Sea of Images 2021
November 12, 2021 at 3:22 am (Artists and Writers, Books, Dearest Mum, Family, Holidays, Movies, Pianos, Places, Plays, Recommended, Weather, Women Writers)
Tags: art, biographies, Cal Shakes, COVID Reading, environment, Ethel Rosenberg, exhibits, favorites, Golden Gate Park, Grimdark, Halloween, history, Judy Chicago, Literary Magazines, memories, murals, museums, mysteries, noir, Palo Alto, Pembroke Magazine, photo challenge, Pismo Beach, porch, reading lists, road trip, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, short story, Stanford, summer, Thomas Perry
Cellpic Sunday
October 3, 2021 at 6:16 pm (Artists and Writers, Links, Plays, Recommended, Sayings, Sundays)
Tags: blogs, humor, inspirations, photo challenge, Shakespeare
Another photo challenge!
This one is loose: any picture taken with your cell. The host is Journeys with Johnbo.
Here are self’s fridge magnets. Shakespeare rules!
October Squares Challenge: Past-Squares
October 2, 2021 at 6:36 pm (destinations, Links, Places, Plays, postaday, Recommended)
Tags: adaptations, Cal Shakes, favorites, life of B, memories, nostalgia, performances, photo challenge, praise, Saturday, Shakespeare
There are many ways to interpret this month’s Squares Challenge, Past-Squares. Self will confine herself to just one interpretation, this whole month of October:
- Have fun with the word ‘past’ by sharing squares of history and heritage, and that includes past holidays!
Summer is over, but Cal Shakes came back with a vengeance, staging an adaptation of The Winter’s Tale that quite took self’s breath away. She went to see it three separate times in September: two Sunday matinees, and one Saturday night performance. The final performance is tomorrow night. WAAAAH! September moved by too quickly.
See you next year, Bruns Amphitheatre!
Now Reading
September 30, 2021 at 7:07 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Plays, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: Cal Shakes, COVID Reading, novel, reading lists, romance, Shakespeare
Even though self just started reading (last night), she likes the characters already, and that means she’s probably going to enjoy finding out what happens to them. It helps to know the FORMULA, because that is the only way self can stand reading about two likeable people who do not see what is right in front of their noses. Self is not against formula, as long as the writer keeps it fresh.
Take Shakespeare. She can take any Shakespeare, as long as it’s done with energy. Her first Shakespeare at The Globe in London was Titus Andronicus. Buckets of gore, in that one. People walking out, clutching their stomachs. LOVED! And this last Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale at Cal Shakes. She saw it three times. It was absolutely the highlight of her year. Some snob over at Facebook said it looked “awful.” Good! Stay away! Don’t take a seat away from someone who might love it!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Quotes of the Day: The Winter’s Tale
September 23, 2021 at 9:50 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Conversations, destinations, Eavesdropping, Family, Lists, Plays, Recommended)
Tags: adaptations, Cal Shakes, COVID Reading, COVID watching, happiness, humor, memories, praise, Shakespeare, summer
“Go rot! Dost thou think I am so muddy?” — Leontes, The Winter’s Tale
Self grew to love Shakespeare only in middle age, and that was entirely because of Cal Shakes, which is in self’s humble opinion the Bay Area’s best theater company. Of course, it didn’t hurt that her first Cal Shakes play was Romeo and Juliet, where Romeo was played by ADAM SCOTT.
Since then, Cal Shakes has become firmly fixed as a rite of summer. Last year they were forced to cancel their entire season and lay off two-thirds of their full-time staff. This year, they came back with one play, The Winter’s Tale.
As soon as it was announced, self e-mailed son. She couldn’t believe it when he said right off that he would pass. Pass? How could he? He practically grew up with Cal Shakes! She used to bring carloads of his friends here! Of course, they’re all married now, but still!
She ended up seeing it with a friend, while it was still in previews. Before seeing it Sept. 12, self had never read the play, didn’t know anything about the play, would probably have gone through the rest of her life not giving a hoot about the play. Then, she saw it. Ummm. She sat stupefieadd and amazed for three hours. How stupefied and amazed? Exactly one week later she was back, by herself. By then, she’d already begun reading a hefty novel called The Slaughterman’s Daughter. She lugged it along, and remained in her seat through intermission, reading.
