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Tony lost me with What Narcissism Means to Me, but he has won back my heart with this book. I am already rereading it.
Mar. 8th, 2016
I bought the tickets back in September. We later booked a weeklong trip to Florida Feb 6-13; still later, I got assigned a business trip Feb 16-20, while still later I got a horrible cold right before the business trip. All this made the prospect of going to a concert on a Sunday night immediately afterward not too attractive, but we were both really, really glad we went.
The last time we went to a show at Union Transfer we made a whole night of it, got dinner out and had a few drinks and everything. This time, we just went straight to the show, all businesslike. We got parking no problem, and immediately upon getting in the door, we headed straight up to the balcony with the hope of getting actual seats (as the last time we were at Union Transfer, they had little cafe tables and chairs up on the balcony). This time, there were no little cafe tables, but there were risers with seats at the back of the balcony, directly above the bar. That was fine by us, and we sat in the very back row. (We feel extremely old and go to bed extremely early for this sort of thing so we need seats these days.) Another major perk of Union Transfer, besides the availability of seats, is the good beer. We had several.
Opening band was Elephant Revival, whom I'd never heard of but adored. Modern folk, really excellent, I bought one of their CDs and got it signed by the band. I also bought a Josh Ritter concert shirt, as they were selling girly-style V-neck shirts in size XL. My shirt is very comfortable.
Josh was great. It's wonderful to see him looking so happy these days, just so obviously loving his music and loving his fans and loving playing with his band. I'm not sure why he's wearing paint-spattered coveralls in his concerts and on the album cover, but whatev, he's awesome. He played Hello, Starling. He played Kathleen. He played the Mummy song, which is one of my absolute favorites. It was a great show. And we were sitting down and drinking craft beer during it. Five goddamn stars.
The last time we went to a show at Union Transfer we made a whole night of it, got dinner out and had a few drinks and everything. This time, we just went straight to the show, all businesslike. We got parking no problem, and immediately upon getting in the door, we headed straight up to the balcony with the hope of getting actual seats (as the last time we were at Union Transfer, they had little cafe tables and chairs up on the balcony). This time, there were no little cafe tables, but there were risers with seats at the back of the balcony, directly above the bar. That was fine by us, and we sat in the very back row. (We feel extremely old and go to bed extremely early for this sort of thing so we need seats these days.) Another major perk of Union Transfer, besides the availability of seats, is the good beer. We had several.
Opening band was Elephant Revival, whom I'd never heard of but adored. Modern folk, really excellent, I bought one of their CDs and got it signed by the band. I also bought a Josh Ritter concert shirt, as they were selling girly-style V-neck shirts in size XL. My shirt is very comfortable.
Josh was great. It's wonderful to see him looking so happy these days, just so obviously loving his music and loving his fans and loving playing with his band. I'm not sure why he's wearing paint-spattered coveralls in his concerts and on the album cover, but whatev, he's awesome. He played Hello, Starling. He played Kathleen. He played the Mummy song, which is one of my absolute favorites. It was a great show. And we were sitting down and drinking craft beer during it. Five goddamn stars.
This opera was a truly impressive new work, an adaptation of the book (which I've never read, which was also adapted into an award-winning film that I haven't seen). The last time I saw a new opera it was Oscar, which sadly was dreadful, and I feared the worst here, but luckily my fears were for naught.
First of all the sets were amazing. It looked like a whole lot of wooden beams fell over onto the stage, which was both adaptable to whatever the cast was doing (building a fence, walking on a bridge, hiding in the forest) and also evocative of the utter ruin and destruction of the Civil War. Lighting was also great - when people were supposed to be walking in the forest in the snow, the lighting really made it look like that. My opera company insider had hinted that the lighting might be tough, that this director often underlights his shows, but in this instance it was very well done.
I was familiar with the basic story going into the show but was impressed by the interpretation. The music was strong, not just orchestrally but also with interesting vocal themes (what I disliked most about Oscar). There were several lead characters, enabling the composer to weave together multiple stories that told a larger tale about the Civil War as a whole. And vocally, the cast was just excellent.
In opera-going drama news, I did get yelled at by another guest for checking my phone, which I did only briefly and while holding it to my chest to minimize the light pollution. I only did so because (1) the show was obviously running long, (2) I was supposed to go meet my mother-in-law at the bus station immediately after the show, and (3) my husband was picking us both up with my feverish child in the car; with all these elements in play, I was trying to assess whether I needed to leave early. Getting yelled at put me in a foul mood as I ran to the bus station, which resulted in me snapping at F when I arrived five minutes late - as if it were his fault - but at least I did get to stay until the end.
