application. But it was still time consuming, and having woken up at 5:00am to start to work on the first application; I wasn't done with it until around 10:00. Needless to say I missed my first class, E&M. I hate missing juggling class, because as it is, I don't think we have enough juggling classes! Anyhow, the scholarship application was important. Hopefully I will get at least one of the scholarships, if not both. I arrived at school around 11:10am. I ran into Oskar who was walking away from the school (to go have breakfast,) and I asked him what they did in E&M. Apparently Rod, continuing with the idea of having tricks down solid enough that you can perform them under any conditions, asked them to perform their routine while reciting a nursery rhyme. Sounds interesting. After chatting with Oskar for a bit, I locked up my bike, and headed over to Studio 2 for PT class which was scheduled to start at 11:15. Bim started the PT class with a flocking exercise warm-up. He wanted us to focus on five characteristics of flocking. Those characteristics were muscle, bone, and the three levels of space between; tight, medium, and long. Muscle is when everyone is in close and pushing in towards each other. Bone is where some people create lines of support (through their bones,) down to the floor, and others place some or all of their weight on those lines. The three levels of space are pretty self-explanatory. The tight levels of space are the ones that you would use for muscle and bone, and medium level and long obviously more space between each person. The larger the space, the harder it is to flock. The tighter the space, the harder it is to move. After working on those 5 characteristics, Bim gave us the assignment to, in five minutes, flock in the physical representation of the four elements, using the 5 different characteristics we were focusing on, and use voice as well. It was an interesting exercise. There was a moment when we were all on the floor, and we started rolling over each other. I was amused to see elements from another class (Contact Dance,) creep into PT. For the next exercise, we did some more flocking, but this time Bim gave us a setting. We were at a funeral, looking over a casket that was lowered into the ground. We were to start out by just breathing together, and then slowly begin to flock together. The idea of this was that if one person said something like "He will be missed," The others flock together and repeat it a few times, adding gestures. Basically for this exercise, the dialogue and gestures would start out normal, but could morph into something else. It was an odd exercise. Bim wasn't happy with the class's first attempt at it, and gave us further instruction, and had us do it again. After that exercise, Bim had us do an identical exercise, but this time, standing around a newborn baby. After trying this exercise out for a while, Bim had half the class go up and demonstrate the flocking over a newborn baby while the other half of the class watched. It was nightmarish. Each normal action, like tickling the baby, and saying something like, "Koochie, koochie, koo!" slowly morphed into something very dark looking. It was funny at the same time. After both halves of the class presented, we moved on to the next exercise. For this next, and final exercise, Bim had us all stand in a circle. In this formation, he had us do the Agatha Christy detective interrogation bit, but this time, instead of country names, we were to come up with social fears. It was amazing, once we got warmed up, how many we came up with. After a couple of rounds of that, Bim ended the class by giving us our devising assignment. For devising tomorrow, we are to get in groups of 3. One person is to talk about universal fears, while the other two are to poke fun at the ideas he/she is talking about by creating images. Unlike the last exercise, they are not making fun of the speaker, but are making fun of the fears. Carnival makes light of fears. After PT, I headed up to the office to fax in my applications. It was a little busy in the office, and Charlie said to leave the applications with him, and he would fax them later. I knew this wouldn't be a problem, as long as they were faxed before 4:00pm (since we are 8 hours ahead of California.) After leaving the office, I met up with Avital and Denise, and we walked to the sandwich shop. At 2:00 Bim started Dip Notes. Today's session was discussing Technical Requirements for Shows. We focused on a "tech spec" sheet. This is a sheet of paper you send to a theatre before arriving so that they can prepare all the things that your show needs. (I will post my notes here later.) After Dip Notes, I had a nice long scheduled E&M practice session. I spent part of the time working on my cigar box routine, and another part of it practicing 7 balls. I have decided to start working on 7 balls again. Before I left for the day, I had my tutorial with Rod. Here is what Rod and Bim had to say about me in this tutorial:

Name: Walter

Subject: Physical Theatre

Tutor: Bim

Date: 6th February 03

Has found solid clown persona - both in the look and movement - very good in the soft and light. Good in the pretentious. Voice is going in right direction but not quite there yet. Need to simplify ideas and do less with more effect. Be more selective with ideas and then work them to their limit. In presentation tends to shuffle so hold strong immobility. Sometimes finds it hard to sustain internal stupidity or external qualities of movement. In devising set up small research tasks to discover ideas (e.g. with object) rather than thinking them up.

Walter (though the form doesn't show, the following is written by Rod Laver)

Still showing great commitement and organization to the cause of improving your juggling. Some good analysis and problem solving on glitches and way of improving tricks and techniques. Your progress has varied and will not always follow a regular upward curve - but that is juggling. Much of the rest of the course will be about choosing and developing a style for your juggling whilst continuing to add new tricks and push your technique further.

After showing me the page, Rod and I spoke briefly. Basically, it was another good review. Rod especially pointed out that he appreciates my ability to problem solve. He said that it is a good quality for someone who is going to be a teacher.

