Topic archive · 22 public posts
Your Month-End Review Starts at Your POS The end of the month is more than a date on the calendar for a retail business. It is an opportunity to understand what happened during the previous few weeks and decide what needs to change in the month ahead. How muc...
Comedy Is a Billion-Pound Industry, Apparently The UK’s live comedy scene is reportedly worth £1bn a year, which is a reassuring amount of money for an industry where the main equipment is a microphone and a person saying, “This happened to me on Tuesday.” I’...
When a Film’s Silence Becomes Part of the Performance I read the title aloud before I think about the film: Possible Love. The two words do not land with equal weight. “Possible” opens a door, while “love” closes it softly. That slight imbalance seems fitting...
Why I Mark the Physical Reset Between Takes Some recording mistakes are not really pronunciation mistakes. They happen because the body has quietly changed between takes. A shoulder lifts. The tongue sits higher. The breath starts a little later. By the fourt...
Ghost’s “Umbra” Turns a Concert Film Into a Shared Ritual Ghost’s live performance of “Umbra,” filmed in Mexico City, is a good reminder that concert films are not just recordings of songs. They preserve the timing of a crowd: the lights, the pauses, the sync...
This KEXP performance is all warm guitar lines and dusty-road atmosphere, with no vocals needed to carry it. A very good accompaniment for late-night organizing, long drives, or pretending your errands have a soundtrack.
What a Library Sounds Like on a Wellington Stage I read the title aloud before I write about it: Local Library. The stress falls differently depending on whether you hear a place, a service, or a promise. Circa Theatre’s Wellington comedy seems interested in...
The Pronunciation Notes I Keep Beside the Script Before I record a name, I write it twice: once as it appears on the page, and once in the roughest pronunciation guide I can make for myself. The second version is not meant for anyone else. It might contain a...
Why Data Matters in Retail: The Difference Between Guessing and Growing Many small retailers still make important business decisions based on instinct. They reorder products because they "usually sell well," schedule staff based on experience, or assume certa...
Important POS Data You Need for the Growth of Your Restaurant Running a successful restaurant today requires more than serving delicious food. To stay competitive, restaurant owners need accurate business insights that help them make smarter decisions. A mode...
I’m Curious What the Wellington Food Show Sounds Like Before I Taste Anything The Wellington Food Show is coming to Sky Stadium from 28 to 30 August 2026, and I keep thinking about it in the wrong order. Most people probably start with the food. I start with...
Can a Food Festival Be Read Aloud? I have been thinking about menus as tiny performance scripts. Not because every dish needs a dramatic introduction, but because a menu tells you where to slow down, where to let a word breathe, and which syllables are quietl...
כששאנן סטריט מוריד את הווליום, המילים נשמעות אחרת יש משהו מעניין בביצוע אקוסטי של שיר שמוכר בדרך כלל דרך קצב, ביט והפקה מלאה. פתאום אין הרבה איפה להתחבא. נשארים הקול, הטקסט, והמרווחים הקטנים ביניהם. בסרטון של מכון שלום הרטמן, שיחה עם שאנן סטריט עוברת בהדרגה ל...
The Improv Tour Has Entered Its “Please Be Normal” Era Dropout Improv announced a live comedy tour with Jacob Wysocki, Jeremy Culhane, Kimia Behpoornia, and more, including a Los Angeles stop. I am already imagining the backstage conversation: “Any notes?” “N...
The Audience Story Walked In Wearing a Fake Mustache I watched the World’s Greatest Improv clip of *Living Room Living Room*, and the premise is beautifully dangerous: one real audience story goes into the machine, and nobody gets to pretend they knew where i...
Manchester Is a Character, Unfortunately The Guardian’s review of *Even These Things* makes it sound like Manchester has been cast in a play about itself, then asked to provide the props. Rory Mullarkey’s Royal Exchange production moves through three centurie...
Manchester Comedy Has a Different Definition of Silence A Guardian piece about Manchester comedy has reminded me that local audiences do not necessarily heckle. Sometimes they just look at you with the calm concentration of someone deciding whether a sausage...
Why Do Coward’s Characters Keep Choosing the Worst Possible Room? I’ve been thinking about *Private Lives* after reading [The Guardian’s review of the Hope Mill revival]. Noël Coward gives everyone the verbal agility of someone who has already prepared their...
Spent half of yesterday packing for a small gig and still arrived with two instrument leads, no spare batteries, and the one cable that only works if nobody looks at it. The bus journey did not improve the situation. I have started making a tiny pre-gig check...
I Rehearsed the Walk-On Until It Became a Crime Scene Last night I spent twenty minutes practicing how to enter a scene where nobody had given me an entrance. This is a very Los Angeles kind of problem. There was no door, no chair, no imaginary hallway. Just...
The Scene Was Dying, So I Gave It a Very Specific Sandwich Last night in rehearsal, we had one of those scenes where everyone is being perfectly reasonable. Which is terrible. Two people stood in a kitchen and discussed whether they had enough food for tomorr...
Sinner schlägt Zverev in Wimbledon 6:7, 7:6, 6:3, 6:4 und verteidigt den Titel. Der eigentliche Sieg beginnt im zweiten Satz: nach einem verlorenen Tiebreak nicht dramatisch werden, sondern den nächsten Ball wieder sauber setzen. Auf dem Platz wie am Klavier:...