I don't often review books on my blog, but I thought during the summer lull I might take on the task. The two books I plan to focus on are both young adult (YA) novels, the main characters are both 16 years old, and I read them both on my trip to Pittsburgh, but that's where the similarities end. I was also originally made aware of both of these books through two of my favourite blogs, but again these blogs are very different.
First, Spoiled by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, the witty webmistresses of www.gofugyourself.com, which is of course where I heard about their book. Spoiled, is a fun and flirty read, which zips by without any trouble whatsoever. The tone of the book is reminiscent of the style of their blog, right down to their comments on fashions, celebrities and celebrity life. I fear the referencing to clothing, designers, actors and actresses might date the book quickly, but it could also serve as an amusing snap shot into popular culture of the 2010's. The plot is somewhat standard in it's course: two half-sisters brought together for the first time after the death of Molly's (the common-place mid-west born sister) mother. Brook (the LA glamour-girl sister) takes none-to-kind to having her territory invaded and a war of wits ensues.
Even if the storyline isn't original, it's no reason not to enjoy the book. The story is told primary from Molly's perspective (although some chapters are in Brook's PoV) and I immediately found her to be a smart, likable character. It was easy to sympathize with her over her difficulty of fitting in with the high-society of her new school and I couldn't help but root for the cute, understanding boy who popped up to make things a little more bearable for her. Also, the girls' father, Brick Berlin, is a riot. He's constantly on the phone with some agent or producer, struck with absurd movie ideas at random, and makes air-headed attempts at providing words of wisdom to his two daughters. The book doesn't, in fact, end all roses, which I kind of prefer, and it leaves things open for the sequel, Messy.
Since I completed three-quarter of Spoiled on the plane, then finished it the first night in Pittsburgh, I needed something different to read on the way home. When I wandered into the Hudsons in the Pittsburgh Airport I didn't have a particular title in mind, but when I saw
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children I decided to pick it up based on the recommendation of Jenn from www.epbot.com (she also writes Cake Wrecks). Actually, I had a short debate between Miss Peregrine's and the first novel in the Hunger Games series, both sounded intriguing, but after reading the first page of each I went with Miss Peregrine's since it seemed to have some link to WWII.
Miss Peregrine's is a considerably different read from Spoiled. The protagonist is a boy, it's more in the speculative fiction/fantasy realm and has a considerably more dark and mysterious tone. The story is about Jacob, a present day boy, born to a wealthy family, who doesn't quite fit in. He has a grandfather who used to tell him fantastical stories about his 'gifted' friends until eventually Jacob (primarily due to growing up) stops believing in them. As the grandfather gets older, he grows paranoid and seemingly delusional--only the monsters he sees are real, and one of them kills him right in front of Jacob. As you might imagine, this event spirals Jacob into a desparate situation where he winds up in therapy and eventually manages to convince his parents he needs to go to the island where his grandfather took shelter during the war.
The island is an obscure little place off the coast of Wales, I think, (I don't remember for sure), it's tiny, there's only one phone on the whole island, and one rentable room too. I can't go into many more details without spoiling the story, but Jacob succeeds in finding the hiding place of his grandfather's 'gifted' friend, still the same age as in the snapshots he was shown as a boy. I liked the story, there were a couple of good twists, and a hanging ending, which definitely indicates another book to come. The 'gifted' friends were an interesting concept, although there were so many I had trouble keeping track of who was who outside the main three or four. Each new character was introduced with a vintage photo, an interesting idea, but after a while I found it redundant to read, 'and Miss Peregrine had a photo...' (or whatever the line was). I also found the swearing a little much for my preference in a YA novel, but maybe that's my own prudishness coming out.
At any rate, I would recommend both of these books, although not necessarily to the same reader--unless like me you like a wide range of genres in your reading material. Spoiled is just plain fun, whereas Miss Peregrine's has a more unique idea behind it.
Ciao,
Andrea
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Wetaskiwin, where the cars cost less
I understand from my native Albertan friends that this used to be a common jingle heard on television. Andrew and I didn't, however, go to Wetaskiwin to buy a car, although we did go there to look at them. Early on in the week, when the weather for the weekend looked less chancy I'd suggested to Andrew that we should go tubing on the Pembina River. However, as the week drew to a close, the predicted weather indicated rain and cooler temperatures so we had to re-vamp our plans. Instead we decided to go the Reynolds Museum in Wetaskiwin, about an hour's drive south of Edmonton. We'd heard from a few people that it was a good museum and since our time in Alberta is counting down, we thought it was about time to check it out.
The Reynolds Museum is a museum of old cars, farm equipment, and aeroplanes. We'd considered also going to the Alberta Art Gallery (as I still haven't been) and to the Royal Alberta Museum (which Andrew hasn't been too). What clinched the decision for us was that the Reynolds had a feature display of 1920's luxury cars. Both Andrew and I appreciate the aesthetic of old cars and Andrew especially finds the earlier cars appealing. I actually grew up around antique vehicles to some extent (unfortunately I didn't absorb much in the way of mechanical know-how) as my neighbour stored and restored them in his barn (the barn only housed vehicles, neither they nor we lived on a farm). I have a clear memory of riding around in the rumble seat of their 1932 (I think that was the year) Oldsmobile. Also, my father eventually bought a 1968 Dodge Monaco, which I...er...fondly (?) referred to as the beast (it's giant, it barely fit in my parents garage at the time, and it's pea green).
