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This Romeo and Juliet

Working on a play is sometimes boring, sometimes exciting and other times evocative of every emotion you can conjure. And sometimes it's full of emotion you're having a difficult time conjuring. But whatever it is, theatre is a collection of people in the same boat. We're all theatre geeks and proud of it. While other kids were playing we were in plays. We know more than is strictly necessary toknow about the history of theatre, contume repair, beats, timing and the status of the play moment to moment. But, iff you're lucky, you land in the company of a show that has a magic blend. A show in which everyone gets along. A show that will change the lives of actors, designers and audience alike. One that it worth it. Romeo and Juliet is such a play. Intrepid Shakespeare company came on the scene at the perfect time. The Universe opened up and allowed a group of theatre professionals to fill a void. The void? Try voids. Accessable Shakespeare; a resident company in Encinitas; the right people at the right time and I could go on. The result is that magic is being done and, for however long it lasts, you need to get on this ride. We are doing arguably Shakespeare's most famous play. Have you seen it? If you're a fan of theatre it is your responsibility so see as many R&Js as you can. It is to the credit of directors (and Intrepid Founders) Christy Yael and Sean Cox that they knew this going in. We all know we're going to be judged - placed among the last, the best, the worst, the oddest and the coolest Romeo and Juliet people have ever seen. We are lucky in our situation (if not that America is unlucky in this) that a number of the audience will be seeing R&J and the work of William Shakespeare for the first time. This is because of one of those great moments in theatre... Sean and Christy were at a city council meeting, met the mayor and the mayor made the relationship with San Dieguito Highschool happen. If you haven't been to a highschool in a while you sholuld just see San Dieguito. There is always something going on there. The administration understands well their relationship with and responsibility to the community in which they stand. There are all manner of adult classes, recreation activities, a dance and a debate competition -- and this was just last Friday. It goes on all the time. Truly refreshing. Just like Intrepid, its relationship with the school and this Romeo and Juliet.

Tony Gwynn Witnesses History

I'm not much of a baseball fan  but you've gotta love this...

Chapman throws fastest pitch ever recorded

By Steve Henson, Yahoo! Sports 12 hours, 15 minutes ago

SAN DIEGO – Aroldis Chapman(notes) was summoned from the bullpen one batter too late to make a difference in the game. No matter. The 22-year-old Cincinnati Reds left-hander made do by making history Friday night, throwing the fastest pitch recorded in a major league game, a 105-mph fastball.

Ardolis Chapman's 25 pitches on Friday night (each registering 100 mph or faster, including his record-breaking 105 mph heater) must have been a blur to Padres batters.
(Christopher Hanewinckel/US Presswire)

The blazing pitch pushed a white-hot pennant race to the back burner. Yes, the San Diego Padres won the game 4-3 to pull ahead of the Atlanta Braves in the National League wild-card race. Sure, the San Francisco Giants all but buried the Colorado Rockies thanks to a dominant performance by Tim Lincecum(notes).

But the lingering memory was of a now-you-see-it, did-I-actually-see-it fastball to Tony Gwynn(notes) in the eighth inning. The pitch was not a fluke: Chapman threw 25 pitches in his 1 1/3 innings of relief, and every one was at least 100 mph. He didn’t throw a slider. He didn’t throw a changeup. Why would he?

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From Walter Johnson to Bob Feller to Steve Dalkowski to J.R. Richard to Nolan Ryan to Stephen Strasburg, blistering velocity is etched forever in baseball lore. Rush Chapman to the head of the list. Has anybody in the history of the game had a comparable 25-pitch sequence?

[Related: MLB pitcher makes a very unfortunate accomplishment]

“I didn’t see it until the ball was behind me,” Gwynn said. “I was trying not to look at the radar reading because I’d be intimidated. I saw how hard he was throwing and just tried to be slow and work my hands.”

The 105-mph pitch was inside for a ball and evened the count at 2-2. Gwynn had fouled off the previous two pitches and fouled off the next before striking out. He ought to be pleased with his effort, forcing Chapman to make seven pitches, the slowest of which was 102 mph.

