Queen + Adam Lambert

As soon as I heard the announcement that the remaining members of Queen, Roger Taylor and Brian May, would be touring North America with Adam Lambert, I knew I wanted to go.

Jean was in Haiti at the time, but I took his Skype musings about how we might manage the logistics of attending as his willingness to go with me, and got us both tickets to the Toronto show. (Scene afterwards. Me: You said you’d go with me. Him: I did?)

And hey, don’t feel too bad for him, because he really does like Queen music, and has already attended and enjoyed numerous Queen tribute concerts with me. But this is the real deal. Or at least, as much of the real deal that is still willing and able to tour.

Jean, perhaps like many, is not as familiar with Adam Lambert, but I am pretty pleased with that half of the bill. Roger and Brian previously toured and recorded with another singer, Paul Rodgers. I could never get into that combination. Paul Rodgers is a very good singer, but in a very different way than Freddie Mercury. It just didn’t work for me.

Whereas Adam Lambert, while he most definitely (and wisely) interprets Queen songs in his own way, nevertheless shares vocal and performance qualities with Freddie—both are flamboyant, energetic, and have huge, operatic voices. Apparently, that is how I like Queen songs performed.

Adam Lambert first rose to prominence on American Idol, and while I learned this only recently, his audition song was, in fact, “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

(“That’s the best singer we’ve heard all week,” said Paul Abdul.)

And though I never watched American Idol—not even that season, when Brian May and Roger Taylor appeared on it—I do remember hearing about Adam then: how well he did with the Queen material, the shock that he didn’t actually win in the end. Here he and the eventual winner (a Kris Allen, who doesn’t appear to have had such a stellar career afterwards) perform “We Are The Champions” with Brian and Roger.

Adam has had a pretty decent career as a solo artist, and I am personally a great fan of his 2009 single, “Whataya Want From Me”:

But the Queen guys stayed in touch, too, and they’ve done some one-off shows together (like in The Ukraine, apparently), and including a big iHeartRadio concert in Las Vegas that was also streamed on YouTube. I watched the entire thing, and was just so impressed at how good Adam Lambert was in performing those songs. Really. (You can still find the whole thing on YouTube, but below is just one song.)

Hence, very little hesitation in getting tickets to this show. Naturally, it’s at a hockey arena, and while I recognize if there ever was an arena rock band, Queen is that band, I’m still not enamoured of sports stadiums as music venues. (Scene continued. Him: Did you get good seats, at least? Me: Not really. Him: Why not? Me: There are no good seats at a hockey arena.)

In practical terms, I never really had an opportunity to see the original Queen line-up. They did their last North American tour in 1982, when I still a bit young to be travelling from Timmins to Toronto for a rock concert. Queen did their last tour in 1986, when I still a bit poor to be travelling to Europe or South America for a rock concert. So my only option has been seeing the remaining members (bassist John Deacon has retired from performing) with some other front man on vocals.

As that other front man, Adam Lambert is a great choice. Rock on!

Movie review: American Hustle

***½ American Hustle (December 2013) – Theatre

Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper. Set in the 1970s, it tells of a couple of scam artists who, following an arrest, make a deal with an FBI agent to help lure other white collar criminals. The agent’s eagerness for bigger targets—politicians, the mafia—puts everyone at risk.

She says: I knew this was set in the 1970s and was supposed to be really good, but didn’t go in with a very clear picture what it was actually about. It starts with Christian Bale as Irving forming a romantic and business partnership with Sydney, played by Amy Adams. Their scheme involves charging fees for pretending to try to get loans for high-risk clients. All is going swimmingly until Sydney, now calling herself Edith and pretending to be British, is arrested by FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper). He offers them an immunity deal in return for using their skills to capture other white collar criminals.

But that’s just the first half hour or so. More and more characters and complications come into play as the movie proceeds: Irving’s wife (played by Jennifer Lawrence) and son, the governor of New Jersey (Jeremy Remmer), Bradley’s boss (Louis C.K.), and so on. Despite their numbers, the characters are all vibrant and compelling, and it’s not always clear who’s the good guy, who’s the bad guy. Despite the somewhat dark subject matter, it’s definitely all played on the lighter, more absurd side; the movie is really funny at times. But it still feels grounded in something that could have happened, and you do care what happens to these people.

It demands your attention, but it is indeed a good movie.