The morning started out grey and windy, although we saw no rain, so were quite happy to be spending our day in doors. I ended up turning off of Highway 2 earlier than necessary and came into Wetaskiwin along 2A, which was considerably less busy, although eventually we hit construction where the road went down to a single lane and had to wait for an escort car to take us across that stretch. Then as we approached the Museum we came across a mother duck and her ducklings who had ventured onto the road. It looked like mamma had started to attempt the crossing then realized it wasn't safe to continue as they were all huddled a foot or so from the edge. We didn't see any squished fowl on our way home, so I'm hoping/assuming they made it safely out of harm's way.
At any rate, the museum. The entrance fee is ten dollars for adults, which I think is quite reasonable for the size and collection on display. The first part of the feature collection was arranged in the entrance hall. I don't recall all the specific makes and models of the cars, although the last one before you entered the permanent collection was a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. Posted with each car was their original newspaper advertisement, which were highly entertaining as they frequently aimed to flatter the intelligence or style of the buyer. They also listed the car's features and original pricing. The condition of the cars varied as well from fully restored to cracked windows, ripped upholstery and rusted bodies. Later on in the museum you can peek into the restoration work house and see cars in a range of states of repair.
An array of vehicles make up the permanent collection, ranging from bicycles, to motorbikes, cars that were basically a horse buggy with a motor, home-modified vehicles and farm equipment. I think most of the vehicles were purchased and used in Alberta. We started out taking our time and reading all the available information about the introduction of motorized vehicles to Alberta (including registration requirements, the lack of roads/signage, etc), but eventually recognized we were going to be there all day if we didn't hurry up. The home-modified vehicles were interesting--perhaps not surprisingly--largely having to do with making early cars hardy enough to endure winter. We rocketed through the farm equipment, not being quite as keen on tractors and combines, but slowed again to take a closer look at some of the remaining cars, and the second section of the luxury cars of the 1920's.
Unfortunately we didn't make it out to the air hanger. It was close to 1:00 pm by the time we were done with the cars and we were both getting super hungry. When my parent's visited the Museum last summer they went to a restaurant called Huckleberry's Cafe, so we decided to do the same. We were seated and served quickly (probably thanks to arriving after the lunch crowd). The food was good (and cheep) and our server very friendly. After lunch we took a quick drive downtown to see what was there, there's a local history museum, but as it was closing in on 3:00 pm at this point we opted to head home. All-in-all an extremely pleasant day, nice to get out of the city and see a place we hadn't been to before.
Ciao,
Andrea
The Reynolds Museum is a museum of old cars, farm equipment, and aeroplanes. We'd considered also going to the Alberta Art Gallery (as I still haven't been) and to the Royal Alberta Museum (which Andrew hasn't been too). What clinched the decision for us was that the Reynolds had a feature display of 1920's luxury cars. Both Andrew and I appreciate the aesthetic of old cars and Andrew especially finds the earlier cars appealing. I actually grew up around antique vehicles to some extent (unfortunately I didn't absorb much in the way of mechanical know-how) as my neighbour stored and restored them in his barn (the barn only housed vehicles, neither they nor we lived on a farm). I have a clear memory of riding around in the rumble seat of their 1932 (I think that was the year) Oldsmobile. Also, my father eventually bought a 1968 Dodge Monaco, which I...er...fondly (?) referred to as the beast (it's giant, it barely fit in my parents garage at the time, and it's pea green).
The morning started out grey and windy, although we saw no rain, so were quite happy to be spending our day in doors. I ended up turning off of Highway 2 earlier than necessary and came into Wetaskiwin along 2A, which was considerably less busy, although eventually we hit construction where the road went down to a single lane and had to wait for an escort car to take us across that stretch. Then as we approached the Museum we came across a mother duck and her ducklings who had ventured onto the road. It looked like mamma had started to attempt the crossing then realized it wasn't safe to continue as they were all huddled a foot or so from the edge. We didn't see any squished fowl on our way home, so I'm hoping/assuming they made it safely out of harm's way.
At any rate, the museum. The entrance fee is ten dollars for adults, which I think is quite reasonable for the size and collection on display. The first part of the feature collection was arranged in the entrance hall. I don't recall all the specific makes and models of the cars, although the last one before you entered the permanent collection was a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. Posted with each car was their original newspaper advertisement, which were highly entertaining as they frequently aimed to flatter the intelligence or style of the buyer. They also listed the car's features and original pricing. The condition of the cars varied as well from fully restored to cracked windows, ripped upholstery and rusted bodies. Later on in the museum you can peek into the restoration work house and see cars in a range of states of repair.
An array of vehicles make up the permanent collection, ranging from bicycles, to motorbikes, cars that were basically a horse buggy with a motor, home-modified vehicles and farm equipment. I think most of the vehicles were purchased and used in Alberta. We started out taking our time and reading all the available information about the introduction of motorized vehicles to Alberta (including registration requirements, the lack of roads/signage, etc), but eventually recognized we were going to be there all day if we didn't hurry up. The home-modified vehicles were interesting--perhaps not surprisingly--largely having to do with making early cars hardy enough to endure winter. We rocketed through the farm equipment, not being quite as keen on tractors and combines, but slowed again to take a closer look at some of the remaining cars, and the second section of the luxury cars of the 1920's.
