Melissa Dunphy

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I just saw Shutter Island. Not a bad movie - I'll try not to spoil it here - but when the credits started to roll, I found my heart breaking. Partly, I'm sure, this was due to my seasonal depression. Partly, the subject matter hit close to home (here's a blog I wrote about my mother's bipolar disorder a couple of years ago). But mostly, what I felt was despair at the reactions of many of the other audience members in the cinema.

It was a movie about a mental asylum, so of course, the symptoms of mental illness were depicted, and people laughed at them all too often. Not the kind of nervous laughter you make when you're uncomfortable - that I can understand and appreciate. This was open, look-at-how-funny-these-broken-people-are amusement. Most people have been educated not to laugh at, for example, the spastic walk of someone with cerebral palsy, or the tremors and jerks of someone with Parkinson's disease. It's still, however, apparently pretty acceptable to crack up at the hilarious behavior of crazy people.

I don't know how much of this was due to the movie, and how much was the audience. I think the movie toed the line. Certainly there were some moments when the antics were supposed to be amusing and ironic, and I can forgive the audience for laughing then. Hell, mental patients often have a decent sense of humor, and sometimes even they can laugh at the things they do. But there were other honestly quite tragic moments when I thought, how on earth is it acceptable to laugh at what just happened? Maybe it's because I saw the movie in Philadelphia (I honestly believe Philly moviegoers are among the worst in the world - if they're not talking constantly, they're being shot for talking constantly). Maybe I'm just overly sensitive. It's just a movie, and it was marketed as a thriller-horror. But I walked out of that cinema close to tears. I just don't see the stigma surrounding mental illness going away any time soon.

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

"That that is, is. That that is not, is not. Is that it? It is. That that that is that that is not is not that that is that that is is not true is not true."

"James, while John had had "had", had had "had had"; "had had" had had a better effect on the teacher."

On February 14, 2006, my dad died from prostate cancer after a battle that lasted only a year from diagnosis. He was fifty-six years old. His death was even more difficult for me to understand because it could have been prevented if he had had his prostate checked regularly and the cancer had been found sooner.

Experts recommend that men receive annual screening for prostate cancer after age 40. I say, heck, start when you're 35. According to the American Cancer Society:

About 1 man in 6 will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime ... Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in American men, behind only lung cancer. About 1 man in 35 will die of prostate cancer. Prostate cancer accounts for about 10% of cancer-related deaths in men.

If you catch it early enough, your chances of being cured are excellent. If you don't catch it early ... well, that's why I write these reminders.

Please. If you're over 35, get checked. Please.

From December 22 to January 7, Matt and I went to Egypt. Please insert all the adjectives you'd normally associate with fulfilling lifelong-dream nerd-vacations.

Pictures = a couple hundred thousand words:

Travelling to Egypt and shots of around Cairo, where we spent most of our time.

We stayed at the Museum View Hotel and made good friends with the awesome guys who run the place.

Pyramids etc in Memphis, Giza and Saqqara.


While exploring Saqqara, I found some rather creepy bones in a shallow grave in the sand dunes.


Luxor, including the Valley of the Kings and Karnak.


The White Desert, which I believe to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth.


Cairo is full of cats, and being a terrible catfag, I took a whole set of pictures of them.


Matt's pictures, taken with a better eye and a better camera.


Videos!


(If you know what the song is here, please tell me.)

Terrible Cairo traffic:



Simultaneic call to prayer:


Before I move onto a more serious subject, let me insist that I loved our time in Egypt. We spent three days at the Egyptian Museum (each "day" was really only a few hours - my brain kept overloading), and I finally put to rest the rage I described in this blog entry, written after visiting the King Tut exhibition at the Franklin Institute (here I am putting the rage to rest). I could have stayed in the country for weeks longer and still not seen everything I wanted to see. I honestly believe the world would be a better place if everyone had an Egyptian sense of humor.

However. On my first night in Cairo, while reading a guide book, I discovered a fact that reverberated inside my skull for the rest of the trip, and even now, when I talk about our time in Egypt, I try to find a way to worm it into conversation, because everyone I've spoken to has found this equally shocking.
Over 90% of women in Egypt have undergone female genital mutilation.
Over 90% of women in Egypt have undergone female genital mutilation.
Over 90% of women in Egypt have undergone female genital mutilation.
Over 90% of women in Egypt have undergone female genital mutilation.
Over 90% of women in Egypt have undergone female genital mutilation.

