Forty years, semester by semester of a journal publishing creative work is very impressive to me. The Journal can be found at the link. I've been writing for 21 or is it 22 years, not counting all my diaries and journals during the time I make it my own way without classes or instructors, just do the writing. Diaries are how I forced myself into college because I bemoaned so many things and college offered the answer. Below are some of the journals I mine now and then for material.

About Poetry on the Journal

I saw a lot of columnar poems, short pithy sentence structure that enforces sharp word use and offers a simple check on rhythm. I saw a lot of violence, people imagining death from some perspective. Some of the poems slipped from reality into a different fantasy space that was more appealing than the confrontation with violence. I wonder why? Were all of these generated by the same theme, I wondered?

About Fiction on the Journal

Chase Burke's Crash Landing melds the writing world with the day to day world in a quick flash fiction piece, mostly in reality space. Maggie Su's piece Echolocation and RickCanning's Then He Wished She Hadn't offered views of modern relationships that made me happy to be married. 

About Nonfiction on the Journal

I especially liked how most of the nonfiction pieces couldn't really be identified as nonfiction, the prose was seamless in the active portrayal of events. I especially liked Rough Outline for Essay on Bikes by Elizabeth O'Brien using events from story plotting as a key to entry into the piece about a relationship with a positive model for relationships formed out of a friendship with an antagonist who turns benefactress but who suffers from addiction and Sabriel Parker's This is How We Separate, an emotional, sensual flash fiction piece, which says she probably learned marriage easier than I, who always wanted to be myself not Bob and I, but now I've fallen into it as inextricably connected.

I found I liked the quality of the material in The Journal, happy to finally have a few days to read again.

Last night we saw the Broadway in Orlando  production of Sound of Music At the Dr Phillips Center for Performing Arts in Orlando. When I was in second grade, the movie version came out starring Julie Andrews as Maria. I attended Catholic School at St. Anthony in Renton and we used two of the songs in our glee class, so I learned all the words.

The Sound of Music is one of those tales that fit many tastes--fun for children, love story for couples, a little politics about the Nazis, challenges so many people attended. A full house is always fun to see. The music fit in naturally with the play.

Kerstin Anderson who played Maria and Ben Davis who played Captain Georg von Trapp, both sing well, play romantic well, and capture the mannerisms of Austrian locals. The Mother Abbess played by Ashley Brown showed a lot of strength. The children act their parts well and sing well too. The rest of the cast are well matched to these stars.

The staging was well managed; the props coming into and out of view rather seamlessly and has a very beautiful church and alp scener y, and the household seems like that of quite wealthy persons.

If you can get tickets, doubt you will be sorry, it's a winner. But then, Rogers and Hammerstein were known for their well loved plays.

Bob and I decided to check out the Orlando Ballet and their performance of Giselle on October 30, 2015, which will continue through November 2. It was our first time seeing this young company of dancers. We were long time season ticket holders at Seattle's Pacific Northwest Ballet because I love seeing fine dancers, love the mythic quality of the old classics and like to see some startling arrangements by young and talented choreographers.

Bob was sold by the idea that the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra was playing for the first season as accompaniment to the Orlando Ballet. We were also long time season ticket holders for the Seattle Symphony--I got sold on the Seattle Symphony by Conductor Gerard Schwarz's inexpensive Musically Speaking Series since they played Sunday at 2 pm and I'd get a good walk around Seattle Center fountain, sample the Seattle fudge, listen to whoever was jamming and watch the children chase the balloons around. I loved it as a feed the muse act for my poetry--this one below a double haiku.

AT FOUNTAINS EDGE
 
 
         peering through
       dusky branch reaches
           lacy leaves
         fluting staccato
      arches among you, lone I
         on lavender eve

The Musically Speaking Series took a piece of music and tore it apart and Gerard Schwarz would give us history about the composer, indicate where the leitmotif's came in and what they signified, introduces us to the melodies played by various instruments and give us a ton of information before playing the piece entirely. But that was Seattle and I meant to write about Giselle danced by the Orlando Ballet.

Giselle is not the easiest of dances to perform, chiefly because the piece is an so slow, adagio. The holds and poses and movements take great strength and balance. Quicker dances require sharpness, lightness and training, but adagio is excruciating on the muscles. The company performed really well. There were only a couple slight mishaps, one missed jump, and some slow footwork overall and a shaky start for the village couple.

