Translations

I saw a play the other day. Quite a good play. A play that had a reason, well performed, well produced and without gimmicks. A refreshing experience.

There are a million Irish plays in the world. The Irish are prolific writers, and most of the work out there is self pitying maudlin crap to be quite fair. Crap. And no one does self pity like the Irish.

Brian Friel is, on the other hand, like George Bernard Shaw, a good writer.

Not only was "Translations" a good play, and as I say well done, it was nostalgic. Peter Wright, one of the best directors and teachers I have ever had, had a fondness for Irish plays, he himself being a dark Irish American play wright. And so at RWU we always had at least one Irish play in the season.

My first introduction to my undergrad was working on Peter's production of "The Clearing" in high school. I remember sitting upside down on the top of a ladder stapling burlap sacking from the ceiling (For some reason burlap sacking is the standard set dressing for Irish plays) and coming into the theatre to see "Translations" smelled wonderfully like that experience. (The walls being hung with burlap sacking).

Also, it was wonderfully refreshing to see an honest straightforward realistic play from my own culture. I know what happens in Ireland in the 1700s. I do not need the potato famine explained to me. I understand the subtext in reference by the author to events and concepts and the rolling tragedy of the history he describes. It is mine. Though I am not Irish, I am American, my flavor of American is flavored by that history.

Culture is interesting. We spend so much time studying other people's we often forget to look back on our own. And don't realize how sometimes they are not so dissimilar.

It's midnight now. I must to bed. More to come on this subject in future.

"January is Bustin' Out All Over!"

Spring.

The weather in Hawai'i is beautiful. I have no issue with the weather day to day. But there is no spring in the true northeastern sense that induced Richard Rogers to write the exuberant lyrics to "June is Bustin' out All Over!"

My experience of return to Hawai'i was spring. I love the winter, but what I love most about the seasons is the change. Summer weather is dull if not taken in context. The pleasure of the weather is increased by the experience of winter and the knowledge of its transience. The turning of the seasons clears the slate for the new year and gives us a true appreciation of all weathers good or bad.

Not to say that Hawaiian seasons are non existent or "wrong". They are what they are. But they are not of my native clime, and exist in contradiction to my experience of the world.

I have to remember to use '09 on my checks now!

Life is life. You spend most of your time living it. Which is to say, you spend most of your time going grocery shopping, walking to work, or school, worrying about homework or complaining about the heat/cold etc. One is absorbed by the mundane in the instant and doesn't always look back and realize what one has lived.

I am in the middle of scanning and digitalizing my photos from my stay in London and München and doing so has cast me into a retrospective.

I mean holy schnikies! (Is there really a proper spelling for that word? If there is someone tell me I want to know) London! München! Salzberg! The Orkneys! And I'm living in Hawai'i for goodness sake! (I never even wanted to live in Hawai'i! Weird? Yeah OK) And I'm only 25.

Yeah, sure life may drag or even suck every once in a while, but damn if this is where I've been I wonder where I'm going next!

Happy New Year!

On temperate adjustment

It is a cold cold winter here in New England this year.

I personally have lived in the subtropics for about three years now, though I was born in the north east, and one of the things everyone complains about when they go home to visit more temperate climes is how much their blood has thinned living in the land of the coco palm.

I don't find that to be the case. In fact, it is interesting how little my system is shocked by the drastic change in climate. Now, don't get me wrong, six degrees is cold. But six degrees has always been cold. It just doesn't seem any colder than it has always been.

Interestingly enough what has been effected is entirely external. I spent the first three days with painfully chapped lips, from which I never suffer, even in the winters. My skin, which usually has time to acclimate itself to the cold was very shocked indeed. I will be curious to see whether it will become extraordinarily greasy when I return to more balmy climes. I do recall having that sort of problem when first I moved.

We will see.

Ironicly enough, my house in the winter is 63 degrees, which is pretty cold. I wear sweat pants socks a T-shirt, sweater, and fleece in doors. My classroom back in the tropics is air conditioned to 58 degrees. Generally, I wear light cotton pants, a T-shirt or tank top, and sandals in the tropics...

Someone somewhere is crazy. And he's running building operations for the university.