Of food, technology, movies, music, and travel—or whatever else strikes my fancy
Just trying out a new theme for this blog. I was tired of the narrow column limiting the width of image I could use.
This one should be more readable on a variety of devices. May do a bit more tweaking in the coming weeks (not sure about that header image), but I think it basically work.
Confirmed, next year’s #electricseries at Centre in the square won’t be with the @kw_symphony which is very upsetting to me. #disappointed
— Susan Prange (@snuep) May 24, 2013
This tweet was the first I’d heard about the KW Symphony being dropped from the Jeans’n’Classics series of concerts, which struck me as very strange, since the whole point of those concerts was marrying rock band with symphony.
Except for this one, though, Twitter—often a great source for finding things out—was annoyingly silent on the subject. Finally I had to go old tech: I emailed Centre in the Square to ask them about the tweet. The fact that they didn’t quickly reply made me think it was probably true.
And indeed, the email response that eventually arrived confirmed it, saying that the KW Symphony would be replaced with session musicians: “the size and make-up of the orchestra will be tailored to meet the artistic and stylistic demands of each Jeans ‘n Classics production”.
The community discussion I’d been craving kind of broke out in the pages of the Waterloo Region Record, who ran a story about this on May 31. That was followed by various letters to the editor, then a very critical commentary piece by a member of the Symphony board , followed by a defense by a member of the Centre in the Square board.
Nobody seems very happy about this change, but what strikes me in particular is that first article claims that lower production costs were not the main reason here, but an artistic need for revitalization. The last article frankly states they couldn’t afford the series any longer in this form—which at least makes more sense of the whole thing.
They both agree, though, that they want a bigger audience. Got to wonder if they’re going to achieve it. I’m afraid that I, for one, won’t be helping them out with that.
At the third concert this season, they had us vote on which three concerts we wanted to see the following year (out of six choices). I thought that wasn’t a bad idea, but note that everything they selected was a reprise of a previously done show. If I go next year, I’ll be seeing three similar concerts again, only with a smaller, less talented orchestra. The promised “better staging and lighting” won’t make up for the diminished music.
When it works, it’s a fantastic sound, it really is. The sound of an orchestra when it’s playing with a rock band well… It makes every hair on your body stand on end. It’s incredibly powerful.
– Roger Daltrey (The Who), 1994
I’d know what I was missing. So after about 10 years of great seats, I’m out.
And I know I’m not the only one. So to get their bigger audience, they not only have to add people, they have to replace the ones lost to this decision.
But you know, I do wish them well. I love Centre in the Square. It’s a fantastic hall. It’s incredible that a smallish place like Kitchener-Waterloo has one of the two or three best concert halls in the whole country. More people should go experience the sound there. It’s unfortunate it’s somehow developed a bit of a “stodgy” reputation. Some things do need to change. They do need better acts, more acts, even gimmicks to drawn more people in.
I’m not sure this particular series change will work out for them. But I sure hope something their Strategic Plan does.
And it’s not like I’m abandoning the place. I’m already signed up for six KW Symphony concerts there next year (to go along with my three at the Conrad Centre). And with some dates now opened up by not going to the Jeans’n’Classics series any more, I’ll probably add a few more.
Both these movies are comedic, and built around family dynamics.
***½ The Sapphires (March 2013) – Theatre
Chris O’Dowd, Deborah Mailmen, Jessica Mauboy. A group of singing Australian aboriginal sisters are discovered by British talent scout who encourages them to sing R&B, and gets them a gig in Vietnam.
She says: The setting of this movie in the 60s give it a certain cool factor (oh, the fashion!) and the location of Vietnam gives it real thrills at times (oh, the bombs!). But the core is three sisters and their once-estranged cousin dealing with the legacy of racism that has left them scarred, but also able to access and convey the pain and fight in R&B music, just as their new British manager insists.
Loosely based on a true story, the movie features love stories, great musical interludes, and a lot of comedy with a good dash of drama. It’s an independent film that’s well worth seeking out.
He says: OK, now I’m glad you brought me to the movies! That was really enjoyable. I’m not sure which sister was my favorite character, but that Julie sure had quite the voice.
