Tag Archives: blogging

More About the Tempest

I hope everybody can read it.

It may be All Tempest All The Time for the next couple of weeks.  Our Aug. 5 performance is in the books, but we have shows the 10th, 12th and 13th.  Then we’ll have at least a couple of rehearsals at the Utica Zoo, preparing for Aug. 19.  I may be able to sneak in a few real Mohawk Valley posts after that, but then we’ll be preparing for our final performance on Sept. 1.

Then I’ll start getting ready for Halloween, yes!

Thursday’s performance is at Benton’s Landing in Little Falls.  It is where we did our preview performance on July’s Third Thursday (that’s a thing in Little Falls).  Perhaps you read one of my blog posts about it.  It is an interesting performance space with a couple of different levels.

It doesn’t really show the whole space, but you can get an idea.

This is the cast of last year’s summer show, Much Ado About Nothing.  It was the only photo I could find on LiFT’s Facebook page of Benton’s Landing.  As I was adding it to this post, I remembered, I shared some photos of our Preview Performance last month at, you know, Benton’s Landing.  How silly of me!

I took this one standing behind the rapt audience (if they were not rapt, I would rap them on the noggin!) (just kidding, in order to make a pun).

So I am getting ready to go to rehearsal at Benton’s Landing.  Tomorrow is the performance.  Yikes!  That happened fast!  How did three days of this week just slip right by while I was at work thinking time was dragging on?  Ah, that is a topic for Lame Post Friday, when I occasionally indulge in half-baked philosophy. Now Friday seems pretty far away.  Perspective!

 

 

To Blog or Not to Blog

Today’s mantra is, “Less stress.”  I have very little reason for stress.  OK, that’s a polite fiction I am telling myself.  The fact is, we all have reasons for stress, and stress is not always a bad thing.  However, since this is not Lame Post Friday, I will not philosophize (half-bakedly or otherwise) on stress.  Instead I will attempt a moderately amusing Non-Sequitur Thursday post.  I think I’ll use pictures.  I think Steven may have downloaded a couple of new ones…

I am NOT saying, “To be or not to be.”

This is LiFT rehearsing The Tempest at 120 London Bridge,  Caroga Lake, where we will perform on Saturday at 6 p.m.  It is a donation-based performance. I’m not sure what the suggested (or requested) donation is.  It is a lovely space to perform in.  Incidentally, I am the one in yellow tights, Acting (yes, it needs a capital A).  The photo was taken by Matt Powers, our director.

I missed him on TV!

Recently, Matt went on NewsTalk on WKTV to talk about LiFt and Shakespeare.  This is not what he will actually wear in The Tempest (he has two roles), but I think it was quite a theatrical choice for publicity purposes.

I’m not sure who took this photo; it was on LiFTs Facebook page.

To include three photos, as I like to do, here is one from early days of rehearsal, at Sterzinar Park, Canal Place, where next weekend’s performances take place.  I’m the one center stage, looking fairly ridiculous in the big old hat with a sweatshirt tied around my waist.  I tied on the sweatshirt not because I had tied one on (sorry; just had to make the play on words), but because I wanted something to put my sword through.  We had just started working on them.  I have a better looking sword holder now.

Performances of The Tempest in Little Falls  include Aug. 10, 6 p.m., Benton’s Landing; Aug. 12, 4 p.m., Sterzinar Park; and Aug. 13, 3 p.m., Sterzinar Park.  For more information, check out LiFT’s Facebook page.

 

A Metaphor on Mental Meanderings Monday

As regular readers know, I have been having trouble writing lately.  This morning before work, I opened my notebook (for those just tuning in, the spiral-bound paper kind) and penned the following:

Once again I draw a metaphor between writing and running.  One one reason, I have not been doing enough of either.  In many respects it is a sound comparison.  Both can be difficult.  Both are wonderful when going well, painful when not.  You have to get through the painful parts to get to the good parts.

The most important aspect of either is:  You have to do it. You can’t just sit and think about it, although some thought is necessary.  It does not count just to by the best running shoes, socks and bras, nor yet a fine new notebook and perfect pen.  You can’t just stretch, and you can’t just make notes and outlines (I personally have never successfully worked form nor even completed an outline, although I am a prodigious note-maker).

I don’t know how much further I can go with this, but at least it got my pen moving.

