Stage Left Presents The Tempest

STAGE LEFT
Celebrates 10 Summers of Performances
with a new production of the first play they presented
On San Juan Island
Shakespeare's The Tempest

Performances are July 18 - August 23
beginning at 1062 Wold Road
followed by a run at the Roche Harbor Outdoor Stage

Whoops! Adventuress runs Aground

The Adventuress Runs Aground ~ Assisted by Tugs

photo: Jeff Chew/Peninsula Daily News posted on The News Tribune blog

According to the Coast Guard the 133 ft sailing ship the Adventuress ran aground around noon today in Wasp Pass off Orcas Island. The Adventuress was headed for the tall ships festival in Victoria where she planned to celebrate her 95th birthday. The Washington State Ferry, Sealth helped remove 27 people from the historic ship. Not taking on water, the plan is to float her off at high tide.

Adventuress, a 133’ gaff-rigged schooner, was built in 1913.

On her first trip, she sailed all the way down to and through the
Straits of Magellan and then up to arctic waters.
Adventuress is a Gaff Topsail Two-masted Schooner

Link to: Sound Experience
Link to: Tall Ships Festival in Victoria 2008

Author Jeannie Shortridge at the Library

San Juan Public Library

July 12 ~ 7:00 PMJeannie Shortridge

Seattle author Jeannie Shortridge, will introduce her new book:
Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe.

"We all know there's no shortage of literary talent in the Northwest... Seattle novelist Jennie Shortridge invokes the spirit of the Fremont District with a charming new novel about a mid-40s woman named Mira who flees her previous life (in a small Oregon town) when she is betrayed by her husband... When she flees northward... she finds employment at the Coffee Shop at the Center of the Universe. There she discovers a lot of colorful characters—as well as a better understanding of her past, and some new possibilities for her future. Shortridge has a lot of fun with the Fremont setting: 'an urban mass of odd public art, old hippies, new hipsters, old fishing outfits on the canal, new dot-coms in refurbished old buildings.'"

—The Seattle Times

Homeland Insecurity

John Norby ~ photo: Sue Frause

I heard something on the radio a few days ago that made me appreciate our ferry workers. John Norby from Langley, who works at the ferry terminal in Anacortes directing traffic, refused to assist and publicly denounced the border patrol after he was approached by a plainclothes border patrol officer soliciting him to “share intel”. Norby said, “This is a federal police force asking civilians to inform on civilians”.

In February the border patrol started conducting unannounced ferry security checks on our domestic ferry runs to Anacortes targeting our Hispanic community. Norby said, “these are blue collar working people” and that he had no quarrel with immigrants – “legal or not”. Norby also criticized the border patrol for trying to infiltrate the Hispanic community. The agent who approached Norby was himself Hispanic.

Karol Brown is a lawyer who works for Hate Free Zone, a Seattle-based immigrant-advocate organization. She said, regarding the recent ferry border patrol security checks, that the heightened enforcement "doesn't add to our security and there is some real civil-liberties concern, That's not the type of country I want to live in, where people live in fear."

Sources: Seattle PI, KUOW, King 5 News

Geronimo Homeland Security T-shirt available from Coyotes Corner.

Summer Solstice

Stonehenge ~ Summer Solstice
Summer Solstice occurs in the northern hemisphere

at 4:59 pm Pacific Daylight Time today, June 20

Crop Circle ~ photo: Steve Alexander

Consulting Summer's Clock
by Emily Dickinson

Consulting summer's clock,
But half the hours remain.
I ascertain it with a shock --
I shall not look again.
The second half of joy
Is shorter than the first.
The truth I do not dare to know
I muffle with a jest.

God: Intelligent Designer or Hot Guitar Player?

Is God a Designer?
Designer, Christian Dior ~ photo Richard Avedon
Harpers Bazaar 1957

When I posted the movies showing in town this week and the review links (see the column to your right) at first I thought from the title, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed must be a goofy high-school comedy. It turns out that it is actually a conspiracy-theory infused case for "Intelligent Design". I admit I have not seen the film. I read the New York Times Review and watched the rather provocative movie trailer. In her review Jeannette Catsoulis says, "Mixing physical apples and metaphysical oranges at every turn “Expelled” is an unprincipled propaganda piece that insults believers and nonbelievers alike."

