bironic

Fic rec: A second chance at firsts by dollylux. A Marius/Armand story set during and after Prince Lestat, a.k.a. the book that introduced ~medical science~ that allows vampires to have sex. I didn't know how much I wanted this story until it appeared before me. Of course the two of them would go to Fareed for a dose. It's true to the voice of the books. And it's one of those rare experiences where the fic actually seems to be living up to its premise, so much that you keep taking breaks so it doesn't go by too quickly. That said, IMO the build is better than the sex scene.

Music rec: Evening of Roses by Sheku Kanneh-Mason, a 20-year-old black British cellist. I heard a snippet of this during a pledge drive on the local classical radio station and managed to track it down. That's when I learned that it's based on a Jewish song, the Hebrew title being Erev Shel Shoshanim. "Oh, no wonder the harmonies attracted me," said I, only to have that sentiment swiftly change to, "Wow, has everyone heard of this except me?" when the internet revealed its 50+ year history of popular and liturgical recordings. Want the original choir version by Josef Hadar? Harp? Hammer dulcimer? You got it. So finally I settled on the "more cake" philosophy, i.e. "Yay, 50 versions to listen to!" ETA: LOL, it's even been vidded. ETA 2: Twice!

My mom visited the weekend before last, over Rosh Hashanah. I told her about the AO3 Hugo debacle because I was drinking out of the "AO3 Hugo Award Winner" mug that I had (1) ordered a few weeks ago because I thought it was funny in an ironic way, (2) canceled the order on because it started to feel not so funny, (3) got the reimbursement for, and then (4) for some reason received in the mail anyway. In any case: We went to Gloucester that afternoon because my mom is a big fan of the reality show "Wicked Tuna," whose fishermen are based there. Over lunch, we watched two seagulls fight over a fish or possibly a slice of pizza. Deadpan, my mom narrated: "'I won the award.' 'No, I won the award.'"

My dad and stepmom visited this past weekend. He helped me fix a bunch of small to middling things in the apartment, from hanging a large mirror the previous tenant left behind to refinishing two water-stained wood countertops. As a break, we went to see Montreal-based contemporary circus/dance troupe Les Sept Doigts de la Main/7 Fingers, performing their show Passagers/Passengers. Fabulous! Funny and engrossing and all about athletics and grace, trust and teamwork, human alienation and connection through the lens of train travel. Here is an atmospheric trailer and here is a peppy one; both are accurate. The eight-person troupe included five men and three women, such that pairing up in various acts gave us three f/m and one m/m couple. Loved that. Also loved the variety of body types, all at peak fitness, from the solidness of the hooper to the lithe height of the tightrope walker.

A sweet new year and an easy fast to fellow Yom Kippur observers.

WATCHING

So much stuff while alpheratz visited.

The ten 11 episodes that've aired so far of the Taiwanese m/m dramedy HIStory3 – Trapped, one of her current fandoms. It's like if someone wrote an earnest but naïve AU where the original high school-aged characters become either police detectives or gangsters and half of them are in clueless love with the other half, only that's the canon. I liked the clam who started needing to fight to keep the amusement from his expression at the antics and/or obliviousness of his crush, whose ears recall Colin Morgan's as Merlin.

Our first episodes of Hot Ones, the YouTube show where celebrities eat a series of increasingly spicy wings between interview questions. We started with Jeff Goldblum, because Jeff Goldblum, and also because the emcee at a recent Jeff Goldblum-themed burlesque modeled her between-act hot wings schtick on his episode. Warning for "daddy" language at the YouTube link, which also featured prominently in the burlesque commentary. :( Our favorite, however, was Gordon Ramsay, hands down. After skipping ahead to when the spice started kicking in, we hurt ourselves laughing. I see we still have contestants like Michael B. Jordan, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Key & Peele and Charlize Theron to look forward to.

The Kenyan f/f movie Rafiki. Enjoyed. Much lingering on beautiful faces, much detail of a few families' lives on the outskirts of Nairobi. Tricky for those seeking happy LGBT+ media, although where the ending falls on the spectrum of happiness or unhappiness depends on your perspective, and we are, after all, talking about a film that was largely banned in its originating country, where you can be imprisoned for 10+ years for having same-sex relations, according to *cough* the movie's Wikipedia page. Hope to hear from hermionesviolin or others who went to a special screening last night with guest commentary.

The sweet and uplifting Turkish documentary Kedi. If I'd known the movie was not simply about following street cats around Istanbul but also about the people who care for them and those people's views on life, I'd have watched it sooner. But the delay paid off in that I was able to experience it with someone who loves cats. A heartening portrait of community building and doing right by others, including animals.

