The Raven and the Writing Desk

Calgary's Shakespeare in the Park has been running for 20 seasons and, with the exception of a few missed seasons or plays, my parents and I have been attending the whole time. This year's offerings are Macbeth and As You Like It, which we attended on two successive nights. Both were extremely well done, though Macbeth as a play is so unrelentingly depressing that I have no trouble saying that I much preferred As You Like It. One of the things I always look forward to with this company is to see what spin they put on each play - sometimes it's simply a matter of the era they choose to stage it in, but sometimes it's more complex than that. For instance, I have seen R&J staged with a battle of the sexes, rockers vs. hip-hop, and Israelis vs. Palestinians, while Love's Labours Lost was memorably staged as a mashup of reality shows like Survivor and Temptation Island. This year, As You Like It was staged as a '70s musical, with lots of classic songs from that decade played between the scenes, and snippets of Shakespeare's original dialogue sung to the tune of everything from Smoke on the Water to Blowin' in the Wind. I am already looking forward to next year's season!

Stargate: SG-1 ran for 10 seasons, making it (I understand) the longest running science fiction show on American television. This is a show that falashad got me hooked on some time back, and yesterday I finished watching the last episode of the tenth season. Although two straight to DVD movies are apparently in the works, and spinoff show Stargate: Atlantis is heading into its fourth season, I still felt a bit of a loss after watching the final episode. I guess I will have to find a new genre show to watch while I'm sewing. Hmm, I think the first season of Heroes is coming out soon on DVD...