Gwynn’s father, Tony, a Hall-of-Famer and one of baseball greatest hitters, never saw a pitch as fast as the one Chapman threw. Maybe nobody else has, either. Since radar guns were introduced in the 1980s, the fastest pitch recorded was 104.8 mph by Joel Zumaya(notes) of the Detroit Tigers in a playoff game Oct. 10, 2006. Chapman, who defected from the Cuban national team in 2009, was clocked at 104 on Sept. 1 in his second major league appearance and also hit 105 mph with a pitch for Triple-A Louisville earlier this season.

Chapman, speaking through an interpreter with bags of ice strapped across his arm, credited his stepped-up velocity Friday to the fact that he’d pitched only once in the last week. He didn’t allow an earned run in his first eight relief appearances after being promoted Aug. 31, but the Astros nicked him for two runs a week ago. He pitched a scoreless inning on Monday against the Brewers, then had three more days off.

“My arm had been a little sore and the rest helped,” he said. “I felt as good as I did a couple weeks ago. Not the best I’ve ever felt, but I felt good.”

Reds manager Dusty Baker appreciated the moment, but the loss grated on him. Chapman was warming up in the bullpen when Miguel Tejada(notes) delivered a bases-loaded, two-out single in the seventh against Nick Masset(notes) that drove in the Padres’ third and fourth runs. Chapman came in and struck out Adrian Gonzalez(notes) on three fastballs that registered 101, 102 and 103 mph.

Baker had been reluctant to summon Chapman to face Tejada with the bases loaded and the Reds holding a one-run lead, envisioning a wild pitch or a walk.

“A guy throwing that hard, looking back you can say I should have brought him in earlier, but he can’t pitch against everybody all the time,” Baker said.

Asked if that was the hardest he has seen Chapman throw by a small degree, Baker replied, “By a big degree.”

Fastest Recorded MLB Pitches
Name	Team	Year	MPH
Aroldis Chapman	Reds	2010	105
Joel Zumaya	Tigers	2006	104.8
Aroldis Chapman	Reds	2010	104
Mark Wohlers	Braves	1995	103
Armando Benitez	Giants	2002	102
Jonathan Broxton	Dodgers	2009	102
Neftali Feliz	Rangers	2010	102
Bobby Jenks	White Sox	2005	102
Randy Johnson	Diamondbacks	2004	102
Matt Lindstrom	Marlins	2007	102
Robb Nen	Marlins	1997	102
Justin Verlander	Tigers	2007	102

Padres officials said the stadium radar gun is not known for inordinately high readings, unlike the Fox TV gun that recorded Zumaya at 104.8. Chapman had three other pitches Friday clocked at 104 mph.

This wasn’t the first time Chapman had pitched at Petco Park. He started for the Cuban team in the World Baseball Classic in the spring of 2009 and was knocked out of the game in the third inning against Japan and took the loss. His fastest pitch was 101 mph.

“I’ve grown up and improved so much since then,” he said. “I remember that night and losing my composure a little. I couldn’t find the strike zone. That seems like a long time ago.”

After defecting during a tournament in the Netherlands in July 2009, Chapman signed a six-year, $30.25 million deal with the Reds in January. It was widely predicted that he would sign a much more lucrative deal with a deep-pocket team such as the Yankees or Red Sox, but some teams backed off because of concerns about his maturity.

Leticia Walker Reed Meets Julian Triton

9. An excerpt from the diary of Julian Triton

This day and age represents so many unique opportunities to create!  In my time there was music (if you were a member of the church), theatre (if you did passion or mystery plays), writing (if you were a priest), and art (if you wished to illuminate religious texts).  No wonder they called it the dark ages! 

Now the whole world is made of light and not the kind of light one in my condition must shun.  The process of sitting in a darkened movie house for the first time was, to say the least, an immensely emotional experience – and I hate showing emotion; emotion makes one soft and the soft are subjugated.  So imagine my pleasure at seeing a sunrise for the first time in – I don’t even know how long.  How great is Mr. Edison and his machine for broadcasting light even as I sit her in darkness. 

This book, this pen and this ink, ill gotten as I can make them, will be my confessional.  I will trust my agent to deposit it in the safest bank in the New World.  Trust!  Well, I trust as I will.  Do I not also have a key?

