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weekend
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tangerinpenguin, Steve, and
Pam came over for dinner and gaming. We ended up
playing Iron Dragon (after rolling a die due to
indecision). Pam had not played before, but she
picked it up quickly and did well. It was a fun
game, and while I wasn't close to winning when
Steve hit 250 points, I didn't feel like I had
played a bad game.
Embla surprised me: she actually came into the dining room and accepted attention from Pam. Pam had never been to our house before and hadn't met Embla previously (I'm not sure if she's met the other two); Embla is generally very "shy" (read: reclusive) when dealing with anyone new (or a crowd of any significant size). She's been getting better, and this was another milestone. (I've had Embla for five years, and she was a two-year-old stray of uncertain background then. So she's lived most of her life with me and knows I'll take care of her, but she's still very skittish.)
Today we had lunch with ralphmelton
and lorimelton. We geeked about D&D.
:-)
Tonight Dani and I are going to see the Reduced Shakespeare Company in a show called "The Reducers". They're covering a large number of classic works of literature in a small amount of time. (I think the run time is a bit under 2 hours, including an intermission.) The reviews I've seen have been positive, so this should be fun. We ended up with free tickets, and they even look to be good seats! (I was trying to score free tickets for "Man of La Mancha" but missed and ended up with these instead. Which is fine.)
We saw their "Complete Works of Shakespeare in 43 Minutes", or whatever it's called, a few years ago, and that was a lot of fun except for one part that was in highly-questionable taste. But it's probably pretty hard to do a tasteful parody of Titus Andronicus, so I suppose that can be forgiven.
It looks like we're going to see LOTR on Erev Xmas.
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Jews, movies, christian holidays...
So far I have been invited, independently, to 3 groups of friends who were thinking about seeing LOTR on 12/25. Two of the groups actually melded together, but two groups of Jews going to see it doesn't sound quite as geeky. I'm going to pass, however, since I'll be travelling to my parents then... (My older sister's birthday is 12/26, and for some reason she chooses to go to my parents' house 'round then...)
On the evening of the 24th, I'm just joining a bunch of people from my minyan for pizza. Also, possibly, bowling.
RE Erev Xmas
I haven't seen Reduced Shakespeare live, but I've seen the tape of the Shakespeare performance and laughed myself silly. Titus Andronicus as a cooking show - as you said, given the material it probably isn't in poor taste. The Emeril impression was very good. How did you like the Literature show?
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How did you like the Literature show?
It was fun. I didn't laugh as much as I did at the Shakespeare show, but it was still pretty good. (I'm not sure it was $30-40' worth of good, but I didn't pay for the tickets.) The conceit was that the audience was the "remedial literature" class; graduation was in two hours and we had to pass an exam. Right before intermission they tossed out the "midterm", and at the end they tossed out "diplomas". (You had to be in the front several rows to get these, but we were.) So, unlike at most shows, there was actually something entertaining going on during the intermission, if you chose to complete the exam. Several were delivered by paper airplane. :-)
The treatment of "Walden" was funny, as was "Don Quixote"; the latter was performed in Spanish, with a translator. Um, yeah. High-school Spanish was a long time ago, but it was still pretty funny. The "dating game" segment with Jane Austen, T. S. Eliot, and Virginia Woolf was pretty funny. (An audience member played the last part and was handed a blond wig. They told him he was Virginia Woolf, or maybe Peter Frampton.) They also did a good job with the Iliad and the Odyssey (with a side trip into the Aneiad). I was disappointed that they didn't do Beowulf. I also expected a passing Shakespeare reference, but I didn't spot any.
The show was peppered with a few local references. On the way out we wondered how they research those. Do they ask each venue to answer a few questions, or do they use Google, or what? ("Hi. We're happy to accept your invitation to perform, but first you must provide the name of a second-rate local school, the location of an ugly piece of art, the name of the local cheap beer..." Actually, I don't think there was a cheap-beer reference, but I can't remember the others now.)
Some of the books on the "syllabus" were only mentioned in passing, not summarized, which was a bit disappointing.
As with the Shakespeare show, you do not want to sit in the front row or two. This time one of the conscripted audience members had a couple lines; I wondered if he was just good on his feet, or if he was actually a plant. The other one was probably a plant, though he might have been a regular audience member who was taken aside and asked to cooperate.
Re: Erev Xmas
If you want, I can pick up the tickets earlier in the day, since I'm not working that day. Let me know if you and himself have a desired time. The Waterfront times for LoTR on Tuesday are as follows:
TUE 11:00, 12:00, 1:00, 2:15, 3:15, 4:15, 5:15, 6:30, 7:30, 8:45
Re: Erev Xmas
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