“Once” — The Musical
“Once” received 12 Tony award nominations and won 8 including best musical, best actor. It also received 2013 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. With so many titles, what type of musical it is after all?! Let’s see what professional critiques say about this musical:
Last time, I was in New York City and wanted to see this show, but the ticket was sold out. This time, I watched this tour production in the Kennedy Center in DC. Long time no see — the Kennedy Center is still that beautiful and neat.
I’d say it is a musical that can turn off your business mode and turn you on the channel of human being. You sit in this darkness, feel this beautiful piano and guitar, find some space to think about your dream, your life, and your love, and end up with a touch of laughter and tears on your face. For a quite while, you are not able to escape from such powerful emotions and resonances.
Another comment I want to make is that the live musical is way more impactful than the movie and the CD recordings. It is actually quite shocking considering this musical does not use any orchestra or fancy stages as a typical *loud* musical does. Instead, every actor and actress has an instrument. They play instrument, dance and act at the same time. The stage is very creatively used. For example, half an hour before the show, the audience is invited to the stage, drink and social with some of the actors. They even perform some folk pieces as if you were in a Saturday afternoon winery. Another example is that three actresses perform some mirrorish dance to demonstrate *the girl*’s hesitation and complication and her desire to see through herself. One more impressive scene is that all the musicians in the story are echoed by *the guy*’s debut and started joining one a time with their instruments and perform like an orchestra for a folk song.
An interesting side story: the dress code of watching musical in Kennedy Center is so different from the Broadway theaters in New York City. In NYC, the random tourists go to the shows. They wear all kind of stuffs, jeans, flip flops and casual clothes. In DC, every one dressed up, and I ended up being the only one wearing some t-shirt, quite embarrassing. I also got the autograph from Stuart Ward, the main actor in the tour production of “once”, and he is way too handsome to stare at.
Broadway Shows
Today, I was moved by a piece of music from Phantom of the Opera, so I decided to write an article to review the Broadway shows I have seen. Well, here is how I describe how I like the Broadway shows: I can sit in a Broadway show or a classical music concert for hours and never feel bored, but not others. Jazz and Irish music sometimes are quite pleasant, but I don’t know if I can go crazy when I just sit there and purely listen to the music in hours. Maybe plus some sort of martini, it can work out 🙂
I started watching Broadway shows since 2002. I remembered that we four girls arrived in the time square in a cold winter evening. We waited in line for buying tickets. There were some clumsy luggage behind us so everybody stares at us, but we just laughed loud and don’t care. At that time, one of the only available shows is called “Dance of the Vampire“. None of us had heard that show before, but we decided to spend $45 anyway, which is about 1/30 of our monthly salary at that time. It turns out that after watching the show, we still did not understand the story. But we all agree that the music sounds very pleasant and it is very relaxing. Broadway shows are so relaxing, sometimes I fall asleep in the shows 😛 I consider that is wonderful!
Since then, almost every time, I go to NYC, I will find a show, some are on-broadway and some are off broadway, but all the shows are performed in the theaters near time square. The Broadway show tickets are very expensive, it can go up $100-200. But if you order from TKTS, you can get a ticket using $50 or around for today’s show. You can also go to the theater directly to get some rush tickets with discount, but Broadway shows are very popular, no guarantee you will get tickets for the show you wanted that way. I have also watched a few shows in the local theaters such as NC Triangle area, Rochester, Kennedy Center, Ames, Des Moines via Broadway show tours. The quality is quite good, though none of the theaters are comparable to the authentic Broadway theaters, in my opinion.
The movies are ranked through Oscar, and Broadways are ranked through Tony Award. Although probably nobody cares about my ranking, I still decided to seriously rank the musicals I have seen:
Best music: of course, I will vote for Phantom of the Opera. The music is very powerful, and you will feel surrounded by it, and nothing else left in the world at this moment.
Best story: I will choose Miss Saigon. The Broadway shows often have some simple storyline, but not this one. It talked about an American solider follows in love with a Viennese girl but have to leave Vienna (actually I mean Vietnam) after the war. This story has some unspoken Asian resonance to me, is touching and tear-breaking.
