The Commercialization of Extreme Sports (X Sports) Essays

The Commercialization of Extreme Sports (X Sports) ABSTRACT For years, extreme sports had little to nothing in common with each other except for high risk, and an appeal to women and men from the ages of 12 to 34. Entertainment Sports Programming Network (ESPN), realizing this age group was a prime viewing audience, brought together several extreme sports and created yet another commercialized sporting spectacle. Since 1995, this television network has produced the Summer X Games. After these summer productions proved to be successful television and live spectator events, ESPN expanded into the winter extreme sports. The Winter X Games have been produced since 1997. This paper, which commences with the rise of extreme sports, is†¦show more content†¦The X Generation, considered by some as less mainstream than preceding generations of youth, has been swept away with a relatively new type of non-traditional sporting activity that is referred to as extreme sports (Reitman, 1999). This is a high thrills, dare devil, real life sporting ac tivity for enthusiasts who are willing to go to the edge of athletic participation and sometimes beyond. The creation and evolution of the X Games were a carefully orchestrated chain of events. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the conditions involved in the formation and growth of the X Games. The major factors that have contributed to the biannual successes of the X Games have been the close connection of ESPN with the X Games, the involvement of corporate sponsorship, and the site choices and intense bidding by cities to serve as host sites. This article includes both key factor analyses and a historiographic examination of this extreme sporting phenomenon. HISTORICAL CLIMATE The Summer and Winter ESPN X Games are a commercialization of these extreme sports. With the X Games, ESPN had assessed what it took to be the†¦in-your-face persona of Generation X and assembled a scaffolding of events that made it all marketable (White, 1997)1. As one journalist noted, the X Games present a sporting event for a post-punk audience raised on MTV and moshing†¦This wide world of sports represents a complete inversion of theShow MoreRelatedNissan Corp Swot5421 Words   |  22 Pagesnew markets Government regulations: abroad in other countries as well as US and the US; global warming, CAFÉ standards, safety issues Growth of existing market: widen market New entrants: threat of potential inclusive of generation X,Y and baby boomers new competitors Strong economy: economy not faltering; Changing market tastes: need for consumers still buying continuous innovation to appeal to different segments Nissan’s reputation: leads the industry Shortage ofRead MoreFormula One24819 Words   |  100 Pagesbetween Formula One sponsor- ships, enhanced brand image and increased brand awareness. Thereby exploring the possible connection between Formula One sponsorships and brand equity. 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Chinua Achebe s Things Fall Apart - 1315 Words

Missionaries are a group of Christians whom are on a religious mission. Their sole purpose is to promote their religion in foreign countries. They ‘preach the gospel to all creation. ...and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit’ (Matthew 28:18-20). One of the places the Missionaries had travelled to is Africa. Both The River Between and Things Fall Apart were written during the independence period of Africa. Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, published in 1958 tells the story of Okonkwo whom is a member of the Igbo Tribe in Nigeria and his constant encounters with the Christian missionaries. The River Between written by Ngugi was published in 1965 and tells the story of†¦show more content†¦This is portrayed in The River Between through the practise of female genital mutilation. Achebe however focuses on the Igbo traditions of marriage, children, trade, education and warfare. It is this difference of traditions that cause drifts within the tribes, for the African culture is completely different to that of the Colonies, where Christianity was ‘brought’ from. The River Between is set during the colonial period, a period of transition in which white European settlers were arriving in Kenya bringing with them their Christian values and traditions. However Ngugi focuses on the lost heritage of East Africa and does this through the literary form of storytelling. He sets his novel in the remote highlands of Kenya. This is significant as it relates to the legacies of the Kenyan tribal identities, and is considered the origins of where Ngai, the Kikuyu God had created Gikuyu; the first man and father of the Tribe and Mumbi; the first woman. By using the origins of the Kenyan Tribe as the foundations of his novel, Ngugi portrays that although Christianity and the missionaries have spread their ideologies within Kenya through colonisation, the tales told by each generation of Kenyans remained the same. However Things Fall Apart was set in the 1980’s and was written as a direct response to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. He states he wanted to â€Å"help [his] society regain belief in itself and put away the complexes of the

Clifton Strengths Finder free essay sample

