Gretel and I were still lost in the forest when night fell. She was dragging her heels and moaning about how everything was my fault. Personally,  I thought it was fun.

It was an adventure, I said. A midsummer’s dream. Gretel, of course, disagreed.

I finally lost my temper when she began saying that I shouldn’t have taken directions from the woodcutter who was, after all, and as any fool knew, a notorious liar, mischief-maker and cheat. It was a fine time to tell me, I replied, getting riled. I demanded to know why she hadn’t said so before. She said that she didn’t know and that I was an idiot and a child and that I probably wouldn’t have listened anyway.

The light was fading and I didn’t want to hear her whining all night. I was angry and let go of her hand.

Well that’s fine, she said, and started to cry.

I felt like a rat, though it was really her fault: the picnic had been her idea from the start. But looking at her now, all pale and upset, I said I was sorry anyway.

I’m cold and I’m hungry and I want to go home, she said, sitting down and wiping her eyes. And sometimes, she said, sometimes I don’t even believe that I’m real.

I took her by the arm and pulled her to me. It hurt to watch her grow so distant like this.

The story’s nearly over, I said with a shrug. I wanted her so much, I can’t say. I pointed to the stars, which now shone in the sky, and pretended they would guide us back home. I told her a joke and kissed the top of her head and she laughed and things didn’t seem so bad.

As to whether we were real, or what anything meant, I wasn’t in a position to say. The only thing I knew with any assurance at all was that my new shoes were beginning to chafe.

Check out this boy, DJ Anonymous (Finland), his disco speaks louder than my words. Of course, after the breaks.

Playlist|Download

State Of Grace: Touching The Times
Imagination: Music And Lights
High Fashion: Love (DJ Anonymous Edit)
Walter Jones: I’ll Keep On Loving You
Clubhouse: Infusion (DJ Anonymous Edit)
Aeroplane: Caramellas
Royalle Delite: I’ll Be A Freak For You
Phoenix: Listzomania (Classixx Remix)
Robert Palmer: You’re In My System
Daryll Hall & John Oates: My Imagination
BB&Q Band: Imagination
Scotch: Penguin’s Invasion
Hannulelauri: Metropol
Flash & The Pan: Midnight Man
Tensnake: In The End (I Want You To Cry)
Eli Escobar: Glass House
Rockers Revenge: Walkin’ On Sunshine (Greg Wilson Edit)
Knightlife: Discotirso
The Private: My Secret Lover (Lifelike Remix)
Alan Braxe & Fred Falke: Penthouse Serenade
Helsinki 78-82: In The House
Sphinx: Collision
Jago: I’m Going To Go
Whitest Boy Alive: 1517 Morgan Geist Remix

Since it seems like the arrival of fall can’t be stopped anymore and it really rains a lot these days around here I’m glad to have found this. A free download of the album “Reverence for Fallen Trees” bye The Black Atlantic offered by Midsummer Records.
I guess people who like stuff like Bon Iver will really enjoy this album. The real-life release will be on October 16th, so if you like the album you can also buy it physically.

THE COVEN

Those 13 months in the coven—celebrating Esbat—

Gathering again for Ostara and Midsummer—taking

Langer’s cranberry and trying to look thoughtful with

A jagged crust from La Boulangerie.  We hardly knew

What we were doing—I wasn’t yet 26 and you were

Younger than that—we played at Gnostics and knew

Even then that they spoke of Notre Dame la Madeleine—

We were again infantilized by a system whose seasonal

Awareness made the practitioners seem all the more

In tune with nature and the cycles of the self in all its

Ministrations.  We had our cards read—and read—in

 Coffeehouses—partook at 20 past discussing the

Merits of wearing only Connie Jash black—to show,

Like nuns of once and long ago—that we were dead to

The world and its ways. 

We were searching and searching but none—none holy,

Apostolic—was there to answer our cries that fell into the

Endless pit of our young arrogance and answered us back

In only our own echo—let we asked let our cries come unto

Thee—and we were that amazed at our own sound.  Yes,

We said, yes to the first community to answer our call—

We stockpiled smudge sticks and olibanum rocks—

Re-cloaked Mother Mary in a new name and perfumed

Ourselves with sage oil and patchouli—we hungered and

Wept for identity—came as close as we dared to a recitation

For belonging—we were failed—and failed—and  repulsed

At 927 and withdrew from 279—I took Parsifal, UPright,

Son of Cups in the North—you a vat of Oxnard strawberries

Unwashed and unhulled and dipped them for the baptizing

In sour cream and brown sugar—your sugar tits, I laughed—

And you grew sullen and angry and pouty as a little girl racing

Behind a blurry nun hurry-scurry through Bemelman streets—

And when at last you spoke you reminded me—you—reminded

Me, First, do no harm.

