LM #64 and other things
I just noticed I haven't written anything on lj in, like, ages. Oops!
I saw Les Misérables in Philadelphia Thursday night. I skipped out of work at 4pm -- well, actually 4:20pm, stupid meeting running late! Next time I will remember to just cut out of meeting when it is time for me to leave rather than just hoping it'll be over in a minute or two; as it was it cut me dangerously short to the point that I parked at 7:20 and practically ran down two blocks and into the theatre to get my ticket and sat down literally at 7:27, 3 minutes before curtain. I had spent 3 hours in the car, the majority of which on the 20-mile stretch of pure hell called the Schuylkill Expressway -- or, as anyone local will tell you, the Sure-Kill Distressway. It is the only way to get into Philly from anywhere west of it, which means most Pennsylvanians have to suffer if they want to drive to Philly. I honestly looked at Amtrak and I could have taken the train for around the same cost as gas/parking did -- but the last train leaving Philly for Harrisburg is at 10:59pm, after that the next train was at 5:25am. Way to fail at public transportation, Pennsylvania. For god's sake. Just in case anyone was wondering why I'd voluntarily drive down miserable stretches of roads -- it is because public options are not really options unless you are traveling within a city that has it. Greyhound takes 3 times as long as a car and stops everywhere; the train between Harrisburg and Philly is actually decent but only if you don't want to do anything in Philadelphia after 10pm. I really, really want to move to a city that has a decently reliable public transportation system. Pittsburgh's buses don't always show up on time but you can get just about everywhere with them; and while the NYC subways constantly have weird track closures you can still get just about everywhere at any time of the day. I'm hesitant to move back to PGH because I want to stay within day-trip-distance of NYC; I'm hesitant to move to NYC because of cost concerns; but I need to get the hell out of Hburg. Argh, dilemmas.
Anyway! I saw LM on Thursday night and generally liked it. I was not very fond of some of the cast and I was not very fond of the lighting; but the costumes and the staging were, in many cases, improvements upon the original. Except for the barricade, honestly, I liked a lot of the new stuff. Colour! Le Café Musain! Javert's Suicide! The tri-level sets! Not to mention the pure joy of Jeremy's Enjolras -- if he were vocally a little stronger he would be perfect; he looks so very like coloneldespard's gorgeous drawings of Enjolras and has the presence and Enjolraic mannerisms down perfectly. If I could go on a day when I got a Valjean understudy I'd be a lot more likely to see it again, only it won't be in my neck of the woods again except for Baltimore and I hear that's sold out, or close enough to it. I don't want to see it if I have to sit in the ass-back of the theatre, quite frankly. Having gone 64 times and gotten to sit in the front row/front several rows on probably 20+ of those occasions has spoiled me, I guess, but I don't really want to see the show in general as I want to see details. I would probably be okay with sitting in the front of a lower mezzanine as well as front orchestra, but if I see this tour again it will not be from limited view seats. Haha. I didn't mind the limited view nor the price tag but I felt I missed a bit when I couldn't see 80% of the projections or anything happening stage right. A lot more happens in that part of the stage than it did in the original production, or at least it felt that way.
Um. I know this is kind of a messy 'review' but I wrote a little more on Abaissé, actually. And--call me shallow, but if it wasn't for the fact that Jeremy Hays was Enjolras I would not have had much desire to go in the first place. I am glad I did go, at the end of the day, but Québec's production was still my favourite, even if I don't speak French. I really hope someone unearths and/or produces a good video bootleg of this production, though, and yes it's because I want to have Jeremy on video.
Besides that... I have been settling in at work, doing some knitting, not keeping my New Year's resolutions on reading/journaling very well, and watching a lot of hockey.