After writing that much, I turned back a few pages and wrote a few more notes on the murder mystery I am writing for a fundraiser for the Herkimer County Historical Society (preview of coming attractions).  I know I said you can’t just write notes, but notes are a very important part of murder mysteries.  They are not just notes I write from.  They are notes I give the actors to help them build their characters and aid them in the improvised sections of the performance.  Just to give you a little peek into how these murder mysteries are put together.

I guess I don’t know if my little comparison between running and writing has any value to any other writers nor yet holds any interest for any readers.  However, it worked pretty well as a pep talk for myself, and I’m going to call it good enough for a Monday Mental Meanderings.  This blog is just about to go All Tempest All The Time, and right now, I have to get ready for rehearsal.  I hope to see you all on Tired Tuesday.

 

Short on Excuses, Long on Monsters: It’s Lame Post Friday!

If ever there was a day I needed Lame Post Friday, this is it.  Fortunately, it is in fact Friday, the day I have decreed that I am allowed to make a really lame post.  I know, what is my excuse the rest of the time?  Well, regular readers know, I have different excuses on different days.  However, my purpose today is not to muddle around with excuses but to make a short, reasonably entertaining post and get back to enjoying my Friday.

Sons of bitchin’ graboids! Pardon my french.

This may be worthy of Non-Sequitur Thursday, but we can’t always have these things exactly when we would like to.  I went into Downloads on our laptop, looking for something to pep up my post a little.  I could not see what this was a picture of, so I inserted it in the post, thinking I could always delete it if I didn’t like it.  But how could I delete a scene from Tremors, one of our favorite movies!  We never saw any of the sequels nor yet the television show.  I felt they might taint my memory of the beloved original.

When in doubt, there is always Nosferatu.

I recently found this picture of one of my all-time favorite guys.  I shared it on Facebook, just because, and now I share it with you, for a similar reason.

I would SO buy this book if I ever found it!

For the sake of using three pictures (it’s kind of a thing with me), I include a beautiful pulp fiction paperback cover.  Now that I am looking at it, I see it is a novelization of a movie.  Interesting.  I would still buy the book, even though I do not care for novelizations.  I have a minor collection of pulp fiction paperbacks which I purchased purely because I find the covers so delicious.

So this is my Friday Lame Post for the week. It entertained me to write it.  I hope at least some of my readers are likewise entertained.

 

Not Really a Monstrous Monday

When in doubt, include a picture of a monster.

I added that picture after I wrote the following two paragraphs.  I kind of ran dry after mentioning the cooler temperatures and zipped over to Facebook seeking inspiration.

I’m afraid this is a Monday Mental Meanderings post, and not very mental at that.  What can I say, it is Monday and I’m tired.  I know, other people are tired.  I’m sure there are people who are more tired than I am; there are certainly people who work harder than I do, that have more on their plate I have, oh yeah, and are thinner, smarter, better writers… where was I going with this?

It has not been a heinous day.  For one reason, the temperatures cooled off.  I love cooler temperatures.

I have rehearsal in less than an hour.  I did study my lines for a while on break at work today.  I feel moderately ready, although there are a few speeches I am still shaky on.  I will have time to look over them again before we do that scene, I hope.

I also wrote while on break.  I started a post on an old monster movie I watched on Sunday.  I do not think it is a cheesy movie, although the science in which the mad scientist indulges is definitely spurious, a staple of many cheesy movies.  I was writing the post in my head as I worked (my job doesn’t take a lot of brain power, luckily) then tried to put the words on paper once break started.  Of course some of the words were different.  You’ll have that.  Then as I wrote them, I thought of other ways to write what I wanted to say.  I’ll work on it some more.  It is fun to write.  I’m glad I started doing it again, however ineffectually.

Now I must brush my teeth and get ready for rehearsal. It will be fun.  There are very nice people in the cast.  Ooh, I still have to write about last Thursday’s preview performance and share some of the pictures I took.  A preview of coming attractions.  Happy Monday, everyone, even you, Frankenstein’s Monster.

 

Pedestrian Post with Pictures

Steven and I decided to take a little stroll after dinner, so I brought along my Tablet to take a few pictures.  It was a lovely afternoon for a stroll.  After stopping to chat with  neighbor, I saw some flowers I wanted to snap.

This is an apartment building that used to be a school.

Hmm… I guess that one did not come out very clearly, but I liked the purple flowers.

Maybe I’ll go back after dark and try to get a picture of these lit up.

Steven noticed some solar lights and wondered if ours still work.  We did not put them out this year.  It’s kind of a rebuilding year for our lawn; we have not done much with it except get the nice young man who lives across the street to mow it for us.

