Mountain Views News     Logo: MVNews     Saturday, April 16, 2016

MVNews this week:  Page 11

11

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Mountain Views-News Saturday, April 16, 2016 


Jeff’s Book Pics By Jeff Brown

The Game Is Playing Your Kid: How to Unplug 
and Reconnect in the Digital Age by Dr. Joe Dilley 
As technology advances and digital devices infiltrate 
our homes, it is important to monitor how our kids 
are using these items. But how can you decrease 
your kids’ overreliance on technology without 
stifling their freedom or making 
them “outsiders” amongst their 
peers? It can seem that there is 
no satisfactory solution to this 
dilemma, but do not despair--the 
assistance you need is here! Dr. 
Joe Dilley shares his profoundly 
effective three-step process that 
will facilitate your kids’ transition 
away from overuse of technology 
and toward more responsible and 
mindful use, so they unplug from 
devices and reconnect with your 
family in organic, lasting ways. 
When Breath Becomes 
Air by Paul Kalanithi 
When Breath Becomes Air is 
an unforgettable, life-affirming 
reflection on the challenge of facing 
death and on the relationship 
between doctor and patient, from 
a brilliant writer who became 
both.At the age of thirty-six, 
on the verge of completing a 
decade’s worth of training as a 
neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi 
was diagnosed with stage IV lung 
cancer. One day he was a doctor 
treating the dying, and the next 
he was a patient struggling to live. 
And just like that, the future he and 
his wife had imagined evaporated. 
The book chronicles Kalanithi’s 
transformation from a naïve 
medical student “possessed,” 
as he wrote, “by the question of 
what, given that all organisms die, 
makes a virtuous and meaningful 
life” into a neurosurgeon at 
Stanford working in the brain, 
and finally into a patient and 
new father confronting his 
own mortality.What makes 
life worth living in the face of 
death? What do you do when the future, no longer 
a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a 
perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, 
to nurture a new life as another fades away? These 
are some of the questions he wrestles with in this 
profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.
Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working 
on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and 
a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face 
to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had 
changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven 
words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my 
head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” 
The Other Side of Silence 
(A Bernie Gunther 
Novel) by Philip Kerr 
This is the 11th novel in the 
wonderful Bernie Gunther 
series. I’d been a good detective 
in Kripo, but that was a while 
ago, before the criminals wore 
smart gray uniforms and 
nearly everyone locked up was 
innocent.” Being a Berlin cop 
in 1942 was a little like putting 
down mousetraps in a cage full 
of tigers.The war is over. Bernie 
Gunther, our sardonic former 
Berlin homicide detective and 
unwilling SS officer, is now living 
on the French Riviera. It is 1956 
and Bernie is the go-to guy at 
the Grand-Hotel du Cap-Ferrat, 
the man you turn to for touring 
tips or if you need a fourth for 
bridge. As it happens, a local 
writer needs just that, someone 
to fill the fourth seat in a regular 
game that is the usual evening 
diversion at the Villa Mauresque. 
Not just any writer. Perhaps the 
richest and most famous living 
writer in the world: W. Somerset 
Maugham. And it turns out it 
is not just a bridge partner that 
he needs; it’s some professional 
advice. Maugham is being 
blackmailed—perhaps because 
of his unorthodox lifestyle. Or 
perhaps because of something 
in his past, because once upon a 
time, Maugham worked for the 
British secret service, and the 
people now blackmailing him 
are spies.As Gunther fans know, 
all roads lead back to the viper’s 
nest that was Hitler’s Third Reich and to the killing 
fields that spread like a disease across Europe. Even 
in 1956, peace has not come to the continent: now 
the Soviets have the H-bomb and spies from every 
major power feel free to make all of Europe their 
personal playground.


Jeff’s History Corner By Jeff Brown

BEN FRANKLIN DEVELOPED A LIST OF 13 VIRTUES 
THAT HE LIVED HIS LIFE BY.

