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8789. alistairConnor - 9/18/2009 10:42:24 PM Yes, I grew up listening to her. 8790. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 10/14/2009 5:00:24 PM 
8791. anomie - 10/14/2009 8:19:48 PM Hey WOW! Wow! Nice. And the style is unique - to me anyway. I like it very much. 8792. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 10/15/2009 3:59:14 PM Thanks anomie! 8793. judithathome - 10/17/2009 5:56:26 PM Economy of color AND motion and yet, I know just where it is...or think I do!
Lovely! 8794. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 10/18/2009 7:56:30 PM 
8795. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 10/18/2009 11:46:37 PM 
8796. wabbit - 10/18/2009 11:47:10 PM Gorgeous! 8797. alistairConnor - 10/18/2009 11:59:58 PM Stunning. Textured chiaroscuro thingy. Love it. 8798. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 10/19/2009 4:58:02 PM 
8799. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 10/19/2009 5:00:51 PM "Reality leaves a lot to the imagination." (J. Lennon) 8800. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/12/2009 10:14:48 PM 
Cliffside Cottages In Moonlight
8801. wabbit - 11/13/2009 1:47:04 AM Oooh, I love that, very dramatic and eerie. 8802. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/13/2009 6:39:18 AM You're moonstruck! Thanks wabb, I'm havin' fun. The planet's a mess, the art world is a pathetic joke but the studio is such a gift in times like these.
Oh, btw, don't pass up this incredible read: 
8803. wabbit - 11/21/2009 2:26:03 AM I *am* moonstruck, absolutely!
That book is on my reading list, I'll move it up. Thanks! 8804. wabbit - 11/21/2009 2:26:37 AM RIP Jeanne-Claude: Jeanne-Claude, who collaborated with her husband, Christo, on dozens of environmental art projects, notably the wrapping of the Pont Neuf in Paris and the Reichstag in Berlin and the installation of 7,503 vinyl gates with saffron-colored nylon panels in Central Park, died Wednesday in Manhattan, where she lived. She was 74... I adored her. Perhaps I'll dye my hair emerald green again in remembrance.8805. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/21/2009 5:32:43 PM A lady of love! 8806. CharlieL - 1/1/2010 12:18:30 AM Tim Hart, a founding member of Steeleye Span, dies Christmas Eve at the age of 61. That band had a profound effect on me and the way I see bass guitar in traditional music. 8807. Ms. No - 1/10/2010 8:50:25 AM All you haters just sit back and shut it. I'm gone camping!
When I first heard that they'd made a musical of a horrible but fondly remembered film from my pre-teen days ---when every girl wanted to be Olivia Newton John --- all I could think was that they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Xanadu? The Musical?
Jesus wept.
Except that it was really, awesomely fun! They managed to hit the right amount of camp and fun-poking without being over-the-top in a bad way and without denigrating what we all know was a horrible film but many a teen girl loved anyway.
They've added some songs --- Newton-John and otherwise --- and they fit well.It's a 90 minute show with no intermission and it's exactly the right length with good pacing. One of the best things for me was a surprise that happened in the opening number.
If you never saw or have blocked the film from your mind, it takes place in Venice Beach, CA. Chalk artist draws a mural on a brick wall of the Nine Muses and the mural comes to life with Olivia-Newton John as the Muse Clio who attaches to our young artist and prevents his suicide.
blah blah blah rest of film ensues.
So in the opening number when the mural comes to life, one of the muses is considerably older than the others and I take a good look at her and burst into happy tears. It's Annie Golden who played Jeannie in Milos Forman's movie version of Hair. I was thrilled to see her --- and she's great in the show as is the other major supporting female role. The entire ensemble is solid.
The lead female was excellent. Nobody has exactly Newton-John's voice, but this woman managed to get the right coloring in the vocals and delivery so that she evokes Newton-John's sound. She's also a good comedian with the right amount of joy and tongue in cheek but never stepping over into commenting on the character or making fun of the outrageousness of the whole story.
Now, my friend who took me was not as enthusiastic about the show as I was --- she enjoyed it, but had more mixed feelings primarily because she has a real distate for bad accents. It's a running joke in the show and I thought it was hysterical, but it just grated on her nerves.
She did enjoy the show but was more reserved in her appreciation that I have been.
At any rate, if it's in your season's musicals, don't skip it out of fear. It's well-written with lots of little tid-bits thrown into the script that aren't necessarily about the film ---literary references to Alice in Wonderland and others, oddly enough --- and if you enjoyed the music when it was popular you'll enjoy hearing it again.
And couldn't love a roller-skating finale? 8808. alistairConnor - 1/11/2010 1:18:08 AM I went to a show before Christmas that I expected to hate, or, at best, to be bored by. It was called "Beatles Symphonie", which already put my teeth on edge. The concept is to render the George Martin orchestrations live, which would have been technically impossible for the Beatles to do in public.
I was happily surprised, to put it mildly. It was the Orchestre Symphonique de Lyon, with a six-piece rock group. Most of the members of the group have day jobs in the orchestra, which helps : they were really really tight.
Yes, they did all your favourites. They hit all the right notes. Everything was perfectly audible, thanks to the wonders of modern sound engineering. And the show was nicely paced: the beginning was dominated by brass, Magical Mystery Tour and so on, and I was just thinking that the strings didn't have much to do, and here's Eleanor Rigby... Next, a couple of straight rock numbers without the orchestra. Sort of beside the point, I thought, but they balanced the concert nicely, otherwise it would have been dominated by the softer, wimpier orchestrations.
What bowled me over was the emotional impact the songs had on me. I found myself singing along with tears rolling down my cheeks. Not sure what that was about, except that this music has been part of my life from my earliest childhood, and has acquired a lot of personal meaning. And the total immersion experience was awesome. Never mind Avatar in 3D.
One minor quibble. The singer did a fine job musically, and carried the show well. But I knew the words better that he did. Apart from the well-known hooks, his renditions suffered from being in "chewing gum" dialect : this is what happens when kids learn pop songs phonetically in a language they don't understand. Things get garbled, half a line migrates to the wrong verse, that sort of thing. It was teeth-grindingly awful for me to listen through, but by the end of the show I took it philosophically. It gave the show authenticity, as a genuinely French tribute to the Beatles.
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