My Gentle Readers have the patience of Saints but finally enough is enough.

"Back to your blogging you lazy bastard," they say (all two of them).

VANCOUVER, BC - Work has been pretty hectic and life even more so. Over the winter holidays I spent several days with the amber flu (I blame all my visiting cousins) and then a genuine flu. Some inherent physical and moral weaknesses of mine were exposed these last seven weeks, brought on by excessive workloads and too much Red Bull, which may give you wings as advertised but what they don't say is that it also makes you twitchy after too many weeks drinking the stuff.

I did see BC Ballet’s and Alberta Ballet’s co-presentation of The Nutcracker thanks to an invitation from My Girl Friday. At the performance she recalled a version she had seen as a child in which the setting had been changed from Christmas to a more universally appealing birthday party for Clara. Click here for the Royal Winnepeg Ballet’s explanation of John Neumeier’s alternate birthday version of the Nutcracker. Click here for the Christmas version of the story.

This year I was positive the Evil Mouse King and his mice were going to triumph and all would be changed. Thankfully in the make-believe world good still has the upper hand.

Jerry Lee Lewis has a new CD (and here we all thought he was dead) and vocally he weighs in at his usual welterweight and he still has the wallopping left hand on the piano. I'll get a review of his new stuff shortly.

A DVD arrived in the mail showing Elvis Presley's three appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956 and 1957. After Sullivan Presleymania went national. I'll get a review of it to you soon. I watched the first disc last night.

The Vancouver's PuSH Festival is around the corner and I've got Vede Hille on my mind as well as some marionettes.

Reveiws of a couple of Lenny Bruce CDs, some Firesign Theatre releases, a novel or two (and completely unrelated to this blog a series of articles to write on food issues and sustainability).

So, yes, I am back to work on my blog.

xoxo

M