Potluck Quote (2 of 10): Slavoj Zizek

According to the Instagram site for "Mental Floss," the American embassies for nations of Slovenia and Slovakia get together once a month to exchange letters that are meant for the other. We imagine the folks at "Washington Diplomat" are fully aware of this.

And, perhaps by merely mentioning Peter Sagal, the host of NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," who actually wrote a play called "Denial" some twenty years ago, we can get a few more domestic hits for this blog.

Today, we quote Slovenian left-leaning philosopher Slavoj Zizek who is probably not admire by either Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio:

"When I really love someone, I can only show it by making aggressive and bad-taste remarks."

Quote of the Day: Abraham Lincoln

Greetings to our blog readers in Lithuania, Thailand and South Sudan, actually I'm pretty sure we never had a hit from there.

Today, we quote Abraham Lincoln, the 16th American president, who was assassinated at the Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC.

Today, the Ford's Theatre offers both tours and stage productions. Starting on Jan.24th (until Feb. 23rd), Ford's Theatre will be producing the musical "Violet," which is based on "The Ugliest Pilgrim" by Doris Betts.

There is also the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois.

Here is the quote from Lincoln, who has reportedly been the third person who has the most books written about him, behind Jesus Christ and William Shakespeare:

"All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."

http://www.fordstheatre.org

http://www.alplm.org

Quote of the Day/Week-Larry Bird

First of all thanks to those of you in Armenia?!*, Nigeria and Venezuela who are checking out our blog today. In honor of the upcoming 2012 London Olympics, we are quoting American athletes who won gold or silver medals at previous Summer Olympics. Last month, we did quote athletes from other countries, just ask Belarusian gymnast Svetlana Boginskaya. (**and***).

We are going with NBA Boston Celtics great Larry Bird, 55, of French Lick, Ind., because he won a team gold as a member of the Dream Team in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics; he is also one of the two subjects in a brand-new Broadway play called "Magic/Bird," which depicts the rivalry and friendship between Bird and Los Angeles Lakers great Magic Johnson.

In an excellent April 23rd article in "The Washington Post" by Preston Williams, Tug Coker, 34, who plays Bird on stage was profiled. The native of Stafford, Va., relatively close to Washington, DC, and even closer to the historic city of Fredericksburg, Va., actually briefly played college basketball at William and Mary. Coker also had aspirations of being a big-time basketball player as a youth, so in a fitting irony, he ended up on Broadway instead.

As for Bird, he won won three NBA titles with the Boston Celtics during his career (1979-1992), including championships in 1981, 1984 and 1986. Bird is now an executive with the Indiana Pacers, a team that lost to the Miami Heat recently in the NBA playoffs. But, his old team, the Boston Celtics fared better as they won in Game 7 over the Philadelphia '76ers by an 85-75, with Rajon Rondo of the Celtics scoring 18 points. They will now face the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals.

Here is Bird's quote:

"It doesn't matter who scores the points, it's who can get the ball to the scorer."

*-I am a Turkish-American, and there is a bit of a row between Turks and Armenians. I would go into more details, but I am not a history professor at Princeton University.

**-Yes, we seriously doubt that Boginskaya has time to read our blog; she is now reportedly a gymnastics coach in Houston, Texas.

***-We believe, however, that we did actually spell her name right!

Special Quote of the Day/Week-William Shakespeare

Since Monday was Talk Like Shakespeare Day, and it was the day in which the Bard died in 1616 (conversely, Willy Shakespeare was born on April 26, 1564).

The North Carolina Shakespeare Festival takes place in High Point every year, and this year, the troupe will bring Shakespeare's most famous play "Romeo and Juliet" (editorial comment: I personally prefer "Othello" and "Macbeth") in a modern setting. That performance will run from Sept. 9-30.

Here is the quote from the beloved playwright:

"Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man."http://www.ncshakes.org

Quote of the Day/Week- August Wilson

Today, we quote one of our favorite playwrights August Wilson (1945-2005) in honor of Black History Month. A production of his 2004 play "Gem of the Ocean," which is set in 1904, will take place in Wilson's hometown of Pittsburgh.

The performance will be from the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre at the August Wilson Center from June 2-10.

Ironically, we quoted another local hero former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw, who is originally from Louisiana, on our other blog "The Daily Vampire" yesterday.

