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bironicHalloween wasn't going to be a big deal this year, and lately it has felt like I mostly sit around doing or stressing over not doing this freelance assignment, so it's a pleasant surprise to find that actually I have been part of a sort of extended Halloween celebration.
1.
Last Friday,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ellen_fremedon, cincodemaygirl and alpheratz accepted my invitation to Oyamel, this excellent Mexican tapas place that had a two-week special menu for the Day of the Dead. Amazing food and drinks. We are talking margaritas with ground chocolate and pumpkin purée, a sort of ceviche with diced raw venison heart and cactus and red onion, roast quail stuffed with cactus over a pumpkin seed-based sauce, tiny marinated and barbecued steak tacos, roasted Brussels sprouts with a dusting of ground peanuts and I don't even know what divine, tart sauce… And then desserts like flan and Mexican hot chocolate. Mm. The small plates format means you can try many deliciousnesses without stuffing yourself. Unless you want to stuff yourself. That is also easy to do. If hard on your wallet.
2.
Normal weekend with a few highlights like putting together a bookcase with a coworker and keeping horror movie marathons on TV all day in the background (Stephen King, Hammer, Tim Burton, Twilight, etc.). Then we had this, you know, tropical storm/nor'easter, and the office closed for a couple of days but I didn't lose power or Internet, so even with responsibly setting aside a day for the above-mentioned assignment, I had time to fill my last Kink Bingo square, which was going to be a Vampire Diaries story but ended up being that Halloween-appropriate True Blood/The Queen of the Damned vid about hypnotizing/seducing fellow vampires into drinking your queenly blood. Hurrah.
3.
Speaking of vampire vids: Have you seenthirdblindmouse's new vid, Possession? She set Nosferatu to Sarah McLachlan. It is a thing of beauty and hilarity.
4.
My coworkers managed to pull off a potluck/costume party the day we returned to the office, which meant I got to wear a Star Trek dress and black boots in the style of Uhura, only with more modesty. Thank you, thinkgeek.com. Also I made these deviled eggs with orange-colored yolks and spiders made of olives on top, from something I saw on Pinterest.
5.
And today my friend A. and Mr. A. and I went to see a ballet version of Dracula, which... well, the (pre-recorded) music was entirely forgettable, the choreography 75% forgettable, the pacing poor, and the ending sudden and different from the book, but (1) the choreography for Dracula and his various pas de deux was spectacular, as was the man dancing him—bringing his elbows up behind him and his head forward like a bat, switching abruptly from slow and slinking to snake-strike quick when he decided it was time to attack his victims, making these elaborate creepy hand movements while pouring wine or taking someone's hand or touching someone's face or bowing in false obsequiousness, half-crawling and once howling like a wolf, lowering himself from a second-story railing head-first and extending his arms like a bat again, having partners begin mirroring his movements to indicate hypnotism—all very much in line with the book and early film depictions, and deserving of the standing ovation he got at the end, even if it might have been partly because he was the only one who got to do any decent dancing—and (2) they went full-throttle for the dubiously consensual homoerotics of Dracula seducing Harker after banishing the three brides. \o/
In the first scene of the first act, in London, a man in the background of the train station wore a sandwich board sign with the latest news: "Oscar Wilde is released." In the back of my mind I hoped that not only established the time period but meant there'd be some homoerotic subtext. It turned out to be barely subtext! The brides got Harker out of his nightmarishly angled bed, tried to seduce him all across the floor, stripped him of his waistcoat and shirt, and were poised astride and beside him to bite when Dracula appeared and threw them out with a bag of bloody village baby. It was clear that Dracula wanted Harker for himself, but you still could have written that off as non-sexual except that the brides had established a scene of eroticism and the duet that followed did nothing but expand on that. Dracula's hands were all over Harker's body; he straddled him, he lay on top of him and arched; he caressed Harker's bare chest and face and chased him around the room and stroked him and licked his sweat and pushed him down on the bed and made ecstatic faces. Harker fought back, terrified, unable to break Dracula's grip on his wrist or throat, and Dracula held him down again and again, lifted him up, was lifted up in turn, did all these incredible moves like sliding head-first down Harker's back while Harker was still standing, caressing Harker with his feet as he finished. Finally, the lights faded as he bit. Totally gorgeous. Nervous laughter from the audience. End Act One. Similarly sexy-threatening duets later with Lucy and Mina, but nothing like the intensity of this one.
