I have 18 things to say (an extremely belated concert review)

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Two months ago I saw a concert of Steve Reich and Philip Glass at BAM with my friend Mark (the same Mark with whom I saw Steve Reich at Columbia back in May). The concert opened with Reich's Four Organs followed by a bunch of Glass pieces. Perhaps you can tell I was there for the Reich and not so much the Glass. I ran into another band friend, Steve, who felt the opposite (but this was before the concert).

The entire second act was Music For 18 Musicians. During intermission, I asked Mark how long the piece was, and when he told me it was an hour, I ran to the bathroom. Upon my return, in the remaining minutes before the second act began, I worried that I wouldn't be able to sit still through an hour of repetitive minimalist music. I needn't have worried.

It was two months ago, but I'm going to attempt to share with you 18 thoughts about Music For 18 Musicians:

1. Sitting up in the balcony was ideal for this piece. The 18 musicians and their instruments (most of which were mallet and keyboard percussion) filled the stage like an orchestra, and watching the movement of the musicians between the instruments was a big part of the experience.
2. The 18 musicians don't all play constantly, but at one point when everyone on stage was playing I counted, and I SWEAR there were 19 of them.
3. Having heard the piece before, I assumed the voices were at least a little processed (I thought perhaps a pulse was added), but watching their heads bob in front of the microphones you can see the vocalists are beating out constant rhythms like everyone else.
4. One of the constants throughout was a pulse on the marimba made by one guy playing on the beat and the other guy doing off-beats. Musicians relieved each other from time to time, but they definitely played for minutes on end. I would never want to be the off-beats guy.
5. The vibraphone was centrally situated on the stage, representative of its central role in the piece. While everyone else is beating out quarter note pulses and repeating eighth note patterns (assuming the piece is in 6/4), the vibraphone bides its time, and then plays a series of four or five sustained chords or octaves, whereupon the entire ensemble shifts into a new section of the piece. The vibraphone (played by the same person throughout, as I recall) has all the power.
6. There was a female pianist at upper stage right who was all by herself. Everyone else seemed to be close to at least one other musician except her.
7. Like any good ensemble, all of the little moving parts combine to create a single machine. The result is a wash of sound that gradually changes, subtlely bringing you along for the ride.
8. The ensemble performing the piece was Steve Reich and Musicians, a group that has been performing together for nearly fifty years.
9. There was no conductor! The performance was flawless.

Okay, if I try to keep going this list is going to degrade into things like, "The walls were pretty," and "I was really glad I peed first." Nine is good. That's one thing per two musicians. Next time I won't wait two months before writing the review.

Nebraska Lady

After seeing a preponderance of Elsas over the past week, it occurred to me once again that I haven't seen Frozen. Most people's (well, adults') reactions to this are the same: It's not the best Disney animated film, but just watch it. So I figured I'd take advantage of the future in which we live and tell Netflix to play it for me. To my (perhaps unwarranted) surprise, it is not available for streaming, and I discovered it is already in my DVD queue, where it shall stay until I finally watch Nebraska.

Yes, I'm one of the few remaining individuals who has a disc plan. It came in handy when I wanted to watch the first four seasons of The Good Wife, the first two seasons of Girls, and a host of other things only offered on disc. It comes in not-handy (footy?) when the I'm-an-intellectual center of my brain adds something to my queue that my I-just-want-to-laugh-or-cry lobe has no interest in watching when it arrives in my mailbox.

Such is the case with Nebraska. I am embarrassed to tell you how long I've had this Oscar-nominated film in my possession, but since this blog likely has fewer readers than months I've held onto the disc, I'll tell you. I've had it for eight months. Premature children have been conceived and born in the time I've had this disc. This disc has been living in my apartment for almost as long as I have. I moved in, blasted through the fourth season of Good Wife and the first two seasons of Girls in two months, and then in March, Nebraska landed in my mailbox with a clunk. Based on what came before it, perhaps I would have watched it sooner if it had a female word in the title: Nebraska Lady.

Put another way, I have spent $64 on the privilege of having Nebraska in my house. It's not the most inefficient way I've spent money (see Late Fees, ATM Fees, Parking Tickets, Gym Memberships, and One Year's Worth of Ancestry.com), but it's certainly the most recent.

