Birthday goodness continued yesterday with the appearance of items fresh from the dewy fingers of far-off friends. HEL sent a deliciously horrific musical card featuring the Wicked Witch of the West and her inimitable theme tune. Enchanting! And dock_leaf sent, in addition to a Wizard of Oz bookmark, a framed memento of her all-to-brief time in ( Read more... )

What a way to start a birthday week! I just received a stupendous birthday gift box from my beloved wife, the gorgeous genius Eremir. It's all about Moomins -- who, for the uninitiated, are the main characters in a brilliant series of kids' books by Finnish/Swedish Tove Jansson (one of the books is quite simply my favorite book in the history of ( Read more... )

Today is my last day of work before a vacation of such utter wonderfulness that the mind boggles.  Well, my mind does, anyway.  On Monday it will be my delirious privilege to scoop up dock_leaf and brigantine at SF Int'l Airport, and whisk them both to the City By The Bay for three days of fun and frolic.  This adventure has been in the works for ( Read more... )

Last night I rented a Japanese anime film called Pom Poko (from the same studio as favorites Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, but not the same director), and was surprised to find my self watching a story about shape-shifting raccoons who do very unusual things with their balls.  Yes, I do mean their testicles, plus the handy little sacs they ( Read more... )

I love Nienna and her family!  It was my astounding good fortune to meet them in crazy ol' SF on Saturday, and I'm here to tell you that they couldn't be more wonderful -- adventurous, smart, funny, silly, generous, and above all loving.  Same goes for family friend Susan, who helped see us through the wilds of Chinatown, North Beach, Ghirardelli ( Read more... )

Lots and lots of birthday lovin' to our own Fawsley!  You're in my thoughts, in my heart and in my arms, right where you belong.

I'm just re-reading HP and the Half-Blood Prince and I've run into an absolutely filthy bit that I'd somehow forgotten -- the song sung on the radio by Celestina Warbeck.  It's called "A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love," and the following verse is quoted ( Read more... )

Here are two photos from my play.  The first one shows us two shepherds in the act of doing each other in -- I'm holding a bowl of poison to his lips and he's tightening a necklace about my throat.  As you can see, we're got up like Biblical shepherds in a nativity pageant.  I looked for a good photo of our very cute Pierrot, but none of them quite ( Read more... )

Well, we did our show yesterday.  We almost did two shows, but that was a saga in itself.  The theater festival management changed our schedule so many times our heads may never stop spinning.  Argh!  We started out three weeks ago with just one show at noon.  Fine.  Then they added a second one at 1, same venue.  Oh boy!  Then they changed it to 1 ( Read more... )

It feels as if my last show only just ended, but another one will be happening this Sunday, crazily enough.  It's a different situaion from our usual.  The play is a one-act, just under half an hour long, and the entire run consists of two performances in a single day -- at a small theater festival in downtown SF.  Dozens of other companies will be ( Read more... )