Last Saturday I took Meredith to downtown Akron, to go to the wonderful Civic Theater. The Civic opened in 1929, and has been fully restored – the interior has elaborate statues and carvings and bright colors, and the ceiling is even painted to be like the evening sky in the Mediterranean, with lights as stars and with clouds that actually move across the sky. I am very fond of this theater, and I am glad it was rescued  in the 1960s.

On this particular night, the Civic was hosting its first “Festival of Nations” to showcase the cultures that have gone into making up Akron over the last 150 years or so. For a wonderfully affordable $10 ticket, eight different groups performed for 15 minutes each. The seating for the event was general admission, so Mer and I chose seats in the front row of the balcony (in spite of my fear of heights). Since so many of the groups were dancing groups, we decided we wanted to see a wide sweep of the stage. We ended up sitting next to a group of about 8 black girls who made up a praise dance team for their church. They had come out to see other forms of dance, and were very enthusiastic all thought the evening. It was very encouraging that young people would take a Saturday evening to come and watch different cultural dances.

The theater lobby was packed – some groups had brought food to sell, and many groups were offering demonstrations. It was pretty zooey. According to the MC of the evening, the Civic had thought they might get 200-300 people, and they ended up with 2000. It was a good crowd (but still did not fill the theater).

So, the evening consisted of:

The Cleveland Chinese Music Ensemble – Not surprisingly, this group played Chinese music, and played it really well. That was to be a joy all evening long – all of the groups that performed were all local talent, and they all did really well. The fun of this group was the unusual instruments they played. My favorite (and the one I spent most of the time watching) was a Chinese lute called a pipa. The woman playing it was amazing, and although it turns out that the instrument only has four strings, it sure seemed as if there were a lot more – she was getting a lot of sound out of it. The group also had a Chinese flute, a mouth organ (that was fun), a “moon” (moon-shaped) guitar, a zither, and several percussion instruments. They played four different songs in their 15 minutes of Akron fame.

Dance Israeli! Dance Company – This group was a lot of fun. The group focuses on traditional Israeli dance steps, but has updated the dances to more contemporary Israeli music. They did six dances in all, and my favorite was the Yakalelo, which was an Israeli hip-hop dance. That was great to see.

El Corazon de Mexico – The group biography indicates that El Corazon dances over 100 dances, but on this evening they were limited to 5. They opened with a marvelous dance that still retained much of the Spanish flavor – the women had large flowing dresses where they moved the hem constantly with their hands, and the men were dressed in formal black suits. Mer and I both agreed that the constant motion of the dresses was mesmerizing. The last four dances were more distinctly Mexican, with the dance members dressed in cowboy outfits. They did a nice job, and ended with the national dance of Mexico, Jarabe Tapatio, for which I knew the music from Bugs Bunny cartoons (think of Bugs fighting the bull in the bull-fighting cartoon). The music made me smile, and the dance was great.

Shri Kalaa Mandir – This group specializes in Indian (from India) dance, and was made up of four women. It was fascinating. The dance is very precise, with feet usually at 45 degrees away from the front, and with a lot of bending from the knees. I have no idea how their knees held up to that stress. They did three dances, including a lovely dance that started with the dancers in the dark, but carrying small lights; the dance began and ended with the audience only able to see the lights moving on stage, and hearing the bells the women wore around their ankles.

Michael Searching Bear – Michael’s music is heavily influenced by Native American rhythms, and the program stressed his flute-playing skills. He brought a band with him, and, in a funny twist (given the program), Michael pretty much stayed playing a drum kit, which included a huge drum with the drum surface facing up. Michael played the drums magnificently, and he did come out to play two short flute pieces to start songs.

Serpente Negra Capoeira – This group performed an art I had never heard of before. It is based on dances that African slaves in Brazil did, and it is a dance mixed with martial arts. It is kind of like a faster version of tai chi, set to chanting and drumming, and with two people dancing/fighting. It was interesting. My only complaint is that the group did just one 15-minute-long session, and after about 10 minutes the moves started to get repetitive. The group was very fluid – it seemed as if any member could jump in at any time and “tag” someone out, and then pick up the dance/fight.

