Encore starring Monty Python
It's the end of Winter Term at NCC--likely the last winter term ever, since they're switching to semesters--so it's concert season. Time to hear what Dr. K has done with his kids this time around.
With time to kill, I decided to run a few errands. I needed gas, so I went there first, and sprung for the wash, even though it was a little below freezing. Because what the heck, I have time. Next stop was Target--good because I'd had grapes with my lunch and needed a bathroom; water-based fruits always seem to encourage water production in me--and a stock-up on various vitamins and similar. And walking around looking at various things because what the heck, I have time. When it came time to check out, I went with a standard line rather than self-check because it was closer. There were three lines open, all next to each other. This dad with one of the bigger carseat carts was sort of toggling between two lines for whatever reason, then picked the farthest left line and said to me, this one (meaning middle) is open! I went to the far right one because the lady in the middle seemed like she had a lot of stuff, and then she added even more stuff to her conveyor belt, so okay, the right one should be fine. And it wasn't, because the grandmotherly-type woman at the register was having a full-on conversation with the grandmotherly-type woman buying things at the front of the line, and the buyer apparently was going straight to a party, so the checker was helping sort what was for the party versus what was going home while she was scanning items, and I swear to you they were gift wrapping some of the items while I and the woman in front of me waited--there was a vase-like item being put in tissue paper and then into a gift bag, but this happened while I was deciding between the lines so I wasn't watching, but you know what? I have time. I did, however, feel sorry for the woman in front of me, who had entirely unloaded her cart and was waiting patiently for her turn. I hope she, too, had time to kill.
After another trip to the bathroom, I went to hang out in my car for a bit, figuring I could do my language app. Well, something weird happened, and I think I went to close out of Duolingo, and my phone completely restarted. Uh, I did not touch anything, the power button is on the back, why did you just do that?!? It was super weird. Also super weird: I was parked in a spot just off the aisle that becomes the access road to the area. Buffalo Wild Wings is on one side, McDonald's is on the other, and Target is straight ahead. Well, this car comes down the aisle and stops just before getting to my car. I am parked in such a way so that as soon as I pull out and go left, I'm on the access road to leave. It's like the driver of this other car is expecting me to pull out and is just sitting there waiting for me to do so. It eventually realizes I'm not going to do that, so it pulls forward a couple car lengths...and now I can't pull out at all without hitting them. I mean, I wasn't going to do that, but the car sat there for probably 10 minutes. ...You're in a parking lot. You're surrounded by empty spaces. Why are you stopped in the middle of the road when you could just pull over and do whatever it is that you're doing? I couldn't see inside, and this was around dusk, so it was just weird. The car finally moved because another car came up behind it trying to leave the Target parking lot, which, I mean, is a perfectly normal thing. I was surprised it took as long as it did, actually. It was long enough for a person to pull into a nearby spot, do her shopping, and then return and realize she can't really pull out of her spot and go west because the weird car is *right* there. (I think it drove off right before the lady backed out of her spot, so she didn't end up having to worry about it. But I did see her sort of looking at the other car kind of quizzically.)
I eventually made my way to Wentz, where one of the senior center buses was just pulling away. Oh, boy. I don't recall seeing such a bus at a prior NCC concert, but they come to my band concerts ALLLL the time. (My concerts are free, so that's no surprise. These concerts have a cost.) Of course, the good news is that it meant there was a decent audience waiting for the show...and waiting...and waiting. He likes to warm up his bands until like 10 minutes before the concert. Dude, don't kill their embouchures! And, to wit, some of the ushers and other house staff would come in and out the doors and you'd hear stuff, and people would ask, can we go in yet? Sorry, no, they're still warming up. There was only one usher for a time, and I recognized her from a previous concert; she was taking people's ticket stubs and handing them programs to expedite things, except she was meant to be stationed at one door and had come to the other door (where I was) for whatever reason, and the people on my side were bombarding her with program requests so she kept having to take more ticket stubs. I was just about to open my program and start reading the conductor's notes when the doors opened, so I hurried in to get a good seat. And then, naturally, someone tall had to sit in front of me. Thanks. Yeah, back to the lower level, rats, but it was fine.
