Save the Ginger

I think my ginger roots always look like manatees.

Hey, What Smells so Good Around Here?

Why... it's me! (Bathing helps too).

This BBC documentary series made me nostalgic for the days when I wore perfume regularly. Scent-sensitivity being what it is (for me and others), I haven't bought scents (apart from the occasional vanilla oil) for years. However, Dahlia Noir (by Givenchy) is delicious and doesn't irritate my nose at all. And I wear it sparingly. And not to theatres or cinemas or work.

The series is fascinating, if you'd like to know the history of perfume and the interesting characters that still work in scents.

Start watching here, on YouTube. It's all there.

My Little bit of Cabin Porn

Have you checked out the site yet?

Here's my little cabin, made from a kit from Lee Valley Tools, a catalogue I love almost as much I as I love L. L. Bean.

Stratford Goes Gangnam

So, the talented casts of Stratford Festival's 42nd Street and The Pirates of Penzance have produced their own homage to Psy (now over 1 billion hits on YouTube) a in this goofy, irresistible video. And here's my early Christmas present, a very clever idea from The Stratford Festival Shop: a Christmas tree ball, stuff full of scraps of fabric from the 42nd Street costumes. Off the cutting room floor, I guess. :)

Clever.

Littlest Tree

12 Days Start Now

I woke today, on the first of twelve days in a row that I will be off work. After so much intensity, it felt good. I puttered busily all day, including doing some gift wrapping. I love this groovy paper from Indigo. And I only noticed now, that I downloaded some piccies, that it matches my tea mug!

Really? I'm blogging about this sort of thing? REALLY?

Yes. My brain is on vacation too.

Green Love

I got them on sale. And... they`re GREEN. (They're Josef Seibel Palmira boots).

Eclectic, Yes?

I'm burning the candle at both ends more than usual at this time of year. But tonight I'm up late, wired by a completely satisfying night at the theatre.

As I muck about on my blog, I was amused to see this month's search terms... those very eclectic phrases typed in to Google, or whatever, that brought readers here.

From most to least popular, they are...

~ silvana mangano hairy
~ elgin theatre box seats   
~ indy car ginger bread house
~ anatomically correct gingerbread people
~ cranbrook campus
~ glass ornament chocolate bar
~ incessant
~ bald eagle with babies

The Word Indeed

Last year's Word Festival at the Young Centre was a glorious celebration of Shakespeare and the Bible. This year, to honour the bicentenary of Charles Dickens' birth, the centre is offering a four-day feast to all lovers of... the word.

There are staged readings, live streamed readings (check it out here), some improv and - opening tonight - Dickens' Women, a one-woman, one pianist show that is a must see if you can still get a ticket.

Miriam Margolyes, who I first experienced playing her award-winning Flora Finching in Christine Edzard's excellent adaptation of Dickens' Little Dorrit (1988), takes us on a journey through Dickens' life, his influences, and how it all played out in a rich array of women characters. Considered by many to be a chauvinist (and this is well supported by some of the excerpts in the piece), he also managed to present surprising characters, some of which were very two dimensional, but many of which were deeply human and flawed. I don't want to say too much about this in detail, because part of the appeal of this excellently crafted performance, is the delightful surprises that emerge. In fact, there are more surprises than I expected, because, as Margolyes moved smoothly from excerpt to story to excerpt, I felt I'd never read Dickens before. The most successful voice actress that Britain has produced (apart from her films, she's recorded a lot of audio books, documentary voice overs and animated character voices), she is able to extract from and illuminate a moment that is so exquisitely thought out, so compassionately examined, that it left me breathless and entirely engaged. Sympathetic piano accompaniment was provided with modesty and charm by Peter Tiefenbach.

Dickens' Women plays each evening until this coming Saturday night. Tomorrow (Thursday) there is a talk back with Margolyes, but after tonight's performance (and I suppose she'll do this for every other), she signed copies of her book on this same topic, which is $20 including tax. After Saturday, the show travels to Chicago for five performances, ending a 10-month tour that will conclude Christmas Eve.

Another fine evening at the Young Theatre.

I'm Moving to Maine...

... okay, well not really.

Yes, I'm too busy to blog, too busy to change my header from November to December. And decidedly too busy to move to Maine, but I sort of wish I were.
Here's my new daily smile, getting me through the busyness.

I only have one question... where are the golden retrievers? The chocolate labs? They're the number two reason I love the L. L. Bean catalogue.

UPDATE:/// There are puppies!