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MrMead's Pupu Platter

  • Pagans vs Christians

    Number of comments: 4

    Here in Oregon, one of the season’s best spectator sports is watching the annual skirmish surrounding Christmas trees. Just a couple of weeks ago, an Ashland school banned the display of a decorated tree on the grounds it was associated with Christianity and thereby implicitly excluded [...]
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    Posted: December 19, 2009, 9:14pm EST
    by Mead

  • My horoscope for tomorrow

    Number of comments: 1
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .

    Just sayin. [...]
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    Posted: December 18, 2009, 10:41pm EST
    by Mead

  • My hero

    Number of comments: 1

    Alfred Jarry changed my life forever. You know, the obnoxious pixie who dashed off all those Pere Ubu plays? Yeah, that guy.

    Way, way back in the 20th century, I had landed my first-ever theater job working for Storefront Actors’ Theatre, right here in [...]
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    Posted: December 15, 2009, 9:15pm EST
    by Mead

  • I got nothing.

    Number of comments: 2
    Periodically, when I run dry and don’t have something of my own to share with you, I do what everyone else does: tout the more ingenuity of more fecund bloggers. In supplication, then, I offer a few blogs I find consistently worthy of my precious time.

    ART SCATTER [...]
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    Posted: December 12, 2009, 1:22am EST
    by Mead

  • Do you speak Farcey?

    Number of comments: 2




    Was doing a little research on the history of farce today, as prep for a panel discussion I’m sitting on this Sunday (yes, the one referred to in the previous post). And just for laffs I decided to Google the string “how [...]
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    Posted: December 06, 2009, 11:23pm EST
    by Mead

  • News flash! Crazy ass theater rocks Portland

    Number of comments: 0


    Ya, the holiday fare is upon us, including my own contribution to the crowded performance roster. But there are alternatives – antidotes, even. Portland Playhouse’s Bingo with the Indians, while not avowedly an anti-Christmas show, has a wintry feel to it, and is just [...]
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    Posted: December 03, 2009, 10:33am EST
    by Mead

  • The Hamilton Mixtape!

    Number of comments: 1
    Am I the last person in America to know about this? Apparently Lin-Manuel Miranda, he of In the Heights fame, performed this slyly humorous new piece last May.

    How cool is it that this kind of performance can now happen in the White House? Thank you, Cousin Tabitha, for [...]
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    Posted: November 30, 2009, 8:10pm EST
    by Mead

  • Exeunt

    Number of comments: 2
    Below is a lengthy excursus written by my colleague Matthew David Wilder. Those of you who believe we should have dispensed with the messy, frustrating endeavor of theater years ago may want to skip this post. Otherwise, read on. Whether you're struggling within the "mainstream" theater (a' [...]
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    Posted: November 28, 2009, 7:51pm EST
    by Mead

  • Days have gone by and I couldn't be sorrier.

    Number of comments: 5

    Yes, I've done it again. Disappeared. But now I'm back.

    You did realize I was gone, didn’t you? Well. By way of celebrating my Thanksgiving advent, I’m going to filch from the creativity of some fellow bloggers.

    Following playwright Patrick Wohlmut’s lead [...]
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    Posted: November 27, 2009, 3:01pm EST
    by Mead

  • Thespian Nation

    Number of comments: 1
    Just finished the theater equivalent of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride (don’t extend the metaphor too far, please) that’s taken me from one end of the county to the other. It started on Wednesday – not with a play, actually, but a theatrical event. Dmae Roberts read from her work-in-progress [...]
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    Posted: November 16, 2009, 5:33pm EST
    by Mead

  • At last: a No Exit I can live with

    Number of comments: 7

    Plays I refuse to sit through again in this lifetime:

    All My Sons
    Feydeau’s idiotic so-called sex farces
    Spring Awakening
    Pretty much all Roman “comedies”
    Mother Courage
    Butterflies Are Free

    Although I must admit. There’s a passel of plays that always struck me as [...]
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    Posted: November 10, 2009, 10:38pm EST
    by Mead

  • Orpheus a là mode

    Number of comments: 0
    Forget what you believe about Philip Glass. If you’re accustomed to associated his music with numbing repetition and avant-garde antics, his opera Orphée is going to come as a surprise. Oh, it sounds like Glass all right. But yoked into the service of narrative, his music finds depths and [...]
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    Posted: November 07, 2009, 11:05am EST
    by Mead

  • My big trip

    Number of comments: 4

    Though my Halloween Countdown disguised the fact, I was gone for a spell last week, sunning my pasty northwestern legs and otherwise aging my skin cells in the turquoise waters of Napili Bay. Maui.

