I Just Wanted to Be Sure of You

My grandparents are long gone, my mother died in 1963, daddy died in 1986, and my stepmother died in 2010. I guess that, technically, I am a 66 year old orphan – but I am lucky enough to have a big network of friends who have become my family.

I often take time to reflect on what a fortunate person I am. But no more than when I spend time with my friends. As Elbert Hubbard (who?) said, “A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”

And I have gathered them from so many different parts of my life. Six of them gathered for a birthday dinner for me recently and we commented on that very thing. All six of us are linked by theater: five by Board membership at the Remy Bumppo Theatre Company and another friend who is a supporter of Remy Bumppo.

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The Review: Paying for Google Play Music All Access

I have not been been much of a fan of Google’s play into music — but today, I think I might just change my mind with my new “Google Play Music All Access” subscription.  The new service is an odd dog, to be sure, but it seems to be worth both its bark and its bite so far.

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Celebrating Canadian Space Oddity Commander Chris Hadfield

I have been following Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield’s journey in space for some time now, and on May 13th, he stepped down from his command of the International Space Station. He has been on the artificial satellite since December 2012, when he arrived as part of Expedition 35, a six-person crew.

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The Mentalist: Why Teresa Lisbon Must Be Red John

Season Six of “The Mentalist” ended last night and it was a terrific season finale.  We were left wondering about the “seven suspects” that I suspect are no longer suspects at all since Red John has identified them all to our beloved protagonist Patrick Jane.  As much as I love Australian actor Simon Baker, I am distraught that I now realize the only proper way the series can finally end is in his death at the hands of the Real Red John:  His soon-to-be-lover-and-still-boss, Teresa Lisbon.  Yes, Teresa Lisbon is Red John and always has been because, you see, it can be no other way and still honor the moral code of the series.

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Finding Your Light on Stage and in the Field

The sun is a magical light source — the mother of all luminosity — and we have tried since we first struck flame into fire, to contain and replicate its hot, molten, goodness of warmth and healing rays. “Finding Your Light” is an important duty in each of our days because sunlight, and even starlight, breaks the darkness and guides us more fully into the span of the horizon.

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The Asynchronous Lives in Parallel Project

Our lives are performed in dramatic arcs that intersect and reflect and repulse and reflex:  Are we divinely predestined or merely reflexive?  The other day, I was thinking back on when I was a young child and, feeling alone and frustrated, I would climb a cherry tree in our backyard to get away from all the noise and hubbub of earthly living.  From my vantage point 20 feet in the air, I could smell the wind and get a sense of a horizon that was far and above my current station.

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Call Me Bramble

They call me Bramble.  I have been living rough for several months since my friend died. Before that, I used to live in her house with four like me — all of whom have now disappeared along with the five large dogs that used to live outside. I was very afraid of them, they did not like us and used to hunt us in packs.  I hid inside a lot.

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Total Failure of the ASL-Only “Switched at Birth” Episode on ABC Family

Last night was supposed to be the premier of the penultimate “American Sign Language Only” episode of ABC Family Channel’s teenage soap opera, “Switched at Birth.”  Janna and I urged our ASL students to watch the episode because we believed the hype and the PR that this would be an episode to remember.  It was not.  The show was a tremendous disappointment and I’ll tell you why.

The one bright spot in the show was this “Deaf Power” banner that struck a long-ago memory in Janna when one of her teachers at the Iowa School for the Deaf said that action was forbidden on campus because it was was rude and disrespectful.  For Janna to see one hand covering an ear and the other hand raised in a fist filled her with both terrible regret at believing a repressive Hearing teacher, and terrific pride that, in the end, the Deaf will own their own place in the world.

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Tony Kushner Head Fakes History with Lincoln Screenplay

Tony Kushner is a well-known playwright, and his latest success was found in writing the screenplay for the movie — Lincoln — starring Daniel Day-Lewis.  With each chit comes a chipping, and Connecticut Congressman Joe Courtney is rightly angry that Kushner intentionally changed history to add fake drama to the movie by deciding to invent two members of the Connecticut congressional delegation who voted against the 13th Amendment to the Constitution to end slavery.  In actuality, all four members of the Connecticut representatives voted for ending slavery.  Why would Kushner so deliberately skew what really happened?

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Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and There Goes American Culture

The other day, the television was tuned to TLC — The Learning Channel — and there was a godforsaken “Best Of” show about “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” playing and, in the five minutes it took me to recover from what I was watching and actually change the channel, I was dismayed to learn just how far we’ve sunk in our cultural values.  How did Honey Boo Boo become a hit?  The reality show isn’t really even about Honey Boo Boo.  The show is about her obnoxious family, and her grotesque mother, who loves to regale us with farts and burps and detailed reports on other bodily functions.

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The Carrie Diaries Review

When the television show Sex and the City had its original run on HBO, I was neither a subscriber to HBO nor particularly interested in the sex lives of four women that lived in New York City. A mere nine years after the show ended and two movies later, there is a new television show called The Carrie Diaries based on the teenage life of Carrie Bradshaw, one of the four women from Sex and the City. It chronicles her life and struggles as a high school student in the early nineteen eighties.

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