Finally, on Board

The taxi driver told us that 9 pieces of luggage and 3 passengers were too much for his cab.  I could understand that much from his body language.  I didn’t have to speak Spanish.  Somehow Wyona fit all of us in, and Greg offered a generous tip, so the driver left the port happy. 

We proceeded to get on board.  For us – entering the day of final miracles – no need to unpack again until we leave for home.

The same delicious Sunday market was in full swing and Wyona and I had pesos to spend at the market. Knowing that this would be that last of the really big markets for us we proceeded to the best market of all.

Greg found coins that had been carved so as to leave the interesting figures still in the circle of the coin and the rest cut away.  If only he were a jewellery wearer.  But he couldn’t bring himself to buy one of those, nor lls one of the purses that other men carry.  But to give him his due, he happily carries any of Wyona’s bags, often two or more at a time.

At the end of the day the church bells were ringing at the San Telmo Catholic Church.  We stopped in to watch a priest dressed in jean light the candles getting ready for the service.  Then we headed for the bus, only to be stopped by Spanish music coming from a derelict hacienda.  The front courtyard was full of musicians.  A sign said, come in, stay, free, the musicians are not being paid so give what you can.  At first we watched through the spaces in the high wrought iron fence.

from a website for One Day Cafe in San Telmo
(http://onedaycafe.me/tag/san-telmo/)

Then we could smell the grill where chorizo sausages were grilled, split, and place on buns that were only vehicles to get meat into the mouth.

I would have stayed forever.  Greg and Wyona forever and a day.  The end of a dream day.

London Bates-Treleaven Travels

This is Marcia typing from Wyona's account (my mom). Gabe and I arrived in London 24 hours ago, and a lot has happened since then. I don't know whether to start with the good list or the bad list. Let's do good first, it is shorter.

We saw Life of Pi on the plane. Gabe had never seen it before, it was my second time. We both really enjoyed it. We arrived at the London airport, and we took an express train from Gatwick to London, quite an enjoyable ride.

Wyona had switched things up at the Best Western we are staying at; originally she had a single room on the top floor and we had a double room close by. It has been so hot in London, so she went and checked at the front desk about other rooms available. They had a family room with a double bed and 2 single beds available in the basement. We switched to that instead and it has been fun to be in the same room. When we arrived at 10am she was still sleeping. She had switched to that room the night before because it was 10 degrees cooler than the sweltering upstairs room. Gabe and I checked out the room and really liked it... except for... that will have to wait for the next list.

We had a 3 hour nap while Wyona went to get us show tickets. Then at 2:30pm she and Gabe saw Billy Elliot and I went to Once at 3pm. Oh, Once was so beautiful. What talented musicians/singers/actors. Is it ok to cry in a show when you are by yourself? I wondered if Gabe was crying at all the right parts in Billy Elliot. He loved it and spent the evening singing 'Solidarity'. He also bought a hoody with Billy Elliot London on it, he loves that jacket already.

We met at Trafalgar Square after our shows. There was some big screen Opera event being set up, the crowds were already converging, and we snagged 6 free inflatable seat cushions before going to find a bite to eat before our next show. Always resourceful, those Pilling Aunts! I'm just not sure they will get used before we return to Canada, so far we haven't sat long enough to have sore bums that need seat cushions.

We took a 'rickshaw' ride to our next performance (more on that later), and we saw Merrily We Roll Along. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. A little too adult-themed for Gabe's understanding, but he still enjoyed the musical numbers. Gabe and Wyona went back to the hotel room during the interval (intermission), he was so tired... he put on a brave face, but with only 3 hours sleep in the past 36 hours, he was fading fast. The best number was in the second half. When they started singing The Blob, I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes, yet another show I cried in.

I went to Trocadero on my way home... what a lively place at 11pm! Took the tube back to the hotel room, called home to see how Art, Zack and Audra were doing, then slept soundly until 8:30 a.m. the next morning. Oh yeah, those two were still awake watching Waterworld on tv when I got back to the hotel, so we didn't go to sleep until 1 a.m.

What a wonderful first day... although now for the post about all that went wrong... 

My Happy Birthday

I wore out before the last hours of my birthday were over. I began my birthday when I walked on the 7th floor, up and down the corridors from Rooms 7002 to 7208 – up and down, until tonight when Wyona asked if we had seen last month’s room attendants, I had to say, yes, I passed them many times in the hall this morning. They work on the other side of the ship where I do have of my walk.

