Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Patsy Rodenburg - Why I do Theatre
Patsy Rodenburg speaking at Michael Howard Studios in NYC. For more information on Patsy's classes, visit www.michaelhowardstudios.com
Patsy Rodenburg - The Second Circle
Steve Lopez has chronicled the life of Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a homeless musician with schizophrenia who sleeps each night on one of skid row's most dangerous streets, in his columns listed here.
http://theenvelope.latimes.com/news/politics/la-me-lopez-skidrow-nathaniel-series,0,2774908.special
Watch CBS Videos Online
http://theenvelope.latimes.com/news/politics/la-me-lopez-skidrow-nathaniel-series,0,2774908.special
Watch CBS Videos Online
Robert Gupta: Music is medicine, music is sanity
Robert Gupta, violinist with the LA Philharmonic, talks about a violin lesson he once gave to a brilliant, schizophrenic musician -- and what he learned. Called back onstage later, Gupta plays his own transcription of the prelude from Bach's Cello Suite No. 1.
One day Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez was walking along the streets of downtown Los Angeles when he heard beautiful music. And the source was a man, an African-American man, charming, rugged, homeless, playing a violin that only had two strings.
And I'm telling a story that many of you know, because Steve's columns became the basis for a book, which was turned into a movie, with Robert Downey Jr acting as Steve Lopez, and Jamie Fox as Nathanial Anthony Ayers, the Julliard-trained double bassist whose promising career was cut short by a tragic affliction with paranoid schizophrenia. Nathanial dropped out of Julliard, he suffered a complete breakdown, and 30 years later he was living homeless on the streets of Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. I encourage all of you to read Steve's book, or to watch the movie to understand not only the beautiful bond that formed between these two men, but how music helped shape that bond, and ultimately was instrumental, if you'll pardon the pun, in helping Nathanial get off the streets.
I met Mr. Ayers in 2008, two years ago, at Walt Disney concert hall. He had just heard a performance of Beethoven's first and fourth symphonies, and came backstage and introduced himself. He was speaking in a very jovial and gregarious way about Yo Yo Ma and Hillary Clinton, and how the Dodgers were never going to make the World Series, all because of the treacherous first violin passage work in the last movement in Beethoven's fourth symphony. And we got talking about music. And I got an email from Steve a few days later saying that Nathanial was interested in a violin lesson with me.
Now, I should mention that Nathanial refuses treatment because when he was treated it was with shock therapy and Thorazine and handcuffs, and that scar has stayed with him for his entire life. But, as a result now, he is prone to these schizophrenic episodes. The worst of which can manifest themselves as him exploding, and then disappearing for days, wandering the streets of Skid Row, exposed to its horrors, with the torment of his own mind unleashed upon him.
And Nathanial was in such a state of aggitation when we started our first lesson at Walt Disney Concert Hall he had a kind of manic glint in his eyes, he was lost. And he was talking about invisible demons and smoke, and how someone was poisoning him in his sleep.
And I was afraid, not for myself, but I was afraid that I was going to lose him, that he was going to sink into one of his states, and that I would ruin his relationship with the violin if I started talking about scales and arpeggios and other exciting forms of didactic violin pedagogy. (Laughter) So, I just started playing. And I played the first movement of the Beethoven violin concerto.
And as I played I understood that there was a profound change occurring in Nathanial's eyes. It was as if he was in the grip of some invisible pharmaceutical, a chemical reaction, for which my playing the music was its catalyst. And Nathanial's manic rage was transformed into understanding, a quiet curiosity, and grace. And in a miracle, he lifted his own violin, and he started playing, by ear, certain snippets of violin concertos which he then asked me to complete, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius. And we started talking about music, from Bach to Beethoven, and Brahms, Bruckner, all the B's, from Bartók, all the way up to [unclear].
And I understood that he not only had an encyclopedic knowledge of music, but he related to this music at a personal level. He spoke about it with the kind of passion and understanding that I share with my colleagues in the Los Angeles Philharmonic. And through playing music and talking about music this man had transformed from the paranoid, disturbed man that had just come from walking the streets of downtown Los Angeles, to the charming, erudite, brilliant, Juilliard-trained musician.
Music is medicine. Music changes us. And for Nathanial, music is sanity. Because music allows him to take his thoughts and delusions, and shape them through his imagination and his creativity, into reality. And that is an escape from his tormented state. And I understood that this was the very essence of art. This was the very reason why we made music, that we take something that exists within all of us, at our very fundamental core, our emotions, and through our artistic lens, through our creativity, we're able to shape those emotions into reality. And the reality of that expression reaches all of us, and moves us, inspires and unites us.