Half of the Netflix show Special. We appreciated the importance of what it's doing, but the secondhand embarrassment, prominence of plots involving lying and coercion, self-conscious overuse of slang, and focus on the physical aspects of relationships proved too much.

And more, including this week's Game of Thrones episode, which I enjoyed, and which served as payback for Trapped since alpheratz got invested despite not having seen any of the show before. Anything further on GoT requires its own post.

ETA: and here it is; warning for S8 spoilers.

Thing I did not catch: The DS9 documentary What We Left Behind. I can't believe its only theatrical showing nationwide was last night! I've been enjoying the sprinkle of reactions and screencaps on Twitter but would very much like to see the whole thing when it's released on DVD or whatnot.

VIDDING

Nothing at the moment, although I'd like to make the sports movie vid in time for the FanWorksCon dance party deadline next month. (I can't seem to bring myself to call the party by its proper name of Sparkle Motion. As if its silliness detracts from the work that goes into the submissions. My issue to deal with.)

I don't think I've described the roadblock? Aside from time and desire, that is. Just that I'm trying an editing experiment that makes use of a small source list when those sources are an idiosyncratic drop in the ocean of sports movies, and I don't know how to explain-slash-justify the selection. Part of my brain knows it shouldn't matter, but another part wants a defense ready when someone complains. This was supposed to be a way to loosen up...

Spotify subscription continues to do its job of building playlists and sparking new vid song ideas. Unfortunately, those ideas refuse to align with current projects or sources I'd ever planned to vid. :) The second one so far is a moody female-vocalist folk song I think would be great for Jon Snow or the whole Stark family on Game of Thrones, but I do not want to make it myself. Too bad a handful of vidding auctions closed earlier this spring, or I could've pitched it to killabeez or sisabet or someone.

READING

Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It Now by Jane Burka & Lenora Yuen, a self-help book about various roots of procrastination, what it does for different people, and how readers might address their particular issues. Early pages seemed simplistic until the authors would come at you with stuff like 'when you consider a single piece of work as representing your entire capability, and you equate your capability with your worth as a person, then of course delaying completion of the project helps you put off confronting the fear that you're unlovable.' Now to find out whether the second half—the advice portion—has useful ideas that translate into effective behaviors. And yes, the running joke with friends and colleagues has been, "Have you read it yet?"

The book-length poem IRL by Tommy Pico, mostly because I wanted the foundation before reading Nature Poem, the second of four books so far in the series. It's strange reading on page what seems more like performance poetry; it's too bad our library doesn't have an audiobook version. I liked the excerpt from Nature Poem about the white ladies in the Museum of Natural History that appeared in New Poets of Native Nations, and Pico's audio version, recorded, ironically, for a museum exhibit, which Heid Erdrich played for us at the New Poets book event last fall, made the experience all the better.

Recently finished:

- Storm of Locusts by Rebecca Roanhorse
- The True Queen by Zen Cho
- The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie

They were all fine. If I were feeling better in the head, I'd probably label them "good."

Going to see Karen Russell (Swamplandia!, Vampires in the Lemon Grove) tomorrow with disgruntled_owl.

(Back to the strategy of posting about single, manageable topics. If "tell friends about Readercon!" feels like too much today, I shall instead share a happy discovery.)

I don't know why any of you would remember this, but hey, anyone remember a year ago spring when I admitted to a 24-hour crush on a long-haired actor in a music video*--one with just the right combination of sexy and scary (+ minor chords) to coincide with That Feeling**?

*"I Found" by Amber Run; warning for abduction plotline

**which at this point I should just call "maybe-aura" or something more articulate

Well, last night I was going through some favorited YouTube videos--which I don't remember to do often enough; it was nice--and watched that one some more. It inspired me to try again to find the actor's name. I hadn't had any luck last year, but this time either I did it right or there was new information out there. Lo: His name is Jon Campling.



Knowing a name means being able to check IMDB, which says he's been in a bunch of indie movies and commercials, so there are more things I can check out to enjoy his face. And, hey--turns out I already have, because he was the Christopher Lee-looking Death Eater who stopped the Hogwarts Express train in Deathly Hallows Pt 1! See also this. And I guess Final Fantasy XV players might know him as King Regis?