The confessional!  As in all literature, the antagonist seeks out his own demise, and what am I if not antagonistic?  He stupidly leaves clues for the powers of good.  The better the villain, the more worthy the hero must be.  Well.  I state here now – for whoever is able to find the source, defeat the security and crack the code – thank you for being a worthy adversary.  Now, please do your best to protect yourself because my secret cannot be told unless one of us is destroyed. 

The last time I tried this everyone but me was destroyed.  That and a scriptorium and the town in which it was built.  Oh, the intricacies of building a library for the greater good!

But enough of this babble!  I ask you; do you have the courage?  Or will you become one of thousands and thousands of victims I’ve left in my wake throughout the centuries?

The coding was not a problem, really.  What kind of a linguist would I be if I hadn’t lived all these years?  Language is what defines all civilization and the language of any land is the language of the victors.  I speak dozens of languages and am partial to Greek, as you must know.  I can hardly remember my native tongue.  Only certain words float back to me – usually in nightmares.  Mine was a tough upbringing and the language was as tough as the land and the people who boasted that they’d never been conquered.  So the language was as rudimentary and crude as the landscape and its people.

Much later in my education was I to realize that in order to truly conquer you must not only impose your will on people – you must also have a culture to impose upon them.  So I studied the great civilizations of the great conquerors; the art, culture and language of war.  But that was to come later. 

“And now do you understand the key to this code?”

And with a rush of air, that Leticia realized was her own breath, she was awake and panting as the library, the sun, the books and the dangerous, beautiful man faded into the distance.  All that was left was the smell of the book.  That smell and that diary she still couldn’t read, even though she was on page four.

“Wait.  How did I get on page four?”

“Are you all right Miss Reed?

And for the second time in as many minutes, Leticia Walker Reed started.  It was the librarian who’d shown her the books on Spanish and Caltilian dictionaries. 

“I’m terribly sorry.  I must have dozed off.”

“I thought so too but you were turning pages…”

“While asleep?”

“I assumed you were squinting.  It happens a lot here.”

“I.. ah… thank you.”

Leticia was feeling so many emotions that she couldn’t get them straight and she knew only one person to talk to.  In a manner of speaking.  She exited the San Francisco Public library and crossed the street to her hotel. 

She rushed past a display in the library’s atrium celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Pony Express.  Had the mail service been in existence that day, Leticia Walker Reed would own a per centage of its debt.

She's a poet

8. The Dream

Letty was in familiar rooms in the library at the University.  She was regarded as someone who appreciated books more than people and the library staff, cut from the same cloth, left her alone.  The smells were so potent.  The books dust and sunlight.  Perfect!  A beautiful, sunny early fall day spent indoors amid the rustle of old paper and the unmistakable rhythm of the man reciting poetry. 

This was how she knew she was dreaming.  No one ever spoke much above a whisper at the school library and no one ever recited poetry.  Especially her own!  This was a secret she’d not even told Emily.  A poem about poetry and dreams beginning.

“We never remember dreams beginning and
Forgetting them
They never end.”

“That’s –” she said and then they were dancing.  Like you can be in dreams.

With the sunlight streaming in through thick-glassed windows.  Now a waltz of some kind at just above a whisper and a man breathing in her ear.

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Of course I do.  All the words are yours and, because I have a library card, they are mine too.”

“You’re a – ”

“Thief.  Yes.”

“I meant to say you’re a borrower.”

“No.  I’m a thief.”

“Will you steal my heart?”

“Yes, Darling Letty.  That and more.”

“Will you steal me away?”

“I believe the verse is sung thusly:
‘Away he came
With book and chain
And evil grin
He came again – ’”

“’To steal my heart’,” continued Leticia Walker Reed.

“’Which was his art’,” added the handsome stranger.

“’He took it all
Left me in thrall…’”

“Oh, continue, Darling Leticia.  The song is in your voice.”

She continued.

“’I took it in
My only sin
To hope he’d see
My chastity’”

Then he sang the next verse of the tone poem she’s told no one about.

“‘And take it still
As was his will
Devouring me
Deliciously’”

And they both whispered, they were dancing in a library after all, the final lines:

“‘And totally
And totally’”

But before she could ask the handsome, dangerous man in indeterminate age, the diary was in her hands as it can be in dreams, and, as in dreams she could understand it.

“Read,” he said.

