Theatre, Gaming, and Climbing
I'm out of the loop as to what's on Broadway: what's the point when it's all celebrity revivals and Foo: The Musical? Except I'm very glad that iAE told me about Alan Cummings' "one man" version of Macbeth: if someone as incisive as she is willing to drive to NYC for a day trip to see the show, I could scare up the $$$. I use the air quotes bc it's set in a mental hospital, with Cummings babbling the entire show to himself, but there are 2 actors playing the doctor and the orderly and occasionally interacting with him. It was excellent in the same way as Matilda, pushing the envelope of what is possible in the medium with innovative staging, but ultimately not quite connecting with me. The opening of the show was perfect, with Cummings silently being admitted to the hospital in a state of shock, being undressed from the outside world, his belongings put in evidence bags, and being dressed in a white uniform. In this context, the opening line of the play, "When shall we three meet again?" is absolutely perfect. Unfortunately, that's the last comprehensible thing that happened for the next 40mins, so I napped. The problem is, the play goes from less realistic to more realistic. Cummings is fantastic at accents and at flipping his body language for every new speaker, but with only one person delivering the lines, I couldn't figure out who was speaking, except by remembering the play from my freshman high school English class. (It probably didn't help to have Forbidden Broadway's satire of I Am My Own Wife in my head the whole time.) Once it got back to my level of comprehension, the special effects, the frame tale, and the gore highlighted the violence in a way I hadn't appreciated when I first read the play. I highly recommend it.
I can't seem to find my original review of The Little Mermaid; short version is, while the special effects were pretty good, I hated a lot about the plot. But then meledy said the Paper Mill Playhouse revival made significant changes and was being floated as a new revival. Paper Mill doubled down on the changes to the plot where Ursula is Triton's sister and even gave her a song about killing her sisters to get the throne; I dislike that Eric is basically a MacGuffin who doesn't participate in the denouement. That said, it was a very good show, with more tuneful songs and some cute slapstick: I hope it does well and goes on to Broadway, like the last show I saw at PMP with Julian, Newsies.
Thurs, Julian, Junior, and I went climbing at the Gunks with one of my favorite guides, SR. I've climbed with him on multiple occasions, but I'd never seen him with a child before. He's great! He kept an eye on her emotional needs, took her on climbs where she could be successful, and even free soloed a 5.5 (while belaying her!!) so he could talk her through the hard parts. I'd never been to the "AMC slabs" before, but it's basically a high angle slope at the beginning of the cliffs, the perfect place to take a calm child. SR talked her through the whole thing, then let Julian and I belay each other 2-3 times on the easy, but somewhat interesting climbs. There aren't many places in the world with a 5.3 roof. Then he took us over to Jackie. I led Jackie 50 weeks ago, but after climbing it on top-rope with SR, I don't understand how. There were enough hard moves that I worried about falling. SR had kindly set Classic so I wouldn't get bored, and I styled up it. He gave us our choice of what to do next, so we ended up climbing Radcliffe, which is considered fourth class, as a 4-person multi-pitch team. Junior got a taste of multi-pitch climbing and he made me climb in non-sticky boots as mountaineering practice. No wonder Junior declared the day her proudest achievement. Afterward, we went to the Gilded Otter for cheese curds and blueberry beer. Yum!
Fri I had back to back meetings, before getting drunk (on two glasses of wine) and watching Downton Abbey. Sat morning, we got up at 6am to drive to Boston. Julian found a wormhole, so we had time to walk around West Campus. I hadn't been to the new MIT Museum and maybe I've just become a nostalgic alum (I almost bought Lucky a shirt at the Coop, for goodness sake) but I hadn't realize how awesome it is. I loved "Everyday Heroes" exhibit that explains when and why zippers and condoms (among others) were invented.
According to my calculations, there were people at Dr. Froshling's wedding celebration I haven't seen in 14 years. I wonder how many of the ones I didn't greet heartily recognized me; it's like we're all socially retarded or something. I watched a game of Dominion before they "helpfully" explained the rules. Julian claims I'll stop liking the game if I lose at some point but so far, no :) I like that, since I've decided not to think about higher level strategy, it's a simple yet satisfying optimization every hand. I also like that the game's inherent randomness (and the proliferation of expansion sets) gives it infinite replayability. I'm amused that the players don't really interact with each other: it's really a game you play by yourself, racing the others to the goals.
visage has given me amazingly spot-on advice over the years, so when he said I'd like to play Puerto Rico, I trusted him, even though my instincts suggested he also wanted another player. Puerto Rico is so cool! Just talking about it, I can feel the chemical addiction that has developed after one game, I'm not kidding. It sounds and looks like hopelessly complicated, but it's ALL about logistics. Yum, yum, yum. I lost that game and I'm so jonesing to play again.