It also transpires that he's from my extended family's hometown in Hull, England. ♥

Today I learned that he has a Twitter. A quick scroll revealed that a fringe play he's in is coming to NYC in September! So, uh, I'm quite tempted to go see it, since this 24-hour crush doesn't seem to be 24 hours anymore and tickets are all of, appropriately, $24. It doesn't sound like something I'd normally pick out of a lineup, but Campling does play Satan....

NYC friends, does anyone want to see a random off-Broadway play called TRIPPIN on the evening of Saturday 9/9? There's another interesting-looking one that afternoon called MENGELE.

ETA: Reader, I met him.

Doing

Working a lot at work. Consequently, doing not a lot at home. My proposed promotion is still moving forward, although not approved yet. But I'm sad about feeling vaguely unwell so often. (No advice needed; docs have been consulted.) On the tail end of one of these periodic weeks of poor sleep, I had a gross dream about a manager in the office and had trouble looking at him yesterday. Then today my laptop died! Only I looked up the "symptoms" on my phone and fixed it via a method that indicated it was only an issue of built-up static charge, whew. We had an Arctic front sweep through last night; the same dry air made my lip split when I went to the library this afternoon.

Last weekend featured Boston fan brunch, always good, followed by fangirl movie night at thedeadparrot's, in this case Dune, for which serenadestrong made a spectacular sand worm spice bread. On the downside, a friend moved away to NYC, and the whole weekend felt vaguely unreal because my ear was plugged for uninteresting reasons, so until these drops from CVS cleared it up I was half deaf and felt slightly feverish, maybe because I associate plugged-up ears with being sick.

...This is the kind of post people used to make fun of when they talked about the banality of blogging. I will stop complaining.


Vidding

No, wait, I will complain about one more thing, because it is upsetting me: Last Saturday YouTube blocked the Ancillary Justice trailer in the U.S. and Canada because of the DhakaBrakha audio snippets (although it's still up on Vimeo), and then last night Vimeo took down Starships! because of the Nicki Minaj song (although it's still up on YouTube) -- no warning, just down, with an email explanation of the copyright claim.

Things I have done:
- Emailed the OTW's legal team to see if they have experience helping vidders contest copyright claims for music rather than video clips
- Emailed the Vimeo support team to gripe about the sudden takedown and to request screen shots of the comments and last known view counts
- Asked vidding friends on Twitter for advice
- Added the YouTube link for Starships! to the biggest Tumblr post that's been circulating, although who knows if people will see it
- Begun preparing points to make in the appeals

I believe the book trailer has a better shot of being reinstated because it only uses a small portion of the full song and isn't competing with the original. Starships! I'm not super hopeful about, in the same way I haven't been hopeful about previous copyright matches for vids that got denied upon initial upload, and that sucks, because vids are clearly transformative works and I wish I could articulate how video clips transform the audio (rather than vice versa), or form a gestalt with it that the song wouldn't have done alone.

Meanwhile, I requested a song for Club Vivid and it got approved, although I'm not sure I can make it in time because of the scope of one of my Fandom Trumps Hate auction vids, which I am going to post about soon because I could use your help.


Reading

Those SF/F compendia. Also Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor. I liked Binti a lot and was pleased to learn of the sequel, which was also good, except for how it's a CLIFFHANGER, sigh.

Next up, The Dream-quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson, because the Nebula nominees were announced and some of the novellas looked interesting.


Watching

This week I got to see a performance of Tennessee Williams' Night of the Iguana featuring Amanda Plummer and James Earl Jones! More on that later, I think. We do not often get New York-caliber dramas in Boston, so that was a treat.

Also a bunch of random movies that I will not list exhaustively but that included 13th, just as powerful as advertised; some movies my sister and I used to watch all the time as kids but that I hadn't seen since then (Annie [1982] and The Neverending Story); Cloud Atlas, which was terrible in different ways from the book (the racebending makeup was creepy and wrongsighted); and Child 44, an action film that was utterly unremarkable except for its cast: Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Charles Dance, Noomi Rapace, Vincent Cassel and Fares Fares. It took place in Stalin-era Moscow and Volsk so of course they cast Brits, a Frenchman, a Swede and a Lebanese Swede and made them speak in "Russian" accents.

Want to see Get Out and Logan. My sister will be visiting next weekend and we plan to take care of at least one of those.


Listening

Stephen Thompson at NPR released this year's Austin 100, a batch of songs by artists he recommends ahead of SXSW. I usually find a handful of vid songs in these -- among the 2016 recs I found this year's Club Vivid song, the song I used for the Chris Hadfield vid, and the song I'm going to use for the Mary Sue vampire vid -- and am looking forward to this new collection.