Csardas Dance Company – A Hungarian dance troupe, this group was made up of a lot of very young people. They had traditional Hungarian costumes, which were very colorful (especially the women’s dresses). They did four dances, and the one that stood out to me was a bottle dance performed by four young women. It was nerve- wracking! They really did dance with bottles on their heads, and the dance was not short – it was probably five minutes long. There were some times during the dance where they took the bottles off from their heads (and carried them or put them on the floor to dance around them), but half or more of the time was spent with the bottles on their heads. It was great.

O’Hare School of Irish Dance – It seemed appropriate to end the evening with an Irish dance group, since it is March. The O’Hare school is well known in Northeast Ohio, and its students have done well in dance competitions nationally and in Ireland. On this evening, the group was made up of over 40 girls, ages 6 to 20. The more advanced dancers (about 20 or 25 of them) were wearing the colorful formal Irish dance dresses, and the beginner dancers wore t-shirts with shamrocks on them. They danced 5 dances in all, 2 of which were hard-shoe dances (the ones that Riverdance made famous).

So, for $10 each, Mer and I got to see 8 nations over 2 hours’ time. Not a bad return. The Civic did say they were planning on doing the Festival again next year, and I hope we can be there.

Last Thursday evening, Mer and I headed back to CVCA to go to a string orchestra concert. We both like music, but this was special – CVCA’s orchestra is really amazing, with a full sound and great arrangements of music. Also, Mer and I also each have 7-8 students in the group (out of about 40), and finally, this night, they were doing all movie music.

I like movie music for “classical” concerts for several reasons. I usually know the piece of work already, and they tend to be catchy, and they tend to be short (only a few minutes long). My mind can seriously wander during music that does not have lyrics, especially if it goes more than about 5 minutes. So, I was very excited about this concert.

The kids were all in costume to represent the various movie music they were playing, so we had lots of pirates, a Princess Leia, an Indiana Jones, a Darth Vader, a dinosaur, and so on. It was a lot of fun to see the students (and the teacher!) get into their costumes.

They played well-known movie music, and the composer John Williams was featured heavily (not surprising given his body of work). We heard well-done arrangements of music from Star Wars, Indiana Jones movies, Jurassic Park, The Incredibles, and from all three Pirates of the Carribean movies. The concert was an almost ideal length for a school night – just over an hour. Probably my favorite moment of the evening was when Erik, the orchestra teacher, came out dressed as Darth Vader to conduct the Star Wars theme music, which he did. With a light saber. I found it very amusing. It was a fun night.

Last Tuesday was Aunt Mary’s birthday, so Mer and I headed down to North Canton to celebrate with her in her new digs. We swung by Fisher’s (a grocery store) to pick up a cake, and then went to Aunt Mary’s. The moving-in transformation had continued even since just the previous Saturday. The house was more or less together – the only obvious thing left waiting was that the pictures needed to be hung.

Aunt Mary was in the mood for Chinese, so we headed over to a local Chinese restaurant and got take-out so we could eat at the new place. The food was excellent, cheap, and copious. I could not finish mine, and Mer had half of hers left as well, so we kept the leftovers for Wednesday’s supper. Yum. We finished the meal off with the quite delicious chocolate cake we had bought. A good meal indeed.

I then tried to be manly again, and tried to put up the new light fixture again. Aunt Mary had gone out and bought several longer all-thread screws, and so I gave it another go. Sadly, even though the all-thread looked the same, it would not screw in to the fixture – it seems the fixture uses metric screws and we had American screws. Light fixture – 2, Matt – 0. I’ll try again next time I am down that way.

Last Saturday was Mer’s day to plan, and it was very mellow. I got to run, watch a little of the Olympics, and then nap. In the early afternoon, we headed down to Aunt Mary’s new place to see the place and see if we could help a little.

