August Wilson's Radio Golf

This past weekend I ushered so I could see Radio Golf, the last play in August Wilson's 10-play cycle about the African-American experience. He did a play for each decade and Radio Golf covers the 1990s. This play covers the 1990s. I've been seeing quite a few plays lately, and I am always amazed at how a few people and a few props can keep me mesmerized for a couple of hours. It starts with the words on a page, but then with the direction and the acting, the lights, the costumes, they've created a different world that audiences get to step into for a bit.

But back to Radio Golf--many have wondered what Wilson would have thought of Barack Obama's presidency. Of course there is no real way of knowing, but in Radio Golf, he has one character say that a Black mayor or Black CEO will not erase all of Black folks' problems, win us automatic acceptance or make everything alright.

Radio Golf is an amazing play and you can read more (but not too many) details about it on my Examiner.com blog:

Radio Golf illustrates the tension between "progress" and preserving our connection to the past

Tutu Much

Without knowing that I would, I ended up passing through downtown DC just as a Beyonce concert was letting out. If you don't know, Ms. Sasha Fierce (Beyonce's alter ego) is known for her fierce costumes and her fans follow suit. I saw lots of interesting outfits, but nothing tops the tutu.

I saw a woman at the train station who had on a tank top and a teeny tiny rainbow-colored tutu, drawers and nothin' else. She was working it though. Strutting proudly, as though it was no big deal to be almost walking around just wearing underwear. A fellow passenger on the escalator and I exchanged looks at dismay. It was like a car wreck--you want to look away, but you can't.

(Then I thought about how if she were on the beach, wearing what amounts to underwear is no big deal. So it is allowed in our society, but there is a time and a place for everything...and I'm not used to seeing people on Metro in their underwear.)

After we all exited the escalator, she ran into people she knew who said, "Girl, what are you wearing?!"

A defiant "You see it don't you?" was all she said before she started talking about the concert.

The Third Wheel's the Charm (Or if you can't get your own date, why not unwittingly sit in on someone else's?)

So I met a friend last night for a free outdoor movie--great weather, no rain( finally), not too muggy, all in all a good night to be out and about. This friend is an inclusive sort of person, so I mentioned it to a few other people, in case they wanted to join us. For her part, she at first said that "this guy X might come." That was when we first met up. We got to talking about other things and she casually mentioned that she hadn't really met X before, they'd been trying to connect and hadn't before now and she mentioned the movie to him. So it was kind of a blind date. A blind date in which I would kind of be a participant.

I am a lot better at just rolling with it than I used to be, so it was what it was. He was hungry before the movie started, so he went to get food and offered to bring back ice cream for us both. I was happy to participate in that. Overall, though, I don't know if it was quite what he'd expected...had she told him she was meeting me at the movie or just that she was going to the movie? I couldn't tell. But hey--blind dates are supposed to have an element of surprise, right?

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I Luv Ya Tomorrow
I was trying (and mostly kinda sorta succeeding) at posting three times a week, but now I am reducing frequency to 2x a week--so you can now look forward to my wit and wisdom on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

See you tomorrow/Hasta mañana :-)

What is the Point?

"We are all like the butterfly in the amazing, unexpected magnitude of our effect. Even when we feel most helpless, when events we cannot control or prevent pile up, even in our most bitter brokennes, we do have our role in the working out of the great plan."
-Madeline L'Engle

Can I Get a Witness?

I was browsing a table near the front of a bookstore (remember those?) that posts a guard near the front door. In this bookstore, the guard was a black woman. In walks another black woman with two non-black friends.

"Tell them," she demands of the guard. "Tell them how long it takes for us to get our hair done. We can't be in an out in an hour."

The guard chuckles and confirms that we do indeed go through a lot to get our hair did.

For more on this topic see:

I Wanted a Cut and Color and All I Got Was This Lousy Story

King Lear Rehearsal

I saw an open rehearsal for King Lear starring Stacy Keach this past weekend.
And (now don't be all insanely jealous) I passed by the stage door on the way to me car, so I got to shake Keach's hand.

This version is set in 1990's Yugoslavia, with Keach playing Lear as an Eastern European dictator-type.

(Some of) the play's the thing at King Lear rehearsal


(Image courtesy of The Shakespeare Theatre Company)

Commerce

This past weekend some friends had a Pimps and Ho's party that I declined to attend and a male friend offered to treat me to dinner, later saying something like, "If I pay for dinner, you'll put out?" I was pissed. He apologized profusely, saying it really was a joke and that he kids like that with other women (some of whom I know).

And there you have it: commerce.

(A lot of times, I edit out (meaning never write about) such foolishness, but I think you're grown enough to handle it.)

Business Savvy (or Scenes from a CVS)

We've had a lot of rain lately in DC. The good thing is that it has rained mostly on the weekdays, leaving the weekends sunny and beautiful.

Yesterday, there was a man outside of CVS hawking umbrellas for $5. "They got them in there for $8.99, but mine are $5," he told passers-by.

I went into CVS where a stockroom employee taunted the cashier as customers waited in line. "Why you workin' so hard?" he kept repeating, trying to goad the cashier into something. The cashier laughed it off.

Then the umbrella man came in as I got to the register. "I see these your umbrellas are $10," he noted aloud. The cashier smiled and nodded. "I'm glad to see that," Umbrella-man continued. "Mine a $5." He turned and walked out of the store back into the rain, satisfied.

Remote Possibility


Dear Gentle Reader,

That is how Miss Manners or one of those advice columnists likes to start their responses, but of course you haven't really asked me anything...but, I will tell you that I still cannot find the remote for my DVD player. But I am calm. Today's news about a plane that went missing makes worrying over a lost remote seem foolish.

Earlier today, I read in a book that the key to finding lost things is knowing where to look. Depending on your mood, a statement such as this will either seem trite or seem like it is pure genius. Of course knowing where to look helps when looking for lost things. At the same time, is this 'where' an actual physical space...or is it where as in the kind of places to look. Who knows? In the book, the protagonist drops this nugget of wisdom as she recalls how her mother, who is growing more and more feeble-minded, couldn't find something. Yet, she recounts this tale as she is looking for something much more crucial: her father, whom she has never met. She bought her mother a new spatula. She wasn't able to replace her father in the same way.

I'm getting all philosophical here. Really, I just want to find the remote.