In many cases, people find it difficult to label or categorize their natural talent. Because one is unaware of their natural talents, he or she experiences. During Gallup’s research on identifying talents, they discovered Throughout the course of Clifton’s work on studying talents, they discovered that the majority of people do not have careers that purse their natural talents (Rath, 2007). Out of 10 million people they surveyed, 7 million people were not engaged at work. When these individuals were not able to use their strengths they reported to dread going to work, have more negative than positive interactions with colleagues, treat customers poorly, tell friends what a miserable company they work for, achieve less on a daily basis, and have fewer positive, creative moments in the workplace (2007). To fix these problems, Clifton created a measuring tool in 1999 to categorize and identify talents. First, Clifton wanted to base his research on what is right with people instead of one’s weakness. We will write a custom essay sample on Clifton Strengths Finder or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Based upon previous tests, Clifton started studying work environments and how measuring one’s raw talents could be developed into strengths. He states that a talent is a â€Å"naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied† (Harter, Hodges amp; Lopez, 2005). Next, he states that strength is an extension of a talent. In other words, if one has the gift of communicating well, then with practice, he can develop his talent for talking into a personal strength such as public speaking. Due to Clifton’s belief of studying talents in individuals, he worked with Gallup to start construct the strengths finder. Gallup an organization known for its research on employee selection. To identify these talents, Clifton worked with Gallup to design interviews that were given to people in academic and work settings. The interviewed looked at the roles a person had at their job or academic setting and asked them questions about how successful they felt at work. More than two million people participated during the interview process (Harter, Hodges amp; Lopez, 2005). While identifying common talents and strengths in these settings, Clifton created categories to place them in. These categories are known as themes. Clifton and his team established 34 themes in total. The themes represent a classification of talents. Even though the themes does not capture every aspect of human talent, it is used as an easy way to generate a category. Each theme shares a personalized description based upon the how the respondent answered the questions. For instance, in the futuristic category, a general description reads, â€Å"When the present proves too frustrating and the people around you too pragmatic, you conjure up your visions of the future and they energize you† (Rath, 2007). This is a general sentence that people get who scored high in the futuristic category. When I took the test, I might be the only one who receives the following sentence, â€Å"Its likely that you may intentionally take charge of your future. You might be determined to shape it as you wish (2007). Both the personalized and generalized descriptions are about a paragraph or two in length. The results support the test’s purpose of identifying personal development in work and academic settings, and not for employment selection, placement, or screening for mental health (Schreiner, 2006) The Clifton Strengths Finder is an online assessment that takes about 30 to 45 minutes to complete. There are 180 self-descriptor items that are paired together and participants have to answer at 20-second time intervals (Anderson, Clifton amp; Schreiner, 2006). The items can either be two simple sentences paired together or two complex sentences paired together. One item would appear on the far left side of the screen and the other item will appear on the far right side of the screen. The participant will see five circles on the screen and will have to click on the circle that mostly relates to their talent. For example, one might see an item pair that reads, â€Å"I am Zesty† on the left side and â€Å"I am boring† on the right side. The participant will have to select a circle on the left or right side that relates to his talent. If the participant cannot relate to either of those items, then one has the option of selecting the middle circle which reads as, â€Å"neutral. Gallup and Clifton decided to present the paired items at 20-second time intervals because it generates a, â€Å"first reaction† (Rath, 2007). According to Gallup’s analysts, one’s first reaction to a question is more honest and true. Thinking too much on a question may cause doubt and will alter test scores. The current normed populati on for CSF are college students because identifying one’s talent in college will create a more positive and productive environment in the workforce (2007). To test the current normed population, Gallup’s researchers conducted a national study in 2004-05 to reveal the CSF’s reliability and validity. Students from five community colleges and nine universities participated in the study. The sample consisted of 438 college students and 58% were female while 46% were male. The sample had the following ethnicities represented: 76% Caucasian 13. 6% Asian, 5% Hispanic, 4. 3% African-American, and 1. 2% multiethnic. The majority of sample was comprised of freshmen and sophomore. Freshman represented 46%, with sophomores at 31. 