Vampires: still straddling the line between horror and desire.
Man, I would love to see David Hallberg play this Dracula. It would be worth sitting through the listless beginning and the endless tea party again. (After what felt like half an hour, the party at least was made interesting when everything went blue and slow motion as Dracula appeared on a balcony and entranced a spotlighted, normally moving Lucy.) One other saving grace was an ensemble danse macabre in a crypt or mausoleum or graveyard or something, the corps [sic, ha] done up like Helena Bonham Carter in a Tim Burton movie, only bloodier. There was a folk dance as well that had potential, but the dancers were out of sync and didn't seem to be doing as much as they were capable of. They did have a nice, gory wolf carcass. The scene where Mina was forced to drink from Dracula's breast worked well, although the audience tittered again when he ripped his shirt open, and the makeup people didn't powder his torso (or behind his ears, grr) to match the white of his face. Anyway, also impressive: The guy doing Renfield somehow danced an entire scene in a straightjacket.
In general, it was fascinating to observe the ways in which the novel could be transformed into dance, movements as clever metaphors. They stayed pretty faithful to the original plot and characters.catilinarian, I think you would have loved it too.
6.
That was going to be the end of it, but hey, does going to see a filmed performance of the Globe Theatre's production of Doctor Faustus count next week? Arthur Darvill (Rory from Doctor Who) plays Mephistopheles. Should be quite enjoyable if I stay on top of my assignment in the meantime and don't freak out about leisure activities. November is going to be nuts.
...
Thinking of all of you in New York and environs who are still struggling with power outages, lack of heat, gas shortages, etc. Though my mom & co. lost a tree and my dad's household is without power and is expected to remain so for up to two weeks, my family made it through okay.
1.
Last Friday,
ellen_fremedon, cincodemaygirl and alpheratz accepted my invitation to Oyamel, this excellent Mexican tapas place that had a two-week special menu for the Day of the Dead. Amazing food and drinks. We are talking margaritas with ground chocolate and pumpkin purée, a sort of ceviche with diced raw venison heart and cactus and red onion, roast quail stuffed with cactus over a pumpkin seed-based sauce, tiny marinated and barbecued steak tacos, roasted Brussels sprouts with a dusting of ground peanuts and I don't even know what divine, tart sauce… And then desserts like flan and Mexican hot chocolate. Mm. The small plates format means you can try many deliciousnesses without stuffing yourself. Unless you want to stuff yourself. That is also easy to do. If hard on your wallet.2.
Normal weekend with a few highlights like putting together a bookcase with a coworker and keeping horror movie marathons on TV all day in the background (Stephen King, Hammer, Tim Burton, Twilight, etc.). Then we had this, you know, tropical storm/nor'easter, and the office closed for a couple of days but I didn't lose power or Internet, so even with responsibly setting aside a day for the above-mentioned assignment, I had time to fill my last Kink Bingo square, which was going to be a Vampire Diaries story but ended up being that Halloween-appropriate True Blood/The Queen of the Damned vid about hypnotizing/seducing fellow vampires into drinking your queenly blood. Hurrah.
3.
Speaking of vampire vids: Have you seen
thirdblindmouse's new vid, Possession? She set Nosferatu to Sarah McLachlan. It is a thing of beauty and hilarity.4.
My coworkers managed to pull off a potluck/costume party the day we returned to the office, which meant I got to wear a Star Trek dress and black boots in the style of Uhura, only with more modesty. Thank you, thinkgeek.com. Also I made these deviled eggs with orange-colored yolks and spiders made of olives on top, from something I saw on Pinterest.
5.
