books 2012: Beauty, by Robin McKinley

I hadn't read this for years and years, and after the depressing stuff I was reading last week, I wanted a fairy tale. It was McKinley's first novel, and mostly it's very good. Compared to the pace of the majority of the book, though, the ending is incredibly rushed. There's no attention given to how the magical climax of the story occurred. I also thought the Beast's characterization could have been much stronger. But overall, a worthwhile read.

books 2012: Rose Daughter, by Robin McKinley

Once I'd reread Beauty, it was an easy decision to reread Rose Daughter as well, to compare McKinley's two retellings of the beauty and the beast story. Honestly, I'm not sure I'd ever read Rose Daughter before, or if I had, it was so long ago that I remembered nothing about it. How nice to have a "new" McKinley novel to read! I liked the book a lot. Compared to Beauty, Rose Daughter is better in some respects, while Beauty is better in others. I think the Beast's characterization could have been better in both books, but the magical plot was much more complex in Rose Daughter, and the ending was more satisfying.

[opera] Puccini's La Boheme, Sunday September 30

Mom and I saw this opera several weeks ago. At the time, I was a little stressed out with being back to work full-time and caring for a little baby; F was scheduled to go back to work again the next day, so I was regretting agreeing to get the opera tickets. But it turned out that Mom and I really loved this opera. It was beautifully performed. (I was also struck by how much of the musical Rent, which I'd loved in high school, was taken part and parcel from this opera.) However, the sets were the real star of this show - the opera was produced in conjunction with the Barnes Foundation and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and paintings from the two museums were projected onto screens to form the scenery. The paintings were generally of the same period as the opera (set around 1890), and it really added something special to see Marcello painting not just any canvas, but a masterpiece; not just a winter backdrop, but a beautiful painting of a woods scene in winter. It was very well done, and it really enhanced the music and performance.

[live shows] Ben Folds Five at the Tower Theater, Sun. October 7, 2012

I was so freakin' excited for the Ben Folds Five reunion tour that I shelled out for good seats. F and I asked Stacey to babysit, and we went out for dinner first (to the new Italian restaurant in our neighborhood, which just recently went from being called Mammoni to being called Amici). Dinner was decent: the food was good but not great, but the restaurant was quiet and the servers were very attentive. It's a little pricey there, so I'm not sure if we'll go back. Then we drove down to 69th Street. No trouble finding parking (in the garage behind the theater).

Before the show started, we ran into my high school buddy John and his wife Jessica. They'd also gotten a sitter for their baby girl, so we had babies to talk about, as well as just general catching up, since I hadn't seen John for at least seven or eight years and had never met Jess. It made me so happy to see him, since John is an integral part of my Ben Folds Five memories; Ben Folds concerts in the past have always made me think of John, and have always made me sad that we weren't in touch. But now we can share our BFF love again!

Kate Miller-Heidke opened. She started off a little quiet and it took her a few minutes to get command of the venue; it was crowded and loud enough that her louder, more rocking songs were much more successful than her ballads. My favorite moment was when she covered "The Real Slim Shady" - pretty badass.

At intermission I got up to pee and had to wait in a really long line. On my way back I ran into Liz and Grant! They'd attended a football game in Pittsburgh earlier in the day, then drove straight to the theater from the airport as soon as they got back to town. Liz is a huge Ben fan so we were both excited to see him play; I wish F had been with us too so he could have caught up with them, but alas, I abandoned him in our seats for the entire length of the intermission. (We had looked for Liz and Grant before the show, by scanning the crowd for the tall bald guy, but interestingly, the average crowd at a BFF show has aged enough that there were quite a few more tall bald guys in attendance than there would have been ten years ago.) They flicked the lights at the end of intermission and I had just enough time to buy a $5 bottle of water from the bar, which F and I desperately needed.

And then Ben Folds Five came onstage. They were incredibly awesome. John posted the set list on Facebook later, which I'm really grateful for:

1.Michael Praytor
2.Missing the War
3.Hold that thought
4.Jackson Cannery
5.Selfless Cold & Composed
6.Erase Me
7.Alice Childress
8.Sky High - Robert played upright bass
9.Landed
10. Thank you for breaking my heart - Robert played upright bass
11. Half-assed, hilarious almost cover of Carry on my wayward son
12.Battle of Who Could Care Less
13.Do it anyway
14.Brick - upright bass
15.Draw a Crowd
16.My Philosophy
17.Kate
18.Song for the Dumped
19.Army

Encore
20.Magic
21.Underground
22.One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces

John and I agreed, later, that it seemed odd that they played "Landed", since it's not a BFF song (it's a Ben Folds solo song), and thematically it stuck out - it doesn't really feel like a BFF song. We both loved Robert Sledge doing the natural rock tenor on "Carry on Wayward Son", and we thought they should record (or at least play) a real cover of that song so Robert can shine. We also thought it was a little weird that they played so few songs from the third album, which in all honesty is my favorite BFF album. They played my favorite song, "Magic", so I was cool, but they could have done more. I theorized that they are probably getting a lot of nostalgia-driven crowds, since it's a reunion tour, and the first two albums are a lot peppier and more commercial than Reinhold Messner was, so possibly they're playing to what they think we want to hear.

Overall, though, it was a great, great show. So fantastic to see my favorite band in action again. And while I am notorious for getting sleepy at concerts and wanting to leave early, I was on my feet cheering and rocking out until the end of the last song of the encore. (I think in that sense that the good seats were worth the extra cash - because I got to sit down for the majority of the show, so I still had some energy in me at the end.) I was so pumped and so excited and could not shut up for the entire ride home. I didn't even care that it took us 20 minutes to get out of the parking garage. And the baby was totally fine without us (other than a brief screaming interlude around 9:00, Stacey reported), and she was sleeping soundly when we got home, so it was a successful evening all the way around.