Theater Encouragement Quotes

How hard is it, when everything encourages us to sleep, though we may look about us with conscious, clinging eyes, to wake and yet look about us as in a dream, with eyes that no longer know their function and whose gaze is turned inward.

Agatha, who was spending time in their room as her own was lonely, perked up. "I preferred the garrote myself." The others looked at her, startled. Aside from the theater, and sleeping, Agatha rarely expressed an interest in anything. Let alone something espionage related. "You do?" Dimity encouraged. Agatha nodded. "You can wear it as jewelry, it hides away easily, and it's a nice clean death.

Deep practice is slow, demanding and uncomfortable. To practice deeply is to live deliberately in a space that is uncomfortable but with the encouraging sense that progress can happen.

You don’t want to be a pauper’s wife, though it is all right to be a pauper’s girlfriend, especially when you are able, with the pauper’s encouragement, to fuck everybody else on the side.

So how was your first date?” Peter asks me, stretching back in his chair. “Tell it to me like it wasn’t me that took you.” “I liked it when you knew what kinds of movie theater snacks I like.” He nods encouragingly. “And…I liked the movie.” “Yeah, I got that. You kept shushing me and pointing at the screen.” “That man in front of us was getting mad.

It’s terrible to confirm that a system born to rescue human dignity has resorted to rewards, glorification, the encouragement of denunciations, and feeds on everything that is humanly vile. I feel the nausea rise in my throat when I hear people say: they’ve shot M., they’ve shot P., shot, shot, shot. The words, after hearing them so much, lose their meaning. The people say them with greater calm, as if they were saying: we’re going to the theater. I, who lived these years in fear and felt the compulsion to denounce (I confess so with terror, but without any feeling of guilt), have lost in my mind the brutal semantics of the verb ‘to shoot’ … I feel that we’ve reached the end of justice on earth, the limits of human dignity.

Terrorism is theater. Its real targets are not the innocent victims but the spectators. Those on the political side of the dead are to be frightened, intimidated, cowed, perhaps drawn into ugly retaliation that will spoil their image among the disinterested, who in turn are to be impressed with the desperate vitality and significance of the movement behind the terrorism. Those on the side of the gunmen, the bombers, the hijackers, are to be encouraged that the cause is alive. The goal of terrorism is not to deplete the ranks of an army, to destroy an enemy’s weapons, or to capture a military objective. It seeks an impact on attitudes, and so it must be spectacular. It relies on drama, it thrives on attention, it carries within it the seeds of contagion.

What I know now is that I would be a different person, or at the least a better version of myself, more rounded, more fulfilled, more in touch with myself and everyone around me. In so many ways, theater teaches the opposite of what I learned in sports, in which the model is that there is no self, no emotional landscape or core. Team sport is all about grit and team, about submerging self. To look within, to feel or imagine, is not encouraged. At the time, I couldn’t conceive of myself being up onstage.

After all, one of Aristophanes’ chief aims was to make humor of important dimensions of human life and society, while at the same time encouraging his audience to think about them in ways discouraged, or even forbidden, outside the comic theater. The issue of freedom of speech and thought (especially religious and moral thought) is especially relevant to Aristophanes’ plays, and it is important to bear in mind that one of the hallmarks of Aristophanic comedy is to encourage us to question the status quo.

Once, a few years earlier, Jules had gone to see a play at Ash’s theater, and afterward, during the “talkback,” when the audience asked questions of the playwright and of Ash, who’d directed the production, a woman stood up and said, “This one is for Ms. Wolf. My daughter wants to be a director too. She’s applying to graduate school in directing, but I know very well that there are no jobs, and that she’s probably only going to have her dreams dashed. Shouldn’t I encourage her to do something else, to find some other field she can get into before too much time goes by?” And Ash had said to that mother, “Well, if she’s thinking about going into directing, she has to really, really want it. That’s the first thing. Because if she doesn’t, then there’s no point in putting herself through all of this, because it’s incredibly hard and dispiriting. But if she does really, really want it, and if she seems to have a talent for it, then I think you should tell her, ‘That’s wonderful.’ Because the truth is, the world will probably whittle your daughter down. But a mother never should.