5%, juniors 8. 7%, and seniors 10. 8% (Schreiner, 2006). The students had to complete three online instruments which included the CSF, the California Psychological Inventory and the 16PF. The last two instruments were tested because their content related to the theme categories of the CSF. Both tests are also reliable measures of personality and the 16PF contains Holland’s six vocational types (2006). The study consisted of two phases. After taking the three instruments, students returned a month later in order to complete the CSF again. The results from the two trials determined the reliability and validity of the test. With reliability the researchers used test-retest reliability and internal consistency. Since the students had to come back a second time to take the test, test-retest reliability assessed how stable their responses was over time. A score of 1. 00 would reveal that students who took the CSF responded exactly the same. Across the 34 themes the mean for the test-retest reliability was . 70. The themes with the highest test-retest reliability were Discipline, Deliberative, Intellection, Positivity, and Competition (Schreiner, 2006). Through reliability, research has also found that 52% of the sample had scored the same three themes of the five themes from taking the test twice. Only 35% scored the same two themes over time, while 11% retained only one of their top five themes. A small 2% scored completely different themes from taking the CSF twice (2006). Internal consistency scored ranged from . 63 to . 80 being the highest among the 34 themes. This reliability assessment measured how accurate each theme identified the correct items it was measuring (2006). For example. If a item on the Achievement theme scale measures strong need for achievement, then the internal consistency will be high. The validity used for the CSF was construct validity. Construct validity reveals how well items describe people. Since the CSF does not predict future behavior and responses are not based on accuracy, construct validity was appropriate for this test. Because the themes were based off the California and 16PF, 93. 4% of the themes had significant correlation coefficients (2006). In the end the CSF presented some strengths and weaknesses. Gallup researchers have found that strength-based interventions increased a student’s retention, performance, self-efficacy, confidence, and purpose in academic and work settings. One weaknesses is that the CSF contains over 200,000 unique combinations that represent themes (Rath, 2007). Some items in these combinations are represented more than others, so if someone does not answer a particular amount of item pairs, then he or she will not be in that category. Another weaknesses is that the theme descriptions and the 180 item pairs been the same since 1999 (2007). The statements that participants see to answer about their talents may not be up to date with today’s language. Also, when long statements are given on the online assessment, one may not have enough time to read it and this will alter the result.

The sensuous Chekhov Essay Example For Students

The sensuous Chekhov Essay Anton Chekhov, a doctor, once said, My holy of holies is the human body. And the people in his plays, contrary to the way theyre often viewed, do have bodies. These are humans, in each others company, in a place. Theyre also humans in our company, in a room with us. What Chekhov interpreters make of the much-neglected bodies is, to a great degree, what they make of the plays. In the past weeks Ive seen three major regional productions of The Cherry Orchard: at Clevelands Great Lakes Theater Festival, at American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass., and at Indiana Repertory Theatre in Indianapolis. They seem to be three completely different plays. OFF WE GO, IN SEARCH OF THE CHEKHOV EXPERIENCE. We will write a custom essay on The sensuous Chekhov specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now Great Lakes mounts its version, directed by Gerald Freedman with set design by John Ezell, in the Ohio Theatre, a vast, ornate, grandly old-fashioned cavern in a lavish three-theatre complex among Clevelands downtown business towers. Theres lots and lots of space, in the house and on the stage, that great, gilded temple of a proscenium stage. As the companys mission statement attests, this is truly a shrine, a monument, a place for cultural preservation, a haven for classic drama. For the interior scenes at the Ranyevskaya estate, period furniture is set about the stage without walls to contain it. In the first act Madame Ranyevskayas return from Pans and Lopakhins revelation of the estates jeopardy you can see past free-standing doors right to the back of the space, where an enormous, thick cascade of bright pink blossoms shoots up and across the ceiling to loom, a magnificent oppressive, independent canopy over the action below. As the orchards sale impends and the scene moves outside to the surrounding estate land, blossoms rain down suddenly, apocalyptically, and leave menacing, skeletal branches to claw the firmament, while insistent telephone poles sprout from a barren, rocky landscape. Back inside for Ranyevskayas defiant party, the furniture returns, beset by a luxuriant curtain in a stage-center arch, everything aglow with the