French
Au clair de la lune, mon ami Pierrot
Prête-moi ta lume,* pour écrire un mot.
Ma chandelle est morte, je n'ai plus de feu.
Ouvre-moi ta porte, pour l'amour de Dieu.

Au clair de la lune, Pierrot répondit
Je n'ai pas de lume, je suis dans mon lit.
Va chez la voisine, je crois qu'elle y est
Car dans sa cuisine, on bat le briquet.

Au clair de la lune, l'aimable Lubin
Frappe chez la brune, elle répond soudain
"Qui frappe de la sorte ? ", il dit à son tour
"Ouvrez votre porte pour le Dieu d'Amour"

Au clair de la lune, on n'y voit qu'un peu
On chercha la lume, on chercha du feu
En cherchant d'la sorte je n'sais c'qu'on trouva
Mais je sais qu'la porte sur eux se ferma.

English
Under the moonlight, my friend Pierrot,
Lend me your light, so I could write a word.
My candle is out, I've no more light.
Open your door for me, for the love of God.

Under the moonlight, Pierrot replied,
I've no light; I'm in my bed.
Go next door, I believe that she is in,
For in the kitchen, someone lit a match.

Under the moonlight, friendly Lubin
Knocks at the brunette's door, she suddenly replies
"Who's knocking this way", he says in his turn
"Open your door, for the god of love."

Under the moonlight, little can be seen
The light was looked for, fire was looked for
Searching this way, I don't know what was found
But I do know that the door, on them was shut.

*In modern versions, this word is "plume", meaning pen. "Lume" is derived from "lumière", meaning "light".
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au_clair_de_la_lune

Hamlet closed with its last performance last night. I thought I'd try to see whether I could get a return ticket because...why not? However, I later heard that people had lined up for return tickets beginning the night before, so it's not surprising that I didn't get one when I went to the theatre only 45 minutes before the show was due to start.

When I met Peter De Jersey from Hamlet the other night, I asked whether he'd miss it when it was done. He said that he wouldn't because he was bound to work with everyone from the production again at some point or another and he was excited to be moving on. Not being very gifted at small talk, at the time it didn't occur to me to ask what he would be doing next. Instead, I asked whether that indicated that the community of actors here was small. He responded that he didn't think so, but that there were a lot of projects over the course of time. Now, I'm wondering how true that is...

As I mentioned previously, after meeting Julian Bleach and having him tell me that he was playing Mr. Sowerberry, the undertaker, in Oliver!, I had the tune for "That's Your Funeral" running through my head all day Friday, though I couldn't remember most of the words. So, I figured I'd try to go see it. Why not, eh? I was able to get a ticket to the matinee performance yesterday. It turns out that it was starring Rowan Atkinson, whom some may know as Blackadder or Mr. Bean, as Fagin. It also starred Burn Gorman, whom I know as Owen Harper from Torchwood and jaderabbit knows as Mr. Guppy from Bleak House, as Bill Sikes. (I have yet to see that version of Bleak House, but intend to watch it sometime.) Although neither Blackadder nor Mr. Bean fit my sense of humor exactly, Atkinson was quite funny as Fagin. I really enjoyed his rendition of "Reviewing the Situation" and there was a new twist to Fagin being concerned about Oliver seeing his stash of jewels. He seemed to be enjoying wearing the jewels, including a tiara, quite a lot, so when he discovered Oliver awake, it seemed as if he was as concerned about Oliver having seen him try on the jewels as he was over whether Oliver had seen where he kept them. *lol* Bill Sikes as a character is harder to judge because there's nothing humorous or subtle about him. I will say, though, that I thought Gorman had the presence to pull it off, which surprised me. The woman playing Nancy, Jodie Prenger, had been chosen for the part in a competition similar to "American Idol." She had a good voice and wasn't inappropriately bright or cheerful as Nancy, unlike what cynodd and I noted in our old high school's production of Oliver! this past spring. (To be fair, I'm not certain that any average high school aged girl would really understand Nancy's situation. I certainly didn't when I participated in Oliver! many years ago.) At the production I saw, Oliver was played by Harry Stott and the Artful Dodger was played by Ross McCormack (based on their photos in the program). I thought that the boy playing the Artful Dodger was particularly talented and fun to watch.