Aunt Mary was about 75% moved in – it was amazing. She has some cool new furniture, and all of her older furniture was more or less in place. The smaller things, like dishes and pictures and such, were not yet in their places, but it was an impressive move-in for someone who had talked about eating in her new home on her birthday (the next Tuesday) with just a table and a few chairs.

Mer and I toured around and were very impressed. I hooked up Aunt Mary’s TV and video player in anticipation of her cable being hooked up in the following few days. Aunt Mary then mentioned she was going to replace the light in her bathrooms, and I figured I could help. It’s just three wires and a couple of screws – even I could do that!

I got the old light off the wall with no issues, and got the new light wired up and put the mounting posts in the wall socket. Up went the new light – just two screw heads to screw on and all would be well. Except for the tiny detail that the posts were not coming through the mounting holes. Down comes the light. The wires get undone. Screws get remounted. Wires get rewired. Up goes the light again. Still too short. After 20 minutes of futzing with a 10-minute job, I came to the conclusion that the mounting posts were too short. The electrical box was recessed in the wall, flush with the back of the drywall. The posts were the right length if the box had been mounted flush with the front of the drywall. Aunt Mary said she would try to get a longer all-thread screw for later in the week when Mer and I were coming back.

We left Aunt Mary’s new place, and Meredith started giving me directions. At first, we were headed in familiar directions – headed toward Hartville, then on to Alliance. But we kept going east through Alliance into territory I had not been in before. Then we started on short legs of road – three miles and then left, and then eight miles and then right. The roads started to look like good Maine roads – narrow, winding, hilly, and very scenic. This went on and on, and after about an hour and a half total, I found myself pulling into Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, home of Geneva College.

One of Mer’s former students now goes to Geneva College, and was in a production of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. Mer had decided we should see it, and I am glad that we did – I have never read the play, and only seen it once a few years ago in Cleveland.

But first things first. Mer had assumed that a college town like Beaver Falls would have good places to eat kicking around. She was wrong. After cruising around town for about 15 minutes and finding 4 pizza places and a closed Dairy Queen, we settled on a pizza joint right across from the college. It turned out to be very good pizza, but we were still amazed that a town with a college in it was lacking in even one obvious sit-down restaurant (other than the Korean place we saw, but I was more hungry than adventurous that night).

We drove the short way to the theater, which was a small space made out of a converted bank building. The theater was still closed for another 15 minutes or so. The theater is next to a Sheetz gas station, so we popped over and got a donut and a candy bar. We ate them in the car while listening to The Best of Bert and I, a CD of Maine humor. It was a great way to spend the time.

Once the theater opened, we went in and were seated. The theater really was small, seating no more than 70. The stage was simple, made up of the stage and two elevated platforms. During the play, minimal props were moved on and off the stage (chairs, a desk, and so on). It kept the focus on the players.

The director’s notes were very useful. The director decided to stress the Christian aspects of Measure for Measure (Geneva is a Christian college). That works well – the title of the play itself is taken from a saying of Jesus. The director was looking at the extreme of justice without mercy (in the form of the harsh Angelo) and the extreme of withdrawal from society (in the form of the convent novice Isabella, and to a lesser extent the Duke himself). To stress the universality of the nature of sin and the need for both justice and mercy, the director chose to clothe the actors in costumes from many periods. An especially good choice was in the difficulty of clothing the actors playing two prostitutes in the play. Being at a Christian college, and directing a play focusing on lust, the director could not have the girls in scanty costumes. Instead, he had them in layers of tights and leather and gauze and even ballet skirts. They were heavily made up, and even though they were fully clothed, there was no doubt about how they made their living. It was well done.

A quick summary of the play – the Duke decides to leave town, leaving an adviser (Angelo) in charge with the expectation that he will clean up the city, which is very wild. Angelo is a just man, and decides to enforce a law on the books that makes it a death penalty crime to have sex outside of marriage. The example is to be made of Claudio, who got his lover pregnant. Claudio appeals to his sister, an acolyte nun, to appeal to the just but merciless Angelo. When Angelo sees her, he immediatly falls in lust with her, and tells her he will release her brother if she sleeps with him. Meanwhile, the Duke comes back disguised as a priest, who manipulates and advises the various people in the play. Many other things happen, but it all works out, and Angelo is brought to understand weakness and the need for justice and mercy and even forgiveness.