Let me put this another way. Around 97% of Egyptian women have their clitorises cut off at some point between birth and marriage.

Clitoris. Cut. Off.

In fact, according to the female genital mutilation wiki, FGM is more prevalent in Egypt than anywhere else in the world. We all assume that FGM is a problem further south in Africa, or only among very conservative/backward societies, but this isn't the case at all.

Why is this done? Apparently it stops women from being too sexual. Your wife will be less likely to stray if she gets less pleasure from sex. It's also considered a cosmetic improvement, and there's a widespread belief that men find uncircumcised genitalia revolting. There are also (of course, incorrect) beliefs that there are some kind of health benefits in the practice, and that the clitoris causes pain if left unchecked.

Maybe this makes me an awful western tourist with a disgusting lack of cultural relativism, but sometimes when we were walking around the city, I would suddenly focus on all the women around me and realize that the likelihood of any of them ever having an orgasm in their entire lives was close to zero. It made me sad and sick to my stomach.

Around 80% of women in Egypt approve of the practice. FGM is technically outlawed in Egypt, but it hasn't seemed to help. Here's the UNICEF page on Egyptian FGM.

I'm finally recovering my near-vision after visiting the optometrist. It's been nearly ten years since I last visited, shortly after getting LASIK in 2000, to check that, indeed, I had been given perfect vision by the power of Grayskull lasers and a tiny circular saw. More than perfect; I'd been living with such amazing eyesight for the last decade, I'd forgotten what it's like to be a flawed mere human, and the onset of a very slight myopia drove me to book an appointment.

During my visit, I was administered those annoying pupil dilation drops. It's been so long since I last had them; when I stumbled blindly out into the painful sunlight, I was suddenly shot backwards through time to 1997. I had volunteered to be a patient at the UNSW optometry school clinic. The student who examined my retinae was either incompetent or had a crush on me, because he took an incomprehensibly long time shining bright lights in my eyes. My cheeks were streaming with tears. I remember thinking he was cute, and wishing he would just ask me out and get it over with. Afterward, I walked across campus with one eye shut and the other squinted to a slit, and attempted a three-hour histology prac.

PRO TIP: do not attempt a three-hour histology prac when your chemically dilated pupils make you sensitive to bright light and unable to focus near-distance.

During the halftime break, I went outside and bummed a cigarette off some guy, Jason, who looked about as fed up with the class as I did. We chatted for a while. I think that was the first time I'd ever spoken to him properly.

For those of you who weren't aware, or haven't scrolled down yet, last year, my composition the Gonzales Cantata was giving an incredibly successful staging in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. The performances received some wonderful media attention, including a spot on The Rachel Maddow Show:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

(After this segment aired, "Gonzales cantata" was the most searched term for three hours according Google Trends.)

The Cantata's second public performance is slated to take place at the prestigious Bard Conservatory in New York this April. As you know, the economy isn't in a particularly great place at the moment, and it was not possible to get as much grant funding as we would have liked for this performance, so we're turning to you for help.

We've started a campaign on the Kickstarter website - CLICK HERE! - and we're looking to raise $3,500. Kickstarter campaigns work on an all-or-nothing basis ' if we don't raise $3,500, none of the pledges will go through, and you'll be charged nothing. If we do reach our goal, you'll be charged for whatever you'd like to pledge on March 25th.

Please help support this project by contributing as little as $5 to our campaign. Every little bit helps! If you donate more, there are some great gifts available to you, such as CDs, tshirts, and a signed copy of the score. The payments are securely and instantly processed through Amazon. If all goes well, we're hoping to bring this production south to Manhattan, and your contribution will really help!

If you can't spare anything, I absolutely understand - but please consider taking a couple of seconds to spread the word by spreading the word to others you think might be interested.

In unrelated news, I hear Google is turning off FTP support for Blogger. Dammit. I'll probably have to do some awful tweaking to get the same functionality out of Custom Domains. But maybe it will inspire me to pay more attention to my poor neglected blog.

At last! I've been meaning to do this ever since I bought a Super-Talent Pico_B 8GB flash drive a couple of years ago.

