Tag Archives: Charles Dickens

The Blue Carbuncle

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I know it’s early, but may suggest a Christmas movie?

If, like me, you’ve seen the standard yuletide fare the requisite three dozen times, and, like me, you have a pretty good idea of what to do with a general, and like me, you’ve avoided shooting your eye out, and like me, you really dread being forced to resort to the Hallmark Channel, you could clear your egg nog noggin with this.

I’ve begun an extended journey of revisiting the Sherlock Holmes canon as interpreted by Jeremy Brett.

To quote that jolly philosopher Joe Ferrell (who at least once shared a drink with Charles Dickens); “What a joy!”

And it is.

I first met Mr. Holmes as relentlessly portrayed by Basil Rathbone as a non-glamorous leading man in a drab 1940’s overcoat (there’s a reason why Errol Flynn got the girl in THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD), dragging a befuddled Dr. Watson around a foggy, criminous London as he skewers the flagitious verbally before he claps ‘em in irons.

Subsequent Sherlocks were just as fun to follow.

Ian Richardson was commanding and thoughtful. That Baskerville mutt gave him no paws.

Benedict Cumberbatch rode the razor rail of sanity and brilliance to bravely butt heads with that Napoleon of Crime; Professor Moriarty.

But Jeremy Brett continues to be the Holmes for me. Fiercely intelligent and fiercely impatient. Knows everything about poisons and smokes like a chimney. A master of disguise and occasionally has the fashion sense of Lebowsky in his flat. uber-sensitive to every nuance of a client’s usually unlikely conundrum and then barges out of the flat, oblivious to Mrs. Hudson’s prideful cuisine under cover on the table;

Holmes; “Come Watson! The trail is hot!”

Hudson; “Which is more than the dinner will be.”

The Brett version of Sherlock is immeasurably enhanced by the passage of time. Brett covers many cases over a number of television seasons. Thus, as we do in Doyle’s stories…and in life, we see Brett’s and Sherlock’s athletic energies wane, stamina fade, wrinkles grow, hairline weaken, and wheeze lurk a little closer to the surface. For some reason…this resonates with me and makes me feel even closer to the still fabulous consulting detective. I’m even considering starting a bee hive. IYKYK.

My favorite Jeremy Brett Sherlock is probably THE BLUE CARBUNCLE.

It’s London at Christmastime. There’s snow, visible breath, top hats, mufflers, various carriages, pubs, a pint of yer finest, and a missing blue gem with a blood-red history. How Dickensian can you get?

Wait!

“Please sir, may I have some more?”

How about geese?

I have a thing about a Christmas goose. Janie, on a whim, cooked a goose for our Christmas years ago and it has become a holiday comfort food for me ever since.

Several geese figure prominently in this story. Whose geese are they? Whence did they come? Wither did they go? Why? What did they eat? Who ate them? Who should go to jail? Whose hat is it?

A well-cooked goose answers most queries and worries.

Goose bless us every one!

A Tale of Two Cicadas

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Apologies to Charles Dickens.

It was the blessed of climes until that burst of chimes…

…cicadas.

The cicadas are coming! The cicadas are humming!

We heard about it all winter, but faced with the tsunami of plagues filling our 2024 calendars (covid, anti-vaxxers, wildfires, floods, sonic assaults from Havana and Mar-a-Lago, the inexplicable inability of the Reds to hit left-handed pitching, and Hannity), strident sibilating from a bug seemed a low priority on the fret list.

And for the most part it was no big deal. Oh, there were a few stretches of scratchy serenades, wound-tight whiny choirs, and one full-blown hella-to-ya chorus I remember, but mostly the cicadian rhythms became just one more orchestra section for my backyard summer symphony.

Recently I found a solitary simulacrum on the back of our garage. It clung like an abandoned jewel, light brown-gold on the Keeneland-green wall. It reminded me of one of my favorite writers; Lafcadio Hearn. Being retired and free to change my daily agenda to meet just about any passing whim, I moseyed to our library and burrowed into the Hearn pile.

Mr. Hearn lived a meandering life in the second half of the 19th century. He lived and wrote in Greece, France, England, New York, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Martinique, and Japan. He translated French writers for the New Orleans newspaper, reported crime for the Cincinnati newspaper, wrote travel articles for national periodicals, owned a bar in New Orleans, and lived his final years translating Japanese fairy tales and lecturing English literature in the Imperial University of Tokyo, Japan.

I find his writing to be challenging and pleasant. He writes with such intelligence about places and times of which I am utterly ignorant, but his prose makes him a precious guide.

In his SHADOWINGS (Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1901), Hearn has a section designated “Japanese Studies.” One of the three parts of the section is entitled “Sémi.” Hearn tells us “sémi” is the Japanese word for “cicada.” Much of the article explores various Japanese attitudes towards cicadas as reflected by haiku.

