I’m ushering in my birthday listening to a mini concert featuring Sam Phillips performing four songs from her new CD “Don’t Do Anything.” You can hear it too…

Sam Phillips’ Tiny Desk Concert

DON’T DRESS FOR DINNER

Set in a converted farmhouse in the French countryside, ‘Don’t Dress for Dinner” by Marc Camoletti, presents a challenge to the players, lots of fun for the audience and a story with more twists than a corkscrew!

When Jacqueline (no one seems to have surnames in this play!) decides to visit her mother for a few days, her husband, Bernard sees the opportunity of a cosy weekend with his new girlfriend. His bachelor pal, Robert rings up to announce his return from Hong Kong, so Bernard invites him along as his alibi, also hiring a Cordon Bleu cook to ensure they don’t go hungry.

Convinced his plan is foolproof, Bernard is taking his wife’s suitcase out to the car, when the phone rings and she answers it. From then on the story moves into the surreal world of high-speed farce, with mistaken identity — two girls, both known as Suzy; clandestine relationships,. the wife has a secret lover; hasty improvisation, the cook must play the mistress and vice versa, all carried along on a stream of rapid-fire, double-meaning dialogue.

One impossible situation piles on another, as the hapless Robert finds himself the target of amorous attentions from all three ladies, Bernard tries frantically to salvage at least a scrap of illicit bliss from the wreckage of his weekend, and his intended playmate, the glamorous Suzanne, ends up in the kitchen, expected to cook dinner, while Suzette, the cook, is transformed into a femme fatale!

Just posting another song that I love.

This is one of two new paintings I’m working on. The dimensions are 18″ x 79″

Doug Renner took this photo on his iPhone during the 2008 Grand Marais Arts Festival on Saturday.

My friend Richard is a fashion designer in NYC, and he has a blog What I Saw Today that I read every day. It’s helped me to see clothes in a new way, and it’s kind of exciting. Definitely inspiring. So anyway, when I was a kid, my favorite TV show was The Brady Bunch. Looking at the shows now is interesting, and I had some thoughts about fashion while watching the first two episodes. First of all, in the very first episode, “The Honeymoon”, I love Mike’s suit. I don’t have software currently to save frames from DVD, so I’ve snapped a picture of my TV screen to show you. Mike looks great in the black suit, and equally good in the casual (skinny jeans, red sweatshirt and deck shoes) outfit he wears in episode two, which I’ll get to in a second. In fact, when they got to the moment when Mike landed face first in the wedding cake, all I could say was “oh no, not on the suit!” Conversely, what was ANYONE thinking with Carol’s lavender dress in episode two, “Eenie Meenie Mommy Daddy”? That is one of the most hideous garments I’ve seen (especially coupled with that hair). On a tangent here, what did Carol ever do? She always said she was tired, but she didn’t have a job, didn’t clean or cook – Alice did all the work. But that dress looks like it’s made out of thick polyester. It poofs out in the butt, and the collar sticks out in the back. It looks uncomfortable, unflattering and even with that short skirt, I bet she sweat like a pig in it. There’s a moment when she walks into the kitchen looking all depressed over a newspaper column. I was sitting there vociferously complaining about the hideous dress, and the first thing out of Alice’s mouth was “Mrs. Brady, you look terrible”. Madeline and I cracked up. I didn’t like Mike’s clothes once the lapels and collars started growing, and the hair got permed, but at least in the first season, he had great style. What did he ever see in Carol?

I love this recording of this song.

The back deck. It needs another coat of paint and some other touching up, but I mostly wanted to make this deck disappear.