Wyona has been sick, so we had lunch together in the Ocean View, moving down the row of vegetables and pointing to everything we wanted on our salads. Yum to artichokes, shredded zucchini, toasted sesame seeds and pumpkin sees – all of the items that are just too troublesome to prepare for a quick meal at home! I saw the Russian Matryoshka Doll lecture and took notes, copious ones, having so many already. The bottom line is, if you like it buy it. There are no nesting dolls you can purchase that will be more valuable next year. And even the ones that a person can buy in the subway in the middle of St. Petersburg may have been made in China. I have no idea how I ended up in the Beyond the Podium Lecture called American Madams 1860-1910 but I was there with Greg and another dinner companion. I had the suspicion that I would be listening to a talk about madams in the Alaskan Panhandle – since Alaska is where we are headed. I was taking notes and able to refer to remember Mother Featherlegs and Diddlin’ Dora’s Saloon and know that I have to do some internet research when I go home to scan again the poem written by Lusk, Wyoming’s mayor who immortalized Mrs. Charlotte Shepherd.

My day went from good to better. Of all of the seminars my notes are the most copious when I sit in the Photography Question and Answers Sessions. Greg and I went to dinner and came home to tell Wyona that if she had joined us she could have had her choice of Beef Wellington, Lamp Chops, or Lobster Tail. I choose the latter to go with the oysters – two, still in the shells. No pearls were found. I had ordered a small cake, brought from the kitchen, my name tastefully written on it. Nothing like creating your own birthday party!  Our two waiters joined the table singing Happy Birthday. That was good. But the 3 tables of fun loving Germans who toast and sing at every opportunity joined in, raising the volume level more than I had anticipated – a blush from me for my 73 birthday to say the least. I still like to remain anonymous.

I watched the iBroadway Stage presentation – twice: 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. I was wondering what my favorite songs were tonight: On Broadway? Defying Gravity? Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You? We will Rock You? The good thing is that I could hear the show twice to help me make up my mind.

Can you imagine me stopping by a jewellery store on the way back to my room. Wyona and Greg had spent some time in there while I was at lectures today. She tried to convince me that a lovely pearl hanging on a black diamond necklace would be the perfect birthday gift and that I should buy it for myself. I opt for a new used car instead. Greg said it would be a hard choice, but if I choose the jewellery, I could just hold out my ring finger and say, “I am wearing an automobile on my hands”.

We had late night pizza in the Ocean View – a ‘60’s thing to do. 

I don’t know what a ‘70’s thing to do would have been. I am still having trouble getting good models for what it is like to grow old.

In any case, I had a lovely birthday.

Arta

Wicked, the Sequel

Did the author of The Wizard of Oz, have the plot of wicked in mind when he wrote his book, Alex asked after the performance.  Wyona explained to him, probably not.  Rebecca said later that Derrida and Foucalt might disagree.  In this instance, I am putting my money on Wyona -- not because she is right, but because that is the answer that I understand best.

Our seats were good -- a restricted view on the side, but we were in the stalls on row L, which was sweet.  When I saw Wyona come in before the performance, taking a chair in the middle of the stalls, I went over to spend the last 5 minutes  before the curtain went up, talking to her.  An usher asked, "Are all of you together, for if you are, I can find you better seats so you can all sit together. 

 "Actually, this is not my seat at all," said Wyona.  "See the large man over there.  He is in my seat.  I gave it to him, for he is 3 seats over and cannot possibly fit into the one he has purchased."

"I will get you all together in good seats," he said.

We ended up in the centre of the stalls with 3 empty rows in front of us.  How is that for having an absolutely unrestricted  view of the stage.

I spent a lot of time looking at the costuming again, catching lines that were thrown away on me before, but now added depth to the play, watching the singing and dancing skills of the new Elphaba and Glinda.  I saw the best scarecrow/empty head-ed prince ever.  His legs were still weak and wobbly when he played out his final scene and walked into the wood.  Fantastic, especially after watching the equally amazing performance of the scarecrow in the original version the day before.

The boys needed a debriefing at the intermission, having just seen Andrew Lloyd Webber's production of the The Wizard of Oz.  Who is good?  Who is bad?  Who is only pretending to be good, but is bad?  Who is bad but pretending to be good? Will evil triumph over good?

Theatre at its best!

More Baltic Cruise - Last Day on Board

We stayed up late last night to go under the long bridge again, the one that takes people from Denmark to Denmark, but in reality takes them to another country more quickly.  There was little wind on deck.  It was late, but still light enough to see the jagged silhoutte of the land in the distance, the lights of half-tons as they rolled across the bridge, and the concrete pylons flashed back to the water, the glare from the splotlights that were on them.

