hrj: (Default)
So the proximal excuse for last weekend's road trip was that [livejournal.com profile] klwilliams wanted to see the Star Trek Experience one more time before the close of its 10-year run and I was amenable to seeing it for a first time and ... hey, who needs too much of an excuse for a road trip? So we figured we'd do the classic Vegas thing and got tickets to a show as well. Took off right from work on Friday, drove straight through, and arrived in the wee hours, at which time the hotel had run out of standard 2xqueen rooms and had to stick us in a rather nice, rather large semi-corner room with a king. (We decided we could cope.)

Since the STE doesn't (didn't?) open until 11:30, we set the alarm for "decadently late" and had brunch at Quark's Bar first thing after buying our tour tickets. There was Drama and Tragedy going on in the kitchen resulting in very slow service (and one change of order), but we began a string of perfect timing events, catching the Klingon Attack show just in time to make our reserveations for the behind-the-scenes tour immediately afterwards. (And, as [livejournal.com profile] klwilliams had assured me in advance, I really didn't want to see behind the scenes before getting the full, naive Klingon Attack experience.) Really great use of special effects technology for an amusement park ride. Our tour guide for the behind-the-scenes was absolutely stupendous -- great at getting everyone engaged, remembered everyone's names, and truly enjoyed his subject. After that we hit the gifts store and the staged photo sessions (which were part of the package) then finished up with the Borg Attack show (which was nowhere near as good as the Klingons).

It was really a bit odd looking around at our fellow tourists and realizing just how instantly recognizable fans are, even outside the usual convention circuit. (I don't know what proportion of their overall clientele are fannish -- things may have been skewed when we were there by the whole "one last time before it closes" phenomenon.)

We'd planned to have dinner at a buffet at the Paris Las Vegas that [livejournal.com profile] klwilliams had been to before, but the line was so long that we decided the better part of valor was to go across the street (street? mall-hallway? aisle? hard to know what the right word is) to a French bakery and dine on crossant sandwiches and an assortment of desserts. After that was Phantom of the Opera which I'd never seen live (and [livejournal.com profile] klwilliams had never seen before at all). Very enjoyable and great staging, although it reminds one that -- as for operas -- musicals are best enjoyed if you know the plot and major lyrics in advance, since you aren't going to follow them just from the performance.

Another decadently late morning, lazy breakfast, and on the road again to get home at a decent (if evening) hour. Lots of excellent chattage in the car. Driving places with fellow writers means you can enjoy the "live books-on-tape" experience. Car mileage geeking )

Overall gambling losses: $2.00 (for the two of us, an overall gain of $0.86 I think)
Overall drunken debauchery: none. Who needs drunken debauchery when you have congenial company?

Now what?

Aug. 5th, 2008 10:45 pm
hrj: (Default)
So I've finished the last of my "big commitments". I just found out that I'm off the hook for baking 200 mini-cupcakes for the GLBT booth for Diversity Day at work. (I'm still on the hook for overall booth design -- had fun playing for the first time with Adobe Illustrator doing a mockup for the budgeting presentation. We had the best-looking presentation there. Also still on the hook for helping with the historic timeline part of the booth design. Once a pelican, always a pelican ....) So when do I get to take my new Element off on a mundance camping-in-the-redwoods weekend? Let's see, this weekend I have a work dinner Friday then Olympics-on-Tivo at [livejournal.com profile] scotica's place on Saturday. Next weekend it's a road trip to Vegas with [livejournal.com profile] klwilliams. The weekend after that is Purgatorio, but I NEED A BREAK. So I think that's my escape to the redwoods weekend. The weekend after that is Labor Day, so I'm not sure I could count on finding camping space anywhere nice. Besides which, it's the Slow Food Nation festival in San Francisco and I'm planning to foodie to my heart's content.

Huh. My life is theoretically unscheduled at this point and I have the next four weekends solidly booked. What's up with that? I've also decided that tomorrow I'm going to stay at work until I have both my current reports turned in. (I've packed dinner as well as lunch.) I've gotten so frustrated with not being able to start an uninterrupted work session until the middle of the afternoon and I just want to get these things DONE. No, I don't get comp time. I just get sanity.
hrj: (Default)
I needed at least a little break from the lecture preparations, so after doing some work on the next two outlines over sushi (I had an "I need to get out of the house to avoid distractions" evening) I swung by the theater to see Mama Mia!. Yes, I know that in some people's eyes my love of ABBA music puts me beyond redemption. (On the other hand, Tuesday at the gym, when I needed to work off the desperate need to strangle at least one of my co-workers, after pondering between setting the iPod to Sousa, Wagner, or ABBA, I chose the last because it seemed the other two were much too mellow and laid back. So ... whatever.)