Ingredients:

• 2 x earring wires of some description (I used shepherd's hooks with a coil and ball)
• 2 x Super-Talent Pico_C drives (They come in capacities up to 32GB, but to keep costs down, I bought two 4GB drives for $11.99 each from NewEgg)

Mmm, my camera takes nice macro-mode photos of USB drives.


Method:

• Attach wires to drives. Duh.

Results:


Swingin'!


I love them! They're coming to Egypt with me.

Ah, yes! A couple of weeks ago, Matt divulged that he has six days of paid vacation left in this year. By taking his break over the New Year break, he finagled two-and-a-half weeks of paid vacation goodness. I insisted we leave the country because my new US passport needs stamps. The short list was Hong Kong, Peru or Egypt, and we decided to give our inner prepubescent Egyptophiles the Christmas they've been coveting for twenty years. We leave December 22, and we leave Egypt on Coptic Christmas day.

I am so inexpressibly excited.

Sometimes, a name won't stick in my memory. One such name is Robert Rauschenberg. Matt and I saw the wanktastic White Paintings at the Guggenheim years ago, and were inspired to rip them off by painting white canvases white and hanging them around our house as decor:



Yet still, whenever I start to talk about Rauschenberg to other people, I can't remember his name. So tonight, while driving home from Ekta, I invented a song. Hopefully it will act as a mnemonic. It goes like this:

R-A-U-S-C-H-E-N-B-E-R-G RAUSCHENBERG!
R-A-U-S-C-H-E-N-B-E-R-G RAUSCHENBERG!
HE PAINTED WHITE PAINTINGS.
HE WAS FRIENDS WITH JOHN CAGE.
HE KNEW JASPER JOHNS.
HE ERASED A DRAWING ONCE.
IT'S ART.
R-A-U-S-C-H-E-N-B-E-R-G RAUSCHENBERG!

I think you're supposed to yell it over punk guitars, or maybe intone it over a Casio preset a la Wesley Willis.

So, you've found a nice unoccupied or unlicensed venue and you want to hold a Fringe (or other) event there.

This is a guide based on my experiences acquiring a TCO. Hopefully some of this information will help you. Please note: if it doesn't, I can't be held liable. I'm not a lawyer, and this document does not constitute legal advice.

STEP 1: Contact the owner of the venue.
STEP 2: Temporary Certificate of Occupancy form and instructions
STEP 3: Architectural drawings
STEP 4: Get to know your friendly Licenses and Inspections local office
STEP 5: File the TCO
STEP 6: Meanwhile - what to get done before inspection
STEP 7: Inspection

STEP 1: Contact the owner of the venue.

This may seem very obvious, but in case it isn't, approach the owner of the venue before you do anything. Their approval is necessary, and they may even be able to help you with other parts of this process. Find out from them if you can use the venue for free, or negotiate a price for renting the venue. Ask the owner if they have a fire alarm system in operation, and if they do, see if you can get a copy of certification for it. [top]

STEP 2: Download/Print the Temporary Certificate of Occupancy form and instructions

1. The Temporary Certificate of Occupancy form is actually just a Building Permit Application form


2. Read and know the instructions forward and backwards. They give you a very good idea of what is going to be required of you. Note that you can occupy the building for 15 days. This technically includes rehearsals. List every time and date you are using the building within these 15 days (i.e. don't just say your event is from "May 10-17." List each day separately with the event/rehearsal time.)


3. It might also be useful to look at this Building Permit Checklist, though note that not all of it will pertain to your application

The TCO application will cost $250 to file. Don't file it quite yet - you have a lot to get through first.

Pro-Tip: if you are applying for a TCO for the Rotunda, the legal address is 4008-26 Walnut Street, not 4014.

Under "BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF WORK" on the application form, describe your event in about four words, and use the rest of the space to list dates and times and detail how you plan to fulfill the requirements listed in the instructions - go through point-by-point. For example: "All policies on Variance of General Application B-0923-05 shall be complied with. Maximum occupant load for rehearsals is 50. Maximum occupant load for performances is 350. Entrances and three exits shown on plan. Exits will be announced before each event. Illuminated exit signs and emergency lighting to be installed. Six (6) fire watch members will be present at each event and intructed on how to activate manual fire alarm system. Set dressing will be flame resistant. Toilet facilities on premises are adequate and market on plan. Disabled access to the building is provided and marked on plan." [top]

STEP 3: Acquire architectural drawings of the space for the TCO application

First, ask the owner if they have CAD or PDF blueprints of the space as it is. Having these will make your architect's job much easier and save you time and money. If a TCO application has been filed before for the space, ask if the owner has copies of previous plans so you can see what went into them. If you can get copies or take pictures of these, you can give them to your architect to help with her/his plans. The more material, the better.

