Road Weary
Busy-ness, mourning, and synchronous entertainments

Another Roadside Attraction: Diana, Amie and me,
by Amie; road weary travelers on the way to Mississippi
for a sad occasion. This rocky wayside with gnarly vines
was a RaceTrac gas station in--I think--Tennessee.

Billion-eyed audience, I've not made an additional post this week due to general life and and busy-ness and sort of not thinking I have much to say that isn't getting flogged about in the blogosphere already. When blogging starts feeling like an obligation, or makes me tired just thinking about a way to interpret a current moment--and this, just something I do for "fun" in my copious spare time--then maybe I'm not prioritizing my time well. It ain't like I got nothing to prepare for.

My front burner projects are threatening to erupt into a fire. A book manuscript is due in May; there's a short Tesla-Twain play to be done for the Eureka Theatre of the Virginia Science Museum; I'm helping with a documentary for the Firehouse's 15th anniversary and also responsible for putting together a history walking tour as a raffle item for the March 29 gala; but also a June 7 bus/walk tour for the Valentine Richmond History Center. And then there's the day job --necessary for sustenance and utility payments.

So; I shouldn't really be blogging at all, and in fact, I'll have to post less -- once-a-week if I'm lucky. Thing is, I get annoyed by bloggists who just let their posts lapse without a word or explanation. The 'sphere is crowded by abandoned or half-hearted blogs, bobbing around, like ghost ships stranded in the Sargasso Sea. And I don't want to just stop. So. There I am.

Michael Clayton and Enchanted

Both Amie and I went back into thicket of work and our lives. We tried some entertainment and this worked somewhat; although after you experience has been affected by a singular event, funny how intimations of that event appear in places you'd not expect.

We went to the Byrd Theatre twice this past week and saw Michael Clayton, with two of our favorites, George Clooney and Tilda Swinton, and an otherwise fluffy entertainment
Enchanted, featuring the bare shoulders of red-headed Amy Adams--(here, from About.com)

who also sang sappy music. (Similar terrain was handled much better by Kate & Leopold, without the Disney hoo-haw and ironic send-up of itself) And she's in Sunshine Cleaning that my good acquaintance and Firehouse board member Megan Holley wrote.

Michael Clayton has that taught thriller quality that some good John Grisham-based movies possess and with its layers of subterfuge and corporate malfeasance that doesn't seem unbelievable. There was also a textbook example of an inconvenient whistle blower getting "suicided" with all the brisk efficiency of taking out the garbage.

But at one point Clayton is sent out to consult with a high level client of the firm who has just committed a hit-and-run -- uncomfortably close to home right now.

Enchanted is just goofy and though reaching for buoyancy just seems tired -- except for Amy Adams, whose bursting joy for her storybook life was quite good. The casting in the picture was also first rate: people looked as though they'd come out of an animated world. Timothy Spall reminded me of Smee from Peter Pan.

But, again, in a Times Square scene, the princess has to dodge cars that almost get her. Didn't expect that.

The Late Henry Moss...

Finally, at the Firehouse, the excellent production of The Late Henry Moss. Here two pieces of work sons (Justin Dray, Daniel Moore) try to both explain and hide from the death of their drunkard father (Bill Patton). This is a powerful evening of theater and one in which Shepard appears to be well aware of his Greek tragedy predecessors, and the death and transfiguration myths. Henry Moss is taken to the river of death not by Charon, but a nervous taxi driver (in this case, Scott Wichmann), and guided by the psychopomp of Conchalla, our Jen Meharg.

As director Morrie Piersol stated in the talk back Thursday night; the show wasn't chosen in specific for The Acts of Faith Festival, but fit in, anyway.