photographs and random miscellaney from my brain
september was a lot of apples, apple pie, and in a strange irony or coincidence, both madonna (the sacrilegious one) and the pope showing up in town. and other random assorted stuff. In an even stranger turn of events, no cats.
I must have moved these records through at least 6 apartments and 20 years worth of living since the last time I actually owned a record player on which to play them.
Work has been a little busy lately, so I’m going to the “things sitting on my desk” well already. Bluetooth speaker. Invaluable when traveling (at the destination – I’m polite enough to use headphones during the actual travel portions of the trip!).
I start my next work engagement next week, so I thought I’d take a full week up in the Berkshires, something I rarely get to do for that amount of time. Of course, I got up here on Sunday and my entire family had to head back to NYC on Monday for a few days, so I’ve been on my own. This is even more rare than my spending an entire week up here.
Last night I took myself to dinner in Great Barrington, where i promptly ran into one of my oldest friends up here, so he and I ended up eating together. I love when that happens. On my way out, this guy was playing some lovely music. Shot in extremely low light at a high ISO, so the quality’s not great, but still wanted to share.
So, instead of sitting at home tonight watching a bunch of Pennsylvania primary results that ultimately leave us in exactly the same place we were yesterday, I opted to go see a new Broadway show, Passing Strange.
Definitely the right choice. This ranks right up there with the best shows I’ve ever seen. The music made me want to get up and dance, the humor had me laughing out loud, and the drama brought tears to my eyes. I’d see it again in a heartbeat. It’s technically a musical (and I hope it wins the Tony after years of Disney-fied crap), but it’s really more of a rock spectacle, charting the progression of “youth” as he tries on a host of different personae while trying to figure out who he is. It’s apparently based on the life of the writer/composer/narrator, Stew. I just marveled at how he could perform this show for 2 and a half hours every night, since he’s in every single scene.
I’m glad it’s a hit.
So, Friday night, the ‘rents and I decided to go see "I’m Not There", the new Dylan "biopic". I knew it was going to be weird and existential – I had read the fawning New York Times Magazine cover story on it a few weeks ago, after all, but…
Well…
I guess I just didn’t get it (neither did my dad or stepmom, and my dad was actually at Newport when Dylan went electric, so…).
Don’t get me wrong – the acting was generally superb (I watched some clips of the actual Dylan at Newport this morning, and Cate Blanchett was just phenomenal). And there were certain "moments" that were touching/funny/excellent. But overall? I had no idea what the fuck was going on. And I’m fairly certain that I fell asleep through most of the Richard Gere/Billy the Kid part of the film (I only say "fairly certain" because, lacking any discernable plot or forward momentum, it’s entirely possible that I fell asleep for either 10 seconds or 20 minutes).
Walking out, I said to my folks (my folks!) that I think I would have understood it better if we were all stoned.
The compact disc is 25 years old today. And in the hard-learned lesson of “never let your ten year old brother buy your first CD,” The first CD I ever owned was “Pump”, by Aerosmith.
And yes, I still own it – “Janie’s Got a Gun” is an awesome song. I don’t care what anyone else says.
(To be fair to myself, I didn’t actually “let” my brother do anything – the CD player was a gift from my parents for my 16th birthday, and so they had my brother give me a CD as a gift so that I’d actually have something to listen to).
I’m a bad blogger. I know. It’s like going to the gym. Doing it on a regular schedule is fun, but if you miss a few days, or a week, you start coming up with excuses as to why you don’t have time to go, and then, before you even realize it, a month has gone by and now there’s so much stuff that’s passed you by, you don’t even know how to start anymore.
And yeah, I did rejoin the gym the other day. So in the spirit of turning over a new leaf, I parked myself in front of my computer to write…something.
Since my last entry…
The Lucinda Williams concert was great, if a bit short, and we had some incredibly annoying drunk people sitting behind us, which was a bit weird, as we were at Radio City and not, say, Webster Hall. Still worked like crazy the following week, went to a wedding in Montauk (3 hour train ride) on the 31st of March, and flew back to Italy on April 2.
Had to go back for some work – stayed in Italy for about a week and a half (including over Easter weekend), did some shopping on my day off, came home, and then went to another wedding, this time in Florida, on April 21. Since then I haven’t had to travel. For three whole weeks!
I’m finally starting to feel like I’m actually home again. I’ve started making plans that involve more than three days notice. It’s nice.
Still haven’t downloaded my last photos, but I’ll hopefully get around to it soon.
And with that…I’m back. I promise some “real” blogging in the near future. Really!
Man o man. Things have been a little bit crazy around here. Got home all of two and a half weeks ago, suffered jetlag to the extreme (kept waking up at 4 in the morning), and then got dragged into a crazy urgent work situation that involved staying until 2 or 3 in the morning almost every night last week (from Sunday to Sunday, I billed 101 hours!).
Needless to say, blogging (yet again) has been pretty near the bottom of my list of things to do. I haven’t even gotten around to downloading the last photos I took in Milan (one of my colleagues and I took a long lunch my last day there and climbed (Ok, took the elevator) to the top of the Duomo).
Other annoying things since I got home? I ordered some cabinets from Ikea to fit in a space that was exactly 26 inches wide. The website and my receipt both say that they’re 26 inches wide. Then the boxes came, and the labels said they were 26 and a half inches wide. Argh. Now I’m trying to figure out how to return them, because the only room that they even matched was the bathroom, and the only open space was the one I had ordered them for. So that was annoying. Not just because of the hassle, but because I really wanted some cabinets in that space.
Hmm. what else. Oh, my dad and my stepmom both got some flu/virus bug going around, so I’ve seen them all of once since I’ve been home, and that was the day I got home.
In better news though, I’m going to see Lucinda Williams at Radio City tomorrow night, so that’ll be fun (and convenient, as I work all of a block from RCMH). And I actually have plans on Saturday with friends. And I just got a save the date for a friend who is getting married in the Canary Islands. So that’s a good excuse for a trip (and here I thought the wedding I was going to in Florida next month was going to be the most exotic one this year!).
Zuzu over at feministe had a pretty interesting breakdown of Jennifer Holliday’s career (or lack thereof) after Dreamgirls. But watching the video put me in a slightly different frame of mind.
Dreamgirls was the very first Broadway show I ever saw – I couldn’t have been more than ten years old. After watching this video, you’ll understand why that experience made me, for life, a devoted Broadway musical fan.
Man, I really, really hope we get a non-dubbed version of the new film here in Italy.