Silsby Samizdat

...but I didn't realize it was that good!

The City Pages (the Minneapolis/St. Paul area's Midwestern-flavored reflection of the Village Voice) named our production of Sweeney Todd one of the 10 Best Shows of the Year.

The only musical to make the list.
Also, the only non-professional company to make the list.

I'm not sure what that says about the state of the musical theatre in this town, but we did have a great company.

Small town? No, just a franchised stop on the highway.

Northfield.

First came the Target.
Then went Jacobsen's.
Then Petricka's.
Then Chapati.

Now The Ole Store (check link soon, the Star Trib closes its archives pretty quickly)

Get your Ole Roll while you can.

The expansion along the corridor around the Target to make the town look like every other urban sprawl "town" between Fairbault and St. Cloud and killing off all of the local businesses to make room for pavement and roadside franchises is pretty successful. I hope, at least, they are getting the income to stay in the town as the Target people promised when this possibility was brought up during the vote a few years ago.

On the other hand, businesses go under every day.

Center of the Universe?
The Ideal Cafe?
I'm sure that other Northfield businesses have been beloved and folded, and it wasn't because of the big bad bully businesses.

I guess you can't stand in the way of economic "progress" just to remain "quaint".

Obligatory Snow Post

I live in the Midwest. I have always lived in the Midwest. Therefore it follows that on the first substantial day of (fill in seasonal appropriate weather phenomenon here), I must discuss it.

I realize that it is the first official day of winter, but this is Minnesota! Couldn't we have had some snow before this? And this isn't really even snow, this is a dusting of about an inch. I moved here partially for the weather. I like winter, and more importantly I like snow in winter. The glazing of ice we had the night before last reminded me of Kansas winters. Where everything looks crystalline and jewel encrusted, that is until the trees start breaking and knocking over power lines. Luckily, there wasn't very much of that this week. All of the power lines had already fallen over from the gale force winds the previous weekend.

But we got snow last night. And just in time for an official winter.

Now to brace for the Arctic cold snap that is supposed to bring wind chill temperatures down to 30 below by this evening. Upon hearing that news this morning, I woke up early and finally removed the air conditioner from my window.

The dangers of being out of rehearsals

I have discovered that being in rehearsals for a show is a fiscal responsibility tool for me. When I am in rehearsals, I have no time to read outside materials. I have to work on the script and spend my time with the show.

However, once a show opens, then my pocketbook and my personal library are in trouble. Over the past month and a half, I've finished two of the books that I purchased well over a year ago that I hadn't had time to read between rehearsals, classes, conferences, and paper-writing. Tuesday on the bus, I finished the last page of my collection of literature that I had in my collection (I still have some non-fiction, biographies, and sci-fi, but I am in a literary mood right now). So I made the dangerous mistake of going to the neighborhood used book store.

The reason this is dangerous is that they do have tens of thousands of used books, but they also have a new book section. So if you can't find the book used, they are sure to have it new - at full price. And that is what happened to me last night. I went in, looking for a specific set of writers (the same ones I always look for when rifling through a used book store) in the used book section, and walked out of the store with two new books. At least, though, one was the book I had decided on before going to the store. The other was what I will call my "literary pretension tax." There is no way I will be able to finish both of these books before rehearsals start in less than a month. In fact, I fear that the second book - no... not fear, I know that the second book will end up sitting on my shelf for a long time before I can get around to it.
Some people have cars sitting in their garage, waiting years to be fixed up and driven.
Some people have home improvement projects sitting in their workshops, waiting years to be completed,
Some people have antique furniture sitting in the basement, waiting years to be restored.
I have a couple books. Not bad in comparison, I think.
But it is there all the same, sitting, staring at me, waiting for me to set aside time to start on it. I may never start on it, but then again, it took me over a year to start reading these most recent two books I finished.
What was my "literary pretension tax"? This book that will alternately haunt me, or languish forgotten under a cover of dust?
The first part of the new translation from the recently re-edited Proust.
Yea. It's going to be a while before I even attempt that book.

Christmas Humbug

I will try to get a few more pictures of the purple coat posted when I get home tonight, but right now I have to vent a little.

I feel like a big, ol', grumpy Scrooge. More so than normal.

All of the Christmas music on the radio irritates me to violent levels.
Christmas decorations put thoughts of uncivil disobedience in my mind involving Yule Log-inspired arson.
The thought of consumer driven frenzy to procure objects of shoddy workmanship that somehow are supposed to encompass my love for friends and family sends me into a panic.
And I almost gave up on seeing some friends because of a crass commercialization and public consumption of energy resources down Nicollet Mall!

(and just look at the word choices this season is putting in my head)

I've never been a "Let's go to the Mall and sing Top 40 arrangements of Christmas Carols while running up a credit card debt to rival the World Bank default of some small countries"-kind of holiday person, but this year I'm even starting to alarm myself in my Humbuggedness.

I like Christmas. Seeing friends and family. Cold weather and warm drinks. The Pagan-based celebration of the Yule. Attention paid to a lowly birth of the son of God, to a family that was turned out into the street and had to seek refuge in the ancient equivalent of squatting in a super fund garage. These are things that can't be commercialized.

But for some reason, I feel that this year, the mass consumption machine is out to get me. Not me personally, but, like those pods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, taking over everything around me. I like Christmas for the "Silent Night" aspect, the quiet and serene appreciation of Awe. But for some reason, this year it is hitting me especially hard, that all I see and hear around me is a cacophonous din of gaudy light displays, battling modern arrangements of carols assaulting the senses, the omnipresent buy-buy-buy-consume-consume-consume message shouted down from On High where once there were Angels but instead are speaker systems, radio commercials, billboards and daily newspaper inserts.

Sigh.
Merry Christmas, every one.

Post-Show Recap

I always get a little depressed after a show closes. Particularly when you are proud of the product.

You have spent so much time and effort on something, and in the course of a weekend it seems to go from the pinnacle of your collective effort, to being over.

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from the production of Sweeney Todd.

If you click on the image, it will load a rally big (and detailed) version of the picture.