I was very impressed. I remember Pacific Northwest Ballet snowflakes in the Nutcracker that couldn't keep up with the music because they were chubby but that was years ago when they were just starting out. These dancers in the Orlando ballet look very well trained. Tonight's leading roles were danced by guest artists for season Adiairys Almeida and Joseph Gatti and they were a delight as Giselle and Albrecht. The kids were fun as flag bearers. Also Andras Ronai as Hilarion did some strong dancing. Kate-Lynn Robichaux and Arcadian Broad did a good pas de deux as the village couple when they finally got caught up with the music. All the corps dancing went well. Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis, (a suitable bunch of spirit sorts near Halloween), danced by Chiaki Yasukawa was a little stiff, but strong and dramatic and very cold to young lovers.

I also was very impressed by the Orlando Philharmonic which sounded magical and captured the heartbreak of the tragic love story very well. Music director Eric Jacobsen led some awesome musicians, I enjoyed it very much. I was also delighted to see the story in the playbill, something that Broadway Across America could use, even though I looked up the story of Giselle in Wikipedia before I went.

I liked the little German village in fall and the suitably eerie graveyard setting for each of the two acts. ​

Here's a sample of Eric Jacobsen on cello, not the best sound quality in this video but amazing playing:

The story of Die Feen tells of a love affair between the King of a country, and the Ada, Queen of the Fairies, played by Elisabet Strid at Leipzig Oper but unfortunately, their love had to be tested by fairydom. 

The King, Arindal, was thrown out of fairyland after breaking his vow to not ask her name before eight years. Then, he is allowed to see her again, just at the same time his country is threatened by the enemy, the Queen Lora, his sister is losing, convincingly sung by Eun Yee You. His loyal friends urge him to return. He arrives back and heartens his troops, while the Queen's fiance Morald, sung by Mathias Hausmann returns to fight. 

But Fairydom thinks he hasn't been tried enough so he has to swear not to curse Ada the next day. He swears he'll be true, but the nasty fairies connive with the evil Harold and accuse Ada of being a witch that throws her children into the flames. So of course the King curses Ada and she's turned into a stone. So the King becomes maddened by his loss, even though his children are returned safely. 

Eventually, the fairies (Zemina sung by Magdalena Hinterdobler and Farzana sung by Jean Broekhuizen) have pity on him (and everyone else) and lead him off to win his wife back. He has to fight awful robot men which he does, but still she is locked in stone, so he sings her the best song ever and she is returned. By this he wins immortality and his family and wife back, and he gives up his kingship so his sister and her fiance can marry and continue being King and Queen. The moral appears to be that one must be very careful about what one commits to do.

The tale is rather complicated  *See the libretto) so the five hour staging of the show by Leipzig Oper is well understandable as necessary. The seats at Leipzig Oper is very comfortable and with room between seat columns for people to walk past while you sit, the acoustics very nice. The twenty-minute breaks serve to keep you willing to listen. 

The way the Leipzig Oper staged the play seemed to use fantasy on four levels of metaphor--
1) the fantasy world of fairies
2) the fantasy world we create when we listen to music or read literature
3) the way love creates a fantasy world where we live
4) what we put into our lives and imagination comes back to us in reality 

In the opening of the opera, the King is with his family and friends over dinner when he turns on the music. The King is a very annoying character who is wishy-washy and won't fight for his country or stick to his avowal of love, giving his word to things he doesn't mean to keep. The King, Arindal, was played by Arnold Bezuyan and it was a bit frustrating to see him hold back and stay in character.

In the real life in which he lives, he yearns for the true fantasy love of the opera and while he listens, his whole family escapes. As he listens to the tale unfold, he's pushed and pushed to commit more to his fantasy world, to enter into it and imagine himself taking over, making the fantasy into real life. This is how all authors want to work with their audience, pulling them in to the role further and further and gave the entire presentation a very contemporary feel.

The staging of Tristan and Isolde at the Berlin Deutsch Opera was innovative. They moved the place settings to a modern home, deluxe ship cabin and a cozy fire side room. Clothing was modern too. The first startling oddity was a naked woman passing through, followed by a young boy sitting with a paper boat. Needles are used to shoot up the love potion and poor Isolde gets over ogled by young men who laugh at her loss of fiance. In act two, a young male is naked and digs a grave. Act three is set up as an old folks home. 

The overall impression becomes not just that the love story of Tristan and Isolde is timeless, but it is the story of all of our passions, addictions, loves, and losses, because you see others acting as the lover, the bearer of a bad mistake, the stupidity of shooting up, the eventual aging of all the cast. It was somewhat funky but I like the added notions so I would say it worked very well.