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| One of the luxury vehicles, I think this was the one that sat right up at the front, it was gorgeous. |
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| Andrew standing proudly next to a Detroit Electric (one of the earliest electric cars, circa ~1910, I think). If we had the cash, he'd love to buy one, but they're rare and rather pricey. They're quite an attractive car. |
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| One of the cars in the permanent collection. |
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| A rather classy looking pick up. |
Ciao,
Andrea
Saturday, August 6, 2011
A trip to Pittsburgh: improving my skills as a librarian
I'm behind, I apologize. Thankfully, Andrew and I have been too busy to be up to much, so I haven't missed any, yet.
I don't blog often about work or librarianship, and I'll try to keep things succinct, since what I do as a 'non-traditional librarian' is anything but glamorous. However, I was quite pleased to be given the opportunity to attend a special health librarian session and thought it a suitable opportunity to talk a little bit about what I do. Two weeks ago I attended a workshop at the University of Pittsburgh titled: The Nuts and Bolts of Systematic Reviews for Librarians, a two and a half day course on systematic reviews.
Before I go any further I probably need to clarify what a systematic review is. This is something I've been doing for the past five years, since I began my job. The explanation I normally give is this: A systematic review is generally a large report where we collect all the possible literature for a given question, synthesize the evidence to answer it, and make recommendations for future practice in medicine. Wikipedia describes it as follows: A systematic review is a literature review focused on a research question that tries to identify, appraise, select and synthesize all high quality research evidence relevant to that question. Right, clear as mud? Yeah, I thought so.
The librarian's roll in this process is crucial, and so it's important that they do it right. It's their job to make sure all the possible information, be it journal articles, conference proceedings, government reports, association websites, etc., are located. If they don't do a good job, then it limits the conclusions and recommendations that the review is able to make. This is the reason why I wanted to go to this workshop, to improve my skills as a librarian and to build confidence in my ability to locate evidence for my co-workers. Also, if you recall, one of my birthday resolutions was to become a better librarian.
Okay, the workshop. First of all, I can't say enough about the instructors. They were all excellent presenters, obviously knowledgeable in the content, experienced in the actual practice of searching for reviews, at ease at presenting to a class (there were about 20 of us), over all friendly, and open to questions and comments throughout their sessions. The course was held in the health library at University of Pittsburgh, in a conference room, unfortunately with no windows (probably better as I'd be inclined to watch what was going on outside). We were seated in small groups, each with our own laptop to work on which were equipped with Internet connectivity, and a thumb drive with all the slides from all of the sessions.
The first day was pretty much review for me as I've been completely immersed in the world of systematic reviews for the last five years as a research assistant, and more recently as a librarian and project coordinator. However, not all the librarians there had actually done systematic review searching, and probably fewer were familiar with the entire review process, so it was a necessary discussion. On the plus side, I was able to provide comments/discussion from my own experiences, and hopefully I didn't annoy people by talking too much. Throughout the workshop they discussed the new Institute of Medicine Standards for Systematic Reviews of Comparative Effectiveness, which I appreciated both because it shows they're keeping their content up-to-date (the Standards were released this spring) and because we've been discussing them at work.
The remaining day and a half focused on the librarian's role in the systematic review, which as I noted above is extremely important. We covered topics like how to harvest search terms, which can be a lengthy and difficult process. In systematic review searching you have to undercover all the different 'official' index terms used by the databases, then you have to think of every possible synonym for your topic, and how it might be combined in phrases, etc. The second half of the day was primarily spent in a discussion of grey literature, a topic that I was particularly keen to learn more about. Grey literature is the hard to find, non-traditional literature that's generally not indexed in databases, and can include: conference proceedings, FDA reports, independent reports from specialized associations, etc. It was a long afternoon and a bit tiring. I need to go back over my notes from the entire day to refresh my memory of the topics and resources discussed.
The last morning was quite honestly something of a blur. My brain was tired (amazing what two days straight in a classroom can do to you, how did I manage as a child?), and I was looking forward to getting home and seeing Andrew. However, we still covered important topics including hand searching (reading line-by-line the indexes of particular journals of interest), and writing up the search for the methods section of the review.
All-in-all, it was completely worth it. I learned new methods, met new people, ate great food and visited a new place. I'll leave you with a few pictures of the University and surrounding area.
Ciao,
Andrea
I don't blog often about work or librarianship, and I'll try to keep things succinct, since what I do as a 'non-traditional librarian' is anything but glamorous. However, I was quite pleased to be given the opportunity to attend a special health librarian session and thought it a suitable opportunity to talk a little bit about what I do. Two weeks ago I attended a workshop at the University of Pittsburgh titled: The Nuts and Bolts of Systematic Reviews for Librarians, a two and a half day course on systematic reviews.
Before I go any further I probably need to clarify what a systematic review is. This is something I've been doing for the past five years, since I began my job. The explanation I normally give is this: A systematic review is generally a large report where we collect all the possible literature for a given question, synthesize the evidence to answer it, and make recommendations for future practice in medicine. Wikipedia describes it as follows: A systematic review is a literature review focused on a research question that tries to identify, appraise, select and synthesize all high quality research evidence relevant to that question. Right, clear as mud? Yeah, I thought so.
