Scape Now News and Views

Some historical sites are somber by the nature of the events commemorated. In the midst of downtown Washington, D.C., on a busy but less traveled 10th Street, NW, stands a red brick building. Ford’s Theatre has been through several refurbishings and remodelings, most recently reopening in February 2009. Perhaps surprisingly, it is operated by the National Park Service. Today it is an active theatre, as it has been since 1968.

Built in 1833 as a church, by April 14, 1865, this structure had morphed into a theatre. Five days earlier, General Lee had surrendered his army to the Union and, on this night, a relieved President Abraham Lincoln was relaxing in a balcony seat observing a performance. Surely you already know the story of the assassination by John Wilkes Booth and the ensuing course of history.

Interestingly, immediately after the assassination, Congress directed that the building never be used again for purposes of public entertainment. The structure served various government functions until the 1930s and was unused thereafter until Congress agreed to fund the restoration. What this National Historic Site offers you is the opportunity to transport yourself into the setting, to observe the building and the nearby Peterson House where President Lincoln died, and to see artifacts and interactive exhibits that enable you to vividly imagine the events of that evening. Many items related to that fatal night are on display.

With an ironic title, given the theatre’s history, the musical “Little Shop of Horrors” is set to open on March 12. Asia Nine is around the corner, ready and willing to serve hungry theatre patrons. Make sleeping arrangements through .

The emotional turmoil and events from that evening in April 1865 still affect us today. Visiting Ford’s Theatre is a moving experience well worth your time.

New trends in health and exercise are always fun to watch.  They’re also fun to take part in.  At the beginning of a trend, it’s a lot like most exercise programs.  We’re excited because the novelty of it is still enticing and fresh, and it’s a great opportunity to move our bodies in new and different ways.  Sometimes the trends are over very quickly, however, because the second time around, it’s not as much fun, and soon enough it turns into regular work.  There are some trends, however, that are based in very old ways of moving and doing things, and these usually have a better chance of lasting.

If you’re booking a Key Largo hotel any time in the near future, you’ll be likely to notice a new craze here, called Stand Up Paddle Surfing.  Also known as simply SUP, or Stand Up Paddling, Stand Up Paddle Surfing is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.  You stand on a surfboard (other boards can be used, and for certain, in any new trend, there will be more expensive versions that will be designed for those who like to spend their money on things that are specially designed), and use long paddles to move yourself through water.  It sort of looks like the elliptical skiing machines, except the ground is constantly shifting and can pull you under at any time and drown you.

The new craze, then, is actually very, very old.  It’s based on how people move themselves around in geographical areas that have a lot of shallow water.  One of the great benefits of Stand Up Paddling is that you can do it in rough or gentle water.  The rough waters work the core much more than gentle water, but all of them work the core very well.  That’s another one of the benefits to it, to go with the era of washboard stomachs, where the core is all that some people seem to care about.   The same thing sometimes happens in yoga classes, but fortunately they get all the other extra benefits anyway.

New York itself is a complex system of signs, and the system is in continual process of self-construction.  The people who live in the city are sometimes so accustomed to how things work, that they stop questioning the apparatus in place.  The most interesting thing that happens here is that they can sometimes forget that they are the same people who constructed this.  This can be both good news and bad news, since it means that there are large forces at work moving things forward, and it seems sometimes to be out of control.  And at the same time, if the people themselves are responsible, then there is always a menu of possibilities for taking things apart to put them back together better.

There are some excellent hotels here, where you can find a place to stay while you investigate these systems the next time you’re in the city.  It will be a buzzing place for Art Fair Week, during the first week of March, as it always is, and there are some heady ideas being thrown around, as there always are.  This is a gathering of international art dealers from all over the world, and the art on display has a very wide range.  It’s not only wide in terms of historical scope and contemporary focuses, but also in terms of styles and forms.

New York being a place that is hyper-conscious of itself, of constructions, and of meaning-making in general, this is a fantastic setting for Hybrid Forum. This has multiple arms, and multiple focuses, too, and has all the markings of the beginning of another movement.  Or perhaps that’s only my own optimism about these things, because it could very well also be the end of art as we know it.  It always seems to be on a precipice these days.  This forum is dedicated to rethinking the exhibition and the art fair in general, and there are some very prominent key players involved.  It promises to be an extremely lively discussion.