The llama and alpaca yarns my grandparents gave me for Christmas have been sitting and languishing. They came as those twisted hanks, which always create a pit of dread in my stomach since I do not have a swift nor a ball winder. Which means I have to go very slowly and very carefully and re-wind it into a new centre-pull ball -- and despite all my care those damned hanks always end up a hopeless tangled mess that I have to cut apart. Fortunately, these being animal fibres, I can join the cut ends way more easily, using the spit-splice method. Spit-splice is recommended to do rubbed between your palms, but I find it works far better if you rub it against your pants, especially jeans. Because spit-splice is just very small scale felting, you can't do it on acrylic or cotton or whatever else, but it is my favourite join because it is invisible if you do it so that it doesn't pull apart later. In any case that's what I had to do for the alpaca/llama blend, which I decided to re-wind tonight. That yarn is VERY sheddy/hairy/halo-y, and also rather itchy. Which means when I'm done knitting the hat it's going in the sink with some conditioner to soften it up. The pure llama feels softer and looks less hairy/sheddy, but I'm still worried about it tangling like the other one, especially since it's twice as much yarn! I don't buy enough yarn in those hanks to say I really miss not having a swift/ballwinder, but these are times when I wish it were easier to roll them into more usable balls. But I wanted to roll them so I could start on the hat and see how far the yarn goes. It does look like I should be capable of making several hats, so I'll start with a plain beret then, after seeing how it works up, consider a lacier beret or a touque or something else. There isn't enough for a scarf, and I don't want mittens out of it even if I could knit mittens, and it doesn't feel suitable for socks even if I could knit those. So hats it is.
Speaking of knitting... I discovered on dreamwidth that there is a fan charity auction for the Queensland flood victims. (is? was? The admins have temporarily halted it until they can work a way around the international donations snags) The one(s) on livejournal are more limited and only allow for things like fanfic and fanart, and I really cannot write on a prompt. santafrenchboys not withstanding; that is my fandom and I was given a great deal of leeway in the prompt which was more or less for something I would have written anyway. But the dreamwidth one (help_qld for those on DW who are interested) looks far better organised and has a great deal of options, one of which being handmade goods (there is also baked goods, art, fic, web graphics, and other!). Which led to me seriously considering offering a custom-knit scarf for auction. If they reopen the auction, I will post a link to my offering. Because I've almost decided that I'm willing to do just about any scarf that a pattern on the internet exists for, including a Doctor Who scarf, as long as the bid is high enough. xD There would be a minimum bid, but I feel like I'm up to the challenge. I still don't do colourwork other than plain horizontal stripes, but I can and do do cables and somewhat involved lace patterns and I might as well put my love of knitting scarfs to good use. Not to mention I'd be up for the challenge of letting someone else telling me what the end result should be and possibly having to try something more difficult/involved than I'm used to. Mindless TV knitting is always good but, y'know, I can't get to be a better knitter if I stick to that more than anything else.
I thought I had more to say than this, but I guess not -- life is kinda mundane these days. ;)
I saw Les Misérables in Philadelphia Thursday night. I skipped out of work at 4pm -- well, actually 4:20pm, stupid meeting running late! Next time I will remember to just cut out of meeting when it is time for me to leave rather than just hoping it'll be over in a minute or two; as it was it cut me dangerously short to the point that I parked at 7:20 and practically ran down two blocks and into the theatre to get my ticket and sat down literally at 7:27, 3 minutes before curtain. I had spent 3 hours in the car, the majority of which on the 20-mile stretch of pure hell called the Schuylkill Expressway -- or, as anyone local will tell you, the Sure-Kill Distressway. It is the only way to get into Philly from anywhere west of it, which means most Pennsylvanians have to suffer if they want to drive to Philly. I honestly looked at Amtrak and I could have taken the train for around the same cost as gas/parking did -- but the last train leaving Philly for Harrisburg is at 10:59pm, after that the next train was at 5:25am. Way to fail at public transportation, Pennsylvania. For god's sake. Just in case anyone was wondering why I'd voluntarily drive down miserable stretches of roads -- it is because public options are not really options unless you are traveling within a city that has it. Greyhound takes 3 times as long as a car and stops everywhere; the train between Harrisburg and Philly is actually decent but only if you don't want to do anything in Philadelphia after 10pm. I really, really want to move to a city that has a decently reliable public transportation system. Pittsburgh's buses don't always show up on time but you can get just about everywhere with them; and while the NYC subways constantly have weird track closures you can still get just about everywhere at any time of the day. I'm hesitant to move back to PGH because I want to stay within day-trip-distance of NYC; I'm hesitant to move to NYC because of cost concerns; but I need to get the hell out of Hburg. Argh, dilemmas.