This is a FUN movie. I laughed. I cried. I sang along at points. (I think this is going to end up being one of those sing-along-cult movies.) I reveled in a movie centering around mature women being unabashedly sexual and sexy. OHMIGHOD MERYL STREEP IS SOOOOOOO HOT! Seriously. The only part of the movie that came close to the delightfulness of Meryl Streep was the Greek Chorus (often, literally Greek). Especially the ladies in the kitchen. Oh, and the old woman with the sticks. Perfect. In fact, the whole Dancing Queen procession bit. This is about the third recent movie musical that has made me think that Bollywood is making some major infiltrations into American cinematic esthetics.

Totally different subject. We got a "save the date" notice at work that they're reviving the tradition of alternating the annual summer picnic with a "formal dinner gala". My first reaction was, "Yeah, that'd be a barrel of monkeys if you don't have a date." Then I realized that it was a perfect challenge for the Dating Project: find someone who would not only be up to attending a formal employer-sponsored dinner (free food!) but could have a good time doing so. Dancing may be required. I have until mid-November. (It is, alas, on the same day as Mists Investiture, but then I don't think that cuts down the available dating pool significantly.)

BBQ review

Jul. 5th, 2008 09:58 am
hrj: (Default)
My 4th of July BBQ & games was a fun little party (and, as usual in my social circles, ended up with twice as much food as half the number of people could eat). We ended up with 8 people (although one retreated to his sick-bed with a cold), ran through Settlers of Cataan, a roll-the-alphabet-dice-and-form-words game whose name escapes me, and a couple rounds of Trans America, interspersed with grilling, ice cream, and a walk out to the Emeryville Marina to see fireworks.

Grill review: I need to work on pacing for my grilling (particularly if it's to be a primary social activity rather than a get-the-food-on-the-table activity). The corn took longer than I expected, and the grilled veggies needed to be being plated as they came off rather than being stacked in the warmer. The meat (of many varieties -- everybody brought enough to share) generally worked out well. I'm starting to get the hang of the temperature variation on various parts of the grill surface, and how to alternate open-hood and closed-hood temperature manipulation. Since I have a stack of ungrilled leftover ingredients, I figure I'll do some more practicing this weekend.

Fireworks review: The fog was fickle. We walked out along the south side of Powell St and could see both the Jack London Square show (except for the lowest stuff which was hidden by intervening buildings and port equipment) and an assortment of probably unauthorized items from the West Oakland trajectory. As we got out past the fire station (where a couple of enterprising fire crew were hawking refreshments in support of the Special Olympics) we could see occasional cloud-glows from the San Francisco show, but it was clear that there wasn't any point in trying to position ourselves for a better western view. So we crossed over to the boat harbor by Trader Vics, then wandered slightly south to avoid the actual harbor view to take in the Berkeley show. Alas, there was a fairly solid fog river flowing in right over the Berkeley Marina, so we saw the lower half of about the first half of the show, and then the fog thickened and all we were getting was cloud-glow. We actually got a much better view of something roughly up Richmond way. I don't know if it was in Richmond proper (I wondered if they might be doing a show at the racetrack in Albany, but it could have been all the way out to the Hercules/Pinole area. And, of course, there were a lot of random (if less ambitious) unauthorized items sprinkled across the horizon. So it was a good evening for getting a sense of the scope of Bay Area firesworks in all their forms, but not as good for seeing a single show in all its glory. I keep thinking that some year I should bike off to the Berkeley Marina proper to see that one up close. (You do not attempt to drive around the waterfront to try to view the shows. In fact they usually barricade most of the relevant streets just to forestall the issue.)
hrj: (Default)
I neglected to mention that on Saturday's outing, I was able to confirm that the hands-free-phone function on my new GPS does, in fact, work as advertised on incoming calls. The sound quality is not ideal, but then, I often have problems with phone sound quality, no matter what sort of line and device I'm using. (One of the things that led me to ask for a hearing test at my recent 50-year-tune-up appointment. Alas, my language-interpretation problems are not blamable on any hearing impairments. I'm at the same place I was back in grade school: "I can hear you perfectly; I just have to ask you to repeat it several times before I can figure out what the words are.")