The play was well acted, especially in the leads of Isabella and the Duke. The actor put on one accent for the Duke, and another for when he was the priest, and he did it consistently, which made it work. The other actors did very well, although some of them needed to be a tad louder and a few of them needed to slow down when speaking their lines. Mer’s student had a minor role (the pregnant lover of Claudio), but there is a thrill to seeing someone on stage whom you actually know. It was much fun.

We got to catch up with Mer’s student and the student’s boyfriend (who played the Duke), and it was good to talk with them. They are good people. We then had to leave, to take the hour-and-a-half drive back home. Happily, the way home was all highway, so the directions were pretty easy.

Last Thursday was CVCA’s parent-teacher conference day. They always feed the teachers (and quite well), so I went along with Meredith so I could eat with her. I know I don’t stick around for conferences, but I like eating supper with my wife. It was lasagna and garlic bread and chocolate cake. I got to chat with CVCA’s hockey coach about hockey, since I had seen some hockey because of the Olympics. It was interesting.

Anyway, I went home and Mer went to her classroom. As usual, Mer ended up with no conferences (she stays in close contact with students and parents if the student starts to get behind), so she came home around 6:15 or so. And since he was bachin’ it for the week, our friend Craig came over shortly thereafter (he had a 6:15 conference).

Craig is always much fun to be around – he is wacky and he is witty, and he had come over to try out the bean-based card game that Ellen had given Mer this past January. He picked it up very quickly, and, not unlike Shannon, was soon trying to find the weaknesses in the game. Most of his ideas were covered in the rule book, but he did come up with the very cool idea of trading like beans for like beans, just to get them to the front of your hand where they can be planted. It worked pretty well. In fact, it worked so well that Craig won, and I lost. I seem to lose this game a lot. I tend to spend extravagantly to get the beans I want, and that does not help my cause a whole lot (although the score was 19-15-14, so Mer only beat me by 1 gold coin).

We then munched on some Handel’s mint chocolate chip Handel pops (soooo good) and chatted. Craig was amused flipping through my copy of Cake Wrecks (a book showing cakes gone badly wrong). Not shockingly, Craig had been to the web site many times, but there were some book-only cakes that he found amusing. It was a pleasant evening, despite my losing, and Craig headed home into a snowy evening around 10:00. Mer and I did stay up for another hour or so to watch some Olympic coverage. For two people not really into sports too much, we are both Olympic junkies.

Friday dawned very snowy, and it was only 30 minutes after we got up before the call came in that we had a snow day. Mer directly headed back to bed, where she got some much-needed sleep, and slept until about 10:00. She then spent most of the day grading her stack of term papers, at least until evening when I got home – then we ate and watched Olympics.

Staff is expected to report on snow days, as long as it is safe to do so. Since I live about an eight-minute walk from CVCA, it is hard to argue that I had to stay home. I was pretty happy to go in, though. I had a new internet server (firewall) to bring online, and I cannot work on things like that while people are around using the internet heavily. It took me 6.5 hours of my 8-hour day, but I did get it online, and that made me quite happy. Around 3:00, I headed home to shovel, and then to eat and sit on the couch watching incredibly buff athletes perform while announcers trashed their performances when they made a slight slip. I usually feel for the athletes. It’s the Winter Olympics – let it snow!

Last Saturday was a fun day. I had saved up some money, and I took Mer and two friends out to hear some good music. A fellow CVCA teacher (like most of out friends) loves music, and Eric and his wife Shanna are the founders of the band Bethesda – the band we went to see a few weeks ago. Anyway, Eric is a ton of fun, and I very much enjoyed getting to meet Shanna at the CD release party a few weeks ago. So, when I found out that an artist (John Gorka) whom I like very much was playing at the Happy Days Visitors’ Center in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, I thought it would be fun to invite Eric and Shanna. They are game souls, and so they jumped in.