What gets me about the "Intelligent Design" camp is that they paint anyone who acknowledges the theory of evolution as a godless infidel not to mention their deciding that God is a "designer" is just as arbitrary as deciding that God is male. When I was working on my MFA one of my professors used to say that the difference between a designer and an artist is that a designer comes up with a pattern and sticks to it and an artist improvises. If we are going to anthropomorphize the creative and sacred energy of the universe in my world view God is an artist, more like a jazz musician than a designer. Maybe for the "Intelligent Design" contingent the process of improvisation comes too dangerously close to the process of evolution.

Or Is God A Jazz Musician?

John Coltrane ~ Poster Available through Allposters.com

There Are Those Who Have Called Eric Clapton God.
Eric Clapton ~ If I Had Possession On Judgement Day

Happy Friday the Thirteenth!

Starhawk, Modern Witch

Friday the Thirteenth is a lucky day.... for witches. Link here to the blog, Starhawk's Tangled Web. Starhawk, well known modern wiccan and author of the Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess and The Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature, is a well known leader of the modern Goddess movement and Earth-based feminist spirituality.

Musical Offerings for Summer Solstice

SAN JUAN COMMUNITY THEATRE PRESENTS

Music For A Summer's Solstice
Chamber Music San Juans
Patricia Kostek Artistic Director
Saturday June 21, 2008 ~ 7:30 PM
Music selections by Mozart, Brahms, Poulenc & Mendelssohn
specially chosen for a summer evening
tickets: 378-3210

Carnation Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent

ORCA SING
Lime Kiln Point State Park
City Cantabile Choir
Italico Brass Quintet
Saturday June 21, 2008 ~ 7:30 PM
Orca Sing is an annual summer solstice event,
dedicated to the recovery and appreciation of our resident Orca whales.
info: Contact Britta Eschete at 360-336-1931

Whale Museum's Greeting Ceremony June 14th

Get Your Tickets Now For The Whale Museum's 2nd Annual

"Greeting Ceremony"
Fund Raiser Dinner and Auction on Saturday, June 14.
5:30 p.m. at the Mullis Center in Friday Harbor.

Detail from Storm Boy written & illustrated by Paul Owens

Happy Hour, (no-host bar) and Silent Auction begins at 5:30
Live Music by Keith Busha
Gourmet Dinner prepared by Chef Farhad Ghatam at 6:30
Live Auction follows dinner with Auctioneer Eugene Cuomo

photo: Jeanne Hyde

Seating is limited.
Tickets available at the Whale Museum
$50 per person for members of the Museum
$65 for non-members
ticket includes two glasses of wine with dinner

Tickets are available at The Whale Museum -- call (360) 378-4710 ext. 30.

K & L Pods Return ~ New Calf For K Pod!

Big news from Orca Network: K and L Pod are back! Here is a report from naturalist Megan Young of San Juan Safaris Thank you Megan! You can see more terrific photos by Kelley Balcomb - Bartok and Erin Heydenreich and a short video by Kelley Balcomb - Bartok from the The Center for Whale Research of the whales and the new K-Pod calf on the The Center for Whale Research website.

photo by Kelly Balcomb-Bartok.
This photo was taken under MMPA permit #532-1822.
An exuberant new calf in Kpod lifts his head in a "spyhop"
while playing with several members of it's immediate
family just below the surface.

Welcome back Ks and Ls!!!!!!!!!!! Today was our first superpod of the summer! A superpod is when all three pods join together for socialization and mating. The rain didn't stop us as we headed out to Stuart Island to see Js, Ks, and Ls all traveling together. We saw multiple spy hops and tail slaps as they all grouped together for the first time after a long winter. The animals appeared to be in good spirits and nice and fat.