What a misfortune, although you are made for fine and great works this unjust fate of yours always denies you encouragement and success; that base customs should block you; and pettiness and indifference. And how terrible the day when you yield (the day when you give up and yield), and you leave on foot for Susa, and you go to the monarch Artaxerxes who favorably places you in his court, and offers you satrapies and the like. And you accept them with despair these things that you do not want. Your soul seeks other things, weeps for other things; the praise of the public and the Sophists, the hard-won and inestimable Well Done; the Agora, the Theater, and the Laurels. How can Artaxerxes give you these, where will you find these in a satrapy; and what life can you live without these.

This is why people are so disappointed with the present. We talk so much about how wonderful tomorrow's going to be that even if it's great, it can't help but be a letdown. Tomorrow is like a summer blockbuster for which the studio starts showing trailers the previous November. By the time it comes to your complex, you feel like you've already seen it. All the best lines and biggest explosions. The most provocative coming-out-of-the-water bikini shot. You will already have seen the making-of-the-feature and heard the actors on the press junket talking about what a privilege it was to work with so-and-so and how they all did their own stunts. So because you feel like you've already seen it, by the time it comes, you have no desire to fork over $15 and actually sit through it in a theater. What's happened is that you've already experienced something which hasn't happened yet. In fact, when you think of it, the only reason to go to the movies isn't to see the feature but to get a taste of the future, to see the trailer for the NEXT big blockbuster and to experience THAT before it happens. And this phenomenon isn't limited to the movies, it is the we live today. And it is why I encourage you to ignore the hype of what's to come, and to get some popcorn and gummy bears during the previews, and to thoroughly enjoy the feature. In real time. Not in the black hole of expectation.

It was a gorgeous evening, with a breeze shimmering through the trees, people strolling hand in hand through the quaint streets and the plaza. The shops, bistros and restaurants were abuzz with patrons. She showed him where the farmer's market took place every Saturday, and pointed out her favorite spots- the town library, a tasting room co-op run by the area vintners, the Brew Ha-Ha and the Rose, a vintage community theater. On a night like this, she took a special pride in Archangel, with its cheerful spirit and colorful sights. She refused to let the Calvin sighting drag her down. He had ruined many things for her, but he was not going to ruin the way she felt about her hometown. After some deliberation, she chose Andaluz, her favorite spot for Spanish-style wines and tapas. The bar spilled out onto the sidewalk, brightened by twinkling lights strung under the big canvas umbrellas. The tables were small, encouraging quiet intimacy and insuring that their knees would bump as they scooted their chairs close. She ordered a carafe of local Mataro, a deep, strong red from some of the oldest vines in the county, and a plancha of tapas- deviled dates, warm, marinated olives, a spicy seared tuna with smoked paprika. Across the way in the plaza garden, the musician strummed a few chords on his guitar. The food was delicious, the wine even better, as elemental and earthy as the wild hills where the grapes grew. They finished with sips of chocolate-infused port and cinnamon churros. The guitar player was singing "The Keeper," his gentle voice seeming to float with the breeze.