But, back to Julian Bleach...it turns out that he played both Mr. Sowerberry, the undertaker, and Dr. Grimwig, the doctor (obviously). I was sitting as far back as row S in the stalls, but I'd never have known him to be the same person I met the other night, if he hadn't told me. Knowing it was him, as I did, I could say that his nose was the same. Otherwise, he looked very cadaveric (which fits an undertaker, I suppose) and moved as a nimble charicature of an illustration in a version of Dickens's book. He was very funny, too, as Mr. Sowerberry. When I got back to the hotel, I decided to look him up on the internet to remind myself what he really looked like. Here is a photo of him from the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of The Tempest a few years ago. As I was looking for a photo, though, I came across his "filmography" and discovered that I'd seen him before on television: he portrayed Davros in the finale of Doctor Who, series 4, and the "ghostmaker" in a series 2 episode of Torchwood, "From Out of the Rain" (the evil circus episode). It's a shame I didn't know that at the time I met him or I'd have told him how creepy I found him in Torchwood. Hopefully, he'd have taken that as a compliment. ;-)

So, given the number of overlapping actors in just these few shows, it's hard for me to believe that the theatre community is really that large...

ETA: I said there was nothing humorous about Bill Sikes, but that's not entirely true. The way he pulled his loot out of various hiding places on his person to give it to Fagin was done in a very amusing way... Also, Gorman received quite a few boos from the audience during the closing bows. However, he smiled at it, so hopefully that was a good thing...traditional or something.

This past weekend, I was out of town for a conference and, aside from visiting my brother and his family (my 2-year-old nephew is way cute!), I managed to visit cjmr & d_84, finally returning their Doctor Who series 2 DVD set to them. cjmr made pasta for dinner with home-made pesto that was delicious! :) cjmr and d_84 also gave me advice on which "old Who" episodes available for download on iTunes were worth watching. That discussion inspired d_84 to sort through his Doctor Who videotape collection and he gave me his tape of the first 3 Doctor Who stories ever that he'd recorded from a PBS broadcast. (BTW, d_84, my VCR didn't eat it, but I assume you don't want the tape back, since you said you were cleaning out the videotapes that were duplicates of what you have on DVD?)

I spent Monday evening watching these first 3 Doctor Who stories and they struck me as having a very Lost in Space quality about them (although these episodes precede Lost in Space by a few years and the latter show was based on The Swiss Family Robinson). I don't mean to suggest that reminding me of Lost in Space is a bad thing - I used to love Lost in Space when I was a kid and frequently played it with my friends in the school playground near my house. The jungle gym was the spaceship and I always got to be Penny. :) There was a small building next to the the school building that we called "the powerhouse". I'm not sure that it supplied power to the school, but there were vents on the side of it and no windows. Also, there was the whirring of machinery from inside. So, it's no surprise that's where the monster, from whatever planet upon which we happened to be stranded, lived. As a child, I was so caught up in this fantasy that I'm sure, if I went back there now, I'd still feel as if there was a monster associated with that building...

( Cut for my thoughts on the first Doctor and more... )

BTW, did anyone know that John Williams, giant of film score composition, wrote the theme for Lost in Space? I just found out when I looked up information about the Lost in Space TV show last night:

I've had the radio on this morning and heard all about Kwame Kilpatrick's first night in jail. Apparently, he's currently on his way to another hearing at the courthouse. As the mayor of Detroit, Kilpatrick went to Windsor, Ontario, just across the Detroit River, to meet about the tunnel connecting Detroit and Windsor. I was in clinic yesterday when the news broke that the judge had sent Kilpatrick to jail for breaking the rules of his bond without court permission. Most of the people in the clinic were pleased and not sympathetic. He's done a lot in the last 7 months to make people think he believes he's above the law.

