Wombats and Ends

Little has happened round here of late. That's a big change from the norm; usually very little happens.

Last night we saw Fences at the South Coast Rep. Prior to this, I'd read only one of August Wilson's plays (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom) which did a lot more for me than I thought it would. I expected a doctrinaire, agenda-driven piece of rhetoric, but I got a lot more.

Fences did not live up to Ma Rainey. Acting was excellent but both the directing and the writing let us down. The first act did everything a good first act should, but the second act let it all fall apart.

The moral is: don't ever leave your house.

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There's a new TV show on BBC America that all you need to watch. It's called the In-Betweeners. It's about a group of semi-misfit high school boys and their attempts to find...all the things that high school boys attempt to find. It's crude, and funny, and vulnerable and strangely sweet. Well-written, well-acted--excellent all around. It's on Wednesdays, I believe.

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The wife leaves tomorrow for a medical conference. A week of loneliness is on the horizon. I'll watch Yes, Minister, and finish rereading Vanity Fair and maybe subject myself to Last Year at Marienbad. (Why am I such a Europhile where art is concerned?) The long-awaited movie list is on hold until I cross about ten more names off the list of "Films I Need to See." Marienbad is one (barely). Last week I watched Sans Soleil, which makes a lot of critics' top ten lists for the best ever. Tarkovsky-esque, surreal, poetic and mindbending though it was, I doubt it makes my Top Fifty. (There's not much room on there to be honest--all of the Police Academy Movies take up most of the space).

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The big trip for the year has been planned. In May we're going to Kauai (Hawaiian for "Island." No, not really). Apparently near where we'll be staying served as the Bali Hai in the film version of South Pacific. I am determined to take a surfing lesson while there. Because if there is one single group of people in THIS WORLD with whom I identify, it's surfers.