Local actress Pierlisa Chiodo-Steo, who just completed a run at Stagecrafters Theater as Amanda in Noel Coward's "Private Lives" is taking a break before doing some readings in March. Her motivation for acting is to move audiences, make them laugh or cry. She can next be not seen watching the Academy Awards in front of her TV. Watch video here.
"So please give a hand for the Jenks Bucket Drumming ensemble!...During the school year I start the kids with learning technique, with learning how to read music, music literacy and at the end of every period I have an enrichment section, lesson. They learn bucket drumming or they learn drum set, improvisation, composition. And basically the kids do bucket drumming. We compose pieces together, we improvise ….. I got an idea from the University of the Arts. I attended the University of the Arts. We started an experimental bucket drumming ensemble there that kind of took off. And now it’s developing all over the city. I have seven ensembles in the city that I started and it’s just taking off! That’s what we do here at Jenks. Each bucket is about two dollars and thirty seven cents. And it’s immediate gratification for the kids. So instead of spending months learning fingering and armature and technique for a saxophone or clarinet, you pick up a pair of sticks and immediately play and you sound OKAY." Philadelhia School District Music teacher with the J.S. Jenks Middle School bucket drumming ensemble at the winter concert.
I NOTICE THAT YOU HAVE THE MARK OF HARRY POTTER. Yes, I do. WHY? Well the movie’s opening tonight and my father gave me these round glasses and all my friends thought I look like Harry Potter so they put a scar on my head and I’ll think about going to see the movie tonight. CAN I SEE THE GLASSES? [puts on glasses] TONIGHT’S THE OPENING NIGHT? Yes. AND WHAT’S THE NAME OF THE MOVIE? I truly don’t know. All I know is that it’s the first part of the last movie. AND YOU’RE A HARRY POTTER FAN? Yeah. WHY? My sister read all the books and I kind of got drawn to it. That’s probably why. HAVE YOU READ THE BOOKS, TOO? No I’ve only seen the movies. HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT ANYTHING THAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN IN THIS MOVIE? I hear it’s really gory.
Larissa Noble Maldonado of Lafayette Hill, seen here with the mark of Voldemort on her forehead, given to her by friends at school who think she looks like Harry Potter, at Diamond Spa in Chestnut Hill, where she accompanied her aunt Sue.
SO HOW DID MAGGIE, “D-MAGGIE-O”, GET HER NUMBER “5”? Joe DiMaggio was number 5 because he was fifth in the batting order for the New York Yankees and they were the first team to start using the numbers regularly for their players. IS THAT NUMBER RETIRED NOW? I think it is. And we have Marilyn Monroe with us today because Joe DiMaggio married Marilyn and they were married for just a short while, under a year. And after two hundred and thirty some days she filed for divorce for mental cruelty. But here’s the interesting thing. She goes on to lead a life of fame and fortune but of course it comes to a very sad end. After she dies, Joe DiMaggio arranges her funeral, keeps all the paparazzi away and then after the funeral, he proceeds for the next twenty years to send red roses to her grave every week. Isn’t that wild? So that’s why we have Joe and Marilyn united today. AND THE HORSE? The horse is Maggie and today she’s ‘Jo D-Maggie-O.’” Sue Land, in background,with Maggie and Marissa Hall,Northwestern Equestrian Facility, Philadelphia. Watch video here.
Andrea Shumsky, as Marilyn Monroe, with Maggie.
WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT READING YOUR BOOK ALOUD? “As you can see I’m a bit of a ham and authors love talking about themselves. Nothing gives them more pleasure. I actually always wanted to be an actor so I realized early enough on that I wasn’t a stable enough person to be an actor because it’s a very unstable life and the ragged edges of my personality would be magnified in that situation so I decided to be a writer… The next time I went down to Bombay, there was an actor who introduced me and I was sort of inspired by his presence to put on an Indian accent and so I went home and I called my wife up and I said, “Yeah I think it went pretty well. I read in an Indian accent” And she said, “Tell me you didn’t.” [Audience laughter] And the reason I say this is that the way I’m reading it now is the way I hear it. One of the great things about fiction writing is for a little while you can pretend you’re not who you are. You can pretend you’re someone else in the world. And that is the great joy and liberation of fiction writing.” Richard Morais, author, The Hundred Foot Journey. Watch video and Morais reading aloud from book in Indian accent here.
