finally the weekend is here ... and gone

After a long week that felt like 3, I had the Geffen Playhouse to look forward to on Friday night. The new season kicked off with the award-winning play "TAKE ME OUT". I didn't have time to check it out, just knew it was about baseball. I almost didn't sign on to work this season because the last couple of years their roster was less than wonderful with the exception of the last play of last season -- "COOKIN' AT THE COOKERY", which was extraordinary. It was about the life of Alberta Hunter, one of the all time great blues singers who was rediscovered late in life when performing at The Cookery in New York. The woman who played Alberta sang the tunes leaving the audience begging for more. The other actress (a 2 women play) performed as all the other characters with such energy and amazing talent you couldn't help but get caught up in it. It was held over for another 3 weeks and I was lucky enough to see it twice. If it comes to your town, don't miss it. After that play and with the new season looking promising, I thought what the heck, one more season. So back to Friday night where I was greeted with a warm welcome from the house manager and my pal, Abdullaha who is an amazing person. He's fluent in 6 languages, lived all over the world, and a successful actor. In fact, he shot an American Express commercial with Ellen DeGeneres on Saturday. You can also see him on last season episodes of ER and West Wing and in the George of the Jungle movies. His wife is a professor at UCLA, in the Musicology dept. . . wish that was an option to study when I was in college. Anyway, he gave me the scoop on the play. It takes place in a baseball team's locker room, which means, yep, you guessed it, the usual locker room stuff. The show has been selling out and men in the gay community have been buying up rows of seats, coming out en mass to catch a glimpse ... well more than a glimpse of these 11 actors in the buff. (some you've recognized on TV/in movies). Oh yeah, and the play itself was great too!
Saturday was busy too ... took another bookbinding class with my good friend, Wendy teaching 3 new books at my favorite bookstore - Vroman's. Fun to run into people from some of her other classes and laughed a lot. This was a good motivator for the upcoming art faire in November. Will make a variety of journals, some new jewelry designs and my healing mandalas. If you go to an earlier blog, there is a photo of a Tibetan mandala that was assembled/disassembled at LACMA (LA County Museum of Art) last January. Mine are not made from sand but on black art paper with white pencil then filled in with the appropriate healing colors for the individual it's being made for.
Speaking of LACMA, for the past month they've been doing The Magnificent Mirisches retrospect including one of my all time favorite westerns, The Magnificent 7, which just happening to be screening Saturday. Love that theme song, the actors, dialogue, story -- I'm a sucker for stories about the little guy overcoming major obstacles...and for westerns. I sat in the dark with a smile on my face. Ever watch the TV series of the same name? They did an excellent job casting it and Pen Densham co-creator/writer told stories worth telling. Looking forward to MGM releasing it on DVD.
When Sunday came around, I think pushing myself all week caught up with me. Got out of bed only to meet someone for coffee then went back to bed for the day. I just couldn't move and finally I stopped trying.
Monday, rested and sitting in traffic on my way to work, it was like I'd never had a vacation.