Month: October 2022

BULL: a love story, parte de Destinos, Chicago’s International Latino Theater Festival

Anybody who has lived in a multilingual household knows that sometimes your brain decides to finish a sentence in a language that’s different from the one it started in. Sometimes it switches a single word, pero you never know until it comes out, and even then you may not notice because it happens so often. The world premiere of BULL: a love story, the last show in this inaugural season of the Paramount’s Bold series, captures this perfectly with a fully bilingual cast bouncing between English and Spanish. Opening weekend was perfectly timed for inclusion in the 5th Destinos: Chicago International Latino Theater Festival.

The story is set in Lakeview, a community within Chicago, back in 2005-2006, when our cell phones were still dumb. The main character, Bull, is just returning to Lakeview after a decade in prison and trying to reestablish his life, including building a relationship with his daughter who barely remembers him. As expected in live theatre, the story has its ups and downs, making you hope things turn out alright yet unsure until you reach the end which type of alright that will be.

It’s playing through November 20th, and the page that I linked to above has a promo code for discounted tickets. If you see it, let me know what you think.

Thoughts on The Raven Song

No, I haven’t blogged about this book before, that was The Raven Spell, the first book in this series. In that post, I mentioned that the next book in the Conspiracy of Magic series by Luanne G. Smith was coming soon; it was as delightful as the first book, with a publication date of October 2022. This review was originally published in the August 2, 2022 issue of Booklist Online.

Stunned by her sister Mary’s sudden death at the end of The Raven Spell, Edwina Blackwood is forced to retreat from London when a stalker magically destroys her shop at the beginning of Luanne Smith’s The Raven Song. Even her departure from London is threatened when their train tickets are pickpocketed from her love interest, Ian Cameron, and they resort to the witches’ safe house and a magical train to reach Sir Henry’s Elvanfoot’s home in the north. Thinking themselves safe, Edwina and Ian relax as the witches and fair folk prepare for the Gathering, a celebration of Midsummer, and Edwina explores her increasing abilities with fewer restrictions than in London. As Ian investigates something sneaking through the veil between the mortal and fairy worlds, he finds increasingly disturbing connections between his work and Edwina’s stalker, and runs afoul of his employer who mistakenly thinks he’s hindering the fair folk. The surprises about both characters and the setting throughout this story will delight readers as Smith continues to skillfully play with folklore.

Jurassic dreams and missing shoes

I had a strange dream the other night, of which I only remember snippets, just enough to be interesting. It started on an airplane, where I learned that the flight was free for anyone willing to assist with host/ess duties. While that seemed like a reasonable offer, somewhere in the process, I lost the sandals I had been wearing when I boarded the plane. I’m reasonably fond of my Tevas, so I proceed to take another flight on the same plane in an attempt to find them.

By the end of the second flight, I had realized that each flight was a separate movie theme. Not the movies they were showing during the flight, rather the plane was actually part of the movie’s story. That said, I don’t recall what the first two “movies” were about. I do recall that when the third flight started, as I was still searching for my sandals, I glanced out and saw a humongous shark launch out of the water and bite a blue whale in half. I turned to my friend, who was not on the previous two flights, and said “This is a shark movie, stay out of the water.”

You may be wondering how I knew it was a blue whale. Really, I have no idea… my brain just said it was. And since a megalodon (such as in The Meg) is estimated to be around 60 feet, compared to a blue whale’s 90-100 feet, I’m guessing the shark in question was closer in size to the mosasaurus seen in Jurassic World; size estimates for those vary from from 55 to 120 feet.

Reaping the temporary benefits of climate change

According to historical climate data, the average high near me in October is 62; the average low is 43. The temperature has reached the low 70s every day this week, though it’s dropping to a high of 56 on Friday. This can, without a doubt, be referred to as “unseasonably warm”, as I continue to walk outside barefoot to retrieve the mail, and had to open windows in the afternoons to keep the house from overheating.

Last lingering blooms on a sunflower in October

Unlike the people on the Gulf coast of Florida who have many months of recovery from Hurricane Ian, or the east coast of Canada recovering from Hurricane Fiona, here in Illinois, at least for now, I’m able to appreciate the strange weather shift as my garden lingers into the fall. One last sunflower stalk remains with a handful of blooms, and my last okra flowers appeared within the last two weeks. I’ll need to harvest those last okra before the frost hits, probably this weekend, and the tomatoes are becoming easier to find as the plants die off. Eventually – probably in a week or so – I’ll be able to harvest my sweet potatoes.

New flowers on strawberry plants in October

These last strawberry flowers – in October! – are destined to disappoint; they’re not likely to become fruit as the temperature drops. We should have a few more days of harvesting raspberries and golden raspberries though. And by harvesting, I really mean standing outside and eating them straight off the brambles.

Golden raspberries on brambles in October