    Sure, it was lovely. But remind me never to leave Portland [...]
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    Posted: November 03, 2009, 8:48pm EST
    by Mead

  • Life on the dark side

    Number of comments: 4

    Okay, so All Souls’ Day is November 2, not today. Today is the far less interesting All Saints’ Day, but we’ll blip over that in order to continuing with the more mysterious and ooky tides of the season.

    Here in tropical Portland, [...]
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    Posted: November 01, 2009, 10:52am EST
    by Mead

  • All Hallows is here

    Number of comments: 1
    And what better way to pay tribute to it than with this paean to the god and goddess within all of us, composed and performed by a woman who’s immortal herself.



    What, you were expecting the Monster Mash? Please! Enjoy your Irish New Year, and give a [...]
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    Posted: October 31, 2009, 6:31pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Halloween Countdown #2

    Number of comments: 3
    Terribly late here for getting you my penultimate post for this year's All Hallows soundtrack … look for the last one in just a few hours! I’m tardy because of an exciting meeting this morning, the contents of which are so top secret that I can’t even share them here' [...]
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    Posted: October 31, 2009, 2:06pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Halloween Countdown #3

    Number of comments: 6
    "One from the vaults."


    [...]
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    Posted: October 30, 2009, 10:19am EDT
    by Mead

  • Halloween Countdown #4

    Number of comments: 1
    A lush, lapidary Talking Deads composition from 1979 – 30 Halloweens ago, yikes. Reportedly David Byrne achieved the disjointed quality of his voice here by wearing a recording device while jogging.



    I should warn you that this video starts with an inexplicable 30-second lead-in. Bear with it; [...]
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    Posted: October 29, 2009, 5:33pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Halloween Countdown #5

    Number of comments: 0
    Another classic, composed by Grieg for a production of Ibsen’s unstageable Peer Gynt. Reportedy, when Ibsen attended the premiere, the person sitting next time expressed admiration for Grieg’s version. To which Ibsen replied: “Oh, you think that’s good, do you?”

    I know what he meant. But for sheer storytelling [...]
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    Posted: October 28, 2009, 8:00pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Halloween Countdown #6

    Number of comments: 0
    You see? This is what happens.

    [...]
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    Posted: October 26, 2009, 8:52pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Halloween Countdown #7

    Number of comments: 1
    Alas, this is a latter-day adaptation of the opening music for Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining, not the mysteriously unavailable original. Wendy Carlos wrote that – clearly basing it on the “Dies Irae” – which was disturbing almost to the point of being unlistenable…

    [...]
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    Posted: October 22, 2009, 8:35pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Osage County comes to Portland

    Number of comments: 3
    Tracy Letts is personally responsible for much of the sass I’ve gotten from playwrights in recent years. For decades I’ve said: look, there are a few simple “don’ts” you should follow if you want to be produced. These include:

    Three-act plays
    Large casts
    Kitchen sink dramas about dysfunctional families
    [...]
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    Posted: October 21, 2009, 11:58pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Halloween Countdown #8

    Number of comments: 0
    An oldie but moldy, for your delectation. Much of ’60s psychedelia had a sweet tooth for thanatology, which went hand in hand with its penchant for minor keys. Here’s a fun example by the immortal Candadian band Procol Harum.

    [...]
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    Posted: October 19, 2009, 5:35pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Halloween Countdown #9

    Number of comments: 10
    The Munsters are to The Addams Family as beer is to Beaujolais.

    Compare. Contrast. Discuss.



    [...]
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    Posted: October 17, 2009, 5:52pm EDT
    by Mead

  • PDX jiffy pops

    Number of comments: 3
    In keeping with my latest dubious honorific as “the Tim Gunn of Portland theater,” here’s a few cultural kernels that are about to pop.

    Tomorrow evening (Friday), Fool for Love opens at the CoHo, directed by the always fashion forward Megan Ward, and way to go, [...]
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    Posted: October 16, 2009, 9:34pm EDT
    by Mead

  • All's well that starts well

    Number of comments: 4
    No doubt you’ve heard about Britain’s National Theatre’s latest gambit – showing high-definition, "live-captured" screenings of selected shows? It got off to a great start with the much-lauded production of Phèdre, starring none other than Helen Mirren, and on the strength of that success, now has a whole season [...]
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    Posted: October 15, 2009, 10:41pm EDT
    by Mead

  • "The choir has a lot to think about."

