vovat | Entries tagged with holidays

It's past Christmas, so here's a post on what we've been up to. I should start by mentioning that Beth's mom had a heart attack this month, which was very disturbing. She's back home from the hospital now and recovering well, but that definitely affected our plans.

On Wednesday the seventeeth, Beth and I went to Lightscape at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I think this is the first time we went there when it had recently snowed, but it wasn't as cold as it had been in previous years. One installation they hadn't had before was a set of lights representing an orchestra, with the appropriate ones lighting up at different parts of an instrumental version of "Sleigh Ride." There was a podium where you could pretend to conduct, which I did.

They also had giant lilies, butterflies, and birds.

I had a hot apple cider and a soft pretzel while there.

That same week, we set up our Christmas tree.

We'd bought real ones for the past few years, but this time we borrowed an artificial one from Beth's mom's house, and it was over thirty years old. It's nice not to have to worry about the tree shedding needles or requiring water. Felix still likes to sit under it.

This past weekend, we visited my dad in Pennsylvania, and my sister, my brother, and his wife and son stopped by as well. We exchanged gifts while there, and we watched a movie that I'll share my review of shortly. I used to visit my mom while I was in the area, so it made me sad that I can't do that anymore. We drove back on Sunday, and the following day after work, we saw John Waters at the City Winery.

I had thought most of the previous shows of his we'd seen were fairly similar, but this one had a lot of new material. Much of it was non-stop and rapid-fire. He mentioned something about how the worst plot device (or something like that) in one of his movies was the revelation that Tab Hunter was having an affair with Divine's mother in Polyester, and that did seem rather out of left field. He also commented on appreciating the work that went into Wicked, but that making the Wicked Witch of the West, one of his favorite characters when played by Margaret Hamilton, into a singing chanteuse doesn't work for him. He then repeated something I'd heard him say before, that he asked a kid if he liked The Wizard of Oz, and the child said it was mostly just walking. That's even more true of the book than the movie, but I think I've just come to accept that a lot of classic fantasy is mostly travelogue.

For actual Christmas, we visited Beth's mom and uncle, and did our present exchange there.

Among other presents, I received a stuffed Mario Kart banana peel, a T-shirt with Luigi running from a Boo, Rosalina's Storybook, a book on Celtic mythology and another on John the Baptist, a Lily Allen album, a Kent Brockman figure, Mario and Luigi: Brothership for the Switch, and Nostalgia for the DS.

The turkey we were going to have for dinner was frozen solid, so we had take-out Chinese food before we headed back to Brooklyn. And today we both worked, but I got to go home early because of the snow. There were things we had meant to watch before Christmas, but we didn't get around to it for various reasons. We did do our annual viewing of Home Alone, and afterwards Beth watched something online (I just heard the audio) about deleted scenes from the movie. There was a mention of a theory that Kevin gave the police the neighbors' address and then lured Harry and Marv there because he was still afraid he'd get arrested for accidentally stealing a toothbrush, which I guess makes sense in little kid logic. As it was, it seemed weirdly unnecessary, and doing the phony voice might have made the cops suspect it was a prank call. For that matter, not only did he have no guarantee that the burglars would chase him, but they received so many blows to their heads that a normal person probably wouldn't have been conscious enough to run after him. And Home Alone 2 gives no impression that his family ever found out (from the cops, the neighbors, the news, or whatever) that several houses in the neighborhood were robbed while Kevin was home alone, let alone he had a run-in with the robbers.

Current Music: Beatles: Things We Said Today

For Thanksgiving, we considered eating at Wo Hop in Chinatown, but since there was a line, we instead went to Wo Hop Next Door. For some reason it's hard to find information about what the difference is, but apparently the Next Door place does have different owners. I had shrimp lo mein and Beth sweet and sour chicken, and we shared an appetizer of fried wontons.

After the meal, they gave us fortune cookies and orange slices, and while there's nothing that special about the latter, getting them out of nowhere is a pleasant surprise.

This mural wasn't at the restaurant, but it was nearby.
We had a more traditional Thanksgiving meal, with turkey and ham, at Beth's mom's house on Saturday. Felix was very interested in the turkey. Nellie not only doesn't care about people food, but doesn't even want cat treats, which seems weird. That evening, we all went to the Creamy Acres Night of Lights, as we have for the past few years.

It's a hayride through a lot of holiday lights, and there's also some stuff to look at inside.

Thursday before last was the Kevin Geeks Out Christmas Show. The first of these shows we saw was a Christmas one, so I guess it's become a tradition of sorts, although we attend all of these when it's feasible.

Steve Young, a former writer for David Letterman who had presented at an earlier one, did two segments this time. One was on a celebrity bowling Christmas album, which was mostly just clips from the show, a strange idea as there's no way to tell who the celebrities are from how the ball and pins sound. It also has a version of "Jingle Bells" made up of falling pins, although the technology they had really only gave them two notes to work with. The other presentation was about how jingle bells have become a symbol of winter jollity when they were originally intended as a warning. I know I pretty much always think of jingle bells as the sound of falling snow, even though I know that doesn't really sound like anything. There's a Minus 5 album, Let the War Against Music Begin, which has dark lyrics but mostly upbeat music, and a lot of the songs use jingle bells. Another presentation was about how eating KFC on Christmas has become a tradition in Japan, dating back to when some tourists introduced the custom in the early seventies. There are even commercials that play "My Old Kentucky Home" like it's a holiday song. Instead of a movie or TV show, the Kindest Cut this time was a collection of weird holiday-themed commercials, including an infamous coffee ad with incestuous overtones. Another presenter discussed Scrooge McDuck, and how he loves the character despite hating actual billionaires. One bizarre bit of trivia he included is that, in the movie The Last Days of Disco, Chloe Sevigny claims to find Scrooge sexy. I messed up on the first entry in the Santa suit game this time, which I believe has happened before, but somehow I once managed to win it.