Another best story: guest what? I will give Les Miserables. I think I will need a special blog post for this book and story.
Best costume: the Lion King. Probably you still remember: hakumatata — it is the word from Tunisia; it means “no worry”. This is the most popular Broadway show ever. Since 2002, every time I go to NYC, it is ON. Besides the classical songs such as “circle of life” “can you feel the love tonight”, this Broadway show stars its creative costume. To understand the intelligence behind it, ask yourself: how would you put up an adult to a lion or a coyote but not look stupid?
Best dance: Pippin. It is in general a great show, but I cannot remember the details. Good things can be too boring to remember?!
Best comedy: Anything goes 😀
Best action: this is a very visual, high-tech, modern Broadway show Spiderman, the actors show off acrobats and various types of body movement.
Besides the above ranked shows, I have also watched:
Chicago: People said the dance is great in this show, but I don’t recall that.
Grinch: One year, Broadway is on strike during Thanksgiving. Oh well, only this show is going on, no choice. It is short and hateful.
Evita: The famous “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” is from this show
West Side Story: very good dance as well
Sound of Music: classical. The movie is good so I decided to not rank the Broadway show. I have visited a few places in Austria where they filmed the movie. It makes Broadway shows fake and not appealing
South Pacific: no particular impression
Mary Poppins: in this show, the actress flies in the theater seating area with an umbrella
Jersey Boy: this is the show contains many American pop cultures and I fell asleep because I really cannot understand what is going on.
In addition, I am also quite familiar with Rent, Wicked, Avenue Q through CDs. Hope to see them sometimes on Broadway.
This is a super long blog without any visual entertainment. I hope you are still alive at this moment 😀
A Night
He sleeps like a baby, innocently
the night is quiet and peaceful
maybe a snowflake or two softly lands on the roof, and
I am just sitting there still, for a long, long time
New Orleans (2)
I visited New Orleans 2013 Christmas and 2014 new year. In December or January in New Orleans, we did not really need a big coat, a sweater or two seems sufficient. Different from many other cities in US, News Orleans has rich cultures influenced by Spanish and French Colonial time and slavery period. As a result, New Orleans is sassy and characteristic, and it constantly smells like alcohol, cray fish, Jazzy, and Cajun spice (Cajan refers to a special ethic group in US whose ascendants are combinations of French and black people.). The city is quite big, you can always book bikes, segway tours or just take buses around.
1. Jazz
2. French Quarter: some buildings date back 1700s and 1800s. In the old days, rich planters lived in the French Quarter while their plantations were far located in the remote area of New Orleans. Nowadays, most of the French Quarter are restaurants, souvenir shops, night clubs (targeting different audiences), and upstairs are owned by fraternities. During Mardi Gras and new year, these upstairs are the best locations for throwing beads at people walking in the French Quarter. Many buildings in the French Quarter remind you of Europe, elegant porches and colorful flowers. Many old movies are filmed here. Stars like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt own houses on the French quarter.
3. Cajun culture and food: You pretty much have to order etouffee and po boy. Also, make sure visit famous Cafe Du Monde; the waiting line is long, but it moves fast. Cajan food is advantageous, you can find pretty interesting menu. One of the best restaurants in News Orleans is Commander’s place, located near Garden District, where all the expensive houses are, including many stars’ house. 
4. Attending Mardi Gras: The whole city is supposed to be drunk and partying during Mardi Gras. There is a Mardi Gras float factory tour which New Orleans people are very proud of themselves.
5. Plantation. Do you feel you are walking into Gone with the Wind?!
6. Swamp: the best season to see alligators is summer; but in the winter, you can see these cute, wild boars, begging for mash mellow 😛 The large size of swamp is very impressive and it also maintains an interesting ecosystem; however, we really do not have many swamps left in the world 🙁
7. Katrina: The hurricane almost destroyed the city. Schools closed, hospital closed, many people moved out of the city. There are Katrina tours where you can see empty buildings, and water lines. In News Orleans, the tomb is above grounds. During Katrina time, the water broke the dam, one of the very first stops for the rescue team is to move/process the tomb, so the bacteria did not spread.
