fogged in...

my balcony view totally fogged in

Woke up this morning with fog sealing us in up here in the muffin penthouse. It's like being in a white out - you can't even see the lights from the building across the street. It's pretty cool and weird at the same time. I love how you can watch it move - and the fog blows through like a current between the buildlings thickening, thinning only to thicken again. It is very cool. I suppose it is a good thing that I romanticize fog living in SF and all.

(no subject)

verbalizing minutiae

CONFLICTED: I was just handed a pair of tickets to see Phantom of the Opera at the Orpheum. It is no mystery that I have great disdain for Andrew Lloyd Webber - but it is also an unknown fact that I've never actually seen Phantom of the Opera - only listened to the soundtrack. So should I go - despite my horrific misgivings about anything Andrew Lloyd Webber? (ALW=Satan musically)








WAGNER AND LANGLANG: Dave and I have tickets to see LangLang with the the San Francisco Symphony tomorrow night. LangLang (referred to as the “hottest artist on the classical music planet” by the New York Times), is an amazing pianist - and I think it'll be a great treat. He'll be playing Chopin: Concerto No. 1 in E minor for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 11. They are playing Wagner in the first act, namely 'Overture and Venusberg Music' from Tannhäuser and 'Suite' from Die Meistersinger. I love Wagner - so the combination of LangLang performing Chopin and the Wagner is almost the perfect concert! Yay!³





Mormon Tabernacle: Now a few listeners of KDFC are writing in threatening a boycott over us playing tracks off the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's large holiday repertoire. Ugh. I love working at a station where listeners really pay attention to what we're playing - but tying a recording of "O Holy Night" to Prop 8 - is a little much don't you think? and people don't just write a few sentences - they take the time to write encyclopedia article length diatribes. I had a dialogue with a listener this week - who once he learned I was also gay (like gay people don't work in radio?) - his tone changed dramatically. It's amazing how free people are to be incredibly personal and rude and accusatory in front of a keyboard; wheareas if the conversation were happening face to face - they'd never say these sort of things. e-mail has turned into the defacto method to vent uncontrolled. I wonder if KQED television will get slammed for playing the annual Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Special?

wow - Phantom was scary bad....

omg - what a mess!

That has to be the cheapest touring broadway production I've ever seen. and the stage crew made no effort to obscure themselves - ruining the magic of several scenes. It almost played like American Idol does Phantom of the Opera. (with a program ad for Grease - starring "American Idol winner Taylor Hicks as "Beauty School Dropout") It was cheesy, oversung and just looked cheap. Nevermind that ALW really struggles to find anything original in the piece - the cast included a leading voice in one of the "new owners" characters - who sang above and beyond everyone else. There were technical issues with mics cutting in and out. so some characters were never heard. The diva over-diva'd making everything she sung sound like the peanuts teacher - whawhatwhatwhawha - ugh.

It was terrible to watch. I laughed outloud during the second act as it spiraled out of control. ALW repeating the same page of notes with different words, stage hands being hit with the spotlight, pyrotechnics going off early - clearly startling the actors.

Raul broke character in the Masquerade dance to sneer at a stage hand.. completely visible to the audience. How poor!

I was embarrassed for the cast and crew. and the poor orchestra must have been hacking drowning in the 'dungeon fog' that was over produced and flowed out into the audience - at one point obscuring the poor conductor. Add to it that I had some folks sitting next to me that had never been in the Orpheum before - and almost gave every number a standing ovation - and it made for a very entertaining evening for all the wrong reasons. It was like watching a once proud play simply go through the motions.

Having seen the touring production of "Drowsy Chaperone" rock the roof off of the Orpheum this felt extremely second tier.