A Tale of Two Parking Requirements The impact of parking requirements becomes clearer when we compare the parking requirements of San Francisco and Los Angeles. San Francisco limits off-street parking, while LA requires it. Take, for example, the different parking requirements for concert halls. For a downtown concert hall, Los Angeles requires, as a minimum, fifty times more parking than San Francisco allows as its maximum. Thus the San Francisco Symphony built its home, Louise Davies Hall, without a parking garage, while Disney Hall, the new home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, did not open until seven years after its parking garage was built. Disney Hall's six-level, 2,188-space underground garage cost $110 million to build (about $50,000 per space). Financially troubled Los Angeles County, which built the garage, went into debt to finance it, expecting that parking revenues would repay the borrowed money. But the garage was completed in 1996, and Disney Hall—which suffered from a budget less grand than its vision—became knotted in delays and didn't open until late 2003. During the seven years in between, parking revenue fell far short of debt payments (few people park in an underground structure if there is nothing above it) and the county, by that point nearly bankrupt, had to subsidize the garage even as it laid employees off. The money spent on parking shifted Disney Hall's design toward drivers and away from pedestrians. The presence of a six-story subterranean garage means most concert patrons arrive from underneath the hall, rather than from the sidewalk. The hall's designers clearly understood this, and so while the hall has a fairly impressive street entrance, its more magisterial gateway is an "escalator cascade" that flows up from the parking structure and ends in the foyer. This has profound implications for street life. A concertgoer can now drive to Disney Hall, park beneath it, ride up into it, see a show, and then reverse the whole process—and never set foot on a sidewalk in downtown LA. The full experience of an iconic Los Angeles building begins and ends in its parking garage, not in the city itself. Visitors to downtown San Francisco have a different experience. When a concert or theater performance lets out in San Francisco, people stream onto the sidewalks, strolling past the restaurants, bars, bookstores, and flower shops that are open and well-lit. For those who have driven, it is a long walk to the car, which is probably in a public facility unattached to any specific restaurant or shop. The presence of open shops and people on the street encourages other people to be out as well. People want to be on streets with other people on them, and they avoid streets that are empty, because empty streets are eerie and menacing at night. Although the absence of parking requirements does not guarantee a vibrant area, their presence certainly inhibits it. "The more downtown is broken up and interspersed with parking lots and garages," Jane Jacobs argued in 1961, "the duller and deader it becomes ... and there is nothing more repellent than a dead downtown.

We tend to think that people’s true nature comes out at decisive moments, when the going gets tough, when they’re pushed to the limit. The moment for heroes and saints. And yet, strange though it may seem, at such moments, human behavior is usually neither exemplary nor encouraging. The group who elbow their way to the head of the line where the concert tickets are being handed out; the spectators who flee the burning theater, trampling over the weaker members of the audience . . .

Benefits of Improv To the Editor: Re “Inmate Improv,” by Anna Clark (Op-Ed, Dec. 31): It was not surprising to me that an improvisational theater workshop would help a prison inmate adjust to life after his release. Pretend play has been shown to improve the executive-function skills in preschool and school-age children. These skills include the ability to control emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exercise self-control and discipline. As poor executive-function skills are associated with high dropout rates, drug use and crime, it would behoove all adults involved in child-rearing to encourage role-playing or “improv.” STEVEN ROSENBERG Fairfield, Conn., Dec. 31, 2014 The writer is director of the Elementary Reading Program at the University of Bridgeport School of Education.

Under certain circumstances parental pride is understandable but it has no place in the theater, where it tends to encourage a child to believe in a talent that, more often than not, simply fails to exist.

Perhaps we would have more sublime plays if we had more tolerance for and interest in imperfect plays. Because perfect plays are not sublime plays. Shakespeare's plays are weird and wonky and oddly shaped and wonderfully imperfect but sublime. They are as untidy men lime as nature is. Contemporary playwrights are often encouraged to make tidy plays rather than plays with cliffs and torrents

all Protestant architecture produces the same sterile effects that were present in the Constantinian basilicas. They continue to maintain the unbiblical division between clergy and laity. And they encourage the congregation to assume a spectator role. The arrangement and mood of the building conditions the congregation toward passivity. The pulpit platform acts like a stage, and the congregation occupies the theater.[196] In short, Christian architecture has stalemated the functioning of God’s people since it was born in the fourth century.

But I’m also a weird person. I’ve gotten picked on for most of my life. I know that people say I talk too much, and that I talk too loud, and that I say the wrong things. And I’m actually an introvert, so one of my coping strategies is just to be my weirdest self as soon as I meet you—that way, you can decide right away whether or not you like me. I was a theater kid, and my parents really encouraged me to feel my feelings. I think, in a way, that people in high school were jealous that I felt so free to be myself. Because you’re not supposed to do that. You’re supposed to worry about people looking at you and judging you.

