Run to your TV set!

Catching up on some blog reading, & I see from my Google Reader that this weekend's guest on Bill Moyers Journal -- a favourite show of mine & dh's, as I've blogged about previously -- will be the multi-talented actress-playwright Anna Deavere Smith, who is currently starring in a one-woman play in New York about health care -- "Let Me Down Easy," in which she recreates the voices of 20 real people grappling with illness and mortality.

In a featured quote on Moyers' blog, Smith explained what her production is about (boldface emphasis mine):

“LET ME DOWN EASY is about grace and kindness in a world that lacks that often, [but] not always. And a winner-takes-all world, where we don't think about the people who are losing. We don't think about the people who are abandoned by jobs or governments or lovers or mothers or fathers. [It’s] a call for that kind of grace and kindness and consideration and the metaphor, I think, of death as the ultimate form of loss, possibly our greatest fear – the ultimate form of abandonment. And that in this country we have a hard time looking at death and we have a hard time looking at loss and we have a hard time looking at losing. And I think that doesn't help us be the most caring environment.”

You can see why I thought this program would be interesting. ; ) The Journal is on most PBS stations on Friday nights -- so if you're reading this right now, you may be able to catch it. My local station shows it Sundays at noon -- I hope to see it then! You can often find clips & transcripts from the show on the website later, so if you missed it and think you might find it interesting, check back there later.