The show this time was at the Nitehawk in Williamsburg, which is difficult to reach by subway from other parts of Brooklyn. Google Maps always tends to recommend going from downtown Brooklyn into Manhattan and then taking the L train back into Brooklyn, which might well be the fastest, but is remarkably inconvenient, so I usually take the G. There's a horror bookstore in Brooklyn, the Twisted Spine, which Beth had been wanting to visit, so we went there before the show. Beth ended up buying something there. I'm not a big horror reader, but I do read it sometimes, especially when it's mashed up with fantasy or science fiction. There were several things there that interested me, and I wouldn't mind going back sometime.

Nearby were a video store and a place that sold tabletop RPGs.

Last Monday, we saw a Paul Williams show, part of a lyricist series, at the YMCA on 92nd Street in Manhattan. Beth was originally familiar with him because he appeared on an episode of The Odd Couple where Felix's daughter wanted to follow him around on tour. We watched that episode the night before. He also wrote (or co-wrote) a lot of familiar songs, and worked quite a bit with the Muppets, including co-writing "The Rainbow Connection." I also thought he and John Denver, who also collaborated with the Muppets a fair amount, had kind of Muppet-like floppy hair. The show started with Paul emerging from a casket, and he went on to do a few bits and sing some songs, although the main vocalists were four theatrical performers. The set included the Monkees' "Someday Man," the Carpenters' "Rainy Days and Mondays" and "We've Only Just Begun" (the latter originally written for a bank commercial), and a medley of several songs from Phantom of the Paradise, which we just watched not that long ago. "The Rainbow Connection" was the last set of the night. Paul said something about how different it was to work with Jim Henson compared to Barbra Streisand, which I would certainly imagine is true.

Current Music: Pinataland: The Settlers

We've done several things I thought were worth writing about so far this month, so here's an overview. On Sunday the 8th, we went to see Micky Dolenz at the City Winery in Philadelphia, which is just as cramped as the one in New York. Beth's mom really enjoyed it, and she and Micky's sister Coco apparently coordinated their outfits.

Most of it was the same as what Beth and I had seen before, including the between-song banter. He did include "No Time," however, which he'd done with other Monkees, but not by himself when I'd seen him. There's one song he always does that Beth and I didn't know, and Beth's mom recognized but didn't know the name of. Beth looked it up, and it's "Gimme Some Lovin'", originally by the Spencer Davis Group.

Both Beth and I had our birthdays recently, her on the fifteenth and me on the eighteenth. I am now four dozen years old. For hers, we went to Great Adventure.

They were only open until 7 PM, and we ended up only spending about four hours there.

It wasn't very crowded, so we were able to ride most of what we wanted to. We went on the Flash for the first time. It's one of those roller coasters that goes back and forth to build up speed, with part of the ride being backwards. It's all right, but not one of the better coasters there. Several of the rides were closed, and others closed down early, with a lot of food places doing the same. We had a meal plan, but didn't get to use it. We did eat at the Olive Garden on the way home. On my birthday, I had to go to an interview. Okay, I guess I didn't HAVE to go, but they could have scheduled it for a different day. It just felt kind of wrong. Beth gave me three presents, Princess Peach Showtime for the Switch, the first volume of the Animal Crossing manga, and a digital copy of one of Amelia Carruthers' fairy tale books.

This past Saturday, we went to the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, as I was interested in the Jim Henson exhibit.

We ended up not spending a lot of time there, since we mistakenly thought it closed later than it did, but we saw a lot of what they had. The third floor detailed the history of moving image technology, including magic lanterns, zoetropes, and old video cameras.

I'm not sure I realized how big television cameras were in their early days.

They had a lot of stuff in the Henson exhibit, obviously including The Muppet Show and Sesame Street, but also items from Sam and Friends, Labyrinth, Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal, and the very short-lived Land of Gorch from Saturday Night Live.

I think the Swedish Chef puppet is the one that the museum originally received without hands, as the puppeteer would just use his own hands.

By the way, Beth hates the Chef, and she's seen Fraggle Rock but I haven't.

She'd also seen some of The Great Space Coaster, which I don't think was mentioned at the exhibit. We did the thing that records you with puppets, and I made an Anything Muppet.

I had forgotten that Henson died in 1990; for some reason I thought it was slightly later than that. Another exhibit had merchandise, including a Barney Rubble ashtray and Bugs Bunny dolls where it looked like he was wearing a superfluous rabbit suit.

There was some stuff from The Exorcist and Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4, which are favorites of Beth's.

And there were a few props from the film version of The Wiz, including a camera suit that I think appeared in the Emerald City, which definitely fit with the museum's theme.