Here is Wilson's quip:

"Blacks in America want to forget about slavery_ the stigma, the shame. That's the wrong move. If you can't be who you are, who can you be? How can you know what to do?
We have our history. We have our book, which is the blues. And we forget it all."

SIDEBAR: We learned this interesting trivial bit last week upon learning that it was the 41st birthday of actor Michael C. Hall, who plays Dexter on "Dexter," the Showtime series about a serial killer who kills people he believes to be serial killers. In the first season of the show, which recently finished season six, Dexter and his female companion Rita are watching "Terms of Endearment" (1984), which won the Best Picture Oscar that year.

Well, in season four, John Lithgow, now age 66, who had a supporting role in that film, made a 12-episode run as Dexter's nemesis Arthur Mitchell, otherwise known as 'The Trinity Killer.'

Highlights from My 40 Things To Do List

Those of you who are jumping from our sister blog "The Daily Vampire" are perhaps more keenly aware than the rest of you about what I am doing here. Yes, I am simply posting things from an actual 40 Things To Do List that I made yesterday. Hopefully, at least six of the things will get completed!

Hopefully, you can also match the item posted with the proper image. The clothes line is from a couple (I presume they are Americans) who decided to get away from it all and go to Mexico. Hmmmm....yes, I hope they don't get held hostage by armed drug gangs either!

Here are highlights from the mega-list; the number in parantheses is where the item actually was on the real list:

1. Copy resumes (#10)

2. Go to Sweded Film Festival at the Shadowbox Cinema (#19)

3. Oil Change (#20)

4. Laundry (#21)

5. See the Henrik Ibsen play at Triad Stage (#25)

6. Write a piece of flash fiction, whatever that means (#27)

7. Try to get more organized (#37)

8. Find missing headphones (#35)

9. Take a very long walk (#39)

10. Listen to BBC (#40)

PSA- I Need a Job

About six weeks ago, my mom got me "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare," which she found at a very resonable price at a yard sale. The book does indeed contain all 35 of William Shakespeare's plays. And, since I have alas lost my teaching job because of funding cuts, I actually might have time to read "The Merchant of Venice" and "Taming of the Shrew."

But, of course, I am hoping to find employment and put off reading Shakespeare, the great artist that he is, for some other time.

So, I am asking anyone who comes across this entry irregardless if they are in Los Angeles, Cleveland or perhaps even Dubai, if they know of employment opportunities in education, journalism or translation work (I am 90 percent fluent in Turkish).

The three states where I would prefer to work are North Carolina, Virginia or Maryland, but if the job of my dreams is in a far-away place like Logan, Utah, I will have to simply 'jump on the bus,' or perhaps even become a bus driver!

For those of you with jobs and within traveling distance of Staunton, Va., which is halfway between Washington, DC, and Roanoke, I highly recommend going to the American Shakespeare Center.

The troupe is currently performing "Henry V," "The Tempest" and "Hamlet." All productions are 'curtain up' until late November.

SIDEBAR: Alas, my beloved BursaSpor in Bursa, Turkey, lost a home game to traditional Istanbul powerhouse Besiktas (pronounced Beshiktash in English) by a 2-1 score. But, we wish the crocodiles well this season. Yes, that is actually BursaSpor's nickname even though there are no crocodiles that we know of in Turkey, though there could be some at the Ankara Zoo.

Finally, I thought soccer rivalries were pretty intense in Turkey, where in one game just a few days ago involving another Istanbul powerhouse Fenerbahce was played 'in front of women and children spectators only.' That game with Manisaspor ended in a
1-1 tie.

But, perhaps the ugliest soccer rivalry in Europe is in Glasgow, Scotland, where Rangers and Celtic fans go at each other's throats, literally! The two teams, which are divided along ethnic and religious lines (Rangers fans are Protestants, Celtic fans are Catholic), played each other in the first of five meetings (?!) over the weekend.

According to the BBC, there were some nasty clashes after the game that Rangers won by a 4-2 score on two goals from Steven John Naismith, Nikica Jealvic and Kyle Rafferty. Perhaps, their next game should be played 'in front of women and children spectators only.'

The Top Ten Countries Where We Are Most Popular

We used to jokingly brag that we were the most popular American blog in Bergen, Norway, and Samarkand, Uzbekistan, but it appears that our blog hits are not coming from those countries. However, they are thankfully coming from lots of other places.

For this entry, we chose to go with an image of Syd, Ollie and Millie, the mascots of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where one of my all-time favorite collegiate gymnasts Yvonne Tousek of UCLA competed for Canada; the reason for this is that Australia is in our top ten for this blog as well as 'the other blog,' which is "The Daily Vampire."

Here is the list of the countries that really, really like us:

1. USA 66,460

2. Canada 6,543

3. UK 5,222

4. Germany 4,918

5. India 1,774

6. Brazil 1,567

7. France 1,313

8. Australia 1,269

9. Netherlands 1,040

10. Indonesia 613

SIDEBAR: Our friends at Triad Stage in Greensboro, NC, are set to open a new play in their UpStage Cabaret space when "The Mystery of Irma Vep" debuts on Sept. 29. The stage production will run through Oct. 15. If you are reading this at a cofffehouse in Hamburg, Germany, you should go ahead and take the 12-hour flight to North Carolina just to see this play!

Quote of the Day- Sam Shepard

Since the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, NC, is presenting the 1985 Sam Shepard play "A Lie on the Mind," starting Oct. 5th, we thought we'd quote the playwright/actor here. I'm not sure these are encouraging words for beginning playwrights:

"You can't make a living at playwrighting. You can barely scrape by."

Bonus Road Trip- Theatre to Theatre

Since Washington, DC, like many places on the east coast, ranging from Myrtle Beach, SC, to Chapel Hill, NC, to Norfolk, Va, to.......well, you get the idea, is expecting massive chaos and flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Irene, it may be good to think about fleeing town.

Mike Madden of (Washington) "City Paper" blogged earlier tonight that an eastward shift in Hurricane Irene's path may help the nation's capital miss some 'real ugliness.'

So, we thought we'd compare the distances between two very historic theatres, the Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC, and the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Va., relatively close to the Tenneesee border- just in case anyone still really wants to leave the DC-metro area, and perhaps that would include members of Congress.

The drive which passes through towns like Front Royal, Mount Jackson, Harrisonburg, Lexington, Roanoke and Radford will take awhile even though no state line will be crossed after one leaves Washington, DC, and enters the Virginia suburb of Arlington.

The Barter Theatre, which started in 1933, has seen actors like the late Gregory Peck grace its stages. Currently, the Barter is producing several plays, including "Elvis Has Left the Building," which deals with Col. Tom Parker's frantic mission to find Elvis Presley in time for a major concert in 1970.

Meanwhile, the Ford's Theatre, which is best known for being the place where President Abraham Lincoln was assasinated by John Wilkes Booth, prompting the following quip from comedian/author Sarah Vowell: "No one really goes to the Ford's Theatre to actually see a play," is going to be performing an interesting musical called "Parade" from Sept. 23- Oct. 30.

Though the play is a musical, the subject of "Parade" is a very serious one as it depicts the trial and eventual hanging of Leo Frank, a Jewish man from Atlanta in the early 20th century, who was accused of raping and murdering a 13-year-old girl named Mary Phagan. It is now generally believed that Frank was wrongfully convicted and executed for the crime.

So, our question is just how far apart these two zip codes are.

Is the answer:

A) 4 hours, 15 minutes

B) 4 hours, 45 minutes

C) 5 hours, 15 minutes

D) 5 hours, 45 minutes

Alas, Hurricane Irene is devastating the communities of the Outer Banks in North Carolina, my state of residency, and my thoughts are with everyone in that area.

SIDEBAR: Even before we remembered that liberal turned neocon playwright David Mamet ("Oleanna/"American Buffalo") penned a roman a clef about Leo Frank entitled "The Old Religion" (1997), we were going to mention him because of his new memoir "The Secret Knowledge."

In this new book, Mamet apparently discusses the reasons which resulted in his radical political shift, which include disillusionment with labor unions and his partisan support for Israel.

Mamet's novel about Frank is told from the condemned man's point of view, and it is a work which illustrates the role of race, ethnicity and religion in America.

One has to wonder if there are any similarities between the new Mamet and the old Mamet, which was brought forth brilliantly by "The Village Voice" blogger Rosie Gray regarding a "Financial Times" piece in which Mamet talked about his Noam Chomsky to Ayn Rand conversion and the art of playwrighting.

Gray said that it was amusing to read that Mamet is an admirer of Sarah Palin, a person which one would think might make a convert revert to his old political orthodoxy. She added that everyone needed to remember that Mamet was no longer 'a brain-dead liberal' (his own words).