I'd decided to watch Nebraska, but then, in a fit of nerdiness, I decided to see how the length of time I've held on to it measures up to the other times I've done this. I will not bore you with how I accomplished this, but suffice it to say I crashed MS Excel twice. Before Nebraska, the disc I held on to longest was Wanda Sykes: I'ma Be Me. To be clear, I like Wanda Sykes.  I suppose I just wasn't in the mood for stand-up comedy right then, and then not for the ensuing six months. I had The House of Mirth (part of my Gillian Anderson jag) and Annie Hall for four months each. The Last King of Scotland (Gillian again) was mine for three months, and Ray and Pi for two.

Of all of these, Pi was the one I thought about watching the most while I had it. I didn't want to watch it alone, but no one would watch it with me. I ended up watching it on my computer with an AIM chat window open to my friend Kathleen the whole time (she'd seen it, and she kept asking, "Did you get to the part yet?").

I'm going to watch Nebraska now.

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Nippy

When we last checked in with Latoya the Hoya, she had seven leaves and was moving in a Greco-Roman direction.  Now, she has more leaves than I am willing to count.

You're so vine.

Plus, she seems to be sprouting a second vine, which should make life, and particularly showers, interesting.

This is an old picture; the new vine now has three leaves, which you can kind of see in the first picture, taken today.

Every once in a while, Latoya will reach a tipping point while I'm in the shower, and the vine will fall and brush against me STARTLINGLY.

I decided to branch out (sorry) and bought a catnip plant.  Obviously its name is Nippy.  It does not live in the shower so obviously it will die soon, but until then it looks happy in its bright orange pot. It was looking a little sad when I watered it on Friday but since then its leaves have perked up.

There is also a tiny piece of Mabel in this picture.

Now you're up to date on the plants.

Ikea sighting in the 24th century

As I mentioned in my last post, part of the impetus for watching Star Trek: Voyager was to see the episode where a malfunctioning food replicator says, "Get it yourself."  Seven of Nine might say that watching the entire series was an inefficient method of achieving that goal (as an alternative, I could have just asked Lindsay), but in any case, mission accomplished.  Watching the episode clarified for me that the quote is actually "Make it yourself," and the replicator is not malfunctioning, but acting exactly as the Q who reprogrammed it intended.  I still maintain it is the funniest moment in a very funny series.

Other funny moments:

• The entire episode where the Doctor inhabits Seven of Nine's body.
• Janeway to Neelix: "Dismissed.  That's a Federation expression.  It means get out."
• Most of B'Elanna's bitchiness.
• Much, much more

I watched the entirety of Voyager in half the time it took me to watch all of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and they are each the same length.  So we'll call it a win for Voyager.

And tell me that's not an Expedit in Tom and B'Elanna's quarters:

The Ikeas in the Delta Quadrant still sell Expedits!

The Sassy Replicator

If you are one of the five readers of my blog, you may be wondering what ever happened to my watching of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.  Well, I finished the series and immediately began watching Star Trek: Voyager, the favorite Star Trek series of my friend Lindsay.  More on Voyager in a moment, but first, my final thoughts on DS9.

I sum up my feelings on the characters pretty well in this post, but as for the series itself, I must say I really enjoyed it.  I didn't like it as much as TNG, and I'm really loving Voyager, so I can't say DS9 was my favorite, but it has a special place in my heart.  I mentioned in my first post in this blog that a common complaint about DS9 is, "The ship doesn't move!"  While I agree that the series' setting on a space station limits the scope a bit, there's plenty going on and we get to enjoy storylines with the Bajorans, Cardassians, Klingons, Ferengi, even the Romulans in later episodes, and finally, the pretty terrifying Dominion, not to mention all the new species the series introduces via the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant.  There's also plenty of history on the former Cardassian station that makes for good flashback fodder.  The religious infrastructure of Bajor offered lots of commentary on the separation of church and state and the evolution/intelligent design "debate."  I could have done without the mirror universe, though.

Having lived with Lindsay, I've seen snippets of Voyager here and there.  It was on so frequently in our apartment that our other roommate at the time, Courtney, dubbed the series "Not My Captain," noting that the show did not feature Jean-Luc Picard in the captain's chair.  The nickname caught on, even though Janeway is most definitely Lindsay's captain.

I rarely sat down and watched an entire episode, but two moments I vividly recall are these: (1) Neelix offering snacks to a Borg child and the child replying "Snacks are irrelevant," and (2) the food replicator malfunctioning when Janeway orders coffee and it replies, "Get it yourself!"  I just watched "The Haunting of Deck Twelve" in which the former occurs.  I must tell you, I've been waiting the entire series to hear the sassy replicator.  I'm up to the seventh and final season now, and I'm starting to worry that I may have imagined it.