This all stems from revelations last January that Kilpatrick and his former chief-of-staff, Christine Beatty, "lied at the whistle-blower trial last summer when they denied they had a sexual affair and gave misleading testimony about the firing of Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown." (From The Detroit Free Press; full article here. There is also a lot about the various Kilpatrick controversies here.) He's since been charged with perjury and the Detroit City Council approved a resolution to remove him from office in May, but the resolution carries no real authority - it's just symbolic. Apparently, while I was on vacation, there was some altercation with a police officer and I heard on the radio this morning that he's expected to be charged with felony assault in addition to perjury.

So it wasn't surprising yesterday that this hit the national news within minutes. And, now I see that it's also being covered in the international news by the BBC. Way to go, Detroit!

While I was there on the BBC News website, I checked out their entertainment news page. There will be a Torchwood radio drama broadcast on September 10. It will feature Jack, Ianto, Gwen, and Martha Jones. The drama will be part of the BBC's coverage of scientists performing a "Big Bang" experiment in Geneva. The end of the article says. "As part of the day's broadcast, the show's star John Barrowman will join Ben Miller and Alan Alda on a panel of celebrities who are fans of particle physics." (See the story here.) I find the idea of being a "fan" of particle physics very funny! I mean, I can understand being interested in it, but being a fan of it? *lol* (Hopefully, they'll have some actual scientists, too!)

This has the potential of offending most people on my f-list (if so, I apologize), but I found it amusing anyway. It's a scene from the film, Downfall, which is about Hitler's last days, with new subtitles about the Torchwood series 2 finale:


by MadameDeVideoland

ETA: The above video seems to have been removed, but it can be found re-posted here.

Apparently, this clip has been used a lot. There are other versions with subtitles that feature Hitler yelling about the Vancouver Canuck's not getting into the playoffs, the Dallas Cowboys not making it to the Superbowl, being banned from "Microsoft Live", and somebody stealing his car, among many others.

I have no complaints about the Torchwood series 2 finale, though - I liked it once I got past the shock. :)

Yesterday, cynoddand I were discussing what's been going on with the Democratic primary in Michigan. 
So, today, I saw the results of this timely poll from Gallup reported on CNN.  Basically, it shows that, overall, 28% of current Clinton supporters say that they would vote for McCain, if Obama was the Democratic nominee, while 19% of Obama supporters say that they would vote for McCain, if Clinton was the Democratic nominee.  It's the independents who lean Democratic (that would be me) and the "conservative Democrats" who are most likely to vote for McCain, if their preferred candidate is not the Democratic nominee.  I found the discussion of these poll results to be quite interesting.  It will be interesting to see if this continues to be true once the nominee is certain, too.

I was watching the news with my Mom when we saw the results of this poll.  I've never known her to vote for a Republican, but she says that she would very likely vote for McCain, if Obama was the Democratic nominee instead of Clinton.  She said that she's always had a deep respect for McCain and told me something about him that I didn't know.  She said that he was famous while he was a POW in Viet Nam.  She said that his capture and torture was very much in the news and politically important during his years as a POW.  Apparently, this was because his father and grandfather were both admirals.  According to her, due to the politics involved with being the son and grandson of admirals, he was offered his freedom by the North Vietnamese and refused it - he didn't think it was right that he should be released for that reason while other men continued to suffer as prisoners.  So, it seems he was always one to stand on his principles.

ETA: Regarding my Mom being certain of a vote for Clinton, she has always said that she would vote for a woman, no matter which party, as long as she believed the woman to be competent.

It's been almost 2 months since I've posted on LJ and I thought I'd better get around to it again. Since my last post, I've:

1. Celebrated Christmas with my family.( Read more... )

2. Read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

3. Read Sherwood by Parke Godwin.( Read more... )

4. Finally submitted the results of my clinical trial from fellowship for publication in Clinical Cancer Research. (I haven't heard yet whether or not it will be accepted. *fingers crossed*)

5. Organized (as much as possible without purchasing more furniture) my office and guest bedroom.

6. Watched the entire Rome series.( Read more... )

7. Started watching Doctor Who and Torchwood.( Read more... )

Otherwise, I've been working, visiting my great-aunt in the hospital (she's recently been transferred to rehab), and visiting my grandmother at her assisted living apartment.