The Taming of the Shrew

I'm putting this in the "books" category.  Technically, it's a play, which doesn't mean it's not a book, it just means it's not a novel.  But I think often "novel" gets equated with "book," when people are talking fiction writing.  Anyway, last night I went to see a play!

Early every summer, Shakespeare Festival St. Louis puts on one of the bard's plays in Forest Park.  It's fun, it's free, it's Willy.  Everyone should go!  This year, the selections was The Taming of the Shrew (available in full here, compliments of The Tech).

For this light comedy, the producer (or director, or art director, or whomever has the job of picking the setting) decided on a suburban 1950s backdrop for our lovelorn cast.  I have mixed feelings about that.  As a general rule, I like Shakespeare in Shakespearean times, or at least within a few hundred years of that.  (However, I will make a few exceptions; I actually really liked Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, which was set in some weird near-future version of the world we know.)  But I like that the language is so timeless and versatile that it can be plunked down on any set in any time, even if I don't always like the way the staging turns out.

Now, about last night.  There were a few really funny characters; Grumio takes the cake for hilarity, and Sly and Vincentio were pretty funny too.  Bianca's character was irritating; I suppose to portray her child-like qualities, she really acted like she was about four, even though the whole point of the play is that all these men want to marry her.  Four is a little young for a bride, I think.  Petruchio and Katharina both, I thought, did a good job delivering their lines in a very natural way; I guess what I'm trying to say is that they seemed to have the smoothest mix of language and setting, although they never really went through the transformation to lovers that they're supposed to make.

This was the first live performance of The Taming of the Shrew that I've seen.  Remember how I watched 10 Things I Hate About You in preparation for last night?  Well, I also got Franco Zefferilli's Taylor-Burton version of Taming from the library, but didn't have time to watch it.  I'll get to that soon, hopefully.  But even given that I don't have much to compare it to, I can imagine better stagings.  All the light comedy was there last night, but sometimes it just seemed like the play lost its way a little bit.  (Really, when you compare any show they could've put on this year to last year's Hamlet, it would be hard to measure up.)

52 Weeks of Dresses - Week 7

Otherwise titled: The Circus, Take Three!

If you've been reading my blog for a year or so, you'll know that K and I have made a bit of a habit of going to see Circus Flora.  Well, we've done it again!  (You can read about our previous adventures here and here.)  In attendance this time were K, me, T, and cousin A.  We only just made it, after K's birthday festivities the night before - but we did!

Yesterday's show was a different version of the one we saw in January.

There were a number of different acts, though.  The Duos ADAMO and Voltart, some of my favorites, were gone.  Sad face.  Maybe the ADAMO girl preggers again.  Vince Bruce was gone too.

But we had the St. Louis Arches, everyone's favorite returning group of tumbling youngsters, the Riding Donnert Brothers (new this year), the Olate Family with their dogs (there's a video of this year's act here), and of course the Flying Wallendas and Flying Pages.  I talked about the tragedy of the Flying Wallendas in my last circus post, but I found a video of a news report with some footage including their recreation of the famed seven-person pyramid, which you can see here.

There's a picture of me with the dogs, but I'll have to post it later....

After the circus, T took us out to dinner at BARcelona.  We had lots of tasty food, as well as a round of hot chocolate, because it had been freezing cold in the circus tent!  I basically went home and crashed after that - it was the end of a long day, which was the end of a long (but super fun!) weekend!

Then, when I was out rowing this morning, I told C that we had been to the circus last night, and he told me about a movie called One Lucky Elephant: A Ten Thousand Pound Love Story.  It's a documentary film about our circus's namesake and the search to find her a new home; it was acquired by the Oprah Winfrey Network for distribution late last year.  This article about the movie was written by a woman who came to speak about animal rights at the law school a few times while I was there.

Happy Birthday, K!

It'll only come once this year!

The Hunger Games -- Take 2

I picked up The Hunger Games for a number of reasons:

(1) I've been having trouble doing recreational reading lately, because I've been so busy.  I wanted a book that would be easy to read, entertaining, and that I didn't want to put down.  This is the same reason I started reading the Twilight books, but Suzanne Collins, while still clearly writing for a teenage audience, is superior to Stephanie Meyer as a wordsmith.  Don't get me wrong, Suzanne's no Bill Shakespeare, but at least she knows how to put a sentence together.

(2) I've been selling a gazillion copies of the books in the trilogy at my bookstore, and was wondering what the fuss was about.
 
