I had a witty title but I forgot to write it down

It may or may not have had something to do with the swine flu. Hopefully not.

I'm going to take this opportunity to tell the two people who read this (that many?) that this Saturday will be the public opening of the Ali Cann-Clift and Marco Abarca exhibition at Pucker Gallery. Come one, come all. Free wine and water (free water! GET OUTTA TOWN!) Free art.... GOTCHA! Freedom to look at art. Ali will be present.

OperaBoston. I am not one to take to the "avant garde" when it comes to taking the classic(al) and making it "edgy" (*AHEM* American Repetory Theater) but OperaBoston did a splendid job - most especially with set design - with The Bartered Bride. Obstacles along the way to get to the point of enjoying the production but once seated (in different seats, mind you - what the heck is up with me and not getting the seats I was intended for?) the story was quite enjoyable. In a musical theater kind of way, which got me to thinking about how I used to really love musical theater and now I ask myself, but whyyyyy? The over-acting, the singing, the dancing. I must have gotten BORING over the years because now I find it difficult to get past the hilarity of people singing what they are saying -- never found it so hard to believe before; why now? Anyway, once over all of that, it was a great production. Orchestra and its conductor (too lazy to dig around for the night's program so just make up a name in your mind - we can call him Sassafras Humphrey) were wonderful, the leads I could have done without, but the character of the sss-ss-stuttering Vasek, betrothed to the already in love Marenka, was PERFECT. The most enjoyable character for sure.

Then as I was sitting in the middle of Act II (I actually don't know at what point, "the middle of Act II" just sounds good) I got to thinking about how the storyline is so dang universal and trite (and then the thoughts went further and on to Korean dramas... Of course). Girl is forced into marriage. Father is in debt. Girl is already in love with Poorboy. Parents cannot approve. Poorboy is SECRETLY rich. And dramatic irony after dramatic irony, the audience is forced to wait for the TADA moment at the end of Act III; while from the start of Act I we knoooooow that Girl will be in disbelief and, for drama's sake, it's not as if Poorboy will reveal to her immediately that he is, in fact, her betrothed, given the stipulations of the marriage contract ("Marenka will only marry the son of Micha" -- guess who "the son of Micha" is?), and thus relieve the tension and the hatefulness Girl now harbors for the "lying, cheating, will take $300 in exchange for the woman he promised to love and marry forever and ever" man she thought she loved. There was an entire scene devoted to Jenik repeating "Just trust me. Will you not let me explain?"

JUST F-ING TELL HER! WHY DO YOU NEED HER PERMISSION, YOU TWERP!

Onward. The Crystal Method at The House of Blues last night was pretty incredible. The lights, though blinding at times, were well done, and the guys were really into it - one definitely more fucked up than the other. He dropped his keyboard, and thus damaged some equipment, not once but twice and during the performance he just got progressively more and more aggressive and out of control. He also said some pretty lame crap - like how he didn't get his monitor checked before the show because he was so into watching the Sox game.

Okay. You are an anomaly unto yourself for caring about baseball when you doctor these sounds with all this magical equipment (maybe that's not anomalous - maybe I just don't think people should be as obsessive about sports as they are) but of course his comments met a dead silent audience. We had waited long enough just for your arrival onstage - now we all know it was because you were watching the stupid game - nobody wants to listen to you babble about your love for the Red Sox. We came to listen to music, dummy!

I'm just hatin'.

Tonight we eat pizza and collate postcards; then it's King Khan & the Shrines at the Paradise.

You kids have fun NOT seeing opera and live music like myself. Ha. I am so much cooler than you.