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HERE & THERE - PART I
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I had a rather unexpected pre-April's Fool joke played on me by my internet service provider - my email account quit accepting or at least forwarding mail to my account around 12:15 pm yesterday. I could receive Yahoo mail (I have a Yahoo account to receive Cabaretsingers' group items) and Google Mail (which handles mail from my blog) and MAC mail (which handles mail from my family) but no mail to my main e-mail account, stuhamstra@svhamstra.com. I finally contacted them around 3:00 pm and was informed they would look into it.
Nothing happened until around 11:00 pm, when suddenly "the dam" burst, and over 1000 e-mails were received, some dating back to February 3rd! Plus another 1000+ were caught by the spam filter and held on the ISP's servers. There was no explanation, especially why some items were dated nearly 2 months ago. Overwhelmed, I went to bed.
So, I know this issue is incomplete, in that I don't have time to edit and reformat any press release emails received after noon yesterday except a few I chose which cover events before Tuesday of next week - I will catch up on the Monday issue. Please don't flood me with repeat releases quite yet - I will sort everything out by tomorrow.
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Fortunately, with both Passover and Easter weeks coinciding this year, it is sort of a slow week for cabaret (comparatively speaking) but we note a lot of last minute cabaret schedule changes in the NYC area as folks who discovered they are official 2010 MAC AWARD nominees scurry to book dates while the voting is on - MAC rules require voters to actually see a performer/performance in the nominated show to be able to vote for that performer/show.
This rule serves a double purpose: it makes for intelligent voting rather than popularity voting, and it also prods performers to deliver higher quality performances to impress the voters. Of course the rule is often ignored, but honest MAC members will be out and about the next few weeks catching up on nominated shows that they may have missed.
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Some folks (especially nominees) take the MAC voting process very seriously and several have expressed dismay that already there are articles circulating containing "predictions" and "favorites" by some individuals and/or publications. Of course, with a major award committee releasing its 2010 choices even before the preliminary nomination voting was complete, it's hard to criticize those who chose to make their choices publicly known before the final vote has started, but I can truly understand the anger expressed against those who seem to want to "influence" the outcome - for whatever reason they might have.
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But I was influenced by the reaction of MAC voters and nominees to what appeared to them to be a blatant attempt to "cook the books" and have slightly revised our own CABARET HOTLINE ONLINE "straw poll". We will still send "ballots" to all members of CABARET HOTLINE ONLINE to make their choices for their favorite nominees for the 2010 MAC AWARDS but instead we are changing it into a contest as to who can most accurately predict the final results of the MAC voting for the top 6 or 8 categories. The winner who gets the most correct will win a collection of 6 CDs (unwrapped) that I have on hand - I often get duplicates of CDs to review/listen. In case of a tie, we will split the prize. MAC voters are only permitted to vote for shows/performers they have actually seen in 2009. But in the CABARET HOTLINE ONLINE "Straw Poll" anyone can enter their predictions - on the basis of a number of factors - reviews they've read, shows they've seen, previous performances by the nominees in other years, etc. Or they can just choose the way I choose numbers when I occasionally buy a lotto ticket - randomly.
And, because of the new system, we won't be able to actually name the prize winners until after the award show, and won't be publishing any tallies before the award show so as not to give any clues to folks still making their contest choices.
