Playing Catch-up.

Ok, where was I?


Dear blog it seems that I have been neglecting you lately, It hasn’t been willful I assure you; life has been a little busy lately. Both work and family have been keeping me going most of the waking hours, and when I do have some time I am usually just to tired to actually write. On top of that, I have come down with one of the many colds that are going around, and that succeeded in sapping both my physical and well as intellectual energy, such as it is.

Let me think what has gone on. As I mentioned, work has been pretty busy. Last week there were 3 different events in 2 days, this week wasn’t quite so busy, but I have been having lots of meeting with the various groups who are putting on events. Sometimes I have a little trouble keeping them straight, I have been working with two groups that are producing similar events, one for the Caribbean student population and another for Latin American Student Association. There is a little crossover between the two groups, both of the contact people are young women with an accent, and for the life of me I keep confusing which group I am dealing with. Life is tough!

Beyond the usual student organizations doing their culture and dance shows, there have been a couple of different events that have broken the monotony. The first of the bunch was a puppet show being presented as a fundraiser for the children’s school that is part of the early childhood development program at the university a nursery school. Unfortunately it was an early Saturday morning event, that seems to be the best time to do shows for kids I was out of the house by 9am I arrived the puppeteers were already setting up, being an itinerant company they were well prepared and self-sufficient. I chatted with them while they were setting up. I have always had an appreciation for puppets. In my early career I worked and technical director for what is now a leading children’s theatre company and as a result I fell in with a whole variety of performers and other people who worked to entertain children. In amongst that community were a number of puppet people. I can honestly state that I got that know some of them and their puppets pretty well. More that once I found myself having a conversation with a particular puppet as opposed to the puppeteer behind it. I am a sucker for suspension of disbelief. Anyway, we had a little common ground to chat on. They were doing a piece called the Dragon King based on the Chinese folk tale, and while the dialog was recorded and sounded a little forced, their actually puppetering was quite skill full, and the puppets were particularly beautiful, in fact they left me a little slack jawed when I saw them the first time backstage. The pictures taken with my cell phone don’t really do them justice.

In the same weekend the theatre also hosted a local film festival. There were a few student entries along with some professional contributions as well. The most intriguing of them all was a student production called Honk: No Noise is Illegal. It is a 12-minute short documenting the annual Honkfest that is held in nearby Somerville over Columbus Day weekend. The event itself might be described as a community marching bad festival. But that would be understating the events, which more approaches what would happen if you had an anarchist convention with marching bands. I couldn’t find a copy of the movie online but here is a video that captures some of the energy of the event.


The films followed by a live musical performance by jazz drummer Terri Lyn Carrington who just happens to be a local girl gone famous. She is now teaching at Berklee College of Music. It was nice to have professional musicians on stage.


I wish that those were indicative of the event that have taken place in the theatre, but that is not the case. We did have the University president speak about the financial state of the school. The news while not good didn’t turn out to be as bad as some had expected. The schools endowment has lost 25% of its value like so many other institutions, (some of that to Bernie Madoff) but unlike the big brother school in the neighborhood like Harvard and MIT, thanks to some conservative use of the endowment, the cuts will be minimal. There are no big layoffs planned, and other than some belt tightening no major cuts are planned, at least for the time being.

The big thing that has been keeping me occupied the past two weeks it he boy and the school play. His school mounted a very ambitious production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream, in which he was cast as Oberon. If you don’t know, Oberon is the king of the fairies, and it is a pretty big role, and he managed it quite well. His performance was appropriately regal and he had a good grasp of the language. The latter is sometimes difficult even for adults when dealing with Shakespeare. The boy seems to have some ability, dare I saw talent for acting; he is able to find the ‘moment’ where the text and the character meet, and he seems to have pretty strong stage presence, and he likes being on stage. In everyday life he is a little shy and reserved, and the stage seems to be where he can let lose a bit. That sounds like a familiar scenario. The big issue with this particular character was what to do with his hair. Waist length hair on a 13-year-old boy does create some costuming problems. Fortunately his mother, resourceful as she is every day in dealing the mop, came ups with a solution. She formed two braids at his ears trailing forward and then wrapped them around the front of his head pining them at his hair with about a thousand bobby pins, the addition of some gold bric-a-brac and viola a crown! A boy and his crown

I think I am back on a regular schedule now, between all the events at work and taxing the boy to and from rehearsal, I think I may have some time of my own in for the next few weeks. Spring break begins this weekend at the university where I work, and the boy has that week and the next off from his school for break. Mrs. and I have been scouring our schedules up the days to decide who takes what days off to tend to him and see what days we can take him to work with us. This is always a bit of a trial. In past years we have sent him off to the grand parents for at least part of the time he was off. That really wasn’t an option this time. I foresee lots of museums in the future.

I mentioned a while back that I was thinking about blogging about music, and hat comment brought positive reviews from for a couple of readers. In turn I have been giving it a lot more thought and I am working on an approach and trying to decide just how and whom I should write about. I read a number of music blogs and I am often impressed by the writing and insights that they bring to the topic. I don’t know that I am capable of that, but I will try to bring my own thought, likes and dislikes. May taste in music is varied and leans to the obscure, so we shall see how it goes.

Let me wrap this meander up. And hopefully I will get back on a regular schedule with a little more focus as to topic and subject matter.