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Showing posts from November, 2012

25 Days of Watchfulness

About halfway through this past month I noticed that various friends scattered all over the USA were posting daily thanksgivings on twitter and facebook... It only took me a few days and a bit of internet surfing to discover that they were probably all participating in a movement asking for 30 Days of Thanksgiving during November instead of (or as well as) the usual festival of gratitude and gluttony celebrated last Thursday. I thought that it good idea, but that it was a bit late to join in... Maybe next year. But then, with Advent formally kicking in this coming Sunday, I reflected on how the run-up to Christmas has been completely transmogrified into a celebration of conspicuous consumption, and thought back a few years to my participation with others in Glenn Jordan's initiative, "Mockingbird's Leap" - an internet based advent exercise in being "attentive pilgrims", looking for signs of God's grace in the midst of the madness, based on Annie Dilla

An Ulster-Scottish Play that neither boiled nor bubbled

OK, I've slept on it and let my annoyance subside slightly... but for the little it is worth, here's my opinion on the Lyric's current (until the 24th November) production of Macbeth ... It's dull but not dreadful. I suppose I was feeling a bit more vitriolic last night after because it is one of my favourite Shakespeare plays and it is one of the most accessible and adaptable, yet the sheer lack of energy in last night's production was palpable. About 25% of the audience left at the interval... I watched as taxi after taxi pulled up at the door, and by that stage I felt like getting in my car and following them, but wanting my value for money I stayed. And I'm glad I did, because the best scenes and speeches were in the second half, but even they were not enough to stir me. The pre-production publicity promised much, with its plastic-mac clad witches, and sub-way backdrop, and talk of the Northern Irish resonances, with bloody politics and dynastic