Jyms of Wyzdom for November 1, 2019

Failure to Communicate: I have failed some of my faithful readers by forgetting to mention the local showing of Luzia, the Cirque du Soleil at the Hollywood cinema Tuesday of this week. It was a terrific show. We did learn that they are bringing their show, OVO to Pittsburgh beginning January 23 through Jan. 26 at the Consol Energy Center.

Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living. [Labor Activist Mother Jones]

Met Opera in HD: Next up is Madama Butterfly, Puccini’s ever-popular tale of the love between an American soldier and a Japanese girl. She rejects the advances of an important local man for her American, has a baby, and awaits the return of her sailor…with unfortunate consequences. When we saw this new production by Anthony Minghella several years ago, we were just blown away by the daring staging, utilizing Bunraku puppets for the boy and a very moving dance scene. Bunraku is the extremely popular and ancient skill of manipulating puppets of about 3 feet high by three black-clad puppeteers. The puppeteers really do seem to disappear as you focus on the action. Saturday, November 9, at 12:55 PM at the Regal Hollywood cinema. I’ll have some things to say about the Dec. 7 showing of Akhnaten as we get closer to December.

I really thought I could do something to change the world. I soon found out you can’t change the world. The best you can do is learn to live with it. [Writer Henry Miller]

Final Exams: Here we are approaching the final week of the fall term! Where did the time go? This was an especially sad week for us, as we noted the passing of Alice Frost, a dear and committed OLLI supporter. Her quiet words in the hall or in class were always just right, just what the doctor ordered. She’s a great example of one who lived a wonderful and eventful life on both sides of the Atlantic. My grandmother used to write me about every week when I was a teen, making sure I was staying close to God and behaving myself and learning stuff. At about the same age as Alice (86), grandmother would include little news bits about a distant cousin, friend, or Sunday School classmate that had died, shrinking her surviving family and friends. Yet, it happens to all of us, and we all do our best to face life’s end with grace and beauty of spirit.

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if that drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. [Humanitarian Mother Teresa]

Whoever was responsible for adding five more handicap parking places outside our main entrance deserves a BIG THANK YOU!

Books: Yikes! The last couple of weeks has given us reading addicts a bag of treats: Elizabeth Strout’s revisit with Olive Kittridge; Andre Aciman’s Find Me, the sequel to Call Me by Your Name; Ian McEwan’s new novella, The Cockroach; Rachel Maddow’s Blowout; Anne Patchett’s The Dutch House; and Salman Rushdie’s Quichotte, a re-thinking in the style of that famous Man of La Mancha. So, now you’ll know what I’ll be doing this winter.

Events: I don’t think I’ve giving away the store, but I can pass along a hint about the possibility of not one but two Special Winter Film Forum events. The curriculum committee will be helping me get my list down to two titles, both epics.

What have I done to achieve longevity? Woken up each morning and tried to remember not to wear my hearing aid in the bath. [Writer/Actor Robert Morely]

Have fun…I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.

Jim