Maintaining good records, employee benefits, and solid numbers are all considered an important part of any successful business, be it big or small. It is a common rule in business that if you want your business to succeed your costs and expenses need to be less than your sales. And if you want to draw in strong, well educated, employees you need some sort of 401k , health insurance, and benefits package. Unfortunately, once the employees are hired not much is done by the company to keep them well trained and working happily, much less help them improve their stations. This is where the importance of building a strong foundation of employee-training programs comes in.  Business training programs are a great way to help your employees further their education. These programs can help your company as well. Well-educated employees that are at the top of their game are going to help keep your company at the top of its game with new and fresh ideas. Knowledge begets understanding and understanding begets freedom. When employees understand what they are doing and why they are doing it, they will feel more freedom to excel at their jobs and come up with innovative new ideas. Management training programs help employees develop the skills they will need to one day be in management as well as further understand the methods and expectations of the company. They can also help employers identify future leaders for the company. The bottom line is this, employee-training programs offer new opportunities for employees to learn and grow. They will be better equipped to offer new insight if they have a better understanding of how and why the company works. Employee-training programs also help employers, and the company, by allowing a flow of better trained, highly motivated employees. It is something that no company should go without.

There are many reasons people decide to become a vegetarian but as they learn more on the topic they discover some interesting things. Cross contamination of animal diseases to humans seems to have happened before. It sounds more like some horrific science fiction movie but there have been some studies on the matter and it looks like it is possible. Salmonella is the most everyday version of cross contamination of animal disease to human disease. There is some study that says at least one third of all chicken in the Unites States market is contaminated with Salmonella and it could be as high as half.

We have all heard of Bird Flu, Swine Flu and Mad Cow disease in the news over the past few decades and this is what they are talking about. It is still rather rare but they are concerned about it becoming a pandemic some day. There is a historian by the name of Norman Cantor who believes that the early pandemic Black Death was more than likely from animal to human contamination. He believes that there was some sort of anthrax in the cattle and that may have contributed to massive sickness. These things are still very rare but maybe it won’t hurt to find a great vegetarian restaurant or two on this site to have peace of mind.

Boston is an exciting city.  It’s one of the oldest in the country, and has a tremendously fascinating history.  There are plenty of opportunities to dig in to the local culture here, and you can explore an level of history.  There are native cultures that have traces here that go back for thousands of years.  There is the history of the contemporary U.S. that begins over 200 years ago, and there is also pop culture that has a history with its origins somewhere in last week.  It doesn’t matter which direction you go in Boston, because it’s all enormously interesting, and there’s a lot to learn.

You don’t have to necessarily plan too far in advance either.  There are great hotels here and you can make up the rest of your itinerary as you go along.  One of the truly marvelous things about this city is that its roots are old enough and deep enough that there are multiple connections everywhere.  You can start exploring in one direction, and it will ultimately lead in a dozen more, and all of them are equally interesting to pursue.  There is no final frontier here, because it’s endlessly creating new frontiers based on connections made by the human beings that make up the city.

There are also virtual connections to Boston that are fun to investigate while you’re in town.  For fans of final frontiers, Boston Legal is based in this city, and one of the stars is none other than William Shatner.  This show suffered a very dear loss just recently when Shatner’s co-star, Justin Mentell, was killed in a driving accident in Wisconsin.  The show will surely go on, but it is a heavy weight to bear for the cast and for his family, but the show, like Boston itself, is made from hardy stock.

There’s worse things you can do that to chase after something ineffable, and try to pursue an impossible ideal for the rest of your life.  In fact, it might be said that there are many lives that have been dedicated to these kinds of missions, like the main message of the Man of La Mancha.  The Quixotic search is something that’s been haunting us for a long, long time.  Generations before us had a sense of the absurdity of it all, and generations that follow us will no doubt think the same, and every once in awhile, someone will come along who understands that knowing the quest is bound for failure can make it even sweeter.

It’s what drove George Lucas at a young age, after all, cashing in on the myth of the Great Goddess, and personifying her in his first major success.  Young people following in the filmmakers footsteps may eventually find it necessary to take a trip to Modesto, hole up in a nice hotel, and try to find some of the things that inspired American Graffiti.  There are lots of things all over town that will speak to his own childhood and teenage memories, because it’s the town that inspired him.

It’s ironic that the town, which has become a very sweet and lively place to visit in the past couple decades, refused him the right to film his early work, which has become such an iconic piece of film art.  It’s also interesting that the blonde in the white thunderbird would always seem to fall into great misunderstandings when she speaks, but these ironies are what makes the film so true.  Chasing after the girl of your dreams is never what it seems when it’s attainable, but can only hold power when it has the capacity and necessity to continue to escape again and again.

