vovat | Ocean to Ocean, Tales of the Sea

I guess I have a few things to write about here. On the last day of April, Beth and I went to Coney Island.

We rode the Cyclone and ate at Ruby's. I had jumbo shrimp, and the mozzarella sticks were surprisingly good. Not as good as some, but still good.

And, a week ago today, we saw Tori Amos at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn.

We had seen Ben Folds play there back in 2017, and at that show as well as this one, the balcony had a lot of empty seats. The pre-show music included a lot of sea-related songs, including two Beatles songs with Ringo on lead vocals, and Beth suggested this might have been to coincide with Ocean to Ocean. But then, we don't actually know who chose the music. The openers were Gracie and Rachel, who are considered chamber pop, which I didn't know was a genre but that does fit what they played. One played keyboard and the other violin.

One of their songs was a plainsong version of Kreyshawn's "Gucci Gucci," and they said she went to high school with them in Berkeley, California. That said, I can't say I was familiar with the original song. Tori was supported by a drummer and bass player, as is pretty standard, although we've seen her do solo shows a few times.

She played "Black-Dove" and "Past the Mission," which are favorites of mine. When she did "Take to the Sky," I noticed she didn't do the high parts. That's forgivable, but I kind of noticed it because we recently saw Sparks, and Russell Mael, who's quite a bit older, can still hit the high notes. She also played a bit of "I Feel the Earth Move" in the middle of that song. During "Josephine," the stage lights formed the French flag.

On the way back to the subway, a girl told Beth she liked her shoes, and we tried to remember when the last time we saw Tori was. It looks like that was also in 2017.

Sunday was L. Frank Baum's birthday, and I attended an online event celebrating that the previous day. I even did my own presentation. I had missed the last International Wizard of Oz Club event about games, which is up my alley, but that was the day we were at Coney. Sunday is also when I decided our cat Reagan's birthday is, since we don't know the real date. Regardless, we're pretty sure she's sixteen now.

Sunday was also when Kevin Maher presented a collection of video clips dealing with carnivals and amusement parks. There were a few from the Simpsons episode "Bart Carny," including the bit with the crappy haunted house, which I love. The collection included both Freddy Cannon's "Palisades Park" and the alternate version he did of it for a Kennywood commercial. Also included were the part of Charlotte's Web with Templeton singing about the fair; a Tunnel of Love bit from a Popeye cartoon; Spider-Man fighting Dr. Octopus on Coney Island; Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman battling on a roller coaster (I've been watching this series, but haven't gotten to that episode yet); a scene from Roller Coaster, which we haven't seen but we know Sparks did the soundtrack for it; and another clip I vaguely recognized that turned out to be from Darkman. It ended with the way too long vomiting scene from Problem Child 2. I kept thinking of other things that could have been used, but obviously it couldn't include everything.

OzCon International is only one day (and the previous evening) this year, but we're still planning on going there, although we haven't made the arrangements yet. We're also going to Disneyland for a few days.