First of all the sets were amazing. It looked like a whole lot of wooden beams fell over onto the stage, which was both adaptable to whatever the cast was doing (building a fence, walking on a bridge, hiding in the forest) and also evocative of the utter ruin and destruction of the Civil War. Lighting was also great - when people were supposed to be walking in the forest in the snow, the lighting really made it look like that. My opera company insider had hinted that the lighting might be tough, that this director often underlights his shows, but in this instance it was very well done.
I was familiar with the basic story going into the show but was impressed by the interpretation. The music was strong, not just orchestrally but also with interesting vocal themes (what I disliked most about Oscar). There were several lead characters, enabling the composer to weave together multiple stories that told a larger tale about the Civil War as a whole. And vocally, the cast was just excellent.
In opera-going drama news, I did get yelled at by another guest for checking my phone, which I did only briefly and while holding it to my chest to minimize the light pollution. I only did so because (1) the show was obviously running long, (2) I was supposed to go meet my mother-in-law at the bus station immediately after the show, and (3) my husband was picking us both up with my feverish child in the car; with all these elements in play, I was trying to assess whether I needed to leave early. Getting yelled at put me in a foul mood as I ran to the bus station, which resulted in me snapping at F when I arrived five minutes late - as if it were his fault - but at least I did get to stay until the end.
Of all the stuff in my backlog to post about, this was the absolute most inappropriate pairing.
On Saturday January 15, we took f to see Daniel Tiger Live. It was playing at the Merriam downtown. It was chilly, so F drove and we parked in the city, then met up with our friends and their little daughter to see the show together. Oddly, we thought we were going to the Kimmel Center, and hung out in their lobby a while, and there were other children around but not in the quantities you'd imagine, so we eventually went to ask where we should be and were told to go a block further up Broad. Check, there are the crowds of children!
Seeing this show in such close proximity with Disney on Ice threw into sharp relief the budgetary differences between a Disney production and a PBS production. It was a fine show, don't get me wrong, but the costuming was... odd. Daniel Tiger himself was almost entirely plush, with a large cartoony face on his giant cat head and arms that didn't bend. By contrast, all the other animal characters had cutouts in their giant heads for their little human faces. It was kind of weird and creepy looking? Also, Daniel couldn't actually pick up or hold objects with his arms. This was hilarious during songs like "You can be a big helper in your family" because Daniel would just sort of flail near the thing he was supposedly doing to help. I wonder if any of the children noticed.
The casting was interesting for this. Mom Tiger, Katerina, and the chick in the Daniel suit were each played by individual actors, but for many of the other roles, they had one actor doing multiple parts. Teacher Harriet and Miss Elaina were played by the same actress, who was really good, though better at Teacher Harriet than at Miss Elaina (I overheard my friend's daughter whispering to her daddy, "Why is that girl dressed like Miss Elaina?" so she clearly wasn't buying the whole thing). The same actor played Dad Tiger, Prince Wednesday, and Mr. McFeely, and he was pretty great too, his Prince Wednesday was incredibly over the top and enthusiastic (although, when you thought about it, it was a little weird to see a six foot tall dude acting like that).
The weakest link was the poor guy stuck with four parts: O the Owl, Music Man Stan, Baker Aker, and King Friday. His Baker Aker was solid, and his Music Man Stan wasn't bad. His O the Owl was pretty awful, though - if you can't get that hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo down, it's just not believable - and this is despite the O costume actually being pretty cool. And his King Friday was downright awful. He was like a weird wizard. I felt a little embarrassed for him and ultimately unsure whether he'd ever actually seen the show. Then again, he got stuck with more characters than anyone else, and at least he pulled off two of them decently.
After the show, there was a restaurant we tried to go to but it was too busy, so we got crepes instead. f was not about this. We ordered her hot dog crepe completely deconstructed; we could have gotten her a PB & J crepe but when we described it to her it was clear she was envisioning bread and who knows how that would've went when it arrived in crepe form. I overindulged in a goat cheese-filled crepe and then got dessert too and felt bad about it afterward. And then I left the container with the leftover hot dog on top of the ticket machine at the parking garage. Hopefully a homeless person found it and enjoyed it.
