2005 Worlds and Other Randomness
Interview With Theresa:
I interviewed Theresa yesterday, and she was, as expected, a total sweetheart, and surprisingly fun to talk to.
We wasted quite a bit of time talking about stuff that wasn't really part of the interview at all, like the marginalizing of arts in schools and the fact that she wanted to be a teacher before she decided to pursue music as a career. I asked her about her choice to go totally indie with the CD, and she was so adamant and sincere in her response that I think I actually believe her. She also gushed a lot over Kalan, but sadly, Affi, she hasn't seen his awesomely amusing concert, so I couldn't ask her what she thinks of the Jesus Pose. She confirmed that she has no use for Brandy, Manoah, or The Troll (despite all the huggy-huggy pics of the two of them and all the hugging I saw them do on stage!), although she wouldn't actually say their names even when I tried to push her to it. Heh. I'll give you more tidbits when I transcribe the interview to write my article tomorrow, but I'll say right now, the best part of the whole thing was when Theresa sang Single and then we both broke down laffing muchly.
Oh! And good news! She's signed a distribution deal with the uberawesome Maple Music, which will give her some good indie cred along with increased sales.
Also, she put me on the guest list for her show + 1, so fizzybottlecap, looks like we're going to see Theresa before hitting the Danny Michel show on the 26th. Usually stuff at the Mod Club starts on time, so hopefully this will, too. If not, since we're getting in free, we'll just leave early so we can make it to Danny and meet astormyhaze on time. *concert-hopping gang sinez*
In other amusing, semi-related news, I got an email from one of the hardcore members of PRoK today, offering to buy my Massey Hall Kalan tix off me because "from your post, you didn't sound too interested [in going]." She then added, "If you do decide to go, hope you & your friends enjoy it more than the Phoenix." AHAHAHAHA! The PRoK will never cease to amuse me with their lack of interpretation skillz.
2005 Worlds:
Wow, Worlds so far have been TEH LAMENESS. Everyone is injured in some form, and those who aren't are just LOSERCASES™ and are fall fall falling. LGB summed it up pretty well after the E-Man popped his 3A: "It was not to be, 'cause good people land stuff, and crap people don't!" BAH.
CBC has been giving us pretty darn decent coverage, despite the incessant whining over at FSU. Lots of skating, very little filler. My big gripes have been the low volume of the music - sometimes it's barely audible over the commentary - and the inept interviewer, Guy d'Aoust of SRC (French CBC). Okay, so he's not that bad, considering that English is clearly not his first language, but he doesn't seem to know when to get the mic out of the skaters' faces and move on. It's been especially painful to watch when he sticks a mic in the face of a skater who's struggling to express him/herself in English, and just sort of stands there silently as they flounder instead of helping them out, moving on to the next question, or letting their partner take over.
The other thing I'm afraid of is that the OD is going to get the royal chacking. So far, they've been concentrating on the marquee event each night and giving us "highlights" of both Q-rounds and the CDs, meaning short clips of programs rather than whole skates. If they do that for the OD, I'm going to be annoyed like whoa, but since tomorrow night is the men's LP, I'm pretty sure that's what's gonna happen. *sigh*
My thoughts on the Pairs LP behind the cut...
Basically, all the excitement of this competition went out the window for me the second CBC announced that S&Z had withdrawn. I'm glad I was unspoiled for this, though, because had I known this ahead of time, I probably would've just taped it and not watched at all. Beh.
CBC didn't show either of the NOTECHNIK AMERIKANS, but kudos to both of them for skating close to clean, from the sounds of it. Good job, wretched Amerikans!
