Kimberly Hirsh

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Chicago Improv Was Dead. Can New Leaders Revive It? - The New York Times nytimes.com

Read: www.nytimes.com

I’ll be watching this with interest. Big organizations like iO & Second City, especially iO, have operated in the past on a model where the community was a product more than the comedy and the performers customers more than the audience. A lot of theaters operate on a similar model, with student tuition funding most of the enterprise and volunteer labor greasing the wheels. I think these components of models will have to change before the theaters can fully address racism, sexism, and harassment.

If you’re interested in learning more, I highly recommend Amy E. Seham’s book, Whose Improv Is It Anyway?

I just processed all the action items from the beginning of the year email the head teacher at my kid’s preschool sent out, capturing them in my bullet journal, and I feel like I deserve a long rest. I haven’t done any of them. Just putting them on a list wore me out.

We might need to have a talk about how I don’t want to eat any actual meals, just leftovers of the Fran’s Torte L’Orange that my bonus mother-in-law made me for my belated birthday celebration at her house.

Woke up to a house with no light at all and my first thought was not “The power must be out” but instead “I’ve lost my vision.”

🔖📝 Read

The Loneliness of the Full-Time Writer ‹ Literary Hub lithub.com

Read: lithub.com

I hardly ever cried about my dissertation and I’m really proud of that.

I can’t get a good picture of it but right now there is a lone piece of green glitter sitting on top of my biggest, most obvious gall bladder surgery scar and the whole thing feels very me.

I use Old Spice Krakengard mostly because the name and graphic amuse me. I always thought it was protecting me from the Kraken but I read the container for the first time & the Kraken is actually protecting me from smelling bad.

What are your top 3 movies you turn to when you are sick and/or anxious? Mine are Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Princess Bride, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. (Notes on the lack of ? here if you’re interested.)

My talk from Micro Camp, “Learning in Public on Your Blog,” is now available on my website!

Who is Kimberly Hirsh?

I learned a lot from recording my Micro Camp 2021 talk. If you watch it, you’ll notice a pretty big sync problem starting a bit before the 6-minute mark.

Most of the stuff I learned is related to that.

I recorded the video last minute, which I will try not to do in the future. It doesn’t leave time for fixing problems.

I was trying out new recording software, Loom. I don’t know if it was because my computer is old, my wifi was slow during recording, or a combination of the two, but as I understand it, Loom records to the cloud and the lag getting the recording from my computer to their server is probably responsible for the sync error. From now on, I’ll do my recordings locally and back up to the cloud after the recording is done. I don’t think I’ll use Loom with my current computer anymore.

I didn’t watch the video to make sure it worked. I was tired of my own voice (this almost never happens!). If I’d watched it, I’d have noticed the sync problem right away and could have re-recorded with different software. I’ll watch right away next time.

I thought I had submitted the video correctly. I had not. I don’t know if I didn’t click a button, if I closed a window too soon, or what. Next time I’ll watch carefully for confirmation.

I don’t have any very good video editing software on my computer so if I wanted to fix the sync error without re-recording, I couldn’t have. I’ll investigate different recording options before I make another video.

Also, as soon as I can, I’ll get a new laptop because a six-year-old low-end Acer isn’t going to cut it for creating much besides words.

What have you learned recently?

Because fantasy is the genre I read the most and YA is the market segment I read the most, I’ve already read a lot of the books on these lists.

If I come to a book I’ve already read, I will ask myself if I want to re-read it. If the answer is yes, boom, I’ll re-read away.

If the answer is maybe but not right now, I’ll keep moving down the list and ask myself again later.

If the answer is no, I’ll write a quick blog post about what I remember about the book and how I felt when I read it and move on to the next.

Another thing: a lot of these books are in series. If the book is the first book in a series and I enjoy it, I’ll do a check-in with myself to see if I want to take a detour from the list and read more of the series. If I do, I will.

If the book is a later book in a series, I will attempt to read the books that come before it. I like to read books in (publication) order, even if I don’t have to. If I decide not to finish the first book in the series, then I will move on with the list and try the listed book on its own later.

These plans are intended to prevent me getting bored and giving up on the project and to make sure I try as many new-to-me books as possible.

🔖 Ravynn K. Stringfield’s How I Became a Scholar of Black Girl Fantasy is an energizing read. Psyched to be in her workshop on creative non-fiction for scholars.

In case you were wondering which website has the best favicon, it’s Jennifer Laughran’s.

Solidarity to everyone who was awake earlier than they needed to be this morning.

New bio: “A good little mommy and always very curious.”

Until I get tired of doing it, I’m going to read my way through Time’s The 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time & then when I finish or am tired of it, I’ll switch to The 100 Best YA Books of All Time until I get tired of that.

Don’t think of fantasy as mere entertainment, then, but as a way to train for reality. It always has been, after all.

• N.K. Jemisin on the Timeless Power of Fantasy 💬📚

So far today I have taken my kid to the pool for swim lessons & stayed for an extra 3 hrs, scheduled a bathroom floor repair, and emailed a client so I’m basically killing it at all 3 of my jobs (parent, homeowner, consultant). Time for hobbies!

That feeling when someone you only kind of knew from church as a kid over 20 years ago invites you to her Facebook MLM group. 😬

I cannot convey the extent to which the statement “be part of one of the largest events on campus” would put me off an event. Even in the beforetime, but especially now.

My kid is asleep well before 9 pm, what do I do with all this freeeeeedom? (The smart thing would be to go to sleep myself.)

Hey hey! I’ll be giving a talk at Micro Camp Friday @ 3:30 pm EST about Learning in Public on Your Blog. Want to learn more about the micro.blog platform and community? Want some tips on using your blog to learn in public? Micro Camp is free!

🎬 watched Beverly Hills Cop. Eddie Murphy is brilliant here. I can’t believe he was only 22 or 23 when he made this.