This summer is awesome!
Or maybe it's just the past week or so.I went to New Orleans the weekend before last to meet with some awesome fandom ladies. I'd never been there and was just looking for an excuse to go, but as excuses go, it was pretty great. I was the newbie of the bunch, but people are just so nice, you know? The non-fandom highlight was the EARLY Saturday morning Running of the Bulls which took place right outside our hotel. There were thousands of people dressed in white with red sashes, meandering down the street - most with drinks in hand - chased by roller derby queens with horned helmets, who would whack people on the butt with plastic bats whenever they caught them. Some people enjoyed that part quite a bit, it seemed. There were also some Elvises (Elvi?) riding around on sccooters, but I never quite figured out what they were supposed to represent. Ah well, there are always mysteries in life.
The food was good, of course - beignets! turtle soup! gumbo! poboys! - and the afternoon thundershowers very atmospheric. I/we took some tours, which gave me a general overview of the town and its fascinating history. There were nice dinners, cemetery tours, and ghost stories - one in particular grabbed me, based on the actual historical person grandiosely named the Count of St. Germaine. In the NOLA version of the story he is transformed into a vampire in properly creepy fashion. The "actual" story is just as interesting, though, and has been inserted into lots and lots of fictional tales over the years, unbeknownst to me. Barb
rahirah knew all about it, though. James Marsters even played a version of him in Warehouse 13! The "Count" was an extremely talented linguist (ha!), musician, raconteur and fraud, but nobody could ever figure out what he was hiding. He even impressed Casanova with his fancy verbal footwork, apparently. Anyhoo, new research project aside, next time I go to NOLA, I'll drag MiAmor along and we'll do a bit more on the music side of things.
But life is not without music back here at home! Last night some friends, Virginia Dare, had a record release show at the Makeout Room. It was very fun, though most of their songs are atmospheric and swoony, rather than headbangers. Link to their new album on Bandcamp: Message from the Watery Machine
But that's not all! I won $10 tickets to HAMILTON in their online lottery! I'd been trying, off and on but mostly on, since the show opened in San Francisco in March, but my number came up for last Saturday night. Oddly, another woman I know also won tickets for the same performance, and my neighbor reports that he won tickets for tomorrow night! Anyway, it was amazing*. We got front row, center seats, which MiAmor likes to call the "nose hair" seats. Heh. It is a breathtaking, non-stop, kinetic performance. If you're familiar with the soundtrack, you've heard all but a minute or so of the show. Benefits of sitting right up front include getting flower petals thrown on you during the wedding scene, and maybe caging a wink from that rake, Thomas Jefferson. (I'll never tell.) After it was all over, I felt like I'd been running sprints, so I can only imagine how it is for the performers. MiAmor was so keyed up afterward that he did some arts and crafts to commemorate the experience:
See the petal?
Other good things: my friend with dementia is doing well in his new digs, and we got all his doctor's appointments and court appearances done last month, so I'm taking this month off from all that. I'll be up there again next month for the TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN! Saying that always makes me feel like Warren Beatty, or at least like Carly Simon. Also, I slid down some stone stairs at Inveraray Castle in Scotland last fall, and my hip/knee as been a bit wonky ever since. Before heading to NOLA, I visited my friendly neighborhood chiropractor, and all is well again! It's a miracle! Why did I wait so long?
So, I'm having a good summer and I hope you are, too!
*Because my inner critic never entirely stops, I would say that our Hamiliton (the understudy) was not the most thrilling. Burr, Washington, and the Schuyler sisters (two of which were also understudies) were fantastic! King George couldn't miss, of course, and Lafayette/Jefferson was excellent as Jefferson, but only pretty good as Lafayette. I will always regret not seeing Daveed Diggs in the role, but jeez, seeing it at all makes me one incredibly lucky gal. Oh, and the orchestra was great. One of my favorite memories is standing at the pit and watching the violinists laughing and playing the "outro" with verve.
This entry was originally posted at http://rebcake.dreamwidth.org/47057.html. Please comment here or there using OpenID.
The food was good, of course - beignets! turtle soup! gumbo! poboys! - and the afternoon thundershowers very atmospheric. I/we took some tours, which gave me a general overview of the town and its fascinating history. There were nice dinners, cemetery tours, and ghost stories - one in particular grabbed me, based on the actual historical person grandiosely named the Count of St. Germaine. In the NOLA version of the story he is transformed into a vampire in properly creepy fashion. The "actual" story is just as interesting, though, and has been inserted into lots and lots of fictional tales over the years, unbeknownst to me. Barb
rahirah knew all about it, though. James Marsters even played a version of him in Warehouse 13! The "Count" was an extremely talented linguist (ha!), musician, raconteur and fraud, but nobody could ever figure out what he was hiding. He even impressed Casanova with his fancy verbal footwork, apparently. Anyhoo, new research project aside, next time I go to NOLA, I'll drag MiAmor along and we'll do a bit more on the music side of things.
But life is not without music back here at home! Last night some friends, Virginia Dare, had a record release show at the Makeout Room. It was very fun, though most of their songs are atmospheric and swoony, rather than headbangers. Link to their new album on Bandcamp: Message from the Watery Machine
But that's not all! I won $10 tickets to HAMILTON in their online lottery! I'd been trying, off and on but mostly on, since the show opened in San Francisco in March, but my number came up for last Saturday night. Oddly, another woman I know also won tickets for the same performance, and my neighbor reports that he won tickets for tomorrow night! Anyway, it was amazing*. We got front row, center seats, which MiAmor likes to call the "nose hair" seats. Heh. It is a breathtaking, non-stop, kinetic performance. If you're familiar with the soundtrack, you've heard all but a minute or so of the show. Benefits of sitting right up front include getting flower petals thrown on you during the wedding scene, and maybe caging a wink from that rake, Thomas Jefferson. (I'll never tell.) After it was all over, I felt like I'd been running sprints, so I can only imagine how it is for the performers. MiAmor was so keyed up afterward that he did some arts and crafts to commemorate the experience:
See the petal?
Other good things: my friend with dementia is doing well in his new digs, and we got all his doctor's appointments and court appearances done last month, so I'm taking this month off from all that. I'll be up there again next month for the TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN! Saying that always makes me feel like Warren Beatty, or at least like Carly Simon. Also, I slid down some stone stairs at Inveraray Castle in Scotland last fall, and my hip/knee as been a bit wonky ever since. Before heading to NOLA, I visited my friendly neighborhood chiropractor, and all is well again! It's a miracle! Why did I wait so long?
So, I'm having a good summer and I hope you are, too!
*Because my inner critic never entirely stops, I would say that our Hamiliton (the understudy) was not the most thrilling. Burr, Washington, and the Schuyler sisters (two of which were also understudies) were fantastic! King George couldn't miss, of course, and Lafayette/Jefferson was excellent as Jefferson, but only pretty good as Lafayette. I will always regret not seeing Daveed Diggs in the role, but jeez, seeing it at all makes me one incredibly lucky gal. Oh, and the orchestra was great. One of my favorite memories is standing at the pit and watching the violinists laughing and playing the "outro" with verve.
This entry was originally posted at http://rebcake.dreamwidth.org/47057.html. Please comment here or there using OpenID.