What’s really good about seeing a play alone is: you can eavesdrop. The person to her left (separated by two seats) was a woman perhaps a decade older than self, who’d come alone, and was wearing the cutest gold sandals. To her right was a family with teen-age girls, who were at Bruns for the first time, probably just to see what all the fuss was all about.
The parents were sitting immediately to self’s right, the daughters several rows behind. At intermission, the mother went to check on the girls. When she came back, the girls were trailing her. The mother told her husband:
“You know what, I just realized everyone thinks the King is an idiot.”
Daughter: “That’s cause he IS.”
Onward!
Self could remember so many more lines, after watching The Winter’s Tale a second time:
“Good Queen, my Lord. GOOD Queen.”
“Gross hag!”
“Oh! She is warm!”
But her favorite line is the last: Hermione tells a repentant Leontes, “Let’s from this place.” And with that, the play ends. If anyone had told self a week ago that she would end up shipping Hermione/Leontes, she would have said, Get out!
This adaptation of The Winter’s Tale was by Cal Shakes Director Eric Ting and Resident Dramaturg Philippa Kelly. Kudos.
Her love for Cal Shakes is undiminished.
Stay tuned.
Getting Through It
February 17, 2021 at 12:38 am (Artists and Writers, Books, Calls, Conversations, Dearest Mum, Family, Links, Lists, plans, Plays, Recommended, Relatives, television, The Economist)
Tags: Cal Shakes, concerts, COVID Listening, COVID Reading, COVID watching, favorites, Garden, memories, Mendocino, music, Peaky Blinders, Shakespeare, The Crown, The Expanse, Trader Joe's
It’s been almost a year since the world stopped, plans got thrown out the window, and nothing will ever be the same.
Self thought she’d take a moment to celebrate the things that got her through the past year:
Of course, gardening. Her garden has never looked so great. Every day she watches the oxalis in her backyard get higher and higher. And she just loves it.
Second, books, and her fantastic local library and their curbside pick-up system. She’s been using it since June (Before that, she ordered many books from Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino, which is equally fantastic). Also, self would like to thank the AUTHORS of these wonderful books. When self needed to be transported to another place and time, these authors delivered:
Self would also like to thank FREE CONCERTS. The week after everything shut down, St. Bride’s in London began streaming everything. And so did St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco, which used to hold free noontime concerts every Tuesday.
She would also like to thank Cal Shakes, whose summertime Shakespeare was a high point of her summer, as long as she was home in the San Francisco Bay Area. (Her first Cal Shakes was Romeo and Juliet. ADAM SCOTT PLAYED ROMEO. Sold!!!) A few days ago, she got a message that they would mount ONE live production this summer (Dates to be announced), with appropriate social distancing, of course: Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale.
Also, FaceTime. Self has actually learned to FaceTime with Dearest Mum. It’s been so great.
And The Economist, which managed to come every week (every two weeks lately, since DeJoy destroyed the USPS)
Finally, she’d like to thank her favorite TV shows, because she’d never have gotten through without them: The Expanse (closing with Season 6), Peaky Blinders (closing with Season 6), The Crown.
A big hand also for Trader Joe’s, for being most sanitary of all the different supermarkets she’s shopped in.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
Anthony Huber, 26, Skateboarder
September 8, 2020 at 9:51 pm (Family, Links, Plays, Traveling, Wall Street Journal)
Tags: causes, grief, happiness, London, memories, news, sadness
Grew up in Kenosha, attended Lincoln Middle School.
“He loved skateboarding.” — Tim Kramer, ex-classmate
Became one of two men killed by Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Self is reading an article in the September 5 – 6 issue of wsj. The article, by Chris Kornelis, is about Tony Hawke, skateboarding icon (picture below, she cropped the wsj photo)
In the first reports of the Kenosha shooting, self read that Huber tried to hit Rittenhouse with his skateboard, but was otherwise unarmed. This detail is what fixed the image of Anthony Huber in her mind.
Last year (Self’s doing a lot of sighing over LAST YEAR), self watched an adaptation of Andrea Levy’s Small Island in London’s National Theatre with son, daughter-in-law, and Amy Toland of Miami University Press. After, as the four of us walked towards the Waterloo underground, we passed a skateboarding ramp. It was just before midnight. The skateboarders were out in force. After seeing a play, there is something so mysterious and gripping about the sound of people going up and down a skateboarding ramp — up, down. Up, down. Over and over. The skateboarders’ own private, wordless mantra.