8. Cruise and port of New Orleans: It is cool to watch Mississippi goes into the Gulf of Mexico. Mississippi is so calm and innocent looking, but it can be 200 feet deep near New Orleans and make a perfect port, bringing in a lots of revenue for the city of New Orleans.
LA
1. Living near Beverly hill.
- Compared to Hollywood Blvd where it is dirty, no big trees, cheap shops, homeless, Sunset blvd and Rodeo drive near Beverly hill are much cleaner, big street, tall trees, mansions, well maintained gardens.
- Sunset Blvd has many good bars.
- Celebrity houses near Beverly Hill is architecturally attractive. Every single one of them is different. If you want to know which stars own the house, you can enroll a celebrity house tour cost about 20-40$. The tour is sold at many shops on Hollywood Blvd. The only other two similar competitive neighborhood I have seen before are Chicago Oak Park, where there are many Frank Lloyd Wright designed buildings, and New Orleans Garden District Houses.
- If you like Eagles, if you ever know what is Hotel California, you cannot miss Beverly Hill Hotel. The rate during Oscar weekend is 695$ per night. But you are more than welcomed to park your car here, order a lunch or afternoon tea, walk around their gardens. The staff is super friendly.
2. Trying out your luck for attending Oscar.
- Every October, there is a lottery to select several hundreds of fans to attend red carpet. Just Google “Oscars Red Carpet Fan Experience” for details.
- Part of the Hollywood Blvd near the theater will be closed on the day of Oscar. So if you want to visit the theaters, make sure you are not planning on that day.
- There is a guide book called “Official Hollywood Walk of Fame” (free at any travel tables). It lists the street addresses of your stars so you can easily find them.
(road blocked because of Oscar)
3. Traffic in LA.
- Typically during weekend, driving from one tourist cite to another (for example, from Hollywood to Santa Monica, from Hollywood to China town), you prepare about 40-50 minutes, sometimes only for traveling for a few miles.
- Airport is relatively far. For example, I spent 78$ renting a car for a weekend, but I spent 100$ for commuting from Universal Studio to airport on a taxi.
- Buses and trains can pretty much take you anywhere
4. Sugar fish. It is a chain of Sushi restaurants. Locations include Beverly hills, downtown LA, universal studio, airport. Many stores do not take reservations. Typically when you go to wait when the door opens, you do not need to wait long. The best one of the all is called Nozawa bar. It runs as a privileged restaurant, and every day serves only two groups of people, 6:30pm and 8:30pm. 10 of people a group, costing … 150$! I tried to make reservation one month before for the Oscar weekend, but the seats are already sold out. So ACTION NOW
5. China town in LA is very out of date and dirty-looking (I guess modern Chinese immigrants nowadays are living in the Orange County).
- There is a dragon parade during the Chinese new year weekend every year. It considers one of the oldest parades in US. In addition to dragon dances, floats, there are also fancy cars that carry famous people from LA. For example, this year we saw the LA mayor, Chief officer from LAPD … Of course, the quality is nothing compared to Macy’s parade.
- Generally speaking, Chinese new year is a big thing in the LA area. This year is a sheep year, and you can see some hotels and streets are decorated with sheep and sheep characters. Interestingly, I never wear summer clothes during Spring break. But in LA, you can.
- I heard Best Chinese restaurants in LA are not in China town. In China town, majority of the restaurants are Cantonese restaurants. I like the one called “渔邨” with many authentic recipes from Hong Kong.
6. Universal studio. If you have never gone once, you just HAVE TO go, though it costs about 90 something dollars. The travel tips often say it takes about a day. I think planning half a day would be sufficient. There are really no good food inside universal studio, however, there is a so so bar and restaurant outside the universal studio.
- “Water World” is a 20 minute live short movie, acted by attractive girls and guys. There are fire and explosions in front of you.
- Studio tour show you fake cities, lakes, forests they made that show up in the famous movie scenes, for example, ones in jurassic park. Interestingly, they take you to some fake subway, and suddenly, things are collapsed around you, as if earth quick happens, water pump explodes.