We even saw a new calf, which appears to belong to K-14, Lea. Newbies are easy to distinguish due to their mottled coloring, wrinkles, and orangeish patches. This little one can't be very old and so we'll call today its birthday - which happens to be our office manager, Pat's, birthday! Happy birthday Pat and new little K baby! Today was not only a treat to see the superpod, we also had a researcher guest on board in Adam U of the Center for Whale Research. He was able to get the inside info on the calf as well as provide us with a fresh outlook on the orcas and the studies involving the orcas. He also shared some of his great photos with us as well as fun whale stories. We do our best to stay 100 yards away at all times, but sometimes the whales choose to come in and say hi. They came in to say hello today right off Turn Point as they surfed through the waves. (Don't worry, our engines were shut down!) We got nice looks at J-42 as she surfed with her mommy right past us with a male from L Pod as well as another J female. Today was a fabulous trip. We saw a superpod, a new calf, multiple Bald Eagles, and all the Speiden fauna. It's hard as a Naturalist to hold some sort of composure when witnessing such a rare and incredible trip. I'll keep you posted on this new K animal and let you know how its doing throughout the summer. If mom is K-14, then this wouldn't be her first calf and hopefully we can keep this youngster around.

Megan Young of San Juan Safaris

The Sleeveless Shift

Jackie Kennedy ~ Michelle Obama
and the sleeveless shift

On San Juan Island commenter Margaret says, "I'm with ya there, PSue! I absolutely LOVED the purple dress, last night! She's so Vogue..."

Absolutely Margaret, I loved the purple shift too and I could not resist just one more Jackie/Michelle. We've seen our first ladies in red and we've seen them in blue. We have red states and we have blue states. How can we unite the country? Why, in a stunning purple shift of course!

Michelle Obama ~ The Presumptive First Lady

Michelle Obama

People often compare Michelle Obama to Jackie Kennedy, take the blog Jezebel photo comparisons in the post Michelle and Jackie O: Twins Separated at Birth?. I've even done it myself, First Lady Fashion Statements. There is a reason why The New Yorker featured a 10 page profile of Michelle Obama in their style issue, The Other Obama. Michelle Obama is glamorous. But this is a new century and Michelle Obama is a new kind of presumptive First Lady. Tonya Lee Lewis, writer and wife of filmmaker Spike Lee, wrote in her interview with Michelle Obama in Glamour Magazine, "I have to admit I was a little intimidated by Michelle Obama when I first saw her. She was standing on the far side of a hotel conference room, and I got the impression of a regal woman who has a model’s height (she’s 5’11”) and a classic, understated chic. But then she came forward, extended an endless arm and broke out her famous million-watt smile. She gave me a big hug—as if we were old girlfriends—and I felt as though I’d known her forever." Michelle Obama has her elegant pumps firmly grounded on the earth. Michelle has a working feminine style with her puffy sleeves, peplums and pearls, her mod flip and headbands. She also has the stature of an Amazon queen. Her style is glamorous yet she walks more like an Olympic athlete than a fashion plate. And there is one more thing that I think separates her from former first ladies including Jackie Kennedy and Hillary Clinton. I can not even imagine Barack Obama EVER cheating on her.

Obama ~ The Nominee

Barack and Michelle Obama in St. Paul ~ Getty Image

Today after work and yoga I dropped in to Kings Market to grab something for dinner and walked through King's back-door just in time to catch Barack Obama's speech in St. Paul as the newly presumptive nominee for the democratic party on the TV in the corner above the salad dressing and the fancy cakes. I stood there and watched the whole speech sharing this moment in history with a few other would-be grocery shoppers.

"Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and give good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment - this was the time - when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals. Thank you, God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America."

from democratic nominee Barack Obama's Speech in St Paul

Utah Phillips ~ Rest in Peace ~ 1935-2008

Utah Phillips ~ 1935-2008

Folksinger and life-long peace and labor activist
Utah Phillips died on May 27th.

Bridges ~ Utah Phillips with Ani DiFanco
Video by TheGreenSweater

Amy Goodman interview with Phillips on Democracy Now!