Self remembers finding the sounds almost hypnotic — as expressive, in their own way, as the words she had just been listening to for three hours (It was a long play, she loved every moment)
So there were the four of us, walking. And self remembers being very, very happy in that moment. London is such a great city: who puts a skateboarding ramp next to the National Theatre? Londoners, that’s who!
So she is particularly saddened by the fact that Anthony Huber was a skateboarder. There was no reason for Anthony Huber to go toward the danger of Kyle Rittenhouse. Only something instinctive, maybe a skateboarder’s instinct.
Never forget.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: TASTING
May 13, 2020 at 4:34 pm (destinations, Family, Food and Drink, Links, Plays)
Tags: Cal Shakes, Cee Neuner, indulgences, memories, nostalgia
- The topic for this week’s CFFC is Sense of Tasting. This is all about things you can taste, be it sweet, sour, bitter, comforting, fulfilling, addictions, etc. If you can drink or eat it, you can usually taste it. — Cee Neuner’s Fun Foto Challenge
These days, self has been searching for comfort food. But, first: NOSTALGIC MEMORIES of her last picnic at Cal Shakes, Orinda:
Picnic Before Macbeth, Cal Shakes, Orinda, October 2019
Second, comfort food during a pandemic: Maggi on Roasted Chicken is the best! And her favorite cookies from childhood, available at Pacific Market in South San Francisco:
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Tuesday Photo Challenge: FANTASY
November 20, 2019 at 2:10 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, destinations, Holidays, Links, Lists, Places, Plays, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: Cal Shakes, Christmas, English writers, fantasy, favorites, Just published, London, Lyra Belacqua, Oxford, Philip Pullman, Shakespeare
Fascinating Tuesday Photo Challenge!
Here are self’s three takes on the theme of FANTASY:
Picture # 1: Waiting for the start of Macbeth in Cal Shakes’ last production of the 2019 season. “When Birnam wood shall come to Dunsinane …” What’s not to love about the Weird Sisters? About the preening ambiton of Lady Macbeth? Self adores Shakespeare.
Picture # 2: Waterstones Oxford celebrates Philip Pullman’s The Secret Commonwealth (Vol. 2 of the Book of Dust, which takes Lyra Bellacqua of His Dark Materials and turns her into Lyra Silverstone — self picking up her copy today. So excited!
Picture # 3: London’s Knightsbridge, near Fortnum & Mason. Ready for Christmas, in mid-November. Window-shopping is de rigueur.
Awaiting Macbeth, Cal Shakes, October 2019
Waterstones Ground Floor, Oxford, November 2019
Picadilly, London: Somewhere near the Royal Academy of Art, November 2019
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Philippa Kelly, Cal Shakes Resident Dramaturg, on MACBETH
October 1, 2019 at 3:12 am (Artists and Writers, Plays, Recommended)
Tags: Cal Shakes, favorites, Mondays, performances, praise, Shakespeare, tragic characters
Never, ever miss a Cal Shakes Grove Talk. Self has been to a few of these, all delivered by Philippa Kelly, and each is enthralling. Kelly is a superb speaker. She ties in history, puts the play in context, and makes the playgoing experience so rich!
Self learned yesterday that Macbeth was written in 1606.
1606
She was reminded that a boy played Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s time. Imagine lines like “Milk my breast” from the lips of a boy! Plus the high voice! Self thought about this while observing Liz Sklar’s performance as Lady Macbeth — that is a powerful role that demands an actor equally powerful. A boy just doesn’t cut it.
This evening, self is reading Kelly’s essay in the program brochure. The essay’s title is Can We Forgive Ourselves?
- Actions can be imagined; but “if it (is) done when ’tis done,” an action has consequences — and if we are thinking and feeling beings, consequences can’t be ignored.
After listening to Kelly, self saw the play as a true horror story. Macbeth and his wife see ghosts everywhere. At the start of the play, they are young and beautiful. By its end they’ve both been driven round the bend. And it is TRAGIC.
Self realizes she has never, ever seen young Macbeth or Lady Macbeth. Until yesterday. It’s not Romeo and Juliet, but Liz Sklar’s Lady Macbeth is LIT!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Kanlaon 