Wyona and I had been soaked on our first trip under that bridge.  The rain was falling, and try as we might (by standing on deck chairs under overhang of the floor above) all of the passengers were wet.  The Irish were singing songs we didn’t know and the Brits joining in.  They asked us for a Canadian song to sing.  I couldn’t think of one off hand … until I remembered teaching new ones to Mary’s kids this winter when I stayed with them.  Of course – “Four Strong Winds” – hard to get more Canadian than that and all of them knew the song.  There was even part singing, thanks to Wyona.

I walked the same deck we were standing on that night, but in the morning and not with any impulse to drive my steps forward. A long morning walk.  I stopped to look over the starboard side at the islands as they passed by.  Then I stood on the bow to see if I could find a way to turn my back to the wind so that I could both see ahead and backward and not be windblown. 

A small sign on the side of the ship reminded me that that six laps around the track make a mile and I count the first six, then the next six, but on each way around, when I pass a ship that says Goteborg on its prow I wonder if I have done a couple of loops without counting, for I am busy watching the seagulls pick up fish that the engine of the ship has churned to the top of the water.

A thirteen story building proudly holds a sign that says Volvo.  Containers full of cars line the dock, as well as about 120 Volvo’s lined up in groups of 20 on the dock.  The Volvo museum is a five minute walk from the gang plank.  “Who would want to see a museum full of old cars,” Wyona and I hear a woman complain to her husband on her return from the museum.”And we didn’t need to hire a bus or have a tour guide.  It was right across the street,” she went on to say.

Wyona and I didn’t leave the ship that day for we were so tired.

“Did you stay on your beds and rest?”, Bonnie Wyora asked.

Heavens no!   

That is not what we do when we are tired. The ship was empty since so many people had taken tours. Wyona and I went from floor to floor, lingering to look at the art work on the walls where the stairs turn on each flight and read the accompanying artist’s statements.  We never get a chance to do that when people are walking up and down the stairs, obstructing our view. 

We rode the glass elevator, looking at the water-fall installations that are 6 stories high.

We tried the line-dance class and then came back to the cabin to practise the steps we had learned.  I write down the moves, but Wyona makes me put down the pencil and practise.  Sachet, sachet, heel, heel, toe toe, heel-toe-stomp-stomp, heel-toe-stomp-stomp and that is where I get mixed up.  Just before grape-vine to the left starts. for we have switched legs. 

I practise at 20 minute intervals, dropping the packing we are starting to do and work again on heel-toe-stomp-stomp. 

We are going to teach this to our grandchildren, at least those we can manage to corral, for it will be a lot of fun at the next wedding, or baptism, or seasonal holiday celebration. 

The money that is being sorted out between us has to go in different envelopes for this is the last day to use any of that currency: the euros, the pounds, the Canadian dollars, and then we sort out the train tickets back from Harwich to London and the plane tickets to go back home. 

We have lunch in the Windjammer, a buffet style restaurant.  I take along my handout from the Bridge Lesson about “Defensive Signalling”, still excited to find that there are other ways to tell one’s partner the contents of my hand, other than by humming, “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.”

We are doing two on-board-ship shows tonight.  The same show really, catching MoTown, not once but twice.  Last night was a Tango Duo: Luciano & Rocio.  Our friends at dinner aren’t really fans of dance, saying it was good, but a little two much Argentinian tango.  One tango dance would have been enough they said, though they had no idea what they wanted to see on the rest of the programme.  Of course that made me laugh.  The programme was billed as Argentinean Tango.  They didn’t like the night before, either:  ABBA Night.  Their complaint about that was there were only 5 ABBA songs.  

Too much tango.  Not enough ABBA.  I don’t care either way because I am enjoying everything.

Now, that was a restful day.

After the Fact... London with Arta

After the better part of a week spent in London hounding the streets for a home to rent for the year, I was left with one free day to spend with Arta. The three of us headed off to Leicester Square, to the half-price booth to get theatre tickets for the last night. The plan was to head in different directions: Arta wanted to see "Love Never Dies" again, and Wyona wanted to spend her last night with "Dreamboats and Petticoats".

