My climbing gym has three kinds of walls. There are “climbing walls”, “bouldering walls”, and “traverse walls”.
Entry-level climbing walls are basically just wacky ladders. Sometimes you’ll have to mix it up a little by reaching a little higher here or there or zigging and zagging up the wall a bit, but you’re mostly going to be training your brain how to climb than your body how to do it.
Traverse walls, by comparison, exist to give you an object lesson of some sort. Even the entry-level ones are going to make you do something a little bit wacky that the entry-level climbing wall wouldn’t. Like they’ll put only one toe hold in a particular place and make you practice different ways of switching your feet on a single toehold or make you learn about “barn doors” when you’ve got too much weight above not enough of a base.
The traverse lesson I learned this week involved walking backwards sideways. The holds were all of a type where it was not possible to grab them from the right at all, only barely possible to grab from the front, but grabbing them from the left was easy-peasy. Heck, once you were holding on, you just had to lean against the wall with your left side and slowly walk back up the wall until you got in reach of the goal.
When I first started that one, I was confused because I was attacking it from the front. When my bud looked at what I was doing, he said “no, Jaybird… like this” grabbed the starting holds and immediately swung his hips until he was sideways against the wall and started walking backwards. It took me three or four tries to swing my hips like that but I learned that trying to grip the holds from the front was going to be, effectively, doing a pull-up and gripping the holds from the side was, effectively, just leaning back, it was yet another lesson for me that I needed to climb smarter, not harder.
(As for bouldering walls, they’re like traverse walls but upside down. From what I understand the goal of the entry-level bouldering routes is to get you to just hang from them and dangle and just move one limb at a time while the other three hold you in place. I’m sure I’ll get there eventually.)
This weekend will be devoted to feeling like I can do that thing where you take your jacket off and you put your hands behind your back for a second to free up the cuffs of the arms without feeling like I’ve been through a rock tumbler.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Image is “Play” by Clare Briggs. Used with permission of the Briggs estate.)
Picking up my son at the airport from his cross-country apartment hunting exercise. Followed by getting a house ready for renting. So, dump runs and rewiring. (Rewiring seems to be a big part of my life the last few months, fortunatly I am good up to 600v.)Report
Oof. The “taking my jacket off” thing plus trying to remember all the stuff I learned before getting injured in November.Report
Getting over my SECOND URI of the winter. (I normally never get sick, so having two bouts of either cold or mild respiratory ‘flu within 2 months is unsettling).
cleaning up my house, putting away the Christmas decorations, trying to figure out some way to bring a little light and cheer in for January now that all the glitter and twinkly lights are gone.
Tuesday the new semester starts, heigh-ho. At least this go ’round I am only teaching three lecture classes and NONE of them are new preps (though for one there’s a new edition of the textbook I will have to check for changes in)Report
Going to see the Klimt/Rodin exhibit at the Legion of Honor tomorrow.Report
Three day weekend, wooooooooo. (I have today off, not Monday.)
The neatest thing that happened to me recently happened at work though – someone who graduated 8 years ago, and was one of my first student employees (whom I have a special affection for since they showed me the ropes), stopped by so we could meet her new baby girl. That was really cool.
I’m pretty exhausted, still, still working out a lot of things in my head, so I suspect mostly I’mma sleep. We have a dinner date in Castle Rock tomorrow night, new place, should be fun.Report
Annual kick-off meetings in Vegas… Saturday through Tues; all day meetings on Sunday, which puts me out a bit. I just count it as triple time and exact revenge that way… except a few years ago we went to “unlimited” vacation, so now no one can tell when I’m sticking it to the man.
This is my, hmmn, maybe 15th trip to Vegas? I like to scandalize my circles with how well I know the strip… and even the everyday stories of a boring convention goer make their mouths drop.
I like to play 21 and if I can get a crowd, craps – which is by far the most Catholic game there… ruined only by the protestants and atheists who bet with the house.Report
Playing the dark side is not betting with the house.