Steven thinks this would make a delightful movie/opera house.

Eventually we turned down Main Street, and I suggested I take a picture of this building, which we have long admired.  The “for sale” sign that I had noticed there previously was gone.  I wondered if somebody had bought it or if they were just doing the trick of taking the sign down for a while so when they put it back up folks will think it is a new listing.

I love the color; the picture does not fully do it justice.

Continuing down the street, we saw a building that had seen better days, but there was one lovely flower in front of it, so I took its picture.  Soon we were approaching the Historic Four Corners, which regular readers may recall is a favorite spot of mine.

I wrote a blog post about this cemetery once, a long time ago.

This is the Herkimer Reformed Church.   I love the old gravestones.  Next I wanted a shot of the Suiter House, home of the Herkimer County Historical Society.

It’s even more interesting inside.

The house was built by Dr. A. Walter Suiter, who played a pivotal role in the trials of Chester Gillette and Roxalana Druse, two famous historical murderers of the area.  Steven played Dr. Suiter in the play Roxy, presented by the Historical Society at Ilion Little Theatre in 2015 (I played Roxy.  Perhaps you read a few of my blog posts about it).

Across the street is the Herkimer County Courthouse, where Chester Gillette and Roxalana Druse were tried for their respective murders.

Still a magnificent-looking building.

Of course I had to take a picture of the 1834 Jail, which housed both Gillette and Druse.

Who put that tree in the way!

Steven suggested I take a picture of him on the steps.

“Try to look like Dr. Suiter,” I suggested.

“In my party shorts with my Mr. Incredible t-shirt,” he said, as if he thought that was a problem.  He just smiled handsomely instead.

“Romeo, Romeo, wherefore are thou…” Oh, wait. Wrong play.

Continuing down Main Street, I took a picture of Christ Episcopal Church.

Another handsome, historical building.

We cut though the little park next to Basloe Library (another of my favorite places), and I got a picture of some nice flowers.

I did not read the NOTICE on the building. I hope it did not say not to take pictures of the flowers.

After that, I thought I had taken enough pictures, so we continued our walk back home.  Now I see I am over 550 words and I have successfully avoided having another Wrist to Forehead Sunday post.  I say, not a bad ending to the weekend.

 

Sad Monsters on Tired Tuesday

I think I have used this in two previous blog posts. Don’t judge me.

Do you suppose I can get away with another post of monster movie pictures with silly comments?  I am going to try.  I felt all day that I was Trudging Through Tuesday (I once wrote a blog post of that title).  Well, at least a trudge can result in some forward movement, and I hope not only movement towards Friday (oh, don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to Friday; I just hope to make other sorts of progress as well).

Where was I?  Ah yes, monster movie pictures.  The above is a repeat but apropos to the day.  I wonder what else I could find…

“Beware… take care!”

Ah, no silly comments on this one.  I share this picture my husband Steven downloaded to mark a sad recent event, the death of Martin Landau, who won a much deserved Oscar for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood.   Steven and I LOVE the movie Ed Wood, and we especially enjoy Landau’s character.  In other sad news, George Romero, director of Night of the Living Dead, also died this week.  We have this movie on VHS but do not watch it as often as we do other horror classics.  I suspect Steven does not appreciate creepy movies as much as I do.

I personally prefer the old-fashioned lumbering zombies to the new-fangled faster ones (full disclosure: I’ve never gotten beyond the trailers for the newer zombie flicks).

I thought a movie picture would be more in keeping with the theme than one of Romero himself.  I hope that as a director he would appreciate this in the spirit in which it is intended.

So this is my Tired Tuesday post.  In my defense, the Mohawk Valley weather has taken a turn for the hot and humid. My meager brain has melted into a puddle, and I am only good for doing puzzles on breaks at work (and not very good at those, I confess).  But I hope you will stay tuned.  Soon this blog may go All Tempest All The Time.

 

I Did the Damn Dishes!

It is Wrist to Forehead Sunday indeed.  I return to work tomorrow after two weeks off.  YES (with eyes rolling), I am GRATFUL I have a job and YES I am GRATEFUL I got a vacation, some people just can’t bear to hear anybody else complain about anything.  Sheesh!

Be all that as it may, I need to make a blog post before returning to enjoying what is left of my vacation and my Sunday.  I must say, I am really looking forward to next Friday, when it will really be Friday for me.  This past Friday, it being the last “real” day of vacation (since I normally have weekend off) (don’t hate), it felt not as delightful as a Friday ought, by rights, to feel.  But, again, be that as it may, on with the blog post.