Writing

Posts and emails, mostly. Did I mention that over Presidents' weekend I added some pages to some very old Mary Sue fics? It felt good to get words out and to extend those stories a little, even with the inevitable self-criticism over things like "Why did it take you all day to write two pages?" and "Why are you still thinking about teenage fantasies?"


Off to disgruntledowl's for dinner/movie. I made brownies. Before that, I made some mashed cauliflower. The apartment smells very confused.

Hope you are having good weekends.

Went: To cinco and R.'s wedding, and it was so, so lovely, the ceremony, the celebration, the morning-after brunch, seeing them so happy. As well as the concentration of most of my DC-area friends in one place. deelaundry was able to meet for a last-minute lunch and then was kind enough to drive me from the airport to alpheratz's where I was staying. So I got to catch up with them and corbae and then see ellen_fremedon and jrho and holli and sansets and siegeofangels and inlovewithnight and v_greyson and S. whose online handle I can't remember, and ♥.

Watching: Finished Great British Bake-Off, alas. alpheratz & corbae were (re)watching S1 of Hannibal over the weekend so I saw some episodes of that. At first I found it too dramatic to take seriously, but the one with the girl who thought she was dead ended up suitably creepy and suspenseful. Now I guess it's back to S5 of Gilmore Girls.

Listening: Took advantage of the plane rides to finally listen to the Hamilton soundtrack so I can follow what everyone on Twitter (it feels like) is talking about. It's a brilliant artistic achievement that, arguably even more so than 1776, brings a set of American historical figures to life for today's audiences, like translating Shakespeare into modern vernacular. Other people have talked about the importance and the joy of the casting, and the multiple levels on which the use of rap and hip hop works.

Especially as someone who strives to do similar things in a different field for my job, I love what it's doing for students of history, or students who don't know they're into history. What better way to teach kids -- or anyone -- the formalities of dueling than through "Ten Duel Commandments"? What more engaging way to portray what it might really have been like in early government meetings than "Cabinet Battle #1" ("I'll show you where my shoe fits"/"whatever the hell it is you do at Monticello")? How many more people now have heard of Hercules Mulligan?

It's funny, it's dramatic, it's informative, it's catchy, it's smart. It's clearly inspiring people to talk about these characters and look up historical documents, and it's calling out themes related to modern society as well as the universal human condition. That said, I find that my appreciation for the soundtrack is intellectual; I don't share fan friends' emotional attachments to various characters and relationships, which are themselves another indicator of Miranda's success. Maybe it's a function of only having listened once straight through without reading lyrics, not having been able to tell all the characters apart, not having seen any bodies interacting on stage? Maybe it's that I'm not generally a big fan of musicals? Maybe it's just the way I'm going to connect or not connect with this particular text.

I'm glad to have the mp3 files, anyway, and to be able to experience the show in some way when getting tickets is not feasible right now. Some of the tracks I've found particularly fabulous so far are the two above, "Right Hand Man" (boom! and that neigh!), "Wait For It," "Guns and Ships" (Lafayette!), maybe also "Stay Alive" and "Hurricane." Also kind of hilarious the way King George's numbers sound like songs by Mika.

Doing: Fall/winter arts calendar is picking up. We are going to see a live-scored version of Nosferatu tomorrow night at the symphony. Then National Theatre Live's syndicated Hamlet in December, as well as Joanna Newsom with Alela Diane as opener, whee. Hat tip to ldthomps for letting me know about the concert while we were hanging out Tuesday with a visiting ignaz.

Vidding: On hold for just a few more days until Festivids assignments go out. Only two of the things I offered have been requested so far, which is weird, since all but one were for things other people nominated. I guess more people than I would have expected nominate fandoms that they want to offer rather than receive? In many ways this process felt pleasanter before I was on Twitter and knew about the back-end signups tracking page.

Coping: I was feeling pretty down last week and over the weekend because of this health news. synn, deelaundry and alpheratz are good friends who lent sympathetic ears. Still, the emotional fragility persisted, and on Monday (I took a day off to recover from the weekend trip) I started writing a Mary Sue story set in an AU I constructed last year, almost certainly never to see the light of the internet, to work through stuff. And... it seems to be working? I mean, in combination with taking recommended RL actions, but I think it really has helped. Having Mary Sue voice my insecurities and sadnesses while vampire prince charming offers reassurances. Because while I'm hard on myself, apparently I can write someone being nice to Mary Sue!me. Talk about the power of creative writing. ♥

Dear Festividder and anyone who might like to make a treat*:

*I would love a treat! You don't have to be an official Festivids participant to make treats, did you know? Rules and schedule at festivids.net.