Wakamatsu & Fecteau, CAN - A few little mistakes here and there, but overall, not a bad debut at Worlds at all. I hope to God that Jean-Sebastien realizes that Olympics aren't everything and sticks with Utako, because it would be a real shame if their first Worlds turned out to be their last. I wasn't sold on this team when they first got together, but they've grown on me, and now that her pairs skills are finally coming together and yet, they might be kaput, I know I'd mourn the loss. They're just an interesting team - interesting combination of skating styles, interesting choreography, interesting spark. If he really does team up with Anabelle Langlois, I'll be actively rooting against them, and will laff at the divine justice in the world if they don't make the Olympic team.
Marcoux & Buntin, CAN - Considering the severity of Craig's injury and the lack of real training they had leading up to this event, a pretty damn good performance. They had one big skary error - a lasso lift that barely went up before Craig stumbled in his footwork and brought it down - and a few other minor errors, but all things considered, not bad at all. This team has kind of forced me to like them. I was feeling kind of nostalgic watching them, thinking of the days when I'd watch Craig in juniors and laff muchly every time he had a new partner. Guess this one is the one that stuck. As Zack would say, good on them.
Zagorska & Siudek, POL - Chacked. I'm not interested enough to bother downloading.
Savchenko & Szolkowy, GER - Definitely the find of the event. I have no idea what their costumes had to do with their music (Casablanca), and she sports the bleached blonde hair/fake-tanned skin look that I hate, but shallow stuff aside, I like them a lot. 3T-3T sequence to open, awesome mirror footwork, spins in both directions, just so much interesting choreo! They have to upgrade their twist to a triple and get another triple throw to replace the throw 2A they have currently, but lots of potential. One of the few teams I didn't feel like sleeping through. Rock on.
Obertas & Slavnov, RUS - Gah, I think I hate this team. They bug me a lot and I think they're uber-overrated. Yes, they are very good skaters, especially Julia, but ugh, their choreography was a monstrosity! They changed the LP they were using earlier in the season to a Russian folk medley to gain shameless crowd approval, and it was totally in NOKOREOGRAFFY! How did Moskivina allow it?! And hello, flourescent yellow costumes don't go with the Paris Hilton (again, bleached blonde, fake-tanned) look at all. They're CoP-ized the program by packing it full of tricks (three sets of SBS triples, a somewhat crashy quad twist, throw 3F, etc.), but it's way front-loaded and Sergei looked like he was ready to collapse in exhaustion about halfway through the program. He really needs to fix his footwork on the lifts if they want to move into podium contention. Also, they skated right through the music - no connection to it or to each other at all, IMHO. Blech.
Pang & Tong, CHN - It goes without saying, but she really, really, really needs to eat. Igor would love her. >:O! They've been struggling with their SBS jumps this season, and it continued in this skate. The choreo was decent, I guess, but they really do nothing for me and I find the program kind of snoozy. Their spins were also particularly out of synch tonight.
Zhang & Zhang, CHN - I've always liked the little Zhangs, but this was not a skate deserving of a medal at Worlds in any way, shape or form. The program was about on par with O&S' in terms of NOKOREOGRAFFY, and the music was monotonous and repetitive. They had a bit of trouble with their opening 2A-3T sequence and looked more like two singles skaters out there than a cohesive unit.
Totmianina & Marinin, RUS - Okay, so this was definitely a medal-worthy skate. One tiny mistake - a hop out of the landing of the 2T - but otherwise great, especially after the injury she suffered in practice and everything they've been through this season. And yet... they bore me to utter tears. High quality skating completely devoid of soul - Tatiana Totmianina is so robotic, she makes Elena Berezhnaya look like the most expressive skater ever, and dude, that's saying something! Dullsville. People on FSU were comparing them to Eltsova & Bushkov, and while I think that's rather harsh, it's not totally off base, either...
Petrova & Tikhonov, RUS - Honestly, I was almost hoping they'd pull off a mirakel and win, because as much as they have bored me on and off over the years and as much as I've wished they would retire already, Masha and Alexei just seem to be a lot warmer than T&M, and at least they have a few glimmers of emotion and personality every now and then. Sadly, it was not to be - too many little mistakes to grab the gold (which was probably impossible anyhow - they wouldn't realistically have won it even if they'd skated clean), but not enough to sacrifice the silver. Ah, well, a silver in their home country is nice for them, anyhow.