It's a good thing we had to leave at a certain time, bc I could've played games all night. Instead, Julian and I went to Rendezvous in Central Square for a delicious meal. I feel certain that I've eaten at a similar restaurant in the same location sometime between 2004 and 2007 with Bbro and his then-gf. This time, we started with a delicious chilled shellfish salad. I had the pork and veal meatballs, which came with fried orecchiette. I love eating with Julian bc I never have to think about pairings - our carafe of wine was delicious - and bc I can order him to feed me whatever I want, except he always does it before I can want it. I passed out in the car and then we were at the hotel. Sun morning we had a leisurely brunch at Sabur and headed back to NYC.
Mon, I went climbing with SR again, sans Julian and Junior. I hadn't climbed with him since I lost my job, but I've become increasingly concerned about my leading, enough to spend the money for a day of review. Part of why I like climbing so much is that it is immediate feedback: you climb and you know immediately whether you can make the move or not, bc otherwise you fall. In leading, you don't get any feedback until things go dire: you never really know whether the piece will hold a leader fall until you're in air, screaming. Last September's fall terrified me, but at least I was on fixed pieces, placed by people who weren't afraid of plummeting, people who also weren't me.
We spent the morning reviewing how each piece works, which was annoying in that he and I did this together 3 years ago, but apparently not well enough, bc he was dissatisfied with my anchors. Apparently my pattern matching for each of the 3 types of gear was all wrong. What was frustrating is that for cams, it was a pretty simple fix (tighten it all the way using only fingertips, gently push it all the way in without wiggling lest you get it stuck, release and examine) whereas with tricams and nuts, while I know what to do (hide the head and more dramatic constriction, respectively), I wasn't consistently better.
Eventually we moved on to Betty, which I led between threatening drops of rain. SR told me to put 3 pieces in and come down if it actually poured, but I made it to the top and built my anchor. SR made many refinements to my system all day, from telling me to use a shorter tail and no backup knot on my tie-in to fussing at my harness arrangement. We were arguing about whether he needed to tie-in to the anchor when he got to the top when he leapt off the top of the cliff, trusting my belay device (which I wasn't holding) and my 3-piece anchor to catch his fall. I've said many times climbing guides don't make enough -- that was today's example. Admittedly, he'd seen my setup before he did this, but it was quite dramatic. SR confirmed my intuition, saying that my knowledge of systems is great (although I sometimes overthink and overprotect), but that my gear placements are weak. We simul-rappelled down the cliff, and he demanded I grade each piece, which I suppose is an evolution from when JBeau would grade my pieces.
When we got back to Rhododendron, some asshats were climbing it, so SR reluctantly put me on Baby. His reluctance made me more nervous, especially when he silently put an extra #1 cam on my harness. Which is good, bc I was out of large cams halfway up the climb, despite having borrowed as many cams as I own. I ran out of draws 40' from the top and had multiple moments I wanted to stop and give up. I didn't and I made it to the top, but yeah.
As we walked out, SR quizzed me about all sorts of emergency measures, like what to do if lightning is about to strike. I loved discussing guiding in the Tetons, Alaska, etc. I commented I'm not striving to climb any more mountains, bc it's hard and it's hard to train enough; it was gratifying to hear that even he thinks so too. I really like climbing with SR and cannot recommend him enough; I know I got better at leading as a result of the day, but I wish it had been a decisively better day.
I can't seem to find my original review of The Little Mermaid; short version is, while the special effects were pretty good, I hated a lot about the plot. But then meledy said the Paper Mill Playhouse revival made significant changes and was being floated as a new revival. Paper Mill doubled down on the changes to the plot where Ursula is Triton's sister and even gave her a song about killing her sisters to get the throne; I dislike that Eric is basically a MacGuffin who doesn't participate in the denouement. That said, it was a very good show, with more tuneful songs and some cute slapstick: I hope it does well and goes on to Broadway, like the last show I saw at PMP with Julian, Newsies.
Thurs, Julian, Junior, and I went climbing at the Gunks with one of my favorite guides, SR. I've climbed with him on multiple occasions, but I'd never seen him with a child before. He's great! He kept an eye on her emotional needs, took her on climbs where she could be successful, and even free soloed a 5.5 (while belaying her!!) so he could talk her through the hard parts. I'd never been to the "AMC slabs" before, but it's basically a high angle slope at the beginning of the cliffs, the perfect place to take a calm child. SR talked her through the whole thing, then let Julian and I belay each other 2-3 times on the easy, but somewhat interesting climbs. There aren't many places in the world with a 5.3 roof. Then he took us over to Jackie. I led Jackie 50 weeks ago, but after climbing it on top-rope with SR, I don't understand how. There were enough hard moves that I worried about falling. SR had kindly set Classic so I wouldn't get bored, and I styled up it. He gave us our choice of what to do next, so we ended up climbing Radcliffe, which is considered fourth class, as a 4-person multi-pitch team. Junior got a taste of multi-pitch climbing and he made me climb in non-sticky boots as mountaineering practice. No wonder Junior declared the day her proudest achievement. Afterward, we went to the Gilded Otter for cheese curds and blueberry beer. Yum!