Anyway! I saw LM on Thursday night and generally liked it. I was not very fond of some of the cast and I was not very fond of the lighting; but the costumes and the staging were, in many cases, improvements upon the original. Except for the barricade, honestly, I liked a lot of the new stuff. Colour! Le Café Musain! Javert's Suicide! The tri-level sets! Not to mention the pure joy of Jeremy's Enjolras -- if he were vocally a little stronger he would be perfect; he looks so very like coloneldespard's gorgeous drawings of Enjolras and has the presence and Enjolraic mannerisms down perfectly. If I could go on a day when I got a Valjean understudy I'd be a lot more likely to see it again, only it won't be in my neck of the woods again except for Baltimore and I hear that's sold out, or close enough to it. I don't want to see it if I have to sit in the ass-back of the theatre, quite frankly. Having gone 64 times and gotten to sit in the front row/front several rows on probably 20+ of those occasions has spoiled me, I guess, but I don't really want to see the show in general as I want to see details. I would probably be okay with sitting in the front of a lower mezzanine as well as front orchestra, but if I see this tour again it will not be from limited view seats. Haha. I didn't mind the limited view nor the price tag but I felt I missed a bit when I couldn't see 80% of the projections or anything happening stage right. A lot more happens in that part of the stage than it did in the original production, or at least it felt that way.
Um. I know this is kind of a messy 'review' but I wrote a little more on Abaissé, actually. And--call me shallow, but if it wasn't for the fact that Jeremy Hays was Enjolras I would not have had much desire to go in the first place. I am glad I did go, at the end of the day, but Québec's production was still my favourite, even if I don't speak French. I really hope someone unearths and/or produces a good video bootleg of this production, though, and yes it's because I want to have Jeremy on video.
Besides that... I have been settling in at work, doing some knitting, not keeping my New Year's resolutions on reading/journaling very well, and watching a lot of hockey.
The llama and alpaca yarns my grandparents gave me for Christmas have been sitting and languishing. They came as those twisted hanks, which always create a pit of dread in my stomach since I do not have a swift nor a ball winder. Which means I have to go very slowly and very carefully and re-wind it into a new centre-pull ball -- and despite all my care those damned hanks always end up a hopeless tangled mess that I have to cut apart. Fortunately, these being animal fibres, I can join the cut ends way more easily, using the spit-splice method. Spit-splice is recommended to do rubbed between your palms, but I find it works far better if you rub it against your pants, especially jeans. Because spit-splice is just very small scale felting, you can't do it on acrylic or cotton or whatever else, but it is my favourite join because it is invisible if you do it so that it doesn't pull apart later. In any case that's what I had to do for the alpaca/llama blend, which I decided to re-wind tonight. That yarn is VERY sheddy/hairy/halo-y, and also rather itchy. Which means when I'm done knitting the hat it's going in the sink with some conditioner to soften it up. The pure llama feels softer and looks less hairy/sheddy, but I'm still worried about it tangling like the other one, especially since it's twice as much yarn! I don't buy enough yarn in those hanks to say I really miss not having a swift/ballwinder, but these are times when I wish it were easier to roll them into more usable balls. But I wanted to roll them so I could start on the hat and see how far the yarn goes. It does look like I should be capable of making several hats, so I'll start with a plain beret then, after seeing how it works up, consider a lacier beret or a touque or something else. There isn't enough for a scarf, and I don't want mittens out of it even if I could knit mittens, and it doesn't feel suitable for socks even if I could knit those. So hats it is.
Speaking of knitting... I discovered on dreamwidth that there is a fan charity auction for the Queensland flood victims. (is? was? The admins have temporarily halted it until they can work a way around the international donations snags) The one(s) on livejournal are more limited and only allow for things like fanfic and fanart, and I really cannot write on a prompt. santafrenchboys not withstanding; that is my fandom and I was given a great deal of leeway in the prompt which was more or less for something I would have written anyway. But the dreamwidth one (help_qld for those on DW who are interested) looks far better organised and has a great deal of options, one of which being handmade goods (there is also baked goods, art, fic, web graphics, and other!). Which led to me seriously considering offering a custom-knit scarf for auction. If they reopen the auction, I will post a link to my offering. Because I've almost decided that I'm willing to do just about any scarf that a pattern on the internet exists for, including a Doctor Who scarf, as long as the bid is high enough. xD There would be a minimum bid, but I feel like I'm up to the challenge. I still don't do colourwork other than plain horizontal stripes, but I can and do do cables and somewhat involved lace patterns and I might as well put my love of knitting scarfs to good use. Not to mention I'd be up for the challenge of letting someone else telling me what the end result should be and possibly having to try something more difficult/involved than I'm used to. Mindless TV knitting is always good but, y'know, I can't get to be a better knitter if I stick to that more than anything else.
I thought I had more to say than this, but I guess not -- life is kinda mundane these days. ;)