But, the blogger pointed out that during his interview with FT, Mamet had a meal which consisted of a 'very liberal' salad with balgamic vinaigernee. The playwright/essayist/filmmaker also resides in Vermont part-time; it is considered to be the most liberal state in the union?!

Quote of the Week-Lorraine Hansberry

Today's quote comes Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) who died tragically young. She is best known for her play "A Raisin in the Sun," which also became the basis for a critically-acclaimed film of the same name:

"Obviously the most oppressed of any oppressed group will be its women."

We are featuring Hansberry because the National Black Theatre Festival recently concluded down the road in Winston-Salem, NC. Among the featured plays was a work called "Voices from Haiti," which was featured in the Greensboro alt weekly "Yes Weekly."

The festival also included the play "Let Freedom Ring" by Ted Lange, who is best known for playing the bartender Isaac on the the 1970s hit show "The Love Boat." The North Black Reportory Theatre Company in Winston-Salem, which has plays year-round, also had a play in the festival.

SIDEBAR: My hometown of Roanoke, Va., may not come to mind when it comes to art, but the Star City has an acclaimed art museum in the Taubman Museum of Art. There is also a relatively new city-wide campaign called "Art in Roanoke" which features public art displays all over Roanoke.

The art on display includes "Trojan Dog" by Roanoke artist Ann Glover at a fire station on Memorial Avenue in close proximity to the Grandin Theatre. There is also "connect" by Erika Strecker from Lexington, Ky., on Campbell Avenue near the offices of "The Roanoke Times." And, there is perhaps the best one of the seven displays in Crystal Spring Park near Roanoke Memorial Hospital called "Jelly Bean" by artist John Clement from Brooklyn, NY.

I will devote an entire blog entry to the project in a later entry.

SIDEBAR TWO: I will be on hiatus from now until next Monday for a variety of reasons. But, while I'm away, I hihgly recommend visiting the unique blog "New Black Man" from Duke University professor Mark Anthony Neal, who was recently on "The State of Things," a local/regional public radio talk show on WUNC-FM (90.7-FM, Chapel Hill), which is hosted by Frank Stasio. I am not an African-American myself, but the blog gives one an interesting perspective on the world around us.

Quote of the Day: Anton Chehkov

Los Angeles Theatre Works (LATW) is releasing an audio production of Anton Chehkov's very famous play "The Three Sisters" this week. The cast includes Jon Hamm from AMC's "Mad Men."

Here is the quote from the Russian legend:

"One usually dislikes a play while writing it, but afterward it grows on one. Let others judge and make decisions."

THE DON"T TRY THIS AT HOME DEPT: As someone who got into the bad habit of 'spying on the enemy' a few years ago, I actually get emails from right wing groups I hate and despise. One of these groups is the pompously-named Campaign for Liberty, based in Bristow, Va., outside Washington, DC. I got a chain email from the group leader John Tate, and I simply responded (and, I am not going to retract it!) by saying: "You bozos have moved so far right that Barry Goldwater would be a hippy now."

This actually made me realize that I wasn't sure how to spell hippy. The Urban Dictionary spells the term which is in reference to '60s era pot-smoking beatnicks 'hippie,' but both spellings exist at various places on the net.

SIDEBAR: I've definitely lived in a unique life as a human secularist with Muslim heritage (I am a Turkish-American) living in a very Christian fundamentalist part of North Carolina. But, during Ramadan, when Muslims have to go without food and water until sundown, I both appreciate what Muslim endure and I take delight in the fact that as a human secularist I am not subjected to their religious rituals. Of course, people like the Rev. Terry Jones, the Koran-burning minister in Gainesville, Fla., hates people like me just as much!

Last week, NPR's signature show "All Things Considered," reported that Omar Shahin, an imam (Muslim cleric) in Phoenix said that many people from his mosque were asking him if they could drink water given that it was 105 degrees outside. Shahin told NPR that if one was feeling sick from the dehydration, that it was indeed acceptable to go for the Dasani bottle.

In the same report, Johar Abdul-Malik, who is the director of an Islamic center in Falls Church, Va., near Washington, DC, said that he missed his soy tea green lattes at Starbucks.

Quote of the Week_ Michael Frayn

This month, we are featuring quotes from famous playwrights.

