What music they make…

In keeping with the Halloween season, I thought that line was appropriate. Bela Lugosi’s role as Dracula still is one for the ages. Today, that movie seems quaint and common, but in 1931 it terrified the audience. I’ve been told and read that the 1922 silent movie Nosferatu was even more chilling. Someday I must see that film.

Other versions of Dracula were horrific, bad, funny and just plain campy. There was Dracula vs Frankenstein, Dracula vs Batman. There was a Son of Dracula (Young Dracula) and an Old Dracula. Dracula was even Dead and Loving It. He even discoed in Love at First Bite. Today there are many more vampire stories out there, they all started with Dracula.

Why this fascination? Hard to say. Terror lurks in dark places. We as a society gather in light areas. We bring light into the dark. We try to chase away all shadows. Vampires, werewolves and their ilk are creatures of the shadows and dark. They strike a nerve with us. They chill our bones. They the moral of a story. Live a good life and evil will not happen to you. Stay with the group, do not go off alone after dark. There is evil out there and it has a name.

Today, we try to scare ourselves and we call it fun. We have horror movies, haunted mazes and houses, horror books. Things designed to get a bit of thrill in our lives. Things designed to get our blood flowing.

I do love the Halloween season. I wish that our haunted theater had been a reality, now I have no plans for Halloween. I’m too old to go “Trick or Treating” and I know of costume parties yet. Last year, even without the party, I put on my Dracula cape and went around the local area. Maybe this year, I’ll shop at Wal*Mart.

And what brought all this up….

The Children of the Night, what music they make…. Owls in the trees, a dog or coyote howling in the distance on a chill dark night. Yes, the children of the night make music, and to my ears there is nothing better….

And yes, this is a play our theater should do… if we don’t do a haunted house in October, we should at least do one themed play…

It is official, the Haunted Theater is officially canceled. The hard work and planning that went into this fund raiser is all for naught. I can’t see why people would want to throw away a fund raiser. Even if it only raised $100, it would be $100 that they didn’t have prior to the event.

I won’t say more other than this may affect my future involvement in the theater. I’m not sure at the present time. They want money, but I guess there are only one or two ways to get it. This wasn’t one of them. Too bad, the other ways aren’t working, as far as I can tell.

Not quite a list, because my interests are varied, but some of the things I like to do, all G-rated of course. (I have a daughter or two who may read this. Yes, they are all over 16, but they are still my
little girls.)

I like insignificant bits of trivial knowledge. The more trivial the better. Knowledge that Diners Club was the first independent credit card (1949) and that is when the middle man started handling our money is interesting. Knowing that it came about because one of the first partners forgot their wallet at dinner is the cake. Knowing that partner was a man named Frank X. McNamara is the icing. Finding out what his middle name was would be, as they say, priceless.

I like reading. Of all sorts, but I tend to read Science Fiction, Fantasy (Swords/Sorcery), Mysteries, and Trivia on the web. Will read almost any well written book. Great rainy day time filler.

Computers… Yep, I can’t get enough of them. I work 8 hours a day on them and then I come home and spend free time on them… You would think I would get tired of the little buggers.

Cooking occasionally. There are times when I really want to whip up a special meal, I just don’t like doing it everyday. But, you have to eat…

Time spent with friends. I’m glad to say I have a few people in my life, that don’t seem to mind having me around. My wife used to call this “Adult Time”. Sometimes, I think we adults act a bit like children, but that is part of the fun.

Softball and Baseball. Baseball is the only sport I ever really followed (I played at one time too). No matter how old I get, if I can still swing a bat and toddle down to first base, I plan on playing softball as often as I can. If I would do it more often, I imagine I wouldn’t be as sore the next day….

Theater. In my college years, I never would have thought I would want to get on stage in front of people. Wasn’t me at all in my early years. I’ve had a lot of fun doing my ham-bit on stage.

Science and math. Things that make my logical little brain tick. You’ve got to keep the gears greased to keep everything running smooth, and that’s what the Science ant math does for me….

A bit of wood working. I really like destruction the best, but I like using power tools. The smell of cut wood is something too.

And last but certainly not least, I like my family. Every dang one of them. They helped form the person I am today (along with many others I’ve met along the way) and since I tend to like the person I became, I guess I could thank them once or twice… Nah, it would go to their heads wouldn’t it.

