Checking this week's crises

Oy, what a week! First the Playhouse Theatre Company shuts down, then the Book Warehouse says that's all she wrote, and now the Archbishop of Canterbury is doing the Lambeth walk all the way to Cambridge.

Let's take these crises one at a time (along with a jigger of Old Liverspot). First, the Playhouse Theatre Company, apparently never having heard "the show must go on," took its final bow. Too bad that Telus, having had its $40 million rejected by the BC government, hadn't thought to toss a mill or two to the thespians.

Next, trombonist-bookseller Sharman King announced that the four Book Warehouse locations are heading for the final chapter. Not an economic decision--the stores were up ten percent last December--Sharm and partners just decided thirty-two years were enough. We wish him well. Perhaps he'll write a book. Or a symphony. Still, with fewer and fewer bookstores, we get the creepy feeling we're approaching an electronic Fahrenheit 451.

Finally, Rowan Williams, bushy-eyebrowed Archbishop of Canterbury, plans to exit Lambeth palace at year's end and become Master of Magdalene College at Cambridge. It is far too early to know who may succeed him in his archepiscopal role, but whoever it is, he (or she) will not find it an easy job. Just look at this To Do list: "Two exorcisms...four excommunications...and try again to find a patron saint for corgis."