Let’s revisit my conversation with Theater Director, Teacher, and Actor Terry Martin and the Meisner Technique. According to Terry, he encourages his students to seek a pivotal place when they are truly present in the moment and access their emotional impulses. He does this by describing emotions as E-motion. Energy in motion. Because they are constantly changing, emotions are powerful but momentary. By accessing these emotions, his actors find a way to tell a story in their unique way. He cautions that emotions only create a block if they are restrained. For example, my attempts to silence my emotions prevented me from accessing my mind and held me in a painful state. He teaches his students to understand the emotional journey by accepting their emotions.

Here are a few of the defenses that many people carry inside, sometimes for the rest of their lives: AVOIDANCE. Avoidance is usually about fear. Emotions and relationships have hurt me, so I will minimize emotions and relationships. People who are avoidant feel most comfortable when the conversation stays superficial. They often overintellectualize life. They retreat to work. They try to be self-sufficient and pretend they don’t have needs. Often, they have not had close relationships as kids and have lowered their expectations about future relationships. A person who fears intimacy in this way may be always on the move, preferring not to be rooted or pinned down; they are sometimes relentlessly positive so as not to display vulnerability; they engineer things so they are the strong one others turn to but never the one who turns to others. DEPRIVATION. Some children are raised around people so self-centered that the needs of the child are ignored. The child naturally learns the lesson “My needs won’t be met.” It is a short step from that to “I’m not worthy.” A person haunted by a deprivation schema can experience feelings of worthlessness throughout life no matter how many amazing successes they achieve. They often carry the idea that there is some flaw deep within themselves, that if other people knew it, it would cause them to run away. When they are treated badly, they are likely to blame themselves. (Of course he had an affair; I’m a pathetic wife.) They sometimes grapple with a fierce inner critic. OVERREACTIVITY. Children who are abused and threatened grow up in a dangerous world. The person afflicted in this way often has, deep in their nervous system, a hyperactive threat-detection system. Such people interpret ambivalent situations as menacing situations, neutral faces as angry faces. They are trapped in a hyperactive mind theater in which the world is dangerous. They overreact to things and fail to understand why they did so. PASSIVE AGGRESSION. Passive aggression is the indirect expression of anger. It is a way to sidestep direct communication by a person who fears conflict, who has trouble dealing with negative emotions. It’s possible such a person grew up in a home where anger was terrifying, where emotions were not addressed, or where love was conditional and the lesson was that direct communication would lead to the withdrawal of affection. Passive aggression is thus a form of emotional manipulation, a subtle power play to extract guilt and affection. A husband with passive-aggressive tendencies may encourage his wife to go on a weekend outing with her friends, feeling himself to be a selfless martyr, but then get angry with her in the days before the outing and through the weekend. He’ll let her know by various acts of withdrawal and self-pity that she’s a selfish person and he’s an innocent victim. —

I immediately got six ideas on how to approach it. Once I’d eliminated the ones that would require me to leave the theater, I was left with zero. That was only one fewer than I needed, so that was encouraging.

Rent answers the question of how people come together this way: through shared hardship, a message of the story that was readily adopted by the show’s most dedicated audiences. All theater brings people together in a room, but musical theater regularly brings people together to contemplate the spectacle of people coming together, in book, song, and dance. Musical theater also encourages and relies on the audience’s desire to perform the songs that they have heard performed, and to form communities based on that desire. In its examination and staging of the problems and pleasures of community on stage to a group of people offstage, live musical theater offers an experience unlike anything else.

