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Archive for November, 2011

When did it get to be November?  I feel like I was eating our traditional New Year’s dinner from Lim Fong only yesterday.  Here it is November.  Halloween is packed away, November’s fall decorations are out, and in no time I’ll be putting out the Christmas decorations.  Many toys are on the boys’ lists.   They work on their lists all year, but it gets intense after Halloween.  The sequence is a brief discussion of what costume they want for next year (which will change at least a dozen times) and then it quickly turns to the toys and presents they simply HAVE TO HAVE.

The day after Thanksgiving we will go to the farm and get the office tree.  The boys help us decorate it.  We also pull out the decorations for the waiting room, patient room, and the house.  But upstairs in the living room, there is no tree.  On Christmas Eve, once again, two pajama-clad boys will stand next to their empty stockings.  They will set out cookies and milk using the special “china” .  When they wake up in the morning, there will be a fully decorated tree, filled stockings, and presents all over the floor, spreading out from under the tree.  Santa does an amazing job each year.  He’s really considerate too.  He does the “some assembly required” on the big toys so the boys can start playing with them right away.  Santa doesn’t wrap his presents, just grabs them from his sack.  Mom and Dad do wrap their presents and the boys will tear through the paper, and then try to look excited since Santa gives all the cool presents.

I do love this whole season of holidays…from Halloween through New Year’s.  So wonderfully festive.  But we don’t need the Christmas music yet.  Please…not yet.

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Have you ever noticed that some actors are terrible at phone acting?  They are supposed to be on the phone and they have a blank look on their faces and it seems as if they are counting sheep until they say their next line.  I hate that.  You don’t sit on the phone with a blank look on your face.  You are reacting as you do when talking face to face.  In general, sit-com actors are terrible at phone acting–not all, but most.  Some film actors do it well.  Dustin Hoffman.  He can pull off phone acting.  Meryl Streep.  My dear Kenneth Branagh.  Julia Roberts on occasion.  When an actor is bad at it, it completely breaks the suspension of disbelief for the audience.  It smacks you back into reality and you realize there is no one else on the other line.  How hard is it to be engaged in a conversation?  Imagine what the lines would be if the other character were on the other end of the line.  It’s not that difficult.  Think about when you are on the phone.  You gesture, you make faces, you multi-task and do other things.  Community theater actors are typically not good at this, I am sad to say.  This should be required in all acting classes as far as I am concerned.  That’s just my opinion.

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