Dec 21 2009
I rarely post videos, so you know this has to be good.
YouTube had a wonderful video called Silent Monks Sing Hallelujah. It is wonderful. It will make you smile. It will make you laugh. It will make you feel like hugging someone.
Check it out.
Dec 07 2007
Last night was the annual Christmas Date with one of my goodest friends. Instead of exchanging gifts, we go out on the town for a nice dinner and some sort of cultural event.
This year, we purchased tickets for Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol. It was held at the Raleigh Little Theater. RLT actually has several stages, and this one was held in the tiniest one. The audience sat on 3 sides, and those of us in the front row had to make sure our feet weren’t in the way of the actors - that’s how close to the action we were. It was a very intimate setting, and it was very well done.
There was no set. Only 4 actors. The narration, of which there was quite a lot, was interestingly done - each actor narrated the parts about himself. Because there was no set, the script and the actors had the huge job of describing things to the audience. This troupe did an amazing job. Especially Izzy Burger as The Bogle.
It does start off a little strange and a little slow. Jacob Marley has died, and he’s in hell. It’s pretty weird. There is a good bit of time explaining the types of punishments in hell, how hell works, and what the spirit world can and can’t do to affect things in the real world. You might start to wonder where this is all going, and how this relates to Christmas. It becomes relevant, however, when Marley is finally given his assignment at the end of the first of two acts - change the heart of Scrooge. Now your new understanding of the spirit world becomes important in understanding the schemes they come up with.
It is fascinating how this perspective changes the original story without changing it at all, and even makes it a little better. I definitely recommend it!
Aug 28 2007
“To Audrey, who has always believed in dragons.”
That is what i wanted George R. R. Martin to write in my copy of A Feast For Crows, his latest novel in his series A Song of Ice and Fire. What he actually wrote was a mostly legible “To Audrey, all good wishes,” followed by a decidedly NOT legible autograph. It was crowded, the line was long, and i guess inscriptions longer than three words would have been too much to ask. I shouldn’t complain - from what i could tell, most fans only got the illegible signature.
GRRM is my most favorite author of my most favorite series. My awesome brother (well, one of them; i have two awesome brothers) for my birthday gave me a ticket to TriniCon, a fantasy literature and gaming conference in the Triangle. GRRM was the featured literary personality. I have never been into the RPG stuff, but apparently some people take it quite seriously! There were all sorts of costumes. Most prevalent were Star Wars characters, but the strangest were the gang of evil foxes.
Favorite part - listening to GRRM read from the hopefully-soon-to-be-released next book in his series, A Dance With Dragons.