We stopped by Nintendo NYC in Rockefeller Center, and while we didn't buy anything, I do tend to like their holiday decorations.

Finally, yesterday, we saw Robyn Hitchcock at the Bowery Ballroom. He did shows two days in a row, and I can't remember why we chose the second. The opener the previous day was his wife, Emma Swift, but when we saw him it was a band called Sharp Pins. I think this was the first time I saw Robyn with a full band.

His voice was hoarse from the previous day, but he was still able to make it through the set. And he did his usual bizarre between-song banter, talking about how his grandmother wore Ray-Ban sunglasses before they were popular, how he considered "Alright Yeah" to transcend good and bad, and that he saw the Balloon Man as an innocent figure, but the Shuffle Man as a villain. The latter was one of the newer songs they played, along with "Socrates in Thin Air." Also included was "America," and I think of the lyrics to that one occasionally. Emma joined the band to sing on "So You Think You're in Love," "Flesh Number One," "Oceanside," and "Queen of Eyes."

One of the earliest recordings of Robyn's I ever heard was a live album recorded in 1998 that was on eMusic in the early 2000s, and "SYTYIL" was on that, as was "Driving Aloud," which was also part of the set. I believe it was also the first time I saw "Brenda's Iron Sledge" and "Insanely Jealous" played live. Lenny Kaye, whom I don't really know anything about but apparently worked a lot with Patti Smith, joined on guitar for the encore, which consisted of "I Wanna Destroy You," the Beatles' "And Your Bird Can Sing," and Bob Dylan's "Maggie's Farm."

Interestingly, the Beatles song was also played on the PA right before the show. It looks like the setlist from Saturday was very similar, but they got better covers for the encore. Oh, well.

I waited too long to request the day after Thanksgiving off from work, so the current plan is to have dinner with Beth's family on Saturday instead. I don't know what we'll be doing on Thursday, but probably not much.

Current Music: Space Vixen: Suck It Fascists

Last weekend, we finally brought the cats back from Beth's mom's house. I kind of wonder if they like it better there, as they have more room to move around. It's not a big house, but it's still quite a bit bigger than our apartment. They have both been lying in bed with us, if not always for very long, but I think it's a good sign.

On Thursday, we went to Nightfall at Green-Wood Cemetery. I think this is the fourth time we've gone there, although the name has changed at least once. There are several lectures and performances throughout. Near the entrance, there was a guy in a Baphomet costume singing opera.

I initially took another costumed figure as a depressed rabbit, but what I thought were ears were actually small hands, and he grabbed at people's heads, including mine.

As usual, the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus was there, including an acrobat on a rope, a yo-yo juggler, a tightrope walker, and a knife swallower.

One performer started by stripping down to a skeleton costume, then doing tricks with multiple hula hoops.

There were also some fire jugglers in the same area.

I wish we'd caught more of the Morbid Anatomy talk on witches and healing. We did see one on writing condolence letters, however, which was worth watching, if not as relevant to my own interests. The presenter said that she thinks you should never say you know how the other person feels, but she gave a few examples of famous writers who did exactly that. We also saw a bit of someone doing taxidermy on a bird, which was fascinating to watch, although I can't help finding taxidermy a little sad. That doesn't mean it doesn't look cool sometimes. I guess it's sort of the same sort of combination as having entertainment at a cemetery.

Last night, we went to a haunted house called Scared by the Sound, as it's on Long Island Sound, specifically at Playland. I think it was at a different place on the same sound last year. It's a rather good pun, but I'm not even sure what a sound is. Apparently it connects two wider bodies of water. We didn't get the chance to go to the regular park at Playland this year, but I understand a lot of rides aren't running anyway. There was some kind of issue with the previous owners. Anyway, it was a pretty elaborate attraction. Several of the actors involved got a chance to talk for a significant amount of time. There were a few longer bits, like one with a fortune teller, that somewhat undid the employees only letting in one group at a time at the entrance. I ended up running into a person in the group in front of us once. I've noticed quite a few walkthroughs like this have you walk on a bridge through a tunnel that's spinning around you, and usually they don't particularly affect me, but in this case the two they had made me feel a bit sick. They must have created better illusions than usual. The end of the attraction was outside, with a graveyard.

This next week is going to be fairly busy, so I'll probably have more stuff to write about soon. The current plan is to go to two amusement parks next weekend.

Current Music: Neko Case: An Ice Age

We're back from California, and I'm rather exhausted. We flew in very early on Sunday, and spent the first few nights there with Stephanie. On Monday night, we went to the LA Haunted Hayride, which included several mazes as well as the hayride itself.

They played clips from Elvira throughout, many from her Mistress of the Dark movie, and there was a haunted house devoted to her. Another was Monae Manor, which had clips and samples of Janelle.

There's a video where she's beheaded. I wonder if there's any connection between the two of them, aside from being queer and glamorous. The other maze was some hillbilly thing. And the Scary-Go-Round was a carousel with flamboyantly attired bone horses.

They had hay bales to sit on, and in one area they were made into chairs, which of course made me think of the Scarecrow's straw throne at the Tin Castle, because I'm like that.

On Tuesday, we saw Sparks at the Greek Theatre.

Fortunately Russell Brand wasn't there, at least as far as I know, but Russell Mael definitely was.

