Month: March 2018

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Utah Shakespeare Festival 2018

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Another great season of theater in southern Utah is approaching. Offerings this year include perennial favorites The Merchant of Venice and The Merry Wives of Windsor as well as Henry VI Part One and Othello. No doubt the latter will be great; I, alas, cannot go to it. Othello for me is too tragic, Iago too evil, the pathos too deep. It is, as it were, a tear too far for me. The others, though, “Bravo!” in advance, especially The Merry Wives, a downright rollicking play.

Other offerings include Roger Miller’s Big River, a musical depiction of Huckleberry Finn; The Foreigner, about a visitor who pretends to not speak English and so overhears what he shouldn’t (reminiscent of What The Deaf Man Heard); The Liar, about a master who cannot tell the truth and a servant who cannot lie (oh, the possibilities!); An Iliad, about, well that’s obvious; and Pearl’s In The House, a musical about the great Pearl Bailey.

The award-winning Utah Shakespeare Festival is reliably excellent, so start making plans now for a week, or long weekend, of great theater starting June 28 and lasting through September 8, with an abbreviated Fall schedule from September 11 through October 13. Please visit the following site for more details and to reserve your tickets:

https://www.bard.org/

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Best Wishes!

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Hoaka Delos Reyes, Master Stone Carver

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The interaction of great artists with their chosen medium is the stuff of lore and not a little mystical. Michelangelo spoke of seeing the figure in a block and carving away stone to free it. Similarly, Hawaiian artist Hoaka Delos Reyes is quoted  as saying about his learning of the craft, “The stone started to shape me, not the other way around.” It all started many years ago when his son asked him to make a stone poi pounder for him, an easy request for a man who was a builder in stone and cement. Then came the condition, his son wanted it to be genuine, made the old way, no modern tools. What followed is related in the article, “The Stone Caller” by Shannon Wianecki in the February/March issue of Hana Hou!, the inflight magazine of Hawaiian Airlines.

It is the story of a man responding to a calling, for Hoaka soon found there was only one man who knew the old way of working stone, George Fujinaga, a crusty old  stone carver who looked askance at young men who naively wished to learn the art in a weekend. It proved to be a schooling of many years. That meant learning the types of stones, learning to recognize their spirits, learning how to work them and with them, how to “listen to them”, how to call to them and hear their answer. In the process the artist comes to know himself as well.

The day came when the apprentice’s skill exceeded his master’s. Not long after that, George passed away, but not before asking his wife to tell Hoaka that “he had been waiting for you all his life. Now he can go to sleep, knowing that you will carry on the work.” It is an inspiring story of diligence, faith, and hard work. Read more at the following links:

http://maui.hawaii.edu/hooulu/2015/11/23/hoaka-delos-reyes-master-stone-carver

https://mauimagazine.net/making-it-maoli/3

 

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Best Wishes!

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Synopsis of FBI Corruption

Joseph DiGenova is one of the nation’s premier lawyers. One of his recent speeches was published in the February issue of Hillsdale College’s Imprimis. This is an excellent review of the sorry state of the modern FBI leadership, not to be confused with the rank and file agents, most of whom must be pulling their hair at recent events. Well worth the read:

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-politicization-of-the-fbi/