Today had an odd feel of “normal” to it—not that was entirely a good thing. A good chunk of my day has been devoted to beginning to deal with a couple of SCA issues put on hold for a couple of months—which has been patently No Fun, but it’s something that needs to happen.

Meanwhile, Ontario announced that part of the province will move to Phase 2 on Friday. But not my part—we’re staying in Phase 1. Me personally, I don’t really have any giant desire to jump to Phase 2; we’ve still got too many cases in the area. Apparently they’re going to allow gatherings of up to 10 people everywhere starting Friday, though. I am starting to want a physically-distanced visit with friends, as a number of my friends have done. But honestly, again, I am in no huge rush, especially when I can spend my evening watching what I’m watching now.

Hosted over Zoom, the event is called Wright Sites x PechaKucha. I’ve known about PechaKucha for awhile—a presentation format consisting of 20 slides, with 20 seconds of narration for each slide. PechaKucha normally has live events all over the world, but during the pandemic they’ve gone online. Today is Frank Lloyd Wright’s birthday, and thus a program of 12 presentations featuring 12 different Wright sites. And they’re fascinating. I have learned about a woman who went to architecture school to figure out to restore her own Usonian Automatic home, a presentation on Wright’s buildings in Japan and his influence on Japanese architecture, another one on restoring a Wright cooktop in the Brandes house, and a presentation on the restoration of the tea circle at Taliesin. All of the presentations have been something special.

Of course I’m captivated by Wright, but I am particularly intrigued by the PechaKucha format, which seems particularly suited for concise storytelling. Since I am pondering starting to produce YouTube videos, and since I have experience with doing Toastmasters speeches that are about the same length, I am considering starting to experiment with the format. I’m watching the presentation on the Martin house right now, and it strikes me how the presentation reminds me in many ways of my own presentation about the Martin House done a number of years ago.

I am not sure whether the videos will be posted after the fact, but I am very inspired by the possibilities of PechaKucha. I may have to look into whether there’s a local group to join.