June 2009

Dan Davis, © 2009

OMG they are such a legendary band, almost everyone in Japan respects / likes their songs…amazing
I think literally they are an all stars band…everybody in that band is prolific and famous in their own right
Theyve been a band thats been on and off since 1983 (formed in that year) and they are headed by Kuwata Keisuke (a legendary composer/guitarist/singer). I think every song theyve made has  been a hit or close to one, and their albums have always sold past the millions (topping Morning Musume during their golden year, when SAS came out of hiatus). I dont know too much about them though…except their song 真夏の果実 (a legendary hit) has been covered by Jacky Cheung into 每天愛你多一些 (honestly I think Jacky has a better voice, and it was made into a legendary cantopop song because of him)

Southern All Stars – 真夏の果実

Manatsu No Kajitsu)

[literally midsummer fruit)

While we are in the country, NK watches only one DVD over and over on our old laptop – Alla vi Barn i Bullerbyn, or The Children of Noisy Village.  Well, for a while she did watch another DVD – the sequel, More of the Children of Noisy Village.  They are Astrid Lindgren stories, of course, because everything of deep significance to the Swedish soul comes from Astrid Lindgren, and I am only slightly exaggerating and a little joking. Both were directed by Lasse Hallström, who later directed Chocolat and The Cider House Rules.

The stories take place in Bullerbyn, three red and white farm houses tucked together in the Swedish countryside in the 1920s.  There are six older children, plus Kerstin, who is two and a half and only half a person, according to her brother Olle.  There is little plot and little danger.  The movies are exquisitely shot, capturing the northern light, with beautiful country music.  The acting is good too.

The first movie takes the kids through their summer vacation.  The sequel runs through the rest of the year.  This is about the balance in which Swedes live their lives.  Summer is all.

When E’s sister first saw our summer house, she said, “Just like Bullerbyn!”  We have six houses in a row, but they are all red and white and in a clearing in the forest that isolates us even from the small community surrounding us.  And then NK starts talking over the fence to the girl next door, with her little brother climbing up and making toddler noises.  They have already progressed to real talk from oddly hillarious parallel conversations and the passing of sticks and half-dead flowers.  And I see them in six years just like the kids of Bullerbyn.

What I find interesting about the Bullerbyn movies is that they are essentially crash courses in what it means to be Swedish – here are the Midsummer legends, this is when you catch crayfish, this is what you eat for Christmas, this is how the farming seasons go.  Lindgren wrote them in the 1960s just as Sweden was turning into an urban, industrialized power, and I imagine this was half the point – to teach the urban kids about the lost world of their parents and grandparents.

And I realize that we can not do the same thing in America.  There simply is too much diversity of holidays and what you eat at Thanksgiving and landscape and language, no way to write what is essentially a guidebook on being American.   Or can we?  Is it on TV now?  Are we that boring and bland?  What does it mean to be an American kid?  Or does it remain some spirit or attitude that is harder to define, just in the air somehow?

Alex Mills as Puck

This is from when he escaped the locker we stuffed him into. Limber lil’ fella.

Well, lets continue on the Heather Alexander track, shall we?

Well, I will, anyways, and since Sean hasn’t posted in more then a week, that’s what counts.

First, I thought I’d play the title track off of her album Midsummer. And, yes, this is about Robin Goodfellow, in his starring role in Shakespeares Midsummer Nights Dream, a play I’ve always had a bit of a liking for.

This song, King Henry, is hard to tell you about, because Heather herself did a better introduction at the beginning of it then I could write. She does some great voices on this one. And it is a traditional song, one of the Childe ballads. And how many songs have ‘More Meat! More Meat!‘ as part of the lyrics?

I had already seen Midsummer at the Traverse on its first run, when it had provided the perfect pick-me-up in the face of grey November weather. Rain was never far away last night (and one of the first jokes in the play is the constant rain throughout Scotland’s midsummer weekend), though the temperature inside the packed Traverse 2 was more than seasonal, leading to a certain amount of jealously on my part when the actors doused themselves in water. The fact that I was happily returning to a play I had first seen only a few months before suggests how much I had enjoyed it. Yes, it wasn’t as funny second time around, though, as well as the heat, I also blame a younger, less local audience – much of the humour is enhanced by being middle-aged and knowing Edinburgh – but this is a gem of a play, small but sparkling with life and ideas, knowing and sentimental, digging up some dark truths with a smile.

The combination of Scotland’s cleverest playwright, David Greig, and Gordon McIntyre, the singer-songwriter of the criminally underrated band ballboy, was not one that was certain to succeed, though both have a knack for transforming the ordinary – something this play both does and is about. It takes the romantic comedy genre and, with a nod and a wink, both repudiates and embraces it. An unlikely couple? Check! Both unfulfilled and unhappy? Check! Both going out of their way to say how unattracted they are to each other? Check! Plenty of coincidental meetings? Check! And so the list goes on. But how many romantic comedies include a conference which takes place inside a character’s head as he considers (rather bleakly) his future? Or a man in conversation with his cock? Or where a crucial confessional scene occurs when both characters are tied up having decided to experiment with Japanese rope bondage.

The acting is excellent, Cora Bissett and Matthew Pidgeon putting in a tireless shift, never leaving the stage (except technically during the chase scene), and portraying other characters as required. The singing is also good, the songs and music adding an emotional wash to the action. If the quality of a play is to be decided by sheer enjoyment, then this is one of the best I’ve seen in a long time, but it also succeeds in making us think about the directions our lives take and how much control we have over this, even if the central message is dispensed by a parking meter.

This is the first in a series of posts profiling our company members — get to know the Synetic family of actors. I sent a few questions out to some company members, and their responses, as well as some info on the actor, can be found in this series. Enjoy!

