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Last night saw Kenneth Branagh playing King Lear in London. https://kinglearbranagh.com/ from third row from the front. Branagh has developed a policy of using young and not well known actors in the other roles - and they were all superb. He'd pared the script down from the normal 3h15m to 2h without an interval, but kept the key themes intact. At the end Lear carries his dead daughter Cordelia onto the stage, and after some tough lines simulates dying from a heart attack and also dies. With only them on stage, the stage rotated - and neither of them were perceptively breathing, viewed from close up. That takes some doing. Now we have seen some great Lear productions. Glenda Jackson, Ian Mckellen, Frank Langella (Nixon in Frost-Nixon), and the Branagh was right up there. The only slight criticism is that Branagh looks too young (he's 62) to be the elderly and progressively dementia suffering Lear. Jackson and McKellen were in their 80's in their productions and really looked the part. Now I'm nit picking here because when Branagh was on stage you simply could not take your eyes off him - his stage presence and the force of his portrayal is why he is one of the acting titans.

The Vineyard is full of artists, and has been for ...centuries really. One of them is a painter, and he discovered my Flickr page a while ago. He liked this photo I took in September of '09: Reflecting on it (heh), the image has entirely too much foreground. In the past I was very guilty of such poor framing choices. In this case I had a 50mm on an APS-C sensor, so I didn't have much of a choice. 2010 infrared image of a rail bridge I photographed a great many times. Again with acres of unnecessary foreground. It's the "rule of thirds" not the "rule of corners." Anyway... Tim, the painter, wisely chose to focus on the top half of the photo I took in '09 and turned it into an interesting scene.

James Austin Johnson is so good it's downright spooky.

Todays the annual day to pick up some Audeze. https://www.audeze.com/pages/black-friday-2023

Just havin' a bit of a hard time. But I know it's time.

Even Shelly drank year old Mattnog, despite her phobias! 😆 It's safe so long as it was refrigerated. Wild Turkey Mattnog 2023! And the Bacardi Gold ought to add some more sweetness given the two cups of rye.

I used to love sitting aisle but lately window has been calling my name. Love seeing cool stuff from the air. Rainier, Shasta, a few of SF and Mt. Hood.

This batch of Mattnog will be consumed on Christmas. Cheers Matt!!

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-67416255 Stay safe, Birgir.