Monday, November 23, 2015

Hamlet is for the Birds

We've attended two plays in the past month, actually films of stage plays.  The first was a Royal Shakespeare Company production of "Othello."  I had been looking forward to it, but it really left me cold.  The production was staged with a number of Black actors, so one of the reasons Othello so easily fell for Iago's lies didn't exist.

Hamlet, which we saw last week, was quite fantastic.  It was a National Theatre production, with Benedict Cumberbatch in the leading role.  He was great, as was the actress (Sian Brooke) who played Ophelia. You could see Ophelia coming apart as the play progressed from scene to scene.

But why was Hamlet for the birds?  Well, during intermission a bird (or several birds, we couldn't really tell) either woke up or came in the door, and began flying around and around and swooping over the audience and across the screen.  That continued for awhile and was very distracting, but finally the bird(s) must have gotten tired and settled down somewhere so we could enjoy the rest of the play in peace.


I Need to Learn to Keep my Mouth Shut

Well, several months ago, our pastor asked for suggestions for topics for adult Sunday school.  I gave that some thought, and emailed her with some suggestions.  Her response?  She thanked me for my suggestions and asked if I would be interested in leading some sessions.

So, I'm in the midst of three sessions on forgiveness.  For the first session, we talked about what forgiveness is and why it is better than revenge.  For the second session, we talked about when to forgive.  And next Sunday will be the final session, on how to forgive.

Rain Rain Go Away

The  last week in September we were in Myrtle Beach for the annual American Needlepoint Guild Seminar.  The forecast was for rain, and it turned into more rain than expected.  Hurricane Jouquin stayed offshore, but a storm front stayed over South Carolina and dumped rain and more rain and more rain.   Our hotel was actually only a couple of blocks to the beach, but I never made it out of the hotel until Day 4, and that was just to walk across the entrance to see a plaque.  We tried to see the lunar eclipse on Sunday night, but just as the eclipse started, the clouds rolled in, so there was nothing to see.

The classes were great.  I took a four-day class by Joan Thomasson called "Tidal Textures," which involved learning how to use heat transfer paints to paint a canvas, then using our creativity to stitch a tidal pool of shells, sand and water. Each of our canvases turned out quite different; it was fun looking to see what other students were doing.

Once I got home, I put away my canvas from class, considering it a "doodle" or "practice" canvas and started over.  Here's my painted canvas, with shells scattered about: real shells from Atlantic City, Clearwater Beach, San Francisco, and Myrtle Beach.  The white shells are paper cutouts of shells I will stitch.  I am currently working on stitching the background water and sand.  This is the first canvas that I'm creating as I go along, as opposed to following a pattern that someone else created.
The beginning of my Tidal Textures, class taught by Joan Thomasson at ANG Seminar
The other class I took was a one-day class, taught by Margaret Kinsey, called "Three Leaves."  It was an introduction to using gold threads.