Roving Mars in IMAX

Saturday night I went to the Metreon to see the short documentary featuring images from Mars on the IMAX screen. The movie was long on visuals but short on explanations. The NOVA documentary & Steve Squyres book are more informative about the technical & personal stories behind the mission. For me the most impressive images in the IMAX movie were the rovers being built & tested, the parachutes being tested & the computer animated sequence of the rocket launch.

But there was not enough explanation. I wanted to know more about all the stuff that was on the rovers. I wanted to know why the early parachute designs were flawed. I wanted to know what the heck all the stages of that rocket were for. It's pretty wild to see that huge rocket jettison more & more components, until it's just a small disk flying through space. & I wanted to know how they came up with that crazy bouncing landing gear. To me, these would be compelling stories.

Rick Miller's MacHomer

I caught MacHomer at the Roda Theatre in Berkeley on Thursday night. This frantic & wacky one-man show presents Macbeth as done in the voices of the Simpsons cartoon characters. It assumes equal familiarity with both the Simpsons & Shakespeare. Rick Miller does an impressive job mimicking all the characters as well as other celebrities, switching from one voice to another in rapid fire. The show never stops coming at you for 70 minutes. I was starting to feel sorry for the performer; he had so much to do. During the final musical number, he apologized to the audience for dropping out briefly to cough.

The show is never unfaithful to any of the Simpsons characters. It feels like it could be animated as a Simpsons episode with no problems. In fact, there have been episodes where the Simpsons are historical characters & even Shakespearean characters, & I wondered if these episodes were actually inspired by this show.

The melding of the Simpsons with Shakespeare is spot-on: "Is this a dagger I see before me? Or a pizza? Mmmm, pizza..." Early on, the show veers off into King Lear for a few moments, & it's amazing how appropriate it sounds to hear King Lear's first speech done by Mr. Burns. Whole speeches from Shakespeare in the voice of a cartoon character can actually sound great.

It's a high-tech show. Rick Miller performs in front of a rear-projection video screen, which displays constantly shifting cartoon drawings which illustrate the settings & the character being impersonated. There is also a witches' cauldron on stage which has a video camera in it, so that the performer can play to this camera & have his face or crude paper cut-out puppets projected onto the screen.

The show was sold out, & there were quite a few kids in the audience.

Radu Lupu

On Tuesday night I heard Radu Lupu's recital at Herbst Theatre. Just him, a piano, works by Schumann & Schubert, & an attentive sold-out audience.

He's become a very weird performer. He's almost disdainful of the audience, like he doesn't even want us to be here while he plays. He just sits down, leans back & starts playing. He plays the pieces with no breaks between movements. He hums audibly while he plays. He sits leaning back in a chair instead of on a piano bench, with his arms extended. At times his arms barely seems to be moving. He occasionally sits up to do a fortissimo.

His playing is so beautiful, controlled & refined. For the Schumann Wawldszenen he created many different colors & moods, some of them supernatural & eerie. He's a Rasputin of the piano for me. I was in a trance for 2 hours. I didn't want to leave the hall after the concert & go back to listening to the sounds of traffic & noise in the outside world.

Menschen am Sonntag

This night caught screening of Menschen am Sonntag, a 1929 German silent, as part of the Berlin & Beyond festival at the Castro. Slice-of-life story of 4 young Berliners out for a day of leisure. Sexual attractions & jealousies ensue. Reminiscent of the leisure sequences in Sunrise & The Crowd. Shot on the streets of Berlin & on Wannsee. Fresh, modern & youthful. Naturalistic in the way of a French New Wave movie. Live organ accompaniment was uninteresting.

Gardiner Conducts Mozart

On Monday I went to Davies Hall to hear John Eliot Gardiner conduct the Mozart Mass in C minor & Mozart Requiem, with this Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique & the Monteverdi Choir. Modest forces playing major works: 30 singers & about 45 in the orchestra. Soloists come from chorus, giving a communal feeling. Fleet tempos. Clean & balanced sound. Ideal music.