(3) As I said in my first post about the book, Jennifer Lawrence has been cast to play Katniss Everdeen in the movie.  It's a totally different role than her breakout as Ree Dolly in Winter's Bone, but I want to see the movie just to see how she does.

In the novel, Katniss lives in some future version of the United States, but there has clearly been massive political and social meltdown.  The oppressive government rules from the Capitol, and the remainder of the country has been divided into twelve districts.  A few of the districts are wealthy; most have been exploited for resources.  Katniss hails from District 12, the coal mining district.  Every district must select two children by lottery, one boy and one girl, to send to the Hunger Games each year.

Katniss is sixteen; her younger sister Prim, to whom she is fiercely devoted, is twelve.  It's Prim's first year of eligibility for the Games, and her name is chosen.  Katniss, a skilled bow hunter who can move silently through the woods outside their district boundary, volunteers to go in Prim's stead.  She and Peeta, the boy from her district, are whisked off to the Capitol for a week of preparation before the Games begin.

The Hunger Games is a fight to the death.  The last contender - called a Tribute - still living is the victor.  The whole spectacle is filmed and broadcast live through the Capitol and all the districts.  The Gamemakers control every aspect of life in the arena - the landscape, the weather, the rules, the sneaky tricks.

Collins' description of the gruesome, violent Hunger Games is oddly compelling where it should be revolting.  I just couldn't stop reading.  And to complicate matters for Katniss while she's fighting for her life, Peeta - on live television during preparation for the Games - declared his love for her.  But she's confused: is it a trick to mess with her head?  Part of the show he's putting on to entertain the Gamemakers?  Does he mean it?  When they find themselves needing each other in order to survive, she starts to fall for him too.  Or does she?

I compared this book to Twilight because I read them for the same reasons: escapism and curiosity.  Although a lot of other people compare it to Twilight, and I can't quite figure out why; there are teen books with far more similar plots that would probably make for a better comparison.  Maybe it's just because they're both so popular.  But in addition to being better written (although there are some spots that could use editing work; I think Katniss says at about four different times during the Games that it's the first time she feels like she might really win), The Hunger Games is more thought-provoking, with its less-than-subtle political commentary, and is just a better story.  Most of reading Twilight consisted of trying not to gag while Bella whined on and on about how her life would end without Edward.  Katniss is just the opposite: she doesn't need Peeta, and isn't even sure she wants him.  She's strong and brave and capable, but also tender, if the time is right.  She's a far better role model for teenage girls, if they can stomach the subject matter.

Wanted: Proofreader

I get periodic e-mails from glamour.com, as I am a magazine subscriber.  Today, I got this:

Does anyone else see the problem?

I know, I know, I have typos on my blog occasionally.  But at least my blog is only read by about four people.  I'm sure this e-mail went out to a gazillion.  Oops.

What I Watched -- Bridesmaids

K and I, against C's advice, went to see Bridesmaids yesterday.  And it was funny!

Now, there was definitely some boy-movie humor that I could have done without: the food poisoning scene, for example.  But Kristen Wiig was awesome!  Her comedic timing and facial expressions were dead on, and what's more, her non-comedic scenes were dead on.

Any girl who's ever been in her best friend's wedding would be lying if she said she didn't go through the whole gamut of emotions - loneliness, jealousy, frustration, feeling like your life is at a standstill while everyone else rushes by on their way to whatever will make them happy.  This movie has it all, and nails it with laughs along the way.

Melissa McCarthy (of Samantha Who? fame, if you can call that fame) also does a hilarious turn as the fight-clubbing, dog-loving sister of the groom.

Bottom line: definitely not high culture, but it accomplishes the dual tasks of (1) comedy, and (2) illustrating the trials and tribulations of female friendships.

Bon Voyage, T!

Today's the big day - Dad is off to Colorado once again!  Only this time, he's for real.  How do I know this?  Because he took the wine.

Last night we sent him off - or really he sent himself off - with dinner at I Fratellini.  Everything was delightful!  I had an appetizer of caramellas (little lemon pastas that look like wrapped candies - there's a picture here), entree of lobster risotto, and dessert of lemon panna cotta.  And of course there was wine; we were very celebratory and had prosecco.

Our pretty clothes!

Off we go...

 And the pretty flower on our table

Dad at dinner

K and I decided to play in the not-full pool after dinner

Love you, and safe travels!  We'll miss you here in the 'Lou!

The Death of Spirit

Peeps, I am sad.