Marissa Molnar

Marissa Molnar has been working at Synetic since 2006, performing in the family show Grimms Brothers’ Tales at the Family Theater in Shirlington (then referred to as Classika). Her roles on the main stage have been: Hen in Animal Farm, House in The Fall of the House of Usher, the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, and Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

1. Where are you from? What is your training?

I’ve been in DC for 10 years, but I’m originally from Columbus, Ohio– ironically the same suburb (Worthington) where Vato grew up, and where Irina’s parents still live.  Small frikkin world.  Training was at American University, B.A. in Music (Vocal Performance), minor in French.  I did mostly classical recitals and music theatre there– I did the singing roles, and then went to the back row for dance numbers because I couldn’t dance.

2. What was it like to start working with Synetic? How was it different from your other experiences?

I was in Grimms Brothers’ Tales at Classika, and Irina [Tsikurishvili] came and did a little movement workshop with us– and I was fascinated.  Not only was the creativity and cleverness of the expression boundless and nothing like anything I’d seen before, but it was the first time in a long time that my movement had been encouraged and praised rather than frowned upon because of my lack of formal training.  Paata and Irina invited me to come to warmups, which were at Theater J at the time (during The Dybbuk), and I was immediately hooked.  The structure of the movement is very logical when broken down– which appealed to my classical-music brain– yet emotionally charged, and leads directly toward storytelling in a way that pure dance doesn’t.  As I trained on and off for the next year between gigs, I was struck by the incredibly supportive environment that the company created– there was nothing but gentle encouragement from everyone, especially company vets like Iko [Irakli Kavsadze] and Philip [Fletcher]… you’d get help if you wanted it, but otherwise you were left to work at your own pace, and it just came down to how hard you were willing to work and how long you stuck with it.  There was none of the cattiness or subtle competition that I had experienced in class-like situations before, mostly because when you are working that hard, you don’t have extra energy for that stuff– and I noticed that the complainers were, for the most part, naturally eliminated pretty quickly!

Each Synetic show has been a progressive learning experience for me in many ways, but what really struck me my first couple shows is how different the directing/rehearsal process of Synetic is from that of most American-style processes.  Where usually, in my experience, we start with a script as the detailed structure and work to bring it to life, make it deeper, and do the writing justice, in Synetic, it seems to be almost the exact opposite in some ways… We start with archetypal characters and a broad plot outline, and then bring the details in as we go along– and what’s amazing about this is that if the plot has to change a little, if scenes have to be dropped or added, if even characters have to be dropped or new characters emerge out of the process, it’s totally okay.  It’s painting in broad strokes, yes, but the final picture is flexible– which gives the actors an unusual amount of power and freedom in the process and final product.

3. Do you have a favorite role?

As the Clock in Romeo and Juliet (photo credit Raymond Gniewek)

One night in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Roger and Scott and I were having a ball onstage working up to the big and generally very funny moment when I would get de-skirted.  Part of the secret of this was that I would go on for that scene with my skirt’s hook undone, and then just before the big moment I’d surreptitiously unzip it and hold it up behind my back while the audience was distracted by the boys’ antics.  Unbeknownst to us, however, my skirt had somehow gotten re-hooked onstage– and when the time came for Scott to pull it down, it just stayed securely on.  Oh did the scene get interesting then: we all shared a sweet moment of panic.  Scott was literally clawing at the fabric more and more frantically, I was trying to push him away with my elbows so I could undo the hook in the back while making faces so the audience wouldn’t know it was a mistake, while Roger was trying to look like he was pulling Scott away without actually pulling him away… talk about wardrobe malfunction.  We never did get it off.  Then, to make things worse, we all silently realized that we had no way to get offstage at the end of the scene, since the whole exiting gag was built around the skirt– we had to think fast.  When the end moment came, I thought I was brilliant: I pointed off stage right as if I were “distracting” them so I could run the other way… but at the exact same moment, they both decided they were going to look stage left, as if anticipating where I was going to run.  Awesome.  It was like a moment out of Noises Off where everyone is trying to solve a problem and it goes just exactly wrong.  After finally managing to get offstage, we had to re-choreograph half of the next scene in our heads backstage– the big fight scene, mind you– in order to get the stupid skirt off and then get it offstage so we wouldn’t trip on it and die.  In the end we did it, and I don’t think the audience realized that we were making it up as we went along… but it was, shall we say, a little less funny than usual.

(Your humble blogger really really wishes he had seen this)

6. What’s next for you?

The Midsummer remount.  After that I’ll be at Adventure Theatre in Glen Echo with Jeremy Skidmore’s The Little Engine That Could.

Back in April when I first started to come out as a Pagan, I mentioned that one of my goals was to figure out some good ways to celebrate the Wheel of the Year.  Although my emphasis is typically on the Hellenic gods, and my personal practice draws more from reconstructionism than anywhere else, I do not necessarily self-identify as a hard reconstructionist.  I’m suspicious about extensive New Age influence in Neopaganism, and I am cranky about eclecticism generally, at the same time I feel drawn to multiple strands of pagan worship and theology.  To make a long story short, I feel drawn to celebrate the eightfold Wheel of the Year (solstices, equinoxes, and cross-quarter days) despite the fact that as a whole it is a recent phenomenon.  As John Michael Greer is fond of pointing out, the validity of a spiritual practice comes from whether or not it works, not whether or not it is ancient.