After my tutorial, I headed home in the rain. I got home, went to the store and did a little shopping, and then settled in for the night, watching some star trek on TV.

03/04/03 Day Ninety-two:This should be a short entry: I arrived at school around 8:50. There was nobody leading the warm-up this morning (and I suspect there will not be many group led warm-ups from now on.) I did my own warm up by working on my cigar boxes for a while. At 9:30 it was time for conditioning. However there was some confusion about the scheduling. Because it is Aerial Intensive week, the aerialists were under the impression that they didn't have to go to conditioning, but would be spending the entire day doing aerial. This is what they did. Anyhow, Liz normally teaches two conditioning classes, so because there were so few around to take her class, she decided to combine the two classes, and teach conditioning during the second scheduled session (from 11:30-1:00.)

So at 9:40ish, I headed up to the office to do the cleaning. I did the cleaning in the office and hallway. While I was doing this, I asked Bim about a wig for my piece. Before I was done with the cleaning, Bim brought me a wig.

After the cleaning was done, I took the wig, 3 cigar boxes, and my headphones and went looking for Liz because she said she could help me learn some simple Tango steps for my piece. I found her in the South Wing, watching the aerial class. It was neat going in there. They had the flying trapeze net up. It was huge, and took up almost the entire room. It looked like they were having fun. Anyhow, Liz and I went over to Studio 2, and she spent about 20 minutes with me showing me some steps. It was very helpful, and I should have no problem incorporating those steps into my routine.

After my short session with Liz, I headed over to the gym and spent until 11:30 in there, practicing my juggling.

At 11:30 I headed over to Studio 2 for my conditioning class. For some reason my body was feeling rather useless, and I was getting very little done in the class. I almost walked out of the class, but decided to stick it out.

At 1:00, I headed up to have my lunch. I had a baked potato and some beans. I needed something sweet, so I decided to walk to the nearby sandwich shop and get a flapjack. I also picked up a caramel shortcake for Cat. Phil joined me for the walk over there. Upon returning, I found Cat and gave her the shortcake, and then headed over to the gym for the PT practice session.

It took us a few minutes to get organized, but once we did, I found myself working with Pascal and Phil for this assignment. We decided to have me talk about fire, Pascal talk about darkness, and Phil talk about death. As each of us talks about these universal fears, the other two stand back behind the person and poke fun at these fears. We worked on it for about an hour. Once we had some basic ideas down, we decided to call it a day. We will be presenting these tomorrow.

I spent the next hour and a half practicing in the gym. My cigar box routine is getting a little more solid, but I still have trouble with it being so fast. I am trying to focus on control. I think I should have it down by the end of this week.

At 4:30ish, I decided to walk into Kingswood and check out the charity shops. My goal was to find a costume for my character. I didn't have much luck, but I did find a pair of trousers. They are several sizes too big for me, and also several sizes too short for me. They should make good pants for a funny character. They were only £4, so I bought them.

Upon returning, I hung out in the gym for a while, and then decided to head home while there was still some light. I got home, and did a little work on the computer (I did some music editing for Fabian.) And I had some dinner, and then headed off to bed around 8:30.
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03/05/03 Day Ninety-three:Arrived at school around 9:00am. I did some juggling during the warm-up session. It seems we pretty much don't have TTs leading the warm-ups anymore. They warned us this would happen, but there was never an official announcement that it had happened. Oskar and I have made plans to use the ½ hour every morning to work on our passing patterns. Our eight club passing is getting more solid, and I want us to get nine solid. I would like to do a nice club passing routine with him in the end of the year show.

At 9:30 it was time for Movement. There was some confusion at the beginning as to whether or not we would have this class today. Partially because it is Aerial intensive week, and someone had mentioned that Helen was in London. However, Bim showed up holding notes obviously handed to him by Helen, and he taught the class. Bim started the class off with a game of Giants Dwarfs and Wizards. We played several rounds of that game. After the warm-up game, Bim let us know that we would be working with character this morning. He asked us to pick a character we wanted to work on. I chose my janitor character from my project. For the first exercise, Bim had us walk around the room and slowly take on the characteristics of our character. To help us along, he asked us a bunch of questions. I wish I could have written down all the questions, because they were very good questions that helped us analyse our posture, movement, rhythm, gestures, etc. Then Bim had us continue to walk in our character, and slowly incorporate our voices into it. I found this difficult because I hadn't planned on having my character do any talking. Eventually Bim had us greet each other in our character, and start short conversations. I focused on my character having lost his broom, and was going around asking people if they knew where it was. For the next exercise, Bim had us go outside with our character, and let him/her wander around outside, and interact with the outside world, including other people. Bim warned us not to go up to strangers, because they might not understand what we are up to, but that it was okay to talk to Mervin, the groundskeeper, because he was used to stuff like this happening. I found this amusing. While outdoors with my character, I gave my character a task, in order to keep myself focused and maintain my character for the entire time I was outside. The task I gave myself was simply picking up trash on the floor. This seemed an appropriate task, considering my character was a janitor. I even went to the bathroom in character. I ran into Polly and Ashling when I came out. I remember Polly looking at me strangely and asking me what I was doing, and Ashling piped in with something like, "Oh there is a bunch of them wandering around acting strange like that." I had a brief conversation with them while still in character. I suddenly noticed that none of the others were out and about. I must have missed Bim calling us in while I was in the loo. I headed back to Studio 2, and sure enough everyone was back inside. Bim noticed me walk in the door still in character, and the moment I entered, he told me I could relax. Next we all sat there, and discussed how it felt to go outside and be in our character. There were various different opinions, but many agreed that by putting their character in a real environment (not just the confines of Studio 2) they were able to explore realistic elements of their characters. For the final exercise, Bim had us work with a partner. We each took turns "sculpting" our partner to make them look like our character, and then teaching our partner how to move. Once we taught out partner how to look and move like our character, we walked behind them, observing, and making small corrections if needed. I found this to be an interesting, and very useful exercise, because though you can be fully aware of what your body is doing when you are moving about as your character, you can't truly step out of him/her and walk around and see it from different angles. Being able to see my character in this detail made me question some things about him. At the end of class, Bim gave us our homework assignment. For next week we are required to write an autobiography of our character. He didn't mention how long it had to be. I imagine they don't want a book, but just something that gives details about the character, his background, and his world views. It should be fun/interesting to write.