Eric and Shanna met us at our house, and were kind enough to wait two minutes or so for me to wrap up watching an Olympic cross country race that was very close (yes, I am the ever-gracious host). We piled into our car, and headed up to Hudson to go to the Old Whedon Grille. Eric had never been there before, and Shanna had only been once, so it seemed like a good choice.

Dinner was excellent – good food and great conversation. We found out that Shanna had studied in England for a time, and had a quick trip over to Ireland. Eric and Shanna had traveled together in Italy. They’d spent their vacation two summers ago in Vegas with their family (Eric was offered the CVCA job while leaving the Vegas airport!), and last summer toured around Maine. I knew I liked these two! We found out that their wedding had had many rough spots, including a DJ who managed to botch a pre-made mp3 playlist. We laughed an awful lot. We did have to skip dessert since we had to get to the concert, but we could fix that later.

We got to the Happy Days Visitors’ Center about 30 minutes before the concert started. It was open seating, so we were about 3/4 of the way back, around 60 feet back from the stage. They were still fine seats. We chatted to pass the time, although as I have approached 40, I have had a harder time hearing people when there is a crowd around, especially when there is piped-in music (which there was). I followed some of the conversation, but I was still content in looking forward to the concert.

John Gorka did two sets, of about 45-50 minutes each. His music was very fine, two pieces on the keyboard, and the rest with him on guitar. He mixed up the pacing and topics of the songs very well, and his stage persona is downright wacky. I laughed quite a bit, and I do like his music. Eric and Shanna seemed to enjoy it as well, although Shanna was wiped out since she works as a teacher and is working on her Master’s at the same time, so she was a little sleepy through some of the slower songs.

After the concert, we headed back to our house, where we offered Eric and Shanna a brownie/ice cream dessert. They accepted, and we talked for another hour or so, touching often on teaching since we are all in education. Eric and Shanna finally had to go around midnight. They both claim to be game people, so I hope to see them soon over a game board or at another concert. They are fun folks.

Last Friday was the second Fools show of the year. The Royal Fools is the name of the improv group that I coach at CVCA. I was a little anxious about this show because so much was going on at CVCA last Friday. It was supposed to be a home basketball game – that helps us because people can go from our show to the game. However, because of all the snow last week, games got moved around and the home game turned into an away game. On top of that, the Talking Royals speech and debate team was at districts, which is a two-day competition on Friday and Saturday. That took away one of my Fools, and a good number of my potential student audience members.

The show was supposed to start at 7:00, and at 6:55, there were only about 20 people in the auditorium/chapel. Since the chapel can hold about 300 people even with the wings shut off, that was going to feel pretty barren. Still, we were going to press on, and so the show started at about 7:05. Happily, the audience had filled in quite a bit by then, and within a few minutes of the show starting, we had an estimated 80-100 people. It is possible we may have had over 100, but it is hard to tell since I did not count (I was a bit busy running the show).

The kids had a good show. I don’t think it was our best show ever, but it was a very good one. The fun part of this show was the audience – they were really, really into the show. They were lively, had great suggestions, laughed a lot, and in general gave us a ton of energy. If this was not our biggest audience and our best show ever, it sure felt as if it was our biggest audience and our best show. What a great feeling.

We always end our shows with a game called “Audience Participation Freeze,” where audience members can run up on stage and join us in doing some improv. Usually I consider myself lucky if I get two people to jump up, but last Friday we had at least four, and they were good scenes as well. What a fun time.

Some of the things that happened on stage:

– A “Showdown at the Improv Corral” that was based off of the lines “What page are you on?” and “No, I will not duct tape you to the chair.” That game, which is based on making things bigger and funnier, went off really well.

– A “Political Debate” debating the pros and cons of Pez dispensers and the pros and cons of short people.

– A “Dating Game” with Dora the Explorer, The Kool-Aid Man, and LeBron James.

– A “Musical Chairs” based on a faulty velcro sticky wall, and the resulting anger of the god of velcro.

