TALES OF A WANDERING FULBRIGHT

Dear Friends-- and valued readers of this stuff,

   I have these five easy pieces of narrative drawn from a Fulbright year in London back in the 50s. I’ve dined out on them time and again and now fear that, if I don’t get them out of here soon, they will rot my hard-drive. 

   I hope they are faintly amusing and with just a bit of the troubles of the world in them. They are all about theatre, its comings and goings, for the innocent abroad that I was back then. And I swear they are true-- or as true as I can make them. They tend to bang me up against my betters, against whom I stumbled somewhat. So you might relish the schadenfreude they offer. I give you leave.

   In any case, I must get them out of here and up into the Cloud where everything is fair game.

   I shall post them, every other week, well into the new spring and intersperse them with heaven (the Cloud) knows what.

   Read them if you want; enjoy them if you can. My hard drive will be relieved just to see them gone.       gordon

TALES OF A WANDERING FULBRIGHT

 

          

Dear Friends-- and valued readers of this stuff,

   I have these five easy pieces of narrative drawn from a Fulbright year in London back in the 50s. I’ve dined out on them time and again and now fear that, if I don’t get them out of here soon, they will rot my hard-drive. 

   I hope they are faintly amusing and with just a bit of the troubles of the world in them. They are all about theatre, its comings and goings, for the innocent abroad that I was back then. And I swear they are true-- or as true as I can make them. They tend to bang me up against my betters, against whom I stumbled somewhat. So you might relish the schadenfreude they offer. I give you leave.

   In any case, I must get them out of here and up into the Cloud where everything is fair game.

   I shall post them, every other week, well into the new spring and intersperse them with heaven (the Cloud) knows what.

   Read them if you want; enjoy them if you can. My hard drive will be relieved just to see them gone.       gordon

Watch out for this one! Betty calls it "a tome". I am reluctant to press her on the matter, but I fear it cannot be comforting.

 

         A New Opera, Shakespeare, and Me

   For sixty-five years I have been working, in one way or another, but steadily, with Shakespeare. The first stage production I saw of one of the plays was King Henry IV. Part One. Bewildered by much of what I  saw, I was nevertheless convinced that something greatly important was going on. So, I took to acting as Leontes in Winter’s Tale.

   In a couple years, there came those two films by Laurence Olivier, his Henry V and Hamlet. It is utterly impossible to describe the impact those two “movies” had upon us. No one I knew had ever seen or even dreamed of such things. They were for us the music of which Caliban dreamed and waked to dream again. They taught us so much and moved us so deeply that we  were forever changed.

IN MEMORIAM

 

                            

                   KAY LOHRENZ CHRISTOPHERSON

                                 1936-- 2012

            she lived and loved in spite of everything

                                 January 9, 2012

   That early September day of 1950, in Powell Wyoming, on that day when I was to begin the life of a teacher: it went like this:

   I walked into the room, tenth grade English, looked about me, and there she was, half way back on my right, in the second to the window row of desks.

Twelve of Them

                       

                             Some say that ever gainst that season comes

                                       Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,

                                       This bird of dawning singeth all night long.

                                       And then they say no spirit dare stir abroad,

                                       No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

                                       So hallowed and so gracious is the time.

Photo Trial for Christmas post Grange

                    Discovering the Altona Grange

                   In the Nick of Time for Christmas

   All my life they were standing out there-- out in the country. I used to drive by one of them out pheasant hunting. Those Grange Halls. I had no idea of what they were beyond their probably having something to do with farming. But, sadly, I lacked the curiosity to find out more about them.

   Then, now, old as I am, the recent meeting of the Gold Hill Club was invited to meet in the Altona Grange, half a dozen miles or so due north of Boulder. And there it was, the ritual building, where I learned what I now cannot imagine having lived this long without. It was a revelation.