Katy Grannan at the Fraenkel Gallery

Portrait photos of people in various states of undress, reminiscent of Diane Arbus. The models seem like exhibitionists, the photographer a voyeur.

Brokeback Mountain

Earnest, attractive, faithful in details & tone to the Annie Proulx story. The least-gay gay movie I've ever seen. My favorite part was hearing Rufus Wainwright sing "git along lil' doggies" at the end of the closing credits.

A Bach Christmas on BBC 3 Radio

BBC 3 radio is broadcasting the complete works of Bach from today through Christmas, starting & ending with the Christmas Oratorio:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/bach/

I think this is so amazing. I want to live in a country where the government supports such a civilized endeavor!

Christmas in Honolulu

Just came back from my first visit to Hawaii. They are crazy about Christmas. This is part of the Honolulu City Hall Christmas display. That wall that Mr. & Mrs. Claus are sitting on is about 5 or 6 feet high, so these things are big!

Healthy Holiday Desserts

My gym, of all places, presented a dessert cooking class: pumpkin cheese cake with cranberry compote & spiced nuts; gingerbread with baked pears & whipped cream. I learned about "acid balance" & how to "plate" a fancy dessert. The chef made it look so easy.

Capote

Saw Capote at the Clay. Discomfiting account of Truman Capote writing In Cold Blood. How much of this is accurate? Philip Seymour Hoffman impersonates Capote convincingly & without caricature. Harper Lee is depicted exactly as I would imagine her: grounded, unassuming, circumspect.

Embarcadero Ice Skating Rink

I've been on ice skates maybe only 3 or 4 times since I was 12. But I just had to take advantage of the warm night, so I went skating right after work, & it made me very happy.

Matthias Goerne

Recital of songs by Mahler, Berg & Wagner at Herbst. Goerne is young & severe-looking. Entertaining & theatrical, despite the serious program. More into sound & musicality than into words. Uses a lot of body English to shape the sound. Was he using a cheat-sheet for the words of the Wesendonck-Lieder? Accompanied by Wolfram Rieger, who has fast fingers & great dynamic control.

Borodin Quartet

Stuck around Berkeley to hear Borodin Quartet at First Congregational Church. Substantial all-Russian program. Quartet founded in 1945 & still has its original cellist, now 80! Muddy church accoustic. High technical level of playing. Especially strong 1st violinist. Decisive attacks & phrasing. No need to make concessions for the age of the cellist. In fact his playing is astonishingly efficient.

The venue needs more restrooms.

The Winter's Tale

Propeller at Zellerbach Playhouse. Actor driven: 12 actors, all men, play all the roles, do the set changes & provide the music. The female characters in the court are played without travesty or camp. The overbearing Paulina works especially well cast as a male. After the grim first half, pastoral scenes kick in a whole different level of energy. A flamboyant, Elton John-inspired Autolycus and country wenches who come across as even more bawdy being played by men who are not very convincingly feminine. Cutest performance: William Buckhurst, who goes from being the put-upon Antigonus in the first half to the hunky Prince Florizel in the second half.

Very physical production. We're shown the disgusting spectacle of a husband kicking his pregnant wife. The boy Mamillius is retained throughout. Is he imagining the story? Staging of the final moments denies the audience a reconciliation scene. It's powerful & devastating. A woman in the audience lost it & could be heard crying as the play ended.

Dr. Atomic

Demanding of the orchestra. Busy staging. Not sure what the dramatic conflict is.

Hurricane Relief Fundraiser

Southern Hospitality at One Market Plaza. Appetizers & alcohol.

RoboNexus San Jose

Consumer robotics expo.

Fleet Week

Red Bull Air Race, stunt bi-plane, the Blue Angels, crowds, noise, sun burn.

Rodelinda

San Francisco Opera. Great conducting & singing. Eurotrash production