rich, heavy hues of mourning -in-advance. Of course, for the final act, once the estate is sold to Lopakhin, things get covered in sheets as everyone leaves. To the side of each interior scene, small, slightly distorted rooms sit aloft and vacant, memories of the home as it used to be, their lines of perspective challenging those of the inhabited space. Things that arent supposed to move, such as absent-but-suggested walls, doors and large, dense pieces of furniture the house itself move easily, carelessly, as if they were windblown scraps, while the mobile stuff the people stay put, mired in sorrow, bewildered by the unexpected ephemeral world around them. All of this, framed and distant from the crowd, is glorious, awesome, classical tragic, Important. Nothing could differ more from the atmosphere of the Festivals lakeside palace than the Loeb Drama Center in studious Harvard Square, where, on American Reps mainstage, The Cherry Orchard is no less important for its being decidedly modern. The theatre is a spacious lecture hall whose seats dive at a severe confrontational rake to the lip of a big, bare proscenium cube. Its an unadorned room in an unadorned academic building, and George Tsypins set is just as stark. The estate house is represented by two dimensional, featureless cut-out walls toward the back of the stage with cut-out doorless doorways. On stage the furniture is scattered widely, all of it painted in bright solid colors, some of it such as the crippled, screaming-yellow bookcase at odd angles or of useless proportions. None of this decor suggests a period or place, but an idea, a hybrid of Van Goghs The Bedroom and a childs sidewalk chalk-drawing. To evoke the out-of-doors world, the stage is stripped bare, save a small backless bench and an enormous dark pole that stretches all the way to the ceiling. Across the entire rear wall hangs a Rothko-like horizon, bars of grey and brown. The orchard is revealed from behind a scrim: a row of vertically aligned fluorescent tubes. The floor, that glacial gray expanse, looks clean enough to eat off. .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52 , .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52 .postImageUrl , .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52 , .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52:hover , .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52:visited , .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52:active { border:0!important; } .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52:active , .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52 .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .ufc8429eeca01a058fcf67896fe94bf52:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Theatre and poetry EssayAlmost always separated from each other across yards and yards of bleak and alien terrain the people spin in their own follow orbits, their isolation enhanced and sealed by follow-spots, their angst-frozen gazes scarcely ever meeting. Remote (from us and each other) and static, they look like pieces in an abstract sculpture garden, components of a stunning installation. Under Ron Danielss direction, the play becomes an incisive lecture in existential philosophy, an academic literalization of its latent lonely heart. By contrast yet again, Indiana Reys relatively small, unspectacular house wraps around and cozies up to its apron stage. Every seat aims at the center of the stage, and the center of the stage speaks to every seat. Simon Pastukhs set, behind the exposed outward-reaching and sparsely furnished lobe, uses a series of scrims hung with small family portraits that leave unfaded spots when theyre packed away for the final departure. Doorways arent aligned with each other, so that entering and leaving sends actors racing through a convoluted fun-house labyrinth. With light hitting the scrims in various ways, this set effortlessly serves as both indoor and outdoor realms. On the floor of the stage are strewn thousands of light pink petals that whisper and lift and fly whenever people move. And people do move and move and move in an exuberant, buoyant dance, striding, tumbling, running, swirling and everywhere they go the petals celebrate. People touch each other, grab, hug, hit, kiss, caress they actually touch! This Cherry Orchard, directed by Libby Appel, is sensual, enthusiastic, swift, immediate, brash and near. In the title story of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks interviews a man whose progressive neuro-psychological disorder has robbed him of the connection between seeing and feeling, made the world into a collection of pattern lifeless shapes to be deciphered. Sacks hands the man an extravagant, fresh red rose: He took it like a botanist or morphologist given a specimen, not like a person given a flower. About six inches in length, he commented. A convoluted red form with a linear green attachment. Yes, I said encouragingly, and what do you think it is, Dr. P.? Not easy to say. He seemed perplexed. It lacks the simple symmetry of the Platonic solids, although it may have a higher symmetry of its own . . . I think this could be an inflorescence or flower. Could be? I queried. Could be, he confirmed. Smell it, I suggested, and he again looked somewhat puzzled as if I had asked him to smell a higher symmetry .But he complied courteously and took it to his