The editor of my favorite British newspaper, The Guardian , is risking deportation “for the term of his natural life” by calling for the abolishment of the monarchy. In this article, they argue that the requirement that the crown can only pass to Protestant heirs of Princess Sophia (making Catholics, those that marry Catholics, and those born out of wedlock ineligible), and the requirement that male children get the first shot to the thrown over older sisters, violate the European Human Rights Act, now law in Britain.

Do you want to follow along behind the scenes of a play in production? I’m directing Christopher Durang’s Baby With the Bathwater , and I’ve formed an egroup mailing list for my cast and crew. You can join, if that’s the kind of thing that would interest you.

It’s Pearl Harbor Day. The 59th anniversary of the US’s entry into World War II. Of course it’s the “day that will live in infamy,” but with what we know now, that whole speech just rings wrong. In college, we noted this day on several occasions by having a Pearl Harbor Party. The theme drinks were B-52’s and Kamikazes, and they were drunk in revered remembrance in great quantities. I vividly recall one year’s party (I don’t know how, considering how many B-52’s I had) hosted by Randy. After solemnly noting the beginning of way well into the night, I then had a drunken conversation on physics homework with Marjorie, took an incredibly drunk Charlie across campus to some friends’ house (known affectionately as TenTen, since that was the street address), to play a game of Avalon Hill’s Civilization. I explained the rules to him, and he listened. After that, he excused himself for being to drunk to play and left. Meanwhile, the residents of the house, perfectly sober when we walked in, were busy catching up so they wouldn’t have an unfair advantage over me. Very nice fellows, they were! The game lasted until just about sunrise, at which point I left to nap a bit in my dorm room. I’d left my door unlocked, and a surprise awaited me there, but I’ll keep that memory to myself.

Up With People is down on its luck.

I finished casting last night. There were four times as many people as parts, so I had to make some hard choices and turn away people I really like (or would really like) to work with. This ends a four week long string of busyness, so tonight I can finish cleaning the kitchen and tomorrow I can take time to return the countless emails that have piled up in my inbox. And maybe even start wrinting here again like I used to. Ahh… those were the good old days.

In the future, many languages spoken today will be lost. One group seeks to preserve them by creating a modend day “Rosetta stone”. They are engraving common text as well as creation myths and grammar primers onto a three inch nickel disk. It won’t be digital, either. It’ll be complete engravings, readable with a simple 10,000x magnifying lens. I found this on eatonweb.

The Big Eyed Art Bananza: “I bet you’ve probably already guessed- I am totally obsessed with big, poor, pitiful, weepy, sad eyes. " Puppies, cats, cute little girls. If you like big eyes, here’s your place. Unless you’re looking for anime big eyed art. Western art only, here.

Friday, December 1, was World Aids Day. This weblog was unavailable then.

View From the Heart, Alwin Hawkins excellent weblog, turns a year old today. Alwin does a wonderful job of mixing links with anecdotes and stories from his life, and I’m happy to see him reach this milestone. Today he tells us it’s all been worthwhile.

It’s been all about food. The last two weeks, that is. It all started with Thanksgiving, which my girlfriend and I spent at the home of some mutual friends. The very same friends that introduced the two of us and became responsible for my current euphoric state. My friends were cooking all the traditional Thanksgiving foods, and then some. I was in charge of dessert and wine. I made three cheesecakes: pumpkin, of course, along with chocolate caramel pecan and apple caramel sundae. I made them all from scratch, including the caramel, but stopped short (this time) of making the cream cheese. Wine was a few bottles of the very tasty Beaujolais Nouveau and some white port from Mount Pleasant Winery in Missouri. It was a fantabulous night.

Then I had to cook for a lot of people. The theater group I do most of my work with has an opening night reception for each play it puts on. Usually it’s finger food things, fruits and cheeses and the like. I was doing the reception this time, and the play seemed to call for more. It’s called Dearly Departed, and it’s a comedic look at a southern “white trash” family dealing with the loss of their patriarch. Finger foods were right out – I had to do a full southern style pot luck. So I cooked for about a hundred people, using every pot and pan I had (some of them three times). Fried Chicken, macaroni and cheese, okra, hush puppies, banana pudding, fruit salad, deviled eggs, punch, cookies, peanut brittle. I used my two volumes of the White Trash Cookbooks (despite the titles, they are really very good, very informative books – highly recommended) heavily in choosing just the right recipes. The reception was Friday, and it went very well. But Saturday I faced a trashed kitchen.

I cleaned as best I could, for Sunday was another day of cooking. What was envisioned as a post-Thankgiving Thanksgiving meal, it was scaled down to include just me, my girlfriend, and my excellent friend Kim. Longtime readers and people who know me might recognize the oddity in that, but it was really very nice. My kitchen was still half-trashed, but I forged ahead and baked a ham (and then glazed it), made cornbread stuffing, mixed vegetables, baked sweet potatoes, and the most wonderful Cornish game hens I’ve ever had. I followed a recipe for the Chinese delicacy Tea Smoked Duck, adapted for Cornish hens. Though a bit involved, the cooking was very easy. A rubbed marinade, steaming in the wok, and smoking in the wok. Instead of wood chips, the smoking agent is black tea (I used Lapsang Souchong), uncooked rice, peppercorns, brown sugar, cinnamon sticks, and anise. Someone once told me that this dish was best left for the restaurants, as the smoke would stench up the house for many days afterward. But I lined the wok with foil and wrapped the overhang around the lid, sealing in all the smoke. And that did the trick. And the taste was out of this world.

So now my kitchen’s a disaster again. Luckily, I can live off leftovers for a few days, because it’ll take a few days before I can really shine the place. I’ve got auditions tonight and tomorrow for the next play I’m directing, Christopher Durang’s wickedly funny Baby With the Bathwater, opening next February 2.

Well, it hasn’t been all about the food. In other news of the weekend, the events set in motion on Day Zero have led to my kindred spirit becoming my kindred housemate.