Remember how much I love Spirit and Opportunity?  Well, NASA announced last week that Spirit's mission has officially come to an end; after more than a year of radio silence, scientists at NASA have ceased listening for further transmissions from Spirit.  NPR did a nice reflection on the progress made by the rovers during their wildly successful Martian adventures.

But let's not get too discouraged.  Opportunity is still up there chugging away, making tracks (albeit slowly) and sending back pictures.

I just have to say this again, because I'm so totally enamored by these guys...er, this guy.  (Oops.)  Really though, how cool would it be if your job was to drive a robot around on Mars?  Granted, it probably took a lot of work on significantly less fun projects for the scientists to get to this point in their careers, but still.  "What did you do?"  "I drove a rover on Mars."  As the kid in The Incredibles says: "that was totally wicked!"

And on the subject of wicked but slow-moving jobs in the field of space exploration, NPR also did a story on the last shuttle mission, or more specifically on the guys who drive the truck that takes the shuttle from its hangar to the launch pad.  They drive a truck called The Crawler, whose speedometer goes all the way up to a blistering two (two!) miles per hour! The truck (if you can call it that) is the world's largest self-powered land vehicle in the world, and weighs 18 million (million!) pounds, fully loaded.  It gets a painful 32 feet (feet!) per gallon of fuel.  The road to the launch pad, The Crawlerway, was specially built to hold all the weight, and is the width of a 4-land interstate highway (including the grass median).  It's 3.5 miles long, it will take The Crawler all night to reach the pad.  There are a team of drivers who take turns, so they can be well-rested when it's their turn at the wheel - wouldn't want to be the one responsible for falling asleep and crashing the shuttle!

Whitaker Music Festival

The Whitaker Music Festival has begun again at MoBot!  Last night was the first concert, and it was more crowded than I remember from last year.  Maybe it was just because it was the first show, or maybe more people have discovered it.

In any case, T and I enjoyed the show, and had lots and lots of food.  There was cucumber soup with mint, panzanella, potato salad with bacon and hard-boiled eggs, and blueberry muffins.  Oh, and wine!

And what's more, I managed to stay awake through the whole concert this time!  Hooray for me!

Freedom of the Press

Grant Giske wrote an article for the American Thinker recently, in which he questioned the Obama administration's handling of Bin Laden's death; specifically, he lamented the decision to share so many details of the raid that led to the terrorist's death.

I would hope there are enough brains at work in the administration to think through whether sharing all that information was a good idea.  Even if you don't like their politics, it is hard to dispute that there are some smart people working for the Prez.  But I think that Mr. Giske is generally onto something. This article hit on an idea that I've been pondering for years, although mine is a hard argument to articulate because it's difficult to figure out exactly where to draw the line.  You'll see what I mean.

Let me start out by saying this: freedom of the press is a good thing.  I'm glad we have it, and I wouldn't want to live somewhere that doesn't.

But I'm also not sure we're ready to handle everything we're going to find out if we really start digging.  (Patronizing, I know.  But I think it's true, at least for me.  Can you be patronizing towards yourself?)  War is ugly.  People die, and there are blood and guts splashed everywhere.  Maybe it seems to fit into our culture of violent media, but these are real people, not digital video game dummies.  And they die.

K and I were out riding our bikes a few weeks ago and we rode past a squirrel that had been hit by a car.  The force of the impact pushed its guts out its mouth.  It looked like he died while he was in the middle of vomiting up his (or her) intestines.  They had gotten kind of dried out in the sun and were dried to its face.  Gross, right?  And that was just a squirrel.

Journalists, like attorneys, do have a code of ethics.  The Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics is here, if you'd like to look at it.  I don't know enough about journalism (so maybe I should shut up) to know the ins and outs, but there are limits to what will be - or should be - broadcast.  I hope they wouldn't actually broadcast images on the news of someone who looked like that squirrel, but you never know.  Shock value equals interest, and interest equals money.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is pretty simple, but it's simply not pretty. As a nation, we do a lot of nasty things, fighting wars foremost among them.  Some of that nastiness is probably necessary; some of it probably isn't.  If we want to continue living like we have been, we have to deal with it.  But we can't expect a total sea change in how we as a nation do business, while also expecting nothing about our way of life to change.  That's having your cake and eating it too, and grandparents everywhere will tell you that's not possible.

This conundrum leaves us with options: either toughen up and accept the nitty gritty consequences of our behavior, or change.  I'm not sure we're willing to, or maybe able to, do either, at least not in the short run.  And I'm not sure we should want to.  So what do we do?