    Number of comments: 2

    You remember ground-breaking play The Laramie Project. The original production, as created and performed by the Tectonic Theater Project, was a high watermark of my life in the theater. In the hands of less sterling artists, a play dealing with the brutal and inhuman murder [...]
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    Posted: October 12, 2009, 1:26pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Because it’s October.

    Number of comments: 2
    Plus it’s my birthday.

    Witch’s Hat, by Robin Williamson


    certainly the children have seen them
    in quiet places where the moss grows green

    coloured shells jangle together
    the wind is cold the year is old the trees whisper together
    and bend in the wind they [...]
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    Posted: October 10, 2009, 8:04pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Three things I want you to see at Wordstock

    Number of comments: 0
    Full disclosure: these are three events I planned, so of course I consider them must-sees. They’re all omnibus occasions -- panel discussion/reading events, designed to extract maximum performance value out of each sojourn. Check it out.

    Voices from Another Portland
    Saturday, 2pm, Wieden + Kennedy Stage
    Remember last June [...]
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    Posted: October 09, 2009, 2:16pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Hellzapoppin’: Wordstock opens!

    Number of comments: 4
    For you kids, Hellzapoppin’ was a riotously popular revue, in its heyday, that changed all the time. It was understood anything could happen at any time. You know it better through its descendant, the ancient TV show, Laugh-In.

    But never mind, because that’s not what this [...]
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    Posted: October 07, 2009, 6:04pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Playing hooky

    Number of comments: 1


    Entre nous, even whilst feverishly preparing for Wordstock, I have managed to sneak in a novel by a writer not appearing in this year’s festival. (Hopefully you’ll meet him at future fests.) You may know the divine Mr. M already from his theater assays: [...]
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    Posted: October 05, 2009, 4:44pm EDT
    by Mead

  • "Everyone's Waiting."

    Number of comments: 6

    Some weeks ago I watched just enough of the Emmy Awards to hear a notion iterated several times -- that we’re currently enjoying a new golden age of television. Maybe they say stuff like that every year, for all I know, but this time the phrase [...]
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    Posted: September 30, 2009, 8:57pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Because a body can't kvetch all the time

    Number of comments: 0




    Another interim post, while I attempt to recover from Portland’s last-gasp heat snap before autumn sets in for real (tomorrow, reportedly).

    Here’s a fun little de-stresser, which comes to me via the redoubtable Isaac Butler of Parabasis fame: the [...]
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    Posted: September 27, 2009, 5:46pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Have I lost the will to blog?

    Number of comments: 6
    Let's hope this latest miasma is temporary. Because two posts in two weeks hardly cuts the ice. Cuts the mustard? Cuts the cheese.

    To tide you over till I can nudge myself off the Couch of Desuetude and back to the Desk of Quiet Improvement, here is part' [...]
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    Posted: September 26, 2009, 10:43pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Wordstock 2009 cometh

    Number of comments: 2



    The shame! The ignominy! A semi-fortnight since my last post. The Social Mediation Committee will be recycling all my URLs.

    Woke up worrying about this today, and checking my stats I discovered that yesterday I had a total of 25 visitors. Twenty-five. [...]
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    Posted: September 19, 2009, 10:24am EDT
    by Mead

  • Occupational hazards of working at home

    Number of comments: 0





    From the good people at Information Is Beautiful. Click on the image to get a legible image. You're welcome.' [...]
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    Posted: September 12, 2009, 4:33pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Fantastic Voyage

    Number of comments: 2
    Sorry, this post is actually not about Raquel Welch and her pearlescent wetsuit, fun through the movie of the same title is. I hope you can adjust.

    No, this is about my never-ending search for a drop of water to cool my burning tongue here [...]
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    Posted: September 12, 2009, 11:38pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Color me clueless, but ...