The librarian's roll in this process is crucial, and so it's important that they do it right. It's their job to make sure all the possible information, be it journal articles, conference proceedings, government reports, association websites, etc., are located. If they don't do a good job, then it limits the conclusions and recommendations that the review is able to make. This is the reason why I wanted to go to this workshop, to improve my skills as a librarian and to build confidence in my ability to locate evidence for my co-workers. Also, if you recall, one of my birthday resolutions was to become a better librarian.
Okay, the workshop. First of all, I can't say enough about the instructors. They were all excellent presenters, obviously knowledgeable in the content, experienced in the actual practice of searching for reviews, at ease at presenting to a class (there were about 20 of us), over all friendly, and open to questions and comments throughout their sessions. The course was held in the health library at University of Pittsburgh, in a conference room, unfortunately with no windows (probably better as I'd be inclined to watch what was going on outside). We were seated in small groups, each with our own laptop to work on which were equipped with Internet connectivity, and a thumb drive with all the slides from all of the sessions.
The first day was pretty much review for me as I've been completely immersed in the world of systematic reviews for the last five years as a research assistant, and more recently as a librarian and project coordinator. However, not all the librarians there had actually done systematic review searching, and probably fewer were familiar with the entire review process, so it was a necessary discussion. On the plus side, I was able to provide comments/discussion from my own experiences, and hopefully I didn't annoy people by talking too much. Throughout the workshop they discussed the new Institute of Medicine Standards for Systematic Reviews of Comparative Effectiveness, which I appreciated both because it shows they're keeping their content up-to-date (the Standards were released this spring) and because we've been discussing them at work.
The remaining day and a half focused on the librarian's role in the systematic review, which as I noted above is extremely important. We covered topics like how to harvest search terms, which can be a lengthy and difficult process. In systematic review searching you have to undercover all the different 'official' index terms used by the databases, then you have to think of every possible synonym for your topic, and how it might be combined in phrases, etc. The second half of the day was primarily spent in a discussion of grey literature, a topic that I was particularly keen to learn more about. Grey literature is the hard to find, non-traditional literature that's generally not indexed in databases, and can include: conference proceedings, FDA reports, independent reports from specialized associations, etc. It was a long afternoon and a bit tiring. I need to go back over my notes from the entire day to refresh my memory of the topics and resources discussed.
The last morning was quite honestly something of a blur. My brain was tired (amazing what two days straight in a classroom can do to you, how did I manage as a child?), and I was looking forward to getting home and seeing Andrew. However, we still covered important topics including hand searching (reading line-by-line the indexes of particular journals of interest), and writing up the search for the methods section of the review.
All-in-all, it was completely worth it. I learned new methods, met new people, ate great food and visited a new place. I'll leave you with a few pictures of the University and surrounding area.
Ciao,
Andrea
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| The Cathedral of Learning, a beautiful, towering landmark at the University of Pittsburgh. |
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| There were a couple of Carnegie museums around the University, unfornately they all closed at 5:00 pm, so I was unable to visit any of them. |
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| A school for the blind. |
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| Houses in the surrounding area. |
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| A pretty gateway to someone's home. |
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Dinner at the theatre: not just for retirees and Sunday afternoons
I think there's a stereotype that says dinner theatre is generally horrible, and the demographic that attends this type of entertainment tends to be geriatric in nature. I recall a scene from one of my childhood favourite movies, Soap Dish, where Kevin Klein's character, a fallen-from-grace-soap-actor is stuck doing Death of a Salesman in Florida and has to yell his lines so the hearing-aid wearing crowd can hear him. This image, I'm glad to say, bares no resemblance to our experience at the Mayfield Dinner Theatre last Thursday night. We were definitely at the younger end of the crowd, but both the food and acting were quite good. As I believe I indicated in a previous post, we won the tickets in the silent auction fundraiser held as a part of Firefly Theatre's Let There Be Height show.
We arrived at the theatre shortly after 6:00 pm and joined the crowd waiting to get in. After a couple of minutes of standing in line we were shown to our seats, a semi-circular booth located on stage right. We had a pretty good, straight on view to the stage, although still three or four rows back. There were no curtains to hide the stage, so we were able to pre-appraise the set, which I think we both approved. It was multi-layered, with a set double set of steps leading to a platform in the back half of the stage. It was made up to look like a swanky hotel with funky metal wall hangings, a collage of mirrors and not only a chaise longue, but a shiny gold, round ottoman too.
At any rate, this was shortly after 6:00 pm and we still had 2 hours before the show started so we hit the buffet. It's been a long time since I've eaten at a buffet--which is a probably a good thing since I love to eat and buffet's definitely encourage eating. The salad bar had an excellent variety from standard lettuce salads, to potato salads, chickpea salads, chilled veggies in vinaigrette-type dressings, there was also sushi, smoked salmon, and shrimp. We also helped ourselves to cheese from the desert table at this point (people were scooping up deserts at this time too). The hot food also varied, with several different types of meat, although I opted for the vegetarian mushroom ravioli, roast veggies, and potatoes. I was s little disappointed with desert, but only because I wished I'd picked more of the best (in my mind at least) selections, and left the just 'okay' treats behind.