I noticed how intensely dramatic Richard Wagner was in his opera scenes. Act 1, Isolde is twisted with loss for her lover, kindness for an ill man, hatred of her enemy, unexpected love, and prideful at the perceived scorn by which she views Tristan's treatment of her. Act 2 helps explain away his guilt, giving him unexpected honor by giving up what he most loves. The love potion comes off as a reason for revealing truth rather than anything inherent. Act 2 twists impatient lovers, scared, and defiant, loving unto ecstacy, then horrified by being caught, ridiculed by friends, and denounced and guilted by King Mark. Then the rush into having his friend run the sword into Tristan.

In Act 3, you have pain, loss, expectant hope that is denied and denied and denied while friends coddle and impatience and remembered soaring love and then release. So many emotions all playing off of each other. 

The Berlin  Deutsch Opera used both English and German texts shown above stage. It helped seeing them both because I learned how much Wagner had used repetition and rhyme to help hammer home the messages. The dialogue between singers also had a sing and repeat at times, too.

The cast was spectacular. I worried that I wouldn't like the King Mark here as well as when it was sung in Seattle but afterwards I thought Liang Li did a fantastic and much better orated and resonant performance. Unlike the Seattle Opera performance I had attended, the baritone role though seemed split between King Mark and friend Kurwenal, sung by Egils Silins who was very impressive also. Nina Stemme's soprano as Isolde was suitably soaring in the most ecstatic parts. Tristan played by Stephen Gould seemed heroic at times but weak too in his denials of his needs, he was especially effective and sympathetic playing the ill old man. 

Last night's opening performance of Ghost:The Musical was a lovely musical version of the movie that many of us saw a decade back that featured Whoopi Goldberg as the con artist psychic. The Musical offered plenty of stage craft pizazz while offering a play consistent with the movie. The story is fairly simple but relies on the tragic love story of a young couple Sam Wheat, a banker, and his girlfriend, Molly Jenson, an artist.

Sam Wheat, played by actor Steven Grant Douglas, is a kooky amateur musician, ardent lover, stilted in his manners and somewhat distracted at work. He sings a fun take on "Unchained Melody" which is featured several times in several forms.

Molly Jenson, played by Katie Postotnik, sings heartfelt arias that soar and are pretty much understandable by the audience. She plays a heartbroken lover, friend and is somewhat intimidated by the arrival of psychic Odd Mae Brown.

The ghosts are quite convincing songsters and annoyances, but the Subway Ghost is a standout with aid from terrific sound effects.  His instruction scene comes off garbled due to less well done interactions with the sound system.

Oda Mae Brown, played by Carla R. Stewart is introduced with two flunkies plying the trade against Mrs. Santiago. The scene is a smash. This play's Oda Mae is funky, flustered, argumentative, kind.

If only the special effects for good and bad deaths worked the same way in real life, the world might be a better place.

The cast did a great job staying on focus with the love story despite all the complications of the crime and other realm subplots.

Last night was opening night for War Horse At the Bob Carr Center for Performing Arts. The show is a National Theatre of Great Britain production. So what did I think?

Wow! Really stunning staging makes the audience forget the props and feel like they are amidst World War I events taking place in England and France. Without too garish effects but with plenty of booms and blasts and weapon discharge, I found myself feeling for the character's in this horrible setting.

The story follows the making of a friendship between young Albert (Michael Watt Cox) and a young Quarter Horse he names Joey. The friendship is strong enough that when Joey is sold to the army, Albert goes after him, enlisting in the army at only 16 years old. The real story is about the tragedy of war, wonderfully illustrated.

How does this company get horses on the stage? They use the most realistic puppets I've ever encountered.  At first I thought that it would seem hokey to use puppets. Wrong. Although the audience sees the puppeteers, they soon fade into the background because they skillfully portray the horses enough they seem lifelike. Bravo to Maori Babb, Catherine Gowl, Nick Lamedica (young Joey) , Jon Hoche,  Brian Robert Burns, Jessica Krueger (Joey), Jon Riddleberger, Harman Bengel, Gregory Manley (Top thorn  and the goose) etc. They turned me into a believer.

John Milosich as the Song Man has a wonderful singing voice that captures local flavor and provides a commentary that is subtle and useful.

The cast has many fine characters who portray themes of family, trust issues, loss and grief, horror, humanity within war, and many more.

If the rest of the performances are like last night, there are still seats available. This is definitely worth going to

I guess I have been distracted for the past week or so by the 2014 Olympics on NBC. I don't usually watch much television, but this has allowed me and my husband to connect and watch some really fabulous athletes risk all.