Ten minutes before hitting the Tube station, we'd had a long talk about how to meet up with each other if we got separated... the easy answer is of course just to look back for Rebecca's hair. :-) In a moment of irony, the two women went through ahead of me, and my Oyster card ("bus pass") denied me entry (I had run out of money and hadn't noticed).... the line up to re-nourish my depleted Oyster card was long, and the women were gone...Arta, though, in typical Arta way, had decided for fun to see how easy it was to find me, and had noticed I was gone. They came back, spoke to me through the barricade, and we sent Wyona ahead to wait in the ticket line up while I lined up for the Oyster card. Nice start to the day... way to practice finding each other after getting lost.

Just proving that different paths do not always run at the same speed, Arta and I somehow still managed to arrive at the Leicester Square before Wyona.

Go figure. 

So... tickets purchased, we split up for the day: Wyona to visit her favourite scarf sellers (What?! More scarves?!), and Arta and I to visit the National Gallery.

One of the recent 'installations' at the national gallery is the "Eco Art" outside. VERY westcoast!

They have planted grasses and small mossy growing things all over one of the walls of the building.

Not sure how visible it is in the shot, but the effect from some ways back is a bit like a Georges Seurat painting... it just looks like a lovely watercolour painting. Pretty groovy!

Arta and I have not spent much time in museums TOGETHER (as adults, that is... i certainly spent time following in her path of educational exploration as a child...you know, "fossil rock walks in downtown Calgary", "identify bat guano in fish creek park", etc).

But it was a revelation to see that she is just as bad as me in her desire to consume til your belly/brain explodes.

In between our own wanderings, we took in the 10:30 and 2:30 guided tours, each of which offered a more close exploration of 5 or maybe 6 paintings.

Christ Healing the Blind Man by Buoninsegna

We started out looking at some panels from an alter piece done by Duccio di Buoninsegna (c. 1255-1260 – c. 1318-1319), the most influential Italian artist of his time.

The first one we saw has Christ healing the blind man. 

It is fun to look at the conventions for telling story through image: here, you see the blind man both before and after being healed. 

The panel that goes beside this one has Christ appearing to the apostles.... when they are set along side each other, you can see that the "healed" blind man is looking up at the body of Christ in the panel along side. 

Fun.

We also learned that this was painted on wood, which was then covered with linen, and then covered with plaster to make a smooth surface to paint on. The paint was egg tempera, which would give you vibrant colours, albeit without tons of nuance: the paint would dry very fast, so you only had a short time where it could be pliably worked). 

Annunciation of Mary

In the afternoon session, we returned to Duccio, to look at another painting of the Annunciation (Mary getting informed by the angel that she was going to have a baby....). 

We listened to a nice discussion about the number of people who would have participated in making the painting.

Different artists in the studio would have done the people, and the buildings (would would have had painters specializing in buildings)

Then we moved up a hundred years, to spend time with the Spanish Bartolomé 

St. Michael Triumphs Over the Devil

Bermejo's 1468 painting "St Michael triumphs over the devil". This one is in oil, which explains the greater nuance and emotion captured in the paint. We also learned more about just how much gold leaf there was on the original. First there was a 'cartoon' of the painting... like a paper version laid over top of the prepared canvas. then someone would poke holes through it onto the prepared canvas below, so that the outline of the painting was transferred there. Then the gold specialist would be next, and would cover certain part of the painting with a red glue, over which was laid tiny pieces of gold flake. The gold would then be further pressed it into the wood with some kind of embossing tool, so that the painting would be even more luminescent when seen in the candlelight of the darkened church. Only after all the gold pieces were laid down would the artist come into to paint the figures and images in the scene. When you look at it now, there is not so much gold, and the background looks reddish... that is just the red glue stuff (which had some special name i have forgotten) showing through. If you click on this link, so will get the picture on the national gallery's website, and can zoom in to get a closeup of the monster! The feminist in me was so happy that the guide did eventually take us to a painting by a woman artist! Here were looked at a painting by Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755 - 1842). This is a self-portrait of her, but she is also showing off her skills as a painter by making hers a version of a similar painting by Rubens, on the right of the gallery and which you can see beside her in this post. What she was doing here was making a 'calling card'.

Self Portrait of Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

She is showing herself AS an artist, showing off all the skills she has, letting male viewers know that she can make their wives look this good but that they needn't worry about leaving their wife alone with her. I also like how she is holding her hand out, encouraging them to give her a commission! There was more, but I am getting tired. :-) which was just what happened to us too! So.... in between the two guided tours, we went for a "Talk and Draw" session. Here, they set up 40 chairs in front of one painting.