One of my earliest specific pagan epiphanies was with the Wheel of the Year.  As a teen, I was immensely interested in mythology and pagan religion (ancient and neo-), but was often nervous about telling other people about it, so I did a lot of reading and research in secret.  One day I was sixteen or seventeen or so, I was looking at a calendar with the eight pagan holidays on it, and I was calmly and peacefully but intensely struck by the rightness of it.  It was particularly significant to me because that kind of spiritual reaction was the kind of thing I had always been raised to believe would be the Holy Ghost’s witness of the truth of Mormonism.  And there I was having it over a pagan calendar.  I called up my best friend John (maybe he’s reading this?), and told him about it.  It was really the beginning of my secret adolescent religious rebellion.

Anyway, since I have felt comfortable ebracing my Pagan identity, I have let three of the eight major holidays pass by without doing anything about them, because I don’t know what to do.  I don’t really have a group of fellow-believers to practice my religion with, so most of my spiritual expression winds up being in a personal or family context.  Luckily, my beautiful and sexy Christian wife is more than willing to be supportive and take part, but since it is my thing, I really have to take the lead.

I like holidays and festivities a lot, and that’s what I am looking for here.  Not rituals, but traditions, the things that make the day and the season feel festive and special: decorations, meals, traditions, things to think about.  The eightfold year is a cycle, so it lends itself well to that kind of thing, but it can be hard to find resources about it.  Most of what is available on the internet is either too generally stated to be useful, or it is presented in ritual form, which is definitely not what I am loking for.  While ultimately I do plan on engaging in seasonal religious ritual as part of my Wheel of the Year celebration, I really want to also lay a festive foundation for said ritual.  Maybe I’m going about it backwards, but this is the way it makes sense to me, and it is the best way to share with friends and family.  Over time, I expect my religious and ritual explorations would influence and affect the festive traditions.  But I want something to start with.

The other consideration I have is the similarities between some of the holidays on the pagan calendar and Christian and civic holidays.  Christmas is similar to Yule, Samhain matches Halloween, the Spring Equinox parallels Easter, etc.  For most pagans, this is not a problem: they give rpesents on Yule instead of christmas, and they decorate eggs and such on the Equinox instead of Easter (shoot, the Easter Bunny actually makes a lot more sense as a part of a pagan holiday than a Christian one).  But my family is interfaith, which means we’re celebrating both sets.  So I don’t want two Easters.  I want to figure out how to celebrate Easter and the Spring Equinox, etc., in a way that makes them both not only enjoyable but also sufficiently distinct.

I finally sat down about a week ago to start hammering all of this out.  I showed it to my wife, and she thought it all seemed interesting and fun, but she also pointed out that the problem for her was that it was not always clear what all of these traditions actually mean.  It’s a fair question, and one that I can’t easily answer.  This list is really something I have cobbled together from a lot of different sources, whatever sounded good to me, and from things I intuited on my own.  Unfortunately, my own personal theology is still in development, so it is not easy to weave my own meanings into these traditions.  That gets us back to the long view: as my spirituality develops, I imagine I (we) will tinker with these holidays and alter or replace traditions that do not make sense in my own pagan context, and emphasizing those that do.

So without further ado, here is my Official Wheel of the Year Resource.  Feel free to add your comments, suggestions, insights, questions, whatever.

Beltaine
Date: May 1.
Description: A time to light bonfires and revel, to celebrate fertility and sexuality.
Traditions: Most importantly… hot sex. Possibly sex outside if practical. Hot sex and huge bonfires, lit on a hilltop (toss juniper sprigs in the fire, and leap through it for good luck)..
Holiday Food: Rabbit, Strawberries (strawberry pie or strawberry shortcake), Mead
Decorations: Flame, wildflowers, rowan crosses, may boughs hung over doors and windows.

Midsummer
Date: June 21
Description: A second bonfire—bonfires on the water (the ashes bring good luck), and active holiday where the sun is at maximum power and energy is strongest.
Traditions: The veil between the otherworld (or the un/subconscious) and the waking world is thin, it is a good time for resolutions, and for putting plans into effect. Keep vigil through the shortest night, waiting for the rising sun. It is also a good time to gether fresh herbs.
Holiday Food: Lamb, fresh produce, lemon merangue pie.
Decorations: Wheels, sun symbols, St. John’s Wort.

Lughnasa
Date: August 1.
Description: The first harvest festival, Lughnasa is a time for being outside, for celebrating the physical world with games and physical activity. It’s a time for dancing and bonfires, for blessing the fields. And it’s a good time for marriages.
Traditions: Bread is baked in the shape of a man and eaten to represent the Dying God (Cernunnos, Dionysus, Odin, Osiris, Jesus, Arthur, the Green Man).
Holiday Food: Bread, beer, watermelon, barbecue.
Decorations: The Green Man, a flaming wheel.

Autumn Equinox
Date: September 21
Description: The second harvest festival—the harvest of fruit—a time of thanksgiving and recollection, the in-gathering of experience.
Traditions: Make and burn a straw or wicker man, to represent the burning of the Harvest Lord.
Holiday Food: Corncakes, Nuts, Berries, Fruit Pies (not apple), Wine.
Decorations: Pinecones, acorns, gourds, gold, red, orange, and brown.