Eta – it is though, only something you do at the far end of the table from the shooter.Report
The Gustav-Klimt exhibit sold out. We went to FOG Art and Design instead. There were little booths from the top galleries in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Paris.
I embarrassed myself by asking about prices of stuff because it was one of those “if you have to ask….” kind of places. A small Wayne Thiebaud drawing from around 2014 went for 5K. There were also some really small Alex Katz paintings for 5 figures each, etc.
Art pricing is very opaque to me. Once an artist gets established and is represented by galleries, they are generally above my price points. However, I have trouble finding up and coming artists that I like that are out of the gallery system. You will see artists here try and band together and rent a space and I often go to these. I often think a lot of the work displayed is kind of amateurish and not quite worth how the artists are pricing it (even if I think it is good).
So there is an interesting thing in economics going on here. How does one price art? Do I think the established gallery names give a legitimacy to the price over say “We are 5 artists renting a gallery space together”. I’m even less enamoured of artists who sell on etsy type places.
Here is a piece that was at the exhibit. I’m guess if this were on the market, it would be at least 500K, probably more. It is by a Japanese artist named Kohei Nawa
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/9c/ac/11/9cac1147748639b1711baf27df5fb312–contemporary-sculpture-contemporary-art.jpgReport
I guess its interesting but I don’t see how its worth 500K. It kind of looks like some sort of souvenir or novelty item rather than a piece of art. Its a deer but with little glass bubbles around it to make it look distorted.Report
There is or was one in the Japanese wing of the Met. I recommend seeing it in person.Report
A question regarding theater arts and economics. Went to see a band last night (folk/rock style) that’s been around for over 25 years and has a fairly committed, but someone limited fanbase.
One of the musicians wrote a rock musical that will debut in a few weeks in a smallish (approx 200-250 seat) theater in a month or so. His ‘special’ pricing (using a code from the concert last night) was 59 bucks a seat (which also doesn’t include all the fees)
My question is, is that reasonable? Moreover, is that typical? 60 dollars to see something from a rookie musical creator? (Which he is also staring in?)Report
@kolohe
What is the name of the theatre? 60 dollars for special pricing (not including fees) is typical.
Reasonable is another story depending on your point of view.Report
It’s this one. (And this show.)
I may be overstating the number in my rough count. By the standards of the DC area, it’s probably ‘off- broadway’ but not ‘off-off-broadway’ (i.e. National Theater and Kennedy Center would be ‘broadway’ while Arena and Signature would be ‘off-broadway’) (with off course everything being one tier down from Actual NYC)
Thanks for the answers. The conclusion is that I’m getting old and cheap.Report
@kolohe
Off-Off Broadway= under 100 seats.
Off-Broadway=100-500 seats.
Theatres are small!
Signature Theatre looks like a well-financed (based on their website and building/facilities) regional theatre company. I know Eddie from Ohio. I suspect that they will do well because the crowd of people who go to theatre and the crowd of people who know Eddie from Ohio probably overlap more than they don’t. Especially in an highly-educated area like Arlington.Report
oh, thanks again. I didn’t realize it was a size thing, I thought it was a reputation thing.Report
He isn’t quite a rookie because you said he had a cult following for 25 years and they are fairly committed if limited. 200-250 is not small for a theatre. I’ve directed in fifth floor walk ups with less than 75 seats. That’s small. It also doesn’t seem to be self-produced but done by a professional company.
As to prices, lots of younger artists don’t like that 60 dollars is the typical price at times because they think it drives away younger audiences. The problem with theatre is that you can generally only get 8 performances a week maximum, runs tend to be short, and they are only one location at a time. Movies can be shown on thousands of screens across the world. TV can be broadcast with even greater reachability. Theatre, not as much. There are some experiments with broadcasting onto movie screens (National Theatre Live) but this leads to time zone differences. 8 PM in London is a lunch time matinee in San Francisco.Report