( A Simple Twist of Fate )

( Take Shelter )

( What Maisie Knew )

( Stranger By the Lake )

( Robot and Frank )

( Dracula – NBC )

( Immortel: Ad Vitam )

& some general thoughts:

I like celebrating shows and movies that make me happy, but just as much I like queering texts, whether it's pairing characters who aren't paired in canon or inverting themes or highlighting kink or drawing attention to minor characters or changing the tone or telling a different story using the same footage. I like joyful and I like dark and I like sexy.

Really hope you aren't looking for specific song recommendations, heh. Whatever you choose will be the right music. If you're at sea, though, here's an attempt to describe my tastes: ( Music thoughts )

In case they're helpful in conveying preferences, my own vids are here at AO3/tagged on LJ, and some vid recs are here.

All that said: We've been matched because we both like something, so whatever you choose to do will be wonderful.

As an early Father's Day gift, I got my dad and E. and myself tickets through work to attend Film Night at the Boston Pops with guest conductor John Williams. They drove up and we went on Friday. It was such a treat to hear live performances of, in particular, the Jurassic Park main theme, a Harry Potter medley, and the Star Wars opening credits music (first finale) and the Imperial March (first encore) by the man who wrote them and some of the musicians who recorded the original soundtracks.

A quarter of the way through, the strangest thing happened: The concert turned into Club Vivid.

A screen came down and they started showing clips from movies that related to the music being played. The first, a montage of D-Day scenes from WWII films, was as sentimental as the closing hymn being played from Saving Private Ryan, and it fell somewhere in between a slide show and a fanvid. Then they did one that was just scenes from various Olympic Games, which was actually more interesting than the music, because elite athletes are amazing.

But then -- then, in the second half of the program, they did a trio of video-music pairings that paid tribute to dance in film, and the first and third were honest to goodness fanvids that could have been shown at Vividcon to great cheer. My favorite was the first, a "multi-source vid" of tango scenes from decades of movies, ranging from Fred Astaire to The Addams Family, set to the tango music from Scent of a Woman. The third was all follies/fun dancing from musicals, like Chicago and Singin' in the Rain, although no Newsies. Both of those did their job right in not only being aligned to but also interacting with the music. (The second one was just uncut segments of the dream sequence in An American in Paris, set to music from... An American in Paris.)

Rousing applause for those. It was such a 'teachable moment'; I wished from my seat in the second balcony that there were some way to retroactively include a note in the program like "If you liked these, you'd love...." :D

Now I want the inverted version of karaoke vid show where we get live musical accompaniment! It was neat to see how Williams kept the timing right, with a digital screen in front of his music stand that displayed the vid plus a bar scrolling from left to right with every other measure.

*

I probably can't afford to go to Vividcon this year, but I am going to con.txt this coming weekend. Thanks, past self, for pre-registering! Looking forward to several of the meta panels (do I have to tumblr?; bi-invisibility; dubcon; supernatural creatures and the law; Small Fandom Dating Game and fannish Pictionary; vid show; support group for small fandom and between-fandom fans; etc.) and especially to seeing D.C.-area fan friends again, most of them for the first time since I moved back north 9 months ago.

Does anyone know when-abouts vividcon is going to post the themes for this year's vid shows? Seems late, no? I'm having trouble focusing on what my next project should be from about six options in various stages of (non-)completion, and knowing that one could fit a vid show theme would help.

.

Went to see two enjoyable things this weekend:

1.

Masters of Tradition, a touring concert with some of Ireland's best musicians and my favorite male Irish singer from back in the Afro Celt Sound System days, Iarla O'Lionaird. This being about the roots of Irish music rather than contemporary world fusion, he did stripped-down sean nos pieces and a beautiful rendition of "Siuil a Ruin." I like him best when he lets his voice open up.

Other favorites included a haunting performance of "Gol na mBan san Ar" (The Lament of the Women at the Slaughter) by David Power on an antique set of uilleann pipes. (This is the melody, but imagine it five times smoother.) (daasgrrl, cover your ears.) Also the entire pre-intermission set with brilliant fiddler Martin Hayes and accompanying guitarist Dennis Cahill, but particularly the sea shanty-ish slip jig from 14:30-16:25 and the really fast stuff in the last two minutes. Last, a fun Celtic interpretation of George Frederick "Patrick" Handel's "The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba" from the Mairtin O'Connor trio.