    Number of comments: 5
    Are you as astonished as I am that a small percentage of people kept their kids out of school today rather than let them hear the President speak? I mean: what could they possibly have feared he would say that it was so vital their children be “protected” from on [...]
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    Posted: September 08, 2009, 4:41pm EDT
    by Mead

  • My new BFF: Victor Lodato

    Number of comments: 2

    If you don’t know Victor Lodato’s writing from his startlingly imaginative works for the stage (The Bread of Winter and 3F, 4F, to name just a couple), perhaps you’ll remember that he was the unwitting center of controversy several years ago. The New York Times [...]
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    Posted: September 06, 2009, 2:25pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Get it while it's hot

    Number of comments: 3

    T:BA:2009 opened this week to avid pandemonium. As always, the venerable time-based art festival offers an overwhelming international slate of performances. But naturally, you care only about what I’m getting to, don’t you. So here’s my itinerary so far, if you'd like to stalk me:' [...]
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    Posted: September 05, 2009, 11:18am EDT
    by Mead

  • Tame yr brain

    Number of comments: 9



    Guess I’m gonna have to tell em
    That I got no cerebellum

    --“Teenage Lobotomy,” The Ramones



    Along with an increasing number of other unfortunates, I suffer from frequent and incapacitating headaches. Why why why?? Like all migraineurs, I put a [...]
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    Posted: September 02, 2009, 10:30am EDT
    by Mead

  • The 7-year hitch

    Number of comments: 8
    Seven years ago today, I arrived in Portland. And I can’t help but ascribe some significance to the time phase. Domestic mythology tells us that our bodies renew themselves on a cellular basis every seven years, and guess what, I was actually ending just such a cycle at that time. [...]
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    Posted: August 29, 2009, 10:41pm EDT
    by Mead

  • A close house call

    Number of comments: 6


    Do kids still read the old Doctor Dolittle stories anymore? Nowadays the tall tales of the kindly naturalist who could talk to the animals is better known through the movies: the lavish yet oddly dull Rex Harrison flick of the 60s, and later the [...]
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    Posted: August 23, 2009, 3:15pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Top Chef PDX?

    Number of comments: 2


    Here at the House of Mead, we gave ourselves up last night to a gluttonish debauch of epicurean delight by watching two editions of Top Chef back to back: first the new batch of fresh-faced recruits on Top Chef Las Vegas, then the frothy [...]
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    Posted: August 20, 2009, 7:13pm EDT
    by Mead

  • We're almost famous

    Number of comments: 4

    Who knew there was so much fiction set in Portland? I’ve read three in as many months, now, and each of the published this year: Portland Noir, Portland Queer, and now Jon Raymond’s haunting and memorable Livability.

    While the author may not [...]
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    Posted: August 17, 2009, 5:27pm EDT
    by Mead

  • For Cascadians Only

    Number of comments: 1
    Here’s a hankful of groovy upcoming events, if you happen to be in the Portland area soon.

    The Ghana Travel Fund Bake Sale

    Tomorrow, Sunday Aug 16, dramaturg at large Kim Crow is hosting a bake sale benefit from 10:30 am until 4 pm at NE 17th [...]
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    Posted: August 16, 2009, 11:18pm EDT
    by Mead

  • Get thee behind me, Summer

    Number of comments: 3


    O, thank you, St Michael and all your archangels, for getting us at last to the end of the summer TV doldrums. True, I’m grateful to Bravo for tiding us over with Top Chef Masters (which, surprisingly, turned out to be more fun than the regular Top [...]
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    Posted: August 14, 2009, 11:00pm EDT
    by Mead

  • And now for something you'll really dislike!

    Number of comments: 6
    Why do I feel compelled to share this with you? I don’t know. Unless it’s because Splatterson keeps challenging me to find new depths of perversity. So here it is, for your horror: my most hated song of all time. Not only is it maudlin and derivatively lachrymose, it’s [...]
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    Posted: August 11, 2009, 11:03am EDT
    by Mead

  • On going around and coming around

    Number of comments: 4

    Okay, I’m back from four days in the amazing centrifuge of literary activity known as the Willamette Writers Conference – a wondrous creative tune-up that posits all sorts of possibilities for the future.

    By this evening I’ll have a new post on my [...]
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    Posted: August 10, 2009, 10:03am EDT
    by Mead

  • Vanishing Act

    Number of comments: 1

    It’s astounding. Time is fleeting. Madness….takes control.

    No, it’s not another midnight showing of Rocky Horror at the Clinton St Theatre. I'm gearing up for the 2009 edition of the Willamette Writers Conference. Just so you know, that’s what I'm disappearing into for the [...]
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    Posted: August 06, 2009, 11:31am EDT
    by Mead
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