Artist: John Constable

In this case, the painting was John Constable's "Cenotaph to the Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Someone talks to you about the painting for 20 minutes, then they give you two drawing tasks, to practice some of the techniques that were used in the drawing. They hand out these nice big easels for you lap, boxes of pastels, pencils, conté, etc. So we had two tasks. First to draw a single tree from the painting by building up layers of colour (ie. start with black, go over with red, with brown, yellow, etc). Second task was to show perspective in the same way (ie. capture the darkening woods in the distance). I will confess, we both had to come to terms with some of our limits! hahaha. And yet, it was totally fun, so sit, listen, draw, and laugh. At the end, they had people set their drawings at the front to compare what people had produced. We also then had to head to the bathroom to wash the evidence of our crimes from our fingers (stained by the pastels). I felt very much like Lady MacBeth! We did bring our drawings home and showed them to Wyona at the end of the night. I will not be more specific re which of the drawings below belongs to Arta and which belongs to me... but I think Wyona was arguing that one of the paintings looks less like 'the woods', and more like a Judy Chicago plate! You can see that neither of those two women was taking my artist production very seriously.

Artists.

They are never appreciated while still alive...

Lend Me a Tenor & Million Dollar Quartet

Some sights are so visually out of the ordinary that they stay with me for a long time.  One was Rebecca standing on the floor but with her coffee mug raised to the ceiling, trying to catch the fine Stream of water that was pouring out of the fire alarm detecor, splashes of it landing on her haïr, her shoulders, the rug and the bed beside her.

"Call the front desk.  Just dial zero.  Tell them what is happening here."

"Hello.  Water is streaming out of the roof.  Would this be consisent with the history of this room?", I said.

“Run, get me another empty cup from the bathroom,” called Rebecca, at the same time the clerk saying “I will be up in five minutes”

“I don’t think she can stand there with her mug in the air catching the water that long,” I replied.

I hung up and at that moment the fire alarm went off – in our room only.  Rebecca’s arms holding the coffee mug came down and we both reached for the three things we would want most  if we had to leave our hotel bedroom and never come back.

The clerk was at the door by the time we had our shoes on and our passports and money collected.  “I will find you another room, he said as he opened the door to our room.  At that moment the fire alarm in the whole building went off.

People began streaming out of their rooms and walking down the stairs, all of them in the same condition as we – only half woken from sleep and marching in tune to the fire alarm.

Two hour later we had repacked our bags, moved to the lower floor, a bigger room and were again unpacking and remarking how nice it is to do that with a heightened level of adrenalin flow.

June 4, 2011

Yesterday, Rebecca had taken advantage of pre-booking her plane seat to the bulkhead, a place with plenty of leg-room.  I slipped out of my seat in the row behind her and by the time we had taken off and the plane leveled out, we were both scanning the choices of movies.  Rebecca mocked me – nothing trashy or light.  I was  interested in the Dutch biopic Goethe – knowing nothing more than how to spell his name and a few minutes into the film, charmed by the good acting and clever dialogue.  I do not know what Rebecca and I had been talking about at the airport, but she had said to me, “Don’t speak ill of the dead,” and then she laughed and said, “though I don’t know why not.”   

Don’t speak ill of the dead is a phrase straight from Goethe.  And speaking of the dead, dead tired is what I was.  I couldn't manage any more of the plane movies!

June 5, 2011

After telling me not to come to the Heathrow to pick her up, Wyona changed her mind, gave me consent. I travelled the Picadilly Line to fetch her at the airport, playing the part of all of those Brits who stand at the Airport Exit, either with signs or waving to whomever they are to help continue on their journey.  Every tube stop has its charm.  I am getting to know and love Earl’s Court, finally knowing where the lifts and ramps are for luggage.  Watching Rebecca lug suitcases up and down 83 stairs works to help me spot other alternatives.   When I am paired with Wyona and lift is broken, it is easier.  We look like two old characters our of a movie, struggling to get those suitcases up some stairs.    A true gentleman on the run must have had a few extra minutes to spare and he stopped to help us.

June 5, 2011

Wyona and I left for Central London to get tickets for tonight.  Rebecca got on the phone making appointments to have renting agents show her flats to let.  Our job was easier – since it is easy to find te ticket office for Legally Blonde and the Leister Sqare Ticket wicket marquee held promise of half price shows we have not seen.  All three of us were sitting in Lend me a Tenor by the eveing, Wyona set up with her drinks, her candies to kee her awake and an empty chair on the left side of her to accommodate her left arm. 

The show made me laugh until I cried.

Then tears spilled down my cheeks for a different reason -- over the sentiment of the show's message. 

Rebecca said the same thing happened to her. 