In such unrelated news that it totally shouldn't be in the same post, a week and a half ago F and I got to enjoy a surprisingly epic date night. We had plans to go pick up the winemaking kit my mom Groupon'ed for us for Christmas, and while there we found out we had to actually get the wine kit (as the Groupon covered the supplies, like buckets and stuff, but not riesling juice). Over $115 later, we went for a wine tasting next door at Stone & Key Cellars and ended up spending like $40 on wine. And I got to try the mead! It was lovely. Then we hustled over to the movies, where we saw Deadpool. I loved it, it was so fun and fast-paced and smart and wrong and raunchy and so totally not where my mind is allowed to go anymore. And I am delighted to be posting about it on International Women's Day, which was actually a joke in the movie. After that we went for dinner to Bonefish Grill, which was pretty good once we landed a table. A really fantastic night. Yay.
On Saturday January 15, we took f to see Daniel Tiger Live. It was playing at the Merriam downtown. It was chilly, so F drove and we parked in the city, then met up with our friends and their little daughter to see the show together. Oddly, we thought we were going to the Kimmel Center, and hung out in their lobby a while, and there were other children around but not in the quantities you'd imagine, so we eventually went to ask where we should be and were told to go a block further up Broad. Check, there are the crowds of children!
Seeing this show in such close proximity with Disney on Ice threw into sharp relief the budgetary differences between a Disney production and a PBS production. It was a fine show, don't get me wrong, but the costuming was... odd. Daniel Tiger himself was almost entirely plush, with a large cartoony face on his giant cat head and arms that didn't bend. By contrast, all the other animal characters had cutouts in their giant heads for their little human faces. It was kind of weird and creepy looking? Also, Daniel couldn't actually pick up or hold objects with his arms. This was hilarious during songs like "You can be a big helper in your family" because Daniel would just sort of flail near the thing he was supposedly doing to help. I wonder if any of the children noticed.
The casting was interesting for this. Mom Tiger, Katerina, and the chick in the Daniel suit were each played by individual actors, but for many of the other roles, they had one actor doing multiple parts. Teacher Harriet and Miss Elaina were played by the same actress, who was really good, though better at Teacher Harriet than at Miss Elaina (I overheard my friend's daughter whispering to her daddy, "Why is that girl dressed like Miss Elaina?" so she clearly wasn't buying the whole thing). The same actor played Dad Tiger, Prince Wednesday, and Mr. McFeely, and he was pretty great too, his Prince Wednesday was incredibly over the top and enthusiastic (although, when you thought about it, it was a little weird to see a six foot tall dude acting like that).
The weakest link was the poor guy stuck with four parts: O the Owl, Music Man Stan, Baker Aker, and King Friday. His Baker Aker was solid, and his Music Man Stan wasn't bad. His O the Owl was pretty awful, though - if you can't get that hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo down, it's just not believable - and this is despite the O costume actually being pretty cool. And his King Friday was downright awful. He was like a weird wizard. I felt a little embarrassed for him and ultimately unsure whether he'd ever actually seen the show. Then again, he got stuck with more characters than anyone else, and at least he pulled off two of them decently.
After the show, there was a restaurant we tried to go to but it was too busy, so we got crepes instead. f was not about this. We ordered her hot dog crepe completely deconstructed; we could have gotten her a PB & J crepe but when we described it to her it was clear she was envisioning bread and who knows how that would've went when it arrived in crepe form. I overindulged in a goat cheese-filled crepe and then got dessert too and felt bad about it afterward. And then I left the container with the leftover hot dog on top of the ticket machine at the parking garage. Hopefully a homeless person found it and enjoyed it.
In such unrelated news that it totally shouldn't be in the same post, a week and a half ago F and I got to enjoy a surprisingly epic date night. We had plans to go pick up the winemaking kit my mom Groupon'ed for us for Christmas, and while there we found out we had to actually get the wine kit (as the Groupon covered the supplies, like buckets and stuff, but not riesling juice). Over $115 later, we went for a wine tasting next door at Stone & Key Cellars and ended up spending like $40 on wine. And I got to try the mead! It was lovely. Then we hustled over to the movies, where we saw Deadpool. I loved it, it was so fun and fast-paced and smart and wrong and raunchy and so totally not where my mind is allowed to go anymore. And I am delighted to be posting about it on International Women's Day, which was actually a joke in the movie. After that we went for dinner to Bonefish Grill, which was pretty good once we landed a table. A really fantastic night. Yay.