Get Ready Boston

Sleeping Weazel's first public event is almost upon us. 

The Weazels. Amanda Weir, Charlotte Meehan, Adara Meyers and Jess Foster

 
We are incredibly proud to feature works by some of our beloved Affiliated and Associate Artists.


Tuesday, March 13, 2012 at 7:30 pm
An Evening of Mixed-Genre Performance Works

Mark Baumer’s the human milkshake - eat fresh milk that's been near your body (orchestrated by Charlotte Meehan and Patrick Rashleigh)

Magdalena Gómez's Why I Became a Loud Puerto Rican (and other impolite stories)

Jess Foster's Sane - a play on words and madness

(performed by Gloria Crist, Elise Morrison, and Amanda Weir)

Elise Morrison's Through the Looking Glass: The Surveillance Cabaret - songs of love and loss, discipline and desire in the digital age 

(with musicians Jacob Richman and Kirsten Volness)

Jacob Richman's  Pretty Polly - a multimedia setting of a murder ballad tracing its history through American bluegrass to England/Scotland 

(with double bassist/vocalist Lisa Dowling)  

The Factory Theatre, 791 Tremont Street, Boston, MA
Tickets $15 general / $10 students and seniors at the door or online

It certainly will be an evening not to be missed.  I'm going to be acting.  Now, that is worth seeing.  My oh My, what a treat!
Yeah, I know it's a Tuesday night, but try to remember you are not your Grandma.  In fact, bring your Grandma!  She'll love it, you'll love it, and you're friend who didn't come out to this outrageous event is going to be rather upset they missed it! 

 

The Weazel hath emerged.

My new company, Sleeping Weazel has launched its website.

Here's a little bit about what we do.

We explore and engage novel venues for the development, interaction, presentation, and publication of new art — multimedia theatre, interdisciplinary installations, performance events, music, poetry, and film/video/audio.

We develop work that crosses and confounds the boundaries of “mainstream” and “avant-garde” as well as boundaries between art forms. Based in Boston and fanning out virtually across the globe, our projects include individual and collaborative productions in the theatre, on DVD, CD, and Vimeo, at readings, audio-theatre concerts, and performance events.

We invite you to join us in a shared vision of surprise, spontaneity, and discovery.

Check out the website and mark your calenders for our first live event on January 11th at the Factory Theatre in Boston.  

 

Badlands, South Dakota, we're not on Cape Cod anymore Toto.

Badlands S. Dakota

South Dakota is unlike anything this playwright has ever seen.  Driving through the billboard bespeckled Great Plains is beyond anything I've ever dreamed of seeing and then....and then....and then!  The Badlands, oh yes.  Like mountains have melted away and left us all the rock to see, like drippy sand castles, you know, ok well my sister knows anyways. 

Badlands

 

 

 

In the Badlands I hiked and I camped and I saw loads of Wildlife, Birds, Prairie Dogs, Mountain Goats, Buffalo...oh yes the Buffalo...fortunately though I did not see any rattlesnakes.

Camping, just to give a little perspective to the landscape.

 This might be where I pulled my leg really bad and could barely walk for a week.  Yeah....

 The badlands is also where my car went out of alignment, could have been that 20mile long dirt road.  I kept thinking to myself, "Where no Honda Civic has gone before".  I'm a Honda Civic owner who really ought to have a truck, except for the whole gas mileage thing.  Are there hybrid trucks yet? 

Minneapolis/ St. Paul

After being on my own since I left Bangor, ME two plus weeks earlier, it was comforting to see a familiar face upon my arrival in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  A quiet evening with a friend was just what I needed.  The next day we hit the town(s).  St. Paul in the morning with a listening meditation put on by Grace Minnesota.  These people are doing very cool things, a cross between spirituality and dance theater exploration or something of that nature. 
After a relaxing and introspective morning we hit the St. Paul Farmer's Market and had a deliciously buttered ear of corn.  Yummmm.....This was the biggest farmer's market I had ever been to and the prices were more than reasonable. 

In the afternoon we hit the Walker Art Center and enjoyed an afternoon of square dancing on the lawn. 

In the evening Nye's Polonaise, for the most unemotional "Polish" polka playing, and an incredibly unique experience.  Had an incredible time, just wish I could have thought of some songs to request.

A purely Minnesotan day, couldn't have been anywhere else. 

Filling in- A bit more on Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park

Dune Climb, Sleeping Bear Dunes.

Here are a few pics from Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park in Michigan.

Ghost Forest in the Dunes.

View from Dunes

Along the dune trail.

 One of the first hikes I did was one of the hardest to do.  Only four miles long, but up and down massive dunes in the heat of the day.  It was absolutely amazing, but one of those things in life you just have to power through.  There aren't too many options when you're on the top of a giant sand dune, you've just got to keep on going.

Shipwreck of of South Manitou Island.

