La Rondine

The second show of the year was La Rondine ("The Swallow") which was E's last hurrah during a long and adventurous vacation.

I knew nothing about this show prior to this season.  It was composed by Giacomo Puccini, and as a rule I enjoy his work. I like the setting: mid-19th century Paris.  It seems like it would have been such a wonderful time to be in France.  I liked the voices; both the male and female leads were spot on.

However, two acts would have been sufficient.  Here's a quick synopsis:
Act 1: everyone rattles on and on about how they don't believe in love.
Act 2: everyone falls in love.
Act 3: everything falls apart.

Now, I get that this is an opera, and so by definition it either has to be ridiculous (see yesterday's post on The Barber of Seville) or tragic.  But why is it the case that they must be one or the other?  If the answer is "so the performers have an opportunity to show off their vocal ranges and emotion," I get why that's desirable, but do we have to do that in every show?  I was feeling pretty good about things at the end of the second act.  The third act brought it all crashing down.  Boo.

The Barber of Seville

My first opera of the season was Rossini's The Barber of Seville.  G was my date for the evening.

Though the music and libretto were the same as always, the staging was a bit unconventional.  I think the general consensus on the new staging was mixed, but I enjoyed it.  With a different cast, and specifically a different barber, it wouldn't have worked, but this time it did.

Our barber was entertaining, with a big, goofy smile and excellent comic timing.  He made what can sometimes seem like too serious a show into a laugh riot.

At no point in the show was I anywhere close to falling asleep, so that's a point in its favor -- or maybe that was the latte I had on the way to the theater!

Goal #26

Goal #26: research and plan for my next vacation.

A friend and I are planning to head to northern California at some point in the not-too-distant future.  We're hoping to do a little hiking, enjoying the fresh air, probably spend a couple of days in San Francisco.  I need to start planning.  Open to suggestions!

Recap of goal #25: so close, but not quite.  I got through a Bicycling magazine, a copy of St. Louis At Home, a Riverfront Times (which I'm counting), a Cooking Light, and two and a half St. Louis magazines.  Can we round up?

Sex and the City

After a recent discussion with my law clerk about the glories of Sex and the City, I have restarted the series.  It has been forever since I watched any SATC, and I am loving it all over again!

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry -- Take 2

I got very behind on my podcasts in the last month or so.  I spent much of last week catching up on those, but eventually it gets a bit tiresome, going topic to topic every five minutes or 12 minutes or 48 minutes.  I wanted something a little more enduring, so I went back to Harold Fry to finish it up, as it turns out.  I didn't know how close I had been to the end when I stopped listening, but I only had one CD left!

Some of the fun of coming back to a book after a long time away is remembering where you left off.  That can be especially tricky when you stop at the beginning of a new chapter, because you don't get any of the cues of the continued setting or dialogue which you left behind when you were last with the characters.  Eventually I caught up with myself, and Harold.

In the end, I enjoyed this book.  There wasn't much in the way of surprise.  Most of the last CD is spent telling all the secrets that had gone unsaid to that point -- but they're not unexpected secrets.  They're the elephant in the room.  But the way they're expressed is what makes the book enjoyable.  The telling is so simple and clear, and it's such a common story.  It's a chronicle of how one event leads to another in Harold's life, in our lives, often without our even noticing.

Goal #25

Goal #25: a magazine a day.

I realize this is an ambitious goal, but I'm backed up on my magazines.  There's a big stack staring at me here, and I need to whittle it down so that I can get back to what I'm supposed to be reading (which you will hear about later -- E knows).

Recap of goal #24: nope, nope, nope.  I scanned not a single piece of paper for my own purposes this week.  I just had places to go every day after work, and I can't do that sort of thing during the work day.  I will revisit this another week.

Rainy June

I feel as though it has been raining for damn near two straight weeks.  We had one or two lovely, rain-free mornings, perfect for bike rides.  Then it started raining again.

If I'm being philosophical about it, I can borrow a bit of advice from my riding partner J, who spent some time living in Belgium: La pluie, ca change rien. Rain changes nothing.

If I'm being honest about it, I'd have to say that I'd really rather it not rain any more, unless the only things on my agenda for the day involve a good book and some dehumidified air.

What I Watched -- Silver Linings Playbook

I have wanted to see Silver Linings Playbook since it came out.  So this past weekend, rather than do the things I needed to do, I decided to watch it.  Excellent choice.

It stars Jennifer Lawrence, whom I have loved since K and I saw her at SLIFF in Winter's Bone.  (In fact, she was the inspiration for my short haircut!)  She is wonderful in this movie, which doesn't have quite the drama that Ree Dolly did, but has much more subtle, adult emotions and crazy (literally) which she handles astutely.