He says: That was too much plot for my cold medication-addled brain.

The pedantic corner

No idea why, but it just got to bugging me this past weekend that the media kept referring to us “losing an hour of sleep” this weekend due to daylight savings time.

Because, no we didn’t. Not necessarily.

Sure the lost hour occurs overnight, and sure most people are sleeping then. But it doesn’t have to follow that they therefore lose an hour of sleep.

You can, after all, go to bed an hour early that day. Or, you can sleep in to an hour later than usual. (It happens on a weekend, after all. Many people don‘t work, or at least start later on the Sunday.) You can even go to bed and get up at your usual times (according the clock), then have an unusual one-hour afternoon nap.

So media, we do not lose an hour of sleep due to daylight savings. We lose an hour of the day. Whether that means one less hour spent awake or asleep is really up to each individual’s circumstances and preferences.

Got it? Because I really don’t want to have to go over this with you again next year…

Going to see an American idiot

No, I’m not insulting anybody. I simply went out with two friends to see a production of Green Day’s American Idiot: The Musical.

Of the three of us, I was the biggest fan, in that I actually own the entire original album, not just the hit songs from it. But I don’t know it that well. Like, I only know the lyrics to the hit songs from it, and I’ve never taken the time to try to figure out what the plot or concept behind it actually is—though it appeared to have something to do with a young man’s angst.

So we were all going in blind, not knowing what the story or characters would be.

It turned out to be centered around the character of Johnny, who plans to escape suburban dreariness and do something wonderful and revolutionary in the city. His friend Will has to stay behind because of his pregnant girlfriend, Heather. His other friend Tunny does go with him, but they have a falling out and choose different paths. Then Johnny meets and falls in love with Whatshername. [No, I didn’t forget her name; that is that character’s name.]

Green Day’s music is absolutely front, center, essential, everything to this production. Spoken dialogue between songs is limited, mainly consisting of Johnny’s dated monologues or letters letting us know how much time has passed and the character’s reaction to what happened in the last song. And though I had to look this up to confirm, it does include every song from the original American Idiot album, in order—but it uses some additional Green Day songs from that period of their career to round out the story

There’s no orchestra with this; it’s truly a rock musical, to the point where the guitarists, bassist, keyboardist, and drummer are actually up on stage, in the open, with the actors, through the whole production. The cast also sometimes joins in on guitar (on a couple tunes Johnny sings with himself as accompaniment on acoustic), and their voices—oh my God! What amazing singers. (Somewhat better than Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, I would say.) But they have voices suited to rock, not Broadway, if you know what I mean.

(And on a shallow note, they were quite a nice-looking and fit bunch as well, which made for some pleasant viewing from our excellent sixth-row seats.)

It was a super energetic production, 110 minutes, no intermission. The dancing features a lot of head thrashing, fist pumping, and running and jumping. The staging was industrial-looking, featuring a lot of TVs that helped propel the mood of the story, with occasional strobe lighting and glitter.

So I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if you aren’t a fan of guitar-heavy, potty-mouthed, angry /angsty rock music, this is not the musical for you.

But we quite enjoyed it. Though it has to be said [do I have to give spoiler alerts on a musical?], the ending is not of the triumphant, feel-good sort. Love does not conquer all. Dreams are not realized. The world is not a better place at the end than it was at the start.

I thought that was brave, but also couldn’t help wishing it could end on a bit of a happier note.

Which is why the cast encore was so brilliant, and perfect, and not really cheating at all: Green Day’s “Good Riddance (The Time of Your Life)”.

It’s something unpredictable
But in the end is right
I hope you had the time of your life!

Jordan Catalano does good

Not sure how many people are just learning about Jared Leto now that he’s scooping up every acting award going for his role as Rayon in Dallas Buyer’s Club, but he’s been at least semi-famous for a while.

Woman on street of New York: Are you someone famous?

Jared Leto: Sort of.

— Scene from “Artifact”

He first drew my attention back in 1994 (20 years ago!) for his role as Jordan Catalano, object of Angela Chase’s obsession, in the wonderful ABC series My So-Called Life. And who can blame her—or me? Look at this guy:

Jared himself is embarrassed by his work on this series, feeling that while the show was great, he was not. (He therefore did not participate in the DVD release of this series, which is a shame, since most everyone else involved did.)