I should mention the older lady. She'd come on the bus, and I think she was in the stall next to me in the bathroom, then sort of followed me out of there. She ended up standing next to me while we waited to go inside. She'd asked me a couple questions, which I answered, and then she asked me, did you come on the bus with us? Uh...no. (You and everyone else are twice my age...do I really look that old, or is your prescription just that bad?) She went, oh, I don't know anybody here. Oh...kay. Yeah...I might've walked a bit quickly into the concert hall to beat her in there, though she ended up sitting nearby and I could hear her talking during the major Symphony Band piece. I don't think she got it, that it wasn't a pretty, major-sounding song. (The program notes stated that right out, but the woman said the print was too tiny for her to read.) Oh, gosh, the noises. The activities director for the senior home was like, I have something for everyone! And she started passing out peppermints, I imagine like Starlight mints, because you heard a lot of unwrapping of cellophane during the concert (oh, goody). Then there was the guy behind me who needed to go blow his nose, yet didn't, and spent the entirety of the concert sniffing. Like...this is not why I come to these concerts. I want to hear the music. I don't want to hear you people. Grr. Also, I was really close to one of Dr. K's cameras, so I wonder how much of that was picked up. But it's also how I got to see Dr. K even before the concert. He was just coming off stage when I went and sat down, heading over to turn the camera on. He was all, hey, how's it going? I went, the crowd is getting restless! There's a good amount of people out there! I was amused that he was climbing over the seats to get to the camera. Monkey. You expect the students to pull moves like that, not the professors.
The concert was pretty good. There was a second oboe this time around with the Chamber Players, so yay, it wasn't one person potentially doing the job of two. Their first piece didn't start off well--I was actually concerned, it was kinda that bad--but everything was better from there. Dr. K was the one who went up and talked about the pieces, but in the middle of them. Like, he'd perform one piece, talk about it, introduce the next piece, and be done. (Each group was scheduled to do two songs, though each played a song with several movements.) I had to use the washroom between the groups, and even after taking a minute to decide to go, then figuring out my path out--a folding walker blocked my row, so I had to go through the row behind me; this was next to the sound booth, so there was a little aisle next to me--I still managed to return from the bathroom before a single player from the Symphony Band had come out. Dude, what are you guys doing? But they came out and did really well. Their main piece is based on Prague, which made me sad, and I wonder if he'd picked it out in the hopes of performing it there, or in homage to the trip that didn't happen. It's a pretty powerful piece, plus it starts off with this disjointed piccolo solo, so I automatically liked it. :) I liked the piccolo player, especially since the piccolo was doing a lot of playing in the lower register before jumping up at times. That's not an easy register in which to play and be heard, but you could hear her really well--kudos to the player, the band, and the acoustics at Wentz. They're world-class for a reason. I also give major respect to the trumpets at the beginning, who were muted but played almost impossibly quietly. Just, wow, that was cool. The Symphony Band overall did a really nice job, so that when they finished the Prague piece--and it easily could've been the end of the show--I was sort of like, aw, no encore? So then Dr. K walks back out and goes, how about one more? And they started playing a march. Holy crap, I can tell I've played a ton of marches in the past six years, because I could *completely* sing along to the flute part, but I could not for the life of me remember the name of it. Oh, man, it's by Sousa...it's so common...oh, crap, it's the Monty Python theme song. Why can't I remember its actual title??? I was super frustrated. Finally, the third strain came along, and I was like, Liberty Bell! It's Liberty Bell! Woohoo! Heh. (This was completely confirmed when I saw him holding the score later. But he never announced the title.)
I didn't feel like talking to him in the concert hall, so I waited for him in the lobby...and waited...and waited. Finally he came out and talked to a few families closer to the door; I was across the way, standing by the windows. Eventually he came over and I told him the band sounded fantastic and ended up high-fiving him. He's really impressed that the band is able to play such difficult music, though he said he's giving them a break next term. (Oh, I should mention that he is still putting his baton down between movements, and people are still clapping there, but he has a sort of finishing move to denote that yes, this is finally the end of the song--like a bigger sweeping motion with his arms. I caught it; I don't know if anyone else did.) We talked for about five minutes before we started saying goodbye, and as we hugged I thought to ask him something I'd noticed right off the bat: How come you went with a suit and not a tux? I apparently was not the first person to say this to him; he was all, it's a tux! Really! I'll show you--it has the stripe down the side! And he kind of turned and showed me the shiny stripe down the side of his pants leg. Oh, okay, I said; I did notice this was shiny--and I pointed to the collar of his jacket. See, he was wearing a regular tie, not a bow tie, and I always equate that with a plain old suit. Apparently pairing a regular tie with a tux is now a thing and I have been informed thusly. Like, it's the "in" thing. Well okay then. He seemed to think he'd go back to the bow tie next time around, but who knows. I just thought it was odd. I mean, it didn't look bad (and I'm pretty sure I told him that), but those of us not in the fashion know are set in our ways, I suppose. So...yeah. Learned something yesterday.