And I'd like to remind readers that I'm holding a 4th of July games-and-BBQ party at my place (on, duh, the 4th), starting noonish and culminating in walking over to the Emeryville marina to see how many fireworks displays we can spot. The downstairs tenant has a couple of German friends in town who are delighted to partake in our quaint local cultural celebrations, so I have a core group no matter who else shows up.
hrj: (Default)
It's bright and sunny, and the air out at the Berkeley marina smells of warm pine needles and salt water. And I'm sitting beside the bay taking in the view and thinking, "If I had met the woman of my dreams by now, we could get married today. We could do all those silly sentimental things that straight people take utterly for granted and the State of California would treat us exactly the same as everyone else. And wouldn't it be wonderful to get married on a glorious summer day like today?" Ok, so I haven't yet met the reciprocally-considered woman of my dreams yet, but back when I first came to the conclusion I was gay, there were a number of things I figured I just had to give up in order to be true to myself. But today, and for some as-yet-unknown number of days (potentially stretching into indefiniteness), there is one fewer thing.

Oh, and other stuff, too. )
hrj: (Default)
I'm feeling pretty much prepared for A&S this weekend (or, more particularly, for [livejournal.com profile] cryptocosm's pelican). Relevant information and objects are in hand. Sewing project is complete (as of lunch break today). I haven't put my class kits together yet, but it's trivial enough I can do it on site. I haven't packed, but since I'm taking Friday off, this is not an issue. What with one thing and another, I don't have to worry about any meals at the event except for Saturday lunch. The new car is off getting its options installed, including the roof rack, which will mean I don't have to figure out what to do with the tent ridgepole. This means I actually had to "commute" this morning, getting up early enough to drop the car in El Cerrito when the service department opened at 7am, then walking across the street to BART and picking up the company shuttle van at the Ashby station. Yeah, cue the tiny violins. Mind you, it's a good thing I'm this ahead of the game since tonight is the first performance in the Cal Shakespeare series (for which I've again joined [livejournal.com profile] thread_walker and assorted cohorts in getting season tickets). And I can see the light at the end of the long series of over-scheduled weekends.
hrj: (Default)
For those who care. )

I think people had a good time -- at any rate, the ones who said anything about it to me did! Lots of mixing between the various facets of my life. And the session of "tell funny stories via gag gifts about how you know hrj" session seemed to work as intended as an ice-breaker. Extra special thanks to [livejournal.com profile] scotica who stayed through the end of the dishwashing at the end of the evening.

Partied out

Jun. 1st, 2008 10:02 pm
hrj: (Default)
The party went swimmingly. And now all the leftovers are put away (or sent off to good homes), the dishes are washed, the furniture is put back in order, and I'm ready for bed. Perhaps a post-mortem tomorrow, or maybe I'll just leave it as "I had a lovely time and thank you all for coming." (The post-mortem would primarily be regarding how the food went.)
hrj: (Default)
I've e-mailed a number of invitations for my birthday party and am still working on the list, but I'm not entirely certain that I have current e-mail addresses for everyone ... and I'm quite sure I've had one or more brain-failures while putting together the list. So if you haven't received an invitation and would like to, drop me a note. (I'll leave comments screened so that you can leave your e-mail address privately.)
hrj: (Default)
I'm skipping my lunchtime bike ride today to make good on my promised recaps of last weekend. First, the general post, then the feast-specific post.

Costume-Con to the Perfectly Period Feast: Life in the Fast Lane )

And in the next post, the feast.
hrj: (Default)
No date-filter post this time because my blind date was still laid up with the flu I ended up going with Plan B, i.e., [livejournal.com profile] thread_walker. And, may I say, I had as much fun as you can have on a date without it actually being a date date. We took off straight from work and ended up at Naan & Curry on Telegraph for dinner (mmm lamby goodness) and then had over an hour until concert time so -- since she'd never really seen the Berkeley campus before, we did an ecclectic tour of my favorite spots: cool statuary, elegant buildings, wooded paths across creeks, the basement of the Life Sciences building where they have the T-Rex skeleton.

The Guthrie concert was superb. It was the perfect mix of old favorites (he did all the ones I was really hoping to hear), new songs, and assorted works by friends and family (including a couple of his father's song's, familiar and not). For all of his rather laid-back folksy performing style, I was struck by how technically impressive his musicianship is. (A typical example was a ragtime piece performed on the guitar.) The only technical flaw, in my opinion -- and it may be just a matter of personal taste, was that the handful of pieces done with the electric guitar had a guitar/voice balance so slanted towards the former that you could barely understand the lyrics even if you knew what they were supposed to be. (This wouldn't be a flaw in a rock performance, of course, but for a folk singer, I expect more intelligibility.) The audience sang along enthusiastically on the appropriate items: the refrain of Alice's Restaurant, the chorus of This Land is Your Land, and a very short and poignant peace song brought out as an encore.