We begin with Michael Frayn. His most-famous play "Noises Off!," a radical over-the-top comedy (Frayn has also written dramatic plays like "Copenhagen"), will be presented by Playmakers Rep Theatre Company in Chapel Hill, NC, from April 4-22,
2012. I suppose if you are a perfectionist, you can go ahead and order tickets!

Here is the quote:

"A man sits in his car at the traffic lights, waiting for them to go green."

Quote of the Week-Italian Playwright Dario Fo

Today, we continue quoting famous Italians this month (and, we will add one in July) by quipping playwright Dario Fo (b. 1926) who is best-known for his play "Accidental Death of an Anarchist" (1970). Interestingly enough, the play had its American debut at the famed Washington, D.C., playhouse Arena Stage. The theatre is now performing the Tennessee Williams classic "The Glass Menagerie."

Fo's plays deal with themes, such as Italy's dealings with organized crime, the Catholic church's political stance on abortion and the Middle East.

Here is the quote from the playwright who also penned "Trumpets and Rasberries" (1981):

"Comedy makes the subversion of the existing state of affairs possible."

We first heard about Fo through a Jeopardy question, of all things.

SIDEBAR: This will give us a good preparation for our upcoming People with Long Names List, Part Two, which we hope to post within the next few weeks.

We have recently become more interested in tennis after watching an HBO documentary on the rivalry between John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg between the years 1979-1982.

So, here are the results of today's women's quarterfinals tennis matches from Wimbledon.

For starters, Victoria Azarenka of Belarus beat the Austrian Tamira Paszek. The Russian tennis goddess Maria Sharapova destroyed Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova. In a close match, Sabine Lisicki of Germany won over Marion Bartoli.

And, finally, it a match between two eastern Europeans with long, difficult games, the Czech star Petra Kvitova edged Bulgarian Tsetana Pironkova.

We certainly hope we got the results right, and perhaps more importantly spelled all these names correctly!

Special Quote from Tom Stoppard

Since we were in Washington, DC, last week, we thought we'd share this quip from Tom Stoppard (b. 1937) as one of his earliest plays "The Real Inspector Hound" (1968) is being performing by Metro Stage of Alexandria, Va., until May 29 (which is Sunday).

The one-act murder mystery set in an English mansion, may sound like a Scooby-Doo episode (the animated cartoon which maintains a large following was coinceindentally written around the time o Stoppard's play) examines the roles of fate and free will, according to Wikipedia, and who are we to argue with them?!

Here is the quip:

"Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean where's it all going to end?"

SIDEBAR: I saw that Mill Mountain Coffee, which has four locations in the Roanoke, Va.-area (my hometown) has a sign which says "No Soup for You" for Saturday and Sunday as they don't serve soup over the weekend. I thought it was an interesting way of borrowing a phrase that became hip in the 19990s, though I wonder if customers who are older than Bob Dylan (he turned 70 over the weekend) might this rude and obnoxious. But, Mill Mountain does serve lobster bisque soup at some point during the week. I imagine there are recipes in "Good Housekeeping" and perhaps even back issues of "Down East" (a Maine travel magazine).

Quote of the Day- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

We are hoping to start a series of blog entries about my 36-hour trip to Washington, DC, and hopefully, when I can get around to it at some point next week, I will remember the annoying cute young couple who did look a real-life Ken and Barbie. Their mutual lack of communication made me also wonder if they had batteries in their necks.

I also saw this supposedly-Hispanic guy who looked like he journeyed forward in time from the set of the 1970s sitcom "Chico and the Man." I saw all three of these people on the DC Metro, and the supposedly-Hispanic guy in his early 20s had this huge Afro which might well be a nuisance at the Kennedy Center.

We are going to entitle our series "Amadeus in Bethesda" because the Roundhouse Theatre in Bethesda, Maryland, is performing the famed Peter Shaffer play. The production will be helmed by Mark Ramont, and the cast features Edward Gero, Sasha Olinick, Floyd King and Laura C. Harris. It runs through June 5.

Shaffer is still alive and well as he turned 85 on May 15.

WETA-FM, the Washington DC area's main classical music station is focusing on the music of another great composer Gustav Mahler until the end of the month, but we imagine they will play a fair share of Mozart music as well.

We leave you with this quip from the great Austrian composer Mozart (1756-1791) who alas died way too young:

"I thank god for graciously granting me the opportunity of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness."

