What Would Jane Austen Do?

Robert Baddeley as Moses (painting by Johann Zoffany , c.1781) via Wikipedia I almost walked out. To be honest, I always have reservations about sitting down to five-act plays, because I've ruined my attention span with the internet. However, a friend was particularly keen to see The School for Scandal at Classical Theatre Company , so I got tickets. When we arrived at our seats Saturday night, open curtains revealed an assemblage of random theater arts flotsam. Then the actors started playing with Barbie dolls. To be fair, the theater company's press hinted at the need for lowered expectations. "This particular adaptation is going to involve a decidedly creative take on the play, utilizing only six actors to fill out a cast of 16 characters," they said. But I was not prepared for two of the characters to be a Barbie and a Ken doll, puppeteered by other characters. I was distracted, even outraged, by the lack of scenery. There were no costumes to speak of, either-

 I love making signs and cheering for the marathoners. I held this sign in Mile 6. It was crowded at that point, and people may have been going too fast to read it all. This is the sign I held in Mile 11 of the Half Marathon. I got there late-ish, and those folks were on the struggle bus. But lots of people liked the sign and ran by to slap "Believe." It was very gratifying.

  I wanted to see the exhibition for a pretty shallow reason. David Sedaris mentioned Philip Guston in his last book, in the context of owning some of Guston's work and wishing he had bought more. That was enough to pique my interest in seeing the MFAH show.  An image of the painting, The Ladder (above), was on the MFAH website, and my initial thought was, "cartoonish." Like all honest people, I never trust my instincts about art, and I wondered what I was really 'supposed' to see. To my relief, "cartoonish" was a word that came up a lot during the docent-led tour. The show was a comprehensive review of Guston's career. He changed styles dramatically over time. The earliest works shown were in the Mexican muralist style of Diego Rivera; then there were some paintings that were modern takes on Renaissance forms and themes. His depiction of the Guernica massacre ( Bombardment , above) was especially intriguing. I was left a little cold by his abstr

I got a letter in the mail today telling me that some of our medical debt had been canceled, through the offices of a group called RIP Medical Debt. The debt was $64.25, arising from an ER visit Becca made in 2015. The debt belonged to Matt, specifically, as he was the guarantor. I vaguely remember the bills from that ER visit. We were making a lot of ER visits in those days, but that one happened while we were out of town, at the Medical Center of SE Texas in Port Arthur. I remember getting bills from them that didn’t match anything we were getting from our insurance company. I tried for a little while to figure out what the issue was, but eventually I gave up and just let it go. In my defense, I had (I have) a chronically ill child to worry about. Last fall, I read that our church had “generously and with compassion” given $29,000 to RIP Medical Debt , joining their cause to settle medical debts for pennies on the dollar. I thought the generosity was misguided. Did Jesus pay a ransom

One thing I like to do over Christmas is watch the British Arrows advertising awards. You can watch them all through the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis ($20 online). There were a lot of ads for period products this year, which was sort of interesting. Some of our favorites, which weren't about periods: Rustlers (Kepak Food) "Dance Fight"   Danish Road Safety Council, "Helmet has always been a good idea"  CALM "The Invisible Opponent"