- Special effect shows you how blood effect is made, how to make a scene where an actress is on top of the building and how to rendering a 3D monster using motion senors mounted on a moving person
- There are plenty of 3D virtual reality rides as well
(real city)
(fake city)
7. Santa Monica, a very romantic place to watch sunset, and a good place for a first-time kiss 😛 Many interesting artists were performing there.
8. Piano bar. I heard it is great but don’t have time to go this time. This makes an excuse for my next trip to LA 🙂
“The Unbearable Lightness of Being”
Feb 1, Sunday, Ames Iowa, Snow
This book discusses how much weight you want to carry for you life: light or heavy
Easy, fun, spontaneous, smile, stateless—-don’t hold on the past and don’t worry about the future, the world is therefore awesome, these define light
Struggle, painful, responsibility, serious, work hard, persistence, hurt, love, critical, these define heavy
My personal experience is that when getting older, we are more likely living towards light: not willing to take any responsibilities beyond responsible for your paychecks, delaying kids, no marriage, even don’t want to commit for a hangout unless it is only one day before … Tomas divorced, I am sure he had gone through a lot of pain, and he no longer wanted to be hurt. So he just slept with different women with very shallow, minimum possible relationships with them. I am sure he was at a somewhat fun at least safe state.
Interestingly, light people often found heavy people admirable. Tereza seems ordinary. She is not particularly beautiful, nice, rich or smart. But yet, Tomas, a man has experienced many women developed a special feeling towards her. Tomas probably falls in love with Tereza’s pain—-Tereza is doing something Tomas does not have courage to do, that is, to love a person. In a lot of parts of the book, the reader is experiencing Tomas’s struggling between living his routine light life and taking up his responsibility for his love.
In terms of writing, there are two things I like about this book. First, in this book, every character has a perspective, Kundera explains well why Tereza is Tereza, and Sabina is Sabina, how their childhood, their moms influence their personalities. Second, Kundera weaved many of his thoughts about life into his story:
- Missions are stupid, Tereza. I have no mission. No one has. And it’s a terrific relief to realize you are free, free of all missions.
- Franz’s weakness is called goodness
- A girl who longs for marriage longs for something she knows nothing about. The boy who hankers after fame has no idea what fame is. The thing that gives our every move its meaning is always totally unknown to us
- It is questions with no answers that set the limits of human possibilities, describe the boundary of human existence
- Any schoolboy can do experiments in the physics lab to test various scientific hypotheses. But man, because he has only one life to live, cannot conduct experiments to test whether to follow his passion or not
- Perhaps he sensed that any woman would make his memory of Tereza unbearably painful
- Only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value
- To find that the surface of her face reflected the crew of the soul charging up from below
- She was thinking of the days of Johann Sebastian Bash, when music was like a rose blooming on a boundless snow-covered plain of silence
- We all need someone to look at us. We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under: the first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes; the second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes; the third category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love; finally, there is the fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present
I had read this book a year ago, and I thought about it from time to time. Recently, I realize that there is a weight existing in life, and living far away from friends and family makes my life lighter and lighter. I then appreciate Kundera’s wisdom and decided to record his great book here.
Christopher – “The Imitation Game”
The movie industry has benefited from computers for years. Finally, here comes the great movie about a computer scientist. Thank you, Hollywood.
The imitation game is a movie based on the book Alan Turing: the enigma. The title of the movie, I guess, is inspired by Turing’s article “Computing Machinery and Intelligence“. The title of the first section is “the imitation game”. The discussion is can machine think like a human?
This movie costs more than 7 millions of dollars! The Turing Machine shown in movie is a detailed copy from the real Turing Machine displayed in The National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park. Google sponsored the first show in New York and hosted a competition on “breaking the code”. Interestingly, the New York Times posted the crossword game Nov 2014 before the movie is on. The same crossword game has been posted in 1942 used to recruit people working for cracking the enigma code in world war II. The winners of the game are given flight tickets to UK Bletchley Park where Turing has worked on the enigma project.
