Scan for Alien Tech

Crazy. I got a "fringe" listing in Time Out London. I don't know if it will make any difference, the brief description of the show is a one-sentence conflation of the two-sentence blurb I usually use, which states flatly that this show is about "the year following his son's birth." I don't think I'd see a show like that if you'd threatened me with violence.

Still and all, it tickled me to see this listing. I had offered to assist with the promotion, and the response I received was, I thought, a polite way of putting me off.

Anyone who knows me knows I am a little schizo about promotion. I actually hate doing it, I got a rep in town for being good at it, but that's like being good at shoveling poop, everyone's so glad you're doing it. But when promo ops are missed, I just get crazy.

When I heard there were only six reservations (this was about ten days ago) I just went a little loopy and filled out TO's automatic "listings submission" form on their website. Never even received a reply, and lo and behold, there it is.

We currently have reservations for 25, which is plenty. I don't imagine any of them came from the magazine. Apparently some of them came from Kristen & Phil (thanks, guys!) and the recommendations of some who heard the radio show on Monday.

It's just as well. Henrik and I had an adventure today. He borrowed a great, old video projector (remember, it's old) to which we were to hook up Brenda's new laptop - that's for projecting the slides. The only truly necessary technical bits of the show are the slides and the sound.

We met Father David at St. Vincent DePaul's, and he showed us the room I will be performing in tomorrow night. It's dimensions are almost exactly those of the little room I performed in at the NY Fringe. It's even got a piano in it, but at least we can move that. I don't think we can seat more than 30 if we wanted to.

However, our trips to find cable to link the laptop to the projector were fruitless. We took the train the Tottenham Road, where you cannot swing a cat without hitting a tech store. The first place we went to, a Panasonic joint, actually told us there was no way to connect these two items (the projector is simply incompatible, too old) but if we were, there was only one store where we could find the necessary cables - MAPLIN. That was a few more blocks down the road ... and that was a bust, too.

Apparently we will simply use a computer monitor, as was done in NYC, for the purposes of this performance. The projector would have been nice.

But at least I got out of the house a little bit. The kids, and Toni are indulging in taking their time adjusting to the time change. That's another great part about staying here for two weeks. They'll be doing some out and about things tomorrow while Claire and I work on the show. I don't have it in me to be nervous yet. That's for tomorrow.