Injured Bad...

I don't even know how to begin to articulate the joy and pleasure I and so many others have received from this brilliant clip.



Yep. Well I just got out the shower, have 20 minutes to get readyl, and I've now watched it 7 times! It's the look of death on his face as he says it... beautiful...

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.
I love it.
Love it love it.

The food is a feast, and all of it easy to cook (in general, I am stove and grill lady. Everything on the stoveTOP is usually a disaster of some description...). It is a day shared with friends, family, and "chosen family." It lacks the pressures of Christmas, and it's sole purpose is to reflect upon and remember the things we have to be grateful for. It's our time to express gratitude, feel comforted by the simple joys the world has to offer us, to literally give thanks... From easy-to-cook turkey/stuffing/gravy, to the thousands of fortunate moments, the multitude of blessings that we receive each year.

I have had a Thanksgiving of some description every year I have lived in the UK...
2002: Murano Street Student Village pot luck held in a hired conference room with florescent lights. We were still thankful. This was also the beginning of JNF's delightful recounting of The Story of Thanksgiving. "Tradition!"
2003: We hired the Chandler Studio Theatre in Glasgow, it looked like a Pilgrim Nightclub, and grew in numbers!
2004: JNF and I host The Day at the beautiful 29 Westbourne Gardens (our cozy flat), The numbers tripled and even our South African upstairs neighbors joined us. Saying our "thanks" took over an hour. We ate on the floor, there were children who squashed stuffing into the carpet. Brilliant.
2005: Ellie organizes the decor and Zoe cooks THE WORKS. The entire company of WIW sing America's National Anthem... in English accents, and feast during the interval.
2006: Turkey Day in Sheffield. Fiddler cast gather at Henry's digs for a full on festive feast. This was my best turkey, and there was much game playing and cast bonding in the middle of what felt like nowhere.
2007: A quiet, intimate dinner and giving of thanks with loved ones, in a place that finally, after all this time, feels like home.

Every year this stuffy old tradition is a hit with the often reticent Brits. It is not that the Brits are thankless or lacking gratefulness. No, no. They are simply a reserved being. A creature of frequently repressed emotion. And emotional expression, I'm afraid, is what Thanksgiving is all about.

But it isn't about the event for me. It's about the ceremony. Stopping. Taking a proverbial breath from the hamster wheel of life and looking around. Seeing the gifts.

...Something has just occurred to me. I feel like I might be Britain's Thanksgiving Fairy. Yes. I am the self-appointed Thanksgiving Fairy of Her Majesty's United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland). I spread joy and have a magic wand that not only fills you with the sprit of Thanksgiving, it also blesses you with a momentary whiff of pumpkin pie.

So. Happy Thanksgiving, Reader. I am thankful for many things, but I am also thankful for you...

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them."
-- John Fitzgerald Kennedy

YES-vember!

Ahhhh autumn. My favourite season. The colours, the smells, the quality in the air. So often people view autumn in a negative way: the end of long, light-filled days, and the beginning of dark, impending cold.

I see more! Autumn ushers in some of the most glorious, fiery foliage; crisp, brisk air; warm, delicious jumpers, and the heartiest food of the year. Mmm! It is also a time of nostalgia, reflection, and change. Autumn summons tremendous positive emotion within me, and I encourage everyone to bask in it's MAJESTY...
...Bask...
....bask, i said....
...um, are you basking....?
Good.

So farewell summer loves. Hello autumn. Hello you!

Autumnal Notes:

1. Find THE jumper to get you through the winter


2. Make chicken stock once a week. It's essential cold battling equipment, and the best nutritoius warmer in the world!


3. Order logs


4. Love your root-veg! (Remember the basic rule of thumb: anything that grows above ground you cook in boiling water, anything below ground you start from cold water).


5. Start planning your winter dinner parties (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hogmany, [Robert] Burn's Night)


6. Dust off the FONDUE SET!


7. Renew your search for the perfect baked potato. Is it King Edward, Maris Piper, or the Mighty RUSSET? (High starch content is apparently the key to a good baker...)


8. Try Grouse or pheasant. Why not?


9. To celebrate autumn, get a chunky jumper on & go and cuddle someone. If you are going to cuddle them for a long time, and they are a work colleague, ask permission first!


