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SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM THEATER REVIEW The Sound’s the Thing in This Anthology of Anthems

If you’re an aficionado of musicals who hasn’t made a voyage yet to the Odyssey Theatre to experience the siren songs of Side By Side By Sondheim - which has been extended - you still have a couple of weekends left to sail on over to Sepulveda Blvd. Sure to delight fans of plays featuring songs, this revue’s “gimmick” (as Gypsy’s strippers would put it) is that three singers and a narrator (Mark D. Kaufmann, who occasionally croons tunes, too) accompanied by pianists Cheryl Gaul and Richard Berent (also Side’s musical director, he tickles the ivories on a separate keyboard), perform numbers with music and/or lyrics written by Stephen Sondheim.

 

Legalizing Peace Is Far from Simple

As the U.S.

Petition and Events to Say No to an 18th Year of War on Afghanistan

https://worldbeyondwar.org/petition-and-events-to-say-no-to-an-18th-year-of-war-on-afghanistan

BACCHAE Theater Review

 

So first of all, let me get this out of the way: I really enjoyed the annual experience of watching an ancient Grecian play performed under the stars at the Getty Villa, seeing and hearing it in an amphitheater the way Greek audiences did when Euripides’ Bacchae opened in 405 BC. The drama pits Dionysus (a whimsical Ellen Lauren) - who, according to press notes, is “the god of divine ecstasy, fertility, wine and harvest… [and] theater” - against Pentheus (Eric Berryman), king of Thebes (the dramatist’s birthplace).

 

I’m certainly no expert on Greek drama but it seems to me that what Euripides, the playwright of antiquity, was getting at is what Sigmund Freud, the 19th century founder of psychoanalysis, would much later describe in works such as 1930’s Civilization and Its Discontents. That is, the struggle between the id - the unrestrained, instinctual, inner self - and the superego, from whence rules and regulations emanate. Out of this epic clash and collision Classical tragedy is born - and borne.

 

Abolition Study Group #1: Are Prisons Obsolete?

A wooden door and the words Angela Y. Davis and Are Prisons Obsolete?

Monday, September 10, 6:30-7:30
Page Hall, 3rd Floor, 1810 College Road, OSU
If you're interested in learning more about the prison-industrial-complex, policing or hyper-incarceration, please join us for a political education series called, 'Abolition Study Group.' The purpose of this group is to learn the theoretical frameworks necessary to build an abolitionist practice.

Each week, we'll meet on the 3rd floor for a discussion and that discussion will include commentary/questions provided by our incarcerated accomplices.

For Abolition Study Group #1, we will read 'Are Prisons Obsolete?' by Angela Y. Davis. The pdf is available here: bit.ly/2m6ihNa

If you're interested in co-hosting this event please advise.

From the Great Financial Crisis to the Affordable Housing Crisis

White sign with red letters saying Forclosure in front of a house

Great Financial Crisis

On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. It was the largest bankruptcy in the history of the United States, a key moment of mounting panic during what came to be known as the Great Financial Crisis. In London this year, some of the alumni of the bankrupt bank are reportedly planning to hold a party to "celebrate" the anniversary of the bankruptcy. That pretty much sums up the attitude of the rich.

The rich have certainly much to celebrate. Just about all assets they own -- from stocks to real estate -- in many countries command higher prices than ever. For the rest of us, however, the crisis has never ended. Our real wages, in fact, are declining, lagging behind inflation. Our pensions and health care benefits are being cut. Our housing costs are soaring.

Housing Crisis Today

Are we all becoming Travis Bickle?

Robert De Niro, youngish white man with a mohawk hairsut and sunglasses smiling with his arms crossed, wearing an army jacket with patches

I've been thinking about a couple of decades-old movies lately, Stanley Kubrick's 1987 Full Metal Jacket and Martin Scorsese's 1976 Taxi Driver.

Don't know why for sure.

It just might be a sign of the times.

Both tell stories of male characters descending into the inhumanity of violent madness – one an individual's, the other an organized societal group. Both involve alienation. Both are disturbing. Neither makes sense we want to be familiar or comfortable with. But I don't see how we have a choice anymore.

Full Metal goes full-bore into the deterioration and death of a mentally and physically unfit recruit in Marine Corps basic training while his cohorts successfully adapt to the dehumanizing process of being turned into our nation's first line of defense – killers, in other words.

That's Jacket's first part. The second is a tale of our now-blooded Marines getting the hell shot out of them by a very young NVA or Viet Cong sniper girl. Kubrick getting in his humiliating anti-American licks.

Rise Up march draws many on a rainy Saturday

Woman in a long green dress with a sash and a cape and crown of flowers with a sign saying It's not nice to frack mother nature

Some 100 or so protesters marched in the steady rain in Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday September 8, 2018, as part of over 900 events in 95 countries and on all seven continents, for the "Rise Up For Climate, Jobs, and Justice" day of environmental action. Stops and speakers at the Statehouse, Senator Portman's office, and City Hall, promoted a 100% renewable energy goal for the City of Columbus; the Columbus Community Bill of Rights for clean water, air, and soil voter initiative; and a reinstatement of clean energy standards for development projects in Ohio. Winie Wirth and Nathalia Rhodes as "Mother Nature" and "Sister Water" reminded us that "Water Is Life-Don't Frack it Up"!

Healing in North Lawndale

“This isn’t rocket science,” Jackie Ingram said, humorously downplaying her involvement in the Restorative Justice Community Court, a pilot project of the Cook County Circuit Court, which has brought a new, healing-focused system of justice to her community this past year.

My thought in that moment was: She’s right. Saving kids and reclaiming a troubled, broken community may be more complex than rocket science.

And more crucial.

“This is basic,” she went on. “Give them hope that they have a future.”

Jackie, who lives in the Chicago neighborhood of North Lawndale, is one of the community members involved in the experimental court, which addresses some of the worst failings of the country’s criminal justice system.

Free Press Second Saturday Salon TONIGHT!

People sitting around fancy room listening to a male speaker

Saturday, September 8, 6:30-11pm
1021 E Broad St.
Refreshments, music, art and socializing with progressive friends.
Free, no RSVP required.

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