If you’ve seen friends you might remember the episode when Joey, a often unemployed and ridiculously bad actor, gets a review that reads “Not believable as a human being.”…  Well, today I am the received such acclaim.

I am in a local production of the Nerd and play the title character or Rick Steadman; the Nerd.

With such choice phrases used as “over the top” and “upstages the others” and “hard to believe he is a real person” it is indeed time to ask myself the question…  Am I as bad as Joey?

The good news is the show itself got a good review and so did some of my VERY WELL DESERVING castmates!!  🙂  🙂

Oh well.  I can only learn for next time.  I have always found myself a little better at dramatic roles; not a character actor am I.  For now I will have to live with “not being believable as a human being” — or at least “hard to believe he is a real person”.

Halloween is right around the corner…  ok it’s 2 months away!  But Halloween stuff is out all over the stores already, and while we’re planning our Haunted Tour for our community theater group, our other friends in the theater are getting ready to stage an hilarious (TANGENT ALERT: I HATE using the word “an” before words that start with h, but I guess that’s proper English, so…) production of the play called Kitchen Witches!  Someone had a great idea to sell a Halloween cookbook as a fundraiser for the theater.  Being a stay-at-home-mom of 4, I have a few holiday-themed recipes in my vault that are fun for the kids and adults (to eat), so I’m going to contribute my favorite Halloween recipes.  Since I have to type them up to submit to the cookbook anyway, I thought I’d put them on my blog, along with a recipe for one of my favorite desserts: peanut butter bars – YUM!

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds
large pumpkins
salt
seasonings (your choice)
butter

Extract seeds from pumpkin, separate from pulp, and discard pulp.  Put the seeds in a colander and run water over them to get rid of all the pulp.  Drain on paper towels.  Melt 1 Tablespoon of butter and toss pumpkin seeds in a bowl with the butter and salt and / or seasonings.  Spread seeds out onto a cookie sheet.  Toast seeds in an oven preheated to 350° for about 30 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes and adding salt occasionally.  Check the seeds to see if they’re done by taking a sample out, letting it cool, and tasting it.  If the insides are dry, they’re done.  Be careful not to burn – you want a nice golden brown color.
NOTES:  I use a clean, thin dishcloth instead of paper towels since I’ve had problems in the past with the seeds sticking to the paper towels.  Be creative with the seasonings; you can use popcorn seasoning, taco seasoning, garlic salt, onion powder, cayenne pepper, cajun seasoning, etc.  Pumpkin seeds are high in iron, vitamin A, and zinc; if you want to make them even healthier use olive oil instead of butter.

Rice Krispies Treats Spiders
YIELD: 3-5 spiders
3 Tablespoons margerine or butter
1 package (10 oz. or about 40) marshmallows or 4 cups mini marshmallows
6 cups rice krispies cereal
food coloring
prepared frosting
candy corn
string licorice
shredded coconut

In a large microwave-safe bowl, melt margerine and marshmallows on high for 2 minutes, stirring after 1 minute.  Add a few drops of food coloring and stir mixture until smooth.  Add rice krispies cereal, stirring until well coated.  Let cereal mixture slightly cool until it is safe to touch.  With buttered hands, shape cereal mixture into spider shape and place on wax paper.  Let cool.  Attach decorations to the spider with frosting using candy corn for eyes, licorice for the web, and coconut for the hair.  You can color the coconut by soaking in warm water with a few drops of food coloring for about 30 minutes.  Dry coconut on a paper towel before using.

Peanut Butter Bars
1 lb. powdered sugar
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 sticks melted butter
12 oz. peanut butter

Mix all ingredients together in a 9×13 non-greased pan.  Melt large bag of chocolate chips and spread on top.  Cut into squares in pan and refrigerate until cold.

I’ve always been a big fan of Halloween and Haunted Houses, so when our little theater started to look into doing something like this, I jumped at the chance. The very first “Haunted House” I went to was actually someone’s house. Just for Halloween they would bring in a real casket, and the owner of the house was dressed as Dracula. The candy dish was place on his chest. Every so often he would move to grab a kid. Sent you right through the roof. Of course you wanted to be that kid he moved on because his wife (a witch) would give you an extra candy bar.

Now on to other haunted houses and Halloween. Believe it or not, there are people who don’t like haunted houses. For some it has everything to do with their religion. Now, as long as they aren’t out there preventing my fun, my hat is off to these folks. To take a stand, because of their moral views, counter to the societal views is laudable. Others are simply frightened too much by them, and they don’t enjoy it. Nothing wrong with that either.

