Advent Events

[vovat]

I guess I should write about some of the holiday-related things we've done recently, since there have been several. We have our Christmas tree set up and decorated, although we weren't able to figure out how to get the star on top.

Wally likes to sit underneath it, and usually doesn't mess with it, although he did knock a few ornaments off at one point, and at another time I caught him and Reagan fighting under it. Don't they know about peace on Earth?


Last Sunday, Beth and I went with Tavie and Ade to see John Waters at City Winery, which is now way out on the docks in the Hudson River. He did a lot of the same bits as at shows in previous years, but also some new stuff, including some material related to the pandemic. I had a flatbread pizza while there, with pepperoni, sweet sausage, and hot honey. Then, on Wednesday and Thursday, we went to two different garden events, Lightscape at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and GLOW and the train show at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. The former was along a well-marked, linear path, which was convenient. Tavie, Sean, and her aunt went with us on that one.

Despite the capital letters, I didn't see any gorgeous ladies wrestling at the other garden. No average-looking ladies wrestling either, for that matter. I believe this was the first time the BBG did an event like this, and the second for the NYBG. The latter was a little more confusing because there were a few different routes, but still not all that many of them.

It had tunnels you could walk through, and an ice scupltor who was making a reindeer when we saw him.

The train show has been going on for longer, and it features model trains running around buildings, many of them models of actual historical buildings. According to the introductory film, they were made out of natural materials.

Neither garden really had a lot related to specific holidays, aside from a few Christmas trees. I bought a gingerbread man (well, I guess I don't know for sure it's a man) at the second one, and...it was all right, but not as good as I remembered them being. Not sure if that's due to a change in my taste or just the recipe they used.


On Saturday, we went to a party at Ade's house in Montclair, and then returned to Brooklyn for a holiday concert by the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra at St. Ann's Church.

This was part of the same series as the one we saw for Halloween. Works in the set included "Joy to the World," "White Christmas," God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," "Silent Night," "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah, and "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," as well as a few medleys. And today, we went to Sheepshead Bay to see a film version of The Nutcracker performed by the Bolshoi Ballet.

It was choreographed by Yuri Grigorovich, with Margarita Shrainer as Marie and Semyon Chudin as the Nutcracker Prince. Marius Petipa was credited with ideas for the Grigorovich version, and I understand his family name is French for "iron foot," kind of weird for a ballet dancer. It makes me think of Pittypat the Rabbit from L. Frank Baum's John Dough and the Cherub.

I saw the Nutcracker Ballet at a college years ago, and Beth and I recently watched the 1993 film with Macaulay Culkin, which had George Ballanchine's choreography. I'm not really that knowledgeable  about dance as an art form, but I did notice this gave a more significant role to Marie and the Prince, who were sidelined in the second act in other performances. After the movie, we ate at the Roll N Roaster. Beth had a roast beef sandwich, and I had some fried shrimp. They have a special deal where, if you spend forty dollars, they give you a small pizza for free. The pizza only costs five dollars on its own, but we were trying to add items until we were able to get a free one. Beth compared it to The Price Is Right. It's the sort of pizza that's essentially a cracker with cheese and sauce, but for what it cost, I can't complain.

We don't have any other official events planned before Christmas, although we do plan to look at lights in the area sometime this week. You may recall that we saw the Radio City Christmas Spectacular before Thanksgiving, and I guess it's good we went then, because they've since canceled the remaining shows due to increases in COVID cases. I'm tempted to blame it on people who refuse to get vaccinated, but I haven't actually researched it, and don't plan to. I really prefer not to think about the pandemic when possible, which I realize is kind of a luxury. That's not to say that I don't take basic precautions, which you pretty much have to do in New York. It's always weird when I go to other places and there's way more lax about such things. The movie theater today required masks in the lobby, but not in the theater, as long as there wasn't a big crowd. I'll occasionally come across discussions about whether entertainment should address the pandemic, and I saw an interview with a Simpsons writer that said the show didn't even try to mention it. The thing is, I think dealing with tragedy through entertainment can be very effective. A lot of funny media came out of the Cold War, for instance. I guess I just have trouble finding anything humorous or even all that interesting about sickness; it's a slow, dreary, tedious sort of tragedy instead of an exciting one. But hey, it's all subjective.

Comments

[ihavenoarms]

nice photos

[ihavenoarms]

nice photos