Fri I had back to back meetings, before getting drunk (on two glasses of wine) and watching Downton Abbey. Sat morning, we got up at 6am to drive to Boston. Julian found a wormhole, so we had time to walk around West Campus. I hadn't been to the new MIT Museum and maybe I've just become a nostalgic alum (I almost bought Lucky a shirt at the Coop, for goodness sake) but I hadn't realize how awesome it is. I loved "Everyday Heroes" exhibit that explains when and why zippers and condoms (among others) were invented.
According to my calculations, there were people at Dr. Froshling's wedding celebration I haven't seen in 14 years. I wonder how many of the ones I didn't greet heartily recognized me; it's like we're all socially retarded or something. I watched a game of Dominion before they "helpfully" explained the rules. Julian claims I'll stop liking the game if I lose at some point but so far, no :) I like that, since I've decided not to think about higher level strategy, it's a simple yet satisfying optimization every hand. I also like that the game's inherent randomness (and the proliferation of expansion sets) gives it infinite replayability. I'm amused that the players don't really interact with each other: it's really a game you play by yourself, racing the others to the goals.
visage has given me amazingly spot-on advice over the years, so when he said I'd like to play Puerto Rico, I trusted him, even though my instincts suggested he also wanted another player. Puerto Rico is so cool! Just talking about it, I can feel the chemical addiction that has developed after one game, I'm not kidding. It sounds and looks like hopelessly complicated, but it's ALL about logistics. Yum, yum, yum. I lost that game and I'm so jonesing to play again.
It's a good thing we had to leave at a certain time, bc I could've played games all night. Instead, Julian and I went to Rendezvous in Central Square for a delicious meal. I feel certain that I've eaten at a similar restaurant in the same location sometime between 2004 and 2007 with Bbro and his then-gf. This time, we started with a delicious chilled shellfish salad. I had the pork and veal meatballs, which came with fried orecchiette. I love eating with Julian bc I never have to think about pairings - our carafe of wine was delicious - and bc I can order him to feed me whatever I want, except he always does it before I can want it. I passed out in the car and then we were at the hotel. Sun morning we had a leisurely brunch at Sabur and headed back to NYC.
Mon, I went climbing with SR again, sans Julian and Junior. I hadn't climbed with him since I lost my job, but I've become increasingly concerned about my leading, enough to spend the money for a day of review. Part of why I like climbing so much is that it is immediate feedback: you climb and you know immediately whether you can make the move or not, bc otherwise you fall. In leading, you don't get any feedback until things go dire: you never really know whether the piece will hold a leader fall until you're in air, screaming. Last September's fall terrified me, but at least I was on fixed pieces, placed by people who weren't afraid of plummeting, people who also weren't me.
We spent the morning reviewing how each piece works, which was annoying in that he and I did this together 3 years ago, but apparently not well enough, bc he was dissatisfied with my anchors. Apparently my pattern matching for each of the 3 types of gear was all wrong. What was frustrating is that for cams, it was a pretty simple fix (tighten it all the way using only fingertips, gently push it all the way in without wiggling lest you get it stuck, release and examine) whereas with tricams and nuts, while I know what to do (hide the head and more dramatic constriction, respectively), I wasn't consistently better.
Eventually we moved on to Betty, which I led between threatening drops of rain. SR told me to put 3 pieces in and come down if it actually poured, but I made it to the top and built my anchor. SR made many refinements to my system all day, from telling me to use a shorter tail and no backup knot on my tie-in to fussing at my harness arrangement. We were arguing about whether he needed to tie-in to the anchor when he got to the top when he leapt off the top of the cliff, trusting my belay device (which I wasn't holding) and my 3-piece anchor to catch his fall. I've said many times climbing guides don't make enough -- that was today's example. Admittedly, he'd seen my setup before he did this, but it was quite dramatic. SR confirmed my intuition, saying that my knowledge of systems is great (although I sometimes overthink and overprotect), but that my gear placements are weak. We simul-rappelled down the cliff, and he demanded I grade each piece, which I suppose is an evolution from when JBeau would grade my pieces.
When we got back to Rhododendron, some asshats were climbing it, so SR reluctantly put me on Baby. His reluctance made me more nervous, especially when he silently put an extra #1 cam on my harness. Which is good, bc I was out of large cams halfway up the climb, despite having borrowed as many cams as I own. I ran out of draws 40' from the top and had multiple moments I wanted to stop and give up. I didn't and I made it to the top, but yeah.
As we walked out, SR quizzed me about all sorts of emergency measures, like what to do if lightning is about to strike. I loved discussing guiding in the Tetons, Alaska, etc. I commented I'm not striving to climb any more mountains, bc it's hard and it's hard to train enough; it was gratifying to hear that even he thinks so too. I really like climbing with SR and cannot recommend him enough; I know I got better at leading as a result of the day, but I wish it had been a decisively better day.