Dreamgirls

Yesterday night I went to go see Dreamgirls at the Curran with some friends. I haven't seen the movie, so I didn't know the story beforehand, and I'm not sure if it's exactly the same.

My thoughts:
- I was impressed with the visual effects, the staging, the costumes, and the choreography.
- I enjoyed some of the songs. There were definitely songs that I did not entirely like, but I'm not sure if that was the fault of the performers or just a stylistic issue.
- I liked the performer who sang Deena better than the one who sang Effie. Effie often seemed a little over-the-top and was screaming rather than singing. Again, this may be a matter of genre/style. Also, the way Effie is written, she's not very sympathetic; she's whiny and diva-y.
- The guy who plays Jimmy Early is amazing. He's ridiculously high-energy, dances beautifully, and is totally hilarious. He reminded me a little of Chris Tucker but less annoying. I was telling my friend after the performance, I'm really not sure how they manage to find multiple performers who can fill this role, but I also thought the same about Angel when I first saw Rent.
- I've never been at a musical where the audience "interrupted" so much with intermittent clapping and running commentary. At first it was really distracting but eventually I think I got used to it.

Although I was really tired yesterday even before getting to the show, I was definitely never in danger of falling asleep; the songs were mostly upbeat and the pacing of the musical numbers was on the fast side. Overall it was a fun evening, and although Dreamgirls will not go on my favorite musicals list, it's nice to have seen it.

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.

BART is useful (sometimes)

I usually don't take BART, mostly because it takes $8 to go roundtrip from Millbrae to the city, which makes it only worth it if no one wants to carpool. Last week I took BART twice; once to a whitewater rafting offsite (the bus picked up in Mountain View at 7:30am and in San Francisco at 8:30am, making my decision of pickup location very easy), and once to the Orpheum to see the Drowsy Chaperone with some friends living in the city.

PROS:
- free and plentiful parking at Millbrae
- $8 is about as cheap as round-trip gas, at least for one person
- the Civic Center stop at 8th and Market is pretty convenient to lots of stuff

CONS:
- takes 45 minutes (as opposed to 30 minutes) from my house to downtown
- last train a little after midnight
- sometimes the cars smell funny

All in all, it's a decent option and I will have to remember to keep it in mind.

As for the events themselves, rafting was fun and all, but I'm tired of Class III. If only someone else would plan a Class IV trip...since I'm too lazy at the moment.

The musical was surprisingly good; I had no idea what it was going to be about, and I found the self-conscious humor and show-within-a-show setup intriguing. The narrator character was well played, as were the male and female leads, but I was less fond of some of the supporting characters, including the titular chaperone. Overall it was fun and upbeat, and not too expensive either, at $55 for a weekday showing.

Hairspray

Last week I went to see Hairspray, which was amusing and well done, although not my favorite type of musical. I do wish they had found a better dancer to play Tracy, since the entire plot hinges on her dancing ability. She just seemed lacking in energy, especially compared to the actors playing Link and Seaweed, both of whom were excellent. Of course, the guy playing Link also looked like he was about eighteen years old, so it was probably less of an effort for him.

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".

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.

NYC: Day 5

Well, the plan for yesterday failed. We did cook at home, but then we got stuck watching the Spurs and the Suns, and never made it to Small's. Maybe we'll go this weekend.

Today, we got bagels at Murray's Bagels on the way to the subway. I was a little stunned by the sheer variety of bagels and spreads. I ended up getting a sun-dried tomato bagel with plain cream cheese. I'll try and be more adventurous next time.

I gave a tech talk at work, which went surprisingly well in light of my lack of preparation, even finishing exactly on time. I was pretty busy last week, so I just wrote up some slides and figured I'd wing it. Luckily, I had found a "makeslides" script floating around on our intranet. It takes in a text file and outputs an HTML slide deck, complete with "next" and "prev" links. Consequently, writing the slides took about as much time as presenting them.

Now that that's over, I can enjoy the rest of my week in peace. I have tickets for Wicked tonight, so I guess I'll be grabbing a quick dinner and then heading over to Times Square for the show.

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...

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.

SJ Ballet?

I'm going to the ballet tonight. Nope, not the San Francisco ballet, the San Jose ballet. Yeah, I didn't know they had a ballet company either.

Not to be a snob, but I'm generally skeptical about SJ's performing arts. They just can't compare to the SF companies, especially for the ballet, symphony, and opera. The touring performance of Rent was pretty good, I guess. Plus, I think I get an extra kick out of watching the SF ballet because I indirectly know Yuan-Yuan Tan.

Anyway, I decided to give SJ a chance tonight because (A) a group of my co-workers are going, (B) it's only $10 for us, and (C) they're performing Appalachian Spring, which I've never seen. I'm trying to keep an open mind.