The evenings performance was a 2-actor play called Sexy Laundry about a couple who'd lost the 'spark' in their marriage and had booked a night in a fancy hotel to try to get it back. It featured Eddie Mekka who was a regular on the show Laverne and Shirley (I'm aware the show existed, but I'm pretty sure I've never seen more than 5 minutes of it) and as it turns out, he was an excellent actor. The play, I believe, was billed as a comedy, and there certainly were a number of funny bits, but I actually found it quite touching and at times a little heartbreaking as the couple acknowledged that neither were happy with the way their lives had evolved (or devolved?) into. Sometimes things struck close to home as Andrew and I have had discussions about happiness, what it means and how we can have more of it in our lives. It's on going subject that we haven't found the answer to yet.
During the course of an hour and a half the couple, Alice and Henry (I think, I can't remember his name for sure), managed to wade their way through various suggestions on how to reconnect with each other physically (via 'Sex for Dummies'). They tried to tell each other fantasies (Henry's first attempt turned out to be a monologue on how he comes how from a rewarding day at the office, is greeted at home by his loving family--included a fully covered daughter--a delicious dinner, and curling up in bed with a good book, his wife at his side--I thought it was pretty hilarious), come up with sexy nicknames, argue, discuss the 'D' word (divorce), nearly split, and finally realize they still truly love each other. I rather enjoyed it.
The new season at the Mayfield Dinner Theatre starts in September with a Beatles tribute. We're considering getting seasons tickets as at least 3 of the 5 shows intrigue us greatly...and the remaining 2 sound all right too. Plus, they're going through renos right now (I thought the theatre decor was fairly attractive and not horribly out of date, however...) so everything will be new and spiffy if we go again.
Ciao,
Andrea
We arrived at the theatre shortly after 6:00 pm and joined the crowd waiting to get in. After a couple of minutes of standing in line we were shown to our seats, a semi-circular booth located on stage right. We had a pretty good, straight on view to the stage, although still three or four rows back. There were no curtains to hide the stage, so we were able to pre-appraise the set, which I think we both approved. It was multi-layered, with a set double set of steps leading to a platform in the back half of the stage. It was made up to look like a swanky hotel with funky metal wall hangings, a collage of mirrors and not only a chaise longue, but a shiny gold, round ottoman too.
At any rate, this was shortly after 6:00 pm and we still had 2 hours before the show started so we hit the buffet. It's been a long time since I've eaten at a buffet--which is a probably a good thing since I love to eat and buffet's definitely encourage eating. The salad bar had an excellent variety from standard lettuce salads, to potato salads, chickpea salads, chilled veggies in vinaigrette-type dressings, there was also sushi, smoked salmon, and shrimp. We also helped ourselves to cheese from the desert table at this point (people were scooping up deserts at this time too). The hot food also varied, with several different types of meat, although I opted for the vegetarian mushroom ravioli, roast veggies, and potatoes. I was s little disappointed with desert, but only because I wished I'd picked more of the best (in my mind at least) selections, and left the just 'okay' treats behind.
The evenings performance was a 2-actor play called Sexy Laundry about a couple who'd lost the 'spark' in their marriage and had booked a night in a fancy hotel to try to get it back. It featured Eddie Mekka who was a regular on the show Laverne and Shirley (I'm aware the show existed, but I'm pretty sure I've never seen more than 5 minutes of it) and as it turns out, he was an excellent actor. The play, I believe, was billed as a comedy, and there certainly were a number of funny bits, but I actually found it quite touching and at times a little heartbreaking as the couple acknowledged that neither were happy with the way their lives had evolved (or devolved?) into. Sometimes things struck close to home as Andrew and I have had discussions about happiness, what it means and how we can have more of it in our lives. It's on going subject that we haven't found the answer to yet.
During the course of an hour and a half the couple, Alice and Henry (I think, I can't remember his name for sure), managed to wade their way through various suggestions on how to reconnect with each other physically (via 'Sex for Dummies'). They tried to tell each other fantasies (Henry's first attempt turned out to be a monologue on how he comes how from a rewarding day at the office, is greeted at home by his loving family--included a fully covered daughter--a delicious dinner, and curling up in bed with a good book, his wife at his side--I thought it was pretty hilarious), come up with sexy nicknames, argue, discuss the 'D' word (divorce), nearly split, and finally realize they still truly love each other. I rather enjoyed it.
The new season at the Mayfield Dinner Theatre starts in September with a Beatles tribute. We're considering getting seasons tickets as at least 3 of the 5 shows intrigue us greatly...and the remaining 2 sound all right too. Plus, they're going through renos right now (I thought the theatre decor was fairly attractive and not horribly out of date, however...) so everything will be new and spiffy if we go again.
Ciao,
Andrea
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Running away to the 'Crique-ous'
I didn't know that Crique du Soleil was preforming in Edmonton until Wednesday night when we were at our latest Firefly class (contortion and stretching for beginners). Of course being in a class full of circus enthusiasts someone would have to know that Crique was in town and asked if anyone was going. On a whim at work on Thursday I decided to find out when the show was on, if there were tickets, etc., then emailed Andrew to see if he wanted to go. Within the half hour we'd purchased tickets for Dralion on Saturday night. One thing I'd neglected to do while investigating Cirque was find out what the show was about...but as we discussed on our way to the LRT, does it really make a difference? Do people go to Cirque shows for the story, no, probably not. They go to see people fly through the air in crazy costumes with crazy flexibility to lively music (interestingly enough, there was a Debaters show about this recently--the pro Crique side won).