This is an illustration from a kids’ course on black holes. I’m teaching black holes in elementary school now and some kid did an illustration of a guy falling in. What happens when you fall into a black hole is that you slow down or you seem to slow down. This is your first scream, second scream, third, fourth, fifth, and it’s taking more and more time between each scream . . .So we think we understand something about time . We think we know something about quantum mechanics and we have no idea how to fit the two together. John Ashmead, “Time and Quantum Mechanics.” From his blog entry of July 11, 2010:"Spoke at noon yesterday (July 10th, 2010) at the Chestnut Hill Book Festival; in spite of heavy rain a nice crowd. This was my Balticon Time & Quantum Mechanics talk, adjusted for a general (rather than a science fictional) audience. I covered over a hundred years of physics in less than an hour — a lot — but the audience survived & even seemed to prosper, asking some good questions!"Click here to see video excerpt from talk and 9 second interview.
YOU CAME BUT YOU’RE NOT SURE YOU WANT TO READ ALOUD? “Yeah, I’m not sure because I do poetry a whole lot and sometimes I want to sit back and listen. BUT YOU HAVE SOME STUFF JUST IN CASE? I do, definitely. I have stuff. [Later that evening] “If you don’t believe in the second coming of Christ I can guarantee you’re going to feel him through these rhymes of mine. I’ve been criticized. They say she thinks she a prophet, maybe because I’m looking for profit like these televised preachers pocketing paper…” Alyesha Wise of West Philadelphia, a champion poet, goes by “Ms. Wise.” With friend Jenica Jones at “the Fuze” open mic and poetry slam, InFusion Coffee and Tea Gallery, Mount Airy. See http://www.mswisedecision.com/ Watch video interview and poetry segment here
"Open mic is anybody can go up for probably 3 to 4 minutes and they can read a poem or a short story or do anything- they can sing. Then the slam is a poetry competition. People have a time limit of 3 minutes and there will be judging and at the end there will be a cumulative score. People will be ranked. And this specific slam is to be qualified for iWPS which is a national individual poetry slam that will be in Philly this year in October." Hannah Adams of South Philly, before she went on to take top prize at theFUZE poetry slam, InFusion Coffee and Tea Gallery, Mount Airy. Watch video interview and slam segments here
Alice McBee: “Sap’s coming from the maple trees” Bystander: “Does it get cold enough at night for a run?” McBee: “Oh, definitely. It’s going down below freezing every night.” Rudnick: SO, BY DAY A MAPLE SAP STIRRER? McBee: “And first grade teacher and graduate student, don’t forget!” AND AT NIGHT A THESPIAN! McBee: “That’s right, absolutely.…The show opened last night. It’s called “The Countess” and it’s at the Old Academy Theater and I play the Countess. It’s a true story about a Victorian love triangle between the lions of the art world in the 1850s.” CAN YOU DO A VERY SHORT MONOLOGUE? “Scotland is my home and the country, even in this weather, is delightful to me. I’m so happy to be able to dash into the woods, cross the trout streams without a bonnet or to walk across the moors to a mountain lake and watch a great flock of seagulls flying.” Alice McBee at the Andorra Natural Area Maple Syrup festival. Watch video interview here.
In the 1996 Olympics, the Lithuanian basketball team arrived without uniforms because they were too poor to buy uniforms so the Grateful Dead offered to buy them uniforms and what they bought them had the Dead insignia, the skull, playing basketball and it was tie-died. I got this at the Olympics in 1999. A lot of Lithuanian social clubs sell this t-shirt. CAN YOU MODEL THE BACK? I don’t know what it says back there…For 8 years in California I worked for a hippie bus company. We did cross country trips, national parks, we went to Baha, Alaska, all through Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala. WHAT’S A HIPPIE BUS COMPANY? They take an old coach and pull out all the seats, set it up with bunk beds, tables that collapse down in to bunk beds. And the back, say two-thirds of the whole bus is all one big foam covered platform. You take off your shoes and leave them there and crawl back onto the platform. They called them camper tours. They had another name for them I can’t think of right now. AND THESE DAYS YOU’RE DOING SOMETHING A LITTLE MORE CONVENTIONAL? Just a tiny bit. Anita Fackenthal. Watch video interview here.
IS CIRCUS GOING TO BE PART OF YOUR 2010 NEW YEAR? Tasha: “Yeah,” Princeton: “My kids love circus stuff” Tasha: “He thinks he knows how to juggle.” HAVE THEY DONE IT BEFORE? Tasha: “No this is their first time.” WHAT AGE ARE THEY?” Both: “Three and Ten” WHAT KIND OF STUFF DO YOU DO AT HOME? Princeton: “Juggling, all kind of weird stuff.” Tasha: “We have a circus at home” Princeon: “They just like to do tumbling and all kind of stuff.” Princeton and Tasha Davis at Philadelphia School of Circus Arts, Germantown. 
