Beholder of Ocean's blog: "Poltarnees Station"

I went to Carey Perloff's Luminescence Dating at the Magic Theatre at Fort Mason. I greatly enjoyed the play, but I doubt that any who had not suffered through the Classical college curriculum could appreciate the subtler references within the work. Thumbs up to Italy, which has joined the war against stick models, along with Spain and Brazil. There is a plague among the gorillas of Zaire, not unlike the Ebola virus which has effected the humans of that region. There are two possible disease vectors: other gorillas and fruit bats. I am inclined to believe that the latter is the true vector. Ebola acts through contaminated bodily fluids. Gorillas do not gather in large groups, which limits the effectiveness of the disease vector. Fruit bats, however, could fly between tree before perishing, and their corpses would remain in the copse from which the unfortunate primates dined.

I've had a busy weekend. On Friday night, the eve of Black Friday (which sounds to me like a stock market crash, not a favorable shopping day), Dad and I went to see Lillian Hellman's Little Foxes. The streets were swarming with consumers, easily swayed by the lure of advertising. I should have realized what a certain young lady was doing the day after Thanksgiving. The play itself featured the intrigues of a Southern family more beholden to Mammon than mercy and kindness. The play was well executed, but the slew of plays about Southern decadance has somewhat diluted the dramatic impact of that milieu. Perhaps my overexposure to serious plays has leached the color for me. On Saturday night, Dad and I went to the San Francisco Symphony's presentation of Charlie Chaplin's City Lights as it would have been at its premiere. A "silent" film, proeprly presented, was scarcely silent, since the score involved a thirty-piece orchestra. It was strange to hear laughter in such normally somber halls, but Chaplin's comic genius as actor, director, and composer shone. One could describe the plot either as cheap melodrama or as deeply tragic drama. On Sunday afternoon, Dad and I went to see Borat! It was a good movie, but the joke only remained funny until halfway or two-thirds of the way through the film. It was a good thing Mom didn't come with us - she would have hated it.

So here's how my Thanksgiving went down. I came over to my folks' house, but only the dog responded. It turned out that they were in the back garden. Once we had met up, Mom "directed" me and Dad in preparing those portions of the meals which we had not previously prepared yesterday. Some of the family arrived before the hors d'oeuvres were ready, but this possible setback turned into extra assistance in the kitchen. The rest involved much chatter and eating and far too many dishes to wash.

Went to a lecture at the deYoung. Saw my old retired professor from SFSU. It was kind of freaky to see the new buildings in Golden Gate Park.