After Movement class, I had a nice long break from 11:00 until 2:00pm. I firs hung out in the lunchroom, chatting with some people. I didn't bring any lunch with me, so I needed to sort something out. Ashling gave me directions to a nearby grocery store that I hadn't heard of called Somerfield. Apparently they have really good bargains. I decided to walk over there. On my way over there, I ran into Phil who had decided to go home for the long break. He gave me a ride part of the way to Somerfield in his car. At the store, I bought myself some bread, humus, a tomato, and a couple of other things. I then walked back to Circomedia. Once back in the lunchroom, I ate my food, and watched a video of juggling from the library. I found this video clip of Jason Garfield competing in the IJA when he was just a kid. It was amusing to watch, because his stage persona was very different from the Jason Garfield I have met and seen perform.

Around 1:00pm I headed over to Studio 2 and spent an hour working on my juggling. I mostly focused on my cigar boxes.

At 2:00pm it was time for PT. Bim started the class off by having us present the assignment we had been given, and had worked on yesterday. Once again the presentation didn't go as well as we hoped it would. Like last week, we put in a valiant effort, but Bim let us know that we were not successful. The assignment was for one person to talk about a universal fear while the other 2-3 people behind them would make fun of that fear. Apparently Pascal, Phil and I did too much of just mimicking what the speaker was saying and didn't get in enough inversions. Apparently we need to focus on taking something that seems normal and letting it slowly morph into its opposite as it builds in intensity. Basically, letting extreme emotions become their opposite. An example Bim gave was that the spasms of death can become an orgasm. This carnival stuff is hard. For the next exercise Bim had us work with a partner. I worked with Phil. For this exercise, Bim wanted us to stand in front of our partner and take turns coming up with sentences. One person would say a random sentence, say, for example, "The pickles taste lovely with mustard." Then the other person would have to quickly come up with another sentence that starts with the last word of the previous sentence, (e.g. "Mustard and ketchup are my two favourite things to put on a hamburger.") Then for the next exercise one person would say a random sentence, (e.g. "Rain is wet and uncomfortable.") and the other person would chant several words that rhymed with the last word of that sentence, and then pick one of those words and create a new sentence. And the other person would in turn do the same with the new sentence. Then for the final exercise in this set of exercise, Bim had us work with alliterations. The exercise was similar, but instead of finding words that rhyme with the last word we found alliterations of that word, and made a new sentence using alliterations of that word. After going through these three versions of this exercise, Bim had us work alone and call out lines from a song or children's rhyme, and follow each line with a new sentence created with one or some or all of the techniques we just practiced with our partner. This was bizarre, and difficult. Next Bim had us work with our partners again, and this time, one person would stand and listen while the other person talked about something. The topic had to be something mundane, and normal (e.g. I spoke of borrowing money from the bank, and the responsibilities that are involved in borrowing money.) While talking about their subject, the speaker would find moments to go off into some of these random sentences that come out. This was very bizarre to watch/listen to. (At this point my memory gets a little fuzzy-for some reason I didn't take very good notes on this class.) The final exercise (as memory serves me,) involved us all standing around in a circle. We did the Agatha Christy detective scenario thing again, but this time instead of asking for things that we shouldn't do in society (social fears,) we reversed it, and took things we "shouldn't do" and suggested doing them. (e.g. "Pee in the swimming pool!") This was a fun exercise.

After PT class was over, I basically had the rest of the afternoon to work on my juggling. I spent a lot of time working on my cigar box routine. I am having difficulty with it because it is so fast paced (trying to keep up with the music.) But with all the practice I have put in, it is getting closer and closer to being solid. I feel like I won't have too much trouble getting it solid in the next 2 weeks.