I don't think that, when that movie came out, I even knew the Greek was the name of a venue, although it didn't take me long to figure it out. I also didn't notice any Dionysus or comedy and tragedy masks, so should they really even get to use that name? We were in the standing room area in the front, and I don't really mind standing during a show, but I do mind when WAITING for the show. This was the last show on the tour, and the setlist was the same as all the others. I did notice that Russell waved his finger while singing the chorus of "Reinforcements."

Ron was wearing bright red Air Jordan shoes, and he actually talked a little bit towards the end.

His dance during "The Number One Song in Heaven" wasn't as long as it was last year, but he is eighty now.

That said, I have no idea how they stay in such good shape. Is it really just diet and exercise? Beth and Stephanie showed up in the picture the band took after the show, but I'm obscured, probably somewhere behind Ron's arm.

We rented a car on Wednesday and drove out to Santa Clarita so we could go to Six Flags Magic Mountain the next day.

It was fun, and not very crowded. There was only a short wait for most of the rides we went on. We rode on Goliath, which was closed the other time we visited; and on the Teen Titans Turbo Spin, which is like a Gravitron that tilts.

The Riddler's Revenge is a standing roller coaster that seemed similar to Green Lantern at Great Adventure, which was taken out last year. It kind of hurt my head, and wasn't too comfortable in the crotch area either.

The swing ride was called Swashbuckler, which is confusing, as that's the name of a totally different ride at Great Adventure.

This looks like it's from a Decemberists album cover.
You'd think they'd at least keep these things consistent across Six Flags parks, or at least I would. They did Fright Fest at night, and one of the scare zones was sort of a steampunk dark Wizard of Oz kind of thing.

They had creepy Winged Monkeys and some factory-themed stuff, as well as a Wicked Witch on stilts.

I do seem to recall they had a lion with an axe, though. Isn't that mixing characters?

There was also what seemed to be sort of an Alice in Wonderland area with scary playing cards and chess pieces.

The next evening, we went to Knott's Scary Farm, the Halloween event at Knott's Berry Farm, which we could walk to because our motel was very close by. The motel had some interesting garden statuary, a combination of (what at least I thought was) traditional Indian stuff and more modern things.

Maybe the owners are Buddhist, although my mom also had a Buddha statue in her garden and she wasn't. As opposed to the previous evening, the park was very crowded, and it's probably just going to get worse as the season goes on. The waits for Xcelerator and Ghost Rider were well over an hour, although the one for the mine ride wasn't that bad. The haunted walkthroughs were included in the admission, and we went to two of them, one Old West themed and another based on slasher movies and theaters.

The latter kept playing that "let's all go to the lobby" jingle. And we saw a show, Le Magnifique Carnaval di Grotesque, which was mostly dancing and circus-style acts, but there also seemed to be a bit of an attempted story about a girl trying to find the ringmaster's magic staff. That bit wasn't even introduced until after a harlequin had danced and silently (well, mostly) joked around, though.

The show also included a guy balancing on a gradually increasing pile of stuff, which Beth said stressed her out.

The meal we got at the barbecue place was a surprisingly large amount of food. I had rotisserie chicken with macaroni and cornbread, and I didn't finish all of it. But then, the sides weren't really that good. Still, it definitely filled me up.

On Saturday, we met Paul and Carolyn to visit the Medieval Torture Museum on Hollywood Boulevard. It has both models of torture implements and graphic depictions of their being used on dummies. There's also stuff you can interact with, like some kind of morbid Franklin Institute. One of the first things we saw there was an iron bull that, according to legend, was heated up to torment a person inside. The model, at least, is surprisingly intricate. If all you're going to use it for is to kill people, why bother giving it such detailed features?

But then, a lot of this kind of thing was spectacle. I can't even imagine watching a public execution. The late Charlie Kirk apparently thought children should see them. Even the stocks, which are pretty minor as far as these things go, seem incredibly hateful. Why would I want to ridicule someone because they broke the law?

It was probably mostly just people who didn't like the prisoner for some other reason, but the authorities encouraged it. Along the same lines, the museum had a weight that went around a person's neck and a barrel that people would have to sit inside for a while, both punishments for public drunkenness.

My gut reaction was that the star was some kind of antisemitic thing, but I guess not.
The informational plaques did say that the pendulum like in the Edgar Allan Poe story was probably not really used, and that the iron maiden (also called, as I found out at the museum, a Nuremberg Virgin) didn't exist in the Middle Ages.

There was an exhibit about execution by saw, which was what happened to the prophet Isaiah according to apocryphal sources, as well as something Art the Clown did in the first Terrifier movie.

These scales were based on the idea that anyone who weighed less than a certain amount was a witch. I think the other categories are just fun additions, although I'm intrigued by the idea that angels are particularly heavy. Maybe it's like how Rosalina is a heavyweight in Mario Kart. I guess this must be where Monty Python got the idea for the bit about a witch weighing the same as a duck. And there were these face hole cutouts of a sexy dominatrix and a slovenly man with his gut hanging out, which I think says something about sexism in society.

I won't say they weren't funny, however.