And for Nathanial, music brought him back into a fold of friends. The redemptive power of music brought him back into a family of musicians that understood him, that recognized his talents and respected him. And I will always make music with Nathanial, whether we're at Walt Disney Concert Hall, or on Skid Row, because he reminds me why I became a musician. Thank you. (Applause)
Bruno Giussani: Thank you. Thanks. Robert Gupta. (Applause)
Robert Gupta: I want to play something that I shamelessly stole from cellists. So, please forgive me.
(Laughter) (Music) (Applause)
One day Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez was walking along the streets of downtown Los Angeles when he heard beautiful music. And the source was a man, an African-American man, charming, rugged, homeless, playing a violin that only had two strings.
And I'm telling a story that many of you know, because Steve's columns became the basis for a book, which was turned into a movie, with Robert Downey Jr acting as Steve Lopez, and Jamie Fox as Nathanial Anthony Ayers, the Julliard-trained double bassist whose promising career was cut short by a tragic affliction with paranoid schizophrenia. Nathanial dropped out of Julliard, he suffered a complete breakdown, and 30 years later he was living homeless on the streets of Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. I encourage all of you to read Steve's book, or to watch the movie to understand not only the beautiful bond that formed between these two men, but how music helped shape that bond, and ultimately was instrumental, if you'll pardon the pun, in helping Nathanial get off the streets.
I met Mr. Ayers in 2008, two years ago, at Walt Disney concert hall. He had just heard a performance of Beethoven's first and fourth symphonies, and came backstage and introduced himself. He was speaking in a very jovial and gregarious way about Yo Yo Ma and Hillary Clinton, and how the Dodgers were never going to make the World Series, all because of the treacherous first violin passage work in the last movement in Beethoven's fourth symphony. And we got talking about music. And I got an email from Steve a few days later saying that Nathanial was interested in a violin lesson with me.
Now, I should mention that Nathanial refuses treatment because when he was treated it was with shock therapy and Thorazine and handcuffs, and that scar has stayed with him for his entire life. But, as a result now, he is prone to these schizophrenic episodes. The worst of which can manifest themselves as him exploding, and then disappearing for days, wandering the streets of Skid Row, exposed to its horrors, with the torment of his own mind unleashed upon him.
And Nathanial was in such a state of aggitation when we started our first lesson at Walt Disney Concert Hall he had a kind of manic glint in his eyes, he was lost. And he was talking about invisible demons and smoke, and how someone was poisoning him in his sleep.
And I was afraid, not for myself, but I was afraid that I was going to lose him, that he was going to sink into one of his states, and that I would ruin his relationship with the violin if I started talking about scales and arpeggios and other exciting forms of didactic violin pedagogy. (Laughter) So, I just started playing. And I played the first movement of the Beethoven violin concerto.
And as I played I understood that there was a profound change occurring in Nathanial's eyes. It was as if he was in the grip of some invisible pharmaceutical, a chemical reaction, for which my playing the music was its catalyst. And Nathanial's manic rage was transformed into understanding, a quiet curiosity, and grace. And in a miracle, he lifted his own violin, and he started playing, by ear, certain snippets of violin concertos which he then asked me to complete, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius. And we started talking about music, from Bach to Beethoven, and Brahms, Bruckner, all the B's, from Bartók, all the way up to [unclear].
And I understood that he not only had an encyclopedic knowledge of music, but he related to this music at a personal level. He spoke about it with the kind of passion and understanding that I share with my colleagues in the Los Angeles Philharmonic. And through playing music and talking about music this man had transformed from the paranoid, disturbed man that had just come from walking the streets of downtown Los Angeles, to the charming, erudite, brilliant, Juilliard-trained musician.
Music is medicine. Music changes us. And for Nathanial, music is sanity. Because music allows him to take his thoughts and delusions, and shape them through his imagination and his creativity, into reality. And that is an escape from his tormented state. And I understood that this was the very essence of art. This was the very reason why we made music, that we take something that exists within all of us, at our very fundamental core, our emotions, and through our artistic lens, through our creativity, we're able to shape those emotions into reality. And the reality of that expression reaches all of us, and moves us, inspires and unites us.