The rise of the theater of the absurd, it has been argued, "seems to mirror the change in the predominant form of mental disorders which has been observed and described since World War II by an ever-increasing number of psychiatrists. " Whereas the "classical" drama of Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Ibsen turned on conflicts associated with classical neuroses, the absurdist theater of Albee, Beckett, loncsco, and Genet centers on the emptiness, isolation, loneliness, and despair experienced by the borderline personality. The affinity between the theater of the absurd and the borderline's "fear of close relationships, " "attendant feelings of helplessness, loss, and rage," "fear of destructive impulses, " and "fixation to early omnipotence" inheres not only in the content of these plays but-more to the point of the present discussion-in their form. The contemporary playwright abandons the effort to portray coherent and generally recognized truths and presents the poet's personal intuition of truth. The characteristic devaluation of language, vagueness as to time and place, sparse scenery, and lack of plot development evoke the barren world of the borderline, his lack of faith in the growth or development of object relations, his "often stated remark that words do not matter, only action is important," and above all his belief that the world consists of illusions. "Instead of the neurotic character with well-structured conflicts centering around forbidden sex, authority, or dependence and independence within a family setting, we see characters filled with uncertainty about what is real." This uncertainty now invades every form of art and crystallizes in an imagery of the absurd that reenters daily life and encourages a theatrical approach to existence, a kind of absurdist theater of the self.

When we break the mirrors with which we surround ourselves—mirrors we use for constant self-analysis and criticism—we can start to see that we live in a world filled with other people, people trapped in the same theater, people who, like us, need encouragement, friendship, love. And here we find freedom, here we find our purpose, for we are here, after all, to love.

All socioeconomic activity in cities involves the interaction between people. Employment, wealth creation, innovation and ideas, the spread of infectious diseases, health care, crime, policing, education, entertainment, and indeed, all of the pursuits that characterize modern Homo sapiens and are emblematic of urban life are sustained and generated by the continual exchange of information, goods, and money between people. The job of the city is to facilitate and enhance this process by providing the appropriate infrastructure such as parks, restaurants, cafés, sports stadiums, cinemas, theaters, public squares, plazas, office buildings, and meeting halls to encourage and increase social connectivity.

You need to be careful to stay out of Charlie’s line of sight,” Steve said to me. “I want Charlie focusing only on me. If he changes focus and starts attacking you, it’s going to be too difficult for me to control the situation.” Right. Steve got no argument from me. Getting anywhere near those bone-crushing jaws was the furthest thing from my mind. I wasn’t keen on being down on the water with a huge saltwater crocodile trying to get me. I would have to totally rely on Steve to keep me safe. We stepped into the dinghy, which was moored in Charlie’s enclosure, secured front and back with ropes. Charlie came over immediately to investigate. It didn’t take much to encourage him to have a go at Steve. Steve grabbed a top-jaw rope. He worked on roping Charlie while the cameras rolled. Time and time again, Charlie hurled himself straight at Steve, a half ton of reptile flesh exploding up out of the water a few feet away from me. I tried to hang on precariously and keep the boat counterbalanced. I didn’t want Steve to lose his footing and topple in. Charlie was one angry crocodile. He would have loved nothing more than to get his teeth into Steve. As Charlie used his powerful tail to propel himself out of the water, he arched his neck and opened his jaws wide, whipping his head back and forth, snapping and gnashing. Steve carefully threw the top-jaw rope, but he didn’t actually want to snag Charlie. Then he would have had to get the rope off without stressing the croc, and that would have been tricky. The cameras rolled. Charlie lunged. I cowered. Steve continued to deftly toss the rope. Then, all of a sudden, Charlie swung at the rope instead of Steve, and the rope went right over Charlie’s top jaw. A perfect toss, provided that had been what Steve was trying to do. But it wasn’t. We had a roped croc on our hands that we really didn’t want. Steve immediately let the rope go slack. Charlie had it snagged in his teeth. Because of Steve’s quick thinking and prompt maneuvering, the rope came clear. We breathed a collective sigh of relief. Steve looked up at the cameras. “I think you’ve got it.” John agreed. “I think we do, mate.” The crew cheered. The shoot lasted several minutes, but in the boat, I wasn’t sure if it had been seconds or hours. Watching Steve work Charlie up close had been amazing--a huge, unpredictable animal with a complicated thought process, able to outwit its prey, an animal that had been on the planet for millions of years, yet Steve knew how to manipulate him and got some fantastic footage. To the applause of the crew, Steve got us both out of the boat. He gave me a big hug. He was happy. This was what he loved best, being able to interact and work with wildlife. Never before had anything like it been filmed in any format, much less on thirty-five-millimeter film for a movie theater. We accomplished the shot with the insurance underwriters none the wiser. Steve wanted to portray crocs as the powerful apex predators that they were, keeping everyone safe while he did it. Never once did he want it to appear as though he were dominating the crocodile, or showing off by being in close proximity to it. He wished for the crocodile to be the star of the show, not himself. I was proud of him that day. The shoot represented Steve Irwin at his best, his true colors, and his desire to make people understand how amazing these animals are, to be witnessed by audiences in movie theaters all over the world. We filmed many more sequences with crocs, and each time Steve performed professionally and perfected the shots. He was definitely in his element. With the live-croc footage behind us, the insurance people came on board, and we were finally able to sign a contract with MGM. We were to start filming in earnest. First stop: the Simpson Desert, with perentie lizards and fierce snakes.