Then there's Bradley Cooper, who is devilishly good looking generally, and in this film in particular.  He plays Pat, who is contending with the breakup of his marriage and his diagnosis of bipolar disorder when he meets Jennifer's Tiffany, whose dead husband and own emotional issues make for a hilarious and touching roller coaster ride.

I loved Robert De Niro as Pat Sr., and was happy to see Julia Stiles's face on screen.  I've always liked her, and I'm not sure why.  She seems like someone I would enjoy being friends with.

Bottom line: never before have mood swings been so enjoyable.

Jubilee! Dinner

It appears that I have failed not once but twice to tell you about some delicious food that I ate at a particular location on Boyle here in town.  The first time, the restaurant was called Entre, and they had a rotating (every three months or so) theme.  When I went, it was The Agrarian.

They did a few more rotations after the Agrarian that I didn't get to, then closed for good and reopened as Juniper, a great place for Southern comfort food.  Both restaurants had tasty craft cocktails.

Recently, T discovered that Juniper was hosting something called Jubilee!, and we decided we couldn't let another big food event happen without our participation.  T's brother and sister-in-law came along, and we did the smart thing by getting there at 7:45.  The event was held at Eva's Attic, the recently-finished event space above Juniper.  The bar (which was SO COOL!) opened at 8, and food service started at 9.  It was supposed to go until 1 a.m., and I certainly did not want to be one of the people still there in the wee small hours.

The bar, courtesy Feast Magazine

The star of this particular event was Jason Tilford, who spends most of his time cheffing (that's a word now) at Mission Taco Joint.  I somehow have not yet made it to Mission Taco - although I have had their snacks at some food festivals around town - so this seemed like a good opportunity to enjoy his food at a table, rather than standing around trying to juggle a plate, drink, fork, napkin, and map, all the while trying not to dump food down the front of my shirt or someone else's.

The one downfall of the evening (which I suspected going in) was that all but one of the cocktails were tequila-based, which meant they were off-limits for me.  And the one that wasn't didn't sound particularly good; I tried a sip of someone else's and it was better than I expected, but I still didn't get one.

After nursing our drinks for a while, it was time to order our food.  Ours was first out - hooray for the early arrival!  Between the four of us, I either got or tried the guacamole, salsa, ceviche, taco, tamale, enchilada, beans, and cake.  Winners: salsa, taco, beans, cake.  What a fun night!

New Orleans

Before "busy at work" became "insanely busy at work" back in April, I decided to head to New Orleans for a friend's bachelorette party.  Even though things were hectic, I had planned a short trip (late Friday night to early Sunday morning), and I needed a break.  So off I went.

Luckily for me, most of the crew had gone down to NOLA on Thursday, and they all went out and partied hard on Thursday night.  Several of them didn't even go out on Friday (including the bride-to-be), which gave me the perfect opportunity to crash as soon as I got to the hotel.

I got up early on Saturday, showered, and was ready to go before anyone else was even awake.  What's a girl to do in this situation?  Slog through the rain over to Cafe du Monde with a delightful magazine to get some beignets and coffee, obviously!

Our calendar got a little bit messed up, but we handled it and ended up having a pretty good Cajun lunch, followed by a really neat tour of the city.  We saw a bunch of different neighborhoods, including where Lake Pontchartrain flooded the city, I learned about the cemeteries and the funky things they have to do when they can't bury people below ground, and got a thick-as-mud and much needed cup of coffee (but no more beignets) at Morning Call Coffee Stand, which fueled me for the rest of the afternoon.

Unfortunately, my phone crashed after this trip and I lost all my pictures.  Sorry about that.

After we all dressed for the night, we had dinner at Saints & Sinners, a restaurant in the FQ owned by Channing Tatum.  The food was okay at best.  In a city with so much great food, we could have done WAY better, but it wasn't up to me.

From there, the bachelorette party began, and that is all I will say about that (except to say that there were fewer shenanigans and less bad behavior than I expected).  By the time I finally made my way back to our hotel for the night, I had about three hours in which to sleep, get up, get packed and head off for the airport.  As you might have predicted, I slept the entire way home.

Query: when did it become acceptable to wear leggings/yoga pants as everyday wear? On my flight home, there were no fewer than 10 people wearing them, as regular daily attire.  These are not people who were on their way home from the gym.  These were people who dressed to appear in public and felt that yoga pants (sometimes with wacky patterns) were an appropriate choice.  I beg to differ.

Goal #24

Goal #24: create the digital records.

I have lots of paperwork that I want to scan, so that I can get rid of the paper versions and keep a virtual file box.  It will take a long time to get through scanning them all, and I haven't even been through my whole backlog of paper yet, so there will be more to come.  But I suppose now is as good a time as any to get started.

Recap of goal #23: I blogged!  Finally!  There is more to write, but it's a good start.