– A “New Choice” based on the facial features of a man from Budapest, and his desire to build an explosive factory in the U.S.

– A “Blind Line” based on messages flashing from bicycle tires, and how pet dinosaurs hate the sunlight.

– An “Audience Participation Freeze” skit based on pick-up lines, and one based on cheerleaders that threw a man up in the air – and he was a loooooong time in coming down.

– Much more – the show went about an hour and twenty minutes.

I am very grateful for Mer’s support – she pulls for me, and has made every Fool show for all six years. I was worried about her attendance last Friday – she had to stay home to let a furnace repair man into the house since we had no heat. It turns out we had a bad exhaust motor, and the furnace shut down as a safety measure. The furnace guy was able to get it running overnight (and replaced the motor the next day), and did so so quickly that Mer was able to get to the show just before 7:00. I was a very happy man.

Fun side note about the audience – word about the Fools must be getting out in our community. One family came who does not have any relationship to any of the Fools on stage – they may have come with their student daughter, but were not there to see a son or daughter on stage. Moreover, they invited their neighbors to come, and the neighbors did come, even though they have not had a student at CVCA for twenty years (their children went to CVCA during Mer’s time at school). So, people are coming to actually see us and to have a good time. And with the energy they provide, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Our colleague Jennifer is the CVCA choral music teacher. Somehow, in addition to being in charge of five choirs, Jennifer still finds time to be part of her own group, the Singers Companye. Last Wednesday, the Singers Companye had a concert at CVCA, and Jennifer was kind enough to give us tickets. Mer and I love music, and we love free tickets, so we were very excited to go.

We left CVCA to go home for supper around 6:00 so we could be back for the concert at 8:00. When we got home, we smelled something slightly odd, but couldn’t figure out what it was, until I turned on a light in the living room. We had water all over the place – our bay window was leaking badly, and the water was causing a musty smell.

After some investigation, it turns out that the ice had backed up on the roof (we had 10+ inches of snow and ice on the roof), and while the new roof was not leaking in the house, water had somehow worked its way up under the eaves, where I could see icicles coming out of vent holes. This was not a great situation, but I would not have worried too much about it, except that the top of the bay window comes out from the house and is joined to the bottom side of the eaves. This is where the water was coming in. Happily, there was no water coming in through the actual ceiling, but there was plenty of water coming in through the top of the window.

After supper (and much thought about what to do), I made some phone calls, and found another teacher friend who had a roof snow-scoop (a sort of overgrown garden hoe on the end of a 25-foot pole). Dave agreed to run the scoop over, and Mer headed back to school for the concert (with my urging for her to go since there was no need for both of us to miss the concert). Dave came through with the scoop, and I spent about 20 minutes clearing all the snow off of the roof. Just as I was finishing up, Zach Churchill pulled up with his snow scoop (I had left him a message). He had come over just to see if I could still use the scoop, even though I had not picked up the phone when he called, since I was outside at the time. Zach is a great guy, and I appreciated his willingness to help. Since I was done, I checked on the leak, and it had already slowed down. So, with nothing more that I could do, I headed over to the concert.

I got there in time for the last half of the show. There was no intermission, so I waited for a break in the music and let myself in quietly. I did not want to make a distraction for anyone, so I did not try to sit with Meredith, who was halfway down the aisle; I sat by myself in the back.

To be honest, it was a little hard to focus on the music because my mind was racing with working through the leak situation. Still, I heard about 30 minutes of music total, and after about 15 minutes, I started to hear the music well. The Companye was quite large, made up of over 30 singers. They had a good sound, and finished the evening off with multi-part harmony arrangements of folk music songs, which I really enjoyed. There was a slight distraction, even then – one of the singers must have felt ill, and he left the stage, sat down in the auditorium, and then fell over. Two people quickly checked on him, and he was fine. Still, it took a few minutes to refocus on the music after that as well.

