Author: James Weis

Small Gardens you can manage easily!

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Small Gardens I know that a lot of you do not have large yards and want to do something to make them distinctive and easy to maintain. A cactus garden is easy, especially to maintain, and pretty. All it takes is a small patch of land or a planter box, a few cacti you like. I get mine at Home Depot as they always have a great variety. You will want a few decorative garden stones and maybe a few you have dug up in your yard. Always stay well hydrated when you are outdoors. I like to mix 7/8 water and 1/8 Ocean Spray Light /50 Cran-Raspberry Juice to make it more interesting. I find that this helps me drink more and outdoors it is really important. Of course you do not have to use a Baccarat Harmony glass … but I like to treat myself!   I put in my cactus garden last year and it is mostly something you change every year, as they do not always survive the winter in certain …

A review of Alex Ekman’s US Premiere of “Midsummer’s Night Dream” Chicago, April 27,2018

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“Midsummer night is not long, but it sets many cradles to rock.” An old Swedish proverb.   Writing a short review of two hours of one man’s dream that morphs into hallucination would not do justice to the brilliance of Alex Ekman’s stunning re-imagination, more of a renewal, of Midsummer Night’s Dream.   As I took my seat in the fourth row center of Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre I was confronted with a rustic iron single bed painted white cradling a handsome sleeping man, feet out of the covers, head tucked away in his slumber. Who knows how long this sleep has overtaken him before the anxious Joffrey Ballet audience began to fill the theatre…and fill it they did to standing room.     Two small spots resting on the stage floor on the audience right skimmed under the bed throwing the first of Ekman’s creative shadows laterally across the floor projecting the raw frame to repeat on the wall. An imaginary alarm sounds and a hand reaches out of the eiderdown in an unsuccessful search …

Dining out!

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Dining out with friends does not have to be work. In fact, dining with friends is another reason to get together to celebrate new and developed friendships sometimes mixing in new friends in hopes all of you find enough in common to create new relationships. And let’s face it. It is not the restaurant or food that brings us together. It is the camaraderie first and food second. The expenditure is for the entertainment you have chosen for the night. Separate checks for working adults is uncouth and annoying. There are times when one may not feel they want to spend money dining out. Simply do not accept the invitation. And there are times where your group may institute sepearate checks in advance. There is nothing worse than the friend who constantly avoids paying for something or alowing one of the other s buy his or her drinks or to share their appetizers. Some people, and they will not be included often, find the need to show their power over waiters. They will ask inane …

A little less TU TU……

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At long last star power returned the stage at Cobb energy Center last Saturday night! It was untypically dark in the cavernous theatre as a mellow hush came across the small Saturday night crowd. Without fanfare a wash of light quietly skimmed across the floor and dancers appeared from inside long slits in far distant opaque curtains dressed in skin-tight white, as pure as the work would turn out to be. It has been two years since Atlanta Ballet made a swift reversal in direction, back to clumsy staid ballet that has no place in the wallets of young professionals and hipsters, as the case was until then. The company began to fire people right and left until the last few long-term stars defected, having no desire to step so far into the past.  They had seen the excitement of The Indigo Girls on stage, Big Boi and Outcast with Janelle Monae swinging high above the stage in full voice sporting her then-signature front puff of dark hair. Gone for the most part are the …

Theatre and Dance – A Little Boy’s Story

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  I have long been a supporter of the arts in every city where I have lived and I can tell you that number is not small! It all began when I was six years old in Louisville, Kentucky at a time I was courting a favorite Aunt. I was enrolled in a tiny dance school for tiny people. There was simple tap, Shuffle ball tap, and shuffle ball tap only with a teddy bear to the strains of “Me and my Teddy Bear”. Sweet, right? Amy Grimes was my mother’s just older sister who was not able to bear children and married a highly successful business executive with the L M Berry Company. They were the sole advertisers for the Yellow Pages at the time. Having no children and plenty of disposable income the couple was the height of glamour to all of the nieces and nephews. It was my goal to squeeze in and become her surrogate child. As soon as I thought I had my dancing and singing role down pat I …