A milliHelen is defined as the precise amount of beauty required to launch one ship
Right, so, the concert. Sorry, all, it's been busy.
No, you don't replace Freddie Mercury. You don't try. (You do, however, pay tribute to him with video and photo montages, as well as using a concert recording of him for the opening verses of "Bohemian Rhapsody." It's only right.)
However, Paul Rodgers did quite a respectable job. He did do the microphone stand thing that Freddie used to do, which cracked me up. He couldn't quite handle all the vocal gymnastics, but I didn't expect him to. What I expected was an energetic and musically sound performance, and that's what I got. They kept the distortion levels low for an arena that size, which was nice because all those famous harmonies came through really well. ("Fat Bottomed Girls" in particular sounded fantastic.)
And they ripped up "Hammer to Fall." Wow. The first couple verses were practically unrecognizable except for the lyrics, because Brian started it out by himself in a new, intense, slow version of which I would very much like a recording (he's got a much stronger voice in concert than I would have predicted based on how soft-spoken he usually comes off); then, once they did ramp it up, the transition was blistering.
The audience reaction started off a little tepid, because, let's face it, most of us were there primarily to see Queen and they started off with one of Paul Rodgers' songs that I didn't actually recognize. But things got going pretty quickly, helped for me by the fact that we had pretty decent seats, only a couple rows back from the main floor (which had already sold out by the time Mom was able to get tickets, she tells me, or she would have tried for the more expensive ones). We spent the entire concert on our feet, although, much like at Bruce Springsteen and E Street lo these many years ago, Mom and I were the only ones in the immediate vicinity actually dancing at all. Guess that's what happens when you like 'old people' music. ^_^ Oh, and Dad started a trend; during "These Are the Days of Our Lives," a couple people brought out lighters, but they were remarkably scarce (Mom says, "You can tell we've all quit smoking," not that she ever did), so Dad, ever the smartass, took out his cell phone and started waving the lighted screen around. Ninety seconds later I could see a sea of cell phones in the air, all the way down to the front. It was, um, kind of disturbing, actually.
----
Also, Wisconsin-Madison visit. I like it there a lot. Everyone was really friendly, and one professor in particular seems to really want to add me to his research team, although I fell into my usual trap of finding everything fascinating.
A group of current grad students took some of the prospectives out bowling on Friday night (their Union plays good music at their Cosmic Bowling, by the way; Yes, the Who, Clapton, Springsteen, the Beatles), 5 grads and 5 prospies. So, since we had even teams, we made it a competition. I got a strike in my first frame, so, of course, I followed it up with two gutterballs >_<; still, I bowled an 86 and as a whole we beat them by 40.
There were four of us from KU there, me, Shawn, Hannah, and David. We travel in packs, it seems. And Shawn pulled a Shawn; the Union is on the lake, and so he was out by the water. Apparently there's a wharf back there, so there are steps that lead down to the water. Apparently Shawn assumed there would be something at the bottom of those steps. Apparently he stepped off the end and wound up waist-deep in the lake. Sounds typical from the man who decided learning to juggle with oranges would be a good idea.
I also picked up a few good new bad math jokes at lunch with a small group of grads and prospectives on Saturday. The title of this post is one; another is as follows (this one had the lot of us howling with laughter in the middle of a very small restaurant, which is possibly the best part of the whole thing):
'So e^x is walking down the street when he comes across a constant function running toward him, looking over his shoulder in a panic. The constant tells him, "There's a differential operator up that way! If he operates on me, I'll become zero! It'll be awful!" e^x says, "Well, that's okay, I'm e^x. He can operate on me all day and I'll still be e^x."
'So e^x swaggers on up the street, goes up to the differential operator, and challengingly introduces himself; "Hey there, Mr. Differential Operator. I'm e^x."
'"Hi, e^x. I'm d/dy."'
No, you don't replace Freddie Mercury. You don't try. (You do, however, pay tribute to him with video and photo montages, as well as using a concert recording of him for the opening verses of "Bohemian Rhapsody." It's only right.)
However, Paul Rodgers did quite a respectable job. He did do the microphone stand thing that Freddie used to do, which cracked me up. He couldn't quite handle all the vocal gymnastics, but I didn't expect him to. What I expected was an energetic and musically sound performance, and that's what I got. They kept the distortion levels low for an arena that size, which was nice because all those famous harmonies came through really well. ("Fat Bottomed Girls" in particular sounded fantastic.)
And they ripped up "Hammer to Fall." Wow. The first couple verses were practically unrecognizable except for the lyrics, because Brian started it out by himself in a new, intense, slow version of which I would very much like a recording (he's got a much stronger voice in concert than I would have predicted based on how soft-spoken he usually comes off); then, once they did ramp it up, the transition was blistering.
The audience reaction started off a little tepid, because, let's face it, most of us were there primarily to see Queen and they started off with one of Paul Rodgers' songs that I didn't actually recognize. But things got going pretty quickly, helped for me by the fact that we had pretty decent seats, only a couple rows back from the main floor (which had already sold out by the time Mom was able to get tickets, she tells me, or she would have tried for the more expensive ones). We spent the entire concert on our feet, although, much like at Bruce Springsteen and E Street lo these many years ago, Mom and I were the only ones in the immediate vicinity actually dancing at all. Guess that's what happens when you like 'old people' music. ^_^ Oh, and Dad started a trend; during "These Are the Days of Our Lives," a couple people brought out lighters, but they were remarkably scarce (Mom says, "You can tell we've all quit smoking," not that she ever did), so Dad, ever the smartass, took out his cell phone and started waving the lighted screen around. Ninety seconds later I could see a sea of cell phones in the air, all the way down to the front. It was, um, kind of disturbing, actually.
----
Also, Wisconsin-Madison visit. I like it there a lot. Everyone was really friendly, and one professor in particular seems to really want to add me to his research team, although I fell into my usual trap of finding everything fascinating.
A group of current grad students took some of the prospectives out bowling on Friday night (their Union plays good music at their Cosmic Bowling, by the way; Yes, the Who, Clapton, Springsteen, the Beatles), 5 grads and 5 prospies. So, since we had even teams, we made it a competition. I got a strike in my first frame, so, of course, I followed it up with two gutterballs >_<; still, I bowled an 86 and as a whole we beat them by 40.
There were four of us from KU there, me, Shawn, Hannah, and David. We travel in packs, it seems. And Shawn pulled a Shawn; the Union is on the lake, and so he was out by the water. Apparently there's a wharf back there, so there are steps that lead down to the water. Apparently Shawn assumed there would be something at the bottom of those steps. Apparently he stepped off the end and wound up waist-deep in the lake. Sounds typical from the man who decided learning to juggle with oranges would be a good idea.
I also picked up a few good new bad math jokes at lunch with a small group of grads and prospectives on Saturday. The title of this post is one; another is as follows (this one had the lot of us howling with laughter in the middle of a very small restaurant, which is possibly the best part of the whole thing):
'So e^x is walking down the street when he comes across a constant function running toward him, looking over his shoulder in a panic. The constant tells him, "There's a differential operator up that way! If he operates on me, I'll become zero! It'll be awful!" e^x says, "Well, that's okay, I'm e^x. He can operate on me all day and I'll still be e^x."
'So e^x swaggers on up the street, goes up to the differential operator, and challengingly introduces himself; "Hey there, Mr. Differential Operator. I'm e^x."
'"Hi, e^x. I'm d/dy."'