As I said, I did really enjoy the concert once I started focusing on the music. There were a piano and oboe that accompanied the singers, and I especially liked the oboe. I was sad that I’d missed a performance of the main music from the film The Mission, which features oboe, and is one of the prettiest pieces of music.

After the concert, I caught up with Mer, and she had sat with Michelle (the artist and Founding Fool and former CVCA student), whose mom is also in the Singers Companye. Mer and I had a nice visit with Michelle and her mom, and then headed home. Happily, by the time we got home, the leak had stopped. We work with great people, and that was displayed multiple ways last Wednesday.

Last Thursday, Mer and I headed up to Actors’ Summit Theater (as part of our subscription that friends gave to us). We got to see a play that was new to both of us – The Last Train to Nibroc.

The play is very simple and intimate – it is in three acts that are three days in the lives of a young man who was turned away from joining WW2 because he has epilepsy, and a young woman who is considering becoming a missionary. They meet on a train coming back from California, and it turns out they are both from Kentucky. The play is a study in how their relationship grows from that meeting. It is a patient play, and takes its time telling the tale. Both of the young characters are charming in their own way, and they were played very well by the actors playing the roles. I liked both of them very much.

There was almost no set to speak of – a bench, a stump in one corner of the stage, and for the last act there was a set of steps leading up to a kitchen door. It worked – the point of the play was to focus on the two characters, and the set was the minimum that was needed to make the play function.

On the whole, I liked the play. If I had one complaint, it would be that the characters repeated themselves a lot. It could be that that was how people from rural Kentucky during the 1940s talked, but to my ears, it was just repetitive. The dialogue could have been tightened up probably by 5-10 minutes of the 90 minute play. Still, the characters were interesting, and it was fun to see a play about ordinary people in ordinary circumstances – there were no mystic forces or great kingdoms or huge moral dilemmas. It was a play about the bumpy road to falling in love, and that makes for a good story.

Last Monday was a special event – it was an art show by a former CVCA student and a founding member of the Royal Fools (my school improv group). Michelle is a wonderfully creative person, so I was very much looking forward to her show, entitled “Wanderer.”

Michelle has gone to the University of Akron, so that is where her show was (and is – it runs for a month). Mer and I are familiar with the University from Mer’s grad school days, so we had no real trouble parking and finding the building. What we did have trouble with was getting in the place – the exhibit was in a hall in the lower level of the Honors Dorm, which meant that you needed a swipe card to get in. Happily, we wandered around enough to find access through the administrative offices in the building.

Michelle and her parents greeted us most warmly. Michelle had most (all but one display case) of her works on the wall of the hall. The works were pencil drawings, watercolors, and oils, and were very impressive in detail and composition.

The works are all illustrations for a book Michelle has written, called Wanderer. Michelle was kind enough to spend a good amount of time with us, so I know some of the details of the book. It is a fantasy book that takes place on another world. In this world, the people are focused on rational advancement of the main race. The heroine of the book goes looking for more, looking for the appearance of The Prince who walks among the people, but is more and more ignored. Michelle has thought out the work in great detail – she has invented a language and an alphabet. Many of her drawings are studies of the animals of the world. Her paintings are full of details of patterns on the clothing, and the significance of the tattoos each family member wears. She has worked out a creation narrative of the world, where the creator brought the world into existence by a dance, where canyons were formed wherever the Creator dragged his foot. Nifty!

The works were wonderful (and yes, I am biased). One of my favorite pieces was a watercolor of the heroine, hunching in a doorway looking scared. The detail on the painting was amazing – at first I had thought it was a sketch made by colored pencils – some of the specifics were that fine (my apologies for the poor photo).

There was a steady stream of people who came to see the opening, and quite a crowd. There were Mer and I from CVCA, friends of Michelle’s from U. Akron, colleagues of her mother who teaches at the university, and even students from the school where Michelle is student teaching. It was a festive time.

Michelle is one of those young folk who make me so happy to be in education. I think constant exposure to the energy and ideas of younguns keeps me from being too old-fogey and cranky. Michelle has a clear vision of a very cool world, and I am happy that I could see a glimpse into it.