10. Make PUMPKIN PIE! And PECAN! And Chicken and Mushroom! In fact, make all the pies!


11. Bye bye Museli, hello porridge!


12. Make the seasonal herb swap. Out with summer herbs (mint, basil, chives) and in with more robust cousins (thyme, rosemary, sage).


13. Bulk up on beta carotene (pumpkin, squash, sweet potato) to set you up for cold!


14. Bring on the baking! Nothing like walking in to a warm kitchen smelling of cake.


15. Make sure you're eating well and your digestion is good, because that's the root of your immune system strength. (Autumn food is hearty: squash, apples, beans, beef, lamb)


16. Nostalgia often reflects the mood of autumn. I know everyone has their own way of exercising nostalgia trips. I like looking through old letters, albums, music, photographs. The other day the light hit a certain way and a wave of nostalgia hit me reminding me it was autumn. A little bit of "retrospection" does the body and soul good.

And finally a word or two from Keats to his friend Reynolds after enjoying a lovely autumn day…

“How beautiful the season is now--How fine the air. A temperate sharpness about it. Really, without joking, chaste weather--Dian skies--I never lik’d stubble fields so much as now--Aye better than the chilly green of the spring. Somehow a stubble plain looks warm--in the same way that some pictures look warm--this struck me so much in my Sunday’s walk that I composed upon it.”

Have a lovely Autumn...

Whatsonstage.com Awards 2008

These are the only awards in London that are voted for by the public. So use your voice! Submit your nominations today!

(Pssst! Don't forget to vote for your favourites in Fiddler!)

"The nominations phase in this year’s Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers’ Choice Awards, the only major theatre prize-giving to be decided by the public, opens today, Monday 5 November 2007. The annual Awards, now in their eighth year, have firmly established their place in the theatrical calendar with over 12,000 people voting last year alone.

Throughout November, theatregoers can log on to nominate their favourite performances and productions for Awards consideration across all 24 categories. Amongst these are standards including Best Actor, Best Actress and Best New Musical as well as less conventional fields such as Best Ensemble Performance, Best Off-West End Production and Theatre Event of the Year.

The full Awards shortlists will be announced on Friday 7 December 2007. After that, the race is on to decide the eventual Theatregoers’ Choice Award winners, with voting continuing for two months from Monday 10 December and results announced in mid-February 2008."

Domestic Happenings, Episode 1: Scene From City Life

Scene 1:

A: morning...

D: w38*^%9uh#$&*^klj!)#*(df&$#^%&*!@n...

Scene 2: 

(At rise: D thoughtfully, and with intensity, searches the internet...)

A: Hello... (A looks on with an expectant smile and figety demeanor. Pause.)

D: ...Hello.

(A makes a few feeble attempts to garner praise and attention. 'Why must the internet be so INTERESTING?!' she thinks. More is required... how will she scheme...? 'Ah...' she thinks, 'the attention DANCE!' Slowly, and with a certain joi de vivre, she begins...[INSERT ATTENTION DANCE HERE]...)

D: uh... huh. Um... do you want some attention...?

A: (breathless, attention dance ceases)  Um... well... yes please.

D: Pfft... (head collapses in simultaneous frustration and delight)

Scene 3:

A: Do you think I deserve a bath?

D: I will not answer in words, but in actions. 

(Bath run, with candles... yum.)

Scene 4:

(At rise: D & A approach the pizza shop 'Pizza, on Demand!'...)

D/A: We DEMAND PIZZA! (both struggle to smother fits of laughter...)

(The Pizza Man is deadpan. He either speaks little English, or is utterly unamused. If The Pizza Man does speak English, he is thinking two things at this outrageous display: 1. 'These two people are making fun of the name of my store.' 2. 'This is simply not funny.' If he does not speak English, he is probably thinking something along the lines of 'What?!')

Pizza Man: Yeah. So... what kind of pizza...? 

Scene 5:

D: (shoving several Caramel Hobb Nobbs in his mouth...) These cookies are terrible...
A: Really?
D: (mouth full) ... uh... yeth...

