The Gods
Love
Nubia

Which is to say, we went to the Westchester Broadway Theatre tonight and saw Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida (whose name is so long that the tickets just say "Elton John and Tim Rice's", which is perhaps indicative of something).

It was a good time: talented actors (singers) (dancers), very nice lighting, good food (one of them Dinner Theater things), nice smooth sets.

(Ooh, and to Kia Lee, who was filling in as Nehebka tonight: whoa! I'll come to your one-woman show anytime. Not that she upstaged Aida or anything, but whenever she was on there was a definite additional point of energy in the scene. And look: she's on MySpace. Wild.)

(And, in that strange fashion show after Amneris sings "My Strongest Suit", the very first model? The very tall one, who isn't one of her handmaidens? That was a guy in drag. Wasn't it?)

I liked the bad guy's numbers alot. The rest of the music wasn't bad, but I thought it sort of suffered from [a] all the musicians being backstage somewhere playing into the sound system, and [b] all the singers being miked. As far as audio goes, we might as well have been listening to the CD, eh? And somehow, except for the badguy parts, the Elton-John-flavor mostly-pop music didn't really evoke ancient Egypt for me very much (go figure).

And in terms of the story and final impact I thought it was ultimately sort of fluffy. I mean, aren't Elton John (music) and Tim Rice (lyrics) and Linda Woolverton and Robert Falls and David Henry Hwang (book) sort of underestimating the seriousness of being buried alive here? Shouldn't we have left feeling a certain amount of horror, or at least disquiet, mixed in with the upliftingness and love conquering all and everything?

But then I'm an old curmudgeon. *8)

So anyway it was a good time. (And the kids both had Virgin Pina Coladas, so they got souvenir glasses to bring home.)

As a spammer recently pointed out in email:

Intimacy is a vital part of any union. bullwhack

So what's your spam name?

For that matter, who are you?

I am a person who reads (I must assume) far slower that you write.

I'm guessing that that person was attempting to read last week's Super Sized entries about the trip to the monastery and all. I did get a bit carried away, "dump of absolutely everything that I can remember" wise.

Similarly,

Right. Your people and Roshi's people will do lunch.

Yes, but who are you?

Who wants to know? Oh.

Exactly!

(One incident from the retreat that I don't think I wrote down: shortly after Ryushin talked to us about the purpose of zazen and all, I ran into him down in the office, and said that I had one very basic (or "elementary" or something) question, and he said what was it, and I said "who are you?" (meaning it entirely in the ordinary sense, since he hadn't introduced himself or anything) and he laughed and said something like "such a question to ask a zen monk!" and we all laughed and then he answered the question in the entirely ordinary sense and told me that he was Ryushin and all, and that was very cool.)

Who are you?

Neeci

Fred Neeci?

I staggered back to the underground and the breeze blew back my hair

Do you remember throwing punches around, and preaching from your chair?

All sortsa nice stuff in the Ajax toy lately. One snippet from many:

He hadn't intended to kiss her. It was to be lunch in the city, that's all, she in from Boston and he down from upstate, meeting at the station. Review some notes, a few revisions, lunch. "Do you remember that time in Jaypur when we got so giddy and almost fell off the roof?" He leaned in, "I, it's Jaipur with an I." He did remember, of course. All too well. Fresh air can be so intoxicating.

And a summing-up:

So what do we learn from this little ajax toy? Look under rocks. Notice the small things. There is beauty in the ephemeral.

Absolutely.

(We learn that from Metababy also, although all the anus pictures and stuff sometimes seem to distract from the lesson.)

Dear Mister President: Please don't be a freaking idiot. Thank you.

(Some alarming and hopefully overly paranoid background information on this general subject.)

From the mysterious HTML o' the Day, our Clever Idea o' the Day (and we aren't just referring to the choice of hostname): Turn Your Head dot com.

And also from there, Christians Sue for Right Not to Tolerate Policies. A story about people who want their intolerance tolerated; includes this noteworthy statement:

"Think how marginalized racists are," said Baylor, who directs the Christian Legal Society's Center for Law and Religious Freedom. "If we don't address this now, it will only get worse."

And also still yet again from there, Health Problems Related to the Geek Lifestyle, from which I wandered to reasons not to hack sleep.

Let's see. Some more random interesting things from the web (hence the name "web log" I suppose): When Blobjects Rule the Earth (Bruce Sterling being all pundit-like and energetic and prophetic and stuff). From which I wandered to the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005 which is less techie and differently inspiring.

And from rocketboom, a whole bunch of random webcams. (Photon patterns from distant locations brought to you through the miracle of electricity!)

I dunno, that's probably about all. Oh! I recently got a very nice email from someone asking just where the nude photos of Iris Chacon are on this site, anyway? I told him. *8)

Apologies to all to whom I owe mail (and weblog entries, heh heh) and stuff like that (and to all the reader input waiting patiently in the inbox). It's been busy (I know; I always say that).

One of the little daughter's lifelong friends had a Sweet Sixteen party down at the lake today. It was just like in the Old Days: all the families sitting around in the pavillion, wandering down to the dock to look at the water, the kids running here and there, lots of food, laughter, wind, badminton.

Also unlike the old days; many of the kids are as tall as some of the parents; there are extra kids, from outside the neighborhood, from school and the extended Kid Nation. And the flirting is (even) more obvious than it used to be. *8)

I stretched out under a tree with the sun shining on my closed eyelids and dozed for awhile. And after the kids were done with the Jenga set some of us adults sat down on the concrete floor of the pavillion and stacked blocks and laughed and stuff. And we ate lots of chicken and fruit and noodles and cookies and chips and food in general, and remarked on how big all the kids are, and said how long it's been since we had one of these parties, and how much it was like the Old Days.

It was very nice.

Let's see. More Synthetic Zero events coming up. I wrote up another book (a paperback murder mystery that was kinda fun, but that's probably going back to the Book Exchange rack). And I've posted the complete census of my Sims 2 neighborhood (although I've been playing TS2 less than I was a few weeks ago).

Anita Rowland linked to our ZMM story; fame!

Speaking of the Four Great Vows, here's a Unitarian minister on the subject. (I've noticed that some translations render the last vow as, say, "The Buddha Way is unsurpassed; I vow to attain it", which isn't nearly as paradoxical. For my personal version of the Desire one I'm considering "Desires are unfulillable, I vow to fulfill them". Or something along those lines.)

And finally (because it's getting late and although the kids have next week off I don't), our Poem o' the Day is John Clare's "I am!". Ouch.