So, overall, a night totally free of the kind of magic Xue & Hongbo are capable of providing, and pretty zzzz overall. I hope Hongbo recovers fully and that S&Z BRING IT! for Olys next year. I think I might die if T&M become Olympic champions. I also kind of hope S&Z keep their Clair de Lune SP for another season - it's a gorgeous program, and I don't think they managed to skate it to its potential this season.
Men tomorrow... c'mon, Emeffy! BRING IT!
The Return of Esta:
Esta has returned to FSU once again! Her posts are true classics, and very old skool. Read them here, here, and here. Her hiatus seems to have disrupted the consistency of her misspellings, but ah, well. She's brilliant anyhow!
American Idol:
I caught some of AI4 while flipping channels during commercials tonight and yesterday night, and good Lord, do they ever suck like WHOA! Seriously, are they all that bad all the time? And people are actually watching this?!
LGB says that everyone on his new favourite show, The Road to Stardom With Missy Elliott, could "mark" everyone on AI4. (Translation: They could beat them all like whoa.) Even though I'm guessing everyone on said show also sucks a whole lot, I'm inclined to believe him. Part of me is thinking CI3 is going to suck a lot, too, but I'm fairly certain nothing could suck as much as what I've seen of AI4, except for maybe AI3. Geeeeeeez.
LotR - The Musical:
The long-awaited musical version of Lord of the Rings, with music written by A.R. Rahman of Bollywood Dreams "fame", is slated to open in Toronto in March 2006. This is super-exciting, since it was originally supposed to open in London and then move to Broadway before possibly coming to T.O. London theatres are packed with hit musicals, so the Mirvishes stepped in, and we get to debut LotR. Awesome. I hope they don't mess it up.
And I should maybe go to sleep now. Perhaps.
I interviewed Theresa yesterday, and she was, as expected, a total sweetheart, and surprisingly fun to talk to.
We wasted quite a bit of time talking about stuff that wasn't really part of the interview at all, like the marginalizing of arts in schools and the fact that she wanted to be a teacher before she decided to pursue music as a career. I asked her about her choice to go totally indie with the CD, and she was so adamant and sincere in her response that I think I actually believe her. She also gushed a lot over Kalan, but sadly, Affi, she hasn't seen his awesomely amusing concert, so I couldn't ask her what she thinks of the Jesus Pose. She confirmed that she has no use for Brandy, Manoah, or The Troll (despite all the huggy-huggy pics of the two of them and all the hugging I saw them do on stage!), although she wouldn't actually say their names even when I tried to push her to it. Heh. I'll give you more tidbits when I transcribe the interview to write my article tomorrow, but I'll say right now, the best part of the whole thing was when Theresa sang Single and then we both broke down laffing muchly.
Oh! And good news! She's signed a distribution deal with the uberawesome Maple Music, which will give her some good indie cred along with increased sales.
Also, she put me on the guest list for her show + 1, so fizzybottlecap, looks like we're going to see Theresa before hitting the Danny Michel show on the 26th. Usually stuff at the Mod Club starts on time, so hopefully this will, too. If not, since we're getting in free, we'll just leave early so we can make it to Danny and meet astormyhaze on time. *concert-hopping gang sinez*
In other amusing, semi-related news, I got an email from one of the hardcore members of PRoK today, offering to buy my Massey Hall Kalan tix off me because "from your post, you didn't sound too interested [in going]." She then added, "If you do decide to go, hope you & your friends enjoy it more than the Phoenix." AHAHAHAHA! The PRoK will never cease to amuse me with their lack of interpretation skillz.
