Sleeping Muse and Falling Rocket

 

Sybil Trelawney's marriage to Gilderoy Lockhart ended when he had an affair with Bellatrix Lestrange.   

 

 Blossom ''Grandmama" Rock and operetta star Jeannette McDonald were sisters in real life.

  A long overdue confession. During a weekend rehearsal in high school, I was walking the halls with fellow cast member John Ladbury, running lines. We passed on open office door. The school Psychiatrist's office. No one around. Someone had been cleaning the office and left for some reason. Stepping inside, the desk was typically cluttered--books, memos, pens, a Rubik's Cube, students folders, computer print-outs, Newton's Cradle, a framed print by M.C. Escher... We could have done anything! Read student and family secrets. Vandalized the walls. Found faculty contact information. Destroyed university applications. Altered references. Framed innocent students. Framed innocent Faculty. The world was our oyster. Our evil, evil oyster. I can't take the secret any more! I'm throwing you under the bus, man. John took the lead. When the school psychiatrist came into his office on Monday morning...oh the humanity!... The Rubik's Cube had been solved!

Summer of 1976. Shakespeare in the Park.  Measure for Measure. John Cazale as Angelo, Meryl Streep as Isabella, and Sam Waterston as Duke Vincentio. The rest of the cast included Jeffrey Tambor, Lenny Baker, Judith Light, Michael Tucker, David Haskell, Joseph Regalbuto, Jay O. Sanders, Howard Rollins Jr, and William Sadler. 

    Why do I always confuse Wyndham Lewis and Mervyn Peake?

  Coming this Fall!  An animated version of Dante's Inferno (helpfully titled "Dante's Hell")! And to lend much needed gravitas--- the voice of Dante will be provided by Eric "They took my thumbs Charlie" Roberts! And as the voice of Virgil?  Even better... Vince Spano!!

Sherwood Anderson told William Faulkner about a dream he'd had.  Walking for miles along country roads,  leading a horse he was trying to trade for a night's sleep. "Not for a simple bed for the night, but for the sleep itself."

I'd think Bob would make a bigger deal out of this.

The 1955 play about morphine addiction, A Hatful of Rain, and the 1957 film of the same name starring Eva Marie Saint and Don Murray, was written by playwright/actor Michael V. Gazzo. Gazzo is perhaps better known as Frank Penatngeli. 'Frankie Five Angels,' in The Godfather, part 2. (He also wrote the Elvis movie King Creole!)