Our plane was scheduled to leave before 9 at night, but it ended up being delayed. The particularly annoying thing is that we didn't find this out until after everyone had already gotten on the plane, and there were announcements that there was a malfunction with a fire alarm, and it would have taken hours to fix it. Obviously I'm no expert, but doesn't this seem like the kind of thing they'd find out before letting anyone board? I normally don't even mind airports or flying that much, but I hate how slow everything is. And someone said something about having to exchange our tickets for new ones, which ended up not happening, but it made me feel helpless and trapped. I also kept getting updates on my phone giving new departure times, which would come and go with nothing really happening. Can't they wait to make these announcements until they're certain, instead of constant guessing? It would still be frustrating, but less confusing. Anyway, we're back at home now, and went back to work today. Right now, I'm doing the laundry.

Current Music: Dukes of Stratosphear: 25 O'Clock

My aunt died on the fifteenth, and we drove down to Virginia for the funeral this past weekend. I hadn't seen her in a while, not since my grandmother's funeral about six years ago. And this was just a few months after my mom died. My Aunt Toni was the oldest, four years older than my mom. And today is actually my mom's birthday, so that's weird. The funeral was yesterday at a small church, and I believe it was a natural burial as well. This hasn't been a great year so far in several respects.

I had originally thought we would drive the entire way down on Saturday, but I changed my mind and booked a motel in Maryland, which turned out to be a good idea. Driving gets so tedious. The motel still used actual keys instead of cards, and it had pictures of animals up in the room.

For some reason, the toilet paper was in front of a zebra.

I would think they should have at least used zebra-striped paper in this case. The motel also had real animals, as we saw three cats in a window near the office, and I think the people staying there also had a dog.

The next day, we went to a café in Baltimore, and drove by a book and music store that looked interesting because it had a big stuffed Heathcliff with a banjolele in the window.

There were other decorations inside, and we ended up buying four used books between us.

Across the street was this tea shop with a giant carrot stuck through it, or at least that was what it was made to look like.

That evening, we ate at the Longhorn Steakhouse with some of my relatives and other people. I don't think I've been to one of them before, although I get it confused with the Texas Roadhouse and Lone Star Steakhouse. I'm pretty sure that last one doesn't exist anymore. Regardless, I liked it, and they gave large portions. I had chicken instead of steak, though.

In terms of other stuff that might be worth mentioning, we visited the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on Wednesday the sixteenth. A few of the cherry trees were blooming, but most of them were still bare.

The magnolias by the conservatory were in blossom, however. And I noticed this Shinto-style shrine at the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden for the first time.

We were at Beth's mom's house for Easter weekend, but didn't really do anything for it, although she did give us Easter baskets, and we ate at the Olive Garden.

And last Tuesday, we saw John Waters at the City Winery in Manhattan, and that was pretty enjoyable. It was his seventy-ninth birthday that day, which means he outlived my mom and aunt.

Current Music: Magnetic Fields: Love Is Like Jazz

We saw Kevin Geeks Out at the Nitehawk in Prospect Park the Thursday before last. The theme was sidekicks, and there were several presentations on that topic. One interesting thing is that two of these were Christmas-themed at a time way out of season, one about Krampus and another espousing the possibility that Hermey from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer could be a psychopath, comparing him to Norman Bates. Also addressed was how sidekicks are often framed in ways that diminish them, even when they're technically more competent than the heroes. A discussion of the Lone Ranger and the Green Hornet (the latter canonically being the former's nephew) pointed out how calling the character "Lone" when Tonto does a lot of the work isn't really fair, and that Bruce Lee's Kato was the one who did most of the fighting. There was also a mention of Dick Tracy's racist sidekicks from the sixties animated series, Joe Jitsu and Go Go Gomez. Not that I think these characters were intended to be offensive; that's just how it comes off with how they're written. The Kindest Cut was of a movie called Sidekicks, described as a combination of The Karate Kid and Walter Mitty, as the boy in it is constantly daydreaming about fighting alongside Chuck Norris. The game we played was about who out of two characters is the sidekick, based on the opinions of ten people, and some of them were ties.

The other day, we went to a Franz Ferdinand show at the Brooklyn Paramount. We'd gone there a few months ago for Ben Folds, but that time they had chairs, and this time it was standing room only. The opener was a band called Telescreen, and I had no strong opinion about their music, but they seemed to attract some obnoxious fans who yelled a lot. I don't know how many of them were the same ones who insisted on moshing during the headliner. What's weird about that is that I noticed a sign at the entrance that forbade moshing, and I didn't think it was anything we'd have to worry about. I've never understood wanting the possibility of being seriously injured or doing that to someone else at a concert. I'm lucky nothing worse happened than a guy stepping on my foot. The performance itself was good, though, with all the hits and everything. The set did not include "The Fallen," which normally wouldn't merit a mention, but I had just mentioned to Beth recently that they should have changed the lyric to "Who gives a damn about the profits of Tesla?" Alex Kapranos still has a lot of energy.

I know he had a kid recently, which is what one of the songs on the newest album is about, but he didn't say anything about that onstage.

Last night was a Bruce McCulloch show at the Bell House. I think it was pretty similar to the last time we saw him. I can't remember for sure, but some of it was definitely familiar, and some not. It was a combination of monologues, songs, and just jokes. He quoted a newspaper review of an earlier performance in Wayne, New Jersey, about how it (or possibly the Kids in the Hall in general?) had a narrative that even Frank Zappa couldn't understand, then he kept calling back to that.