Hearn notes; “Often a sémi may be found in the act of singing beside its cast-off skin.”

Waré to waga

Kara ya tomurð –

Sémi no koë

(Methinks that sémi sits and sings by his former body, — chanting the funeral service over his dead self.)

That’s one opinion. That’s one cicada.

Here’s another view.

Yo no naka yo

Kaëru no hadaka,

Sémi no kinu!

(Naked as frogs and weak we enter this life of trouble; shedding our pomps we pass: so sémi quit their skins.)

Which cicada might each of us be; the one who chants over our dead selves, our past selves, the old days, the glories past? Or the cicada that sings; “Thank you!” to and then leaves behind those past experiences and goes on to fly.

Which cicada might each of us be?

Which cicada might our country be?

I think I’m ready to quit those skins.

Like William Shatner, I think I’d still like to try flying.

That’s worth singing loud about.

Mamas Don’ Let Yer Babies Grow Up to Be…

Lexington Theatre,

…actors.

It’s a poor business plan for all but the tiniest portion of the population.

No, wait…let’s not sugar-coat it.

It’s a poor business plan for all but the tiniest portion of the tiniest portion of the population.

By profession, I’m no actor. I’m a retail manager. In 50+ years, I’ve performed in well over a hundred shows. My lifetime income from acting (so far) is somewhere in the neighborhood of less than $5,000. Retail management paid my bills.

The best actors I’ve known have made most of their money from activities other than acting.

  • One is an artist of rising reputation in oils and watercolors.
  • One is a successful screenwriter.
  • One is a lawyer.
  • One is an accountant.
  • Several are teachers (grade school and college).
  • One is a motivational speaker.
  • One trains doctors.
  • One was a pari-mutuel employee.
  • Several are waiters in restaurants.
  • One is a farmer.
  • One makes jams.
  • One reads horoscopes.

You get my point.

We don’t pay people to act.

But we like it when they do.

My professor and mentor Charles Dickens used to assuage parents of acting students; “There’s nothing nobler than bringing the greatest words and ideas in the English language to life on the stage.”

Spot on, Charles!

Of course he didn’t address the absence of paychecks for this noble stance.

I recall Charles sitting in on my audition in New York for a summer theatre job in Vermont that would allow me to work backstage and perhaps play a bit part, for the handsome remuneration of zero, zilch, nada, goose egg. After the audition, Charles treated me to lunch with an actress that was currently in a Tennessee Williams play and had just been lauded by Mr. Williams in a national magazine as the definitive actress for his writing. The lunch was nice and the company was impressive until she mentioned that her show had one week to run until it closed. I asked her what she would do then. She replied she would head to the unemployment office on Monday.

“Noble” don’t pay the rent.

No, don’t let your babies grow up to be actors…for a living.

But let them act.

Yes, yes, yes!

Let them act.

Let them learn to walk and talk at the same time…in front of a roomful of people. Let them learn to command a room. Let them learn to listen well when someone else commands the room. Let them learn to trust others on stage and let them learn to be worthy of trust. Let them learn to speak loudly and clearly and let them learn the power of being silent. Let them learn to laugh freely and know why. Let them learn to cry freely and know why. Let them learn to swing a sword to effect. Let them learn to kiss to greater effect.

Let them learn to be something other than themselves. Thus, they can shatter the limits of what they can be themselves.

There’s nothing nobler…or more useful.

Ask any of my list of best actors if they could be what they are for a living without their acting.

Ask yourself.

Dickens and the Deity

Lexington Theatre, Lexington-70's, , , , ,
Dickens on the right with some whippersnapper

Charles Dickens was a good friend of mine.

No, not that Charles Dickens.

This Charles Dickens was a teacher/director in the University of Kentucky Theatre Department in the 60’s and 70’s and yes, that was his real name. He was tiny and skinny with a voice that was neither tiny nor skinny. He shuffled though the halls of the Fine Arts Building during play rehearsals followed by Bridey, his Scottish terrier and smoking (it was long ago and a freer age then – dinosaurs still roamed the savannahs, probably smoking — ‘splains a lot).

Charles was an important teacher for me, though I never had a class with him.

How does that work?

Charles was my director in four different shows and he was a fellow actor in three. I learned much about theatre in those experiences.

But my first experience with Charles (unbeknownst to him) was before I even reached UK.

The year was 1969.

The place was the Guignol Theatre.

The reason was the Kentucky High School Play Competition.

I had competed earlier in the year at the regionals. We did well, but did not advance to the state finals. It was at these regionals however, where I met and befriended Jim Varney (see “Pre-Ernest Musings” in the archives of this blog). Thus, I was simply a spectator, enjoying the efforts of other schools.

Charles was one of the judges.