Having watched six full seasons of Voyager since I last posted about Star Trek, naturally there's a lot to say.  Since this post has already gotten long.  I'll limit it to these observations:

• There are lots of mind melds on Voyager.
• Janeway lands the ship on planets a lot.  I didn't know you could do that.
• Hair grows back pretty quickly.
• For a Maquis captain, Chakotay (whom I used to call Commander Chipotle) is pretty amenable.
• I shed no tears when Kes left the series (although Jennifer Lien appears to have gotten a raw deal).  She returns in the sixth season for no apparent reason other than to be an asshole.

That list could go on forever.  More in another post, maybe.

The long, slow jog across 8th Avenue (for example)

Picture this:

You are in a car, waiting at a red light at a major intersection (the street is wide).  As the "Don't walk" sign begins to flash, some adventurous pedestrians break out in a run, launching into the crosswalk and across the street.  As they crest the half-way point, a calm overtakes them.  Perhaps they realize they are going to make it, so they don't have to try so hard.  On the other hand, perhaps they realize that life just isn't worth all this fuss, so they lay their fate down on 8th Avenue (for example), come what may.  In any case, they are still in the crosswalk when the light turns green, blocking your path.

Having watched this phenomenon time and again, I have come to the conclusion that it is all an act.  The run is not really a run, but rather a lethargic jog that that takes them across the street at roughly the speed a walk would.  The jog is not for their benefit, not a life-preserving measure.  Rather, it is a show put on for you, the motorist, who knows the pedestrian will not make it before the light turns green, forcing you to choose between vehicular manslaughter and delaying departure by a few very precious seconds.  Look, the jogging pedestrians say, we're trying!

The other day I found myself approaching an intersection on foot as the "Don't walk" sign began to flash.  I thrust myself into the street thinking, I can make it if I run!  As I neared the curb, the urgency lessened and my gait slowed, and I was a few steps away from the curb when the light changed.  I never felt as though I was in any danger of being run over.  In fact, I didn't regard the motorists at all.  Getting to the other side a few seconds late was good enough for me, and frankly, I was the only one involved.

Nothing ever happens in Blaine, WA

Last week, I traveled to Washington state with my family for a wedding.  I flew into the Seattle area and then journeyed across the Puget Sound to the small, seaside town of Port Townsend, where the wedding took place.  Have a map:

The pink square represents Port Townsend.
Had it been a gay wedding, I might have used a pink triangle.

On our first morning in Port Townsend, the day of the wedding, I was in a coffee shop with my dad and some of his friends.  On the wall above us was a framed map of the Pacific Northwest, stretching from Portland up past the top of Vancouver Island.  I stared at the map for a while, ignoring the conversation around me, and then at some point the conversation shifted to the map.  I pointed out Point Roberts, a tiny piece of the United States cut off from the rest of the country by the international border.  While the US made the concession that the boundary would curve around Vancouver Island leaving it to the British, no one knew at the time (1846) that the Tsawwassen Peninsula dipped below the 49th parallel, and by the time they realized it, it was too late (for bureaucracy, anyway).  I shared that there's no school in Point Roberts, so young residents of the forgotten piece of land commute 70 miles each way to attend classes in the United States.

The pink square remains Port Townsend for reference.
Point Roberts can be seen at the top of this map just below Tsawwassen, Canada.

My dad liked this little piece of trivia and it stayed with him up to the wedding reception, where he found himself sitting next to the uncle of the groom.  I was on the opposite side of the table, so I don't know how it came up, but it turned out the groom's uncle had worked in Point Roberts.  He lived in Blaine, WA, just south of the Canadian border across the bay from the Point, and he'd make the aforementioned 70 mile commute in the opposite direction of the school children.  It was a delightful coincidence that we'd been talking about the place earlier that day, and the serendipity continued when it was revealed that he'd been a postal worker in Point Roberts, and the man sitting on the other side of him (the uncle of the bride) was the brother of the former Postmaster General of the United States.

Blaine being so close to the border (literally flush with it), I asked him if he goes up to Canada often.  He said he hasn't crossed the border since he retired 18 years ago.  I then asked if he makes it down to Seattle on occasion and he said he does so as infrequently as he can manage.  If this makes him sound contrary, I can assure you he was indeed charming.