I think he’s being overly harsh on himself, as I can’t imagine anyone else playing than the part better. From just the script, you’d get a beautiful but shallow dim bulb whose only interest was cars, guitars, and sex. From the acting, you read considerably more going on below the surface: a sensitivity, an intelligence. And you needed that more. Angela Chase intense interest had to be justified by more than just a pretty face.

You’re asking a *man* [to Graham, Brad]—sorry, sorry—to describe someone when I’m sitting here? Here’s what he’s like—fairly—out of it, not unintelligent. Sort of um—stray puppy, you know the type you’re always trying to ease their pain. He may even be a halfway decent person, but let me tell you—*trouble*. *Way* too gorgeous.

— Hallie Lowenthal describes Jordan Catalano to Patty, Angela’s mom

If you’ve never seen the series, you should rectify that, but it was low-rated and lasted only one season.

After that, Jared made movies. And at first, I made some effort to track them down, but the ones he starred in often had limited release, making them hard to get hold of back then (Prefontaine, The Last of the High Kinds, both pretty decent once I did see them), and his parts in movies that were distributed were often tiny (How to Make an American Quilt, Thin Red Line, each featuring him for maybe 5 minutes? His Fight Club role wasn’t huge, either.)

And then there were those movies I was just too wimpy to go see, afraid I’d find them too disturbing: Requiem for a Dream, Chapter 27, American Psycho…

Around 1998, he formed a band with his big brother and some other musicians: 30 Seconds to Mars. With their second album, they achieve significant success, which has only continued. But that’s no thanks to me. I was happy to have someone lend me one of their albums, but I just don’t like it all that much. I don’t think their music is terrible or anything, but it doesn’t really speak to me, either.

So the whole Dallas Buyer’s Club thing has been nice for “reuniting” with this artist. He has a good-size part in it; despite the AIDS theme, the movie is not that depressing or disturbing; it’s been successful and well-distributed; and I really liked it. Yes, he plays a woman in it (a very attractive woman), but he’s very much a man in the extensive publicity he’s done around it and while scooping up all those acting awards. At 42, he looks like this:

That’s some great moisturizer he’s using to stay looking so young and gorgeous. But his Oscar speech also demonstrated great depth, integrity, and warmth. Appears Jordan Catalano really is “not unintelligent” and a “halfway decent person”.

Wouldn’t have guessed Jared Leto for the first MSCL alum to win an Oscar.

— Someone on Twitter

I’ve been following Jared on Twitter, despite that fact that he’s clearly not doing his own tweeting (and whoever is might want to tone down the triple exclamation points and all caps that made him sound like a 16-year-old fangirl). But it contains some useful links on what’s doing, and through that, I’ve learned about his award-winning documentary, Artifact.

It’s currently discounted to a 99-cent rental on iTunes, so I watched it last weekend. Directed by Leto under the name Bartholomew Cubbins, it was originally intended to just cover the making of 30 Seconds to Mars’s new album, but became something else when the band entered into a dispute with their record company. The specifics of the band being sued for $30 million for breach of contract are unusual, but bands fighting for better deals from their labels is not. And this documentary focuses more on that.

So, you don’t need to be a 30 Seconds to Mars fan to enjoy it; in fact, there isn’t that much of their music in the film. But I’d say you do have to be a fan of rock music in general, particularly one who may wonder why bands always seem to be getting ripped off by their record companies. And this documentary suggests: Because that’s their business model. Like, it’s routine that labels charge for “packaging” and “breakage” on sales of digital copies of music! The various reductions on artist’ take means they can earn nothing, or even be indebted, even after selling millions of copies of an album.

And why do artists keep signing with labels? Because of the difficulty of coming up with an alternative model, at least for artists that want more than limited, cult success.

30 Seconds to Mars is still with a record company. How they got there, without paying $30 million, makes for some interesting viewing.

Commission photography

We had three bottles of wine sitting up on the buffet, rather than in the wine rack, because their music-inspired names made them good conversation pieces (not that we’ve really had anyone over lately to converse with…):

Bohemian Raspberry
Ja Maca Me Blush
Dark Side of the Moon

The first two we picked up at the Rasta Ranch winery in the Finger Lakes; the last is an Australian Shiraz, a Christmas.

I thought they might be an interesting photography subject, but not if I was the photographer. So I mentioned the idea to Jean.

This is what he came up with. Kind of cool, eh?