nose. Now, suddenly, he came to life. Beautiful! he exclaimed. An early rose. Great Lakes and American Rep (their buildings unwittingly complying with each approach) displayed two brilliant higher symmetries; Indianapolis offered the rose. As tragedy or philosophy, The Cherry Orchard is sliced to but a small part of what it can be: a sensory evocation of life on earth, a thing that exists fully as what it is, not as code for something else. The plays not Important It can matter a lot to a lot of people, but it doesnt have some massive, weighty thing to dump in your lap. Jean-Louis Barrault once described the plot of The Cherry Orchard as follows: Act I: The cherry orchard is in danger of being sold. Act II: The cherry orchard is going to be sold. Act III: The cherry orchard is sold. Act IV: The cherry orchard has been sold. As for the rest: life. The play is a living network of hungry desire. Anya Petya; Lopakhin Varya; Yepikhodov Dunyasha Yasha Ranyevskaya life; they want one another, in the most eager and unsparing way. Richard Gilman writes that Chekhov creates a dramatic field. Two phrase evokes a complex, nonlinear dramatic strategy, one that depends for its success on relationships among people. If the people arent allowed to communicate, the field breaks apart. And communication is not always the same thing as speech. Thats why its so vital, when characters are conceived as living beings, to bring them together, and to believe in their life. When little things can mean so much, when lips and fingers really matter, should actors be exiled from each other, divided across wide platforms far, far away from the audience and from each other and denied even the opportunity to move, to use their own bodies? Feelings of loneliness and loss are all the more powerful when you really attempt to connect. .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e , .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e .postImageUrl , .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e , .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e:hover , .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e:visited , .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e:active { border:0!important; } .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e:active , .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u20a5dd99c462a9f7162a131e36ed370e:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Prose Study of Dracula by Bram Stoker EssayBut stasis and turf arent the only impediments to intimate human contact, Ideas, too, can be dangerous. Mark Twain, in his essay How to Tell a Story, advocates what he calls the humorous story, which he contrasts to the schematic witty story: The humorous story may be spun out to great length, and may wander around as much as it pleases, and arrive nowhere in particular; but the witty story must be brief and end with a point. When you decide ahead of time that one of Chekhovs plays aims to make a point its about tragic loss, its about isolation the humor disappears, the rich irrelevancies must give way to the cause, to whatever that point is meant to be. The thing becomes streamlined, efficient, aimed and, ultimately, adversarial toward its audience. Chekhovs plays certainly arent without something to say, but they say it like a rose reveals itself: whole. The expression on someones face, some specific gesture, a way of walking or talking, a teardrop or a stolen glance these are the things that go straight to the heart, bypass the strict geometry of critical thought, communicate a total reality. The Thesis is deadly poison to the dramatic field, an inorganic invasion that wrenches our attention from the actors as people, be it a Damaclean cherry-bough suspended doomlike above, or electric trees that alienate-alienate-alienate, or an enormous sterile space that wont let you forget for a second that this is Art, not life; to be admired, not experienced. When metaphor crowds out the people on stage, youre in serious trouble-if your audience is human and your playwright writes human characters. Indiana Reps evocation of The Cherry Orchard is not all smiles and light and prettiness, but it is brave and present and lusty. Behaviors the thing. Lots of human behavior. Life loves life and wants as much as it can get. I want to experience human behavior, up close, experience humans experiencing each other. Why? Because Im a member of the species, and because theatre makes it possible, and because Chekhov is one of the most vibrant teeming sources of human behavior ever. George Orwell, enjoying Shakespeares countless loose ends, junk and trinkets and useless details, said, he loved the surface of the earth and the process of life. The same was true of Chekhov, who, I feel sure, would love the way his creations can, despite sorrow and failure and ugliness and death and wrong, still stride joyfully through fallen petals, unafraid of these layers of life at their feet, these playful things that bum with the pink possibility of spring and rustle with the sweet regret of autumn, that revel in Ranyevskayas spontaneous embraces and play banana peel to Yepikhodovs fearless pratfalls. The ambiguous, complex yet simple presence of these petals speaks volumes about the way Chekhovs people live in the place they live, because that presence draws its force from them and them alone, and means nothing without them.