I knew of Mr. Dickens. I had seen one of the plays he directed and heard exotic tales. Don’t get too excited. “Exotic” to this Southern Baptist-raised high-schooler probably consisted of hearing that Mr. Dickens;

Exotic Turtleneck

– Wore turtle necks.

– Drank…something…other than Coca-Cola.

– Quoted old movies like Gospel.

– Smoked…(sotto voce)…a lot!

Exotic.

But here he was, in the house of the Guignol Theater, about ten rows in front of me. We were watching and evaluating the same plays. I felt wiser instantly and was reveling in my newfound sagacity.

Then Henry Clay High School took the stage. For some unfathomable reason, they had chosen to do a miracle play; “Noah’s Ark.”

There it was, a gigantic backdrop of the titular boat. In front of the ark, strutted sheet-bedecked high-school actors announcing and pronouncing archaic and utterly boring lines that didn’t even have the good manners to be iambic pentameter. At least you could have danced to that. It would be another nine years until Animal House came out. Otherwise, I would have erroneously assumed I had stumbled into a toga party.

The play slogged along through through the swamps of pomposity and vague righteousness until it reached a tense moment. The tense moment was tipped off by a tiny rumble of thunder offstage right. The ark backdrop rippled alarmingly and from out of the top of the ark, holding on for dear life, popped a head that had not yet needed to face a razor ensconced in the midst of a medical cotton nimbus and beard.

What he thought he was doing

It was God.

God stabilized his precarious perch, looked down, and sternly said; “No-O-ah-H!”

Now you fellows reading this…

At this point I need you to keep in mind the age of this young boy-becoming-a-man and recall that first tough moment when your voice changed and fled your control. Now, please turn and describe that moment to the females in our audience so they can also comprehend what just happened to our young actor…

…as he was playing God…

…In the Kentucky State High School Play Competition.

OMG.

As if that weren’t enough…

…at that moment, a great rolling guffaw filled the theatre.

It was the hooting of Zeus.

It was the howl of Odin.

All emanating from this tiny man judging the competition.

What I hope the young actor went on to do

It was Charles Dickens, laughing out loud…at God.

My inchoate sagacity evaporated.

I wanted to hide under my seat and await the inevitable lightning strike.

It was exotic.

I learned a lot about theatre from that minuscule blasphemous thundering chuckler.

Saratoga Day-Dreaming

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In the early 70’s I was working a lot of nights. Four to midnight was a regular shift for me. Thus, my days were a bit skewed. Lunch was important. Many days, it began my day. It got the juices flowing. It got the little gray cells humming.

I was living just off Euclid Avenue. Geography and lunch funneled me to the Saratoga Restaurant. If it hadn’t, fate probably would have.

The “Toga” sagged on the precise piece of High Street where that urban label became the more rural Tates Creek Pike. The front sagged. The neon sign sagged. The interior ceiling sagged. I snuggled in, usually with a book.

Chipped plastic-topped tables, free-standing and booth…harsh and flickering fluorescent lights…woogety chairs… two steps up to the bar with stools and more woogety chairs and tables…12-inch TV perched in the corner (black/white, non HD, squinting helps)…seriously heavy drink pours…

I know. It sounds too exotic to possibly be true, but as God is my witness…

Two or three times a week you could find me there (usually with a book) for the $1.79 lunch special.

  • Might be the Iceberg Wedge; one-fourth of a head of lettuce buried in an impenetrable lava flow of blue cheese.
  • A Chicken-Fried Steak; to this day I don’t know what that even means and am in no hurry to enlighten myself.
  • A Salisbury Steak; to date, none of the Salisbury’s on the planet have stepped up to claim this war crime.
  • Pot Roast; picture a lake of brown gravy (23,412 calories per ounce) over an Alps of mashed potatoes.

It was a different dietary time. Gluten had not yet been invented.

The service was impeccable and personified by Mona.

Mona was the mistress of efficiency. She could approach your table and release your plate two feet away from your table. It would glide with a spill-less thud precisely in front of your cringing napkin. I remember one Friday during Lent. One of the specials was fish, of course. It was served with the head still attached. The patron who ordered it objected to that arrangement. Mona picked up the plate and the customer’s butter knife, performed instant, violent radical surgery, and returned plate and knife to their original deployment. There were no more objections.

Most days, I was left alone to my lunch special and my book (I think I was reading a lot of Stephen King, Kazantzakis, Blatty, and Joseph Campbell at the time – whatta literary salad!). Other days would find me sharing a table with Charles Dickens (yes, that was his real name), professor of theatre, University of Kentucky. I learned a lot of theatre at lunch. Good for me. Unfortunately, it may have been at the expense of other theatre students at UK. I knew when Mona asked if Charles wanted another Manhattan before ordering lunch (there were two depleted glasses in front of him at the time), that his 1pm Directing Class was about to be discarded in favor of a mentoring/reminiscing session for yours truly. I’m not saying it was right, but…I learned a lot about the theatre, and heard some killer stories.