Nigel doesn’t speak of your father, dear. I learned about your father, as well as a good deal about your entire family, from a tracker I hired to look into your past. I thought he was well worth his exorbitant fee, what with the discovery of Nigel. But then . . . after I won you fair and square in that card game, you did the unthinkable and fled.” “You and I both know that you didn’t win anything fair and square.” When Silas sent her a wink, she almost choked on the small bite of bread she’d put in her mouth. “Come now, dear, surely you’ve figured out that all of this”—he gestured around the room, and at the meal—“as well as the money it took to track you down, was my way of proving to you once and for all that you and I are meant to be together.” Lucetta narrowed her eyes. “Rumor has it around town that you’ve been short of funds ever since you and Oliver Addleshaw parted ways.” Silas narrowed his eyes back at her until he, curiously enough, laughed. “Is that why you’ve given me such a difficult time, my girl? You think I’ll be unable to keep you in style?” Blinking, Lucetta found she had no response to that piece of ridiculousness, but she was spared the need to respond when Silas continued. “You’ll be relieved to learn that my wife, harridan that she is, has a great deal of money—although she can be tightfisted with it at times, which means I have to encourage her to send money my way when I’m short on funds.” His smile widened. “But she’s learned over the years it’s easier to simply hand me money rather than have me encourage her to hand it over. That means I’ll have no problem keeping you knee-deep in lovely gowns and whatever other frivolous items you may want.” His words had Lucetta setting down the rest of the bread, unable to eat another bite. For a man to speak so casually about encouraging his wife, which could only mean abusing her, made Lucetta physically ill. “And while I’m sure that you’ll miss the theater, dear, do know that after you’ve accustomed yourself to me and my . . . needs, I may return you to the theater—if only to allow all of those gentlemen who salivate over you, and have done so for years, to see you performing for me, and only for me as I sit in a private box and watch your every move, and . . .” Whatever else Silas intended to say was lost when there was another knock on the door. “Go

Brian Chesky sends to all Airbnb employees is a powerful one. “You have to continue to repeat things” Brian told our class at Stanford. “Culture is about repeating, over and over again, the things that really matter for your company.” Airbnb reinforces these verbal messages with visual impact as well. Brian hired an artist from Pixar to create a storyboard of the entire experience of an Airbnb guest, from start to finish, emphasizing the customer-centered design thinking that is a hallmark of its culture. Even Airbnb conference rooms tell a story; each one is a replica of a room that’s available for rent on the service. Every time Airbnb team members hold a meeting in one of those rooms, they are reminded of how guests feel when they stay there. At Amazon, Jeff Bezos famously bans PowerPoint decks and insists on written memos, which are read in silence at the beginning of each meeting. This memo policy is one of the ways that Amazon encourages a culture of truth telling. Memos have to be specific and comprehensive, and those who read the memos have to respond in kind rather than simply sit through some broad bullet points on a PowerPoint deck and nod vague agreement. Bezos believes that memos encourage smarter questions and deeper thinking. Plus, because they’re self-contained (rather than requiring a person to present a deck), they are more easily distributed and consumed by a wider population within Amazon. The late Steve Jobs used architecture as a core part of his deliberate communications strategy at Pixar. He designed Pixar headquarters so that the front doors, main stairs, main theater, and screening rooms all led to the atrium, which contained the café and mailboxes, ensuring that employees from all departments and specialties would see people from other groups on a regular basis, thus reinforcing Pixar’s collaborative, inclusive culture.