There was a time, a long, long time ago when the people of this country were required to take horses and buggies if they wanted to travel anywhere. They had to wait for their crops to grow and provide food. They had to wait for their food to cook because they did not have microwaves. Things have changed a lot in the last 200 years. Much of what we want is available to us almost instantaneously. In some regards we have lost the meaning of patience.
If we need to go somewhere we can get in our cars and drive down the road at 45 mph, but for many that is just not fast enough so they drive 50 or 60 mph. Once they arrive at the store they can find any type of food to fit their taste buds; regardless of whether or not it is in season. If that is not fast enough, you can stop at any of the numerous fast food restaurants that decorate nearly every corner and you do not even have to get out of the car. They hand you your all-ready cooked food right out the window to your waiting car.
Even the way that we handle money has changed. No longer do we carry cash, but bankcards that can automatically deduct money from our accounts. The same accounts that receive our direct deposit paychecks every two weeks. If you need a loan, you on longer need to wait weeks to hear back from the bank, simply walk into a payday loan store or visit moneymutual.com. Money Mutual, Montel Williams endorsed, is just one of the many places you can get a quick loan, without a credit check, and have it in your account by the next day.
There are many advantages to our fast-paced society. Being able to visit friends or family who live many miles, or states, away is just one. But I can’t help but feel that we’ve lost something in the shift. With people suffering from chronic stress, heart attacks, and numerous other ailments, perhaps it would do us all good to go back, if just for a little way, to a simpler, slower place in time.

When Michael found out he had been accepted into the University of Dayton he was overjoyed. That had been his first choice of schools since he was a sophomore and really began to consider colleges. His parents also loved the idea of his going to Dayton as that was the alma matter of his aunt Sheila, his father’s sister. As soon as he received the letter and told his parents his father called his sister who was very happy and also proud. She mentioned that one of the things she remembers most fondly and loved the most about her college years was the beauty of the campus. That seemed like a simple pleasure to Michael whos was focuses on the music department.

He had played the piano since he was five years old and while that had been a long time passion of his, he was going to seek a degree in composition as well as go on to achieve a certificate in church music. His ultimate goal was to be the music director for a large church, but he ultimately wanted to compose sacred music. And though he dare not aspire to the heights of his great role model and major influence, he certainly wanted to emulate JS Bach in his career. So, with that ambition, Michael hadn’t even considered the beauty of the campus.

However, at the beginning of the summer he and his parents took a trip to Dayton. His parents wanted to tour the campus and they also wanted to find Michael a place to live. They spent four days in one of the friendly Dayton hotels located near campus. His mother was first to notice and remember the words of aunt Sheila when she commented on the beauty of the campus. Michael agreed that it was very nice looking, and had a quality academic feel, whatever that meant, though he was focused on finding his department, not smelling the roses. “As a musician and composer I should think you would want to reflect on the beauty and significance of nature,” his mother scolded. She was right, thought Michael and took a moment to breathe the air of his new campus.

Curtis could not stop dreaming about his upcoming trip to Fort Worth, Texas. It wasn’t so much that he was in love with the city, although he definitely had a great time there every time he went. The reason Curtis was so eager to visit this great Texan town was that his girlfriend Carly had recently transferred to Texas Wesleyan University and he hadn’t seen her in almost four months. When she had first been accepted and Curtis found out she really was going to complete her final two years of college in Fort Worth he didn’t think the long distance nature that was about to attach itself to their relationship was going to be difficult or troublesome. In fact, Curtis was even so bold as to think the distance would give him the additional space he thought he wanted. Now though, he greatly longed to be staying in a hotel of luxury in Fort Worth to be near Carly.

However, this far into her first year at Wesleyan Curtis realized he was greatly missing not only Carly but certain aspects of her life that he thought bothered him. For instance, he was now a regular, though private and secret, watcher of Desperate Housewives and every Saturday he would stop at a Baskin Robbins for two scoops of mint chocolate ice cream. He even found himself listening to Carly’s cds of Justin Timberlake and Pink that she had left behind. It’s not that he felt anything was inherently wrong or un-masculine with these things, it’s just that they were definite favorites of Carly’s and she’s the one that introduced them into his life. So, he felt like they weren’t exactly his and that used to be able to pretend like she was forcing him to watch shows like House Wives and he felt a little guilty tuning in on his own.

So, when Curtis arrived at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport Carly was there with her bright eyes and huge smile waiting for him. He was so excited to see her but also excited to enjoy a nice cup of homemade cocoa with tiny marshmallows. This was another treat that although he acknowledged was very good he stressed that he would partake only because Carly wanted him to so badly. After a week of enjoying each other’s company and spending time at the Fort Worth Zoo, the Sid Richardson Museum and other great cultural attractions, on his last night in town Curtis finally had to ask Carly if she was going to make her Cocoa, and Carly laughed and reminded him that she had once told him she knew he would ask for it one day.