more trippy thoughts
Jun. 16th, 2014 07:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacThe drive to and from Ashland inspired a few musings:
1. The residents of the far northern rural regions of California want you to know their political thoughts. A few of the counties proclaim on the road signs informing you that you're entering them that this is "Where We Honor Veterans." (As opposed to other places, which presumably don't.) I want to ask them, "Does that include Bowe Bergdahl?"
2. There's also a large home-made sign on the side of the road proclaiming, in huge block letters, "Obama Must Go." Yes. His term expires on January 20, 2017. He is constitutionally ineligible for another one. He must go.
3. Even the NPR stations inadvertently buy into the nutballism here by dubbing themselves "Jefferson Public Radio." I suspect that when they chose that name half a century ago they thought they were just being quaintly historical.
4. Christine Lavin once wrote a song called "Nobody's Fat in Aspen." We're working on a parody called "Only One Cat in Ashland." Or at least that we saw. It's a store cat in a shoe store, an orange one of Norwegian Forest breed. The sign on the door says, roughly, "Do Not Let Out Athos, the Store Cat." Which leads to the inevitable thought that Porthos and Aramis have already escaped. No, it turns out; they just adopted the one from a shelter given to cute names.
5. On the other hand, we saw two deer. Running down the middle of the main street, bones showing through their hides, no doubt desperately searching for food and water.
6. About 20 years ago, OSF dropped all vestiges of the Renfaire-style period atmosphere that used to envelope the place. That now means that the evening pre-play plaza entertainment, which used to be Elizabethan dances and songs, can now be any damn thing. For our two evenings we had a bad Celtic rock band, way too loud for the tiny enclosed space, and a stand-in-place marching band, competent musically but also way too loud for the space.
7. The mantle of period style has now been taken up by a new restaurant on the main square called Oberon's Tavern. It sells home-made period bar food - meat tarts and such - and is just chock-full of period atmosphere, including costumed wait-folk. The difference is that, while OSF in its heyday took its idea of period style from 1930s movies of the Adventures of Robin Hood sort, the tavern looks more like it's set in the Renaissance pre-history of Pirates of the Caribbean.
8. I hope it doesn't drive out of business The Black Sheep, the quieter and more conventional British-style pub almost literally next door, which I usually visit but didn't get to this time.
9. The rapidly-expanding chain called Black Bear Diner is a good place to look for a reliable meal on the road in rural northern California, but not for lunch on Father's Day, when the one in Redding was jammed to the gills.
10. Almost simultaneously with our theatre-going trip came the news, apparently broadcast nationally, that San Jose Rep is closing down. I confess being partly responsible. I rarely went to San Jose Rep, rarely finding the plays to my taste, and, when I did, rarely finding the productions to my taste either, though my last visit, to see Freud's Last Session two years ago, was pretty satisfactory. But I attend OSF a lot more often, because it's frankly a lot better than anything theatrical in San Jose.
1. The residents of the far northern rural regions of California want you to know their political thoughts. A few of the counties proclaim on the road signs informing you that you're entering them that this is "Where We Honor Veterans." (As opposed to other places, which presumably don't.) I want to ask them, "Does that include Bowe Bergdahl?"
2. There's also a large home-made sign on the side of the road proclaiming, in huge block letters, "Obama Must Go." Yes. His term expires on January 20, 2017. He is constitutionally ineligible for another one. He must go.
3. Even the NPR stations inadvertently buy into the nutballism here by dubbing themselves "Jefferson Public Radio." I suspect that when they chose that name half a century ago they thought they were just being quaintly historical.
4. Christine Lavin once wrote a song called "Nobody's Fat in Aspen." We're working on a parody called "Only One Cat in Ashland." Or at least that we saw. It's a store cat in a shoe store, an orange one of Norwegian Forest breed. The sign on the door says, roughly, "Do Not Let Out Athos, the Store Cat." Which leads to the inevitable thought that Porthos and Aramis have already escaped. No, it turns out; they just adopted the one from a shelter given to cute names.
5. On the other hand, we saw two deer. Running down the middle of the main street, bones showing through their hides, no doubt desperately searching for food and water.
6. About 20 years ago, OSF dropped all vestiges of the Renfaire-style period atmosphere that used to envelope the place. That now means that the evening pre-play plaza entertainment, which used to be Elizabethan dances and songs, can now be any damn thing. For our two evenings we had a bad Celtic rock band, way too loud for the tiny enclosed space, and a stand-in-place marching band, competent musically but also way too loud for the space.
7. The mantle of period style has now been taken up by a new restaurant on the main square called Oberon's Tavern. It sells home-made period bar food - meat tarts and such - and is just chock-full of period atmosphere, including costumed wait-folk. The difference is that, while OSF in its heyday took its idea of period style from 1930s movies of the Adventures of Robin Hood sort, the tavern looks more like it's set in the Renaissance pre-history of Pirates of the Caribbean.
8. I hope it doesn't drive out of business The Black Sheep, the quieter and more conventional British-style pub almost literally next door, which I usually visit but didn't get to this time.
9. The rapidly-expanding chain called Black Bear Diner is a good place to look for a reliable meal on the road in rural northern California, but not for lunch on Father's Day, when the one in Redding was jammed to the gills.
10. Almost simultaneously with our theatre-going trip came the news, apparently broadcast nationally, that San Jose Rep is closing down. I confess being partly responsible. I rarely went to San Jose Rep, rarely finding the plays to my taste, and, when I did, rarely finding the productions to my taste either, though my last visit, to see Freud's Last Session two years ago, was pretty satisfactory. But I attend OSF a lot more often, because it's frankly a lot better than anything theatrical in San Jose.