With time to kill, I decided to run a few errands. I needed gas, so I went there first, and sprung for the wash, even though it was a little below freezing. Because what the heck, I have time. Next stop was Target--good because I'd had grapes with my lunch and needed a bathroom; water-based fruits always seem to encourage water production in me--and a stock-up on various vitamins and similar. And walking around looking at various things because what the heck, I have time. When it came time to check out, I went with a standard line rather than self-check because it was closer. There were three lines open, all next to each other. This dad with one of the bigger carseat carts was sort of toggling between two lines for whatever reason, then picked the farthest left line and said to me, this one (meaning middle) is open! I went to the far right one because the lady in the middle seemed like she had a lot of stuff, and then she added even more stuff to her conveyor belt, so okay, the right one should be fine. And it wasn't, because the grandmotherly-type woman at the register was having a full-on conversation with the grandmotherly-type woman buying things at the front of the line, and the buyer apparently was going straight to a party, so the checker was helping sort what was for the party versus what was going home while she was scanning items, and I swear to you they were gift wrapping some of the items while I and the woman in front of me waited--there was a vase-like item being put in tissue paper and then into a gift bag, but this happened while I was deciding between the lines so I wasn't watching, but you know what? I have time. I did, however, feel sorry for the woman in front of me, who had entirely unloaded her cart and was waiting patiently for her turn. I hope she, too, had time to kill.
After another trip to the bathroom, I went to hang out in my car for a bit, figuring I could do my language app. Well, something weird happened, and I think I went to close out of Duolingo, and my phone completely restarted. Uh, I did not touch anything, the power button is on the back, why did you just do that?!? It was super weird. Also super weird: I was parked in a spot just off the aisle that becomes the access road to the area. Buffalo Wild Wings is on one side, McDonald's is on the other, and Target is straight ahead. Well, this car comes down the aisle and stops just before getting to my car. I am parked in such a way so that as soon as I pull out and go left, I'm on the access road to leave. It's like the driver of this other car is expecting me to pull out and is just sitting there waiting for me to do so. It eventually realizes I'm not going to do that, so it pulls forward a couple car lengths...and now I can't pull out at all without hitting them. I mean, I wasn't going to do that, but the car sat there for probably 10 minutes. ...You're in a parking lot. You're surrounded by empty spaces. Why are you stopped in the middle of the road when you could just pull over and do whatever it is that you're doing? I couldn't see inside, and this was around dusk, so it was just weird. The car finally moved because another car came up behind it trying to leave the Target parking lot, which, I mean, is a perfectly normal thing. I was surprised it took as long as it did, actually. It was long enough for a person to pull into a nearby spot, do her shopping, and then return and realize she can't really pull out of her spot and go west because the weird car is *right* there. (I think it drove off right before the lady backed out of her spot, so she didn't end up having to worry about it. But I did see her sort of looking at the other car kind of quizzically.)
I eventually made my way to Wentz, where one of the senior center buses was just pulling away. Oh, boy. I don't recall seeing such a bus at a prior NCC concert, but they come to my band concerts ALLLL the time. (My concerts are free, so that's no surprise. These concerts have a cost.) Of course, the good news is that it meant there was a decent audience waiting for the show...and waiting...and waiting. He likes to warm up his bands until like 10 minutes before the concert. Dude, don't kill their embouchures! And, to wit, some of the ushers and other house staff would come in and out the doors and you'd hear stuff, and people would ask, can we go in yet? Sorry, no, they're still warming up. There was only one usher for a time, and I recognized her from a previous concert; she was taking people's ticket stubs and handing them programs to expedite things, except she was meant to be stationed at one door and had come to the other door (where I was) for whatever reason, and the people on my side were bombarding her with program requests so she kept having to take more ticket stubs. I was just about to open my program and start reading the conductor's notes when the doors opened, so I hurried in to get a good seat. And then, naturally, someone tall had to sit in front of me. Thanks. Yeah, back to the lower level, rats, but it was fine.
