Hey, Dr. Science-Patterson! My friend told me that birds are actually descended from dinosaurs? Is this true?? I can’t believe it! – Shockedasaurus from South Cracks, MT

Dear Shockedasaurus – Your friend is partly right. But, remember, partly right only counts in NPR quiz shows and pregnancy, and pregnancy is in that list sarcastically.

Yes, birds are descendants of dinosaurs…legally. You see, birds were, as a species — and it’s about time the species knew this — adopted.

Why? Scientists can’t tell for sure, but some fossil evidence suggests that the birds’ ancestors didn’t feel ready to have offspring as they may actually have had a very primitive form of “issues.”

Birds fly south every winter as a result of a vestigial need to try and find their real ancestors, but they’ve never been able to find them. And, thus, birds’ lives are not, as scientists have determined, complete. They often die depressed and what-is-to-birds-as-pennies-are-to-humans-less.

Please ask me more questions, kids! I have plenty of time to answer them!

One of our VP’s of Marketing went and saw some theater this weekend. Here is the A Note from the Director that was printed in the program!

A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR

The war in Iraq; a crushing recession; continued but now more subtle, insidious forms of gender, racial, and sexual orientation discrimination; and a commercialization of art and music like no time previous.

That’s right, folks! Welcome to the new true American Dream: baseball, hot dogs, and the smiling tanned visages that fill our TiVo’s with their chemically whitenend smirks. It sets the stage for this play as much, if not more, than the actual stage you see before you tonight.

One question I wanted to answer with this project when I undertook it is what is the state of theatre–past, present, future, here, there,
worldwide, not-worldwide–as more and more of the world’s citizenry retreats every night after the Dance of Cubicles into their caves of Ikea and Restoration Hardware, reaching–not out to the starving or the gay or the environment or the unpet animals–but in; into a dog-eared bag of BBQ or Hawaiian sweet onion potato chips (Thank you Hawaiian natives for letting us colonize you so we could get your yummy flavors into our junk foods!) with one hand and clicking the soft rubber, suspiciously almost-nipple-like buttons of their TiVo remote with the other hand, staring blankly with both eyes into TV’s bottomless Super Bowl, filled to the brim with publicity-starved flakes running their Amazing Races, mixed with the clover-shaped marshmallows of CSI detectives, topped off of course with the milk of tuxedoed ciphers handing fakely red roses to gaggles of giggling teetering bachelorettes? What a nutritious breakfast, kids! Full o’ all essential vitamins and lies!

And what does it mean that theatre and art and thought are dying in our arms after being stabbed in the heart (or lung, hard to tell which) by the era of Bush? It means, I believe, that the graveyards filled with the headstones comprised of tall gray corporate office buildings become more and more crowded, and the “loved ones” of said corpses will have only a harder time finding the right gravestone. The flowers, candles, and teddy bears of our grief are more often left at the wrong plot. And, at the end of his shift, the Caretaker of our great Cemetery snickers as he gathers the misplaced tokens and sells them to banks and corporations who sit at his great table to dine each and every night at precisely profit:30 PM.

“CTRL-ALT-LOVE” tells the story of a young aspiring sitcom writer who is too humble to believe that the super model who lives next door has fallen head-over-heels for him. The writer also has a roommate who is quirky.

Thank you for coming tonight and putting yourself on the front line for true art/life.