Benjamin Franklin came up with a list of 13 main 
virtues that he felt every person should strive to 
live their life by. As such, he himself attempted 
to always live by this code and developed charts 
with which he charted his progress from day 
to day, to make sure that he was constantly 
improving towards this end.He would start 
with one of the virtues and plot his progress 
on the chart until he mastered that virtue; 
then moving on to the next; and so on until he 
mastered them all. He ordered them specifically 
as shown below, as some of them naturally lend 
towards others. Thus by sticking to this order, 
he felt it made it easier to achieve the whole.
This code is as follows:

1.Temperance: Eat not to Dullness, drink not to 
elevation

2.Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others 
or yourself. Avoid trifling Conversation

3.Order: Let all your Things have their Places. Let 
each Part of your Business have its Time

4.Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought. 
Perform without fail what you resolve.

5.Frugality: Make no Expense but to do good to 
others or yourself: i.e. Waste Nothing

6.Industry: Lose no Time. Be always employ’d in 
something useful. Cut off all unnecessary Actions

7.Sincerity: Use no hurtful Deceit. Think 
innocently and justly; and, if you speak; speak 
accordingly.

8.Justice: Wrong none, by doing Injuries or 
omitting the Benefits that are your Duty.

9.Moderation: Avoid Extremes. Forbear resenting 
Injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10.Cleanliness: Tolerate no Uncleanness in 
Body, Clothes, or Habitation

11.Tranquility: Be not disturbed at Trifles, or at 
Accidents common or unavoidable.

12.Chastity: Rarely use Venery but for Health 
or Offspring; Never to Dullness, Weakness, or 
the Injury of your own or another’s Peace or 
Reputation.

13.Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.


On the Marquee: Notes from the Sierra Madre Playhouse

A NEW OPTION AT SMP

By Artistic Director, Christian Lebano

I am so excited to announce a new option for our 
patrons and PASSport holders. Starting with The 
Glass Menagerie you will now be able to reserve the 
exact seat you prefer before you arrive at the theater. 
Now you don’t have to arrive early to get in line so 
that you get the seat you want. Standing at the door 
to our theater, I’ve been asked by so many of you 
why we don’t reserve seats, well from now on we 
will! Here’s how it works:

 Anyone who prepays for their ticket through our 
ticketing agent Vendini will be able to reserve the 
seat they want for an additional $3.00 a ticket. This 
is only available on-line at this point and is NOT 
available by calling Mary or at the box office window 
day of performances. There will be a graphic on-line 
of our seating plan and you will be able to choose the 
specific seat(s) you want for that performance. We 
will print out the list and your seat will be marked 
with your name on it by the ushers before every 
performance. You can linger over that second glass 
of wine or order dessert knowing that your seat is 
waiting for you at the Playhouse. By the way, the 
newly re-opened Zugo’s restaurant across the street 
from the Playhouse, will be offering a date night 
promotion of $98 that includes a pair of tickets and 
a 3 course meal (watch for their promotion).

For our PASSport patrons this will be a new 
benefit when buying the pass. You will be able to 
reserve your seats when you buy your PASSport 
and those seats (or ones close by) will be reserved 
for you every time you come to the theater AT NO 
ADDITIONAL CHARGE! This is a great benefit 
for being a PASSport holder. Unfortunately, this 
is a go-forward change. Any current PASSport 
holders will get the benefit when they renew their 
PASSports. BUT we will make a change for current 
holders beginning with The Glass Menagerie – 
from this show forward, PASSport holders can go 
through the Will Call line rather than wait in the 
box office line. This should get you into the theater 
much more quickly than we’ve been able to lately as 
our patronage has increased.

 I hope these enhancements to our ticketing 
will add to your enjoyment of seeing shows at the 
Playhouse. We have a great season lined up for 
you next year – look for an announcement of our 
2016-17 season soon. 

 

* * *

 The Glass Menagerie is already selling well. It’s 
going to be a lovely show. I can’t wait to share what 
we’ve been doing in rehearsals. I hope to see you 
there – AND in your favorite seat! Please visit our 
website at or call Mary at 626.355.4318 to purchase 
tickets.