Reblog: Two days alone

Feeling this post, originally from September 2012, could use another outing. (Will also point out that Jean’s being at location with wifi access—unlike when he’s in the Canadian wilderness—is an improvement. Especially since we’ve figured out Skype. Sort of.)

—————————–

Jean was away on a canoe trip the last couple days. He was asked a lot, as he usually does on these occasions, “What does Cathy do when you’re gone?”

When obviously, I just sit in the corner and cry.

No, actually… I’m not really sure what to make of the question. (What do they think single people do… all the time?) But to answer it: I do pretty much the same things I do on any other weekend at home. Only alone.

Like, I run errands. I read (especially on my highly addictive tablet). I watch TV and DVDs (especially those programs Jean doesn’t care for). I cook (and eat. And drink wine.) I exercise (inside and out). I call up my parents.

Now, on some of these occasions, I do get together with friends and do stuff (dinner or concert out, or whatever), or get myself to Toronto and meet with a sister or two. I am even capable of taking myself out to a movie or concert—something I occasionally do even when Jean is home, actually, to give him a break from attending events he’s only semi-interested in. (Try it sometime, if you haven’t. Turns out, once you’re in a crowd at an event, it’s really hard to tell you’re a loser with no friends. 🙂 )

I guess that’s what they’re really wondering, eh? How I handle being alone? Well, for an introvert, there are worse things than alone. My weekend was not exciting, but know what? I was never bored.

Movie review: Flash Gordon (1980)

*** Flash Gordon (December 1980) – Rental

Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Max von Sydow. When Ming the Merciless sets his evil sights on planet Earth, football star Flash Gordon and stewardess Dale Arden are kidnapped into the fight to save it by scientist Dr. Hans Zarkov.

She says: My interest in this movie was musical: I’ve had the soundtrack—music entirely by Queen—for some time, and was curious to see the movie that went along with it. All I really knew about the film was that it hadn’t done very well at the box office, hadn’t been that well-reviewed, and looked kind of cheesy.

And indeed, in the usual measure of these things, it’s not a very good movie. The lead actors are not strong (though many of supporting actors, such as Timothy Dalton, are good). The plot is fairly ridiculous. (On the extras, the screenwriter admits it might help if someone—anyone—had given him any feedback on it.) The science is impossible. The main characters have no depth or nuance.

But damn, it’s an entertaining movie! The silly plot moves along at a brisk pace, with many quite hilarious sequences, such as Flash using a football-shaped ornament to fight off Ming’s soldiers. The lead actors are all quite nice-looking, and frequently (un)dressed to show that off. The absurd planets and landscapes are gorgeous; the whole thing is a feast for the eyes.

And the soundtrack is truly awesome!

He says: That movie is bad in a really good way.

The trailer:

Post-Valentine activities

We don’t go out to restaurants on or around Valentine’s Day, as it’s just unpleasant. The next day Valentine’s we did go out ballroom dancing, though. Sufficiently romantic, and considerably more enjoyable!

The following day was the “Family Day” stat holiday in Ontario, so we went with a small group for our second snowshoe outing of the year. As with our first time, about a week earlier, we had lovely winter weather and tons of snow to walk on. You could almost forget you were still in the city.

Wait! .. don't leave me in the cold! — Off we go…

Yesterday got warmer and rainier, then icier, so I’m not sure how the snow will be now. But we decided to have a dinner out then, at Verses. While we’d had a couple special dinners there semi recently, we hadn’t had a chance to try their regular winter menu before now.

Verses - a lovely refuge on a stormy night — We actually had the place to ourselves, to start… Not something you’d experience February 14th.

The appetizer list always has many amazing-sounding options on it, but I quickly settled on the oysters five ways: poached, cripsy, Rockefeller, steamed, and of course, raw. Each with its own distinct accompaniments, from smoked bacon to tomato sorbet shooter. My goodness, each one was fantastic.

Jean managed with the foie gras, this time served with foie gras custard brûleé, brioche, and cranberry and bluberry. That was rather sublime as well.

We were both tempted by the roast duck served with kale, squash batons, and chestnut ravioli, but Jean let me order it.

It was quite delectable, but he probably did even better with the tender pork shank braised in cider and beer, served with rutabaga, Brussels sprouts, and beets.

He wasn’t able to finish it all, but declared it made a rather good breakfast as well. (The wine, by the way—which he did not have for breakfast—was a very lovely 2010 Cote du Rhone, one of their feature wines.)