I rode my bike home around 6:00pm.
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03/06/03 Day Ninety-four: This should be a relatively short entry. I arrived at school around 9:00am, and spent the entire warm-up ½ hour passing clubs with Oskar. I am glad that we are starting to get more serious about club passing. I want to get a lot of cool tricks down so that we can put together something for the end of the year show.

The first class of the day was E&M. I headed over to Studio 2. Rod started the class off by letting us each work on our projects. I made even more progress with my cigar boxes. Rod eventually came over and watched me, and gave me some feedback on my boxes. He basically said that it is looking good, and that I should keep at it. I told him that if I get this down solid enough I might want to add a little more to the routine. He said it is good that I am starting out small, and then building bigger when I have an idea that I can handle more. He said that most people tend to make these huge ambitious plans, and then it all falls apart on them. We spent half the class working on our projects, and the other half we spent working on some passing patterns. First, after my suggestion, Rod had us work on having Annette stand on my shoulders and juggle. Rod said that every year there is a few jugglers who work on this trick but it never makes it into the end of the year show. I am convinced that this year will be different. I have tons of experience in performing this trick, and I am determined to get it into the end of the year show. Annette is significantly heavier than Jessi (my last partner,) but there is no reason we can't do this. We did have minimal success with it, and as long as we continue to practice, it shouldn't be a problem. Next Rod had Oskar and I work on passing 8 clubs with triple spins, while he worked with Annette and Pascal on some other passing stuff. To end the class, Rod had us work on a pattern where Oskar and I stand opposite each other and another person stands in the middle facing one of us. The person standing in the middle passes 6 clubs with the person they are facing on a two count passing pattern. Then the person who they are passing to, when they are ready, start passing the clubs over the person in the middle in triple spin throws to the opposite person who is holding 2 clubs. Eventually the person in the middle gets rid of all their clubs and the two people on the outside (Oskar and I) are passing 8 clubs on triple spin. Rod wants us to get this solid with 9 clubs for the end of the year show. I am all for it.

After E&M class it was time for conditioning practice scheduled session. Because of the Aerial intensive week, there were only about 4 people in the gym for this session. Annette and I decided to spend the time working on some passing patterns instead of working out. I know, shame on us! But it was time well spent. She and I worked on 6 club 3 count patterns, 6 club ultimate passing (sync and a-sync,) and we worked on 7 club 3 count (w/ double spin,) and we worked on 6 club four count back to back, 6 club 2 count back to back, and 7 club 2 count back to back patterns. We didn't get very far with the 7 club back-to-back pattern, but it is obvious that with a few hours of practice we could have it solid. I have wanted to learn this pattern for a while.

From 1:00pm-2:00pm I had my lunch break.

At 2:00pm I headed over to the gym for our Movement Technique class. Again, Mike who teaches Aerial is teaching this class. I caught Mike outside of class before 2:00 and told him of my frustration with dance instructors in general. He told me that I should make a firm stand in class, and if I don't understand something, I should stop him and ask him to slow down and show things in more detail. I'm glad I mentioned this to him. I half thought about not even taking his class today. As it turns out it was a fun class, even though I still had trouble keeping up with some of the moves. Ah the joys of having two left feet. I won't go into details about what we learned (mostly because I don't have any written notes on it.) However, one thing that we have been learning is how to make dramatic poses at what I assume would be the end of a routine. Its amusing to me to learn these dramatic poses, because it reminds me of a time about 5 months ago when I was hanging out with the Bristol jugglers during one of their Monday night meetings. There happen to be two ex-Circomedia students there that night, and one of them, Owen, was joking around and telling the other person to add a Circomedia ending to what she was doing, and he demonstrated by doing what we are learning in this class.

From 3:45 until around 4:30 we have Project Practice time. I spent most of that time working on my cigar boxes. At 4:30 Rod showed up for the 4:30-6:00 session where he helps us with our projects. Rod explained at the beginning that at 5:30 each of us would do a run through of our pieces. I had not done a run through yet in my practice time, so I spent the next hour patching up the holes in my routine and figuring out how it all comes together. At 5:30, we ran through all the routines. Mine went surprisingly well all things considered. I received a few compliments, and Rod mentioned that the music I was using worked well for the piece. I am pleased with how things are coming together.

We didn't finish our session with Rod until around 6:15. After that session was over, Polly came into Studio 2 to meet me. I had spoken with her earlier in the day and she had expressed her frustration about her project to me, and told me she didn't have a good idea for what to do for her project. I therefore offered to help direct her and guide her through the process. We decided that it would be best if she used her clown character, and did some kind of trapeze act. We started out by sitting down and going over some ideas she had, and then eventually I had her do a little bit of improvisation work to start generating material. Shortly before 7:00pm, she and I sat down again, and I gave her a list of things she needed to do before we met tomorrow. I'm glad I am getting to help her. Directing is something I really enjoy doing, and she has a good clown character, and it will be fun working with her.