I have long felt that there was no point in trying to get anything done on a Sunday.  Some Sunday I lament this, others I embrace the uselessness.  Today I actually did a few thing.  I took a short run (which, truth be known, I often do, even on the most useless of Sundays), I did the dishes, I did a load of laundry AND folded two baskets of previously done laundry, I laid out three outfits for work (I need five to get me through the week, but I only have so many pairs of work pants) (and I’ve gained weight, so they don’t all fit), I put away the dishes after the air and patience had dried them.

That is more than I have accomplished on previous Sundays.  However, as I typed in the preceding paragraph, I realized there are a number of areas where some reader (or the critics in my head) could judge me.  For example, why was there a pile of dishes to do first thing in the morning?  Why was there laundry previously washed but still waiting to be folded?  Why did I not immediately dry and put away the dishes, and where do I get off counting that as another chore and not part of “doing the dishes” as a normal person would?

To any such judgmental sorts, I explain, “Shut up!”  mentally thanking S.J. Perelman as I do so.    I see now I am over 350 words.  I call that respectable for Wrist to Forehead Sunday.  I hope you’ll tune in tomorrow for what I hope is not too Melancholy of a Monday.

 

What to Watch on Scattered Saturday?

There was not a whole lot of scatter to my Scattered Saturday today (nor a whole lot of scat either, if you’re into jazz) (which I am).  I ran, I wrote, I read, I did not do dishes, I went to an early dinner with my husband, Steven, and now we are about to embark upon the movie watching portion of the evening (as regular readers know, my favorite part) (along with the bra off, sweats on, wine drinking portion of the evening) (which it also is, except for the sweats; too hot).  This being the case, I share a picture I downloaded earlier to share on Steven’s Facebook page:

Just another unrealistic body type for us females to aspire to.

I’m pretty sure this is a publicity shot for House on Haunted Hill (1959), one of our go-to movies for just such an evening.  I think we will not watch this movie tonight, since we did recently view it.  What are our other possibilities?  Hmmm….

“You think I’m the murderer? I thought you were the murderer!”

Thinking of Vincent Price usually brings me back to Laura (1944), a stylish noir, as one reviewer described it, and another of our favorites.  Price plays, unusually enough, a leading man type, not a creepy murderer type.  This is another of our go-to movies.

Nothing to worry about, everything is fine.

I finish with one last shot of Price, in another of our go-to movies, House of Wax (1953).  Price does play a creepy murderer-type in this one.

So we have several suggestions right off the cuff for the movie watching portion of our evening.  What to watch, what to watch, what to watch (yes, you have to say it three times).  Tune in tomorrow, on Wrist to Forehead Sunday, and perhaps I’ll tell you.

Just a thought: would you be more apt to describe this post as Slacker Saturday?  I’m thinking, maybe.

 

 

Various Vampires on Tired Tuesday

It is Tired Tuesday (don’t judge), and I am resorting to my new favorite thing: downloading monster pictures from Facebook and writing stuff about them.  For one reason, I am mysteriously able to download on my own Facebook account once again.  I downloaded this one purely to test my machine:

He’s a pleasant-looking fellow.

It is a 17th or 18th century vampire burial. I downloaded it from Murder, Madness and the Macabre, one of my go-to Facebook pages.  After downloading that, I thought I would make this a vampire day and clicked around looking for more.  I went to The Golden Age of Monster Movies, always a good sources.

A new shot of my favorite guy!

Naturally I wanted to include Nosferatu, which, regular readers know, has my vote for the scariest movie ever.  I haven’t watched this one in a while.  Perhaps tomorrow I will give it a view.

Vampires can be scary in color, too.

Christopher Lee is the favored Dracula of many.  I do love the Hammer horror flicks of the 1960’s and ’70’s.  I only recall one vampire flick with Lee (perhaps you read my blog post about it).  I must seek out the other ones.

You didn’t think I would leave out Bela, did you?

What post about vampires would be complete without Bela Lugosi?  Oh, I’m sure others have written them. I may have written one myself.  I suppose your better bloggers would be writing scholarly commentary, comparing and contrasting the various vampires, perhaps including some of the blood-sucking lore and history of the legends.  And here we come to the ugly truth about me.  No matter.  It is Tired Tuesday, and I have made my blog post.  Now I must prepare for rehearsal for The Tempest (which I mentioned in yesterday’s post).  I must shake off my tiredness and act!

I hope I don’t meet up with any vampires.