Scarlett Letters

Theater: Saw three one-act plays at ACT last night in the most excellent company of varina8 and EB. The plays were an uneven set: Steve Martin's "Patter for the Floating Lady," Woody Allen's "Riverside Drive," and Sam Shepard's "The Unseen Hand." I felt like the most cohesive piece of the bunch was the Allen's, about a New York screenwriter's encounter with a vagrant who's been stalking him. As the vagrant becomes his peculiar ally in his resolution to end an extramarital affair, the absurdities multiply. The Martin, about romantic relationships as portrayed in a magic act, was a little surreal; the Shepard, set in the near future (I think) about a Texas loner and his encounter with an alien, was A LOT surreal.

Reading some of the commentary about the Shepard, I am struck by how critics laud him for his breaking of theatrical convention, his resistance to dramatic structure and so forth. Personally? I think they give him way more credit than he's due. EB wondered what he'd been ingesting while he wrote it. I wonder what, exactly, the thinking is behind producing it. Certainly, it's challenging for all involved, but I left the theater so bound up in WTF that everything else about the evening kind of got lost. Well, art is not successful if it doesn't make you think. On the other hand, if it mostly has you thinking, "What the hell did I just see?", the question has to be what, exactly, it's successful at.

Wine tasting: Before curtain, the theater offered a wine tasting. They offered four wines: three from WA state and one from South America. The first was Ryan Patrick Naked Chardonnay, a light dry white aged in steel. I'm not generally fond of Chardonnay, but this was so light and subtle that I liked it well enough. My favorite of the four was the second wine they offered, called New Age--a torrontes from Argentina. It was a little sweeter with a subtle fizziness; I've never had that sensation before--not as obvious as champagne at all. It was a pleasant wine and I think perhaps it could be served as a dessert wine or as a light sipper with little trouble. I know it sounds like candy in a bottle but it was a mild sweetness, not a bold sweetness, and really very good. I must go seek out a bottle for myself. (Note to self: Looks like Cost-Plus World Market has it.) They also offered two reds for tasting. The first was Sauce, a Columbia Valley red blend. I'm not generally a fan of red wines, but of the two, I liked this one better. Based on the information at the Sauce website, the notes I took at the tasting appear to have gotten jumbled, but the one thing I know for sure about this wine: the merlot flavor was strong and velvety here, cut enough by the other flavors that it didn't overwhelm the taste experience for me. The second wine was called Righteous, also from the Columbia Valley, another blend, this time of three red varieties, but the merlot in it was so big I thought it overwhelmed the other flavors.

Tribute: On behalf of David Magazine in Las Vegas, skidspoppe asked me to write a tribute to jaylake. The piece can be seen here. In the wake of this news, I found myself looking at the last picture of Jay that I took before he died. It shook my heart more than I expected. I really though I'd see him against before he died.