At 7:00pm I headed home. Once home, I got online and started downloading some music for Polly's piece. Around 7:50pm Oskar showed up at my house. We had made plans for him to come over so that I could do some sound editing for his piece. Having gotten this CD burner put into Mandy's computer has proven very valuable. After doing the sound editing for Oskar, he and I went to the take-out place and got some food. We came back to my place and ate it while the CD burner did its magic. Mandy and Tarim were in the kitchen when Oskar and I got back. They were cooking pancakes. Apparently England has a holiday called Pancake Day. I'm not sure what it is about. Yesterday was actually Pancake Day, but apparently Tarim and Mandy missed it and were making up for it tonight.

Shortly after dinner, Oskar went home. I stayed up a little longer, but was soon in bed asleep.

03/07/03 Day Ninety-five: Headed out the door on my bike into what was a very, very cold, and wet morning. I arrived at school shortly before 9:00am, and spent 20 minutes of the warm-up session passing clubs with Oskar again. He only wanted to pass clubs for 20 minutes because he needed 10 minutes to warm-up before his Acrobatics class at 9:30.

From 9:30 until 11:30 I had nothing scheduled, and nowhere to practice (except the South Wing, but it was much too cold in there.) So I used the two hours to start making copies of the videos of the presentations that I don't have yet. I am trying to get a copy of everything that we have done. And not just of the projects I have been involved in, but all the others as well. I'm sure they will be of some value in the future. Unfortunately all the videos I am making right now are in PAL format, and when I return to the States, I won't be able to watch them until I get them converted. I am thinking about getting a dual format VCR when I get back to save the hassle. Plus, I might want to send videos to my European friends in the future.

At 11:30 it was time for Performance class. This class was a continuation from last weeks class (which I confess I haven't written about yet.) Bim started the class off with the winking murder game. Twice during that game I thought I had picked out the murderer, but I was mistaken. It is a very fun game. The meat of the class was identical to last weeks class save one detail. We all stood in a circle while we took turns talking to the class. Last week we were told to speak about something we felt passionately about (either something that made us feel good, or something that made us angry.) Last week I spoke about homeless people who are wasting their life away when they could be doing constructive things with their life. This week, Bim gave us instructions to speak passionately about this topic again, but to take the opposite side of it. So in my case, I had to speak positively about homeless people. It was an interesting exercise. Last week the same exercise invoked a lot of seriousness. This version of the assignment was hilarious. We couldn't stop laughing at moments. When taken to extreme, the arguments seem ridiculous and the original message seems all that clearer. I was reading an article posted on the James Randi Educational Foundation and it made me think of this exercise. I would like to share that article (from: http://randi.org/jr/030703.html ):

CRYSTAL homeopathy combines the principles of homeopathic medicine with the healing power of crystals." That's the claim made in www.the-crystal-chamber.net, a site offering very special crystals for sale. "These crystals, while they were forming in caves over thousands of years, have picked up minute, homeopathic quantities of substances that will benefit you through their influence on your aura."
Does this sound like complete garbage to you? A Feedback reader who we shall call Gareth Thomas thought it did, so he posted a "provocative enquiry" at www.ukpagan.com, a site where believers in all things mystical gather to discuss matters of common interest. Using the pseudonym "disturber," he challenged believers in such therapies to convince him that they had any effect whatsoever other than providing vague emotional satisfaction. He singled out the claims made for crystal homeopathy as being "transparent balderdash."
The response from ukpagan devotees was immediate and irate. Some were so rude the forum's moderators had to remove the posts. All insisted on the validity of their beliefs, some even referring to theoretical physics to support them. None questioned the claims of crystal homeopathy.
Thomas persisted. He copied the full crystal homeopathy text from the Crystal Chamber site into ukpagan and criticized it sentence by sentence, declaring it a cynical, scientifically groundless scam. Still, no one agreed. Yet more people wrote heated posts defending crystal homeopathy and branding Thomas a cynic.
What none of them knew was that Thomas had created the Crystal Chamber site himself and that "crystal homeopathy" was his own invention. Depressed by the abundance of absurd claims for quack alternative therapies, he had set up the site as a credulity experiment.
He continued to have fun with it, posing for a while on ukpagan under a new pseudonym as the Crystal Chamber's proprietor and enlisting enthusiastic support for his site. One "crystal expert" even offered to help him run the business.
But all good things have to end. If you now click on the top left corner of www.the-crystal-chamber.net, you get a statement that begins: "Nothing in this site makes any sense. It was all made up in a few hours to test susceptibility and gullibility." And Thomas has posted a final message on ukpagan explaining that the site and all his previous messages have been hoaxes.
Meanwhile, no wallets have been harmed by his experiment. He has torn up the checks sent to him by people who wanted to buy his crystals and refunded credit card sales.
His one regret now that it's all over is that he resisted the temptation to claim on his website that his crystals had been "mined by elves."

So in other words, by arguing the opposite view, and taking it to extreme, you show how ridiculous that view can be. I asked Bim at the end of class if this exercise had anything to do with the Carnival that we are studying in PT at the moment, and he told me that "of course it does."

After Performance class, I basically had the entire afternoon off to do what I wanted. I could have gone to the Acro for Idiots class, but I opted instead to stay in the video room and continue making copies of the presentations. I know it is going to take me hours and hours to finish making copies of all the tapes, and I want to get it done now, not towards the end of the year when everyone is trying to get in there to make copies.