If you know that the space has been used before for a LiveArts show, it's worth asking the Live Arts office (Carolyn Schlecker) if you can take a look at the TCO application and associated plans for that show, since they keep them all on file.

Now it's time to find your own architect.

Warning: architects are expensive. Seriously, I almost used a blink tag. You will need a licensed architect, as the drawings must be stamped with the architect's professional seal. The architect for the LiveArts Festival does not donate or reduce the price of his services to Fringe shows, and he quoted me $1,200 for a TCO application. Look around for recommendations from friends and colleagues or ask local colleges to recommend recent graduates, and hopefully you'll find someone who can give you a good price.

Recommended architect: Jeff Goldstein, DIGSAU 340 N. 12th Street, Suite 421, Philadelphia, PA 19107 (215) 627-0808 x102 jgoldstein@digsau.com Jeff was our architect for the Gonzales Cantata TCO application. He was an absolute pleasure to deal with, very professional, fast, reasonably priced, and his drawings received unsolicited compliments from the L&I inspector.

If you couldn't get CAD drawings from the owner of the venue, your architect will need to survey the space and create them from scratch.

Discuss with your architect what, if any, changes are being made to the space for the event, as all these will need to be put into the plans for your application. This will include marking on the plans which areas will be used by performers, which areas will be used by the audience, any seating structures, any set structures, and pretty much anything else you can think of.

The more information you can give the architect at the start, the less time it will take them to create your drawings and the less money it will cost you. Here's what I gave my architect:

1. A copy of the Temporary Certificate of Occupancy form (see above)
2. Instructions for filing a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy (see above)
3. Photographs of the space, particularly of any areas I wanted to alter for the event
4. A mock-up of the complete building plan including markings for set and audience seating, drawn as near as possible to scale

If you're handy with Photoshop, definitely give the architect a mock-up as in number 4 above; if you aren't handy in Photoshop, at least draw it by hand and include measurements so the architect has a good idea of what you want.

Once you have the plans for your space, print out at least eight copies of the plans. Yes, eight: six for the permit application, one for you, and one for the venue owner. You'll need to go to Kinko's or somewhere similar, because the minimum size for plans is 18" by 24", and I'm betting your home printer can't handle that paper size. [top]

STEP 4: Get to know your friendly Licenses and Inspections local office

There are 5 district offices of Licenses and Inspections. One of these offices will be handling the inspection related to your application, so contacting them early isn't a bad idea to develop a little rapport. You can show them your building plans and see what they think or ask them if they've done inspections at your particular venue before and if there's any advice they want to give.

• Northeast Philadelphia
  Rising Sun Ave. & Benner St., Philadelphia, PA
  (215) 685-0581


• Central Philadelphia
  990 Spring Garden St., 7th Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19123
  (215) 685-3787


• South Philadelphia
  11th & Wharton Sts., 2nd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19147
  (215) 685-1576


• North Philadelphia
  217 E. Rittenhouse Street, Philadelphia, Pa 19144
  (215) 685-2276


• West Philadelphia
  43rd & Market Sts.,Philadelphia, PA 19104
  (215) 685-7681

If a TCO has been issued for your venue before, see if you can find the certificate itself - it will be signed by an inspector, and he or she may be the best contact person. [top]

STEP 5: File the TCO

Once you have all your ducks in a row regarding the application form and the architectural drawings, find yourself two spare hours, preferably first thing in the morning (filing is allowed between 8AM and 3PM, and note that the office closes at noon on the last Wednesday of each month), and take your completed Building Permit Application and six copies of your building plans to:

Department of Licenses and Inspections
940 Municipal Services Building
15th & JFK Blvd., Lower Level, Philadelphia, PA 19102

Take a number, and be prepared to wait for an incredibly long time for them to call you up. Give them your application. They have 30 days after the time you file the application to take any action, and they'll probably use the entire 30 days. Make sure you get an application number from them, and keep it safe, because you'll need it when you start chasing them down in a month's time. [top]

STEP 6: Meanwhile, back at the ranch, make sure the following are up to scratch:

Liability Insurance

This isn't necessary for your TCO, but your event needs to be insured. Some venues have special insurance requirements, so again, check with the owner about these.

