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ONCE UPON AN ATOM BOMB
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Theatre
- Hits: 2105
We'd intended to go on Sunday, but the combination of "Fool for Love" & "Rampart" proved too depressing.
So we're trying again. The boy's informed me that the crew of this play overlaps the crew of one he's involved with at school, and so there are some political points to be gained. We're early, outside the theatre, it's a contrast in neighborhoods - across the street are luxury condos, on this side of the street a mostly vacant lot with the wreck of a church passing for the theatre.
A few trees, neon pink condoms scattered around the trunk, "Look for rocks of crack cocaine" I tell the boy, it's that sort of area, shingles from the roof of the church litter the ground, props - an old guillotine? stand outside it, cigarette butts, a broken fence, this is why I like theatre folk, they subscribe to similar ideals of housekeeping.
We're early, the only ones there, the front door is locked and I'm beginning to doubt if there's even a play, maybe I got my dates wrong?
We wait, eventually the door is opened at 7:45, other theatre goers show up.
Inside, the theatre resembles nothing so much as a charity bazaar, piles of clothing and props poorly concealed with blankets and drapes, a few - perhaps 50 - folding chairs, small stage. It's good in it's way, but it must be hell to keep warm in the winter, the boy tells me that apparently they're being moved...
The Play, combination of mixed media, live actors and puppetry, centering in an abstract way upon a young girl in the 40's (50's?) whose life is torn apart by an Atom Bomb and the death of her mother. Projected imagery culled from pop-culture classics, "duck and cover" videos, it's all in all a worthwhile trip to the theatre. Short, running at about 70 minutes, and "pay what you can" pricing, which seemed to be a big lure with much of the audience. Local theatre worth supporting.
Link: Greenfools Theatre
Bring back the 40 hour work week
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 1479
Merely an idea I've long been a fan of, obvious after it's fashion, but I'm in hell after all and the hours there are 24/7...
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 1891
"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns."
Finally finished. For some reason the second reading took far, far longer than the first - most probably the job. A masterpiece.
train into London
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1748
Scratchy film reel, photoshop filters, buildings passing as seen from a train.
I'm coming into London, London not London, there's St. Pauls and the Opera House, great architecture writ large upon the landscape of childhood, buildings behind buildings, not London but the small town where I grew up, the prairie architecture replaced with grand old European architecture, recognizing both the buildings and the map upon which they stand, central park and the library, London not london...
Now I'm flying, swooping more, finding high buildings to leap off of, falling and then at the last moment swooping, someone is chasing me but I'm busy with this, fly up, find another perch, jump and swoop again...
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