This being Berkeley, it was a very loyal and sympathetic audience: laughing at all the in-jokes and '60s references, as well as being appreciative of how much of the old material was still politically and socially relevant. During the intermission, [livejournal.com profile] thread_walker and I amused ourselves by leaning over the railing of the mezzanine lobby and determining (on superficial evidence) who and what various of the attendees were. The aging hippie who I decided had become a successful stockbroker. The Guy Dragged Along By His Date who was attempting to show he had a sensitive side. The angsty 20-something who thought it might be a good event for picking up chicks. The wiry community activist who wore her white hair in a long ponytail. The middle-aged couple who were reliving their transgressive youth by dragging their jr-high-age sons to the concert in hopes of making some emotional connection (and because the kids had to write a paper for school about some artistic performance). I should reiterate that, other than the physical descriptions, these characteristics were all purely inventions of our imagination. Did I mention what a fun date [livejournal.com profile] thread_walker is?
hrj: (Default)
So a couple years ago I picked up a couple of lovely tinned copper cookpots at the White Elephant Sale for only a couple dollars each, thinking that they'd make nice nearly-medieval-looking pots for my camp kitchen. The tinning was a bit patchy -- it looked as if the pots had been brillo-scrubbed by someone who didn't quite understand that tin behaves differently from steel or aluminum -- so I figured I'd have to get them re-tinned at some point. I finally decided to start using them in the camp kitchen anyway this season, and there isn't any significant effect on the food taste so far, but I still wanted to do that re-tinning. And then this lunch hour I went off to the 4th St gourmet ghetto to pick up a nice card for my cousin's 25th wedding anniversary this weekend and did my usual just-browsing pass through Sur La Table, and what did I spy right next to the copper cookware section? Looking as if it had been sitting in a back storeroom for the last decade there was this package proclaiming, "Copper pots need retinning? Voila!" Sure enough, it's a do-it-yourself pot re-tinning kit: basically a little jar of acidic flux and a sheet of food-safe lead-free tin. You clean the pot thoroughly, flux the area to be retinned, put in a snippet of the tin sheet, heat until the tin starts melting, and then roll it around in the pan until it covers the affected area. The brand name is "Tin Lizzie" and it lists the kit manufacturer as: Aux Cuisines Inc., 43 Saddle Ranch Lane, Hillsdale NJ, 07642. There's also an e-mail contact given. I'll report on the project further after I've tried it out.

And on the "damn" side ... when did it become so difficult to schedule plans to get together with people? Is there really a plan-smashing front moving through (as [livejournal.com profile] thread_walker seems to be experiencing)? Are significantly more people getting sick suddenly these days? Do people tend to make commitments more casually and break them just as casually? For any given fall-through there always seems to be a good and sound reason -- and certainly when illness is involved, one doesn't want to raise any guilt-trips -- but ever since I started my various programs of trying to initiate more social events and contacts, it's seemed like swimming through molasass to line things up and carry plans through as originally conceived. The immediate trigger for this gripe is that my date for tomorrow has been suffering from the flu since last week and will most likely be cancelling. I haven't tried to line up an alternate since it's the last minute (and since I'd really rather hold out for her being up to going). But there's a real possibility that I'll end up giving away my second ticket to Arlo Guthrie on the steps of Zellerbach tomorrow evening.
hrj: (Default)
Oh, right, it's just that the last two weeks have been short. Yesterday my sciatic nerve was twinging after a long period of silence, but fortunately today it's back to being happy again. I did slack off on the weight machines at the gym yesterday, which may have helped, although that was partly because I got on the elliptical and just felt dead tired. (Dead tired = I only managed 3.26 miles in 30 minutes rather than the usual 3.36 miles.) I think a couple nights of being up past midnight were the culprit. I really need to work on that more. At least I don't have anything scheduled for the weekend and can laze around (and do my taxes).

