Archive: Arts & Entertainment

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SMART TALK
by Dr. Ced Riley



KNEEL DOWN: At the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired, we teach patients to kneel if they need to assume that position.  After all, you can't kneel up.

Sit down is also redundant, but you can sit up.  However, our patients learn only to sit, unless they're already lying down.

In the case of lying down, we actually need to be redundant to be clear, something lawyers love.  "Lying" has different meanings, so even "lying on a bed" can be ambiguous, if a desperately amorous person is involved.

Of course I'll call you again.

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Phil Shapiro and Carrie ShorePhil Shapiro is the founder and long-time host of WVBR's Bound for Glory, Ithaca, NY.  The Bound for Glory radio show is North America's longest running live folk concert broadcast, and Phil has hosted the show since it's inception in 1967.  That's 44 years ago.

"If you do something for 44 years, you're fairly likely to get old in the process", says Phil.  "I've got a choice.  I'm going to be 65 on February 13th.  I can ignore it, and I'll still be 65, or I can have fun with it, and, guess what, I'll still be 65.  This is a birthday present to myself."

Running to Places Theatre Company (R2P) will present the family musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat February 25-27 at the Hangar Theatre – the first fully staged, non-Hangar production to take place since their major renovations were completed last year.

"It’s an honor for us," says R2P Co-Artistic Director and Producer Gail Belokur. "As a company we ‘run to places’ – meaning we hold rehearsals and performances at a variety of venues throughout the county. This is our first show to be performed at the Hangar, and the Hangar staff has also supported our central mission to mentor students in all areas of production."

SMART TALK
by Dr. Tilde Cedilla



SWAT I SAID: I enjoy talking to strangers, if only to listen to the common English of this country.  It reminds me a bit of the Spanish of my native Cuba, the way many words get shortened and consonants are left out.  I notice this most in the northern states I've visited, but I need to travel more and research this further.

On vacation recently from my job as therapist at the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired, I enjoyed this conversation with an average-looking person.  I began by asking about a restaurant.

Is this place good for lunch?

Red Lobster?  Are you kidding?  Havenchoo seena commercials?  N-less shrimp.  Snot cheap, but I like it.  When they say N-less shrimp, I makem lose money.

But aren't shrimp N-less anyway?  There's no N in it, nor in lobster, either.

...What?

N-less.  S-H-R-I-M-P.  No N.  Why would N-less be worth advertising? 

Oh, man.  You don' geddit, do yuh.  N-less.  N-less!  There's no N to it!  You can eat shrimp all day!

Oh, endless.  Now I see.

Swat I said.  N-less.  Jeez.
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The Kitchen Theatre Company’s 20th Anniversary continues with the regional premiere of boom by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb—an explosive new comedy about the end of the world. boom has previews on February 23, 24, and 25. Opening Night is February 26, and performances continue through March 13, 2011. boom is recommended for ages sixteen and up.

Jules is a graduate student studying fish behavior who is absolutely certain that the fish are predicting a comet strike that will change life as we know it. Jo is an undergraduate journalism major who answers an ad on craigslist promising a life-altering sexual encounter. Are they the new Adam and Eve? And who is this woman who seems to controlling the scene from the outside?

SMART TALK
by Dr. Tilde Cedilla



SWAT I SAID: English being my second language makes me notice speech lapses even more than other therapists at the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired.  Indeed, much of American English reminds me of my own Cuban Spanish in the way consonants are dropped and words get smoothed out.  Some would simply call it mumbling, but that sounds unkind.

Here's a conversation I had with an acquaintance at the mall.  Obviously, he's speaking first.

You like pointsettas?

What?

You like pointsettas?

Oh poinsettias?

Swat I said.  Pointsettas.  You get um inna winner, roun Christmas.  Shoppin senners er full of um.

And what about spring flowers?

Uzhly alwys, we git a bokay of toolups an put it onna cowner.  Spriddy.

You mean tulips?

Swat I said.  Toolups.

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I'm not an opera afficianado, but I love the chamber opera Bed and Sofa. The Kitchen Theatre produced it in 2002; this revival in their new space is even better.

Based on a 1927 Soviet silent film, Bed and Sofa concerns a love triangle brought on by a housing shortage. When Ludmilla finds herself stuck with a surly husband and negligent lover, all packed into a tiny apartment, she compares her plight to Mother Russia, trading one tyrannical leader for another.

The Actor's Workshop of Ithaca offers classes in the Meisner technique, a structured, developmental approach to acting. Now Eliza Van Cort, with her teachers and actors, have created a company to showcase their actors.

Their production of Caryl Churchill's Far Away, at Risley Theatre, demonstrates both the virtues and the limitations of the Meisner work. It's a very abstract script, set in an undiscovered country where people make hats for political prisoners to wear at their executions, and where the revolutionaries argue about the merits of their friends and enemies, the crocodiles, the children, the cows. Vintage Caryl Churchill. I was delighted to have a chance to see it.