Lightscaper, Nutcracker, Cat Mover

I suppose an overview of what Beth and I have done recently would be appropriate right about now. On Wednesday, the last day of November, we went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for Lightscape, which is where the place has many different lights illuminating the flora, and several art installations, some specifically themed toward the season. They don't often photograph that well, especially as a lot of them keep changing, but I did take some pictures.

Chandeliers? Outdoors? Whatever!
There's also music accompanying many of the installations. Near a giant Moravian star (which I guess is still very tiny compared to actual stars in space), Elton John's "Rocket Man" played on a loop.

One part was the Kaleido Circle, which had, as you could probably guess, a kaleidoscopic pattern surrounding a tree, accompanied by hip-hop music.

Not a Kalidah Circle, fortunately.
One exhibit near the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden is called Antares, which is a star in the constellation that's our birth sign. We ate at the cafe there, where I had a ham sandwich with cheese, mustard, and honey. It was good, although the honey didn't really fit with the other stuff. That was where we heard a song about a guy wanting a piece of pork for Christmas, which fit with the sandwich. They also had hot apple cider.

The following Wednesday, we saw a performance of the Nutcracker by the Brighton Ballet Theater at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn. Due to unforeseen circumstances, we got in late, and missed part of the first act. One particularly noticeable part of this performance was the presence of large animal costumes, first for the Mouse King, then later for some of the dances associated with various nations: a bull for Spain, a tiger for Arabia, a unicorn (or was it a Qilin?) for China, and a bear for Russia. Most of them just stood in the back, but the bear hammed it up a bit. The whole performance felt pretty quick. Speaking of which, we also received a Nutcracker-themed postcard from Jay Davis.


Then on Thursday, there was a Kevin Geeks Out show at Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg, which is kind of annoying to get to.

It included a discussion on Dolly Parton's latest Christmas movies, an Eartha Kitt song about cha-cha heels, a Kindest Cut of the Wonder Woman Christmas episode (which I have seen before), and an edit of Charles Bronson's role in Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus, interspersed with clips from the Death Wish movies. The cha-cha heels song was apparently originally supposed to be performed by Divine, as per his role in Female Trouble, but he died before it could be recorded. The video ends with a guy who tries to steal the shoes being forced to dance uncontrollably, perhaps a reference to Hans Christian Andersen's "The Red Shoes." Tavie won the game Ott or Not, about whether various movies received better IMDB ratings than an Edison film a few seconds long with someone named Fred Ott sneezing. And the final clip crossed over Ott with Santa Claus. Another game involved guessing what a presenter's husband had put in a box, and the winner got what was in a similar box, which was definitely NOT the same item.

We brought Nellie to our apartment last night, and so far she's mostly been hiding. I feel bad for bringing her to a new environment, even though that was always the plan. A lot of noises have startled her. She has come out and played a bit, but I don't have any real evidence that she's been eating or drinking, so I'm worried about that.