Samhain
Date: November 1
Description: A night when the borders between the living and the dead are the thinnest, the last harvest. Time is abolished and the spirits of the dead walk free. A time for remembering those who have gone before. The time of year when livestock were slaughtered.
Traditions: Leave an extra place at the dinner table for dead ancestors. A perfect time for divination. The day after Samhain is a day forcleaning and getting rid of old things.
Holiday Food: Pork Roast, Apples, Apple Pie, Cider, Hazelnuts, Pumpkin Bread
Decorations: Leave a candle burning in a western window to guide the spirits of the dead.

Yule
Date: December 21
Description: The shortest day of the year, this is a time to celebrate the rebirth of the sun. It is a time of rebirth and stillness, a time to celebrate intuition. There is a lot of symbolism between intuition, the Pole Star, the Great Bear, and King Arthur.
Traditions: A Yule log is burned for ten days (Yuletide lasts from December 20 to December 31), and then the ashes are strewn on the plantings in the spring. The wood from the log is yept to light the yule log the next year. Give libations to the fruit trees.
Holiday Food: Baked goods in sun shapes, and mulled wine.
Decorations: Sun wheels, decorated trees, candles, wreaths of mistletoe, holly, and ivy.

Imbolc
Date: February 1
Description: The holiday of the lambing, or childbirth (it is no accident that Imbolc is exactly nine months after Beltaine…). It is a time for initiations, and purification. It is a good time for meditation.
Traditions: Write and read poetry. Share it, have a poetry competition.  Leave a white cloth out a window for the goddess to bless, and when the first light of the sun touches it, it gains healing properties throughout the year. Candlemaking.
Holiday Food: Milk, honey, dairy foods (a massive cheese smorgasbord).
Decorations: Hundreds of candles, and pools of water.

Spring Equinox
Date: March 21
Description: A time to celebrate planting and prepare for the gifts of the summer, and to recognize the power and presence of spring. A time of emergence, fertility, and balance. A time that is sacred to Persephone, to celebrate her return from the Underworld and her reunion with her mother Demeter.
Traditions: Decorate eggs.
Holiday Food: Twisted bread, honey cakes, eggs, carrots.
Decorations: Flowers (honeysuckle, iris, peony, violet, lily, daffodil), in baskets or garlands.

FOLLOW-UP: I have put up a new post about trying to piece together the ritual and religious aspects of the Wheel of the Year, specifically from a Hellenic polytheist perspective.

Q: What do you think of this? I came across it in a collection of Wittgenstein’s marginalia.

The reason why I cannot understand Shakespeare is that I want to find symmetry in all this asymmetry.

His pieces give me an impression of enormous sketches rather than of paintings; as though they had been dashed off by someone who can permit himself anything, so to speak. And I understand how someone can admire that and call it supreme art, but I don’t like it — so if someone stands in front of these pieces speechless, I can understand him; but anyone who admires them as one admires, say, Beethoven, seems to me to misunderstand Shakespeare.

My knee-jerk response is the easy bet: Wittgenstein’s a strong and perceptive reader of Shakespeare.

Shakespeare’s drama doesn’t have much calculated symmetry. The gun on stage in Act I doesn’t go off in Act V. And this is one of Shakespeare’s great strengths as a writer; because he’s not invested in neatness, his plays capture an incredible breadth of human experience. If they were sketches, they’d be late Picasso — a complex image that emerges from a single line, and remarkable because its casual precision betrays a shocking expertise.

This is easy to miss, though, because when we read a “neat” Shakespearean ending (where everybody gets married or everybody dies) it’s easy to underread the ways those endings get complicated.

Take Midsummer. It opens with Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding fast approaching, and we quickly learn that Hippolyta is Theseus’s favorite prisoner of war. So he’s (a) way more into the marriage than she is and (b) completely obtuse — he doesn’t see that she’s marrying him only reluctantly, even though she drops plenty of hints.

So that’s the gun in Act I. And we’ve seen this plot often enough to know how it should end. Theseus should develop a sensitivity to Hippolyta’s feelings that in turn makes her reappraise him, and they should both march down the aisle at least cautiously optimistic if not deeply in love. Bang.

Except that doesn’t happen. The next time we see Theseus and Hippolyta, they’re getting ready to go hunting and Theseus is bragging about his hounds. Hippolyta, maybe because she’s an Amazon, is all about hunting, and for the first time she acts interested in something Theseus is saying or doing. But then some stuff comes up and Theseus decides to call off the hunt and head back to Athens. And then they get married.

The same kind of thing happens with some of the play’s other couples. Titania ends Act IV suspecting Oberon’s been up to no good — she wakes up not remembering much and suspicious for the loss of her Indian boy (the original cause of their quarreling in the play, though it quickly escalates to mutual accusations of infidelity). She asks Oberon to explain how all this might have come to pass, and even though he doesn’t answer, we get the sense she’s going to keep asking.

Likewise, Demetrius only marries Helena because Puck slipped him some magic flower roofies — of course Demetrius doesn’t know this and his chemically-enhanced love is so intense that he wouldn’t care, but Helena seems uneasy about the whole thing. Her line is “I have found Demetrius like a jewel,/ Mine own and not mine own.” In other words, her marriage is uneasy. She’s in possession of Demetrius, but suspects he may really belong to someone else.