Young Men and Fire -- Take 2

Many, many moons ago, I finished reading Young Men and Fire.  I'm not sure why I have been unwilling to write about it.  Maybe it's because I'm not sure I can say I enjoyed it.  I found it gripping, except for a bit I'll talk about later.

Nevertheless, I was transfixed by it.  It was fascinating, one of those stories where you know at the beginning how it's going to end, but the wonder is in what you learn along the way.

I bought this book a few years back, after listening to an episode of The Story about this and other forest fires.  I did a bit of searching around on this internet after that, and found several videos set to the Cry Cry Cry version of "Cold Missouri Waters" (here is one version; though it was written by James Keelaghan, I like Cry Cry Cry's better) which tells the story of the Mann Gulch fire from the point of view of the jump crew chief, Wag Dodge.

On the day of the fire in August 1949, the Montana mountains had been baked by an unusually hot and dry summer.  Lightning started a fire in Mann Gulch, and Wag Dodge and his crew of jumpers were sent to get it under control.  Smoke jumping was still in its infancy, and still learning the lessons which were taught by World War II.  It was an imperfect and inexact science.

A collection of unfortunate circumstances, a "perfect storm," to borrow the title of a later book about an environmental catastrophe, combined to make the fire one of the deadliest in US Forest Service history.  Only two of the jumpers survived, plus Dodge (though he died a few years later).  The longest-lived survivor, Robert Sallee, died just over a year ago at the age of 82.

It's curious that the part of the book I found the least interesting -- the section near the end where the author gets into more advanced and recent (1980s) development of the study of wildfires, specifically related to simulations and the study of how fires spread in the mountains -- is probably the greatest legacy of the Mann Gulch.  Regardless, I found that section tedious.  The studies happen in labs; I wanted to get back out on that steep, rocky hillside and hear more stories.

If you want to read more about the fire, there are a couple of websites devoted to it.   This one has a nice step-by-step summary of the fire, if you're not ready to dive into the full book.

"If a storyteller thinks enough of storytelling to regard it as a calling, unlike a historian he cannot turn from the suffering of his characters.  A storyteller, unlike a historian, must follow compassion wherever it leads him.  He must be able to accompany his characters, even into smoke and fire, and bear witness to what they thought and felt even when they themselves no longer knew.  This story of the Mann Gulch fire will not end until it feels able to walk the final distance to the crosses with those who for the time being are blotted out by smoke.  They were young and did not leave much behind them and need someone to remember them." 

Happy Birthday K!

The End of Mad Men

I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it, so read on!

I'm not much of an obsessive TV watcher, but I do have to admit that I was a bit sad when I came to the final scene of the final episode of Mad Men recently.  It really didn't have much to do with how the show ended, more that it ended.  I really enjoyed the show, and Don's ups and downs, and the development of lots of the characters -- Peggy, Joan, even Sally.

And of course there were the clothes and sets.  So much fun to soak up all the mid-century (and later hippie) details.

Three cheers for a show well done!

A Life in the Arts

I have done so many things (and been so exceedingly busy at work) that I have not had time to write about them!

I'm going to try to do blurbs about few past fun activities at a time, for two reasons:
1. It's easier for me.
2. Details have been forgotten.

So, let's get started!

Pretties -- Take 2
I finished Pretties on a rainy Saturday.  I was basking in the glory of going nowhere and doing nothing, which are two things I almost never do.  It is also exceedingly rare that I feel satisfied about a day in which I accomplish surprisingly little, but that rainy Saturday was one of those days.  Oh, what I would give to have another one!

Anyway, I was a bit bored by this book.  As with many teen series books, it's a lot of repeated angst.  Eh.

What I Watched -- American Sniper
I finally went to see American Sniper!  I'm not sure how I managed to avoid it while it was on its first run.  It's a war movie, it was Oscar bait, and it has Bradley Cooper -- this movie was made for me to see!  It's just a little added benefit that T and I went to see it on Memorial Day weekend.  (It's still showing at the dollar show -- which, by the way, is no longer a dollar.  It's $3.50.  That's inflation for you.)

There was a lot of controversy when this movie came out that it glorified violence and warfare.  If you were one of the people who said that, I disagree.  I think it does quite the opposite.  Sure, you see the SEALs do some seriously badass stuff, but you also see the toll that their work takes on them and, in the case of our protagonist, their families.  I feel like the people who truly felt that way didn't see the last 30 minutes of the movie?

Bottom line: powerful, but not pretty (although Bradley Cooper is both powerful and pretty).

Goal #23

Goal #23: return to the world of the blog -- slowly.

As I'm sure you have all noticed, I haven't been writing much.  Or hardly at all.  But, as you will see below, I have been doing fun things, both with E and before she got here.  So I will do my bestest to at least do some little recaps, because lord knows it's been to long now for me to recall the nitty gritty details.  I'm old like that.

Recap of goal #22: E and I had all the funs!!