10:14 p.m. - 2005-11-13
candy, spoons, strippers: the stuff of dreams
Sunday. Opera's done. Today in the third act one of my sheepbells fell off and hit the floor whilst I was shaking them. These things happen. At least none of us dropped any cymbals or anything. But the real shocker was: over the course of the week the conductor learned the names of at least TWO of the percussionists and appeared to remember them. This is unusual as conductors tend to regard us as automatons, each indistinguishable from the other.
Also this weekend: burlesque! Specifically, Cherry Pop Burlesque, which has a show every couple of months. I played drums with them a year ago and was originally going to play this show but I had to play opera instead so I couldn't. Kia was in a number with Anna the singer and a lady named Jen who seems nice. Kia and Jen each had to wield five-foot-long spoons, which they did with much vigor, and they threw candy into the audience with alarming force. I scored a tiny box of Mike and Ike's. It was a nice number. And Kia was HOT HOT HOT!
Other favorites included the Story of Thanksgiving enacted elementary school filmstrip style and the younger woman who always appears to very narrowly escape serious injury in her bits, ie while stripping on a treadmill. And the hula-hoop girl. You just don't see a lot of hula-hooping nowadays.
But, that's all over with now and it's back to our dreary workaday lives. Luckily, we finally scored some new lath so maybe I can patch all our stucco cracks before the cold season hits. Plus, I've got my hands full making all the soup and oatmeal we'll need to make use of the giant spoons.
Lastly, I never figured out what Tosca's about, but I'm pretty sure everyone dies. After it was over today I was in the little hallway behind the stage packing up my backstage stuff and the opera singers were standing around greeting hangers-on, lackeys and various Stagedoor Johns and Janes. I couldn't help but overhear talk of a party in the evening, a party to which the orchestra had not been invited, a no doubt perfunctory cocktail hour arranged to show off the singers of note from out of town to the local orchestra board and various other town fathers. The part of me that always wants to make trouble told me to ask the nearest singer, "Party? There's a party? Dude, where's the party? Is it open bar? Where is it?" I imagined that the dirtbag local trying to horn in on a classy opera function would cause the opera singer at least momentary discomfort or irritation, and who doesn't want to cause singers discomfort and irritation? In the end, the part of me that just wanted to get the fuck out of there won out and I held my tongue. Now I kind of regret it.