Yes, lunch is what I primarily remember about the Saratoga, but there were some remarkable Monday nights as well.

Monday Night Football was a major weekly event in season.

  • Arriving about seven to partake of the thinnest t-bone steak possible.
  • Matriculating up the two steps to the bar to join the Runyan-esque elite of the liquor industry as they attempted to out-drink and out-lie each other.
  • Watching my boss try to impress me by pounding double-Drambuie’s and ending up pounding the floor.
  • Ordering a Coke and being accused loudly of being a “Coke-sucker”.
  • Placing my weekly $5 bet on that night’s game.
  • Watching the blurry TV image (black/white, non HD, squinting helps – remember?) of the kick-off and about half of the first quarter in a room-full of blurry wannabe Nathan Detroits.

The bar and the restaurant closed at ten, so we were all off to our homes or what dubious adventures could be found in Lexington on a Monday night in the 70’s. I’m told you could be surprised.

Alas, I would be surprised.

But the “Toga”…

Tawdry…perhaps.

White, misogynistic, homophobic…oh yeah.

Dietetically healthy… <<snort>>

Enjoyable…hell…I was young and indestructible, straight, male, privileged……sure.

I snuggled in.

Would I like to return to those halcyon days?

No.

I’d like to think I could grow, but I know I’m not indestructible.

It felt OK at the time, but it was not for everyone, and that was the problem. I no longer wanna keep track of who it’s good for and who it’s not. That’s way too much score-keeping for me.

If that Saratoga reopened tomorrow…I’d be busy that day…whatever day it was.

Just Act the Hell Out of It

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In the theatre, I have been blessed to work with inspiring directors. Many of them seemed to enter and re-enter my life at times when they could fulfill dual roles; stage director and off-stage mentor. Just as I could not have become the on-stage kings, fools, lawyers, doctors, and errant knights required, so I could not have become the geezer I am today (for better or worse) without their genuine care and, at times, curious advice.

Prof. Charles Dickens lurking on the right

Perhaps preeminent among them, if for no other reason than my bewildered youth at the time, was Charles Dickens.

Yes, that was his real name.

Charles was my adviser at UK. On the Tuesday before my first year at UK, during the “advising” session required before classes began on Monday, Charles filled out my roster of classes (my input was restricted to an awed and tiny “ok”), and informed me that my part-time job at the public library wouldn’t impede my freshman theatre activities since they didn’t cast freshmen anyway…but that I should attend and participate in the Sunday auditions of the season’s opening show (which he was directing) for the experience.

I responded with another tiny; “ok”.

Monday morning, at 9:00, I attended my first college class (Physics: 101 – we learned to bend water with a comb) and was cast in my first show (“Playboy of the Western World”). I was slack-jawed that September at my Physics classmates (“Is that real water?”), and dazzled by my sometimes shabby but always quick cast mates in rehearsal. My path was clear.

That was in the fall of 1969.

In the spring, Charles cast me in his elaborate production of Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure”. By then, I was a complete “gym rat” in the theatre. Every day began and ended in the Fine Arts Building; the Guignol Theatre, the Laboratory Theatre (now the Briggs), the Green Room, the Scene Shop, the Costume Shop…even an occasional classroom. I lurked in every rehearsal I could find.

Angelo, on the right, acting the hell out of it

During “Measure”, Charles was deep into his Peter-Brook-THE-EMPTY-SPACE period. I may have learned half of what I know about the theatre listening to him coach actors in these rehearsals. One night, Bill Hayes, a nice actor and UK alumnus brought in by Charles to play “Angelo”, paused rehearsal to question the meaning of the line; “Let’s write ‘good angel’ on the Devil’s horn, tis not the Devil’s crest.” Charles sprang to the stage and took Bill’s script and they pondered…and pondered… Finally Charles handed the script back to Bill with the profound instruction; “Just act the hell out of it.”

Just act the hell out of it?

I had fallen in love with Shakespeare with “Measure for Measure”.

I knew what that line meant!

I could say that line!!

I could change people’s lives with that line!!!

Trump would never be elected if I said that line!!!!

I swore if I ever got the chance…

Well, of course, having sworn, I did, 23 years later.

Me acting the hell out of it in 1993

In 1993, the uber-smart Ave Lawyer cast me as “Angelo” in her production of “Measure”. This production featured a remarkable cast; Eric Johnson, Sidney Shaw, Holly Hazelwood Brady, Laurie Genet Preston, Jeff Sherr, Joe Gatton, Glenn Thompson, Donna Ison, Karen Czarnecki, Spencer Christiansen… WOW!

I had my chance.

I said my line.

I acted the hell out of it.

I changed people’s lives.

I saved the planet…from something.

And dammit, Trump was still elected.

I got up the next day and went to my day job.