So, the show. As I've learned in the course of writing this post Dralion is a combination of 'dragon' (representing the West) and 'lion' (representing the East), which would explain Andrew's comment that many of the performers appeared to be of Asian origin--I'll get to that in a bit. The show started with a set of modern day clowns (i.e. rather than wearing big shoes and red noses they wore vaguely suit-like outfits) goofing around with the audience. They had sort of a 'Sims-like' speech where they made vocalizations that sounded something akin to Italian, but I doubt were proper words. Eventually they pulled an 'assistant' up from the audience to read the safety warning for the show--except they then proceeded in interrupt him at every turn. They poked, prodded, and teased the poor guy before finally stealing his wallet and running off to the back stage area. Yeah, must have been a plant, right? And then the show began with a group number introducing the themes of the different groups (East v. West).
I don't remember all the details of the order of the show, so I'll just touch on the the individual featured artists, and couple of the group numbers without going into the long and gory details (after all, the order/storyline isn't that important, right?). I think I'm most impressed with balance/strength performers and so the first solo artist was probably my favourite of the night. The performance was done on what was essentially a five or six foot tall pole with a flat top on which the artist balanced. She probably spent the first half of the number on her right hand, showing incredible control and flexibility, then hopped to her left hand. Wow. Another performer who really impressed was a juggler--but also at the same time was something of an acrobat/gymnast. He juggled with up to 6 balls or clubs at once, using his feet at times, and performing various jumps/moves in between catches. He had a couple of bobbles, but carried on and covered over the mistakes well. A third solo artist performed on an aerial hoop. She demonstrated incredible flexibility, and at different points hung from just the back of neck and by her feet.
Most of the group numbers were presented by what I'm assuming was probably a Chinese troupe. They came out three times to present different skills. The first was very much a Chinese marshal arts-type number, combining the use of tall (several metres) standards, flags, and acrobatics. Again there were a couple of small bobbles, but considering one performing did a back flip, while attempting to keep his standard upright, and managed to keep it from flying into the audience, I'd say it was still pretty impressive. The second number with the troupe had an African theme with tribal-like music (i.e. lots of drum beats) as they performed a series of flips, somersaults, etc., through hoops (probably all of less than a metre in diameter). The last one was different, it was a skipping number. Some times is was a single rope, sometimes double dutch, sometimes there were 3 ropes going (although not intertwining). Most impressive was when they did a 3-layered stacked human pyramid while skipping over a single robe, it was pretty crazy.
Another really interesting number used 2 trampolines, which were positioned against the back wall of the set. The wall had a couple of shelves (plus numerous handholds), one positioned on the lower 3rd of the wall, one in the upper third. The performers would dive from these shelves to the trampoline, and the male artists would even start at the very top, drop to the trampoline, then fly (sometimes with a single step to help them) right up to the top again. They even bounced from one trampoline to the other. It was quite neat--although at times difficult to track everything that was going on.
Before signing off, remember the group of clowns? The audience member did turn out to be a plant, although it took us a while to figure it out for sure. At one point he returned to a seat in the audience before being pulled back up on stage to assist the smallest (he was really short) of the clowns. The plant did a really good job of pretending to be flustered/embarrassed by being pulled up, which is part of why we couldn't figure out whether or not he was a part of the show. The clowns had a little number where they pretended to copy various performers who had been out all ready. They were ridiculous of course, prancing about pretending to be elegant, yet be incredibly clumsy. They were as much of a crowd pleaser as they other artists in the show.
Overall, we had a good time, and Crique was definitely much more fun than staying at home and watching a movie (not that there's anything wrong with that either). I also can't wait until the next time I can get on the trapeze, which will unfortunately be a couple of weeks since our class is now over and we'll have to wait two weeks before we're able to attend another drop-in session.
Ciao,
Andrea
So, the show. As I've learned in the course of writing this post Dralion is a combination of 'dragon' (representing the West) and 'lion' (representing the East), which would explain Andrew's comment that many of the performers appeared to be of Asian origin--I'll get to that in a bit. The show started with a set of modern day clowns (i.e. rather than wearing big shoes and red noses they wore vaguely suit-like outfits) goofing around with the audience. They had sort of a 'Sims-like' speech where they made vocalizations that sounded something akin to Italian, but I doubt were proper words. Eventually they pulled an 'assistant' up from the audience to read the safety warning for the show--except they then proceeded in interrupt him at every turn. They poked, prodded, and teased the poor guy before finally stealing his wallet and running off to the back stage area. Yeah, must have been a plant, right? And then the show began with a group number introducing the themes of the different groups (East v. West).