There is a third group. They may or may not belong to either of the two other groups. People who have experienced a loss of someone close (spouse, sibling, parent) may not like the idea of having fun with death. While I’ve lost a brother and both parents, the loss of my wife made me see this more. The other deaths could be explained away (didn’t help the grief, but the logic was there). My wife’s death was something out of the blue. Never saw it coming. Generally her family had very long life spans. I could then see how people would be upset and troubled with the fundamental ideas behind Halloween and Haunted Houses. The gravestones, skeletons, zombies, ghouls and ghost can all bring up some troubling memories. I can see where that would really change a person’s view on the whole Halloween event. And that doesn’t even go into the sight of seeing something in a Halloween display that reminds you of your loved one’s death. That is very troubling.

So I guess because of this, I do draw a few lines. I don’t like, and won’t go to a haunted house based on a hospital. I don’t like haunted houses with a lot of suicide themes. There are other things that can be just as scary that don’t touch these areas. It just takes a bit of insight.

Of course, even after my wife’s death, I couldn’t completely give up on Halloween, it was one of her favorite holidays. I can have fond memories of past Halloweens by carrying on the celebration of the day in the future.

Happy Haunting…

I actually hadn’t heard much about this movie before I saw it, but it happened to be playing at the time we needed in order to be able to see a movie that day.  Having 4 kids = a hectic life.  Our weekly date night has become a date day (still weekly though, YAY!), partly because my husband is in a show and we have rehearsal or meetings most nights, and partly because the baby still has his days and nights mixed up, thus guaranteeing that he sleeps during the date if it’s during the day.  But anyway, back to the Pineapple Express.  The movie is all about marijuana.  I did read the plot synopsis before I went, but I didn’t realize exactly how much drug content there would be – the characters smoke pot constantly!  It tells the tale of a stoner (Seth Rogen – does he smoke pot in every movie he’s in?) who witnesses a murder committed by a cop.  The whole movie has him fleeing the bad guys – while smoking marijuana, of course – with his drug dealer, who he didn’t know all that well before they fled together.  Seth Rogen wrote the screenplay for this film, and I like his natural way of delivering lines.  He’s not a very diverse actor, but his characters seem like real people because of the way he delivers his dialogue.

The movie entertained me; some parts were funny; although it did get pretty violent.  I missed some of the violence though because I fell asleep…  just tired, I wouldn’t call the movie terrible or anything like that.  It’s not one of my favorites, though, and I’m not sure if it even has replay value.  But if you read my blog regularly, you’ll know that my husband and I see LOTS of movies, so this was just another theater experience, and those are always fun!

Tollbooth.

The current wonderful production by the WCCT children’s workshop, is the Phantom Tollbooth”. Performed entirely by young people between the ages of 7 and 17, this little production is quite charming. While it is the culmination of 1 month of hard work by children and parents alike, the show is not the whole story. The children learn a little bit about the workings of live stage productions (Yes, things go wrong… more on that later) both on and off stage. They get to work at finding some of their own props, costumes. They help build (sometimes) and paint the set. Most of the kids I talked to think it is a great experience and many come out year after year.

They find out, year after year, that sometimes people forget their lines, and someone else needs to do something to help out (Good life advice there too). They find out that sometimes the props they need aren’t there, and they have to improvise something (sometimes this works, other times it doesn’t–sounds like real life again doesn’t it?). The find that sometimes things break, and you have to get along without it for a while (More life lessons..). It looks like in a one month period of time, they learn a lot about the theater, and even more about life. Most of them don’t realize they are learning anything but their lines. Good for them and their futures.

I should have written this sooner, so some of the background readers would have had a chance to see this show. Tomorrow is the last show, and I’m not sure how many seats are left.

I wouldn’t be a father if I didn’t say the best Humbug I ever saw was the one portrayed by my youngest. Not so young anymore, this is her final Childrens’ theater workshop. Now she will have to earn her roles if she decides to stay active in Community Theater.

Ok, I like playing the part of the villain. I like talking about murder and mayhem. I’m not really like that at all. Really!!

But I just read a news article where apparently someone was just like that. I guess that if I ever really committed a crime, the last part I would want on stage is a character who commits the same crime.

I think I may follow this story, if I can. I can see bits of it a the basis for a play.. Sick sense of humor, true…