2005 Worlds:
Wow, Worlds so far have been TEH LAMENESS. Everyone is injured in some form, and those who aren't are just LOSERCASES™ and are fall fall falling. LGB summed it up pretty well after the E-Man popped his 3A: "It was not to be, 'cause good people land stuff, and crap people don't!" BAH.
CBC has been giving us pretty darn decent coverage, despite the incessant whining over at FSU. Lots of skating, very little filler. My big gripes have been the low volume of the music - sometimes it's barely audible over the commentary - and the inept interviewer, Guy d'Aoust of SRC (French CBC). Okay, so he's not that bad, considering that English is clearly not his first language, but he doesn't seem to know when to get the mic out of the skaters' faces and move on. It's been especially painful to watch when he sticks a mic in the face of a skater who's struggling to express him/herself in English, and just sort of stands there silently as they flounder instead of helping them out, moving on to the next question, or letting their partner take over.
The other thing I'm afraid of is that the OD is going to get the royal chacking. So far, they've been concentrating on the marquee event each night and giving us "highlights" of both Q-rounds and the CDs, meaning short clips of programs rather than whole skates. If they do that for the OD, I'm going to be annoyed like whoa, but since tomorrow night is the men's LP, I'm pretty sure that's what's gonna happen. *sigh*
My thoughts on the Pairs LP behind the cut...
Basically, all the excitement of this competition went out the window for me the second CBC announced that S&Z had withdrawn. I'm glad I was unspoiled for this, though, because had I known this ahead of time, I probably would've just taped it and not watched at all. Beh.
CBC didn't show either of the NOTECHNIK AMERIKANS, but kudos to both of them for skating close to clean, from the sounds of it. Good job, wretched Amerikans!
Wakamatsu & Fecteau, CAN - A few little mistakes here and there, but overall, not a bad debut at Worlds at all. I hope to God that Jean-Sebastien realizes that Olympics aren't everything and sticks with Utako, because it would be a real shame if their first Worlds turned out to be their last. I wasn't sold on this team when they first got together, but they've grown on me, and now that her pairs skills are finally coming together and yet, they might be kaput, I know I'd mourn the loss. They're just an interesting team - interesting combination of skating styles, interesting choreography, interesting spark. If he really does team up with Anabelle Langlois, I'll be actively rooting against them, and will laff at the divine justice in the world if they don't make the Olympic team.
Marcoux & Buntin, CAN - Considering the severity of Craig's injury and the lack of real training they had leading up to this event, a pretty damn good performance. They had one big skary error - a lasso lift that barely went up before Craig stumbled in his footwork and brought it down - and a few other minor errors, but all things considered, not bad at all. This team has kind of forced me to like them. I was feeling kind of nostalgic watching them, thinking of the days when I'd watch Craig in juniors and laff muchly every time he had a new partner. Guess this one is the one that stuck. As Zack would say, good on them.
Zagorska & Siudek, POL - Chacked. I'm not interested enough to bother downloading.
Savchenko & Szolkowy, GER - Definitely the find of the event. I have no idea what their costumes had to do with their music (Casablanca), and she sports the bleached blonde hair/fake-tanned skin look that I hate, but shallow stuff aside, I like them a lot. 3T-3T sequence to open, awesome mirror footwork, spins in both directions, just so much interesting choreo! They have to upgrade their twist to a triple and get another triple throw to replace the throw 2A they have currently, but lots of potential. One of the few teams I didn't feel like sleeping through. Rock on.
Obertas & Slavnov, RUS - Gah, I think I hate this team. They bug me a lot and I think they're uber-overrated. Yes, they are very good skaters, especially Julia, but ugh, their choreography was a monstrosity! They changed the LP they were using earlier in the season to a Russian folk medley to gain shameless crowd approval, and it was totally in NOKOREOGRAFFY! How did Moskivina allow it?! And hello, flourescent yellow costumes don't go with the Paris Hilton (again, bleached blonde, fake-tanned) look at all. They're CoP-ized the program by packing it full of tricks (three sets of SBS triples, a somewhat crashy quad twist, throw 3F, etc.), but it's way front-loaded and Sergei looked like he was ready to collapse in exhaustion about halfway through the program. He really needs to fix his footwork on the lifts if they want to move into podium contention. Also, they skated right through the music - no connection to it or to each other at all, IMHO. Blech.