Quote of the Week- Lillian Hellman

Today, we continue quoting figures who were either socialists or communists this month since May 1 is associated with Marxism. Though I'm not one myself, I consider Marxists to be a bit more intellectually sound than the radical Chicken Little evangelists who are forecasting mushroom clouds on Saturday.

And, we turn our attention to the great playwright Lillian Hellman (1905-1984) who is best known for three plays in particular, "The Children's Hour" (1934), "The Little Foxes" (1939) and "Toys in the Attic" (1960).

According to Wikipedia, Hellman was blacklisted because her long-time lover the noir novelist Dashiel Hammett was a communist and because Hellman also refused to name names.

Here is her quote:

"Belief is a moral act for which the believer has to be held responsible."

SIDEBAR: I must profess that I could not agree with my friend Chris Knight in Reidsville, NC, who tweeted the following today: "Call me old-fashioned, but if a man can't be trustworthy with his wife, he can't be trusted with elected office." I think Knight was eluding to a certain actor/body-builder who became the governor of California, but it did remind me of current Republican presidential candidate newt Gingrich.

A former congressional rep from New York put in the former house speaker in his rightful place by saying: "Newt will be knocked off his message more times for his own actions than by others."

SIDEBAR TWO: Since there are times when I can be a bit overbearing around others, I was wondering if there was a term for a male diva. And, according to the Urban Dictionary, there is. We are divos. But, we should not be confused with people who can be called devo, though we love the '80s New Wave band Devo. That term refers to male divas are possibly homosexual or meterosexual!

Quote of the Week- Jessica Tandy

Today, we are continuing our series within a series featuring quotes from past Oscar winners as the Oscar season is upon us. Our quote for today comes from the late Jessica Tandy (1909-1994) who was the oldest woman ever to win a Best Actress Oscar when she won the award in 1989.

It is fitting perhaps that Tandy won an Oscar for the film "Driving Miss Daisy," which was originally a hit stage play, since she was known primarily as a stage actress for much of her career.

In fact, she won the Lead Actress Tony for her performance as Blanche DuBois in the original Broadway run of the Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire" in 1947.

Tandy also starred in the famous Alfred Hitchock film "The Birds" (1963) which is still known to make one wary of pigeons.

Here is the quote from Tandy, which seems appropriate given that today is Valentine's Day, and the man buying his wife two dozen roses may have alterior motives:

"When he's late for dinner, I know he's either having an affair or lying dead in the street. I always hope it's the street."

Happy Chanukah from Lolek and Bolek

We're not sure how popular the Polish cartoon characters Lolek and Bolek were in Israel, but they were the only cartoon that was allowed on Iranian television after the infamous Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Like the Belgian comic book character Tintin, the boys frequently traveled around the world in their mischievious adventures, including voyages to the Amazon, the Orient and the American Wild West (ironic considering the cartoon was made during the Iron Curtain years).

I happen to be a big fan of Lolek and Bolek (which I used to mistakenly call Olek and Bolek) because I watched the cartoon quite frequently when our family lived in Czestochowa, Poland, (pronounced Chestahova) when we lived there as my father was working at a steel mill as part of a joint effort with General Electric in 1976.

Czestochowa is a city of 240,000 that is best known for being featured in the religious iconic painting "The Black Madonna of Czestochowa."

Lolek and Bolek were created by animator Wladyslaw Nehrbecki (1923-1978) and the characters were based on his two sons. It is available through Netflix in the United States.

SIDEBAR: Not every theatre in the country is performing Christmas plays, as Playmakers Rep in Chapel Hill, NC, is currently performing the Donald Margulies play "Shipwrecked," an adventure story that takes place in Victorian England from now until Dec. 19.

Thanksgiving Day Blog-a-Thon Starts with Shakespeare Quote

We start our crazy idea of having a Thanksgiving Day Blog-a-Thon (I sure hope my friends and fellow bloggers Moviezzz and Chris Knight have better things to do today; even if that means eating their grandma's green bean casserole!) with a quote from William Shakespeare:

"I say there is no darkness, but ignorance."

Since the holidays are upon us, many stage companies which perform Shakespeare productions are opting for Christmas plays, which Shakespeare didn't write (alas, our intern Javier went hope to visit family in Honduras this weekend, so we can't verify this!).

Hence, the Georgia Shakespeare Company in Atlanta is performing a stage version of the 1983 holiday cult film "A Christmas Story" from Dec. 7-26 (box office is 404-264-0020).

And, the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival in High Point will be performing Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" from Dec. 3-19.