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Sunday, May 12, 2024

Mother! 

It's commencement weekend for my mother, so she isn't able to be with us for Mother's Day. She arrives for the summer later this week, though, and I'm sure we will celebrate her thoroughly then. Not that she has ever really particularly wanted that. We are blessed that she is pretty chill about being feted, not just on this particular day but on her birthday and at Christmas as well. I guess I'm sort of similar -- I've started to see my birthday more as a source of pressure than anything else. 

Anyway, my mom is great on a number of levels. She has dedicated several decades of her life to teaching young people, many of whom are not nearly as telegenic as the Dead Poet's Society crew. And speaking of dead poets, she introduced me to Eliot and Pound and also Dickinson, with an appropriate eye roll. She also took several years off in the prime of her career to stay home with me, which I was too young to really remember, but generally have fond feelings about. Also, she never really imposed any bedtimes or forced me to eat things I didn't like, with one notable exception that resulted in me vomiting into a jello cup at the Ground Round of Bloomington, IL. And I think we were all victims in that scenario.

Fear not, though, we were able to celebrate mothers and motherhood generally with a buffet brunch hosted by my sister for her mother-in-law. It was a beautiful day and good company and I ingested an unacceptable amount of hollandaise sauce. So consider yet another occasion observed.

// posted by Jay @ 3:11 PM

Saturday, May 04, 2024

Continued Theatrical Adventures 

This Thursday we went to see my niece's play, which was a non-racist adaptation of Peter Pan. So it was short, only about 40 minutes, which I have to say is great length for Peter Pan performed by grade schoolers. As one might expect, the talent pool was a mix, and everyone tried very hard. Also, it was run by an incredible talkative white woman who gave a speech for no reason before the program began and genuinely laughed at all of the jokes, which were of course not particularly funny. My niece played the classic role of Jukes the Pirate, who has two lines but a lot of sass. She was amazing! And more importantly, she seemed to have the time of her life, beaming throughout. And I don't think that was just her being in character as Jukes, she genuinely loved the experience.

We followed that artistic triumph up last night with Midsummer Night's Dream at the Joffrey, which I did not realize had absolutely nothing to do with the Shakespeare play. It was something about Sweden and dreams, neither of which I am particularly against. The dancing was of course incredible and there were some really stunning images throughout, but I felt like it kind of lost steam in the second act, when there were long segments without any real musical accompaniment and a number of bizarre "comic" interludes that felt truly Swedish. Also, every time the guy in front of me leaned forward even slightly, I lost my view of 2/3 of the stage. But it was a fun night! We are cultural!


// posted by Jay @ 11:24 AM

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