I don't remember all the details of the order of the show, so I'll just touch on the the individual featured artists, and couple of the group numbers without going into the long and gory details (after all, the order/storyline isn't that important, right?). I think I'm most impressed with balance/strength performers and so the first solo artist was probably my favourite of the night. The performance was done on what was essentially a five or six foot tall pole with a flat top on which the artist balanced. She probably spent the first half of the number on her right hand, showing incredible control and flexibility, then hopped to her left hand. Wow. Another performer who really impressed was a juggler--but also at the same time was something of an acrobat/gymnast. He juggled with up to 6 balls or clubs at once, using his feet at times, and performing various jumps/moves in between catches. He had a couple of bobbles, but carried on and covered over the mistakes well. A third solo artist performed on an aerial hoop. She demonstrated incredible flexibility, and at different points hung from just the back of neck and by her feet.
Most of the group numbers were presented by what I'm assuming was probably a Chinese troupe. They came out three times to present different skills. The first was very much a Chinese marshal arts-type number, combining the use of tall (several metres) standards, flags, and acrobatics. Again there were a couple of small bobbles, but considering one performing did a back flip, while attempting to keep his standard upright, and managed to keep it from flying into the audience, I'd say it was still pretty impressive. The second number with the troupe had an African theme with tribal-like music (i.e. lots of drum beats) as they performed a series of flips, somersaults, etc., through hoops (probably all of less than a metre in diameter). The last one was different, it was a skipping number. Some times is was a single rope, sometimes double dutch, sometimes there were 3 ropes going (although not intertwining). Most impressive was when they did a 3-layered stacked human pyramid while skipping over a single robe, it was pretty crazy.
Another really interesting number used 2 trampolines, which were positioned against the back wall of the set. The wall had a couple of shelves (plus numerous handholds), one positioned on the lower 3rd of the wall, one in the upper third. The performers would dive from these shelves to the trampoline, and the male artists would even start at the very top, drop to the trampoline, then fly (sometimes with a single step to help them) right up to the top again. They even bounced from one trampoline to the other. It was quite neat--although at times difficult to track everything that was going on.
Before signing off, remember the group of clowns? The audience member did turn out to be a plant, although it took us a while to figure it out for sure. At one point he returned to a seat in the audience before being pulled back up on stage to assist the smallest (he was really short) of the clowns. The plant did a really good job of pretending to be flustered/embarrassed by being pulled up, which is part of why we couldn't figure out whether or not he was a part of the show. The clowns had a little number where they pretended to copy various performers who had been out all ready. They were ridiculous of course, prancing about pretending to be elegant, yet be incredibly clumsy. They were as much of a crowd pleaser as they other artists in the show.
Overall, we had a good time, and Crique was definitely much more fun than staying at home and watching a movie (not that there's anything wrong with that either). I also can't wait until the next time I can get on the trapeze, which will unfortunately be a couple of weeks since our class is now over and we'll have to wait two weeks before we're able to attend another drop-in session.
Ciao,
Andrea
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Balcony garden 2011: Update!
To be completely honest, Andrew does most, if not all of the gardening. I'll occasionally water the plants, or offer my thoughts if requested, but otherwise it's pretty much up to him. It's not that I don't want/don't like to garden, it's that right now I have a major editing task, and whenever I'm home I pretty much want to be on the computer working (I haven't stopped cooking yet, but depending on how things go over the next couple of weeks...I might). Regardless of my lack of attention to the garden it's pretty green out there. This spring/summer has been a bit weird (cool-ish temperatures, lots of rain) but the vegetation around Edmonton doesn't seem to mind (nor do the mosquito). Let's hope things dry out and warm up a smidge so things can keep growing.
I hadn't realize how much the parsley had flourished until Andrew pointed it out earlier this week. I figured I better start using it, so in it went to both lunch (lentil salad) and dinner (pasta) on Saturday.
We should probably to do some weeding given there are foreign plants growing in just about every box on the balcony. However, just because I think something needs to get done, doesn't necessarily translate into actually doing it. Besides the maybe tomato in the onion box, there are some other smaller sprouts that might be peppers...I guess that's what we get from using our compost soil (besides really healthy plants).
I'm not sure we'll be able to do much with the strawberries besides pick them as they ripen and eat them. Oh well. The hanger bags seem to work reasonably well, but some of the strawberry plants started out scraggly, and being hung 12 floors above the ground, exposed to the wind doesn't seemed to have helped. Not surprisingly the plants that came from a local nursery are doing much better than the ones that came from Canadian Tire.
Our pumpkins are growing, the zucchini is not and I have no idea why. The zucchini grew no problem last year (until it drowned...). Oh well. I've got pumpkin recipes for pastas and a super delicious cake, so if we get a few small-ish ones I'll be happy.
The peppers are coming along nicely. I don't think we'll do anything special with them besides cook and eat them. We planted a hot pepper variety as well, so if by chance they succeed we'll save them for something...not sure what as I'm not a big salsa fan.
The rhubarb totally makes up for the strawberries in my mind. I really need to harvest some of it soon and at least freeze it until I've got a nice big supply then make jam or pies or cakes or muffins or, or...I can't wait.
Look at that, just look at it. If that box isn't full of potatoes this year I will break right down and cry--just watch me. I'll video tape it. We hilled them, and the foliage looks as happy as can be, so maybe? I guess only time will tell.
And finally beans. We planted a bunch of different varieties and don't remember which one's which--I'm hoping it will become more apparent when we harvest and eat them. They're looking pretty happy right now and they're starting their accend up the trellises. Hopefully they won't get too much sun in their spot and fry like we've had happen in our earlier attempts to grow peas.