So in a play that has tons of parallel structure (there are five plots, all involving conspicuously different types of romantic relationships), we get an ending that isn’t tidy. Sure, everyone gets married (or reconciles), but none of these couples’ problems have really been solved. Hippolyta still resents marrying Theseus, Titania’s eventually going to find out her husband and his friend drugged her so they could kidnap her adopted child (setting her up to publicly make out with an idiot man-donkey in the process), and Helena presumably has to live the rest of her life wondering when Demetrius’s mood’s going to change.

So Wittgenstein is right on, I think. Shakespeare isn’t tidy. There isn’t symmetry. But that’s kind of the point. If Midsummer have five relationships that all reconciled nicely, it wouldn’t be nearly as interesting or nearly as much fun.

In July, the midsummer, farmers are busy at preparing the senond cultivation of rice. Before the cultivation is performed, traditionally farmers burn straw, in order to get them turn into fertilizers.

The agriculture is gradually waning as the high-tech industry is already the spine of the economy of Taiwan.

But still some farmers are carefully taking care of their lands. The farmer turned over straw hardly.

In fact, it is illegal to burn a farm in Taiwan nowadays due to air pollution problem. But when I saw them working so hard on the farm in such a hot day, I had not the heart to admonish them.

In Taiwan, each hand has its own guard, who is usually called “The God of Land”, taking care of crops and farmers living the land. This is due to that Taiwan was a agricultural society couple of decades ago. The building is for The God of Land.

When crossing a border in this car it’s best to have a native with you. Enter Andreas Pettersson (far right), who joined us in Berlin for the 1,000km road trip north for Midsummers & Moustaches. The Pettersson farm is famous throughout the Swedish countryside for it’s midsummers 24-hour party on a day that the sun never sets. Well it might have set for an hour, but it never did quite get dark enough to disguise any inappropriate behaviour. But before there was midsummers or moustaches there was a drive and a sailing involving a whole new form of table tennis.

Before there’s talk of the Swedish Moustaches there must be at least one awkward photograph from Midsummers.

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Meet Dan Sederowsky

President of the Swedish Handlebar Club.

In order to be a member of a handlebar club you must first have a considerable solitary growth above the lip and second prove yourself as a gentleman. Dan Sederowsky can boast of both. After a weekend of partying, he took us into his home and sobered us up with coffee, biscuits and tips for a good tash.

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Swedish Moustache Paraphernalia:

The Moustache Mug – Enjoy coffee with a dry Mo.

For the left handed tashed coffee drinker.

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]]> http://synetictheater.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/midsummer-to-remount-in-the-spectrum/ Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:24:51 +0000 synetictheater http://synetictheater.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/midsummer-to-remount-in-the-spectrum/

So the press release is imminent and we’ve already posted it on the website, so I don’t think there’s any gun to jump if we announce it here.

We’re remounting A Midsummer Night’s Dream!

Ok, so it’s kind of an extension/remount/rerelease special limited edition kind of remount. Remember Titanic? People kept coming, it just kept running. Well we’re a non-profit theater so we can’t do THAT, but we know people really liked this show, some people didn’t get to see it because of the short run at the Kennedy Center, and, hey, everyone’s worrying about the economy, so why not bring back a popular, lighthearted, magically-wondrous-beautiful show?

Not that Dracula won’t be pretty wondrous itself — it will open a month later than originally planned, and we’re excited to have the extra time to perfect that performance…it’s a sexy show.

But, obviously, we all want to see the blue critter again.

Alex Mills as Puck (photo credit Raymond Gniewek)

So anyhow, head on over to www.synetictheater.org/season to check out our full season.

Midsummer will run from Sept. 17 – Oct. 10, followed by Dracula from Oct. 16 – Nov. 15. Performances at the Rosslyn Spectrum Thursday – Saturday at 8pm, Sundays at 3pm.

“In fact, it is Shakespeare who gives us the map of the mind. It is Shakespeare who invents Freudian Psychology. Freud finds ways of translating it into supposedly analytical vocabulary.” — Harold Bloom

So, here we are, midway across the sparkling pond that is summer.  Yes, I know “mid-summer” was a month ago, but I always feel like mid-July is sort of the half-way point, so humor (or ignore) me.  It’s been sort of an odd summer, I think.  Weather-wise, anyhow.   We went right from the incessant rains of June into some lovely summer sunshine for July’s arrival, although it has more often than not felt like delightful September, with bright golden sun and cool temperatures.

The rains of the early part of the season may’ve caused a little trouble for some bedding annuals, but perennials are responding pretty well to all that and I have perhaps never seen such a lovely crop of shasta daisies, rudbeckias and daylilies and such.

Those of you who’ve followed my progress  in settling into the Nest this past year may be interested to hear that I have finally vanquished the clutter monster who’d claimed the dining room table as his domain, and about the time I got the rest of the room looking nice, with seating around the table and some re-furbished photos-of-friends collages up on the wall.

The latter are especially important to me:   the dining room seems like the place where one welcomes friends, after all, and this last year has been nothing if not an exercise in remembering just how important and lovely it is to have good friends all around.

I think it looks pretty sweet and just to finish it all off, one of the new crystals I bought for the windows last month sprays rainbows across the walls here, on the sunny mornings, anyway.   Really, it’s not “finished off” yet, since I do have a bench to stain and upholster and a search for the right cushions for the other seats.

