Mountain Views News          Saturday, April 30, 2016

11

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Mountain Views-News Saturday, April 30, 2016 


Jeff’s Book Pics By Jeff Brown

THE FAIRY TALE 
GIRL 

by Susan Branch

 Based on the diaries 
Susan has kept since 
she was in her 20s, The 
Fairy Tale Girl is book 
one of a two part series. 
Together the books are 
an illustrated memoir, 
charmingly designed 
in Susan’s style 
with her whimsical 
watercolors and 
personal photographs. 
It’s an enchanting story of love and loss, mystery 
and magic that begins in a geranium-colored 
house in California, and ends up, like any good 
fairy tale, on the right side of the rabbit hole, in a 
small cottage in the woods on the New England 
Island of Martha’s Vineyard.The book humorously 
explores Susan’s journey as an artist and as a girl/
woman, from the 1950s through the 1980s. In the 
first book of the series we get a revealing view of 
Susan’s early life as the oldest of eight children and 
the marriage she imagined would be forever; it’s 
filled with inspiration, romance and discovery, and 
a leap into the unknown.Journey back to the olden 
days with Susan, to the land of happily-ever-after, 
where men were men and girls just wanted to have 
fun. Bring a hankie, we think you might need it.
ALTER EGOS: 
HILLARY CLINTON, 
BARACK OBAMA, 
AND THE TWILIGHT 
STRUGGLE OVER 
AMERICAN 
POWER 

by Mark Landler

The deeply reported 
story of two 
supremely ambitious 
figures, Obama and 
Clinton—archrivals 
who became partners 
for a time, trailblazers 
who share a common 
sense of their historic 
destiny but hold very different beliefs about how to 
project American power.Veteran New York Times 
White House correspondent Mark Landler takes 
us inside the fraught and fascinating relationship 
between Obama and Clinton,a relationship that has 
framed the nation’s great debates over war and peace 
for the past eight years.In the annals of American 
statecraft, theirs was a most unlikely alliance. Clinton, 
daughter of an anticommunist father, was raised in 
the Republican suburbs of Chicago in the aftermath 
of World War II, nourishing an unshakable belief 
in the United States as a force for good in distant 
lands. Obama, an itinerant child of the 1970s, was 
raised by a single mother in Indonesia and Hawaii, 
suspended between worlds and a witness to the 
less savory side of Uncle Sam’s influence abroad. 
Clinton and Obama would later come to embody 
competing visions of America’s role in the world: 
his, restrained, inward-looking, painfully aware of 
limits; hers, hard-edged, pragmatic, unabashedly 
old-fashioned.Spanning the arc of Obama’s two 
terms, Alter Egos goes beyond the speeches and 
press conferences to the Oval Office huddles and 
South Lawn strolls, where Obama and Clinton 
pressed their views. It follows their evolution from 
bitter rivals to wary partners, and then to something 
resembling rivals again, as Clinton defined herself 
anew and distanced herself from her old boss. In 
the process, it counters the narrative that, during 
her years as secretary of state, there was no daylight 
between them, that the wounds of the 2008 
campaign had been entirely healed.The president 
and his chief diplomat parted company over 
some of the biggest issues of the day: how quickly 
to wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; 
whether to arm the rebels in Syria; how to respond 
to the upheaval in Egypt; and whether to trust the 
Russians. In Landler’s gripping account, we venture 
inside the Situation Room during the raid on Osama 
bin Laden’s compound, watch Obama and Clinton 
work in tandem to salvage a conference on climate 
change in Copenhagen, and uncover the secret 
history of their nuclear diplomacy with Iran—a 
story with a host of fresh disclosures.With the grand 
sweep of history and the pointillist detail of an 
account based on insider access,the book draws on 
exclusive interviews with more than one hundred 
senior administration officials, foreign diplomats, 
and friends of Obama and Clinton—Mark 
Landler offers the definitive account of a complex, 
profoundly important relationship. As Obama 
prepares to relinquish the presidency, and Clinton 
makes perhaps her last bid for it, how both regard 
American power is a central question of our time.
MAMA GENA’S SCHOOL OF WOMANLY 
ARTS: USING THE POWER OF PLEASURE TO 
HAVE YOUR WAY WITH THE WORLD 

(How to Use the Power of Pleasure) 

by Regena Thomashauer 


Relationship expert Thomashauer teaches the lost 
“womanly arts” of identifying your desires, having 
fun no matter where you are, knowing sensual 
pleasure, befriending your inner bitch, flirting (in a 
way that makes your day, not just his), and more -- 
because making pleasure your priority can actually 
help you reach your goals. So if you need a refresher 
course in fun and you know you do come to Mama.

