Lately, littlestar's excessive academic schedule has kept her from going to many real places that don't involve her building theatrical sets, but the end of this penultimate semester left a couple days before we had to split off for our respective holiday family gatherings, so we decided to spend one of them a little farther north, going to an old favorite restaurant and a special exhibit of renaissance drawings.
More in the extended.
Through much of the Fall 2008 semester, littlestar was working on the set design for a production of The Taming of the Shrew. At the understaffed college level, working on the set design ended up meaning "building much of the set," so especially going into the last week or so before the premier, she was there each night until quite late, making sure things were painted, placed, and produced in time.
Sounds like a good time for a dinner date, right? More in the extended.
As a prelude to upcoming posts, we had a bit of a conversation with friends late last year (that is, late 2008!) about what counts as a date, and the consensus was that I was setting the bar a bit too high for myself. littlestar may be a little bewildered about how strongly everyone seems to be rooting for me (handy, that), but she also agreed that was being too formal in cataloging the romance. Thus, a couple recent things were ruled dates, and I'll be a little bit more liberal about what I write up in the future.
So there we go.
19 dates ago, littlestar and I saw the Dresden Dolls at Bimbo's in San Francisco. It amazes me now to look back at that date and realize that we bought our tickets for that show all of three days in advance.
This time around, things were different. The Dolls have garnered more attention and this might have been -- although we hope not -- their last tour. During the show, Amanda said it wouldn't be, but at the very least it'll be a while before anyone gets to see them in concert again.
The upshot is that we bought our tickets well ahead of time, and that was a good thing. The show sold out.
It was also great. More in the extended.
Continue reading "Date 31: 19 dates and we're back with the Dolls" »
Continuing our string of concert dates, littlestar and I made our way to the Great American Music Hall (which sounds bigger than it turns out to be) to see Eisley.
They had two opening acts. Always a good sign. More in the extended.
Late last month, littlestar and I went to the first of what was to be a string of concert dates. In a way, this date is a callback to an earlier date. Twenty-two dates prior, we went to see (and loved) Little Miss Sunshine. One of many things we both enjoyed about the movie was its soundtrack.
It makes good sense, then, that we went to a concert by the people behind the core of that soundtrack, Devotchka. When I found the Devotchka concert was coming, and asked littlestar if she had any interest, she wasn't sure. So we looked at pictures from their prior concerts and saw people hanging from the ceiling upside-down. littlestar said, "We're going," and that was that.
The concert was at The Fillmore, which is rapidly becoming one of our favorite venues both for the atmosphere and for their ability to eschew the bass and actually mix sounds well. The Fillmore is right by the Japan Center, so we popped into Isobune for sushi, then into the Kinokuniya for art book temptation (to which littlestar readily succumbed -- in her defense, they were offering Okami).
After that, we went to the Fillmore, where littlestar waited while I went and de-knifed myself (oops) before they would let us in. We picked up a drink for littlestar inside, then went to grab some floor space and wait for the show.
The opening act was Basia Bulat and friends. Basia is charming, has a great voice and quite a bit of musical talent, and was a really pleasing start to the music of the evening. One thing to love about good concerts is getting introduced to good opening acts. Our policy of "get there when the doors open and go stand in front" has generally kept working out for us, and getting to hear the full opening act is a big part of that.
After Basia, we were on to the main fare. We weren't sure exactly what to expect from Devotchka's music in person, as they feel kind of energetic yet moody on the Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack -- and that's all we'd heard of them. In person, they were really energetic. They were also professional -- when the hookup for the violinist's instrument failed, he wandered over, hijacked a microphone, tucked it in next to his strings, and kept going.
The show opened with two young women tossing out flowers over the audience, and they returned in the mid-show to do the dangling acrobats act we'd seen in the pictures. It does seem like we keep going to shows with eccentric side acts.
We both liked the show a lot, and left with a pair of little white flowers in hand -- they stayed in a little vase on littlestar's table for a week afterward.
Going into this week, I asked littlestar if she wanted to go out and watch a movie on the weekend. She countered with an offer to go see the movie Half Empty at the Cinequest film festival. Half Empty was billed as a musical with good writing, and that combined with a sketchy take on the plot made it sound like a fun time.
I took the train to meet up with littlestar after one of her classes, but the class ran quite long, leaving us to quickly make our way over to the theater and get tickets and get in, any thoughts of a pre-movie dinner tossed aside.
As it happens, that was a good thing.
As the movie was introduced with the note that "everything you see was improvised," we wondered how it's possible to have good writing and, say, musical numbers in an improv piece. It turns out that the musical portions weren't improvised.
We watched the movie, both liked it, laughed at all the funny parts, and left with splitting headaches. Littlestar was nauseous, too -- enough so that we just had to linger in the car afterward and wait for things to settle. So what happened? Worst date ever?
Well, not really. It just happens that Half Empty is the best unwatchable movie I've ever watched. It's hilarious. Writer/director/actor Robert Peters said the basic idea was, "An American happiness counselor in German is funny," and he's right. Unfortunately, the camera work is even twitchier than the already jarring Bourne Ultimatum. Eventually, both littlestar and I were sort of watching the movie in shifts, cringing every so often at some little jerky movement of the camera.
But it's still an awesome movie, and once the nausea subsided, we both left quoting lines and recalling our favorite parts of the film.
And besides, how often can you say "once the nausea subsided" and still be talking about a good date?