There's something else I wanted to get off my chest, which is that I saw a post on the OzCon International Instagram about how Emma Ridley, who played Ozma in Return to Oz, although her voice was dubbed by somebody else. I had followed her on social media for a while, but she turned out to be a fervent Trump supporter, and I don't know whether this is a relatively recent development or not. I know some people who have met her before have mentioned her being really friendly, but that doesn't preclude awful politics. She's shared some really obvious lies about how he's actually trying to help people, and fight child trafficking and bring about world peace, which makes no sense if you know anything at all about Trump, and of course he's been well nigh impossible to avoid for pretty much my entire lifetime. While I don't recall seeing anything specific about it, she's apparently also transphobic, which is kind of ironic if you know about the character she played. So some people called out the post, and it looks like it's just been deleted.

Current Mood: irritated
Current Music: Mountain Goats: Foreign Object

Christmas is over now, so I should probably write something about it. We were at Beth's mom's house again, and the cats came with us. It was the first Christmas Felix spent with us, and he seemed to enjoy it, except when he hit his head on the coffee table because Nellie popped out of some wrapping paper and surprised him.

They were also playing with one of the bags.

Not all of our presents had arrived by Christmas Day, but between then and now, I received the Dragon Quest III HD remake, Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime, a book publication of the Super Mario Adventures comic that ran in Nintendo Power, The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth, Volume 2 of Kirby Manga Mania, Andy Partridge's My Failed Songwriting Career Volume 2 (I don't have the first one yet, but I don't think you have to be familiar with that to listen to the second) and My Failed Christmas Career, a movie-style Cat Mario figure, a T-shirt with Bowser from a series where I already have the Luigi and Yoshi ones, a soft Koopa shell, a Ruby Slippers mug, and some Marvin the Martian socks.

I was trying to make a Bowser face, but I suck at imitating facial expressions.
I also gave Beth a similar big, soft Mario-related thing.

I ended up getting some duplicates, but I supposed that's likely to happen when you send the same list to different people who aren't coordinating with each other. I feel like there was a lot of stuff I wanted to do but didn't, and I know it's the same way with Beth. It seems like a lot of my holiday memories, even dating back to childhood, are of things I thought of but never did. I'm a procrastinator in general, and it's hard to get in the mood to prepare for Christmas when both of our birthdays are in November. Aside from the new Ben Folds Christmas album, I didn't even listen to holiday music from my own collection (as opposed to the stuff on the radio and in stores; I heard plenty of that). We did do our annual rewatch of Home Alone, as well as seeing the original Grinch, Frosty, and Garfield Christmas. A lot of the latter is the Arbuckle family doing the same stuff they do every year, even if it's silly and doesn't make sense, because that's just what they do. I can relate to that to an extent. It's not like Home Alone is even that great of a movie, but it's become what we do.

In other news, we bought a new car, as our old one seemed to be on its last legs. The new one is a Hyundai Venue in a color called green apple (not to be confused with candy apple red with a ski for a wheel), and we had to wait extra time to get it. Next year's green is a different color that looks more like gray, so there weren't a lot for sale. It's technically an SUV, and I've generally been kind of against those, but it seemed the most practical choice. It's not much wider than the Honda Fit, and our parking space in the garage is pretty narrow. It wasn't a Christmas present and didn't have one of those giant bows from the commercials, but I did want to buy one before I had to get another emissions inspection on the Fit. We'd had the Honda since 2009, so the Venue has features that are new to me but probably pretty standard now, like a backup camera. It also has a moonroof, which Beth is excited about.

Anything else I should mention? We did go to the Nintendo store in Rockefeller Center and saw the tree there, although we planned it poorly and had to go around the block to get from one to the other.

It's now that weird period between Christmas and New Year's that doesn't entirely feel like it should exist. It was one thing back when I was in school and had the whole week (and change, depending on when the holidays fell) off, but working over this period makes me more aware of it.

Current Music: Tori Amos: Daisy Dead Petals (live)

The previous week or so was pretty busy. On Thursday the fifth, there was a Kevin Geeks Out that was different from the usual format. Kevin Maher wrote his own parody of a Hallmark Christmas movie, which was about a vampire lawyer from New York going to a small town in Vermont and falling in love with a werewolf. It was mostly just people performing, although it did have costumes and stock projected backgrounds to set the scenes. As such, they could include the sort of jokes common in radio comedy, where they wouldn't work if you could see what was happening. There was one bit about a piece of art that the protagonist loved and thought would win a contest, which was later shown to be nutmeg with googly eyes. And the inhabitants of the Vermont town had different regional accents, like a Minnesota one for the woman who owned the local diner. There were a few presentations of the more normal sort, one about courtroom scenes in holiday movies and another about how vampires and werewolves hate each other, but they were presented in-character. I get the impression that the rivalry between vampires and werewolves in fiction is fairly recent, like that between elves and dwarves. Interestingly, Tolkien actually used both, the Elf/Dwarf thing being well-known, but there are references in Beren and Luthien to how much vampires hate werewolves, even though both serve Sauron. But in folklore, there was a lot of overlap between vampires and werewolves. Dracula could control wolves and turn into one.

On Sunday, we went with Beth's mom and Uncle John to Batsto, where they had exhibits about the village in the old days, with the mansion being open to guests.

