Play Date
March 31st, 2011 § 1 Comment
It’s a Wednesday night and there is nothing too spectacular on the horizon. So why not treat yourself to a Broadway show? When Heath saw that that my favorite musical of all time, West Side Story, was coming to Austin he immediately went to the trusty internet to buy tickets. So when March 30 rolled around, away we went!
I love West Side Story; the dancing, the songs, the plot—a semi-modern spin on William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. (Haven’t heard of him? That’s OK, I hear he’s a one hit wonder.) Choreographer extraordinaire Jerome Robbins is responsible for the phenomenal dance scenes and composer Leonard Bernstein brought the music. Bless poor Heath, who probably didn’t anticipate me belting out “I Love to Be in America” and “I Feel Pretty” for the remainder of our post-play evening. I just can’t help myself. Something about that musical just gets a hold of me.
Despite it being my all time favorite musical of all times to the power of infinity, I had previously only seen community theater productions of the play. Don’t get me wrong, I love community theater, but it can’t compete with the grand scale of Broadway productions. The actors’ voices carried all the way through the theater, out the door, and across the campus, while the grandeur of the sets had my jaw hitting the floor. But, and maybe this is Broadway heresy, I prefer the movie version.
I feel a little like the geek who says they prefer the movie to the book, but there is something about that Hollwood-ized version of the play that I can’t shake. Maybe it’s merely because after watching it 24323648 times, the movie is what I’ve become accustomed to and internalized as “right.” What am I saying? Of course that’s the reason. But it also goes deeper than that. Here are my reasons why Movie > Play.
• Natalie Wood. Yes I know she’s not really Puerto Rican, and I know she doesn’t do her own singing in the movie. And yes, I know it’s not fair to expect anyone to compete with Natalie Wood on any level. I realize all these things. Nevertheless, she captures the perfect blend vivaciousness and naivety in the film that I’ve yet to see matched.
• Song order. When they made West Side Story the movie, they had to some rearranging of the song order to please the audience. In the play, the vulgar and humorous track “Officer Krupke” as well as the peppy and spirited “I Feel Pretty,” both occur after after (spoiler alert) certain characters’ deaths. Perhaps in Broadway logic this is done to keep the audience engaged and prevent them from hurling themselves off the balcony, but I had a hard time getting back into happy cheerful mode after a dramatic fight scene that leaves two lead characters slain. In the movie version when things get sad, they stay sad. And I prefer it that way.
• I love to be in America. In the movie this pro-American hymn is performed as a sort-of duel between the male and female Puerto Ricans. It is superb. The lyrics are funny, the dancing is incredible and the whole scene gets you up on your feet. In the play the song sets itself up to be more of a girl-on-girl cat fight that lacks the same intensity, emotion and humor as the movie version.
Movie or play, I still love the story, wiggle my feet in my chair in time with the choreography, and mouth the words to each song as if I were playing the roles of every character. And there it is. My extremely professional opinion and sought after review of a play that has never before been commented on and never will be hereafter.
Chickies meet the hen
March 27th, 2011 § 2 Comments
Francis Sue (2.0) and Helen (2.0) finally saw the sun this weekend. Their fuzz turned to feathers, which means the chicks were able to move on to bigger and better things–the doodle house back yard.
We’d heard that the first meeting of new chicks with old hens can sometimes be tricky and territorial, but the three all took to one another like a fish to water.
Frannie Sue likes to jump on top of Marion.
And while we are at it, here are a few of the garden.
Heath’s greens are pretty impressive. We’ve enjoyed many a fresh salad with his lettuce, spinach and chard.
One of Heath’s favorite new hobbies is going on walks and comparing his tomatoes to our neighbors’. We don’t have any fruit yet but will keep you posted.
Try it, you’ll like it.
March 22nd, 2011 § 1 Comment
Love the sights, sounds and people watching that go with SXSW but can’t bare the hour-long lines, over priced beer and crowds that could fill a pre-strike football stadium? Head down Congress Avenue (about a mile from downtown) for a scene that is big on local charm and local music but scrimps on those other not-so-desirable parts of Austin’s biggest tourist attraction.
When my friend Jordan came into town for the last bit of Southby fun, fellow Austin local Leah and I took her SoCo way for some street-side shopping and free music shows. Not a shabby substitute.