I should mention the older lady. She'd come on the bus, and I think she was in the stall next to me in the bathroom, then sort of followed me out of there. She ended up standing next to me while we waited to go inside. She'd asked me a couple questions, which I answered, and then she asked me, did you come on the bus with us? Uh...no. (You and everyone else are twice my age...do I really look that old, or is your prescription just that bad?) She went, oh, I don't know anybody here. Oh...kay. Yeah...I might've walked a bit quickly into the concert hall to beat her in there, though she ended up sitting nearby and I could hear her talking during the major Symphony Band piece. I don't think she got it, that it wasn't a pretty, major-sounding song. (The program notes stated that right out, but the woman said the print was too tiny for her to read.) Oh, gosh, the noises. The activities director for the senior home was like, I have something for everyone! And she started passing out peppermints, I imagine like Starlight mints, because you heard a lot of unwrapping of cellophane during the concert (oh, goody). Then there was the guy behind me who needed to go blow his nose, yet didn't, and spent the entirety of the concert sniffing. Like...this is not why I come to these concerts. I want to hear the music. I don't want to hear you people. Grr. Also, I was really close to one of Dr. K's cameras, so I wonder how much of that was picked up. But it's also how I got to see Dr. K even before the concert. He was just coming off stage when I went and sat down, heading over to turn the camera on. He was all, hey, how's it going? I went, the crowd is getting restless! There's a good amount of people out there! I was amused that he was climbing over the seats to get to the camera. Monkey. You expect the students to pull moves like that, not the professors.
The concert was pretty good. There was a second oboe this time around with the Chamber Players, so yay, it wasn't one person potentially doing the job of two. Their first piece didn't start off well--I was actually concerned, it was kinda that bad--but everything was better from there. Dr. K was the one who went up and talked about the pieces, but in the middle of them. Like, he'd perform one piece, talk about it, introduce the next piece, and be done. (Each group was scheduled to do two songs, though each played a song with several movements.) I had to use the washroom between the groups, and even after taking a minute to decide to go, then figuring out my path out--a folding walker blocked my row, so I had to go through the row behind me; this was next to the sound booth, so there was a little aisle next to me--I still managed to return from the bathroom before a single player from the Symphony Band had come out. Dude, what are you guys doing? But they came out and did really well. Their main piece is based on Prague, which made me sad, and I wonder if he'd picked it out in the hopes of performing it there, or in homage to the trip that didn't happen. It's a pretty powerful piece, plus it starts off with this disjointed piccolo solo, so I automatically liked it. :) I liked the piccolo player, especially since the piccolo was doing a lot of playing in the lower register before jumping up at times. That's not an easy register in which to play and be heard, but you could hear her really well--kudos to the player, the band, and the acoustics at Wentz. They're world-class for a reason. I also give major respect to the trumpets at the beginning, who were muted but played almost impossibly quietly. Just, wow, that was cool. The Symphony Band overall did a really nice job, so that when they finished the Prague piece--and it easily could've been the end of the show--I was sort of like, aw, no encore? So then Dr. K walks back out and goes, how about one more? And they started playing a march. Holy crap, I can tell I've played a ton of marches in the past six years, because I could *completely* sing along to the flute part, but I could not for the life of me remember the name of it. Oh, man, it's by Sousa...it's so common...oh, crap, it's the Monty Python theme song. Why can't I remember its actual title??? I was super frustrated. Finally, the third strain came along, and I was like, Liberty Bell! It's Liberty Bell! Woohoo! Heh. (This was completely confirmed when I saw him holding the score later. But he never announced the title.)
I didn't feel like talking to him in the concert hall, so I waited for him in the lobby...and waited...and waited. Finally he came out and talked to a few families closer to the door; I was across the way, standing by the windows. Eventually he came over and I told him the band sounded fantastic and ended up high-fiving him. He's really impressed that the band is able to play such difficult music, though he said he's giving them a break next term. (Oh, I should mention that he is still putting his baton down between movements, and people are still clapping there, but he has a sort of finishing move to denote that yes, this is finally the end of the song--like a bigger sweeping motion with his arms. I caught it; I don't know if anyone else did.) We talked for about five minutes before we started saying goodbye, and as we hugged I thought to ask him something I'd noticed right off the bat: How come you went with a suit and not a tux? I apparently was not the first person to say this to him; he was all, it's a tux! Really! I'll show you--it has the stripe down the side! And he kind of turned and showed me the shiny stripe down the side of his pants leg. Oh, okay, I said; I did notice this was shiny--and I pointed to the collar of his jacket. See, he was wearing a regular tie, not a bow tie, and I always equate that with a plain old suit. Apparently pairing a regular tie with a tux is now a thing and I have been informed thusly. Like, it's the "in" thing. Well okay then. He seemed to think he'd go back to the bow tie next time around, but who knows. I just thought it was odd. I mean, it didn't look bad (and I'm pretty sure I told him that), but those of us not in the fashion know are set in our ways, I suppose. So...yeah. Learned something yesterday.