Summer Phoenix

Phoenix Suns NBA Flash Summer League Short, Size= Large
$30.00
This Phoenix Suns performance lined mesh short is made of stay dry, stay comfortable ClimaLite. The shorts have an elastic waist with drawstring . They have the NBA logoman and logo applique and are an officially licensed NBA short. 100% poly mesh with mesh insets

Esther Kahn [VHS]
$14.98
Esther Kahn is a young Jewish woman living in an overcrowded, Jewish Ghetto in 19th century England. She is surrounded by looming, oppressive, dreary, featureless, worn brick architecture, narrow sidewalks and streets, blacked out windows, and hordes of black-and-brown jacketed crowds.

She lives in a tiny apartment with her large family whom operate a clothes shop within the apartment. As child, she worked, had no privacy, wore colourless clothing, shared a bed, and remained silent to avert the mockery of her mother and siblings who ridiculed her for mimicking them out of boredom.

As a young woman, her life remains the same - she has no privacy, lives in a state of mental and physical hebetude and lethargy and inertia, exhudes a blank, featureless expression, is cloathed in plain, unremarkable clothing, and is continuously oppressed and dwarfed by the grey, mundane, massively imposing buildings, and narrow streets, and narrow hallways, and narrow doorways, and her loud-mouthed mother and siblings, and the prosaic, banal lifestyle of her family.

Her only form of mental escape is the Yiddish theatre. Sitting in the balcony, front row, leaning over the rail, there is a vast space between her mind and the stage, a space that enables her to breathe, think, feel, and yearn.

Yet despite the freedom of thought the open stage provides for Esther, her face and body remain torpidly somnolent, impassive, dispassionate.

The plain and common looking Summer Phoenix brilliantly conveys Esther's emotionless demeanour - Summer/Esther does not convey any desire to want anything or anticipate anything.

After an unusual explosive confrontation with her mother, Esther finally decides to break free from the bleak life she is trapped in.

She is eventually cast in minor parts in a few stage plays, and meets Nathan Quellen, portrayed by quintessential British actor Ian Holm, who commences to teach Esther the technical skill of acting.

From this point forward, Esther begins a grueling dual journey of learning how to act and learning how to feel.

She begins experiencing emotions she never felt before, and she begins gaining the experience she needs to fully comprehend and wield the technical aspects of acting.

Nathan walks her across the stage through the physical and emotional steps of surprise, hesitancy, anger, disgust, self-loathing, etc; she then begins walking though those emotions in her personal life.

There are three truths, Nathan tells her - the truth of how a character reacts, the truth of how the actor would react, and the truth that a character and actor are not the same person.

These technical steps and three truths slowly deconstruct Esther's defenses and lead her to two edifying experiences in the denouement of the film which mark the beginning of her freedom of thought, movement, and emotion.

Esther Kahn is a technically challenging film to watch because of its odd and narrow camera shots, lackluster photo direction which conveys the realistic lackluster setting of the Ghetto, and Summer Phoenix's characterless and insipid and unappealing portrayal which brilliantly conveys Kahn's mental and physical hebetude and lethargy and lackluster nature.

A must-see film for people who want to learn the technical craft of acting, and for people who appreciate minimalistic films and character studies.

Shakespeare in Song [Hybrid SACD]
$20.98
... and they work!

I have sung the Ralph Vaughn Williams set -- beautifully written, totally evoking the mood of each scene -- liquid and ethereal, foggy and languid, agile and energetic. I had heard the Mantyjarvi set, beautiful and wonderfully evocative. But the rest were all new to me.

The real hit on this disk for me was the set by Matthew Harris. This composer really knows the voice and how to use it. He also clearly understands a number of different musical genres, and does a creative job of matching Shakespeare text to musical style. We get a sense of almost hypnotic slightly minimalist repetition at the end of "When that I was and a little tiny boy." There's almost a "blues" feel to "Oh Mistress mine." "When daffodils begin to peer" reminds me of good old Southern gospel. (Harris wrote 5 sets of Shakespeare songs, published over several years in the 90s, only a handful of which appear on this disk. One that's not on this disk is "Who is Sylvia?" in doo-wop style -- I liked these so much that I purchased the scores to all five sets.) Several are very madrigal-like, but with a "twist": some harmonic shift or rhythmic pattern that lets you know this is rooted solidly in the 20th century.

The remaining songs on the disk are also excellent: Frank Martin's Ariel songs, Steven Sametz "When he shall die," Nils Lindberg's "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?," Dominick Argento's wonderful "Sonnet LXIV" in memory of 09/11/01, and Alan Murray's "O mistress mine." All worth hearing, all good.

The Phoenix Bach Choir (now known as the Phoenix Chorale) is superb under Charles Bruffy's direction. Beautiful intonation, clear diction, graceful phrasing -- everything you would expect from a first-class professional chamber choir. I've followed Bruffy's career since his days with Robert Shaw's Festival Singers (I was there in 1994) -- what an incredible talent!

This is an excellent addition to any collection of choral music, and a great example of what's possible when the words of Shakespeare are set to really good music. Enjoy!

Summer Days
$0.99