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Darling Emily, Chapter 8

8. The Dream

Letty was in familiar rooms in the library at the University.  She was regarded as someone who appreciated books more than people and the library staff, cut from the same cloth, left her alone.  The smells were so potent.  The books dust and sunlight.  Perfect!  A beautiful, sunny early fall day spent indoors amid the rustle of old paper and the unmistakable rhythm of the man reciting poetry. 

This was how she knew she was dreaming.  No one ever spoke much above a whisper at the school library and no one ever recited poetry.  Especially her own!  This was a secret she’d not even told Emily.  A poem about poetry and dreams beginning.

“We never remember dreams beginning and
Forgetting them
They never end.”

“That’s –” she said and then they were dancing.  Like you can be in dreams.

With the sunlight streaming in through thick-glassed windows.  Now a waltz of some kind at just above a whisper and a man breathing in her ear.

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Of course I do.  All the words are yours and, because I have a library card, they are mine too.”

“You’re a – ”

“Thief.  Yes.”

“I meant to say you’re a borrower.”

“No.  I’m a thief.”

“Will you steal my heart?”

“Yes, Darling Letty.  That and more.”

“Will you steal me away?”

“I believe the verse is sung thusly:
‘Away he came
With book and chain
And evil grin
He came again – ’”

“’To steal my heart’,” continued Leticia Walker Reed.

“’Which was his art’,” added the handsome stranger.

“’He took it all
Left me in thrall…’”

“Oh, continue, Darling Leticia.  The song is in your voice.”

She continued.

“’I took it in
My only sin
To hope he’d see
My chastity’”

Then he sang the next verse of the tone poem she’s told no one about.

“‘And take it still
As was his will
Devouring me
Deliciously’”

And they both whispered, they were dancing in a library after all, the final lines:

“‘And totally
And totally’”

But before she could ask the handsome, dangerous man in indeterminate age, the diary was in her hands as it can be in dreams, and, as in dreams she could understand it.

“Read,” he said.

Darling Emily Chapter Seven

7. The Book

It was old.  It looked old.  The binding had once been a custom leather job.  It looked like books she’d ordered from Europe, books she’d seen in libraries in large cities.  Like books that were published for wealthy, literate men of property and influence.  The book looked, smelled and sounded old and rich.  The smell was a sweet, tangy, mossy musk.  It smelled of leather to be sure but there was something else there, the smells combined to form a word on the edge of her consciousness, an ancient word.  Feardeath?

The book sounded like the breath of an old, infirm man who had once been a promising athlete but now had fallen on hard times. Flipping pages was like chasing an old man down an alley in a rich European neighborhood.  All of these effects combined to produce a feeling that was not entirely pleasant and he most bothersome feature, by far, was the handwriting. 

If the smell and sound of the book made a dark promise, the writing kept it.  The letters were written in a purplish ink with what could only have been a quill.  The ink and quill were undoubtedly expensive.  As was the paper, the leather and the binding.

Leticia could not make out many words.  She was familiar with Spanish and Latin but this seemed to combine both on occasion and, at other times, there was another language entirely.  And all of it in that bold, strong, almost egotistical handwriting.  Most of the language was probably an older Spanish dialect.  It was infinitely frustrating because she was sure she would have to write to her Latin professor at the University and then order several books and wait weeks for them to arrive before she could find out anything other than the obvious fact that she was holding a diary.

The diary belonged to a man with grace and style, a man who knew exactly what he wanted to say and who had much to say.  The book was the size of a traveling preacher’s bible, approximately six inches wide, nine tall and four thick.  It could fit in the pocket of a frock coat that a preacher would wear but Leticia didn’t know how she knew this: the book had never belonged to a man of God.

After hours spent trancelike, looking at, listening to and smelling the book – it smelled if not alive then very recently dead – she rushed to her secretaire, opened it, tore out a page of stationary and fired off a letter to Professor Greenlese.  After addressing the letter and turning a few more pages furtively, Letty realized that it was well after midnight and she was tired.  She wanted to tell Emily absolutely everything but it would have to wait until tomorrow.  And then she was asleep.