When I walked out of the movie theater I started thinking about my second-grade teacher, Miss Bernard, who used to put up paintings from almost all of the other boys and girls in my class on the classroom walls—paintings that she considered worthy—but she never put up one of mine. She never told me why or gave me an encouraging word, but I got the message: “You’re no good at art, Jerry.

It was then and there that Priscilla made up her mind to go to bed with Ricki. But while her mind was convinced, her body needed encouragement, so they went to the Virginia Inn at First and Virginia and drank a gang of discount champagne. Still, Priscilla's endocrine system was lagging a few laps behind her resolve. “My pilot light has gone out and needs to be relit,” she said. Ricki suggested a porno movie. She hoped that a double bill of Starship Eros and Garage Girls would turn up the thermostat. Priscilla hoped so, too. Once in the theater, however, the Chianti and champagne began to get to Ricki. They were sitting up close, in the third row, and all of those colossal in-and-outs and up-and-downs made her queasy. It was a classic case of motion sickness. She held her tummy and moaned. Priscilla turned to the row of baldheaded men behind them. “Would you mind not smoking,” she said. “This woman is having a religious experience.” “If they jiggle one more time, I'm gonna spew,” said Ricki.

The first stacked dolls better known as Russian Nesting Dolls, matryoshka dolls or Babushka Dolls, were first made in 1890 by Vasily Zvyozdochkin. Much of the artistry is in the painting of the usual 5 dolls, although the world record is 51 dolls. Each doll, which when opened reveals a smaller doll of the same type inside ending with the smallest innermost doll, which is considered the baby doll and is carved from a single piece of wood. Frequently these dolls are of a woman, dressed in a full length traditional Russian peasant dress called a sarafan. When I served with the Military Intelligence Corps of the U.S.Army, the concept of onion skins was a similar metaphor used to denote that we were always encouraged to look beyond the obvious. That it was essential to delve deeper into a subject, so as to arrive at the essence of the situation or matter. This is the same principle I employed in writing my award winning book, The Exciting Story of Cuba. Although it can be considered a history book, it is actually a book comprised of many stories or vignettes that when woven together give the reader a view into the inner workings of the Island Nation, just 90 miles south of Key West. The early 1950’s are an example of this. At that time President Batista was hailed a champion of business interests and considered this a direct endorsement of his régime. Sugar prices remained high during this period and Cuba enjoyed some of its best years agriculturally. For those at the top of the ladder, the Cuban economy flourished! However, it was during this same period that the people lower on the economic ladder struggled. A populist movement was started, resulting in a number of rebel bands to challenge the entrenched regime, including the followers of autocrats such as Fidel and Raul Castro. Castro’s M 26 7 militia had a reputation of indiscriminately placing bombs, one of which blew a young woman to pieces in the once-grand theater, “Teatro America.” A farmer, who failed to cooperate with Batista’s army, was locked into his home with his wife and his daughter, which was then set on fire killing them all. What had been a corrupt but peaceful government, quickly turned into a war zone. Despite of Batista’s constitutional abuses and his alliance with the Mafia, the years under his régime were still the most prosperous ones in Cuba’s history. Of course most of the money went to those at the top of the economic ladder and on the lower end of the scale a house maid was lucky to make $25 to $30 a month.