The Last Ditch Effort
March 22nd, 2011 § 6 Comments
One billion is a big number. If you wanted to pay someone a dollar each second, it would take almost 32 years before they would see a billion. If you traveled one billion inches from the point at which you are standing, you’d be half way across the globe. And if you traveled back a billion minutes in time, you’d land smack dab in the middle of the Roman Empire. So imagine how big $5 billion must look like and how losing that much money doesn’t come easy.
Thanks to the state legislature and business-oriented governor, Texas is about to discover what it means to lose $5 billion dollars to its public education system. It’s hard enough to comprehend the gargantuan size of that number in the first place, much less to determine how each of those dollars directly affects classroom learning, but we are about to find out.
If you have no experience with public education it’s easy to scoff at the outraged rally cries of teachers over losing these funds in the presence of a looming budget deficit. I used to be one of them. Who are these people who work seven months of the year and earn nearly twice what I make a reporter? Who are they to complain of poor working conditions and lack of resources? How hard could it be to teach a bunch of kids? KIDS!? But now that I find myself waist deep in the mud with the very people I once belittled, I’m singing a different tune. Being a Texas teacher in this decade is hard.
We compete with facebook and text messaging for our student’s attention and are forced to keep wandering minds engaged in rigidly defined material, to which they can’t relate but must master, in order to advance to the next grade. I don’t deny that the system is broken, but I do challenge the idea that cutting a substantial portion of funding is the way to fix it. There is certainly an element of practically involved in addressing debt and the budget, but why at such a huge cost to education?
On March 12, the family and I went to the Capitol to ask these same questions of the legislatures who seem intent on cutting the budget by any means possible–even at the expense of our future generations. We weren’t the only ones there.
I don’t fool myself into believing that redundancies, inefficiencies and unnecessary expenditures are non-existent in school districts across the state, or that we couldn’t all come together and agree to pinch a few pennies here and there to benefit the greater good. But I do contest the idea that there is $5 billion worth of excess in public education. And I know that students will be the ones to ultimately suffer.
Yesterday Heath’s district elected to cut costs by eliminating 11 percent of their employees from the payroll. More than 200 people lost their jobs and Heath was one of them. But his first emotion wasn’t anger, it was sadness over the service he could no longer provide to his low-income, special needs students.
You don’t have to agree with the sentiments expressed here, or with the idea that education is a right of the people. But you should take a moment to appreciate the teacher that taught you to read this.
Hiking at Bastrop State Park
March 7th, 2011 § 1 Comment
After spending all of Friday night and Saturday day working, I felt entitled to a little road trip once Sunday rolled around. So we packed a picnic and the doodles and drove an hour east on Highway 71 to Bastrop for a hike in the lost pines of Bastrop State Park.
Heath’s 4,000-year-old hiking boots broke on the hike, so we had to tie the sole to the rest of the shoe with plastic bags. Elegant.
Our picnic in the pines, reduced fat of course.
New friends
March 6th, 2011 § 2 Comments
To mend our broken hearts after the passing of Ruby and to give Marion a new playmate, we stocked the house with two new friends this weekend: A buff orpington named Helen (because she is a hot blonde chick like Helen of Troy) and a black minorca named Francis Sue (after my grandmother, another hot chick).
They have another two weeks of living life under the roof of the doodle house before they are permitted to brave the dangerous outdoors. Waking up to dainty little cheeps sure beats the the horrific call of the rooster, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that both of these new friends carry only dos equis chromosomes.
Notes on a recent FDP
March 3rd, 2011 § 2 Comments
FDP as in Free Drink Party.
My friendships with some folks I met at the paper have exposed me to many a wonderous new thing from food trailers, to great local bands, and the like. But perhaps the best thing I’ve learned from these folks is the existences and whereabouts of Free. Drink. Parties.
There seems to be at least one a week (with some being freer and drinkier than others). They are thrown by businesses or organizations celebrating anything from a new opening, to an anniversary to just wanting an excuse to have a party. Seeing as how I am a) a woman on a budget and b) an enjoyer of fun, my dependence on these free social gatherings has grown all the more steady.
A few weeks ago we attended a promotional event at the Palm Door. The downtown event venue turned 3 and celebrated with a nautically themed party which included pirate-inspired music by THAT damned band, free food by Pink Avocado, water colors at the bar, and all the red, white and blue accoutrement you can imagine. The event was tame by FDP standards, but the decor, food and venue itself were each incredible from the floating cotton candy-looking clouds that hung from the rafters to the delicious gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches served in Chinese take-out containers and the bartender who was equal parts feisty and jovial. How delightful that events like this exist.
All photos by Paige Newton Photography.
