responses and assignments

Kimi - good thoughts. I like the idea of a repeated scenario where one factor gradually changes each time. I wonder if the proximity of the teacher/learner is part of what changes each time... starting at an extreme distance and ending on top of each other (literally, or at least really in each others' space), maybe?

re: "pain = discipline / discipline = pain?"
I was wondering how we equate the two. Can('t) discipline be non-painful?

Totally mixing some things we have mentioned into one scene... does the waitress have to serve the customer boiling frog soup? does the waitress ask the customer for a seat on the subway? does the scene take place on a subway, instead of in a restaurant (see nyt articles I just posted), or is that too complicated? do we involve a rhinoceros?

Other thoughts about character: we only will have Brianne and I. So, could we involve audience members? Do we pull volunteers to be researchers? (Give them instructions to tell us to keep going.) Or have them be the teacher/customer?

Or is the waitress the teacher, trying to teach the customer to leave a larger tip? (Zap! Too low!) Or is the customer the teacher, leaving a low tip to teach the waitress that she shouldn't have (dropped the spoon, voted for Obama, mouthed off, walked too slowly, chosen the wrong job)?

Since Brianne asked for directives/assignments, here is something to start with, to get us started. Brianne and I should each do the following:

Develop seven possible actions for a waitress or customer that can be repeated and modified over time (like Kimi's idea of carrying heavier stacks of dishes). If we each do 7, plus the stacks of dishes, that gives us 15 options to choose from... seems an appropriate number for our 15-minute piece dealing somewhat with 150volts.

Also, Kimi, could you come up with a list of 15 objects that we could use?

What about language in this piece? I noticed the people in the Brown youtube sometimes couldn't speak at all and other times were quite verbal. What if we would each write something that we then go in and erase some of the words? Begin to play with the language that way? We could also pull things from the articles... thoughts?