Recommended insurance broker: Chris Garrity, Domenick and Associates 325 Chestnut Street, Suite 916, Philadelphia, PA 19106 (215) 629-5701 x200 cgarrity@domenick.com Chris does the insurance for all the LiveArts and Fringe Festival shows, and is very knowledgeable and helpful about this kind of insurance. A no-brainer if you're doing a Fringe show, and I would probably go to him first even if I were doing a show outside of the Fringe.

I saw the signs - emergency signs and lighting

After the architectural drawings, the next biggest headache of the TCO application will probably be the emergency signs and lighting. Check the instructions for all the particulars, but you'll need to make sure there are adequate emergency signs and lighting around the venue, so that if there is an emergency, all egress routes are lit - including routes from the bathrooms. If there aren't emergency lights already installed, you'll have to install them yourself. According to the application, you need a licensed electrician to sign off on the emergency lighting if you install it yourself, and this may set you back a few hundred dollars unless you know a licensed electrician.

I bought cheap exit lights from Exit Light Co. and wired lamp cords into them so they could be plugged into regular outlets rather than wired directly into the walls.

Disabled accessibility

Since you read the TCO instructions and know them backwards, you already know that the venue needs to be accessible to the disabled. If your venue isn't compliant, you'll need to buy or hire portable ramps - I don't have any recommendations on this front, since I haven't had to do it yet. If there are already ramps at the venue, check that the ramps are compliant: there cannot be a step of more than 3/8 inch anywhere on the accessible path - if there is, you'll need to buy transition strip molding from Home Depot or Lowes and fix the ramps yourself.

Non combustible materials

All fabrics that you use in set dressing, etc., must be non-combustible. You can find a spray from Turning Star which can be sprayed on most fabric to make it comply with these regulations.

Fire watch

You'll need volunteers to act as "fire watch" for each public event. If your building has fire sprinklers, you'll need one person per exit. If it doesn't, you'll need two per exit. Fire watch should have a "uniform" (can be a "STAFF" shirt), a cell phone and a flashlight. Use a cheap notebook as the "Fire Watch Log," which the fire watch will sign. Instruct fire watch on how to use the fire alarms and how to get people out of the building.

Toilets

Check the regulations for how many toilets you will need on the premises. If you don't have enough, you'll need to hire portable toilets. I don't have any experience with this. [top]

STEP 7: Inspection

Be prepared to play the waiting game. After 30 days, call your district office of L&I and ask to speak with whomever you contacted in STEP 4. Hopefully they'll remember you. Give them the application number that you saved in STEP 5 and ask them to check how it's doing in the system. If you're in a hurry, go back to the office of Licenses and Inspections on 15th and JFK with your application number. Take a number, wait your turn, and ask them if they can give you the business card of the engineer dealing with your application. Once you have that business card, you can start politely harassing that engineer to look at your application.

Don't bother trying to get the name of the engineer or deal with the main office over the phone. You'll waste far more time than it would take you to go down in person, unless you live in Pittsburgh. Maybe even then.

Once the engineer has signed off on your plans, you will get a notification in the mail, and the main office will send your application down to your district office. Then you can call the district office to arrange an inspection. First thing the morning of the inspection (8AM), call the district office again to confirm/double-check that the inspection is taking place that day.

During the inspection, the owner of the property must be available and in attendance, and you must be able to shut off all power to the venue to prove that the emergency lights and exit signs work. Also have copies that you can give to the inspector of the fire alarm certification and certification for any electrical work that was done. Make sure you have made a maximum occupancy sign and have the fire watch log with you.

The inspector's main job is to make sure that you have complied with all the health and safety regulations. Your set doesn't need to look perfectly pretty and the place doesn't need to be spotless, though it probably helps if it isn't a dump. Mostly, the inspector will be fixated on emergency provisions such as exits, alarms and lights, and will check that all emergency provisions on your plan have been installed and are operational.

If you pass inspection, you're done!! The district office of L&I will print out a certificate for you, sign it and seal it. Display it on your venue, and you're legal!
Congratulations!
(Sorry, couldn't help myself.)