I was happy to find the red star tea candle holder, which hangs above the table.  And He Who Must Be Walked loves to stretch out on the new green cushioned bench.

I’d originally bought this stencil pattern when I first moved into the Nest last fall.  My initial scheme had been to use it to fashion a sort of chair-rail stencil around the dining room, hopefully making the ceiling seem just a smidge higher by splitting the wall.

Since then, I’d discovered the not-exactly-square nature of the walls and it had begun to seem as though a “straight” line that went all the way around the room might’ve been both unrealistic and frustrating, as goals go.   However, the short closet door leaves just enough blank wall space over it for a bit of stencil as an accent in the room and I think I like it better than a full chair rail of the stencil.

Having been reminded by blogger Joebear that Bear Week has just begun during my last visit to Provincetown, I was sort of eager to head back out that way to enjoy the festivities.   So I was excited to hear that my recently married friends, Dan and Phill, were planning a weekend visit (it was also sort of a honeymoon trip) that was going to coincide with some rare weekend time off for me.  As a special treat, they brought our Cape Cod summer’s first taste of humidity with them from Connecticut.

Our big day started with a truly fabulous breakfast at their Inn (familiar, Marc and Jess?), right here in my neighborhood, while we got caught up.  Dan and I were friends from college, and have stayed in touch through emails and IMs here and there throughout the nearly-seventeen years since we  last looked upon one another.  Phill and I have only become acquainted more recently through Facebook, but it felt like we were old friends after about half an hour, too.

We considered a whale watch tour, but decided we could maximize our day’s activities by staying in Provincetown and simply wandering about, enjoying one another’s company and the local scenery and doing a bit of shopping.

Well, I did a little bit of shopping.  But these boys can power-shop and so I also got to spend a little more time snapping photos for that forth-coming Gardens of PTown blog post I’ve mentioned before, as well as enjoying the local scenery and spending some time in the sun.   Anyone know what the flame-shaped flower is in the photo below, by the way?  I found it in a container garden outside a shop, but have never seen its like before.

It was a real happy day for Greg, as I celebrated a full year of resisting the temptation of cigarettes.   On some levels, its been the challenge you would expect, but in many other ways, quitting cigs was just one more in a serious of healthy choices I was making a year ago and knowing that, it’s been the easiest thing I’ve ever done.

Anyway, Saturday was a day for celebrating and I loved doing so with friends who were doing a little sweet celebrating of their own.  After the afternoon in Provincetown, we returned to our part of the Cape, where we had a great dinner at a favorite local barbecue joint, before rounding out the day with one of our Cape Cod Bay sunsets and dessert back in the sweet air conditioning of the Inn.

The guys had to leave Sunday morning – it was perhaps too fast a visit (my goodness, people come and go so quickly here…), but a good one, and I think we shan’t wait twenty years before doing it again.

Honestly, I was happy for a quiet Sunday afternoon, since Saturday’s heat had taken a lot of out of me.   This was my first real taste of such weather since moving into this second story Nest and it was freaking steamy up in here.

My one fan was helpful, but not entirely up to the task, so I bought a second one and some strategic arranging helped to cool things off.  I spent much of Sunday napping, or sitting still in cool breezes…or, of course, walking the Kitty.  ; )

While I was wilting a little, I’m happy to say that the rest of the gardens are thriving in such conditions.   Resting up on Sunday was key, since I need my energy to keep all those container gardens on the porch well-watered.

Next year, I swear I will buy those self-watering conversion kits, for sure!  Who knew zinnias were such thirsty little bastards?  Hey, but look at how my nasturtiums have taken to the tropical temps…

I’ve been enjoying my porch gardens, though as temps rose this past few days, I’ve had to get up a little extra early in order to be able to enjoy some time with coffee (and get some watering done) out there before it gets too sunny and hot to relax out there.

Of course, I long ago learned that any relaxation in the garden is always a fleeting pleasure, since as soon as one settles in place and takes a sip of coffee or some cooler beverage, the gardener’s eyes land on some faded bloom that needs to be snipped or some other project just waiting for attention.  It’s part of the fun, really.

The sweet peas are blooming steadily now that they’ve begun.  I cut some every few days to bring inside and scent the Nest.  In another part of the “forest”, those cardinal climber vine seeds that Theresa sent have begun to put out their fancy-looking true leaves, and before long will be twining up the branches with the morning glories, who’ve also been inspired by the recent heat.

Yesterday, our little heat wave (it kicked my butt, but after the April-ish temps of June, I have no business complaining…) began to settle down a little and when I woke up this morning, it was raining heavily and all the gardens were celebrating.

I couldn’t have been happier.