Pang & Tong, CHN - It goes without saying, but she really, really, really needs to eat. Igor would love her. >:O! They've been struggling with their SBS jumps this season, and it continued in this skate. The choreo was decent, I guess, but they really do nothing for me and I find the program kind of snoozy. Their spins were also particularly out of synch tonight.
Zhang & Zhang, CHN - I've always liked the little Zhangs, but this was not a skate deserving of a medal at Worlds in any way, shape or form. The program was about on par with O&S' in terms of NOKOREOGRAFFY, and the music was monotonous and repetitive. They had a bit of trouble with their opening 2A-3T sequence and looked more like two singles skaters out there than a cohesive unit.
Totmianina & Marinin, RUS - Okay, so this was definitely a medal-worthy skate. One tiny mistake - a hop out of the landing of the 2T - but otherwise great, especially after the injury she suffered in practice and everything they've been through this season. And yet... they bore me to utter tears. High quality skating completely devoid of soul - Tatiana Totmianina is so robotic, she makes Elena Berezhnaya look like the most expressive skater ever, and dude, that's saying something! Dullsville. People on FSU were comparing them to Eltsova & Bushkov, and while I think that's rather harsh, it's not totally off base, either...
Petrova & Tikhonov, RUS - Honestly, I was almost hoping they'd pull off a mirakel and win, because as much as they have bored me on and off over the years and as much as I've wished they would retire already, Masha and Alexei just seem to be a lot warmer than T&M, and at least they have a few glimmers of emotion and personality every now and then. Sadly, it was not to be - too many little mistakes to grab the gold (which was probably impossible anyhow - they wouldn't realistically have won it even if they'd skated clean), but not enough to sacrifice the silver. Ah, well, a silver in their home country is nice for them, anyhow.
So, overall, a night totally free of the kind of magic Xue & Hongbo are capable of providing, and pretty zzzz overall. I hope Hongbo recovers fully and that S&Z BRING IT! for Olys next year. I think I might die if T&M become Olympic champions. I also kind of hope S&Z keep their Clair de Lune SP for another season - it's a gorgeous program, and I don't think they managed to skate it to its potential this season.
Men tomorrow... c'mon, Emeffy! BRING IT!
The Return of Esta:
Esta has returned to FSU once again! Her posts are true classics, and very old skool. Read them here, here, and here. Her hiatus seems to have disrupted the consistency of her misspellings, but ah, well. She's brilliant anyhow!
American Idol:
I caught some of AI4 while flipping channels during commercials tonight and yesterday night, and good Lord, do they ever suck like WHOA! Seriously, are they all that bad all the time? And people are actually watching this?!
LGB says that everyone on his new favourite show, The Road to Stardom With Missy Elliott, could "mark" everyone on AI4. (Translation: They could beat them all like whoa.) Even though I'm guessing everyone on said show also sucks a whole lot, I'm inclined to believe him. Part of me is thinking CI3 is going to suck a lot, too, but I'm fairly certain nothing could suck as much as what I've seen of AI4, except for maybe AI3. Geeeeeeez.
LotR - The Musical:
The long-awaited musical version of Lord of the Rings, with music written by A.R. Rahman of Bollywood Dreams "fame", is slated to open in Toronto in March 2006. This is super-exciting, since it was originally supposed to open in London and then move to Broadway before possibly coming to T.O. London theatres are packed with hit musicals, so the Mirvishes stepped in, and we get to debut LotR. Awesome. I hope they don't mess it up.
And I should maybe go to sleep now. Perhaps.