Moomin Light

This one always makes me smile

It's such a sweet video:

The song was used with permission, and it was re-released when the video went viral.

Cinderella - Orange Community Players

Please come see the show!

 

A Dream Within A Dream - Edgar Allen Poe

Yes.  For you Princess Bride fans,* that is the actual name of Poe's poem.  

We were discussing the Seven Deadly Sins this evening, and we ended up at the Wikipedia article when Dear Husband couldn't remember all of the Latin names.  We wandered a bit further through the Wikipedia while looking up similar concepts in other faiths:  Arishadvarga in Hindu theology, and Kleshas in Buddhism.  Eventually, after donating to the Wikipedia because we use it so often, we ended up at the main Wikipedia page which featured an article on being hanged, drawn, and quartered (I wouldn't recommend reading it).  Dear husband asked who painted the illustration with the article (I don't recommend looking at it either).  

The illustration was from a manuscript of Froissart, a medieval, French, chronicle writer.  We couldn't easily find the artist who painted the illustration, but the Froissart article mentioned that one of his manuscripts was illustrated by Brugeois artists of the day - from the Flemish city of Bruges.  I will show the Wikimedia photo for Bruges (below), which makes me really want to go back to Europe some day.

 

Getting back to the Seven Deadly Sins, while I was looking for the Latin names, we ended up at the post about sloth, at The Starry Cave.  The post goes into depth on sloth (socordia): 

...Sloth has turned into absolute selfishness where one become a burden to ones surroundings where one’s own misery and hopelessness becomes the ominous worth of one’s sorry excuse for a life. A life where one feeds upon others goodwill and favors, where one expect the world to listen to one’s putrid lament while one is not giving anything to anyone – not even to oneself. Sloth can work as a darkened scale where one pleases others because one has renounced ones centre or that one like a beast of pestilence demands the world to attend to the suffering void of one´s painful existence. In both cases one has sacrificed ones soul to the realm of Hypnos and has taken greedily the chalice of Lethe’s waters of forgetfulness to mend ones pain and self-inflicted soul-sores. This is true sloth; a denial of love both its coming and going...  

 

I recommend reading the whole post.  

 

The post concludes with Edgar Allen Poe's poem, A Dream Within A Dream:

 

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

   

* Here it is. I know you want to see it again:

 

 

"City of Frogs" - Paperhand Puppet Intervention: Part 1

We finally were able to go to the Paperhand Puppet Intervention show, City of Frogs, a week ago.  We went opening night, when daughter was here, but the show got rained out.  We had a few other nights open - all rainy.  

I was glad to finally get a chance to see it.  It's one of my favorite shows of theirs.  If you live in the Triangle and haven't had a chance to see it, it will still be at the Forest Theater in Chapel Hill the next weekend (Sept. 7/8/9) and at the outdoor theater at the NC Museum of Art the following weekend (Sept 14/15/16).  You can check the Paperhand calendar here.

I'll post one photo above the fold - it's from the first minute so I'm not giving much away.  I'll put the rest below the fold so that anyone who's going in the next few weeks can avoid them.

The story of a puppet...

[DON"T go further if you're going to go see it!!!!!]

 

Hello, blog

I haven't checked in here for a while.  The performances of the musical went very well, and we had a wonderful time.  Then we spent some great time with my sister, my niece, and my mother for the next week.  Daughter comes home today, and she'll be here for a week and a half!  It's the longest visit since she was home for winter break.

These are some of the best, but busiest, weeks of the year!

I'll get back to blogging later in August.  Have a good few weeks!

[BTW, for those who are in central NC, Paperhand Puppet Intervention's new show, City of Frogs, starts in Chapel Hill, on Friday.]

Gronk

Gronk is a sweet and funny web comic by Katie Cook that I found recently.  I highly recommend it!

100 years of East London Dance and Fashion

I've watched this a few times - it's a fun video!

[Hat tip to Kottke.org]

[I have a work project that I'm trying to finish by Friday so I don't have to work over Labor Day weekend - when dear husband will actually be home!  Work, unfortunately, has been aided by the fact that younger son has a cold and feels bad so he's been watching lots of TV ("I am the terror that flaps in the night, I am the fingernail that scrapes the blackboard of your soul." "I will name him George, and I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him.." "You should write a book: "How to Offend Women in Five Syllables or Less" "Vulcans are a species that appreciate good ears").]

"My Discarded Men" - Eartha Kitt

They used My Discarded Men by Eartha Kitt for one of the dances on So You Think You Can Dance a few weeks ago.  I enjoyed the dance - what I noticed of it.  There are so many nuances to her singing I kept getting distracted by it.  I'd pay attention to what she was doing with the notes and inflections, and I just didn't pay as much attention to the input from my eyes.

Here's the dance: the top seven women dancers group number on July 6:

[I'm having a wonderful time with the community theater rehearsals for Once Upon a Mattress.  Today, we moved into the high school theater; I helped with the costumes; we disco-ed; and we ran through a few of the scenes onstage. We have rehearsals every evening this week except for Friday. If I don't post, I'm happy, but tired!]

A poem you should read

I had another busy day today - singing with the choir at two services (regular and memorial), talking with neighborly friends, gardening, etc.  I took pictures but didn't get a bloom day post together.  I wasn't planning on blogging.

I had to, however, after reading a friend's poem at her blog, The Reticulated Writer.  I love the way the poem goes through thoughtful parts and slightly sarcastic parts and twists back on itself.  I love the images.  I love the way it's put together.  I love the conclusions she tells herself at the end.  I love the blog labels she has for the post. 

You know, I hate to even say that much because I don't want to color your impression of the poem so I decided to white out my comment.  You can come back and highlight it to read after you read her poem. 

Go read The Weight of Loving Me.

Various Asheville, NC photos & "Come Fly With Me" by James Darren: Part 1

We're in high spring right now, and the weather has been beautiful.  Blogging is taking a bit of a back seat. :)

Last Friday and Saturday, we were in Asheville for daughter's dance concert.  She was in four dances - three of them in a row - and she led the middle one of those three.  She was in Foxtrot, African jazz, and Ballet dances.  She choreographed and led a theater dance to James Darren's version of Come Fly With Me.  She decided to make it an audience participation dance.  If you're a Facebook friend of mine, I "shared" a video of that (and the ballet performance) that someone posted. 

The audience responded wonderfully - lots of dancing all up and down the aisles and both in front of and behind the block of seats.  There were probably about 50 people dancing onstage - mostly dancers, but about five (by younger son's count) regular audience members.

Four of that five weren't related to daughter. :) 

I had such a blast dancing and enjoying her dancing and leading.  She seemed so calm and poised!  

Then I sat back down in my seat for the ballet dance, and tears started streaming down my face. 

[No photos because it's too late to call and ask her if she minds my posting them.]

Here's the song she used (from James Darren's album, This One's From the Heart):

The next morning, we all wandered around downtown Asheville.  We had seen these stars in a window last summer when we brought her to college.  We decided to buy one last weekend.  We have no idea where we're going to hang it!

I didn't take that many photos because... well... I wasn't focusing on that!

Shady Grove Flowers on Lexington Ave is a lovely, eclectic store.  Here's their small garden tucked in back.  We came away with two more vases to hang on the walls. We can't put vases out on tables downstairs because Tamlin, our boy kitty, loves to eat flowers.  He doesn't eat daffodils, however, so this is the only time of year that we can have flowers at the table.

Lina, however, likes to drink the water from the vases.  She doesn't knock them over...

...too much.

I also love the Grove Arcade, which was built in the 1920's and is architecturally fascinating:

 

More tomorrow...