But tonight ... tonight I have a date for the ballet, and then afterwards we're going over to SF to go dancing. I'm still contemplating what to wear. The current candidate is a deep blue silk button-down shirt that was among the Oakland Museum haul and will go very nicely with a pair of earrings that [livejournal.com profile] aastg gave me some years ago. "Club clothes" is not a category I expect or intend to populate in my wardrobe, so we make do as best we can.
hrj: (Default)
Today's lunchtime bike ride featured a seal in the bay (I spot them about half a dozen times in the year, typically), a great blue heron standing about 5 feet from the bike path in Acquatic Park, and a very annoying freight train blocking all the level crossings this side of University Ave.

Today, in my function of temporary acting manager of my department (boss on vacation) I got to push back on someone's attempt to fob off their work on "my" people on the basis that since they (the fobber) hadn't managed to do the investigation on deadline, we should do it instead (as well as writing the justification for why the deadline should be extended). I'd claim credit for a successful push-back but the fobbing had already been retracted by the time I swung into action.

As of last night, I had four responses to my latest Craig's List blind date ad, so it looks like leaving things to the last minute for Friday's Swan Lake won't be catastrophic. None of them include nibbles on the Arlo Guthrie or Bryn Terfel events in April, though, so I may have to re-post for those individually. (For those who are relatively new readers of my journal, I have a separate filter for people interested in the more detailed reports on my dating activities -- I lock them out of what is probably excessive courtesy to the other parties being discussed in them. Let me know if you're interested in being in that filter.) After the last of this season's blind date events, I'll have to brainstorm for the next step in The Plan.
hrj: (Default)
So I've already determined that I can't manage to fit my 50th birthday party into the calendar in May (much less on my actual b-day) if I don't want all sorts of people to not be able to make it. So I'm currently wavering between pencilling it in on Sunday June 1 and one day or the other of the weekend of June 28-29. Is there anything I'm utterly forgetting that might make one of those days more or less preferable than the others? (The party theme is still nebulous -- defaulting to Food, Friends, and Hanging Out -- although I'm working on coming up with something clever.)
hrj: (Default)
The impromptu dinner party went off swimmingly, despite the last-minute substitution of the Downstairs Tenant for [livejournal.com profile] klwilliams (who was feeling poorly) and a minor delay due to [livejournal.com profile] scotica time-shifting the event in her memory. [livejournal.com profile] cnewsonsmith filled out the fourth. We started with an appetizer of green olives and prosciutto-wrapped melon then moved straight to the main course of roast pork tenderloin encrusted with herbs de Provence, steamed crookneck squash with Hollandaise and grated cheddar, and green beans braised with garlic and brown mushrooms. By tradition, I forgot that I'd been planning a mixed-grain pilaf, since I pretty much reflexively omit grains and starches these days. We finished with the barest taste of red-currant pudding, topped with creme fraiche and shaved chocolate, with coffee to accompany. After-dinner entertainment was a word-category game and a debate concerning the U.S. healthcare system.

Remember how I've been whining about how I'm bored with my wardrobe? Well, I made it to the Oakland Museum White Elephant Sale today and started making a stab at the problem. For those not familiar with it, this is the annual fundraiser for the Oakland Museum -- basically a gigantic rummage sale ... with really nice rummage. I piddled around for about 3/4 of the warehouse area spending 75 cents on some bentwood boxes, finding no interesting books, and reminding myself that furniture was right out because I had to carry everything back on BART. I took note of an electric rotisserie (but it was gone when I went back later, which I took as A Sign). And then I got around to the clothing section, which I've generally ignored in past years. But it occurred to me that I should poke around and see if any of the shirts and blouses appealed. The next thing you know, I'm having to make a rule that when I can no longer get my hand around all the hooks of the hangers, I have to stop and find the cashier. To try to get around the problem of always buying the same old same old, I tried to stick to a simple two-part filter: it had to be good, quality, natural fibers (basically silk or linen), and it had to fit. I ended up with 12 (twelve) tops at $2-5 each. I think it was 5 long-sleeved silk button-down shirts, 2 ditto of linen, 2 china silk shells, 2 silk knit sleeveless thingies, and one silk knit t-shirt-like-object with embroidery. Oh, and I fell in love with a coat. A gorgeous tailored, 3/4 length dark gray herringbone tweed coat by Cable Car Clothiers. (They aren't showing this particular item currently on their web site, but based on other stuff listed there, the chances are I got a $500 coat for $28. Oh, and did I mention it's gorgeous?) So I think I've made a good start on un-boring my wardrobe. I would have tried on some pants, but I had to get home to start dinner, and besides which it would have involved a lot more time and effort to try them on (whereas the shirts could be tried on over what I was wearing, standing right there at the racks).
hrj: (Default)
Ok, so I went shopping on the assumption that I'd be cooking a healthy-but-semi-gourmet dinner for six or seven hungry skiers this weekend, and it turns out I'm not. So who'd like to come over for an informal dinner party on Saturday to have herb-encrusted pork tenderloin, lemon-cheddar crookneck squash, fresh steamed green beans tossed with sauteed mushrooms and ... stuff, mixed grain pilaf, and a dessert to be named later? Location: my place (Oakland by Emeryville); Time: 5pm (I like an early dinner on weekends); Entertainment: the witty conversation of whoever takes me up on the invitation. First seven people to ask are invited.
hrj: (Default)
1. Yes, sure enough, installing the replacement glass in the door to the woodstove did solve the smoke problem. Today was the first right combination of weather and hanging out at home since I got the glass to try a fire ... and may well be the last fire of the season. But at least I'll know it's all good for next season.