Yankees-Pretty good first half.. Pitching was on and off. Need to do something about the startion rotation. Pettitte looks weak some games and can’t go deep into the game. Chamberlain needs to find a new home, possibly in the bullpen. Wang is a mess and Burnett pitches well against losers. Sabathia will have a great second half. The bullpen seems to be shaping out nicely. Nice combo with Aceves, Hughes, Coke, and Bruney. I see Aceves like I used to see Ramiro Mendoza; pitching in emergency situations if starting pitcher shoots a doozy. Aceves is very versatile and can be used in many situations. He throws strikes and isn’t afraid to throw a pitch in any count. That takes some balls my friend, that takes some balls! Offense is looking great. Defense is a bit shaky with Damon in left field. He looks like he’s trying to catch a bottle rocket out there sometimes. Damon’s feet bounce around like he’s working out on Nintendo Wii before the ball lands in his glove. He is very shaky out there and I don’t trust him at all. In addition to his shaky defense he can’t throw a player out even if his life was on the line.  I think the Yankees win the division. Midsummer grade A-

Red Sox- The Red Sox are at it again. They are exactly like the Yankee’s when it comes to showcasing their financial muscles. Red Sox fans never want to admit that their beloved team pays large sums of cash for players. I do agree that they develop their farm system as well and they do a damn good job at it too. But, I’m tired of this team going under the radar of teams that “buy” their championships. Most of their moves are made to counter the Yankees. Anyway, their pitching is solid across the board. Man, that bullpen can shut down anyone too. It sucks to say it but they are the team to beat in the AL. Talented across the board. Midsummer grade- A

Blue Jays- This team was the talk of the town in the beginning of the season. But, their young pitching showed its true colors as the season progressed. They have some key players who will keep them around for a little in Wells, Halladay, Hill, Lind, Rios, and Rolen. Like every season though they will fade away like a mist in the early morning. They still have some joints to oil before they become a well oiled machine. I bet they finish around 82-81. Midsummer grade B-

Orioles-Wow, another losing season. But, this season has more hope than others. They are showing promising signs with young players like Adam Jones, Reimold, and that catcher guy (I forget his name). I think pitching machines would do better than the Orioles pitching staff at this point. When will we see the next great Oriole pitcher? I do enjoy that stadium though and I do love those uni’s! Midsummer grade- C-

Rays- The Rays are that young team that is really climbing the ladder. All those young draft picks are coming into their prime at the right time. I see them being good for the next couple of years. They have that magic about them that translates through the television screen. Great defense and speed will do them good down the stretch. Although, I don’t see them making the playoffs this year. Their pitching isn’t top notch and they have some injuries. Midsummer grade- B

Sorry, I am absolutely shit at updating this blog nowadays, even though I promised I would. The cheese is distracting me, but I’m starting to get sick of it now so, mmm bring ‘em noodles. Oh ramen…

Anyway, here’s a little picture update from the last weeks here in Norway.

Celebrating midsummer in Hammerfest

Smoke from all the bonfires

Maybe not a nice beach, but nice people

Golden moment right before he fell and hit his head on a rock and we ended up spending the rest of the evening in a hospital.

Bob Hund at Bukta Festival 2009

Ray Davies at Bukta Festival 2009.

Walking home at 3 am, in the sunshine

In cod we trust!

Sunny days in Bukta

Oh well, turns out I haven’t taken much photos lately! There will be more coming soon!

Two summertime Vocal delights ~  Summer of 2009 ~ Whoa! We are all being challenged to dis-cover and perhaps to re-cover what’s been lost in the fast track to a place we never really are(!) If we wish for peace in our own hearts & homes & communities as well as the world then we must find pathways to the richness buried in our hearts and souls. Heck, what else is one to do ~ Despair?  Rant & Rave?

Challenge for me is to witness my own capacity for “the news of the day” with my ability to remain resilient and radiant, not inhaling doom & gloom, then exhaling  same to others.
Try one of these ~ See what happens ~ 
Reading aloud ~ Poetry, Shakespeare . . .
Listening to Audio books ~  in the car – makes driving a complete pleasure ~ I look              forward to the commute. Try imitating the dialect,  style of speech of reader – vocal varietals!

Next Blog tomorrow – Shakespeare !
Monday’s Blog ~ Current Top of the list Audio Book “in my book”!

It’s now around that time, midsummer. That means a little over one month till Orientation and the start of school.

Recently, I picked up Neverwinter Nights 2 Gold, and had a blast. I’m considering buying Stirms fo Zehir, and Mysteries of Westgate.

3.5E forever.

So, it’s been awhile. I’ve been in and out, often away from the computer. Summer is pretty finicky here, sometimes close to 100 degrees, other times, like today, closer to the 60-range. In the past month, I’ve been to Montana, Reno, and around Oregon. Luckily, I’ve still made plenty of time to run. Now summer school is in session, and I’m trying to get all the goods in order for a final year, enriching, tough, and exciting as it will be.

Here are the stats on the fundraising:

As of today, July 8th, I’ve run 168 miles (since mid-May). Of that mileage, I’ve raised around $48.50 (collected for 97 miles). I’ve received messages from VADF, requesting donations ASAP so they can get the schools running in totality. This week, I will exchange the funds for a cashier’s check to mail to the Foundation. Even though I’ll be donating on an ongoing basis, I can still keep track of the total funds accrued.

As for the running part of it all, I admit, I am a bit behind in my training. A few months with a solid regimen can fix that, and I’m confident that I’ll still dominate the 3:40, if not better. I’m really needing to enforce the weekly long runs. Otherwise, everything else has come fairly easily (reg. runs, workouts). With school beginning at 9 each day and many hours of reading afterward, I’ve adapted a bit to getting up at 6 to get some runs in. Pretty rough for the first few minutes, but afterward, I am more than awake.

That’s all for now, I’ll be adding a lot more though in the few months to come. Only 3 months and 10 days til race day. WOW.