*** Our Idiot Brother (August 2011) – Rental
Paul Rudd, Zoe Deschanel, Emily Mortimer. Ned is a good guy, but his innate trust of others sometimes lands him in trouble, even jail. His sisters take turns housing him in his time of need, and find him disrupting their lives.
She says: Ned is not really an idiot, but the fact he insists on trusting other people despite getting burned does put him in contrast with his three sisters’ approach to life. This is a strong cast, and it’s fun watching them interact as Ned’s natural openness tears open information they would prefer be kept secret. It’s not a wildly inventive movie, but there are worse ways to spend your time.
He says: Entertaining enough, though some of the situations got kind of uncomfortable. (And sometimes he was a bit of an idiot.)
I’m a magazine fan. News has its place, books have their place, but in a nice niche in between there lies the magazine: Current but not daily, engrossing but readable in a couple hours, and often possessing a more beautiful design than either of the other two.
I find out things from magazines that just don’t hear about anywhere else. Did you know that the tiny town of Montague in PEI is currently hosting thousands of new Buddhist monks (as residents)? If you read the latest Maisonneuve magazine, you would. Or from Utne Reader, the benefits of a zero-growth economy based on negative-interest dollars, which actually have existed in history. And, OK, I did know that Windows 8 was unpopular, but had never heard that analyzed as being because its tablet / PC design made it “the mullet of operating systems”, as Wired did.
Maisonneuve, I subscribe to on paper, along with The Walrus, Nutrition Action Newsletter, and Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture. Utne Reader, Wired, and several others, though, I read electronically, on my tablet.
To do so, I use one of two apps: Zinio or Google Play Magazines. Both give you pretty much the same layout as you’d get on paper, only in scrollable, zoom-able form. The apps are free, but the magazines themselves, in most cases, are not. [Although more on that later…]
Zinio’s been around longer and has a bigger catalog, including a lot of back issues, which can be nice sometimes. Subscriptions are almost always a better deal than single issues, but single issues can be a relative bargain compared to paper, particularly with foreign magazine. Uncut (which is British) is around $15 on the newsstand, and about $5 at Zinio. For magazines that don’t have to travel so far, though, savings are usually a lot more modest. (And some major magazines, it should be noted, are only available for Apple iPads.)
Update to below paragraph: This week, Zinio on Android offered an update that solves the zoom problem! I can now change pages while zoomed. I have to say, given their other features, this now gives them the overall technical advantage over Google Play. Stay tuned..
[ The main advantage I’ve found with the Google Play magazines is that I can swipe to the next page while pages are zoomed. With Zinio, I have to scrunch the page back to “normal” size before I can swipe. Given that I have to zoom pretty much every page (anything less than a 10″ tablet, I think, wouldn’t really work at all for magazines), the Google Play ones are a time-saver. Google Play does lack some of the features of Zinio that are on occasion useful, however, such as the ability to bookmark pages, and to print (with watermark) them or send them to email, EverNote, DropBox, or whatever. ]
Neither, it seems to me, really takes advantage of the possibilities offered by being on a web-enabled medium, such as embedding video or streaming music. (The paper version of Uncut, for example, typically comes with a CD, but in the E version, you just don’t get the songs.) Only the text links are enabled. On the other hand, you aren’t web-dependent. Once downloaded, you can read the magazine while your device is offline.
Recently, Waterloo Public Library (WPL) announced the availability of Zinio magazines through them. I tried it out last weekend. It requires three logins: The expected one with your library card number (which I already had), a new one that grants access to the WPL catalog of magazines in particular, then a Zinio account (which I already had).
Once in, though, it’s quite a large catalog of magazines they have. And, unlike eBooks, which stop working on your device after the loan period of 1 to 3 weeks, the selected magazines don’t appear to have expiry dates. Guess I’ll know for sure in a couple weeks, but the library advertises “no holds and no returns!” So I’m not sure I get the business model here, on behalf of Zinio or the magazine publishers.
But let’s just say, to me, it’s well worth the triple login. Happy reading!
Since we go to the Electric “Thursdays” series of concerts with friends, we typically go out for dinner first. This year, for whatever reason, each meal has been at a downtown Kitchener restaurant we’ve never been to before. Here’s how they were.
Niko Niko Roll & Sushi, at 20 King Street East, blessedly was not an “all you can eat” type, and did have pretty good sushi. One in our party had the Korean bim bap dish instead (vegetarian version), and also enjoyed that. The lack of wine was a bit disappointing; we tried the saki, but it wasn’t one of the better ones. The service was fine, if unspectacular. And they certainly got us out of there in plenty of time for the show. In fact, we even had time to get some wine from Centre in the Square…
271 West Restaurant, which is in fact at 271 King Street West in Kitchener, has kind of an Italian-focused menu, and brags of everything being made in-house. They also have a wine list, although not a good understanding of Ontario liquor laws: The waiter insisted (pretty adamantly) that we were not allowed to take a leftover bottle of wine with us. He’s wrong about that—here’s the proof—and as a result lost out on the sale of a bottle of a wine (in favor of two glasses).
The food was all right here, but nothing outstanding. But again, they at least did get us out in time.
Caesaria, at 320 King Street West, was selected based on its online menu, and at least some of us were surprised by its bar-like appearance. Our waitress was young, perky, and pretty, but not that well-informed about the menu. We heard “I’ll have to check on that!” quite a bit. But, to be fair, she did.
The meal timing was rather odd, in that our mains arrived very shortly after our starters, so we ended up with this overflow of food on our rather small table. The upside of it was that, at least, ensured that we once again were done in time for the show. The food here, too, was all right, but not outstanding. (Jean and I shared the edamame and hummus appetizers, and I had the chicken skewer main, while Jean had the squash ravioli.)
The final downtown Kitchener restaurant we tried, Marisol, at 30 Ontario Street South, was just me and Jean, before the KW Symphony’s wonderful Tap! pops concert (featuring dance music, complete with dancers). And it was… A really nice experience.
The room is nice-looking and mellow, and as a change from the all the other places described, the waiter was very professional and skilled. He gave great wine suggestions and was clearly knowledgeable about all items on the menu.
The chef here once worked at Langdon Hall, and the menu is Mediterranean, with a lot of seafood items on offer. I started with the grilled calamari, which had a good texture and was in a really good sauce, while Jean enjoyed the grilled sardines in tomato caponata. If sardines can never live up to those we ate in Portugal, they were still well-prepared, and the tomato sauce very flavorful.
As a main, I had the lemon ricotta gnochi with tomato and pine nuts, and that was very nicely done. Jean had the fish special of the day, which was sea bream. We didn’t take the time for dessert on this outing, but if we had, I believe they still would have gotten us out in time for the show. Now, Marisol is more expensive than any of the other places we tried. But you do get what you pay for sometimes, eh?
So the do-overs would be Niko Niko Sushi & Roll and (especially) Marisol. The other two were experiences that were not unpleasant, but don’t particularly need repeating.
My parents went to see the Stratford production of Tommy last week. I was wondering what they’d think of it, given its somewhat dark subject matter and the fact that they aren’t especially fans of The Who’s music.
But they came back with good reviews of the effects-laden production. Mom reported that director Des McAnuff had been at this preview performance, promising the audience that he would paper over any glitches as needed, but I guess none were apparent, anyway.
The next day, I read that not only had McAnuff been in attendance, but Mr. Pete Townshend himself had appeared to take a curtain call that night.
When I asked my parents about it later, Dad said, “You know, I wondered if that guy on stage at the end was Pete Townshend!”
“He asked me if that’s who it was,” confirmed Mom. “I said, ‘How the heck would I know?’’’
“He sure got a lot of applause, though,” she added. “So we just applauded, too.”
So that was kind of funny. (And a generational note that, in fact, my parents are much closer in age to Mr. Townshend than I am. But they are on the older side of him, and I am on the younger, and in popular music, that’s usually a big divide.)
Pete Townshend seems to be making a bit of the rounds of Canadian media, appearing on Q with Jian Ghomeshi yesterday (as were McAnuff and some of the cast), and having a big interview in the Toronto Star today. Townshend’s own review of the Tommy revival is as follows:
They’re an extraordinary company. They certainly know how to rock. The technology is great. The show looks great. I’m in a sense still reeling from the impact of it. It’s quite a journey.
I have my own tickets to the show for July, and I’m quite looking forward to it, even though I won’t be getting any rock star appearances, as The Who will be touring Europe at that point.
Our latest vacation had us spending about one week in Budapest, Hungary, and another week in Prague, Czech Republic. This gave us time to visit both cities in a fairly relaxed fashion, spreading out the sights we wanted to see over multiple days, leaving plenty of time for just ambling and enjoying.
Budapest was a return visit. It’s a very attractive city, its two halves bisected by the Danube. Jean’s default suggestion whenever we weren’t sure what to do next was to “go to the water”. We stayed in a hotel in central Pest, a convenient location that allowed us to walk almost everywhere. We were further encouraged in that approach by the weather, which was sunny and warm every single day.
It was our first time in Prague, which is just gorgeous: stunning architecture and sculptures everywhere. It too has a river, but the focal point was really the Main Square, from which you could fan out (often on pedestrian-only streets) to most any of the city sights that were interested in. Our hotel was about 3.5 K from that area, though, so we made good use of the city’s excellent metro and tram system to get there, when we would resume walking. Weather was cooler and cloudier than Budapest, though fortunately not as rainy as predicted.
Budapest: Monday—Got oriented to the city while jet-lagged. ■ Tuesday—Took guided tours of Parliament House, and of the State Opera. Attended a concert in a church featuring organ with other soloists. ■ Wednesday—Hiked up Castle Hill. Stopped in at the Liszt Museum. Went through the House of Terrors. ■ Thursday—Saw the sights at Heroes Square and in City Park. Spent time at the Széchenyi Baths. Stopped in at New York Cafe. ■ Friday—Day trip to the small town of Eger, for wine tasting and marzipan art museum. ■ Saturday—Went to the market, saw the Holocaust memorial, and took the night train to Prague.
More details on website; highlights below
Prague: Sunday—Got oriented to the city. ■ Monday—Encountered aftermath of a big gas explosion in Old town. Visited Prague Castle sights and the nearby Lobkowicz Museum and (briefly) Strahov Monastery. ■ Tuesday—Took walking tour of the Old Town. Visited the Mucha Museum. Walked on the Charles Bridge. ■ Wednesday—Visited the Jewish Museum sites, other than the Old New synagogue. Visited the Castle again, at night. ■ Thursday—Went to the Museum of Communism. Stopped in at the Cubist Cafe. ■ Friday—Took a bus tour to Terezin Concentration Camp Memorial. Attended a performance of La Traviata opera at the National Theatre.
More details on website; highlights below
Back when we visited Vienna, we had really enjoyed a tour of the Opera House there, so we decided to tour Budapest’s opera house as well. That was also very enjoyable—much better than the brief, uninspiring Parliament House tour we’d had earlier, for which we had to wait an hour in line for tickets. At the Opera, no waiting, longer visit, better information.
We were brought around to see various parts of the beautiful Budapest State Opera House: The boxes, the old smoking room (very advanced in its day to separate out smokers, but all that smoke meant major restoration work needed later), the bar, rehearsal rooms, and of course, the concert hall. We even got a little mini-concert at the end, with a tenor doing excerpts of three songs.
But as for attending an actual opera, we decided to do that in Prague, largely because it offers English super-titles, whereas (as far as I know) Budapest does not.
Getting the tickets in Prague proved more difficult than expected, though, not because shows were sold out, but just because I hadn’t properly researched how to do so. I was confused about which opera was taking place at which hall, where you bought tickets for what… At one point I even ended up buying tickets for a “puppet” opera by mistake. Fortunately, those were returnable.
Eventually, with some help from Google, I got it straightened out, and bought the tickets. They $55 each, for eighth-row center, for Verdi’s La Traviata at the National Theatre. Pretty amazing price, eh? Similar seats in Toronto would run you $365 each.
So then all we had to worry about was: How bored were we going to be during this opera? I’d read the synopsis, and it wasn’t much of a plot. Kind of Moulin Rouge, simplified: Doomed love affair between courtesan with consumption (and old baron boyfriend) and gentleman with disapproving family.
But Prague’s National Theatre is just gorgeous. And the people who attend the opera there dress to the nines. Between the place and the people, it was a feast for the eyes before a note had been sung.
And the performance? Was just amazing. It begins with a big party scene and lots of lively singing by the chorus in fantastic outfits, so it’s all very entertaining. The leads were physically gorgeous as well as having beautiful voices. And sure the story is simple, but you can’t help getting emotionally invested in it anyway. We both got a bit verklempt during Violetta’s death scene.
So, no, I was never bored. Jean wasn’t bored. If you get a chance to see opera in Prague, I say go for it. (I’ll explain to you how to buy tickets.)
[Final aside: On the flight home I happened to watch Quartet, a film about old musicians. One character teaches young people about opera, and explains that the extended singing of all these emotions reaches the heart in a way nothing else can, and that Verdi writes for the human voice better than anyone else. That sounded exactly right to me.]
Both Hungary and the Czech Republic had the misfortune of being invaded by the Nazis, liberated by the Russians, then taken over by a Communist dictatorship. So a lot of the sights we saw focused on memorials of those times.
In Budapest, we went into the House of Terrors, a building that was once a headquarters of the Gestapo, then became the headquarters of communist Hungary’s secret police (equivalent of the KGB). The top floors gave a high-tech presentation of this dark history. The Nazi era was presented fairly quickly, to the soundtrack of Jews being shot into the Danube. Then there was a model of a Hungarian “changing clothes”, from Nazi to communist oppressor. The rest focused on that part of the history.
In the Gulag room, around the displayed artifacts, we got video testimony of people who were sent to these work camps and survived. Another room showed faux democracy at the front, election fixing behind the curtain. We saw propaganda posters and bricks of pork fat representing shortages.
At one point, we had a wait for an elevator, then as we slowly descended in it (with a bunch of other people), we got a gory description of how executions were done. On exit, we were in the actual basement rooms, left much as they were at the time, where people were imprisoned, tortured, and executed. The last part was a wall of photos of the “victimizers”: those who committed these crimes. Some of whom have never been convicted.
A worthwhile visit, but not exactly cheery.
The Lobkowicz Museum in Prague gave a different perspective. The Lobkowicz’s are a formerly wealthy and prominent (Christian) family who lost their fortune twice: once to the Nazis, then again to the communists. They were able to regain it via a program run by the Prague government, and have put much of this treasure on display in the museum on the Prague Castle grounds.
The audioguide that accompanies the museum visit is by a member of the family, which makes it really interesting. The family did some amazing things in the past, such as subsidize Beethoven regardless of what he composed, for which the whole world should be grateful. And they have some beautiful items, like gorgeous rifles (really), original scores by Beethoven and others, and some amazing sketches of Rome in past times—though many of those sites remain in place today. It was maybe the best museum we visited on the trip. (Photos not allowed, though.)
The most visited museum in Prague, however, is the Jewish Museum, and we went to that as well. The most striking parts, to me, were the old cemetery and the Pinkas Synagogue. The cemetery was, for a long time, the only place the Jews of Prague were allowed to bury their dead. And it’s just so strikingly crowded, as they had to pile the bodies and fit in the gravestones as they could. Very sobering.
The Pinkas Synagogue itself had, painstakingly painted on its walls in red and black, the names of every Jewish person from Prague and surroundings killed by the Nazis. So many names. When you think of it, it’s overwhelming. It also had an exhibition of drawings done by children from the concentration camp of Terezin, the only one where art materials were readily available (as the Nazis gathered Jewish artists there, to create propaganda posters for them).
Prague’s Museum of Communism didn’t have the drama of either of those, but I still found the tour of that fairly recent history pretty interested (Jean, less so). They had a lot of footage from the time of the Velvet Revolution, when the communist regime was defeated.
And yes, we visited a former concentration camp, Terezin. The camp was originally in two halves: a smaller part for non-Jewish prisoners—gays, gypsies, prisoners of war, and so on—and a larger part for Jews. The smaller one has been preserved much as it was at the time. We did have a tour guide to take us through it, which was good. The information on the extent of the crowding, the limited food rations, the work requirements, the minimal clothes, the unsanitary conditions, was just staggering. Though it had no gas chambers, most people did not survive this camp, and all that explains why.
The unusual thing about this camp is that, at one point, the Nazis let the Red Cross tour it as “proof” that Jews were not being mistreated. The Nazis were given 14 months to prepare, during which they did things like build an entirely new shower and bathing room—though it was never used. You can still tour that room. They temporarily gave prisoners more food and clothes so they wouldn’t look as bad, and filmed them playing soccer and singing. You can see part of that film here.
As Jean described it, though, it was horrible, but in an abstract kind of way. I guess because it was seemed more historical (unlike the House of Terrors, where we heard still-living people describe their terrible experiences).
Budapest is fairly famous for its thermal baths, so we wanted to try them out. Traditionally, men and women bathe separately, in the nude. You can still do that today, at many sites, such as the famous Geller baths. But we instead went to Széchenyi Baths, where we could bathe together, wearing a bathing suit. Those baths also happened to be near Heroes Square and City Park that we also wanted to visit, so that all worked out.
But at the baths themselves, first we had to figure out the entry, towel rental, and change “cabin” (“more like a change closet”, Jean said) systems. Then find the pools. And then we got ourselves into the warm water, and we looked at each other, and we were kind of like, “Is that it?”
Fortunately, we then got more into the swing of things. We visited the “fun” outdoor pool, which had vortexes you got pushed along in and jets to play in. We also went in and toured the indoor pools, and some other parts of the building. Then we just switched between fun, cooler pool, and the warmer, calmer outdoor pools. We ultimately found it fun and intensely relaxing.
In Prague, we felt we should have Czech food and beer at least once. We did that the first day. Jean had this pork knee thing that was just huge; it looked like something from the Flintstones. It wasn’t bad, but it’s just not our preferred food or beverage. So after this, we did a lot of ethnic eating in Prague.
Hungarian food, on the other hand, we quite enjoyed. The goulash, the Jewish eggs, the paprikas… Most every meal we had quite good, often involving duck or foie gras. Which brings us to…
When we travel in Europe, we don’t go to the best restaurants. Who can afford that when eating out every single meal? Instead, we look for good value restaurants: Good food that doesn’t cost a fortune. But, in Budapest, we did visit a couple of their finest offerings in a budget-conscious way.
Cafe New York is called the most beautiful cafe in the world, and that could be true. To be able to peruse its architecture, we stopped in for non-alcoholic beverages only. The beverages cost more here than elsewhere, but they’re still just beverages, and they are very good. And it is a lovely room to sit in.
And near the Széchenyi Baths, dining options are a little limited. But Grundles, one of Budapest’s best restaurants, kindly offers a 3800 Hungarin forint (about $19) three-course lunch, including glass of wine. So we went for that. The service is amazing: Your food is brought on silver tray. And yes, it tastes good, too: sour cherry soup (sounds weird, but these Hungarian fruit soups are wonderful), grilled chicken in mustard paprika sauce with salad, and chocolate lemon cake with vanilla custard for dessert.
We did spend one day in Eger, a not that exciting little town near Budapest. But it is in wine country, so I did a wine tasting. It wasn’t that informative, as the wine guy didn’t speak much English (a very rare thing throughout this trip, actually). But all the wines I tasted were very good, and what they call a serving is way more than what you get at Canadian wineries. Eger also has a museum full of things made of marzipan. Kind of amazing, really.
Prague also has a number of interesting cafes. We went to the Cubist Cafe for coffee one day; everything there is constructed on cubist principles (which we concluded really means angular designs, rather than a strict definition of cubes). And we had lunch at the Kafka cafe, whose motto is: Kafka snob food.
Definitely the most interesting and maybe the best place we ate at in Prague, though, was at Maly Buddha, near the Castle. It’s quite dark and candle-lit inside, with bamboo-based decor and corners set up like Buddhist shrines. Though meat dishes are on offer, much of the menu is vegetarian, and that’s we went for. (We were at the point in the trip where nothing seemed better than a big plate of vegetables!) Both the veggie soup starter and our two plates of vegetarian selections were just excellent.
Lehka Hlava (Clear Head) Vegetarian Restaurant, in Old Town, is a super-popular purely vegetarian that we also liked, though not quite as much as Maly Buddha. It has an enchanted forest setting and good food. We were lucky to get in without reservations.
Also worth mentioning is a little Chinese / Japanese restaurant we found, only because it took such effort. One night all the restaurants we had targeted (from guidebooks) turned out to be closed, or we just couldn’t find them. And ones we did find just seemed too expensive. And it was raining. So about an hour’s search, we finally went into this not-very-promising looking Chinese / Japanese restaurant.
Which actually, to our surprise, had very good sushi. Phew! (We even ate there again.)
[“Oh, that’s lovely”, by the way, was Jean’s favorite descriptor of food he enjoyed on this trip. Fortunately, I heard it quite often!]
When we first turned on BBC News in our Budapest hotel, we were surprised that Canada was the top story. That was the day those terror suspects were arrested (before they did any damage). Otherwise, though, we didn’t really encounter anything newsworthy in Budapest. We did see the filming of a gum commercial, but that was about it.
In Prague, though, they did have a “top story of the day” major gas explosion downtown, right by the place where we planned to go first that day (in a doomed attempt at opera tickets). Hence we were there about an hour after that happened, in time to see the police barricades, helicopters, ambulances… From a Czech guy on the street we were able to decipher that it had been a gas explosion; at lunch I used my cell phone (on wireless) to read the story. Then we later emailed / Facebook’ed people to let them know we were OK.
Strangely, a police barricade also stopped us on another effort to buy opera tickets. I have no idea what that one was about. (And was rather amazed that two attempts at ticket buying had been stopped by police barricades!)
We also came across a big political protest another day. No idea what that was about, either. We made out the Czech words for Democracy and Capitalism on the signs, but couldn’t tell if the (mostly young) protestors were for or against them.
(I will add that we felt very safe in both cities, always, whether walking during the day or at night, or taking the metro or tram, day or night.)
At a dance we attended the day before leaving on vacation, for some reason someone was giving a demonstration of how to pack light for the trip. And the friends we were sitting with were laughing about them bringing an iPod, and a tablet, and a Kindle.
Well, for the record, I did pretty much the same thing: cell phone, iPod, tablet, and Kobo, all separate. I had my reasons; and besides, the total of all four still weighed far less than the stack of books I would otherwise have travelled with!
Most used, by far, was the Kobo. I put the travel books on it (along with a bunch of novels for leisure reading), and referred to it constantly. It was lightweight, had a built-in light, had a long battery life, and easy links to whatever part of the guidebook was needed… It worked much better than carrying around actual books (or a tablet). Only problem was maps being really too small to read, so we went low-tech for those: we supplemented with paper maps.
Second most-used was the tablet, whenever I could get wifi. In Budapest we didn’t want to pay for it at our hotel, so we would periodically wander the city with our tablets, looking for restaurants with free wifi. Fortunately, the cafe next door was one, so we went there a lot. Helped that it also had good food at reasonable prices.
In Prague we also didn’t want to pay for wifi, but it was free in the hotel lobby, and we were on the first floor—and that was close enough for us to connect. (It’s sad we were so pleased about that.)
And the iPod was great on the Eger bus trip, and the phone was occasionally useful for quick photos and checking of news items.
Since I’d knocked KLM Airlines a bit regarding our Danube trip, I’d now like to say that I was very impressed with them on this trip. They were pleasant, on time, served good food (for an airline), a good amount of food, alcohol included, had a nice entertainment system (I recommend the documentaries Searching for Sugarman and Queen of Versailles), offered advance check-in, didn’t lose our luggage… It was as good as flying economy can get, I think. We were even in seats with no one behind us on the flight up, so we could put our seats back as far as we wanted without being rude.
The night train from Budapest to Prague was also a good experience, generally. You don’t sleep that well on a train—it’s a bit noisy, bumpy, and it stops periodically. But you sleep some, and you save time and money that way. I think the trip actually includes a deliberate longer stop (during which you sleep better), both so you get a reasonable amount of sleep, and so you don’t arrive a 4:00 in the morning. And they include an alarm to wake up, and they give you breakfast! There’s even a shower available.
(For both plane and train, I must say, it helps to be short. All this stuff has to be more uncomfortable for the tall.)
The main downside was that you still arrive pretty early. We couldn’t check into our hotel when we arrived, and even after having a second breakfast there, we were still pretty early to be touring around Prague. Did mean we saw it without crowds, though, which is very rare in the Main Square. So I don’t think that was a bad way to go.
And finally: Customs at Pearsons has finally improved! They actually separate out Canadians and others (which I’ve been saying they should do for years) and they have an automated scanning option that lets you go through faster. So much better than before!
We did not see too many of the Oscar-nominated movies this year, but can now add another to the list.
***½ Silver Linings Playbook (April 2013) – Theatre
Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence. Pat Solatano leaves the mental hospital he entered on a plea bargain with a determination to rebuild his life with his wife. The slightly unstable Tiffany offers to help, if he’ll do something for her.
She says: This movie works by putting a new spin on the romantic comedy. With both lead characters dealing with some degree of mental illness, and one still married, the barriers are real. The movie also feels more real than your average rom-com: The mental illness, the family dynamics, are not always pretty, not always comfortable.
Both Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence are very good in their roles, and they’re surrounded by quite the cast, including Robert DeNiro and Julia Stiles. The dark moments are effectively balanced with humorous, and I love movies that include great scenes about learning to dance! I went in not knowing too much about this one, despite its acclaim, and came out quite the fan.
[I have to preface this part by saying that I gave Jean a very poor (and not so accurate) synopsis of what this movie was about. And he hadn’t heard anything else about it.]
He says: God, I liked that so much more than I was expecting! It was kind of sexy, in a weird way (for a movie with no sex), and had good acting, with an interesting relationship and story. It was actually a really good movie!
Since ’tis the season, I’ll share this recipe. It’s very easy (most tedious part is stirring until it thickens), and it’s delicious. Not overly sweet, it comes across as very light but with distinct maple flavour.
In a saucepan, beat all ingredients together except vanilla and maple sugar. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture boils and begins to thicken. Cook one minute more. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Spoon into 4 dessert dishes. While still warm, sprinkle with maple sugar. Serve warm or chill before serving.
(If you don’t have maple sugar, brown sugar works.)
I got tickets for this concert on a bit of whim, and then had trouble finding anyone to go with; seems a busy time of year for work, travel, work travel, and other. But though I could have exchanged for another, I had ended up intrigued by this guy, Cameron Carpenter.
He looks like a rock star. He’s young, good-looking, fit, has a mohawk, dresses in sparkly / paisly tights pants and shirts, and wear outlandish, heeled shoes.
And he plays classical music. On the organ.
Naturally, he doesn’t approach it in a traditional way. Notably, he prefers digital organs to traditional pipe organs. And he improvises on the classics. And composes his own arrangements, and entire concertos.
Saturday night’s KW Symphony concert gave us a taste of what this guy can do. I went to the Prelude before the concert (which I don’t always bother with) because it was a conversation between Carpenter and a musicologist. He’s a really interesting guy, and I learned a lot about organ (not that I knew much to start with), including the fact that every organ in the world is different, And not subtly different—so different that the extremes might as well be different instruments. And since organists do not travel with their own instruments, they have to arrive early and get acquainted with the particularities of whatever they will be given to play in that town.
I also found out that, somewhat to my disappointment, that Carpenter was only playing on two of the numbers in the program.
The first half was all Bach. The first was a short piece, Ricercare No 2, arranged by Anton Webern. The third was the longer Suite No 3 in D major, whose second movement is very well-known (I think I play it on the piano), but which ends with lively movements with dance rhythms.
Those were both nice. But there’s no doubt they were overshadowed by the middle bit, of Cameron Carpenter riffing on Bach’s most famous composition, Toccata and Fugue in B minor. My sixth row center seats couldn’t have been better for watching hands, and my goodness, could those move. And did you know organists also have a keyboard for their feet? The whole thing was just mesmerizing.
In the second half, we jumped from the 1700s to current-day. First up was just the symphony on Arron Copland’s five-movement Music for the Theatre. This was a very fun, jazz-inspired composition, with humorous bits to it.
And then Cameron Carpenter presented his composition for organ and symphony, The Scandal. Based on what he’d done in the first half, I thought this would be all about the symphony adding colour around his own demonstration of proficiency, but it wasn’t that at all. It was a true integration of organ and symphony in a beautiful and lively piece of music. The cello got a big solo moment, and until maybe the last three minutes, the organ wasn’t necessarily the major focus. I was impressed.
So was the audience, as the standing ovation felt more sincere than it sometimes does. And in an extreme rarity at classical music concerts, we got encores! I don’t know what the first was (I’m not that good at classical music edition), but the second was a wonky but awesome version of Oh Canada! Not bad for an American who now lives in Germany.
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