Happy Halloween

In celebration of this ghoulish day, I decided to have some festive fun. First, I bought some pumpkins. Then, I played around with a past life website. Random, yes. Fun, also yes.
My results:

You were male in your last earthly incarnation.You were born somewhere in the territory of modern South China around the year 1075. Your profession was that of a digger or undertaker.

Psychologically you were a revolutionary type. You inspired changes in any sphere - politics, business, religion, housekeeping. You could have been a leader.

The lesson that your last past life brought to your present incarnation: You are bound to solve problems of pollution of environment, recycling, misuse of raw materials, elimination of radioactivity by all means including psychological methods.

Do you remember now?

I am sorry to say that I do not, in fact, remember my glorious days as local revolutionary Chinese undertaker; but you all know how I love the earth! And anyway it is worth a whirl...

Perhaps you desire the pleasure of remembering your own "past?" Find out who you might have been here.

Happy Halloween.

Feelin' Blue?

You feeling blue, a little heartbroken, a touch rejected, or perhaps just flat out grumpy?
In need of a perky pick-me-up, a touch of inspiration?

Well. Look no further.

Put down your tissues my agitated friend!
Turn off Bridge Over Troubled Water!
Pack up your sorrows, lift your weary head and just think!

YOU COULD BE THIS KITTEN:


There! Doesn't that feel better?!

Fiddler Goes Bowling

Yogurt. Covered. Things

Almonds... Oh the wonder...
Cranberrys.
Brazil nuts.
The savoury and sweet sensation of the yogurt covered cashew.
Your average raisin variety.
The slightly more exotic pineapple or apricot.

What can I say?

My love for them is deep
... and it is real.

Nick Bantock Workshop

...images that feel like a magic carpet ride...

In need of adventure. In need of creative energy. In need of inspiration...

So I have this list of people.
People I would love to meet, talk with, be in the presence of, etc.
Some I wish I could resurrect from the dead (a long Salinas Valley drive with John Steinbeck, or afternoon tea with E.M Forster would, for example, be faiiiiiiirly thrilling).
Some I would simply like to meet ever-so-briefly before I die... or before they die. Or both.

Danny Kaye. Bill Murray. Ages DeMille. Houdini. John Steinbeck. Gogol. Chekhov. Mark Rylance. Rasputin. Howard Barker. (I've actually already encountered a few people from the Living List-- Judy Collins, Sheldon Harnick to name two... not bad odds really...) And Nick Bantock (artist, author, 'imaginator'). He is, in fact, at the very top of the Living List. 

Look at my list of "Books." Go ahead, take a peek there on the right hand sidebar. Yep. They are peppered with Bantock's work. The Griffin & Sabine Trilogy, The Forgetting Room, Capolan, The Museum at Purgatory. I almost hate to sort of admit this, but I do suppose I collect his work ...No I really mean it, I am making this discovery rightthissecond. I am currently in the middle of realising that I go onto eBay and actively look for the rarer gems amoung his work and purchase it, even if it is simply for the joy of basking further into the intrigue and mystery and flat-out beauty of his books, his art, his postcards, and his address books as if they were remnants of some sort of ancient shipwreck or mythic treasure hunt.

It is difficult to articulate. Perhaps I even sound slightly unctuous and over-reaching. But in truth there have been very few experiences in my admittedly brief lifetime in which a person's work anonymously reached out from beyond the page, canvas, footlights, etc., and greeted me in such a disarming manner. Not simply because of it's content per se, but because of the effect the content had upon me.

Within the pages of the prose and gravity of the images, (and, truly, I dare not even assume such a grandiosity), I feel I recognise the person behind it all somehow. I am not saying that I know him, or even that I feel that I do on some secret level, that would be far too glib a thing to say (read: also far too teenaged and/or far too Sleepless in Seattle). No, it is recognition. That, even if it be a small similarity, in some key, important way a like-ness just may exist. It makes me feel sort of hopeful. [She pauses, aware that this all sounds odd but frankly doesn't really care]. Who knows. It is just an instinct, but I think the reason NB occupies this slot at the top of my Living List is because I would love to know if that instinct is accurate; and, indeed, if any of it is real. (And why not drink wine and make collages in Malaga while I'm at in, no?) This is not a high-stakes desire. It is calm. Certain almost. Just a curiosity. There and real and possible.