”Pure cheese,” she said, “but it feels so good.”  

The show was rich in stereotypes: the ingénue, the tempermental opera soprano and the fiery Italian wife on the one side and on the male side, the famous Italian tenor, the opera house manager and the yet-to-be-discovered singing sensation.  A comedy of manners – at one point three tenors are on stage, all pretending to be the same person.  The show satirically reference popular and high culture with the same intensity.  It was in the opera singer’s aria when she sings a bit of Butterfly, some of Die Walkerie, the soprano’s aria in the The Nightingale and  show stoppers in10 other operas that I was l

laughing so hard I was crying.  

How can so many operas make their way off the stage and into tunes we all know – either via elevator music or background tunes in cartoons?

Lend me a Tenor is still in its previews.

June 7, 2011

We tried to get day tickets to see Berlioz’s Faust but with standing room only and in a place where we couldn’t see the surtitles, we wasted our time in that line-up, though we did get one free performance out of it at the Collessium.  Wyona poked me when she heard a commotion at the box office and I listened in – a well-dressed Ruropean was complaining that he had been sold a ticket where he couldn’t see the stage – just what we had turned down.  He was wanting his money back.  Then he was demanding to see the manager.  “I am the manager,” said the clerk.  “I want a manager higher than you,” he shouted when he was told that the Collesium can’t honour ticket sales purchased from any other venue. 

Then out marched the man I had seen in a suit, hanging out by the programme stall and about who I had said to Wyona – wow!  The programme man is well dressed.  He was now playing the role of the bouncer, and bodily shoved the man to the door and then pushed him out the door forcefully, with no thought about damaging the beautiful wood or the brass handles on the door.  The man was right back in the door, shouting at the top of his voice, demanding respect and satisfaction.  I was moving to get my back against the marble pillars, this being the closest thing I have ever seen to a bar fight.  The rest of the Brits in the opera line-up seemed to keep theirs eyes on the books they were holding as they stood in the line-up as if they couldn’t see anything. happening.  The first bouncer was joined by a second one who helped shove  the opera patron through the door – a more brutal push than the first exit he had been given.  The man in the expensive leather jacket ending up on the street again, walking down toward the Thames, shouting more loudly than ever and waving is fists in the air. 

“That bouncer has no respect for the beautiful door that opens into this theatre, shoving a person through them like that,” I said to Wyona.

“All I can say is that was a performance at the Collesium we didn’t have to pay for,” Wyona said as we wandered off to the Noel Coward Theatre to get tickets for the Million Dollar Quartet for this evening. 

You might have seen reviews about the Million Dollar Quartet, a story built around the night in 1956 when Sun Records brought Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis together and recorded their evening jam.  People were swaying to the music as they entered the theatre and singing the words of the old tunes to each other as they passed each other in the isles:  Blue Suede Shoes, I Walk the Line, Hound Doug, and Great Balls of Fire. 

This is the short form of our theatre review.  Wyona said Greg and she tried to get tickets to this show when they were in New York earlier this year and it was sold out.  She was glad to see it here and hopes to bring Greg when they come back in the fall.  I hope future shows are sold out in London as well.  A night of music to be remembered and so interesting to get an overview of the history of early rock and roll this way and seeing some riveting musical performances from the past brought to life again.

London - The Fantasticks

Wyona and I went to Wicked Monday night. Everything went wrong. Wyona attempted, but didn’t get a nap before we left for the show. She put her umbrella on the seat of bus and didn’t pick it up when we transferred. She wanted to see the new lead for Fiorello in the show, but the understudy was playing the part.

Still, we agreed, -- a good show even though so much had gone wrong. Neither of us have tired of seeing the costumes, hearing the lyrics, watching the dancing or figuring out the nuances of the plots. And Wyona reminded me today that the new Elphaba is absolutely the best ever. Electrifying. When she is on stage and Glinda plays off of her character, we are seeing a heightened "blonde" in action -- two brilliant actors / singers / dancers at work. I don't know how to describe this except to say that when they are on stage together my own body feels paralyzed by the action, as though I can hardly breathe and I don't dare try to move a muscle.

The Fantasticks.

I am the one who wanted to see this show, even though it is still in previews. They haven’t had their press night, yet. I wanted to see musical theatre that originally ran in an off-Broadway production for 42 years. That was the same reason I wanted to see Hair – to take a look at what was happen in those years when musical theatre was not available in my community.