More from Darling Emily: Chapter Six

6. After Dinner

Leticia Walker Reed retired to her room on the second floor of Waterwood on the top of the hill overlooking Walker’s Mill.  She actually scampered, she noted, so full was she with girlish enthusiasm.  Her creek-side room offered a view five miles downstream, past the cattle range, over the fields and down into a grove of trees that ran into Walker’s Mill.  The Mill used to grind all the grain from the many farms in Placer County.  The railroads changed the business of the town – that and the fact that every acre of land was owned by a Walker or a Reed and had been for fifty years.  The Walkers, who owned the mill and most of the land around it, gave the property on which Waterwood was built to the Reeds as a wedding present.  This was before the Walkers died, leaving the rest of it to their daughter and son in law.

Except for six seasons at University, Leticia had lived in this room her entire life.  Now that she had taken all the University of California could give her, a Bachelor of Arts degree in Language and a Master of Arts in English, Letty didn’t know what to do.  She knew what her fantasy was: to run off with a handsome, intriguing stranger who would totally devour her.  She hoped that she wouldn’t end up like Darling Emily, too weak and too smart to do anyone let alone herself any good.  She thought she might like to work in the family business but couldn’t really get excited enough about any of it. 

Then she decided that she needed to go incognito, to hide out between the musty pages of a well-written book.  This is what she had always done.  She was 12 or thereabouts before she realized she was rich.  Just after she stopped being Clementine and right after she saw how deferentially the townspeople treated her, her mother and father – and anyone named Walker or Reed the first time she rode to town in her mother’s Brougham. 

Leticia Walker Reed rarely went to town.  Tutors had come from San Francisco to teach James and her.  She was always the favorite, he always trouble maker.  After studies, James would run wild on the property, ride his pony or get someone to take him into town but Letty would retire.  Sink into the depths of leather and language.  All her books were brought by the tutors, many of whom never lasted more than a year.  Then, during her fourth or fifth year of studies, she asked a question Miss Olson couldn’t answer.

“Well.  I’ll have to go into town the next chance I get and order a book on the subject,” said Miss Olson in response to a question on American History.  The fact that there were books that would tell you all you wanted to know – and that you could just go to town and order them – was a turning point in Leticia’s life.  She determined, from that moment on, that she would learn everything there was to learn from every book she could get her hands on.

Then, after an informative ride into town with Miss Olson, and, after she learned exactly how much money for books she had at her disposal, Letty went a little wild on books.  Finally, her parents came to understand how much money was being spent on books – it was after Letty had discovered such things as catalogues and newspapers and libraries.  It was Uncle James who had the idea of putting Letty to work to earn her book allowance.  She did sums for the bookkeepers, filed correspondence, took notes and, finally, wrote all the correspondence for her father and uncle.  When she left for University, Abolphus and James Reed had to hire two secretaries to handle the workload.

The library in Walkers Mill is named after Leticia Walker Reed who insisted, just before she was accepted to the University of California, that the other children in her community have access to the books she did.  Every purchase Letty made from the catalogues at the general store held the twin thrills that of devouring it’s contents and that of giving of the knowledge to untold thousands of people after her.  Her mother taught her that books can live on after she grew out of them and her mother oversaw the building of “Letty’s Library after she went away to school.  Sometimes Letty ordered two of the same book, knowing well in advance that she wouldn’t be able to part with it when the time came.  All of her books – even the duplicates – reside in “Letty’s Library” now.  All except the large black-leather-bound journal she now held.

And what a book it was!

My Mother

She was so big to me as to block out the very sun
Indeed, she was sun and moon to me
And ocean, too, for the first nine months

She could frighten, amaze, love and protect me
She was, is and always shall be a powerful woman
To me

Even though, at the end
She was
frail
calm
quiet
aloof
impatient

Many people thought my relationship with my mother was odd
But we seemed to make it work

Having gone through the drama and difficulty of power struggle
We settled, finally, into a respectful distance
In which we corresponded infrequently and often by letter

But it worked for us
Me, the little boy who became a man
With all she taught me:

Respect for women
Emotional combat
Tough love

Farewell lady
Mother
Protector
Teacher
Posessor of legendary stubbornness

Is it any wonder I became the son you loved and respected
From a distance?

August in Oregon

Jennie, Savvy, Christina and I went to Ashland Oregon to see sights and plays.  Here are the photos!