October 2021 – Come, Follow My Blog

Costume Time

October 30, 2021 dpedece2 Comments

“All the World is a Stage“

Since this is a costume time of year, I thought it would be fun to post photos of some costumes. However, these costumes aren’t for trick or treaters though they could be worn to a masquerade party.

These outfits are from the University of Puget Sound Theater Arts Department. When the card catalogs at Collins Memorial Library were removed and replaced by computer stations in a different location, the area where the card catalogs used to be was turned into a display space.

Even though I love my old college this isn’t an ad for Puget Sound or the Theater Arts Department, but I would recommend the school to anyone. Some of my best years were spent there, not as a drama major, but as an English major. While going to school and afterward I attended many plays at the university. The Theater Arts department is very good. They’ve put on some ambitious productions. I love theater and used to go see pretty much anything that moved on stage. Movies are fun, but theater is more fun.

*Theater Arts students sew the costumes.*

I was fortunate enough to take part in a London Stage and Concert Hall tour sponsored by the University of Washington. What a blast! Two weeks of plays, concerts, and opera. Sometimes there were three performances a day–early afternoon, late afternoon, and evening. Extreme culture saturation. We even went to a music hall performance; it was kind of like vaudeville.

*This could be a costume from Caesar and Cleopatra*, *but actually, Babes in Arms.*

*Imagine the work that went into creating such detail.*

I copied this information from the Puget Sound Theater Arts department website.

This is what students can learn:

To be collaborative, informed, imaginative
To make, understand, and evaluate theatre events
To speak and write persuasively and honestly
To manage long-term projects and bring them to fruition
To create and execute public events

This is what students could become

Actor
Playwright
Event Planner
Producer/Project Manager
Stage Manager, Stage Technician
Artistic Director, Managing Director

These skills could also come in handy for newscasters, lawyers, and politicians. I’m sure no one here thought these folks were genuine. Actually, none of us are. If we were, we would not be admitted into polite society. Genuineness is overrated. If we were, we’d all go around in our genuine birthday suits, burping, scratching our hindquarters, and armpits, taking anything we want. squatting behind a tree to…

As Shakespeare said in As You Like It…

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.  (You know, the natural look--geniune_

*Cool looking, but none too comfortable to wear.*

To Autumn

October 19, 2021 dpedece2 Comments

John Keats, English Poet, 1795 – 1821

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
      For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
   Steady thy laden head across a brook;
   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
   Among the river sallows, borne aloft
      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

*Keats doesn’t specify what’s on the vines* *that grow around the thatched eaves, but the first things that comes to my mind when I think of vines is grape vines.*

*Late flowers add to autumn’s vivid color-scape.*

*The other day I saw a skein of birds flying southwest. In Scotland this V-formation of birds is called a skein. Just like a skein of yarn.* *The reason for the name remains a mystery.*

Under the Weather

October 8, 2021October 8, 2021 dpedece6 Comments

Missing in Action

For a while now I’ve been under the weather and unable to focus on much of anything, especially not writing. Couldn’t muster the focus. Couldn’t muster the motivation. Every idea I had seemed stupid. Not worth writing, Not worth anyone’s time to read. I know I’m not the only one who’s ever felt that way. That does not make it any better for me.

A good day would be followed by a not-so-good day. Some miserable nights when I’d have to get up and then not be able to get back to sleep, so I’d get on the internet. Social media. Nights I’d be afraid to be away from my phone, even though I’m not the sort of person to sleep with my phone under my pillow. Lactose intolerance shares symptoms with other, more serious conditions. Add in anxiety and I’d be a real mess. Eventually, I’d feel better, realize I wouldn’t die just yet, and go back to bed. Sometimes I’d be able to get two or three hours more sleep, other times only an hour or so. Every time I thought the sun was going to come out, I’d get another downpour the next day.

It took a while, which was made longer by denial and experimentation, to figure out that I’ve developed lactose intolerance. To figure out what triggers it and what does not. It’s a yucky process. There were times when I thought I’d never be able to eat anything but crackers and white rice without causing my system to rebel.

Even though I now know what the problem’s been, I’m not quite back to so-called normal. I’ve been mean to my tummy and it’s getting its revenge for things such as, coffee, black tea, dark chocolate, salsa by the spoonful (who needs chips?) oranges, hot spicy veggies juice, plus other insults. And that’s not even the dairy products. It seems that everything good is acidic or comes from cows.

Rats! Depressing.

I thin I finally have a handle on it. This time for real, though it’s going to take time to heal completely.

Stay tuned.