One day at the RT hotel, the Sheraton in Kansas City, and it’s already looking like RT. Posters, stickers, huge signs are going up and the place is looking like home.
This one is a bit different because it has a living model
, but she didn’t stay there long. What must it feel like to press the button for the elevator and stare at your own face? Heather Graham took it in stride.
I’m teaching at the pre-con Boot Camp and while the classes are fairly rigorous, the students are enjoying the experience. They’re a great group, very responsive and bright. Soon they’ll be teaching classes!
I taught GMC (Goal, Motivation, Conflict) yesterday and today I’m teaching dialogue. Should be fun! I do have some sketches to show them, but I don’t think the room is set up for it, so I’ll give them the URLs. If you go to Youtube and look up “Taysiders in Space,” you can see one of them. So what lesson was I teaching with that sketch, hmm?
And if you’re broadminded, look up “The Caledonian Mafia,” but not if bad language upsets you. Creative swearing at its best.
Because RT isn’t properly underway, my roommate and I found time to visit the “Arabia” museum. The “Arabia” was a steamship that was lost in 1856. It sank, and because the Missouri was a shallow river with lots of mud, they couldn’t salvage it. A team locally decided to excavate it for the salvage, since there was a rumour that it contained the best Kentucky whisky. They didn’t find the whisky, but they did find a lifetime’s obsession.
What made this museum so special was the enthusiasm that the guides have for the project and the displays. The displays of the items they found on the steamship were beautiful and carefully shown. They found everyday items, so that the whole museum is a slice in time. Like the Titanic and Tutankhamen’s tomb, the “Arabia” is time frozen, so you can see how people lived in the midwest in 1856. They found an astonishing array of things, from guns to cooking implements to 4,000 pairs of boots.
The people who salvaged the “Arabia” weren’t experts on preservation but they wanted to look after the items, and they became pioneers in freshwater conservation. Even the great museums weren’t sure how to preserve the plethora of perishable items, so after a bit of advice from the people working on the Mary Rose and the Vasa, they went ahead and developed methods of preserving the timbers and rubber items.
It was really impressive. These people weren’t experts when they started, but they’re sure experts now. We were lucky enough to meet Dave, one of the original team of five diggers who excavated the wreck, and he answered our questions with humour and patience.
Loved the visit, and I’d really recommend you dropping in if you’re in the area. Outside there’s a farmer’s market and a row of really good restaurants and cafes. So you can make a day of the visit!