 The second night I was in the area I was able to check in to the D.H. Day campground in the park.  $12. a night and right on the lake.  Extremely convenient to have a nice swim.  The water's a bit cold.  I started out the first day wearing my shortie wetsuit, the second in rash guard shirt and swim shorts, the third I'd progressed to just my bathingsuit like everyone else.  Refreshing.  I did have a rather warm swim off of South Manitou Island which is an hour and a half slow ferry ride offshore.  The water was fairly shallow so that I'm sure accounts for the warm waters.  I hiked along the beach to about a 1/2 mile beyond this Shipwreck.  Not a soul in sight, just a long stretch of beach, cliffs of sand behind and beyond that forest.  The Shipwreck surreal like and covered with birds.  Waves lapping over smooth stones.  The kind of moment you scream with joy.  Oh and I did.  I also had a nice tour of the lighthouse on South Manitou given by a somewhat weary but still enthusiastic park ranger.  One of the Rangers on that lives out on the island for the summer went to UMASS Amherst.  I do find continuously on my travels that the world is very small in a lot of ways, and then it contradicts itself and becomes

Picture of me atop the Lighthouse at South Manitou

very large again.  Oh world forever changing size.  Ahhh well. 

I've only got 5 minutes...

I am woefully behind on updating this blog.  Here are a few things and I will fill in the details later.  I must be off in just a few minutes.

Northern Michigan, the Upper Peninsula, U.P. as the locals call it is a very cool place.  I traveled from Mackinaw City to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park along historic Route 22 that hugs the western coastline of Lake Michigan.  Gorgeous little towns, summer destination points some more touristy than others but all there to indulge in the very sea like qualities of Lake Michigan.  Rip Tides on a Lake!  Oh my.  I spent 5 nights in Sleeping Bear Dunes, the longest stay of my trip.  If you're a cape codder reading this, these dunes are 4-5 times as high as the dunes on the National Seashore, just massive, and on a lake.  What a crazy thing. Will post pics, or check the mobile uploads on my facebook page. 

I drove down to a town further south on the coast called Ludington which is the home of the S.S. Badger, the last coal ferry that crosses the lakes, or possibly anywhere.  They are changing over this year, and there is a contingent of locals who are very against this.  They want to keep this piece of history as is, but alas time marches on and smog and ash are no longer the way to go.  I spent a night in Ludington, the beaches there have all of these tiny black flies, so gross, they live in the sand up to about 5 feet from the water line and then their dead bodies are floating on the surface of the water as far as the eye can see.  The people swim anyway and sun themselves on the beach.  Uggh.  They don't bite, but they are so annoying and as I said gross.  Yuck. 

Took the 4 hour journey across Lake Michigan on the S.S. Badger Car Ferry, it is a sort of mini cruise ship with Bingo on the main deck, cabins for rent and that whole sort of thing.  Very mid-western in style I'd say as far as this New Englander can tell.  I felt sea sick the whole way.  I don't seem to do well on large ships and it was a rocky, stormy, rainy day. 

Will add more oh so soon.....must dash.

Back in the States

Crossing into the U.S. was harder than crossing into Canada.  No real surprise there.  The woman asked if I was employed.  Now why would they ask an American Citizen coming into the states if they are employed?  I'll leave you to come up with the answers for yourself. 

After Crossing the border at Sault Ste Marie, I drove down and stopped at St. Ignace before arriving at the campground just outside Mackinaw City.  Mackinac Island having been suggested to me over a friendly kitchen counter on a hot summer's day on Cape Cod.  Thank you to the Greenes for the suggestion.  Now, Mackinaw City is on the mainland of Michigan, whereas Mackinac Island  is offshore, a twenty minute fast ferry ride away.  Both places are pronounced Mackinaw, a very rookie mistake is rhyming the syllables in Mackinac.  Mackinac Island is a throwback to the 1800's in a lot of ways, they outlawed automobiles back when they were invented, so one traverses the small island by either horse and buggy or bicycle and there are a lot of both.  There is a crew of men who go around on bicycles with bins attached and stop and scoop up the horse poop.  Ahh what a job.

Mackinac Island.

Natural Rock Bridge, Mackinac Island

The island is entirely tourist centered, although there are those who live there year round.  I learned that the ice between the Peninsula and the island freezes in the winter and that after Christmas the year rounders on Mackinac take their Christmas trees and lay them across the ice creating the boundaries of a road where snow mobiles zip back and forth.  All and all it was a very pleasant day trip, many do spend overnights on the island but the accommodations are extremely pricey and they don't have any sand beaches. 

Mackinaw City rivals any other tourist trap city.  Loads of ways to spend your money.  A family I met at the campground said they found so much to do in Mackinaw City that they'd spend all there money and never even made it to the island.

Lighthouse by Mackinaw Bridge (Connects Mackinaw City and St. Ignace.)

Ricky is enjoying his travels.

He's all fired up.

He's cooking food like a grown up. 

It's important to take your puppets out and let them see the country.  If you keep them all boxed up in the basement they'll only complain about you to their therapists later on.