2. I sometimes wonder if a pod person is sending tendrils into my life. Friday after work I dropped by a wine tasting and photography exhibition of a co-worker's work. (Seeing what her photos were going for at gallery prices, I'm feeling a bit smug about the one she gave me as a present.) Monday after work I'm allowing myself to be dragged off by a couple other co-workers to get our nails done. (More of a bonding experience thing than a personal care thing, on my part.) Just ... weird.

3. [livejournal.com profile] duchessletitia came by this morning and we went out to my current favorite bakery for breakfast, then went window shopping at IKEA (although I ended up picking up a queen-size feather bed to substitute for the too-small one I'm using currently -- it was on sale) and (4.) scoring some nice blue wool at the fabric warehouse. I also found a very nice bit of (synthetic, alas) brocade that made the decision for me which style of over garment I'm making for the PPF.

5. I'm trying to figure out why I'm having such a difficult time actually making the move to cancel my tv cable service, given that I've long since come to the conclusion that I don't make use of it anywhere near enough to be worth what I pay. (A) I get plenty of good broadcast stations without it. (B) I mostly watch movies anyway, and I can get those off DVD. (C) Even when there are good serials on that I might want to watch, by the time I figure out which ones they are, I've missed half the season any way, and might as well wait until they come out on DVD (which they will). So why do I freeze up at the notion of losing access to the very small set of other shows that I can't get otherwise?
hrj: (Default)
The third in my series of Cal Performances blind dates was the Mark Morris Dancers take on Tschaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, "The Hard Nut". It shares the usual Nutcracker approach of being a family-friendly event (in the literal sense of the audience being composed largely of families with children -- not at all in the moralistic sense, given that some of the dancing was considerably more salacious than your typical ballet). As usual, the plot was a thin tissue on which were hung a glittering assortment of dances. (My impression is that your typical Nutcracker performance is an exercise in getting as many different dancers from as many different age and ability levels on stage as possible. This version doesn't quite go to that extreme, but then there are a lot of other Nutcracker performances in the Bay Area to fill that niche.) The setting has been updated from the usual generic Victorianish one to '70s suburbia, starting off with the children watching a tv set as the parents prepare for the holiday cocktail party. The tin soldiers have been updated to GI Joes, and so forth. The plot, such as it is, attempts to moralize about superficiality and inner worth, with a story-within-the-story about a princess cursed with ugliness by the rat-queen, who can only be cured by finding a hero who can crack "the hard nut". In theory, when he does so, the princess becomes beautiful, but then rejects the hero who turns ugly "like a nutcracker", who in turn is redeemed and transformed by the true-sighted love of the girl in the framing story. All dance.

The problem is that the events of this redemption-transformation-rejection-redemption-transformation sequence take about 10 seconds of stage time and are only sketchily mimed out. If you hadn't read the program notes carefully, you'd have no clue what just happened. (For that matter, even if you had read the program notes, it was possible to miss it -- as my date demonstrated.) It could have been a very sweet sequence and instead it was a huh? moment.

But the dancing overall was very enjoyable. The rats, in particular, were delightful. There was a certain amount of amusing gender-bending in that the general corps de ballet (sp?) that performed the massed snowflake/flower/etc. dances was completely gender-neutral, giving us the sight of a delicately-costumed morning glory doing power-lifts of the heroic nutcracker during one of the dances. All in all, a frothy bit of holiday fluff, but worth the time to enjoy it.

Profile

hrj: (Default)
hrj

July 2025

S M T W T F S
  12345
678910 1112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 13th, 2025 01:27 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios