The Mandelbear's Musings

So the Web is now 20 years old, and I have acquired a Google+ account. We'll see how that goes -- I'm finding the circle thing rather annoying at present. And I'm not sure whether I should have used the mdlbear or the ssavitzky account -- it's the former at present; that's also the ID my YouTube account is under. So that may be ok.

We went up to San Francisco with the YD to see the Lamplighters production of H.M.S. Pinafore. Great fun, as usual. They made one casting decision that had me guessing all through the show, but they made it work. There are still some performances left in Mountain View and Walnut Creek -- don't miss it. I'll try to remember to post the spoiler after the run's over. The cast seemed very young, for the most part.

~No, daddy, you're just getting old.~ Thank you, Ame.

We finished the afternoon with dinner at Buck's in Woodside; Colleen and I had the softshell crab tostada, which towered more than six inches high and included a generous helping of Dungeness crab meat as well as the eponymous battered and fried crustacean on the top.

Links, as usual. rowanf points to an article on How To Remove Your Personal Information From Background Check Websites, which looks useful.

Another good day -- too early to say whether I'm getting the hang of it, but I won't complain.

I got Colleen's new purple Kitchenaid mixer set up in time for the YD to use it to make a batch of tasty gluten-free corn muffins. YAY!

Colleen and I then went up to San Francisco for the Lamplighters parody gala, titled "Star Dreck: the Generation After That". The YD didn't want to go, and Marty was injured and couldn't, so we took Marty's daughter K. The show was wonderful, of course. We came home so Colleen could hit the bathroom and change, collected the YD, and went to Red Robin for dinner. They are apparently very good at handling allergies, which is useful.

Yeah; good day.

The day's link sausage is a Steampunk wheelchair, captured at Windycon by gmcdavid.

Yesterday was the last show of the season for the Lamplighters, the mostly-Gilbert-and-Sullivan company that we've had season tickets to for over three decades. So the flower_cat, chaoswolf, B. (WINOLJ) and I headed up to San Francisco a little before noon. (The Y.D. doesn't usually like to go, for some bizarre reason, so we take a friend.)

The show was Gilbert & Sullivan Straight Up, With a Twist, written and directed by the redoubtable Barbara Heroux, the Lamplighters' artistic director. It's basically a series of selections from all the operettas, in chronological order, staged between two actors playing the roles of G and S. Their dialog is taken from diaries and letters, and provided a fascinating look into their occasionally-troubled collaboration.

There were nine singers: five men and four women. I really didn't know what to expect going in, but found it delightful. The singing was first-rate, of course, and the whole thing hung together surprisingly well as an artistic biography. The ending, after their death announcements, was especially effective: "The world is but a broken toy" from Princess Ida, followed by an ensemble rendition of "Once more gondolieri" from The Gondoliers.

I'd say, "Go see it!" but the season's over, so you lose. The program notes point to the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive if you want more information, and of course the complete libretti. Next season is The Mikado and Iolanthe.

We came home via I280 and stopped at Buck's for dinner; a delicious end to a pleasant afternoon out.

I finished off the day practicing some songs that aren't on the Baycon setlist but will probably come up in circle -- I'm sadly out of practice. And, a little surprisingly, the start of a setting for "The Collar-bone of a Hare", which started tickling my mind a couple of days ago while I was working on a (not totally unrelated) new song of my own.

... but not before at least briefly mentioning what I did today. Went for a half-hour stroll by the creek -- not much exercise, but a nice morning, all muffled in fog and comfortably cool.

We had bagels and Scottish salmon for brunch, then headed up to San Francisco for the Lamplighters gala. This year they only had one performance, and they combined it with an auction. Too rich for my wallet, unfortunately, but a lot of fun as a spectator sport. They worked the live auction part (mostly it was a silent auction out in the lobby) cleverly into the end of the first act.

I should mention at this point (for those just tuning in) that the Lamplighters are world-class Gilbert and Sullivan (and other light opera) company; the annual Gala is a parody fundraiser. This year's title was "Harry Patter and the Willing Suspension of Disbelief - A Series of Unfortunate Musical Numbers". To make a long and extremely funny tale much too short, the auction was woven into the plot to raise money to renew the 1500-year lease on the Hogwash School of Witchery and Wizardcraft, in order to prevent it from being turned into a big box retail establishment called Vol*De*Mart... You get the idea.

It was around 7:30 by the time it was done, so we skipped the usual champagne reception and headed over to the Cliff House for a somewhat expensive but very tasty dinner. The kids were happy -- they serve mostly seafood.

Now that the flower_cat's fish allergy (if it ever really existed and wasn't just a coincidental flareup of her Crohn's disease) has subsided, we're getting more fish for dinner. This is a Good Thing.

I wasn't particularly sleepy coming home, but whether this can be ascribed to my new facehugger or to the stimulant=-based decongestant and the four cups of coffee I had with dinner is, as usual, an open question.

But I think I ought to go fall over now.

Well, two out of three, anyway. We went to San Francisco this afternoon to see the Lamplighters' production of Franz Lehar's The Merry Widow. It was stunningly beautiful -- the singing, the costumes, the music, even the choreography. I could have sworn the choreographer had at least a nodding acquaintance with folk dance, but she was there and said she didn't. She'd done her homework, though; the dances in the second act were a mix of actual Eastern European folk dance steps. The waltzing was a treat, especially after the fun I had at GAFilk waltzing with jenkitty and cflute.

And the music! Gods, the music! There are times when I really don't mind earworms. "Vilja" was just freaking gorgeous.

And we saw the last performance of this run, so you'll just have to wait til the next time they do it. Nyeah!

Went to the Lamplighters production of Ruddygore, taking jilara along instead of our stick-in-the-mud Younger Daughter. Her loss. The Lamplighters did an excellent job, as usual, though the sets were a little too minimalistic for my taste. Basically sketch-like, two-dimensional flats; the scenes where the pictures step out of their frames was done by pulling up the flats, to reveal a distant backdrop of clouds in a night sky. I really preferred the old sets, where the picture frames held a painted scrim that was pulled away to allow the ancestors to step through.

The music, however, was completely up to Lamplighter standards. Ruddygore (that's the original name, btw, before it was changed to Ruddigore so as not to offend tender Victorian sensibilities) has some of the finest music of any G&S -- the silly songs are appropriately silly, the tender love songs are among their prettiest, and the overture and "The Dead of the Night's High Noon" are just plain awesome.

I realized sometime during the second act that the right way for me to do "I Have a Song to Sing, Oh" (from Yeomen of the Guard -- it's one I've been wanting work on for quite some time) in concert would be to open with the verses from the first act, and close with the two verses from the finale. Duh.

Driving home, we saw a curtain of slanted dark streaks coming down from a cloud, which I identified as rain that was probably evaporating before it hit the ground. Further evidence was provided about 10 minutes later as a little patch of rainbow appeared in front of the streaks. Total confirmation came as we were on our way to dinner after picking up the Y D at home -- a sprinkling of large raindrops.

The family main event yesterday was going up to San Francisco for the Lamplighters' annual fundraising Gala. The Lamplighters are a nonprofit, professional level, mostly-Gilbert-and-Sullivan company; the Gala is a parody done to mostly G&S tunes. This was their 40th, so they reprised many favorite numbers from previous years (including Phantom of the Operetta, Major General Hospital, and Apocalypse Later. This year's title was The DaVinci Coda. A good time was had by all, except for the Younger Daughter and another teenager in the row behind us, who would probably have been happier staying at home.

I also bought new shoes yesterday afternoon, at the Walking Company. The brand is called "Keen" (I'm not making this up). They're kind of funky-looking, with oiled-leather uppers and soles that wrap over the toes, but at $95 they were cheap enough to be worth a try. Oddly enough, I was friendly and talkative in the store, and in the Container Store, where I bought some shelving supplies for the office. Weird.

Spent most of today, and a lot of yesterday, putting the office back together. I now have the counter and all the shelves back up, so I can start unpacking boxes Real Soon Now. Oh, yes; the shoes worked fine on my morning walk.