At 4:30 it was time for the Aerial Intensive Week Presentations. It was fun to watch their presentation. It was basically a chari-vari (spell?) of skills that they had learned over the week. As a performance piece it had too many moments of split focus, but it was fun to watch them cram all these new skills into about 15 minutes worth of aerial stuff.

After the Aerial Presentation, I spent about 45 minutes working with Polly on her piece. We made a significant amount of progress. I made plans to meet with her on Sunday to work on it some more. I think she is feeling more confident about it now. She already has several hilarious moments in her piece.

After working with Polly, I spent ½ an hour working on my cigar box routine. Around 7:20 I got ready to head home. Jeremiah had told me he wanted to ride with me, and he waited until I was done with my practicing. When Jeremiah and I went to get out bikes, he discovered that Michel had locked his bike to Jeremiah's bike. Jeremiah went looking for Michel, but couldn't find him anywhere. I suspected, being the end of the week that he had headed up to a pub in Kingswood with some of the students. So I headed out on my bike to go find him. I arrived at the pub (I think it is called Soapy Joes) where Yam, Michelle, and Avital all work. They hadn't seen Michel, but gave me his phone number. I went to a payphone and called him. Apparently he had gone out with Fabian to the store, and had just returned when I called him. Anyhow, long story/short, I got very wet on my ride out looking for Michel. I got back to Circomedia, and the three of us headed down the hill on our bikes.

I settled in for the night, leaving a note for Mandy letting her know that I was choosing not to go to the festival tomorrow, that I needed to work on my project.

03/08/03 Saturday: Did little worth mentioning today, which is silly since I stayed home from going to a juggling festival up north to work on my project. I guess what I really needed was some time to just relax and hang out.

03/09/03 Sunday: Spent the morning updating my diary. Spent the afternoon at Circomedia working on my project.

03/10/03 Day Ninety-six: I arrived at school around 8:50 am. Again there was no TT there to lead the warm-up, so Oskar and I spent the majority of the warm-up passing clubs. We worked on passing 9 clubs with triple spins and are starting to have short successful runs with it. If we practice this every day, we should get it fairly solid fairly quickly.

At 9:30 it was time for E&M class. Rod started the class off by having us gather around the stereo while he played a song for us. The song was by Elvis Presley. Rod asked us the name of the song, and it took me a couple of seconds to realize what it was, but I called out "Viva las Vegas!" a few seconds before the King himself did. Rod asked us if we knew why he was playing Elvis for us, and Phil piped in, "Because he's the King!" Anyhow, the subject of today's lesson was presentation style. Rod spoke briefly of the various styles of work available in the world of professional juggling, and he also mentioned that even if we get used to, and really like on specific style of juggling, that we should be familiar with all the different styles. The reason for this is that because of the limited availability of work, one should be versatile, and ready to make changes to their act at the drop of a hat. This of course was Rod speaking from recent experience, since as I may have mentioned he just "Vegased" his show by changing his ping pong ball spitting man gadget to look like Elvis and played Elvis music during his routine. Rod then went on to talk about a performer (who's name is escaping me at the moment, but is in his 70s now.) He mentioned that this performer back in his days used to do a devil stick routine, and he would do the entire routine with his head down (looking at the tricks he was doing,) and telling jokes the entire time. Apparently his devil stick tricks were very good, but in those days, telling jokes while doing the tricks was the norm-as if the tricks or the jokes were not good enough on their own. So our assignment for the day was to take a short section of a juggling routine (an example for some of us was something from our projects,) and perform it, then he wanted us to find 3 impressions we could do with our props, finished off with telling a joke while juggling. The jokes he provided from a book he brought with him, but we had the option to use one of our own jokes. I chose one of my favourite jokes. To save myself time from all the typing, here is a version of that same joke I found on the Internet (but not nearly as good as I tell it:)

There was this man who was in a horrible accident, and was injured. But the only permanent damage he suffered was the amputation of both of his ears. As a result of this "unusual" handicap, he was very self-conscious about his having no ears.

Because of the accident, he received a large sum of money from the insurance company. It was always a dream of his to own a business, so he decided with all this money he had, he now had the means to own a business. So he went out and purchased a small, but expanding computer firm. But he realized that he had no business knowledge at all, so he decided that he would have to hire someone to run the business.

He picked out three top candidates, and interviewed each of them. The first interview went really well. He really liked this guy. His last question for this first candidate was, "Do you notice anything unusual about me?" The guy said, "Now that you mention it, you have no ears." The man got really upset and threw the guy out.

The second interview went even better than the first. This candidate was much better than the first. Again, to conclude the interview, the man asked the same question again, "Do you notice anything unusual about me?" This guy also noticed, "Yes, you have no ears." The man was really upset again, and threw this second candidate out.

Then he had the third interview.. The third candidate was even better than the second, the best out of all of them. Almost certain that he wanted to hire this guy, the man once again asked, "Do you notice anything unusual about me?" The guy replied "Yeah, you're wearing contact lenses."

Surprised, the man then asked, "Wow! That's quite perceptive of you! How could you tell?"