THE DEEPEST ACCEPTANCE: RADICAL 
AWAKENING IN ORDINARY LIFE 

by Jeff Foster 


How can we bring an effortless yes to this moment? 
How do we stop running from “the mess of 
life”—our predicaments, our frustrations, even 
our search for liberation—and start flowing with 
all of it?In small venues throughout the UK and 
Europe, a young teacher named Jeff Foster is quietly 
awakening a new generation of spiritual inquirers to 
the experience of abiding presence and peace in our 
ever-shifting world. His informal gatherings, blogs, 
and kitchen-table video posts have created a rising 
tide of interest in his teachings.With The Deepest 
Acceptance, Jeff Foster invites us to discover the 
ocean of who we are: an awareness that has already 
allowed every wave of emotion and experience to 
arrive.While Jeff delightfully admits the irony of 
writing a book to convey something that is beyond 
words to teach, here he confirms his ability to guide 
us in unexpected new ways to a space of absolute 
acceptance and joy, no matter what’s happening 
in our lives.Candid, thoughtful, humorous—and 
deeply compassionate toward those searching for a 
way out of suffering—this refreshing new luminary 
inspires us to stop trying to “do” acceptance … and 
start falling in love with “what has already been allowed.”



Jeff’s History Corner By Jeff Brown

On the Marquee: Notes from the Sierra Madre Playhouse

MOTHER’S DAY

 The American holiday of Mother’s Day was 
first celebrated in 1908, when Anna Jarvis held 
a memorial for her mother at St Andrew’s 
Methodist Church in West Virginia. Today St 
Andrew’s Methodist Church now holds the 
International Mother’s Day Shrine. 

 Her campaign to make “Mother’s Day” a 
recognized holiday began in 1905, the year 
her mother, Ann Jarvis, died. Ann Jarvis had 
been a peace activist who cared for wounded 
soldiers on both sides of the Civil War, and 
created Mother’s Day Work Clubs to address 
public health issues. Anna wanted to honor her 
mother by continuing the work she started and 
to set aside a day to honor all mothers, because 
she believed that they were “the person who has 
done more for you than anyone in the world.” 
In 1908, the US Congress rejected a proposal 
to make Mother’s Day an official holiday, 
joking that they would have to proclaim also a 
“Mother-in-law’s Day”. However, owing to the 
efforts of Anna , by 1911 all US states observed 
the holiday. In 1914, Woodrow Wilson signed a 
proclamation designating Mother’s Day, held on 
the second Sunday in May, as a national holiday 
to honor mothers.Although Jarvis was successful 
in founding Mother’s Day, she became resentful 
of the commercialization of the holiday. 

 By the early 1920s, Hallmark Cards and other 
companies had started selling Mother’s Day 
cards. Jarvis believed that the companies had 
misinterpreted and exploited the idea of Mother’s 
Day, and that the emphasis of the holiday was on 
sentiment, not profit. 

 She organized boycotts of Mother’s Day, 
and threatened to issue lawsuits against the 
companies involved. Jarvis argued that people 
should appreciate and honor their mothers 
through handwritten letters expressing their love 
and gratitude, instead of buying gifts and pre-
made cards.Jarvis protested at a candy makers’ 
convention in Philadelphia in 1923, and at a 
meeting of American War Mothers in 1925. By 
this time, carnations had become associated with 
Mother’s Day, and the selling of carnations by the 
American War Mothers to raise money angered 
Jarvis, who was arrested for disturbing the peace. 

 

 The holiday is now celebrated all over the world

THE GLASS MENAGERIE 

Written by Tennessee Williams

Directed by Christian Lebano

Original Music Composed by 
Jonathan Beard

“No ifs, ands or buts – The Glass 
Menagerie should break your 
heart.” -New York Daily News

The play that made Williams’ 
career, “The Glass Menagerie” 
tells the semi-autobiographical 
story of the Wingfield family, 
comprised of faded Southern 
belle Amanda and her two children, 
Tom and Laura. Tom is 
a restless dreamer frustratingly 
tethered to home, while Laura 
is a shy, crippled girl. At Amanda’s 
urging, Tom brings home 
a “gentleman caller” for Laura 
and sets in motion an upheaval 
that changes all of their lives. 

One of the greatest American 
plays in its first production at 
the Playhouse.

MAY 6 TO JUNE 12, 2016

Fridays and Saturdays @ 8:00 

Sundays @ 2:30

Talkbacks with cast after every 
Sunday matinee. 

Special Sunday 7pm 

Closing performance June 12

Adults $30 – Seniors $27 – 
Youth $20 – Children $17

Not recommended for children under 12.

The Sierra Madre Playhouse

87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. Sierra Madre, CA 91024

(626) 355-4318