My favorite sports are the iceskating events and the snowboarding and skiing jumps.  I like the grace and musicality as well as athleticism. The races are fun but they seem so much less a matter of will and desire.

I read about Pussy Riot at the Olympics--it seemed like a publicity stunt. It was awful to have them told go away in such a matter, but they did know what to expect. I checked out their music--cranking but sort of raunchy sounding--I couldn't understand the Russian.

I guess the older I get the less likely I will be a rebel beating my head against a wall. Sometimes positive efforts to show desire, hope, goodwill etc. seem much less destructive.No one will forget Adelina Sotnikova, for instance, what beauty.

I bought my first Android Cell Phone with 4GL service and the first thing my neighbor said was,  "Which one did you get?"

When I told her, she immediately groaned. "Oh, not that one! I had to take mine back after two weeks when the battery died."

Well, I was stubborn and clung to what little functionality I could use on the thing but I always had troubles with it freezing, applications crashing and the battery needing to be plugged in almost permanently.

Now that I have my new Galaxy Note 3 Android Cell phone with lots and lots of memory (only 32 Gig plus a 32 Gig chip inserted) I have none of the problems I used to have.

What I especially like:

• single touch answer phone that bypasses the password and when you hang up sends you back to the password screen. This means anyone can answer and I don't have to struggle to figure out what I'm supposed to do next
• I can delete message conversations
• typing mode has guess words although it dumps my word half the time (see what I don't like next)
• download of apps from many places including play store
• long battery life
• camera and video mode, and in enhanced mode, it will zoom up and down
• easy to define settings
• I can actually hear most voices
• screen where I can dump apps that I don't like
• maps--we're always trying to find the right road so this helps us a lot in Florida since we're still relatively new

What I don't really like:

• a lot of the time I can't rotate the keyboard to enter text with the larger letters
• guess mode replaces my words (I finally figured out it saves what I type so with one touch it will go back to what I wanted)
• the big ad on the front page (did I ask for that?)
• my apps work quickly and easily

So what Apps help a writer? Here is my basic list:

• Foursquare
• Yelp
• Flickr
• Instagram
• Foodspotter
• Quora
• Trip Advisor
• Facebook
• Kindle Reader
• Urban Spoon

With these apps, I can do some of my background social media work on the road, saying hi, clicking like, sharing cool messages, taking photos and coding them, and entering reviews. There's often a lot of wasted time in the car anyway, so might as well get it done.

My parent's always used the term, "I'm just being facetious" and I used it in a conversation with my husband and eventually we realized we knew the meaning but not to the level of precision that is offered via a definition. 

My husband loves giant dictionaries so of course he looked the words up and we discussed them (he was closer to it than I). He studied with a teacher at Ohio State who had the nerve to give him a grade less than an A on an essay. When he asked why, the instructor told him the essay was poorly written, outlined some of the problems and so he went off and rewrote it and turned it in. When he still did not get an A, he asked why? The instructor replied, because you didn't do it right the first time. My husband never forgot the lesson. Because of this, I often rely on his editing to check my work for my worst habits.

I could rant about perfection when we are all supposed to be imperfect humans capable of mistakes or the inequities of grades upon one's future, but that would keep me off my topic.

So what is the difference between facetious, ironic, sardonic, wry and sarcastic?

I had someone tell me I was sarcastic recently and it turns out the terms was used wrong because sarcasm is intended to hurt, whereas I had made a positive statement about something and there was no intention to hurt at all. Because I referred to the item in an exaggerated fashion, I was in fact using irony.

A facetious statement is one said jokingly, with light humor, intending to be frivolous, or amusing.

An ironic statement is one of feigned ignorance, often meaning the opposite of the literal sense.

A sarcastic statement is a mean statement, meant to hurt someone and marked by bitterness, is caustic i.e. intended to sting.

A sardonic statement expresses derision, comtempt, a cynical attitude and is negative or cutting.

A wry statement is often mischievous, perverse or contrary to the right meaning, wrong-headed or twisted, sometimes with bitterness.

The distinction can be minimal and hard to follow in conversations, especially over the internet when there is no facial expression or tone to carry the proper sense in the way the words are stated. 

Still, the value of humor is to disarm people and allow them to laugh at themselves. If humor is used against oneself, then damage is less likely. Humor breaks barriers between people and allows a level of honesty that seldom arises in formal settings.

On the internet, the use of lol, or laughing out loud, ha ha, or just kidding or teasing, also indicates there was no harm meant.