For dessert, I went chocolate, with a flourless chocolate cake served with chantilly, apricot foam, and passion fruit popsicle. All at a quite manageable serving size.

Jean had the cheese plate, which was downsized somewhat compared with past menus, but still fairly large (better for sharing, only I didn’t, so he left some). He included a manchego, Sauvagine, and goat cheese. It was served with dried wild blueberry bread, spiced almonds, port fig jam, and honey comb.

Hmm. Maybe we should make this a tradition… Post-Valentine weekday dinner out…

Flirting with the arts

Last weekend we attended a KW Symphony concert called Sound in Motion: Music and the Body. This was part of the Intersections series, where the orchestra combines with something; this time, with a yoga instructor or “mindfulness educator”. The evening began with only her, actually, leading us through some breathing and stretching exercises. Of course, we were in street clothes and sitting in concert seats, so we weren’t exactly doing downward facing dog, but she adapted to the space we had and the fact that we could stand up.

During the first few pieces the symphony played, she continued to interact with us in various ways, leading us through movements and breathing in conjunction with the music. We weren’t to clap between pieces, but to just keep focusing inward.

For the last two pieces all was quiet, though, as we were to try to stay mindful as we just listened to the music (which were a couple of more modern classical music pieces). It was amazing how well that worked at quelling the problem one usually has at classical concerts, that the mind has a tendency to start wandering off at certain points. Maybe, if you can manage to go right from yoga class to a classical concert, you’ll get more out of it.

That was Friday. On Sunday I was registered into this program called Flirting with the Arts. It offered 12 half-hour arts-related sessions, of which you selected 6, to give you just a taste of what they’re like. It was held at a volunteer-run coffee shop in downtown Kitchener (itself an interesting place).

Although I thought I’d allowed myself sufficient time to get there for the 10:00 start, I was wrong. Between snow making the drive slower and the nearest parking lot being full, I arrived at about 9:59. Thanks to some jogging to get there.

My first session was by an art therapist, so focused on creating really personal art, not intended for display to others. It was interesting, but not ideal as my first one, as I was still stressed from the lateness and had trouble getting my heart rate back down to normal enough to really focus, as was the point here.

The second was on slide guitar playing. I quite like the idea of playing guitar, as it’s so much more portable than piano, and some songs I like simply sound better on guitar than piano. But I don’t know that I like the idea enough to spend the time it would take to learn.

Slide guitar playing means, basically, putting a tube on your finger and sliding that down the strings to play, rather than pressing the strings down at certain positions to strum chords. In a half hour, we just got the basics of what you can do with that sliding technique. I didn’t seem to be a natural, so I think the instructor was just being polite when he said my first efforts sounded great. But I did get better by the end.

Bonnie Raitt playing slide guitar — Not destined to be the next Bonnie Raitt—note the tube on her finger, here?

Next up was acting. The lesson here was that you don’t inject emotion into words when acting; you feel emotion and project that outward, regardless of the actual words. This was explored in exercises where you had to convey a message using gibberish, and another where you had to convey an emotional backstory into truly prosaic dialogue. It was a cool session with a very enthusiastic instructor (a playwright).

We had lunch break then, which Jean came to join me for. (We went to another little restaurant rather than eat this cafe.) Then he ran away and I continued with afternoon sessions.

The first was landscape painting, and the idea was to try to paint the outline of a landscape you were imagining. My main problem was I’m not any kind of good at just imagining a landscape, so was never really sure where I was trying to go in that half hour. The results were therefore less than impressive.

Next up was portrait painting. We were instructed to bring a photo of ourselves to work from. It was the fifth time of day this artist had been teaching amateurs, and she was getting good at helping us avoid the pitfalls. It was all step by step: the head shape, eye position, and nose position in pencil outline; colour in the shadows of the face using various shades of some kind of pencil; don’t spend too long on the eyes, and don’t draw them too big (though I still did); and then take wet brush to the color and bring it life.

It was surprising how well that turned in just a half hour. Mine actually looked like me.

Finally, I had a writing session. That one was right in my comfort zone, so wasn’t as enlightening. But it was fun, especially the session in which we had to create stories by adding a sentence to what other people. One turned out quite hilarious.

So not sure if any of these flirtations will turn into longer-term relationships, but it was certainly an interesting Sunday.

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