The guy burst out laughing and said, "Well, You can't wear glasses if you don't have any ears!"

I decided that to present this to the class, I wouldn't do it in the order he specified (tricks, impressions, jokes,) but would mix it up, and make it more of a routine. For my impressions, I used the joke as a vehicle for showing them off. Placing the cigar boxes stacked, and cradled in my right arm, and lifting my left arm (holding an imaginary torch,) I did an impression of the Statue of Liberty to indicate the story took place in New York. Holding the boxes stacked end to end vertically, I indicated that the story took place in a very tall office building (skyscraper.) I created 5 characters for the story (the three men, the secretary, and the boss.) I used the three cigar boxes to represent the three men. When any of the three men were talking, I placed a cigar box behind each ear to amplify the fact that they had ears, and the boss didn't. The secretary I imitated by placing two boxes on their sides on the floor, and then placing my heels on the edge of each box (to look like I am wearing high heals,) and holding the other box like a tray, miming a cup of coffee being served. For the boss, I put one of the boxes down and used the other two to look like a clipboard being held in my hand. The one other impression I did was at the very beginning of the routine. I held three boxes, ready to do a 3-box toss start (for this you hold all three boxes stacked like books, toss them into the air with a slight spin, grab the outside boxes with each hand and capture the middle box in between them.) However, I purposefully did it wrong, so that I catch the box in the middle sideways, and the structure I am holding, when balanced vertically, looks like a crucifix. Once holding the boxes in that position, I went into a brief skit infomercial selling Mother Teresa signed crucifixes-"Are you constantly being plagued by vampires? Well, fear no more…bla, bla, bla…" The order I presented it went like this: Opening vampire skit, some simple tricks, tell the joke using impressions, and finish with harder tricks. We had until 10:30 to work on it, and then we each presented what we had put together. Each person did his or her presentation a little differently. They all were good in some respect. However, everyone agreed that Jeremiah's was the funniest, and I'm sure it wasn't even intentional. He came up, in his standard timid way, fumbled a few tricks (and got a few nice ones too.) Then he decided to tell his joke, so apologising to us for not being able to memorize the joke, he pulls out a piece of paper and reads the joke to us. It's hard to describe what was so funny about this, but it was hilarious. I don't even remember the joke. The joke itself wasn't that funny; it was his reading a joke from a piece of paper that was hilarious. E&M ran over a little, and I only had 5 minutes to get to my next class.

I immediately headed over to Studio 2 for my PT class. Bim started the class off by having us split into two groups and do the same flocking exercise we have done at the beginning of class for the last couple of classes. This time he wanted us to use all the factors we have been using and to include fear in with it. Adding this one element of fear, and the inversions of fears made the flocking go very well. My group seemed to go quite smoothly from one fear into the inversion of that, and then back into another fear. Bim was quite pleased with the flocking session we did. For the next exercise, Bim kept us in the same groups, and explained that we would be playing Cops and Robbers. My group were the Robbers, and the other group were the Cops. Bim wanted us to play like children would play Cops and Robbers, but not be children playing it. For the first half of the exercise, Bim didn't want the two groups to interact. I have to say this was incredibly fun. My group gathered in a circle, and we were using cliché language. We were saying things like "Okay, synchronize watches," "Plan B? Or shall we go to Plan C?" "You distract the guards, I'll deactivate the alarm!" all while running around the room, crawling under things, hiding behind chairs, and stepping over invisible laser beams. It was great fun. For the second part of the exercise Bim let instructed the two groups to interact. The Cops immediately surrounded us, and it quickly became a screaming match with the Cops saying something about us being caught, and the Robbers turning in on each other accusing each other of having ratted on the rest of the group. This apparently wasn't what Bim wanted. So he set us up with the Robbers in a corner of the room, while the Cops were in a position that had the Robbers trapped there. From that position, Bim had us go back and forth, taking turns talking to each other, each group acting as a chorus. The cops making accusations (e.g. "We're going to lock you up for a long time for this one.") while the robbers played the victim part, (e.g. "We are just the cleaners here doing our jobs, you can call the manager…") After a few rounds of that, Bim had us go into the next exercise. For this exercise, we stayed in the same groups. In this game we pretended to be various characters in an emergency room of a hospital. The interesting thing about this exercise is that you could change characters any moment you wanted to. Some of the characters were nurses, some were doctors, some were patients, and some were worried relatives of the sick people. This was a lot of fun as well. ER situations can create some silly melodrama. My favourite character I played during this exercise was an intern who kept freaking out and saying, "I can't handle this, I'm just an intern!" For the next exercise, Bim had us mix ourselves a little so that we would be in different groups. In our new groups, he had us play a game of being characters in a happy family scene. Again, with this one, like the last two, we were to speak in clichés that would be appropriate for a happy family setting. Like the hospital exercise, we would switch from one character to another. This was strange and interesting because one minute you would be talking to your younger brother, and then suddenly there would be a change, and he was your father. For the next exercise Bim had everyone stand in a big circle facing inwards. For this exercise, we started first by calling out random happy family cliché sayings that would be told to a child (e.g. "You make us so proud," or "Now be nice to your brother." Etc.) After each person speaks their random cliché phrase, the rest of the class would echo it in their own style. Then slowly Bim had us begin to slip in harsher comments (e.g. "Close your mouth when you chew your food," or "Don't hit your sister!" etc.) Next we took turns having ½ the class perform this while the other ½ watched. It was pretty hilarious to see all these exaggerated parental clichés being tossed in our general direction. When it was time for my group to go up, Bim wanted us to use guilt trip type clichés, but we didn't really come up with good ones. So pausing for a moment, we discussed as a class what he meant by guilt trip clichés. What he was looking for was things parents say that produce a guilt trip for the child (e.g. "I work so hard to keep you kids happy and all I get is heartache." Or "Look, you made your mother cry." Or "You never call." Etc.) Having a better understanding what he was looking for, Bim had a few more people join our group (until it was just Phil, Annette, and Bim on the bench,) and had us start on the opposite end of the room and slowly move forward (towards the audience,) as a chorus, using these guilt trip clichés. Apparently it was quite creepy to watch. For the next exercise, Bim had us all stand in a inward facing circle and as a chorus call out random cliché comments that a cop or detective would say to someone found guilty in an interrogation room. As with the happy family clichés, people would at random come up with these comments, and the others in the group would echo them in their own style. After exploring the cop's comments, Bim had us switch and become the victim (the one who was being interrogated,) and see what cliché comments came from him/her. After this exercise, Bim split us into two groups, facing each other, and had ½ the class act in chorus as the interrogators and the other half act in chorus as the victim. For the final exercise, Bim had us gather again in an inward facing circle. In this position, he had us come up with inverted compliments. As an example, he said that if we were giving inverted compliments about old people, we would say things like, "Such good drivers." Or "Always keen on the latest fashion and music trends." We started out by doing inverted compliments about Kingswood people. I should say that if Bristol has rednecks, they probably all live in Kingswood. With my permission, and as a suggestion of mine, the next group of people we invert complimented were Americans. This was easy. Next we complimented farmers, followed by circus people, and for the final inverted compliments we commented on Circomedia Students. "So tidy those, Circomedia students, always on time, never complain, and they work great together…" At the end of class, Bim gave us our homework assignment for PT practice session tomorrow. The only thing I got from the assignment was that we are doing a social fears collage using some of the techniques we have been learning. I was trying to get all my notes written while Bim was talking about the assignment, so I wasn't completely focused on what he was saying. I'm sure I can ask the other students. Plus we will be working in groups, so someone is bound to have a better understanding of the assignment. I know, famous last words!

