Archive: Arts & Entertainment

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One of the directives issued at a Spirituality and Aging Conference The Lansing Star Online covered (see The Graying of America, 21 October 2005) was to “Challenge yourself with new and unique experiences”.

In October, it was just one of the 26 items in the Alphabetical Actions For Aging Gracefully, presented by Barbara Bruce, a Rochester based Christian Education consultant, at that conference. The alphabetical listing was excerpted from her book Mental Aerobics, 75 Ways to Keep Your Brain Fit.

SMART TALK SMART TALK
By Dr. Verbos Metikulos

HONE IN: My colleague at the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired, Dr. Winton Prolix, was telling me the other day that he couldn’t concentrate on a recent speech. Windy, as we call him, had gone to a meeting at the Underbelly, Texas, town hall, where the discussion was on whether we should have zoning.

All Windy could remember was how “Honest Al,” of Johnson’s Used Car’s, kept honing in on points of information.

“Doesn’t he know you home in on something?” he kept asking around the Fowler Lounge.

Nurse Garrel S. Utter thought for a moment. “”Maybe he homes his knife blades,” he replied.

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SMART TALK SMART TALK
By Dr. Will S. Sert

HAVE A NICE DAY: Nurse Laconia Crisp came into the office fuming the other day. She’d had a long meeting with Father Peter Holdoff, and had over parked in front of Our Lady of Loving Disapproval. After writing her a ticket, Constable Clayton Johnson had told her, “Have a nice day!”

At the weekly Institute for the Linguistically Impaired staff meeting in Strunk Hall, we discussed this expression. In spite of some heated disagreement, we decided to accept it as a standard, meaningless social noise like, “How are you?” The asker has no more interest in your health than a dull-eyed store clerk has in the niceness of your day.

In spite of the Institute’s strict standards, “Have a nice day” won our acceptance because these meaningless formulas have ancient precedent. “Goodbye” is short for “God be with you,” but those with tiny, litigious minds might sue me for saying it to them if they thought the word were a prayer.

A possible exception to the standard of meaninglessness exists over in Los Bebedors, the home of Bedspring Tech. The New Age Chapel of Freedom From Guilt uses “Have a nice day” as the benediction. That’s a college town for you.

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The Parrot, written and performed by internationally acclaimed theatre artist and master storyteller Alice Eve Cohen, is an opera, a puppet show, a musical and a storytelling extravaganza!

The Parrot is based on a fascinating and unusual Italian folk-tale. It combines acting, puppetry, music, comedy and drama to tell a twisty "story within a story". A romantic parrot, with a mind of his own, befriends a peasant girl and outwits the evil king through his brilliant storytelling. The parrot's remarkable story is of a courageous girl who travels the world performing courageous deeds, saving princes and bringing joy to every kingdom she visits. The play moves fluidly between two fantastic stories: the story about the parrot, and the incredible story the parrot tells.

ITHACA, NY: On Thursday, January 26, 2006, the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce marked its 120th year with its Annual Meeting and Dinner at the Statler Hotel.

The Kitchen Theatre Company was recognized and received the "Small Business of the Year Award". This marks the first time the Tompkins Chamber of Commerce has honored a not-for-profit business with this award. Artistic Director Rachel Lampert, also named on the award, accepted on behalf of the board and the staff of the Kitchen Theatre Company.

SMART TALK SMART TALK
By Dr. Shirley Glibb

GREAT BIG: Descriptions such as great big, big huge, and great big gigantic are so obviously redundant as to seem no more worth complaining about than round circle. However, such juvenile speech can become a serious disease in later years.

At the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired, I sometimes find myself treating this particularly frustrating form of cerebroporosis. It seems most common in children, whom I don’t treat, but those whom their parents didn’t correct become my patients as adults.

The opposing redundancies are just as nasty to cure: little tiny, small little, and teeny tiny, as in teeny tiny little minds.

Sorry for that last, but hearing symptoms of cerebroporosis so often gives me a big headache.
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"Seussical The Musical" is about the power of imagination and belief in yourself.  Lansing High School's musical will be familiar and wondrous, as the boy Jojo (played by a girl, Keelin Davis), son of Mr. and Mrs. Mayor of Whoville, is propelled through Theodore Seuss Geisel's beloved stories.  The show features the Cat in the Hat (Andy Mowson), the Jungle of Nool, the Sour Kangaroos and the Wickersham Brothers, the earnest elephant Horton and a school of colorful fish.