Tonight I re-discovered the coolest site–if you feel like shopping off the beaten path, say,online in Holland?!! Check this out–it has to be one of the cleverest ads I’ve ever seen.
https://producten.hema.nl/

It got me thinking about some of my favorite things, people, and serendipitous occurrences– Dutch.
One of my absolute favorite painters?–Vermeer.
One of my favorite actresses? Meryl Streep.
Once upon a time I had a housekeeper, a young Dutch woman who was actually a painter–Katya Esser–and one of her paintings currently hangs in my kitchen.
I once ran into Susan Sontag in an elevator in Amsterdam while covering a story on Vincent Van Gogh.
And of course, Dutch cocoa.

But enough. Tonight I saw a kickin’ gospel musical at the A.R.T. –BEST OF BOTH WORLDS, part of the Shakespeare Exploded series–directed by Diane Paulus their fabulous new artistic director. Imagine Shakespeare’s THE WINTER’S TALE (one of his more farfetched yarns) infused with R & B and rotating local gospel choirs! Grab the kids, grab granny– and go! You WILL have a blast. It’s a great story for a cold winter’s night, about love and loss, death and redemption, all giving way to a glorious resurrection of the soul! And what soul–the voices will bring you to your feet–it’s on at the Loeb Drama Center in Harvard Square until January 3!!!

Tomorrow I vote with the Boston Society of Film Critics and I will post our year end selections right here on this blog BEFORE YOUR CAN READ THEM IN THE PAPER!

Good night–
and stay tuned!