PT ran a little over, so I only had ½ an hour for lunch. Deniz and I walked to the sandwich shop and got ourselves some lunch, eating it on the way home. Deniz talked to me about her project and the problems she was having with finding an ending. I tried to give her some ideas, but she thought my ideas were cheesy. Oh well. Speaking of other people's projects, I spoke with Polly, and apparently Bim likes what she and I have been working on so far. I was pleased to hear this.

At 2:00pm it was time for Dip Notes. For this session, Bim had some guy named Rod come in from the Bristol University Theatre Arts Department and give a lecture on lighting. Because I took a entire semester in lighting at HSU, this was mostly old information. He handed out a multi-page hand-out, so that with my previous lighting class, I opted not to write down any notes.

At 3:45 it was time for E&M practice. I spent much of the time working on my project. Rachel, the TT was in charge of the practice session, and I asked her to watch me do a run through of my piece. It actually was the best run through I have had (I didn't drop once during the dance.) It felt good to perform that for her, and she gave me several compliments. I stayed in Studio 2 until 6 working on various things. I also spent some of that time working with Annette and her piece. For her piece I have to stand off stage and roll/toss balls to her as needed in the routine. At 6:00pm Catalina was supposed to come by and get directions to my house so that I could help her with her sound design. She, however, showed up to tell me that she still isn't sure about what music she is going to use, so she decided not to do her sound design tonight.

Before I went home, I thought of a clever trick, and started working on it, and succeeded to land the trick a few times. If I can get this trick solid, I could use it in my routine. The trick is balancing a fake rose on my nose, then flicking my head, causing the rose to fall down into my mouth (ready to dance the Tango!)

The ride home was uneventful. I rode with Jeremiah. I stopped at Lidl to do some shopping before I got home. Once home, I noticed my checks had arrived, so I spent a good portion of the time doing my finances. I paid my bills (rent/internet/phone) through July 15th, and figured out how much tuition I still owe (subtracting the cleaning work I am doing for Circomedia.) I also wrote a check to pay back Jessi the money I owe her for this summer. I still owe Joe money, but will have to wait for my next financial aid check to pay him. After all my expenses are paid I have about 500 dollars to live on for the next 4 months. This is just food money. It's not much, but I should be okay. Plus I can make up to £13 a week from the cleaning.

For some reason I couldn't get to sleep, and I didn't actually nod off until well after 1:00am. I started this diary entry around 5:45am (Tuesday morning,) so needless to say, I am going to be a little tired at school today.