I have to say BRAVO to my friend, Greta Oblesby, who just received a most excellent review yesterday for her performance in August Wilson's "Piano Lesson" currently playing at the Penumbra Theater.
A couple excepts:
"After attending Marion McClinton's 1993 production of "The Piano Lesson" at Penumbra Theatre, playwright August Wilson remarked that he had seen the work's definitive staging. If he were alive today, he might reconsider.""At Penumbra, much of the credit for the strength of this "Piano Lesson" goes to Greta Oglesby." Let me know who wants to go catch this show with me between now & March 16th!
So Cabo was mostly relaxing in the sun: pool, beach, bar, then back again. Absolutely spectacular weather! So really not much to write home about. I did have to get online once to finish a lab assignment for my stats class, but I didn't check email or otherwise do any work. :) Four days was perfect - any longer & the work would have piled up back here too much. Just enough time to catch up on sleep & get a tan.
I'm off tomorrow with friends to celebrate our impending 40th b-days in Mexico. I do not intend to post from Cabo - but the R&R might bring me some perspective on life that will be interesting to share when we return. Or I might just get tan & empty my brain for a few days - we'll see!
Susan Lenfestey - my neighbor for many years growing up - wrote a column recently in the Strib called "What Would Molly Do?" in which she shared that she wishes Molly Ivins was still around to give her perspective on the current presidential race. I have had the same longing.Molly Ivins always told it like it was - whether you liked her brand of politics of not. I'm sure folks in Texas and around the country have called her lots of things, but I doubt anyone ever called her a liar.
One interesting fact that Lenfestey found but I had somehow missed in '06 was that Ivins apparently wrote in a Jan '06 column: "I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president. Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation, and equivocation."
Wow - how did I miss that two years ago?
Ivins also wrote a piece about Gene McCarthy that - while not intended to be a comparison to Obama, holds an interesting echo from the 60's that speaks to our needs in America today:
"There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief. If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it."Substitute Illinois for Minnesota, as Lenfestey did, and it's no surprise that Molly Ivins was ahead of her time in predicting exactly the wave of Obama support that we're witnessing with his win of three more states this weekend.
Amazing woman. No wonder we miss her!
I was blown away last night by a excellent performance of Sam Roberson's "Same Difference" at the Illusion Theater downtown. Thanks to my work as a high school arts program coordinator in recent years, I still get offers like comp tickets to great local plays. :)
Same Difference is about what it means to be young and black in America - how two different young black men see, interpret, and battle the stereotypes that create great pressure on them. It focuses on two college freshmen and how they are choosing to interact with the world around them - a fascinating addition to the courageous conversations educators have been engaged with around race in recent years.
I loved this show - and THEN I found out in chatting with them afterward that one of the stars, Darien Johnson, is the brother of a former student of mine and a graduate of Mpls North HS - fun connections. The other, Jermaine Small, was a college friend of the playwright and recruited from New York to come play this role when the play was picked up by Illusion. I suspect that the life experiences of both young men have influenced their abilities to embrace these roles.
It's being staged locally through the end of the month - here's the schedule - GO SEE IT!
I attended the citizenship oath ceremony at the Federal Courthouse Building in downtown Mpls today - and there were some aspects of it that were really nice. They listed all the countries the new citizens were from, and it was quite a range for such a frosty state! There were 1 to 4 people from each of the following countries:
Bangladesh
Belarus
Cambodia
China
Columbia
El Salvador
Ethiopia
Germany
Ghana
Guatemala
Guyana
Hong Kong
India
Iran
Korea (I guess that means South?)
Laos
Liberia
Malaysia
Malta
Mexico
Moldova
Nigeria
Philippines
Russia
Somalia
South Africa
Spain
Thailand
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
Venezuela
Vietnam
So that was pretty cool. I like the idea that people from all different places around the world are choosing to make their home here in the Twin Cities.
But it makes me angry too, on behalf of all the people who are denied this opportunity! There are VERY few people in this country whose ancestry is 100% Native American, and those are not the people we hear screaming about immigration. I don't think there should be such a thing as an illegal immigrant. I think we should let anyone in who wants to come. I really do. I think everyone deserves a chance at the American Dream. We don't have to extend welfare or even health care - those are separate issues - but I think we need to LET FOLKS IN. Maybe if we had a better attitude about the rest of the world, the rest of the world would have a better attitude about us, and we wouldn't have to worry about terrorism...
We are an incredibly blessed nation. We can afford to be more generous!
From a random email that was forwarded to me:
I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be.
Amen!
I heard from 3 friends today about the Obama rally at the Target Center yesterday, all very enthusiastic. Melissa wrote about it - interesting observations "in the moment."
As I have written before, I have mixed feelings about Obama. I worry that he's more abut inspiration than the work of the job, and that if he actually wins he'll never live up to expectations and will be picked apart like crazy. I don't think he will end racism - I think racism will eat him alive.
But I realized recently that black men got the vote several decades before women did in this country, so I suppose it follows that a black man should attain the presidency before a woman.
Although I will support him fully if he wins the nomination, I think that Hillary Clinton would do a fantastic job of restoring America's global reputation and of taking us into the next era. I just want her to get the chance.
I have to say BRAVO to my friend, Greta Oblesby, who just received a most excellent review yesterday for her performance in August Wilson's "Piano Lesson" currently playing at the Penumbra Theater.