Ciao,
Andrea
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| Our parsley taking over the box with our garlic. |
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| Our red onions with something else sprouting in the box, I think it looks like a tomato plant. |
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| Can you see it, the strawberry? I don't think we're going to have too many to harvest. |
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| Our pumpkins, surrounded by lettuce, which we should probably start using. |
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| Our peppers are sprouting! |
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| The rubbarb growing like a weed, as it's apt to do. |
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| Our potato blue box, filled to the brim. I really, really hope we get some more potatoes this year. |
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| Beans! I honestly don't remember which ones, but they're starting to climb. |
Ciao,
Andrea
Sunday, July 3, 2011
A Latin-inspired season finale at the ESO
I'm falling behind. In previous years I've been pretty good about keeping up with the ESO concerts (and other theatrical events) I've attended. I completely missed blogging about one earlier in the season, and I'm a couple of weeks behind on this one. I didn't want to let the season finale of the Friday Night Master's concert series go without a mention--it was an excellent concert. Full orchestra, great selections, both Bill and Lucus took the conductors stand, it was pretty darn awesome. However, since my memory is getting a bit hazy around the details, I'm going to make this blog post short and sweet.
The first half of the concert had a Latin flavour to it, which was delightful. I would imagine that when many people think of a symphony orchestra, they think stodgy, boring music with grand overtones, not Latin rhythms. The first selection by Spanish composer Manuel de Falla was anything but boring. Bill played the piano for this, Noches en los Jardines de Espana (“Nights in the Gardens of Spain”) while Lucus conducted. As explained later at the after thoughts, Bill was going to conduct from the piano until he remember the last time a someone conducted and played this piece where things fell a part and the orchestra members were missing cues. The ESO performed it splendidly and I think I might like to get a recording, definitely a new favourite.
The remainder of the evening featured music by Ravel. To follow the Latin theme the first half featured Rapsodie Espanole then in the second half, the full score of Daphnis and Chloe. I have exerts of Daphnis and Chloe on CD (on the same one with Bolero--which I requested after discovering Torvil and Dean when I was about 12), but had never heard the whole thing. I understand the whole Daphnis and Chloe suite is rarely reformed (the exerts are far more common) and I can understand why. It required a full orchestra--I think I tried to count at one point and there were close to 100 performers, including 2 auxiliary percussionists (something like 6 or 7 in total). One got to operate a 'wind machine.'* And the melodic themes were constantly changing; however it's a beautiful piece and I think it's considered Ravel's masterpiece, even if he didn't enjoy writing it.
I think that's all I'm going to say. Sorry, no comments on the Rapsodie Espanole, as I started off by saying, this concert took place more than 2 weeks ago, and my memory is waning. It was a fantastic end to the season; however, and I'm looking forward to next year. Andrew and I will be moving from our dead-centre row seats to a loge. We decided we've had enough of crawling over knees, but I'm sure everything will sound just as good from the side.
Ciao,
Andrea
*We wondered for a good chunk of the evening what on earth the thing sitting at the side of the stage was, and I'm not sure I can adequately describe it now. There was a cloth draped over a wood frame and there was a crank on one end. It made what could be best described as 'wind sound effects' and was constructed by the head percussionist.
The first half of the concert had a Latin flavour to it, which was delightful. I would imagine that when many people think of a symphony orchestra, they think stodgy, boring music with grand overtones, not Latin rhythms. The first selection by Spanish composer Manuel de Falla was anything but boring. Bill played the piano for this, Noches en los Jardines de Espana (“Nights in the Gardens of Spain”) while Lucus conducted. As explained later at the after thoughts, Bill was going to conduct from the piano until he remember the last time a someone conducted and played this piece where things fell a part and the orchestra members were missing cues. The ESO performed it splendidly and I think I might like to get a recording, definitely a new favourite.
The remainder of the evening featured music by Ravel. To follow the Latin theme the first half featured Rapsodie Espanole then in the second half, the full score of Daphnis and Chloe. I have exerts of Daphnis and Chloe on CD (on the same one with Bolero--which I requested after discovering Torvil and Dean when I was about 12), but had never heard the whole thing. I understand the whole Daphnis and Chloe suite is rarely reformed (the exerts are far more common) and I can understand why. It required a full orchestra--I think I tried to count at one point and there were close to 100 performers, including 2 auxiliary percussionists (something like 6 or 7 in total). One got to operate a 'wind machine.'* And the melodic themes were constantly changing; however it's a beautiful piece and I think it's considered Ravel's masterpiece, even if he didn't enjoy writing it.
I think that's all I'm going to say. Sorry, no comments on the Rapsodie Espanole, as I started off by saying, this concert took place more than 2 weeks ago, and my memory is waning. It was a fantastic end to the season; however, and I'm looking forward to next year. Andrew and I will be moving from our dead-centre row seats to a loge. We decided we've had enough of crawling over knees, but I'm sure everything will sound just as good from the side.
Ciao,
Andrea
*We wondered for a good chunk of the evening what on earth the thing sitting at the side of the stage was, and I'm not sure I can adequately describe it now. There was a cloth draped over a wood frame and there was a crank on one end. It made what could be best described as 'wind sound effects' and was constructed by the head percussionist.
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