O'Connor offered a music joke while Hayes tuned up later: "If you have the right key, you can get into any flat." Retort from bandmate Seamie O'Dowd: "If you're sharp, you can also get into any flat."

The other funny thing was I'd been sitting there thinking about how yet another benefit of living in the Boston area again is the rich Irish arts culture, and how if I'd still been in DC I probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to hear Iarla et al. But then O'Dowd related an anecdote about how, just the night before, they'd played in Silver Spring and cheered at the sight of Sligo Avenue.

2.

Muppets Most Wanted. They had me at the Swedish Chef's Seventh Seal reference. Also, so many cameos, in keeping with the Muppet Show of yore. (Me: Who's that guy in the gulag who looks like Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords? IMDB: Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords.) It was funny, and I enjoyed the Have you seen this chicken?-style gag. Only major complaint is that it did better at those cameos and genre spoofs and international relations jokes and meta references than it did at having a heart-driven plot or consistently good songs. (Compare the excellent interrogation number to the "I'm #1/You're #2" duet or Tina Fey's intro.) Also, same as the last movie, the sound balance was off so it was often hard to hear the lyrics. But it did come back around to the heart in the end.

Also also, Muppet CGI = NO. Part of the charm of the Muppets is practically being able to feel the texture of the puppets -- Kermit's fuzz, Rolf's ears, Fozzie's fur, Scooter's plastic eyes, Piggy's hair -- and seeing the wires when they do whole-body shots. The bit with Constantine the ninja worked because it was supposed to be ridiculous, but doing Kermit in CGI so he could tap dance on a bannister not only looked bad, it took some of the fun out of it.

I haven't been reading much poetry these last few years, but some of the best I've encountered in that time are songs by Joanna Newsom. Behind the cuts are two of my favorites, including the first one I ever heard, the remarkable "Emily." Joanna's voice isn't for everyone, I know, but she's a demon on the harp, and the way she spins out stories and plays with the sounds and rhythms and textures of words—not to mention her ease with vocabulary—whew. I don't always know what it means, but I sure like listening to it.

( Emily (12:10, 850 words) )

( Sawdust and Diamonds (9:07, 683 words) )

Thank you, rubberbutton and recrudescence, for introducing me to her music.

Who are your favorite poet-songwriters these days?

The rest of 2013 had better be less exciting than the first two weeks of it. Otherwise I am in for a year of (ETA: minor, even humorous in retrospect) run-ins with the law, awkward romantic prospects, glancing blows from deer, hacked accounts, insects, insomnia, tech troubles, and a roller coaster of nutrition and physical activity success. On the upside, it would be a year of fannish productivity, more frequent than usual get-togethers with my sister, high quality media intake, successful financial negotiation, promising new leadership at the office, enjoyable social gatherings, and a super-tidy apartment.

All by way of saying that life has been interesting lately. Today, at least, everything appears to be fine. Last night I got to hang out with my sister for the second time in as many weeks, this time in the company of Kris Allen & his group, last time with a cool band called Delta Rae, whose soul/gospel-y song Bottom of the River—especially the bass-pounding, drumstick-cracking live version, which sounds more like this (wait for it at 1:52)—caught my ear. Here are a couple of pictures I took because it was cool to see the stage from the side:




At the 9:30 Club, with opener Jillette Johnson (my sister's current employer); click for bigger




At Jammin' Java, ditto


Dee and I went to this thing called Nerd Nite over the weekend at a club. The two of three lectures we stayed to hear were entertaining and chock full of trivia about gonads and architects, but otherwise the whole event was an organizational disaster. Let us not dwell on it.

How about a movie recommendation for ballet fans: First Position. Anyone else seen it? It followed the standard structure for competition documentaries, except as opposed to something like Jig, all the featured kids, aged 9 to 18, were mature and sympathetic. Not to mention excellent classical and/or modern dancers.

Also, the American Ballet Theatre has a filmed performance of The Dream (a 45-minute ballet version of A Midsummer Night's Dream) available on Netflix, which was cool to be able to finally see. Ethan Stiefel was all right as Oberon; he and Alessandra Ferri as Titania looked wobbly and straining to me, although apparently I am in the minority for that opinion. Herman Cornejo stole the show as an acrobatic Puck, and there was some fun choreography for the two mortal couples' antics. Beautiful costuming, too, as the promo shot promised.

Something I am looking forward to: Three days until festivids goes up! That means 100+ new vids to watch, comments from recipients on the five (!) vids I made, and the thing I always somehow forget: that there will be a vid for meeee.