So.
One might say that to have the opportunity to actually meet him, shake his hand, to have him possibly sign my copy of The Museum at Purgatory? That would be more than adequate for a lifetime, but the chance to work with him for a week in idyllic Spain? It seems beyond anything I could dream up...

Look what a casual internet search can do:

A WORKSHOP in SPAIN
with Nick Bantock

‘Delivered by Accident in Twilight—The Art of Collage’
28 April to 6 May 2008

This is no ordinary workshop—we promise!
Set amongst the sweeping olive grove hills of Southern Spain, midway between Granada and Malaga this soiree is held at the beautiful restored mill, ‘El Molino’ and is, in truth, an excuse to relax, eat, drink and learn about the essence of creativity.
Hosted by Mike and Hillary Powell, “Delivered by Accident…” highlights both Nick’s mischievous creativity and Mike’s culinary genius.
The daily sessions focus on making two and three-dimensional collages from found materials as well as Nick’s usual mix of stamps, maps, documents, paint, and other ephemera. Participants don’t need to have a high level of artistic skill, though creative experience won’t hinder.
In addition to the art, the swimming pool, the magnificent Mediterranean cuisine, the unlimited supply of wine, and Nick’s bedtime readings, we’ll also be taking excursions to the Alhambra and Ronda.

"From collage to assemblage and from the accidental mark to storytelling, creativity is no more than invention and a permission to play. Whether artistically experienced or a curious beginner this course is designed to help you expand your vision. In books like Griffin and Sabine and The Forgetting Room I married art and narrative and in Urgent 2nd Class and The Museum at Purgatory I teased and toyed with part-found objects, I learned a lot. I learned that there is a trick to seeing out of the corner of your eye and making art from accident. If I can, I hope to teach you how to sneak up in twilight—surprising yourself into creating a different art, something half you and half Andalusia." -- Nick Bantock

Bantock: here comes Silber.



More on Nick Bantock:

• Nick Bantock Official Website
• Nick Bantock Interview
• Nick Bantock on Wikipedia

Today I am...

Who am I today?
Or rather what label, what category, is preferable?

"The actor" is very in at the moment.
"The American" is all the rage!
Or how about "The one who is never on time"?
the female?
the liberal?
the realist?
the aquarium hater?
the one who with the "crackerjack" vocabulary?

I'm asking: what does any of that mean?

I have unpicked my brains for this.
I have glided along the thoroughfares of spiritual banality, the cobblestone alleys of indifference an arrived Nowhere: a town like any other.

But once, way back, I tasted the flavor of a star spangled sky; brief and fleeting, and not to be found in any store claiming thirty-onederful flavors; only in a country momentarily brought to its knees by darkness. Oh pure and unassuming sky, better than any carb-free sandwich, you allow us to fathom a night without power; terribly alone with only our inflexible and intolerant personalities for company.

'Little Word, Little White Bird' by Carl Sandburg

by Carl Sandburg
an excerpt

(for dad... today. to remember the day this was read with such sorrow; and to rejoice that feeling "washed clean and strong inside and out" is nearer every day...)

And it won't change anything
it won't wipe away what has been
or alter what is to be
if you hear me saying
Love is a little white bird
and the flight of it so fast
you can't see it
and you know it's there
only by the faint whirr of its wings
and the hush song coming so low to your ears
you fear it might be silence
and you listen keen
and you listen long
and you know it's more than silence
for you get the hush song so lovely
it hurts and cuts into your heart

and what you want
is to give more than you can get
and you'd like to write it
but it can't be written
and you'd like to sing it
but you don't dare try
because the little white bird sings it better than you can

so you listen
and while you listen you pray
and one day it's as though
a great slow wind had washed you clean and strong
inside and out

and the little white bird's hush song
is telling you nothing can harm you,
the days to come can weave in and weave out
and spin their fabrics and designs for you
and nothing can harm you
unless you change yourself in to a thing of harm
nothing can harm you.

I give you the little white bird
and my thanks for your hearing me,
and my prayers for you
my deep and silent prayers.