All about the hat

Two days ago I walked into a haberdashery in downtown Saint Paul and declared myself in need of a hat. I walked out a short time later with a lovely Scala-brand Panama hat with a black hat band. It set me back $60 exactly, but it will be a distinctly more stylish way to keep the sun off my folically-challenged pate this summer whilst in Madrid. Last year I opted to buy a hat over there, thinking that I'd wear what the locals were wearing. I ended up buying a baseball cap at Corte Ingles (the Spanish department store monopoly). There are plenty of folks in Spain that wear baseball caps, despite what we'd been told by our instructors, so I didn't stick out amongst the natives, however, I did catch a good deal of flak from my schoolmates, so this year I'm going with the Panama (a misnomer, as the Panama hat really comes from Ecuador originally...as does mine, currently).

Anyway... The fact that the hat comes from Ecuador was a tidbit of information shared with me by Leah Cooper, executive director of the Minnesota Fringe Festival. I saw her yesterday at the Fringe offices (of all places!). She was working hard on something in her little cubed-off area, and I'm sure I was distracting her from something important, but we had a nice chat about the woven grass hat upon my head.

I had stopped in to the Fringe office in my dual capacity as columnist and producer. Really, more so as producer. You see, it was June 1st yesterday. That made it the deadline for submitting the forms that get the companies into the Fringe's printed program, and onto the Fringe website. As you may have guessed, the columnist in my was intrigued to see what was going down at the office, but in reality, the reason I was there was that the artist in me had procrastinated on getting my paperwork in until the last possible minute.

Anyway, motivations aside, I was at the Fringe office, in my brand new hat. The lovely and remarkable Dawn Mori made note of the hat and suggested that I consider a change of my online image. That is, that I should replace my picture on my fringe column. It is true that I've used the same picture for a couple of years now, so I'm thinking I'll take her advice. In the next day or so I'll probably go ahead and make a change. Why not, right? So, soon you'll see the Panama-bedecked, goateed version of my mug on this column rather than my clean-shaven acting headshot.

Between the Fringe office and the rehearsal I had at least 10 people comment positively on the hat, so I think it is a keeper.

Today's bit of randomness... Coming right up!

I need a new title for one of my plays.

I am sooooo psyched that Lucasfilm gave into fan pressure and this fall will be releasing the original versions of the first three (Episodes IV-VI) Star Wars films. I never liked the retouched versions. The pure versions, in my mind, are the ones that I saw as a kid 5000 times. Having them on DVD will make me very happy.

Directly in front of me sit 5 purple candles.

I'm going into tech week for Iolanthe very soon. This is a great show, and I'm really enjoying myself. It's good to be back in Opera again. My voice is feeling and sounding good (if I may say so myself!). I leave reeharsals feeling exhilarated, even when I came to them drained. That's a good rehearsal process. Working with Gary Briggle is positively refreshing.

Today's bit of trivia from Hooked On Facts: "The average car produces a pound of pollution every 25 miles!" -- Yuck!

After a while some time will have passed.

Spanish word of the day: desfile -- (noun) Parade or procession.

One of my favorite shows from two years ago is coming back this year: Sock Puppet Serenade. You'll want to catch it if you can. There are a number of puppetry shows and mime shows that are worth catching. I guess I'll have to do a whole column on them.

"Yet, there's that slam bang tang reminiscent of gin and vermouth." -- "I Believe in You" from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying