overspending on the arts

I feel like I've been overspending on arts and culture events recently.

A few weeks ago I went with some friends to see the SF Ballet's Program 3. We've been going every year for the past few years, so I guess this particular expenditure wasn't unusual. The program began with Yuri Possokhov's "Classical Symphony", which we realized we'd already seen last year, but it was still quite enjoyable. The second part was "Nanna's Lied", which was an extremely dramatic piece set in early 20th century Germany. I was happy that we got to see Yuan Yuan Tan as Nanna, as she is a family friend, but I'm not sure that I liked the overall theme; it was a bit too tragic for my taste. The program finished with the very modern "Artifact Suite", which had some interesting ensemble work and cool lighting effects, but I thought it went on a bit too long.

A few weeks later D and I went with some other friends to see Rock of Ages, which is an 80's rock musical. I joked to D that it was probably the first time that he (and not I) had been the one to propose going to see a musical. He's a sucker for 80's music, despite having missed most of it the first time around. Anyway, it was pretty cheesy but consciously so, and still a fun time.

While we were there, I saw an advertisement in the program for a one-man show by Hugh Jackman. Tickets went on sale on April 1st, and I promptly grabbed two of them (for myself and a friend; I'm not going to make D watch Wolverine sing) for mid-May.

Finally, last week D discovered that Journey would be in town in October (with Foreigner and Night Ranger), and started researching tickets. Only VIP seats were available at the time, but general sales started on April 2nd. That morning, I was up and at the computer by 9:55am, and was able to get some okay seats in the second tier for $107 apiece. I decided that I'm too old for lawn seats at the Shoreline.

Anyway, I feel like I should call a moratorium on buying tickets, but the other day my mom was asking about going to see the SF Opera's rendition of Don Giovanni...

chasing culture

When it comes to classical music, I find that I gravitate towards somber pieces. For example, I love Mozart's Requiem Mass in D minor, and wanted to use it in a wedding processional, but that idea was vetoed.

I heard Yo-Yo Ma playing some Bach Cello Suites when I was a kid, and I decided that I liked cello music. I think there's something about the tone of the cello that is inherently a little bit melancholy? Maybe I'm making that up.

Later on, I saw him play in an amazing West Wing holiday episode, which made me really want to see him live.

So, when I heard that Yo-Yo Ma would be playing with the San Francisco Symphony this season, I put the single ticket sales date on my calendar. That morning, I spent an hour clicking on windows in four browsers on two computers, and finally got my tickets (awesome loge seats near the center).

On the day of the performance, MTT came out and treated the audience to a short "fun" piece. I've totally blanked on the name of it now, but it was a nice transition from the rainy weather outside.

Then, the official program started with a short piece by Sibelius called "Oceanides". It was lighthearted and entertaining and the water theme was very clear. I'd never heard anything by Sibelius before, so it was a pleasant surprise.

Next up was the prime event; Yo-Yo Ma playing Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 2 with the symphony. He was very good, but I think I am not a huge Shostakovich fan. It's too "modern" for my taste. I actually preferred the Tchaikovsky "Little Russian" Symphony which followed, but I'm a sucker for Tchaikovsky. Still, it was a great evening of music.

I topped it off by going home and spending the rest of the the evening listening to Bach Cello Suites on YouTube.

blast from the past

Over the holidays, I dug up an old cassette case at my parents' house, and brought it home to use for storing board game cards. (As an aside, Dominion, Intrigue, and Seaside fit together perfectly in a case designed for 30 cassettes.)

Looking for a place to store the instructions, I unzipped the outside pocket and found a booklet full of coupons: "$2 off compact discs or VHS videotapes, good at any Wherehouse until November 30, 1990". Those coupons had been expired for nearly twenty years! I threw them away, anyway.

probably not the point

I went to the symphony yesterday to watch The Four Seasons, as well as a Mozart Divertimento (not a big fan) and Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings. It was an enjoyable performance, but I was most amused that the first viola snapped a hair in her bow three separate times, and every time she looked increasingly annoyed about it.

changes

From my sister's chat status today:

"Take the evil out the people they'll be acting right
'cause both black and white is smokin' crack tonight
and only time we chill is when we kill each other
it takes skill to be real, time to heal each other
And although it seems heaven sent
We ain't ready, to see a black President..."
-- 2pac

I remember that being one of my favorite songs at some point. I guess it was a long time ago.

Here's to more changes, over the next four years, and beyond!

stop calling me

I just want to listen to music, damnit.

Someone from the "Friends of the SF Symphony" called me on my cell phone yesterday, while I was at work. The conversation went something like this.

her:	I'm calling from the Friends of the SF Symphony. Do you have a minute?
me:	No, I'm at work.
her:	Is this a cell phone? Let me make a note...when can I call you back?
me:	What's this about?
her:	I thought you wanted to get off the phone.
me:	Can't you tell me in one sentence what this is about?
her:	What about between 5pm and 9pm?
me:	Exactly what are you calling about?
her:	How about Saturday?
me:	I'd like to know what you're calling about. Is this about tickets?
her:	No, I'm calling from the Friends of the SF Symphony, we help keep music in schools.
me:	I'm not interested, please take me off of your list.

The caller hung up all huffy. I think I must have gotten on her list because I bought some tickets to the symphony last year. I hate that this happens. Is there no way that I can buy symphony tickets and not have to deal with this kind of crap?

On a somewhat related note, someone named Gina Papan keeps sending junk mail to my house. I think she's running for some kind of office. If I ever see her name on a ballot I'm going to vote against her just because of all the trees she's killed. I wish there was a box on the voter registration form for "decline to state party affiliation and don't send me junk mail, either".

Jazz Fest

On my last day in New Orleans, several of us headed over to the Fair Grounds to check out the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, aka Jazz Fest.

I've never been all that clear on the difference between jazz and blues and soul and funk and gospel and so on, but after spending some time in the different stage areas, I concluded that I was most fond of the performances at the blues tent. The sound reminds me of the hip-hop and R&B that I'm more familiar with, but it's a bit more mellow. In fact, although I was definitely enjoying the music, I nearly nodded off a few times while listening to Guitar Slim Jr. and Kenny Neal.

In addition to the music, there were lots of interesting arts & crafts type displays. The people at one booth were making a quilt signed by people attending Jazz Fest (they had last year's quilt on display), so we signed a square or two. Another sold jewelry made from the scales of (some pretty scary-looking) garfish.

Of course, there was also tons of Cajun & Creole food: crawfish bread, all kinds of po' boys, etouffee, BBQ, jambalaya, and the ever-present beignets, with lots of catfish and crawfish in everything. I limited myself to some crawfish beignets and a "boudin" link. Coming from San Francisco, I've always associated "boudin" with sourdough, but apparently in New Orleans a boudin is a pork and rice sausage. Interesting, but not my favorite; I felt like the rice diluted the taste of the pork.

We had to leave around 3pm in order to catch our flights, but it was starting to get overcrowded anyway, so I wasn't too bummed about leaving; by then, we'd already had three or four hours to enjoy the good food and good music.

rock orchestra?

Last week a friend sent out an invitation for a performance by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I'd never heard of them before, but her description of a "rock orchestra" with a "laser light show" was intriguing enough that in the end I decided to go, even though the concert was the night before Thanksgiving, and I had a 9am flight to catch the next morning.

As it turns out, I did enjoy the show, and I'm glad I went, but I think I'm picky when it comes to music. The first half of the performance was Christmas-themed, and I liked most of the songs (especially the Nutcracker bits), but I didn't like the way they were strung together tenuously with a fairly boring narrative. I winced a couple of times when I felt that a particular vocalist was straining his voice, and I literally put on sunglasses at one point because the flashing lights were starting to hurt my eyes.

I enjoyed the second half more; there was an interesting piece based on Canon in D, and I liked their rendition of Mozart's Requiem. However, another of my complaints was that the woman singing Papagena's role in a Magic Flute-inspired piece was occasionally off-key. Although, she was also running up and down the aisles in high heels while singing, so I guess I should cut her a little slack. Also, one of the pianists was quite good, but the other was noticeably less proficient.

Incidentally, I'm going to the see the San Francisco Symphony perform Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique in a week and a half, which should make for a interesting comparison.

Wyclef visit

I was excited when I heard last week that Wyclef would be visiting at work and was going to talk, introduce his new CD, and even perform a bit. I'd been a fan of the Fugees (a long time ago), and even went to a Lauryn Hill concert one summer at Jones Beach.

Anyway, I put the visit on my calendar, but as usual, when the time came around, I was swamped and felt like I couldn't leave my desk. I finally dragged myself over to the cafe about 20 minutes late, and I'm really glad I did.

Wyclef was funny; kidding around with the sound guy and challenging a random employee to a push-up contest (the other guy started doing clap pushups so Wyclef did one-armed pushups). He was interesting; he talked about collaborating with other artists and played some clips from his new CD. Most of all, he was entertaining; he played several acoustical pieces, and followed that up by freestyling for a good 10 minutes or so.

I don't buy a lot of CDs these days, but now I'm tempted to buy one.

Chou time

It's been a very Jay Chou-centric weekend.

The original plan for Friday was to see Curse of the Golden Flower at the AMC Mercado, but when the movie showtimes came out for this week, we discovered that Golden Flower had been yanked already. The next closest showing (in both time and place) was the 10:45pm showing the the Metreon.

So, Friday after work, a bunch of us headed up to the city, got some tapas at Thirsty Bear, tried to get dessert at Beard Papa's only to discover that they'd closed at 8pm, and snuck some Just Desserts into the theatre instead.

I had pretty low expectations going in, since Golden Flower had gotten some bad reviews and was being yanked so quickly, so I actually enjoyed the movie quite a bit. The visuals were stunning, and the acting wasn't bad (it's nice seeing Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat speaking Chinese instead of English). Of course, my roommate most enjoyed watching Jay Chou in his role as Prince Jai.

For dinner on Saturday, we'd planned a group outing to Sushi House in Alameda. I'd never heard so many recommendations for the same restaurant from so many different people before, so we had to try it. The rolls were yummy and the portion sizes were super generous, but it was the tempura ice cream that I liked the best; it was huge, well made, with a cake-y batter, and had raspberry sauce on the side (which sounds strange, but was delicious).

Since we were already in the East Bay, we then headed over to Music Tunnel in Richmond, which is likely, after all these years, still the best KTV in the Bay Area. Usually when I go to karaoke, we sing mostly English songs, because most people don't read other languages very well, but this time, I had invited my cousin to join us, and she's fluent in English, Chinese, Japanese, and Taiwanese. As a result, we not only sang more Chinese songs than ever before (including at least ten Jay Chou songs), but we actually had some Japanese songs on the program as well.

another awesome radio morning

Two of my favorite songs, One Hundred Years by Five for Fighting, and How to Save a Life by The Fray, played back-to-back on Alice this morning. Such a lovely way to start the day.

new TV show, new band

I swear, I don't have an obsession with medical TV shows.

I do still watch ER, mostly out of loyalty, and I love Scrubs, but up until recently, I never felt compelled to watch Grey's Anatomy, mostly because the main character seemed so annoying, at least judging from the endless commercials.

Then, I was at my parents' house one weekend, and was flipping through their (newly repaired) Tivo. I wasn't really in the mood for Japanese period dramas or Food Network, so I put on an episode of Grey's Anatomy. It was really good. I think by the end of the weekend I had watched all of the episodes saved on the Tivo.

I still think Meredith is kind of annoying, and has serious issues, but the show is really more of an ensemble piece than anything else, and I like that. Oh, did I mention that almost all of the men are extremely good-looking?

Anyway, I managed to watch most of the second season during the summer when the reruns were on, and then when it got to September, the network started to promote the new season, and I discovered I really, really liked the music in the commercial. A couple days after that, I was watching a rerun of Scrubs, and there it was again, the same song, How to Save a Life by The Fray. Their CD is now in my Amazon shopping cart, waiting for me to spend $15 more to get free shipping.

musical diversity

Today, on the way to work, I was listening to 106.1 KMEL. Apparently they were doing some kind of Tupac Shakur retrospective (I guess he's been dead for ten years today?) so they played "California Love" and "How Do You Want It" back to back. Then, to my surprise, the DJ said that one of Tupac's favorite songs had been from Les Miserables, and he proceeded to play "Do You Hear the People Sing?". He followed that up with "Changes", which is one of my favorite Tupac pieces. Suffice to say, I quite enjoyed the radio this morning.

my new favorite TV show

I still love Scrubs, but I've thoroughly enjoyed the first two episodes of Love Monkey, a new series on CBS. It stars Tom Cavanagh of Ed as Tom, a thirty-something music industry exec living in New York City.

I'm not sure exactly why I like the show, but it's some combination of Cavanagh's innate likeability (and ability to talk super-fast), combined with some pretty decent characterization, and lots of good music. For instance, Teddy Geiger, who I'd never heard of previously, appeared as a singer/songwriter prodigy in the pilot episode, and he was excellent.

Unfortunately, as of now, CBS has only ordered eight episodes, and the viewership numbers are mediocre, so it's unclear if the show will survive until next season. Go watch it now!

RIP 104.9

A few days ago, back from my vacation, I climbed into my car, started up the engine, and discovered a horrible thing. One of my favorite radio stations, KCNL 104.9, aka "the new music alternative", had been replaced with a Spanish program.

Today, after a proper mourning period, I will be erasing my 104.9 preset. Does anyone have any suggestions for a replacement?

the RZA

There was an article in the Chronicle about an interview that RZA gave recently at Koret. Where do these events get publicized? I would have thought about going, at least for a couple of minutes.

I find RZA a thoroughly fascinating character. He's obviously a talented musician and composer, as he's demonstrated since his Wu-Tang Clan days, and more recently with his work on the Ghost Dog and Kill Bill soundtracks, as well as The World According to RZA, in which he collaborated with French and German musicians. His IMDB profile states that he's an "influential producer and hip-hip MC" and lists a half a dozen aliases. Indeed, he seems to embrace the idea of having multiple public personalities, including the more lighthearted "Bobby Digital" alter ego. Judging from various interviews, including a recent appearance on the Daily Show, the RZA also appears knowledgeable (and often philosophical) about an assortment of topics, including martial arts, Islam (although he is Christian), chess, vegetarianism, recreational drug use, and 20th century history.

Perhaps I just find it refreshing to hear a popular hip-hop artist converse intelligently and profoundly about subjects unrelated to his music.

symphonic sound

Last Saturday, we went to Davies to see MTT's San Francisco Symphony (and a guest pianist, Vladimir Feltsman) perform Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. I'm not great with the names of orchestral pieces, so it was best described to me by my roommate as "that really famous one on the piano", accompanied by her humming of a few opening notes. It was preceded by a very short piece, Stravinsky's Scherzo à la russe and followed by Shostakovich's Symphony No. 15. I enjoyed the evening very much, although I did find the Shostakovich a little harder to follow. Of course, the fact that we went to Citizen Cake for dessert didn't hurt.

Ironically, two days later, we were in the city again, this time at the Masonic, to see the Symphony Silicon Valley play a selection of music from Final Fantasy. Yes, the games. It was a very different experience. Several audience members were dressed up as characters from FFVII, FFVIII, and FFX. I had been at the Masonic previously to watch the Barenaked Ladies, and I had thought it a pretty decent venue, but it felt lackluster when compared to the carefully calculated acoustics of Davies Symphony Hall. I felt sorry for the violinists, who were woefully under-miked. The music itself was pleasant and well-played, but I could never get the "background music" concept out of my head, and the fact that scenes from the video games were being projected on three giant screens didn't help. Afterwards we went to Korea House (in Japantown) for a late dinner. Mmm...

new music in commercials

Recently I've noticed some commercials being released in conjunction with their soundtracks. For example, the new commercial for Gap came out, with Lenny Kravitz singing "Lady" (to Sarah Jessica Parker's make-me-dizzy costume changes), at the same time that he released his new album "Baptism". Similarly, U2 came out with "Vertigo" at the same time the corresponding iPod commercial started to air. I'm blanking on other examples, but I'm sure there are more.

Is this a brand-new phenomenon? Have marketers suddenly decided that musical artists are the key to selling stuff? What gives?

random links

I don't usually like to post entries like this, but here's a bunch of random links that I found interesting recently:

- Stephen Roach is predicting an economic Armageddon for the US, due to our outrageous trade deficit.
- Federally funded abstinence-only programs are teaching students that abortion makes you sterile.
- Here's a list of Top 100 universities put together by someone other than US News & World Report. The twist is that it includes prestigious universities from across the globe.
- Check out Smoosh, a band comprised of a 12-year old and her 10-year old kid sister.
- The NYTimes reports on growing civil unrest in China (use bugmenot.com).
- Here are some horrifying "before and after" satellite pictures of the devastation caused by the tsunami.
- Finally, my rant of the day: Taiwan has been excluded from a tsunami relief summit, despite having committed $50 million USD so far, making it the world's eighth largest donor.

Vienna Teng at the Montgomery Theater

Last night I went with some friends to see Vienna Teng at the Montgomery Theater in San Jose. We had a horrible time trying to get there; the Julian Street exit off of 87 was clogged about a mile back, and was barely moving at all. Finally we called a friend who told us how to get there using the next exit (duh). It was a perfect illustration of why it's necessary to know where you're going, instead of just blindly following Mapquest directions.

Anyway, the show was really good! A couple of the pieces gave me that almost painful feeling that you get when you see or hear something really lovely (music or otherwise) and you're a little bit sad because you're not sure you're going to be able to get that loveliness back, ever.

I'd never heard Vienna in concert before, even though she's actually a friend of a friend of a friend, or something like that. I enjoyed the geek references (Vienna used to be a software engineer at Cisco) and comments about Taiwanese parents. It was also kinda cool to see Eric, who I've met once or twice, playing cello along with her regular violinist and two other band members.