Dangerous Common Sense

My Life as a Birthright Unitarian

By Galen|2015-09-02T13:50:28-07:00August 30, 2015|Unitarian Universalism|

Ready to deliver thoughts on being a birthright Unitarian My family has been Unitarian since a Sunday afternoon in the mid-1930’s when my then-10-year-old aunt came home from the Middleborough, Massachusetts Congregational church and started telling her mother about what they’d learned that day about Jesus Christ and his baby brother Bobby. My grandmother was not too much for Bible stories but tolerated the mention of Jesus. However, she said she was not going to let her children believe in an entire mythical family, complete with Baby Brother Bobby. So she pulled out of the Congregational Church and [...]

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The Happiest Song Plays Last

By Galen|2015-08-26T15:05:37-07:00August 25, 2015|osf, plays|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival The Happiest Song Plays Last by Quiara Alegría Hudes Daniel Duque-Estrada (Elliot) and Barzin Akhavan (Ali). Photo by Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The Happiest Song Plays Last, the third installment of Iraq war veteran Elliot Ortiz's struggle with his combat experience and aftermath, fulfills the promise of the complex emotional saga. While nominally about Elliot, three characters have legitimate claim to be considered the lead: Elliot (Daniel Duque-Estrada), his cousin Yaz (Nancy Rodriguez), and Yaz's neighbor Agustin (Armando Duran). Even then, some of the deepest scenes center on other characters, Ali (Barzin Akhavan) [...]

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Head Over Heels — World Premiere

By Galen|2015-08-23T16:50:34-07:00August 23, 2015|osf, plays|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Head Over Heels Play by Jeff Whitty Music and Lyrics by the Go-Go's Jonathan Tufts and Ensemble. Photo by Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Head Over Heels is the latest saucy work from the razor-sharp, careful, sensitive, and insanely clever mind of Jeff Whitty. His inventive approaches to story telling are twisted and brilliant, and this Oregon Shakespeare Festival production exquisitely delivers pure fun. The play uses the Go-Go's songbook as the source of its music, although Music Director Geraldine Anello has dramatically freed some of the arrangements from the original signature driving beat when Whitty's [...]

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Anthony and Cleopatra

By Galen|2015-08-23T16:00:53-07:00August 23, 2015|osf, plays|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Anthony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare Derrick Lee Weeden and Miriam Laube. Photo by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival By far the best aspect of Oregon Shakespeare Festival's 2015 production of Anthony and Cleopatra is the set. Scenic designer Richard Hay creates a clean, beautiful, symbol-filled space for the Shakespeare tragedy. The golden-royal triangles reprised in various forms work as ships, pyramids, and boundaries. The triangles are bold and colorful, and vivid Egyptian-themed props enhance the feel of empire and luxury. Hay does a great job. He skillfully keeps the physical on-stage material to a [...]

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The Count of Monte Cristo

By Galen|2015-08-23T12:15:12-07:00August 22, 2015|osf, plays|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas Raffi Barsoumian (Danglars) and Al Espinosa (Dantes). Photo by Oregon Shakespeare Festival Who knew that a revenge melodrama could be so much fun? Oregon Shakespeare Festival presents a sharp, finely timed, excellently acted, satisfying evening of a classic payback story written as a book by Alexandre Dumas in 1844 and adapted for the stage as early as 1848. The version of the play OSF picked to perform is meaningful. This Count stems from an adaption by Charles Fletcher in 1868. The play was further adapted by James O'Neill who bought the rights to [...]

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Sweat
Gallery
Sweat

osf, plays

Sweat

By Galen|2015-08-27T07:57:54-07:00August 19, 2015|osf, plays|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Sweat by Lynn Nottage | World Premiere Jack Willis, Carlo Alban, and K.T. Vogt in "Sweat".photo by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Sweat is Lynn Nottage's brilliant story of people and community in collapse. Before writing this commissioned American Revolutions series play, Nottage talked to residents of America's poorest city of 2001, Reading, Pennsylvania. Her work shares the residents' pain, losses, and self-immolation as their good jobs are eliminated in relentless, financially logical, corporate-mandated factory closings and union busting. I knew the story's outline coming into the theater. I expected satisfying liberal ranting and raving at the [...]

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If You Like Donald Trump, You’ll Love Bernie Sanders

By Galen|2015-08-09T10:54:28-07:00August 9, 2015|Politics|

from US Uncut If you want a President who speaks straight-forwardly and without a focus-group filter you can vote for Donald Trump. But, I like Bernie Sanders' soul better. And, I think most Americans will like Bernie more, too. In today's 1%-take-all world, there is room for righteous anger like that displayed by Sanders. But, Trump-style self-righteous anger against people weaker (or simply more polite) than you is the behavior of a bully, not of a President. Trump is fun to watch when his scorn is directed at a pompous politician, but watching it feels like guilty pleasure. It's like [...]

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How to Increase the Power of Special Interests

By Galen|2015-03-23T13:57:10-07:00March 23, 2015|philippic|

Simplistic, Feel-Good Stupidity as Posted on Facebook This Facebook sets me off. It's pathetically simplistic. And supremely stupid. How has the panacea of term limits worked for, say..., California? The state legislature is at least as partisan and divided as Congress. Special interest-written bills pass routinely, and long-term needs of the state would not even be mentioned if it wasn't for the long-lived, political hack and four-term governor, Jerry Brown. Term limits have destroyed the ability for legislators of both parties to get to know each other, to learn what really matters to people on the other side [...]

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The Best Season Opening

By Galen|2015-03-06T13:53:26-08:00March 4, 2015|osf, plays|

Oregon Shakespeare Festival's season opening this past weekend showcased four excellent productions. It was the strongest festival start that I -- and my more experienced Ashland friends -- have experienced. Bravo! I hope to write full reviews of each performance. But, here are my snap judgements, listing the four plays in my overall order of enjoyment. Fingersmith by Alexa Junge based on the novel by Sarah Waters Syntax says: photo by Oregon Shakespeare Festival This world premiere commissioned by the festival is full of "Wow" plot twists delivered with exquisite attention to language and the style of the times (1861). [...]

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Don’t Make Me Go to the Mall

By Galen|2015-02-22T15:38:01-08:00February 22, 2015|philippic|

Damn it! The latest PR stunt by self-righteous terrorists is annoying. The threat by al-Shabaab to attack the Mall of America and the piling on by other groups suggesting that there could be attacks at other American malls makes me feel like I need to go shopping. Understand, I severely dislike going to Stonestown Mall and other local similarly crazed venues. I feel dirty wandering into the crammed-together stores that hawk mediocre-quality goods slicked up to mimic the high-end luxury items I am supposed to want. It's really not that I don't like clothes, electronic toys, and designer chocolates. Rather it's the mall [...]

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