Blithe Spirit – Borelians Community Theatre
Charles Condomine is a successful author who is working on his current book, the main character of which is a psychic. He invites his neighbour, self-proclaimed psychic Madame Arcati, to dinner with his wife Ruth and friends, the Bradman’s, to have a séance in order to augment his research. The sceptical Charles is taken aback when Madame Arcati is actually successful in bringing forth a spirit…..Charles’ dead wife, Elvira! Nothing but trouble ensues as Charles scrambles to find a way to return Elvira to the afterlife and return to a peaceful life.
Director Joanne Norman brings a fabulous cast to this Borelian’s Community Theatre production of Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit”; veteran members of the group along with new recruits bring their combined talents to the stage at Town Hall 1873 Centre for the Performing Arts.
Opening night is tomorrow! Tickets are $20, with discounts for seniors and students.
Check out the Borelians’ website for more details: www.borelians.ca
Tickets can be purchased at www.townhall1873.ca
Occasional Articles — Snail Males (The Walrus, Mar. 2007)
Occasional Articles — The Conspiracy Against Africa (The Walrus, Nov. 2006)
An article discussing the difficulties involved with both aid and investment in Africa.
selcitracco
Who Review – Episodes 10-13 (Series 5)
Vincent and the Doctor
by Richard Curtis
Richard Curtis is a very funny writer. So I was prepared for a very funny DW episode. And it was funny, at times hilariously so. But Richard Curtis is also very good at making extremely palatable schmaltz (watch Love Actually if you need proof). But even knowing this, I wasn’t prepared for the sobfest that occurred.
Nu-Who has had a great track record when it comes to meeting historical figures: Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, to name a few. And now we can add Vincent van Gogh to this love-fest of famous artists (van Gogh pronounced with as much phlegm as you can muster – mustering phlegm…sounds disgusting). Apparently van Gogh (twice in a row is hard on your throat) is Scottish according to the TARDIS language translator, but nevermind, he looks the part, and Tony Curran plays him well, with humour and depth. I doubt this is what the real van Gogh (I’m gonna need to get a drink soon) was like, but at least the episode gives us a nice introduction into the mind of a figure who pretty much invented the idea of a tortured artist. There are also some beautiful recreations of the painter’s most famous works, which seems the obvious way to go if you were directing an episode about a visual artist, but it was still nice to see.
Clubs Led — A Culturatti Original
A simple game of cards. One rabid dog. A night of revelations…
The Culturatti presents:
Clubs Led, a film by Adam Beal and Graeme Powellllewopp emearg
Occasional Painting — The Wine of St. Martin’s Day
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525-1569)
Tempera on Linen
148cm x 270.5cm
Painted between 1565-1568
I love stories about people discovering unknown paintings by famous artists. Although to be fair, this painting wasn’t exactly unknown; it had been in the hands of a private collector, who, according to the Associated Press, acquired it from the original family who brought it to Spain in the 17th century (the Duke of Medinaceli if you’re interested).
When the current owners went to sell it last year, Sotheby’s contacted Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid to identify the work. They brought in a group of Bruegel experts (no doubt such experts sit by the Bruegel-phone just waiting for the day it will go off), who unanimously agreed the work was by the famous Dutch painter. On Sept 6 the final proof was found as restorers uncovered his signature while cleaning the painting.
Bruegel is one of my favourite artists. I absolutely love his style – there’s something both so classic and modern about it. His paintings are full of life, full of humour and at times, full of horrific images. Of course one of my most astute observations on Bruegel’s work came upon viewing one of his paintings at the AGO in Toronto.
Me: “Hm, it’s pretty small.”tniapcco llewopemearg
Who Review – Episodes 6-9 (Series 5)
Vampires of Venice
by Toby Whithouse
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Vampires are popular. So here comes Doctor Who jumping onto the pasty-faced bandwagon with its very own take on the staurophobic (although I prefer the term crucifixaphobia), blood-sucking, garlic-hating, er, vampire-type people. Except anyone with any Who-knowledge will know that the Doctor has already had a run-in with vampires. And it happened waaaay back in the pre-Twilight/True Blood year of 1980. In fact, it is a well known piece of Gallifreyan lore that the Time Lords and the vampires fought a bloody war many, many eons ago. Well known to some people more than others I would imagine.
But Vampires of Venice doesn’t actually reference the classic tale in any way that I noticed. So is it just jumping on the vampire bandwagon? Probably.
But it’s a fun tale nonetheless, perhaps leaning a little toward the slapdashery side of things, especially toward the end. It’s penned by Toby Whithouse, who also wrote the series two tale, School Reunion, a tale which much of fandom seems to love, but one that I didn’t (despite Sarah Jane, K-9, and Anthony Stewart-Head). But overall, this episode is an enjoyable romp, and the addition of Rory to the Tardis team should prove to be a great device for some some good comic banter. And I should give props for the hilarious pre-title sequence – now that’s the kind of bachelor party I would enjoy…
Occasional Articles — Bombs Over Cambodia (The Walrus, Oct. 2006)
A look at the true extent of the bombing of Cambodia that took place during the Vietnam War.
selcitracco
Women’s Fashion Faux Pas (and Things That Are Just Plain Fugling Fugly)
*Before I get going on this, I realize I’m going to have to throw down a couple of provisos:
1) I am not trying to imply that women should be only dressing for men. I realize that some women would rather be comfortable in their clothes than anything else, and that some clothes that look good aren’t comfortable, and that’s fine. What I’m going to be talking more about are clothes that women think look good but don’t, or else look so bad that it doesn’t matter how comfortable they are, they should never, ever be worn outside the house by any self-respecting person; and
2) Many men also dress horribly too, I know — I’m not trying to absolve them of their failures. If anyone wants to write a post about male blunders in the wardrobe department, be my guest.*
The problem basically boils down to this: there’s a huge difference between ‘style’ and ‘fashion,’ and many women don’t know the difference. ‘Style’ means knowing what looks good on you based on your body type and shape and knowing what doesn’t, and understanding when a certain piece of clothing really is ugly; ‘Fashion’ means whatever the magazines are telling you to buy this season. Obviously, these two concepts don’t always coincide with each other. ‘Style’ is good because it takes an individualistic and thoughtful woman to be able to realize that some things, regardless of their popularity, don’t look good and don’t need to be purchased and worn just because everyone else is; ‘Fashion’ is bad because it simply involves purchasing and wearing whatever everyone else is because the magazines told you to.
The faux pas discussed here will mostly involve the latter, and will focus on current trends (hopefully ones which will die out soon, seeing as they are trends), but also just give some advice on what to avoid in general.
Occasional Articles — Iran’s Quiet Revolution (The Walrus, Sep. 2006)
On another blog of mine, I used to post an article every month from The Walrus magazine; this was at a time when that magazine’s website was only available to subscribers and did not have commenting, so I thought it would be a good way to share the interesting things I was reading and engender discussion about them. It didn’t really work out — many people didn’t like to read them because they were ‘too long,’ and soon after The Walrus site became free and commenting was added, making the whole procedure moot anyway.
But, since I sometime have weird completionist impulses, I feel I need to keep that little collection that I had created alive somewhere, and what better place than here as Occasional Article posts? So every once in a while (mostly when I don’t feel like writing anything but still want to put a post up) I’ll throw up the links to those articles; again, this is more to fulfil the archivist within — I know that no one’s ever going to read them (which, of course, is a shame).
First up is a great article about social changes happening under the radar in Iran that often go unseen by the Western media and were part of the basis for what led to the events of the disputed election and protests in 2009.
selcitracco
The Culturatti 