Broadway musicians, members of Local 802 – American Federation of Musicians, have pushed back their strike date to midnight Thursday. Their contract negotiations with The League of American Theatres and Producers have centered on the stipulations regarding the minimum number of musicians that must be hired for a Broadway musical. Show producers have sometimes cleverly worked around the minimums, counting actors who play instruments on stage to get around having to pay a musician who is not needed. The League finds the minimums ridiculous and restrictive. The musicians are trying to save dwindling jobs as electronic reproductions get ever closer to sounding “live.” Talk of using completely electronic music in shows if the musicians do strike is perhaps the realization of the union’s worst fears. The League also is petitioning to eliminate music copyists from the union, preferring to hire them as independent contractors. Music copyists have the often thankless job of transcribing the composer’s score and ongoing edits to new playable scores.

Your recycled plastic grocery bags may be part of someone’s new deck. Trex is a decking material “made primarily with recycled plastic grocery bags, reclaimed pallet wrap and about half waste wood.” It’s been rapidly gaining popularity the past few years. The material doesn’t need to be painted or sealed (but it can be), works with the usual wood fastenings (nails, screws), and can even be bent for interesting effects.

Whenever Mr. Rogers showed a film to his TV audience he would hold up a little film container saying that he’d brought something to show us. Then he’d put the container into a little opening in the side of the wall and the film would magically start running. Now of course there was post-production to edit the actual film into the show, but when you’re four you don’t know about these things. I was savvy enough, however, to decide that there must be something “real” going on in that wall to allow him to stick a film canister in and have the movie come on like magic. So I had a scenario worked out in my head that behind the wall was a guy who would take the film out of the canister and run it into a projector so I could see it on my TV. And then when the film was over the guy would have to quickly put the film back in the canister so Mr. Rogers could take it out of the wall again. It never really dawned on me that this film trick was as make-believe as the land where all those fake puppets and the purple panda were. Mr. Rogers clearly delineated what was real and what was make believe. He would show us how he played the trolley noises on his piano. He showed us the puppets used in the land of make-believe and how he did the voices. Sesame Street, which makes no such distinctions, is pure escapism, educational as it is. Mister Rogers, in some ways, prepared his viewers for his death better than any other children’s characters because he wasn’t a character. He was genuine.

Rob Cockerham, ever-prolifically-funny, gave titles to the California quarter selections.

I look forward to Wednesdays because it is “food day!” in the newspapers I read. But I was taken aback when I opened up “the merc” yesterday to see a lengthy feature article on instant ramen. Don’t get me wrong, I love instant noodles of all configurations. I’ve had instant udon and instant thai noodles this week for dinner (hey, I’ve been busy). But doctoring instant ramen into a meal is second nature to me, and I didn’t want precious food article space taken up by praise for starch and powdered flavorings in a plastic packet. I need the food pages to be inspirational. I don’t need to be told that I can add vegetables and meat to my instant noodles to make a meal. I don’t want to know how many times the earth can be circled by the number of ramen packages sold per year. This attitude makes me worse than a foodie snob — I’m a foodie writing snob. Save me from myself, please!

Check out the new plates on Ned’s WRX. Any idea what Apple product he works on? He also supported arts education and local arts programming by selecting the Wayne Thiebaud designed CAC special plate.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi both announced new soda flavors Tuesday that capitalize on already established brands. Coke brand Sprite will be launching Sprite Remix, a tropical flavor. Pepsi’s Mountain Dew will be offering Mountain Dew LiveWire this summer. Their press release terms the flavor “orange-ignited” with the same base ingredients and caffeine content as regular Dew. I’ll be sticking to Trader Joe’s organic lemonade cut with lime sparkling water.

A recent NOVA special on the restoration of ancient monastery paintings in Tibet was fresh in my mind when I read an article about the distaste incurred by artificial siding materials. The monastery restoration was achieved with methods and materials true to the origins of the structure. Sections of paintings which had been completely lost to water damage were not initially replaced, but outlined to achieve the wholeness desired by the worshippers of the depicted deities. But the outlines weren’t enough; they wanted the entire paintings back, and, the foreign restorers implied, the locals didn’t care as much if original materials were used towards those goals. Accustomed to restoring, not recreating, the restoration specialists seemed reluctant, and the discussion was still ongoing at the end of the program. Back in the U.S., where we have much less exhalted, and not ancient, but nonetheless beloved architecture to restore, preservation societies ban the use of “unauthentic building surfaces.” Vinyl siding is especially reviled, as it is, after all, plastic, and the worst plastic of all (environmentally unsound PVC). Authenticity isn’t as much about looks as it is about materials to the purists of restoration. They happily live with any drawbacks the older materials may have. The Tibetan monks have different, perhaps more relaxed, aspirations in their road to enlightment.

I curbed my previously announced ginger chew addiction by graduating to crystallized ginger. That’s the real stuff; actual chunks soaked in sugar. It’s quite yummy and great for traveling. I kept thinking it would be wonderful with chocolate, and now the Ginger People have chocolate-covered ginger buttons. They are dipped in “premium quality dark chocolate” which is, also, the real stuff. Yum.

More images of the Samsung Matrix phone have been uncovered. “The phone will have 65K+ color TFT LCD screen, 40 polyphonic ringtone, automatic sliding earpiece utilizing piezoelectric motors (opens and closes with one touch of the button on the side).” (via many Matrix fansites)