There probably should be some unwritten critics' law that says that a critic should be prohibited from seeing Musical of Musicals, the Musical and It's a Grand Night for Singing in the same month, especially not within two weeks of each other.
One is a parody on musical styles, a huge chunk of which is a parody of Rodgers and Hammerstein, and the other is a reverent look at all eleven Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals. How can you look at one and not think of the other? I don't want to hear that "this is a real nice clam bake." I want to hear "this is a real nice clam dip."
It's almost like seeing The Importance of Being Ernest and waiting for someone to burst into a song like "A handbag is not a proper mother" (from the musical version of the Oscar Wilde comedy, Earnest in Love).
But that's how we spent Super Bowl Sunday -- at a cabaret performance of It's a Grand Night for Singing and then coming home and struggling with the review for the show that wasn't nearly as much fun as the parody was, though it was good in its own way.
We picked up my colleague Jeff, who does a radio show for local public radio and reviews theatre performances on there, and we drove into Sacramento. The air was sunny and clear and you could see all the way to the snow on the Sierras.
When we got to the cabaret, Jeff discovered he had left his recording equipment at home and had to call his wife to bring it to Sacramento for him. He confessed that in the 30+ years that he's been doing this, this was the first time he'd ever forgotten. For my part, I was just happy to see that I wasn't the only one who does dumb things.
The other day, for example, when I got to the arboretum to take a walk and discovered that I had forgotten to put a disk in the camera, I drove home to get one and in walking from the car to my office in the back of the house I turned into Inspector Clouseau. I bumped into furniture, knocked things over, dropped things, spilled things and tripped over my own feet. The only reason I didn't trip over a dog is because they are used to my clumsiness and know to stay out of the way! To make matters worse, I discovered this morning that I had a whole bunch of disks in my purse after all! I had just looked in the wrong place for them.
So when someone as experienced as Jeff forgets something vital, it makes me feel a little less awkward, and a bit more normal.
Earlier in the day, I had been playing around on a site called Fun Photo Box, where you can make stuff from photos. I thought it would be fun to make some funny photos for the Compassion kids...like this one for Fred.
It opens up a whole bunch of possibilities of fun things to send when I write. I don't know whether they will appreciate it, but I sure had fun playing around. There are a ton more possibilities, but I started small.
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