There were 10 cheaper seats in the show, only £20, but that patrons sits right on the stage and play the part of the audience during. When the lady in the seat next to us told us that, I turned I told her that we paid senior’s prices: £25 and that I was very happy to pay the extra five to have a seat on the floor of the theatre rather than sit in a spot where everyone could see me for the duration of the show.

She agreed. Concessions was good for us.

I was surprised to hear the lyrics of the first song:

Try to remember the kind of SeptemberF
When life was slow and oh, so mellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain was yellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When you were a tender and callow fellow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow.

That tune was familiar to me.

The singer, El Greco / narrator / black-caped bandit played with the vowels of every word, elongating them at every chance The pauses between words, the lingering between lines – all of that so beautiful in the first few minutes after the curtain went up.

Funny how some of the stage lyrics became songs I know, though I have never seen original productions.

I went to the play cold – no reading on the internet. Right from the get-go the dramatic apparatus that charms theatre goers was up front. Who wouldn’t love a play that had a little bit of Pyramus and Thisbee, a little bit of Romeo and Juliet, a little bit of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and a little bit of Donizetti's L’Elisir d'Amore, running through it. In the past two months, some of those plays have been refreshed for me.

So what fun was that to see threads of them running through that musical written back in the 1960's.

There was even a little bit of Waiting for Godot, between two old classical actors, helping to fake an abduction. On reflection, Waiting for Godot was hard to see – it reminded me that age is descending or at the very least winding its way out on a wonderfully interesting path for me. Last night troubles that come with old age were comic, campy and outlandish. Wyona and I giggled with equal glee.

The man next to me was grumbling when the first act was over -- wondering what it was that gave this show any charm. His grumbling gave me a clue as to why he was there alone, instead of with a partner. To tell you the truth, I couldn’t figure out how he had missed all of that fun going on for us.

One good thing about the day the day for us – we didn’t loose any more umbrella, we weren’t disappointed in about not seeing the actors we had come to see, and we were rested enough to enjoy the matinee.

Three cheers for the Fantasticks.

This morning Wyona said she is going to find the score for the song, “Plant a Radish”. The lyrics point out how a radish seed becomes a radish, how a turnip seed becomes a turnip, but that it is hard to know about planting children.

But if your issue
Doesn't kiss you,
Then I wish you luck.
For once you've planted children,
You're absolutely stuck!
Every turnip green!
Every kidney bean!
Every plant grows according to the plot!
While with progeny,
It's hodge-podgenee.
For as soon as you think you know what kind you've got,
It's what they're not!

No question why two sisters who have 15 children between them would have been enjoying the lyrics from The Fantasticks.

Love to the hodg-podgenee,

Arta

Don’t Forget Your Glasses, My Dear

Connor, David and I slipped down to the British Museum for the tour called “Ancient Greece” at 11:30 am. Cancelled. We had come all of the way from Canada and it was cancelled. But we had backups: 11:45 am – Ancient Iraq and 12:45 pm, -- South Asia. I saw David Pilling coming as close as he could to buying something in a gift shop, a copy of the first ancient game, a cross between Snakes and Ladders and Parcheesi. “Why not,” he said, “I am a gamer.” Before he got his wallet out he also remembered he carries student loan debt. But that was still close.

On our way home, I saw the Salvation Army Band at Oxford Square, a 29 piece brass band, uniformed just as though they had stepped out of the musical, Guys and Dolls. But they were for real. After running back from my bus stop, the boys going ahead, I stepped back against an iron wrought fence, one protecting me from the traffic on Oxford Street and I stood beside a uniformed Salvation Army man who was also on the side watching. Tourists would stop and have their pictures taken with the band playing in the background. I listened to the tune of hymns I do not know, and to Bible stories I do know: the wise man built his house upon a rock; in times of trouble which we all have, God will be there to support us. A lovely mix of both. A huge rubbish cart rolled in front of my view and stopped there, the man pulling the cart doing some street sweeping and then leisurely taking the plastic bagged garbage out of a cast iron bin and throwing it on the back of his cart. 

The big belly laugh I heard must have come out of my mouth for the navy blue uniformed Christian soldier standing beside me said, `We have been coming here at this same time for years and years, and he stops every Sunday in the same place to collect his garbage.

Soon the call was issued to all – follow us to our chapel on Oxford Street for more free music and stories, and off the band marched. My march was in a different direction, back to New Cavendish Street.

David, Connor and I had spent the morning thinking about religion in a different way. The tour of South Asia, which I thought was going to be about China, was not that at all. At least I knew enough not to correct the woman when she said that we would be looking at South Asia as in India, Pakistan, Cambodia, Lagos, Viet Name.