And today my friend A. and Mr. A. and I went to see a ballet version of Dracula, which... well, the (pre-recorded) music was entirely forgettable, the choreography 75% forgettable, the pacing poor, and the ending sudden and different from the book, but (1) the choreography for Dracula and his various pas de deux was spectacular, as was the man dancing him—bringing his elbows up behind him and his head forward like a bat, switching abruptly from slow and slinking to snake-strike quick when he decided it was time to attack his victims, making these elaborate creepy hand movements while pouring wine or taking someone's hand or touching someone's face or bowing in false obsequiousness, half-crawling and once howling like a wolf, lowering himself from a second-story railing head-first and extending his arms like a bat again, having partners begin mirroring his movements to indicate hypnotism—all very much in line with the book and early film depictions, and deserving of the standing ovation he got at the end, even if it might have been partly because he was the only one who got to do any decent dancing—and (2) they went full-throttle for the dubiously consensual homoerotics of Dracula seducing Harker after banishing the three brides. \o/
In the first scene of the first act, in London, a man in the background of the train station wore a sandwich board sign with the latest news: "Oscar Wilde is released." In the back of my mind I hoped that not only established the time period but meant there'd be some homoerotic subtext. It turned out to be barely subtext! The brides got Harker out of his nightmarishly angled bed, tried to seduce him all across the floor, stripped him of his waistcoat and shirt, and were poised astride and beside him to bite when Dracula appeared and threw them out with a bag of bloody village baby. It was clear that Dracula wanted Harker for himself, but you still could have written that off as non-sexual except that the brides had established a scene of eroticism and the duet that followed did nothing but expand on that. Dracula's hands were all over Harker's body; he straddled him, he lay on top of him and arched; he caressed Harker's bare chest and face and chased him around the room and stroked him and licked his sweat and pushed him down on the bed and made ecstatic faces. Harker fought back, terrified, unable to break Dracula's grip on his wrist or throat, and Dracula held him down again and again, lifted him up, was lifted up in turn, did all these incredible moves like sliding head-first down Harker's back while Harker was still standing, caressing Harker with his feet as he finished. Finally, the lights faded as he bit. Totally gorgeous. Nervous laughter from the audience. End Act One. Similarly sexy-threatening duets later with Lucy and Mina, but nothing like the intensity of this one.
Vampires: still straddling the line between horror and desire.
Man, I would love to see David Hallberg play this Dracula. It would be worth sitting through the listless beginning and the endless tea party again. (After what felt like half an hour, the party at least was made interesting when everything went blue and slow motion as Dracula appeared on a balcony and entranced a spotlighted, normally moving Lucy.) One other saving grace was an ensemble danse macabre in a crypt or mausoleum or graveyard or something, the corps [sic, ha] done up like Helena Bonham Carter in a Tim Burton movie, only bloodier. There was a folk dance as well that had potential, but the dancers were out of sync and didn't seem to be doing as much as they were capable of. They did have a nice, gory wolf carcass. The scene where Mina was forced to drink from Dracula's breast worked well, although the audience tittered again when he ripped his shirt open, and the makeup people didn't powder his torso (or behind his ears, grr) to match the white of his face. Anyway, also impressive: The guy doing Renfield somehow danced an entire scene in a straightjacket.
In general, it was fascinating to observe the ways in which the novel could be transformed into dance, movements as clever metaphors. They stayed pretty faithful to the original plot and characters.
catilinarian, I think you would have loved it too.6.
That was going to be the end of it, but hey, does going to see a filmed performance of the Globe Theatre's production of Doctor Faustus count next week? Arthur Darvill (Rory from Doctor Who) plays Mephistopheles. Should be quite enjoyable if I stay on top of my assignment in the meantime and don't freak out about leisure activities. November is going to be nuts.
...
Thinking of all of you in New York and environs who are still struggling with power outages, lack of heat, gas shortages, etc. Though my mom & co. lost a tree and my dad's household is without power and is expected to remain so for up to two weeks, my family made it through okay.
no subject
Date: Nov. 4th, 2012 03:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 4th, 2012 12:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 4th, 2012 04:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 4th, 2012 12:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 4th, 2012 06:48 pm (UTC)I can see why it would have been wearing to sit through all the parts without Dracula on stage. It's a pity, given the apparently talented dancers and high quality production design that they didn't do better with the group choreography. Of course, I might not be the right person to critique ballet, given that after a certain amount of time I start to get antsy about But where is all the singing?! I may have been exposed to too much opera as a child and too little dance.
no subject
Date: Nov. 4th, 2012 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 4th, 2012 12:49 pm (UTC)But! I did find some clips of it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8vUtOfbbOg
Relevant parts from 2:25-3:20, then brides, then glimpses of Dracula/Harker from 4:00-5:13.
no subject
Date: Nov. 4th, 2012 01:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 4th, 2012 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 4th, 2012 05:37 pm (UTC)