There also had free hot apple cider and cookies, and horse-drawn carriage rides.

We also visited one of the new Spirit Christmas stores, where we walked around the whole place but didn't buy anything.

I did stand in the giant Santa boots. And I like these snack-themed pillows, although I don't know if I'd want to own one.

Tuesday was a Micky Dolenz show at the City Winery in Manhattan, held in the upstairs area where we hadn't been that often before, if at all. They have tables so people can eat food and drinks, but it's an awkward way to watch a concert when the seats aren't actually facing the stage. We'd heard most of the songs he did and his introductions to them before, but he did do Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth," and he mentioned that Stephen Stills was Peter Tork's roommate, and he also auditioned for the Monkees.

There were two Christmas songs in the mix, "Riu Chiu" and "Run Rudolph Run," which the band played without Micky. That song sounds a lot like "Johnny B. Goode," which was also in the setlist.

Paul Schaefer introduced the show, talking about how he worked with Don Kirschner and doing an impression of him, and he played keyboard on a few of the later songs.

Then we saw Micky again on Sunday at the Bergen Performing Arts Center. Beth had bought tickets for that one before the New York show was announced, and tried to sell the tickets, but was unsuccessful.

It was mostly the same, but he did play Elton John's "Your Song," which he hadn't at City Winery. He introduced it by talking about how he and Elton wore the same T-shirt at a party in Los Angeles.

There was also a screen, they had an intermission, and Paul wasn't there. This was after we tried to find a store in a nearby mall and not only didn't, but most of the stores were closed on a Sunday during the holiday shopping season.

I know online ordering has killed a lot of physical shopping, but I'm sure there would still have been some. It might be some weird county rule, as some of the Targets around there were also closed.

We had tickets for Lightscape at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on Thursday, and it was pretty similar to past years, but not exactly the same. Everything looks really pretty lit up while you're there, but it doesn't photograph that well. It was really cold out that night, despite the weather generally being incredibly warm for this time of year as of late, which was another reason I didn't want to take a lot of pictures. The Singularity and the butterflies in the pond outside the conservatory were cool.

They Might Be Giants played at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn on Friday night (the thirteenth), and it was a longer than usual show with no opener and an intermission.

It's a big venue, and it looked pretty full. John Flansburgh said at the beginning that they were showcasing John Henry, and they did eight songs from that album: "Snail Shell," "Unrelated Thing," "Spy," "No One Knows My Plan," "Dirt Bike," "Meet James Ensor," "Out of Jail," and "The End of the Tour." John Linnell did a bit presumably based on an old record commercial during the improvisational bit of "Spy," which I think he also did the last time we saw the band live. And Flansburgh mixed up the lyrics to "Dirt Bike," but since it's not a song they do often and a lot of the words are just "[da-da-da] dirt bike," that's understandable. They recently brought back the Stick, which is literally a big stick that Flans bangs on the stage for "Lie Still, Little Bottle," a bit that theyhadn't done in a long time.

Horn players Mark Pender, Dan Levine, and Stan Harrison joined the band on some songs, and Dan Miller played the solo at the end of "Damn Good Times" from the balcony.

Flans also talked about how he was responsible for the drones flying over New Jersey.

We finally got our Christmas tree on Tuesday, and decorated it yesterday. I know it's late in the month, and we ended up getting a smaller one than usual, but that means it took less time to set it up.

I don't know that I'm feeling that festive just now, but it's something I would have regretted not doing. I've never been someone who disliked the holidays; they were just a lot easier when other people were setting them up.

Current Mood: lethargic
Current Music: Ben Folds: Me and Maurice

23 November was the beginning of Great Adventure's Holiday in the Park. They were only open for seven hours, but we ended up coming in about an hour after they opened and leaving before closing. We were both really tired towards the end.

A whole section of the park was closed, but we did go on nine different rides.

I believe Kingda Ka and Green Lantern are closing for good, and the Skyride is no longer operational.

The Teacups were decorated as Gingerbread Twist, but they weren't playing holiday music on the Carousel.

It did play "Dixie," a song that would be fun if it weren't for all the historical baggage. There were several spots where you could take pictures with holiday-themed characters. The ones I had pictures of were the Snow Queen and King and the Poinsettia Prince and Princess, not exactly holiday heavy hitters, but their outfits were cute.

We spent Thanksgiving at Beth's mom's house, as per usual. We didn't really do anything on the day other than have dinner, or at least I didn't. On the following day, we went to the Creamy Acres Night of Lights, which was pretty much the same as usual, although they might have made it a bit longer. We rode in the wagon, and it was colder than I expected it to be. They still had Santa firing a pretzel from a cannon into a bag, which seems like an inefficient way of loading things.

He was also riding in a hot air balloon, playing baseball, and ski jumping.

The guy has a lot of hobbies. There were also some indoor displays, but when I say "indoor," the doors were open and it was cold.

These nutcrackers were certainly feeling it.

This section had a bunch of characters from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and A Charlie Brown Christmas, and a lot of stand-ins (apparently what those pictures with the holes for faces are called).

They were made with little kids in mind, however, so we had to duck down for some of them.

They had some cows and a goat, but they stayed inside their shelters, which was a good idea on their parts.