And for Nathanial, music brought him back into a fold of friends. The redemptive power of music brought him back into a family of musicians that understood him, that recognized his talents and respected him. And I will always make music with Nathanial, whether we're at Walt Disney Concert Hall, or on Skid Row, because he reminds me why I became a musician. Thank you. (Applause)
Bruno Giussani: Thank you. Thanks. Robert Gupta. (Applause)
Robert Gupta: I want to play something that I shamelessly stole from cellists. So, please forgive me.
(Laughter) (Music) (Applause)
Yapper: New tools to build iPhone apps
Yapper: New tools to build iPhone apps
Feb 11, 2010 4:58 PM PST
At Macworld 2010, Sachmanya co-founder Chintu Parikh demos Yapper, a new do-it-yourself software program that allows developers to create an iPhone app without knowing any programming code
Yapper: New tools to build iPhone apps
At Macworld 2010, Sachmanya co-founder Chintu Parikh demos Yapper, a new do-it-yourself software program that allows developers to create an iPhone app without knowing any programming code.
sounds
>> The Apple is a self-service online tool that allows you to make your own native iPhone android iPad app just in a few minutes using your existing RSS feed. And we provide you with the, the tab icons and everything else. So without further adieu we'll do a live demo if WiFi is working, yeah. So you log into the Apple.sets inaudible.com. You sign in and you say start a new app. So if you scroll down the screen please. So here we have, there are 4 steps. The first step is where we show you a demo of what needs to be done. So in the first box you put in your auto sets for your website of the blog. Then you say what is the name of this RSS feed. Here we say it's inaudible beat. Then you select the tab icon. That becomes your tab icon. So as you do this you can see what's getting built right on the screen on your right hand side. It gives you a, this is not the real app, but it gives you what it's gonna look like in your iPhone. So here we will add one more feed and see what happens. So we're gonna add the mobile beak RSS feed. And Arti's phonetic just gonna type that in. See what happens on the right hand side of the iPhone? And then she's gonna select the tab icon. Bingo! Here is your mobile RSS feed. And Matt is that the latest articles that you have on the site? inaudible Yep. So this is live guys. This is; we are not doing it from the laptop, this is from the internet, then going to the inaudible site, getting the live, live feed, and then getting all the entire content along with the images for you. And then you can add up to 12 such feeds, or 12 sections within your app. So if you have more than a few feeds you can add, keep adding those. And then you go to the next page. See here you can see it's getting refreshed as Arti clicks on the icon. Go to the next page. This is where you put in the name of your application. That's how it will be known in the app store. Then you select an app icon. So if you click on the browse please. And you go to inaudible folder. And then select the home icon. So this is your typically your logo. And if you like to launch inaudible so when your application launches it shows you your branded logo for a couple of seconds. So we pick that. Put that in. And you're done building the app, believe it or not. The next step, the step number 3 is really all about how you're gonna describe your application within the app store. So you look and read about it. You can say what kind of keywords they're, they can search your app on, what countries you want to list your app in. What are the primary and secondary categories within which your app will be listed? So you do that, and then you go to the next page. This is my favorite step; of course, it's, this is where I get paid. So for Maxell's phonetic special we have a $99 special where you can make your iPhone app for just $99 instead of regular $499. And then you can add options. You can have an android version. You can have an iPad version. When iPad will be launched will make the app compatible with the iPad, so user experience is customized for the iPhone, iPad. And, and we are the first ones to really have a push notification option. So if you have a breaking story as a blogger or a, or a new site, and you post it out to your user, user is not using your app. But you can push a notification to them saying, hey, we have an exclusive story on our blog, come and read it. So you can have that option here too. And then finally, if you like some custom development above and beyond the standard features we offer, we will do that for you. And this, you're pretty much done. And you go to the next page and pay with the PayPal.
==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====
College
'Active' gaming with Oprah's workout guruIn AP's weekly Video Game Video, "EA Sports Active" for Wii gets the blessing of Bob Greene, Oprah's favorite fitness expert. (Dec. 11)
Video – Virgin Galactic’s VSS Enterprise First Flight
Enterprise’s First Captive Flight – Air and Space Magazine: Virgin Galactic’s VSS Enterprise, the civilian-built and -flown spaceship that will loft six paying tourists and two pilots on suborbital flights for $200,000 per customer, made its first captive carry flight on March 22, 2010 beneath its mothership WhiteKnightTwo over the southern California desert
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/
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