(no subject)
The last few days have been marked by mild activity that makes me want to get out more. But Anyway...
Friday night my family went out to see Sweeney Todd. Of course we were going the night it opened because we (read: Mom, and me but mostly Mom) are huge fans of the show since we saw it (minimalistically) on Broadway back in March '06. The movie had very few similarities to what I saw on stage (the '05 B-way production had 10 actors doubling as musicians and no set)(after all, it was based on the original '79 production) but even though I only saw the retooled minimalist version (and loved every scary second of it) I can still say that Tim Burton's film adaptation is one of the best stage-to-screen transitions I've ever seen. Though it lacks the sheer power of seeing it on stage, and after all power is stage's big advantage) the actors are great and the filmmakers produced a haunting, eerie version of Victorian England (the cinematography is excellent, there's hardly any color--it's done in a way that Dad says is very popular in photography right now). Many of the songs are improved from their state on the stage ("By the Seaside" was forgettable onstage but brilliant in the movie) but a few suffered (they cut out large portions of the sickly hilarious "A Little Priest" and cut all the lyrics from "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" which makes sense for the intro but come on! it's perfect ending credit music (and the lyrics are some of the bset in the show). All in all a great movie, go see it if you can handle large amounts of blood and singing.
I did do some actual work this weekend by helping Eric Lew on his Eagle Project. As my father is the scoutmaster of the troop I was in (hey wait, I'm an assistant scoutmaster...forgot that) and I'm bored doing some scoutly things would help. Anyway a whole bunch of us went to Russ Pittman park over in Bellaire to level and make wheelchair accessable a large brick patio. This involved prying bricks off the ground, leveling the sand under them, and putting the bricks back in the same order. It was nice to see the guys again and do a little work for the community.
While there on Saturday I found out about the Low Ends concert hapening at SHFL that night as well as the pending closing of SHFL. Realizing this was probably my last chance to go to one of my favorite venues and hopefully see some more people in the process. Some of those folks I got to see were Sean, Garrett, and Nicole. I actually joined them to House of Pies late that night was a little weird for me. I needed to catch up with them for conversation since I hadn't seen any of them in a really long time and couldn't just jump into conversation. Also, there wasn't much ground to relate on as my college experience has obviously been very different.
Christmas really snuck up on me this year. I think there are a lot of reasons for this: a year of unseasonal weather, a long year, geographic shifts, changes in weather, disaffection with commercialism, putting off doing anything christmas related until getting home...it just kind of happened.
So everybody talks about what they got for Christmas. My high points:
not one but two boxed sets from Rhino (The Brit Box (british guitar rock from 1984-1999) and Love is the Song We Sing (San Francisco rock from 65-70))
memory foam pillow
brown corduroy blazer from Territory Ahead
new albums from Nick Lowe, Bruce Springsteen, and Wyclef Jean
The Onion's Our Dumb World (my new favorite atlas)
pull a day calendar counting down the number of days left in Bush's presidency.
Friday night my family went out to see Sweeney Todd. Of course we were going the night it opened because we (read: Mom, and me but mostly Mom) are huge fans of the show since we saw it (minimalistically) on Broadway back in March '06. The movie had very few similarities to what I saw on stage (the '05 B-way production had 10 actors doubling as musicians and no set)(after all, it was based on the original '79 production) but even though I only saw the retooled minimalist version (and loved every scary second of it) I can still say that Tim Burton's film adaptation is one of the best stage-to-screen transitions I've ever seen. Though it lacks the sheer power of seeing it on stage, and after all power is stage's big advantage) the actors are great and the filmmakers produced a haunting, eerie version of Victorian England (the cinematography is excellent, there's hardly any color--it's done in a way that Dad says is very popular in photography right now). Many of the songs are improved from their state on the stage ("By the Seaside" was forgettable onstage but brilliant in the movie) but a few suffered (they cut out large portions of the sickly hilarious "A Little Priest" and cut all the lyrics from "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" which makes sense for the intro but come on! it's perfect ending credit music (and the lyrics are some of the bset in the show). All in all a great movie, go see it if you can handle large amounts of blood and singing.
I did do some actual work this weekend by helping Eric Lew on his Eagle Project. As my father is the scoutmaster of the troop I was in (hey wait, I'm an assistant scoutmaster...forgot that) and I'm bored doing some scoutly things would help. Anyway a whole bunch of us went to Russ Pittman park over in Bellaire to level and make wheelchair accessable a large brick patio. This involved prying bricks off the ground, leveling the sand under them, and putting the bricks back in the same order. It was nice to see the guys again and do a little work for the community.
While there on Saturday I found out about the Low Ends concert hapening at SHFL that night as well as the pending closing of SHFL. Realizing this was probably my last chance to go to one of my favorite venues and hopefully see some more people in the process. Some of those folks I got to see were Sean, Garrett, and Nicole. I actually joined them to House of Pies late that night was a little weird for me. I needed to catch up with them for conversation since I hadn't seen any of them in a really long time and couldn't just jump into conversation. Also, there wasn't much ground to relate on as my college experience has obviously been very different.
Christmas really snuck up on me this year. I think there are a lot of reasons for this: a year of unseasonal weather, a long year, geographic shifts, changes in weather, disaffection with commercialism, putting off doing anything christmas related until getting home...it just kind of happened.
So everybody talks about what they got for Christmas. My high points:
not one but two boxed sets from Rhino (The Brit Box (british guitar rock from 1984-1999) and Love is the Song We Sing (San Francisco rock from 65-70))
memory foam pillow
brown corduroy blazer from Territory Ahead
new albums from Nick Lowe, Bruce Springsteen, and Wyclef Jean
The Onion's Our Dumb World (my new favorite atlas)
pull a day calendar counting down the number of days left in Bush's presidency.