What was hardest on all three of us, and best for me, at least, is that the museum volunteer leading the tour explained to us that she would be using the images to help us understand the mindset of being a Hindu or a Buddhist or one of the ancient oriental offshoots, all of which lead back, in some way, to Hinduism. And this Buddha is one we saw, though they have given him a different set of feet for the originals have long gone missing.

The South East Asia tour began with 3 of us – the Pillings, me and one other about the age of the Pillings. By time the tour ended there might have been 30 of us on the tour. This has been the way on all of the tours. At every stop, people who are there on their own, looking at statues or paintings join up with us, for it is hard not to be interest in the questions that are being asked and answered. 

My favourite line from the tour guide came half way through the tour from the volunteer who looked everyone in the eye and said, those of us who are Hindus know that we are coming back to live agan when we die.` I looked around and half of the group were nodding their heads in agreement with her.

I was reminded about how religion permeates our lives again at noon today. Someone thrust a card in my hand which read, Mr. Madrib, from birth a gifted African spiritual healer and advisor. And the promised continued, No matter how difficult your problem is, there is a solution to it. Problem (sic) concerning black magic, love, voodoo, sexual impotency, business transactions, exams, court court & immigration cases. I can help you reunite with your loved ones, split unwanted relationships & gambling. For all our problems, Mr. Madiba is the answer, no disappointments. Quick results Guaranteed.

Now it will be hard to know which route to go – come back for another chance at life, or work it all out with our African friend, Mr. Madiba and have no need for a second chance on earth.

A took the introductory tour of the Victoria and Albert Museum today, and hung out in the silver museum and the wrought iron display. I took the 74 bus home for I had a paper in my purse that promised I would see Brompton Oratory, Harrods, the Marble Arch, pass the exclusive addresses of Park Lane and drive by No 99, Gloucester Place, Elizabeth Browning`s first London Home.

I should have had a perfect day, and I was close to having that perfect day – it would have been better if I I had been one of the people who had a key to get into the apartment. I was reminded of Adam Wood`s first adventure here where he couldn`t access the flat, either. I got through the first door by slipping in when someone else came out, and I got up to the fifth floor, but when I rang the door bell, no answer. 

I knew I was tired. I had been falling asleep on the bus. I sat on the carpet steps and relaxed into a deep sleep when no one answered the door bell. Charise and Alicia woke me up when they got out of the elevator one-half hour later, and we all walked through the apartment door. That is when I discovered Wyona was home, asleep in her bed, too tired to hear the buzzer from downstairs or the chimes from the button on her flat door. 

You will have to decide who which of us needed the sleep more – she who couldn`t lift herself from her bed on the ring of a doorbell, or me who can sleep on a bus or the inner apartment flight of stairs.

Wyona had tickets for Les Mis tonight: 3 tickets, Alicia, Charise and herself. I got a call at 7:10 pm. Wyona had forgot her glasses and she was in the Royal Circle. I dropped the fork into my scrambled eggs and ran for the bus. I got there at 7:29 pm, remembering that I had no key to get back into the apartment. But I had a back-up plan. I was going to ride the double-decker buses all night until I was sure Greg would be home or the Pillings would be back from Dover.

But Wyona was ahead of me. I gave her glasses to the woman at the concession counter and the woman traded me them for a set of keys to the flat. But I have learned a person can change their mind multiple times in one hour. So, on the way home, I decided I would stop in and get me a ticket at Thriller. Four Royal Theatres are in a row on Shaftsbury Avenue: Thriller, Hair, Les Mis and a play called All My Sons. Breathless from my run to get Wyona`s glasses to her on time, I slipped into the queue at another of the theatres, bought a concession ticket and then noticed my ticket was for Hair and not Thriller. Damn, I thought, even though i am trying not to swear. I am not up to being four rows from the front for Hair – that puts me almost on stage and for sure in the area where the performers walk along the arms of the chairs.

Though the money was out of my hands and into her cash box, the tickets had not yet reached my hand. I said to the girl, `Sheesh, I thought I was at Thriller not Hair. Is there a chance I have my money back`` She refunded me my £25. I never did listen to Michael Jackson, and in retrospect, I have to ask myself why I was even thinking about going. On the other hand, there isn`t much left for me to see in London in the way of first-time musicals: Thriller and We Will Rock You. So I will probably slip in there again, given I can make my way through the right theatre door.

At any rate, I did my good deed for Wyona for the day – these musicals aren`t much fun without a good set of glasses.

Arta