A famous line in this movie is “sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine”. In the enigma project, Turing worked as if he was driven by some magic power. Initially, he was just a little potato in the team, and everybody dislikes him because he cannot work with others. But he respected his inner voice and insisted working his own way. It looks like he did not care most of the things, but live for things he really loves. He stayed in office working and refused to social with his fellow colleagues. He ignored his authoritative boss and wrote to Churchill for help. He proposed to Joan so she can continue staying in the project although he did not feel fun even dance with girls. He dashes out of his engagement party to test an idea he inspired in the party. Sitting in front of screen, it is very touching to feel the thrills and pains he went through. Indeed, if you never ever worked for something that makes you feel lost, and if you never experienced the indulgence of work, you never have lived.
I don’t know how many people in your life you have addressed to “the dearest friend”. In this movie, Turing has received one such note. Math classes were simply boring, so Turing and his friend pass some encryption back and forth for fun. There is one such note “see you in two weeks, the dearest friend”. Turing waited; however, all the classmates were back to school, but not him. Yes, sometimes, the never-started-love stories are most romantic. Turing named his Turing Machine “Christopher” and worked with him rest of his life.
Between jail and hormone therapy, Turing chose hormone therapy, so he can work with his Christopher; and between not able to work and death, he chose death. I am willing to believe that computer science history can be different if he could live longer.
To add a bit sugar at the end of my essay, I’d like to share a funny scene in the movie. This nerdy, rock-hard, stubborn Turing listened to Joan’s advice, bought a bag of apples, and walked in front of his colleagues, smile “hey, A …Apple?” Everybody in the movie laughs, and everybody in front of the movie also laughs.
Midwest (2) – Iowa State Capitol
Dec 20, 2014, Cloudy
There are plenty of things in this world that are not famous but significant. Finding them is a pleasure. Iowa State Capitol is one of them. This is what it looks like from outside. Everybody noticed that it has a gold color roof and 5 domes. The roof is covered with 23.75 carat Gold —- many many 3 inch by 3 inch golden leafs. The golden roof is replaced every 30ish years, deployed purely through human labors. It takes years to finish the project as the weather conditions have to be perfect when finishing golden leafs.
In the building, there are details that are also finished with gold leafs.
The building consists of 109 rooms, including supreme court, a library, a house of representative meeting room, a senator meeting room … Each of the 109 rooms is decorated differently. Importantly, all the decorations are done by hand, the wall is drawn by hand, the furniture is handcrafted, the windows are handmade, and the tiles are deployed by hand.
(Marble railing and granite steps)
(Original Italian tiles)
(Painted ceilings)
(Mosaic pictures on the wall)
(Handmade Stained Glasses and Skylight)
(the Dome, trivia: how to change these light bulbs?)
(Antique Water Fountain, the bottom contains ICE)
(Beautiful pictures and decorations)
Dramatically, there was a fire in 1905, started in the house of representative meeting room. There were two public announcements going out immediately. One was to recruit local business to move out the 100 tables from the fire room, and the other was to call for fire department to put off the fire. 97 out of 100 desks were saved successfully, currently still in use. Back then, the fire department only had horses and hoses. The fire happens in January, and the weather is very cold. The hose was successfully connected, but no water came out. Everybody thought the building would be gone. What would you suggest if you were there, intelligent fellow readers? There was this guy who proposed to shut all the windows and doors of the building. The fire indeed gradually went out due to lack of the oxygen, and the building was saved!
The building is still in use today. Here is the senator room. The chandeliers were imported from France and converted from gas to electricity. It weights 800 lb each and costs $800. There are 100 house representatives (30,000 people per representative) and 50 senators (60,000 people per senator) in Iowa. All the meetings are open to media and public (see the audience seats in the picture).
Here is the library, which collects all the law books. The representatives and law students are using the books. During the election seasons, the media borrows this room for publicity.
There was this little mechanics (called dumbwaiter) used for lifting the books, can you find it ?
Some tips for the tour: the tour is free and takes about 1-2 hours. Parking is also free. December is good time to come if you want to avoid the crowd. You are allowed to take as many pictures as you wanted, so spending an afternoon photography or sketch (or plotting some harry potter stories inside) is a good way to kill time ! Last but not least, I like to end my story with sweets (also found inside the building).