On Saturday night, we met up with Stephanie, who was in town between flights, and ate at a place called Lulla. I had the agnolotti, which was pasta stuffed with cheese, covered with bolognese sauce. Then we saw a late-night showing of Gladiator II, but I already wrote about that.

We don't have the cats with us here this week, which is weird and kind of sad.

It does mean I don't have to refill the food or water for a while, though. I'm anxious about how many things we have to do in December. On my calendar, I have two doctors' appointments, Kevin Geeks Out, They Might Be Giants, and Micky Dolenz. I also need to get a new car, and while there isn't a particular time period for that as I don't drive that much, it would be nice to do that before the inspection for my current car is due. And that's not counting shopping, or getting a tree, or watching relevant media. Yes, some of those things are for fun, but there's still hassle involved. I've been playing Octopath Traveler a lot recently, but most of it has just been leveling up. There are some major difficulty spikes in that game. I did finally beat Miguel, but most of the other third chapters haven't been working out for me.

Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: Decemberists: The Reapers

I had been meaning to see Curious Nature, the Alice in Wonderland exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden, for some time now. And, like the White Rabbit, I was pretty late in doing so, finally getting around to it in its last week, along with Beth. It was pretty enjoyable, and most of the stuff was clustered around a single area. The thing I had the most trouble finding was Alyson Shotz's mirror sculpture on the edge of the forest, which I walked right past before noticing.

The conservatory had items modeled on Victorian gardens, like the ones at Oxford in Lewis Carroll's time.

We ate at the Pine Grove Cafe and split a cookie with a picture of Alice on it.

It was all right, not great. And I still don't know whether looking-glass milk is good to drink. I don't even like drinking the regular kind. At the store, I bought a keychain and two pairs of socks, one with Alice and another with mushrooms. There were a lot of mushrooms around the place. A model cottage built by Andre Kong that referenced Alice growing to enormous size inside the Rabbit's house had bricks made of mushroom.

And one of the exhibits at the library included information on how common the use of psychedelic drugs was in the Victorian era, how they might have influenced Lewis Carroll's work, and how the connection was strengthened during the psychedelic movement in the 1960s. I'll admit that I think the drug thing is sometimes overemphasized in relation to Alice, not because there's no chance Carroll was referencing hallucinogens, but because I think the association is more that such drugs produce a dreamlike state than that the whole thing was one big drug trip. But then, I've never been high, so what do I know?

Another exhibit highlighted the scientific discoveries of the time, and mentioned The Water-Babies as a book that tied evolution to Protestant morality.

There were also works by Abelardo Morell, Agus Putu Suyadnaya, and Patrick Jacobs, the latter of whom contributed miniature dioramas.

The library seemed somewhat Carrollian in form itself, as only the even-numbered floors were accessible. I assume the others are for staff only, but the building doesn't look tall enough from the outside to have six stories. Outside the rose garden was a display of the white roses that were painted red.

There were a surprising number of roses still in bloom in the garden itself, but then, it was an exceptionally warm day for the end of October.

At the Reflecting Pool, there was a big topiary Rabbit.

There were a few other themes going on besides the Wonderland one, including some giant pumpkins (I assume these were set up before anyone knew about the recent Family Guy episode about that topic) and people and a horse with pumpkin heads.

Last Saturday was a Kevin Geeks Out show at the Nitehawk in Prospect Park, usually the easier one to get to, but this time the trains weren't all running. It was weird to have this in the daytime, and Kevin Maher had to make an effort to say "today's show" rather than "tonight's." The show was about horror television, including a montage of dream sequences, a look at the Crypt-Keeper's sartorial choices (complete with appropriate puns), an overview of Punky Brewster and Benson episodes where characters were murdered, and a game where we had to guess whether Elvira ever appeared on certain shows. The final clip was of her on the Super Mario Bros. Super Show; she was on there twice, and I'm pretty sure neither one made the DVD collection.

Watch on YouTube

I tried the French toast sticks, which were good. After the show, we met Tavie and walked around Green-Wood Cemetery, where we've been many times, but it's so big that we ended up in a place I don't think we'd seen before. It had this pond.

Then we looked at the house that goes all out for Halloween, which is owned by a playwright.

We voted on Monday the twenty-eighth, and the polling place for early voting was closer than our usual one, so that was a good idea. If we'd voted on Halloween, however, we could have gotten special voting stickers. It's nothing unusual, but the election looks pretty bleak, and I'm dreading the aftermath. I don't really get why people support Donald Trump anyway, but it's even more worrying that he's even allowed to run after all the crimes he's committed. And the Supreme Court is basically in his pocket at this point. It's like there's no real safety net for the country anymore. I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that he'll win, but a lot of damage has already been done.

On Halloween itself, we saw a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Kings Theatre. This is the third time I've seen it with audience participation, the first time having been in college, when I didn't know what to think of it. I kind of thought it was going a little too much for shock value, and I don't think I really appreciated camp at the time. I guess it's a pretty weird thing to go into without context, and I don't think a campy sci-fi musical comedy is that strange by the standards of the seventies, if perhaps more overtly sexual than was normal for the time. Beth was always a fan, and I came to like it more later on. And the songs were always good. Barry Bostwick showed up to introduce the film, and someone helped him stretch out his leg.

There was also a costume contest, and the winners were two people in striped outfits with tall hats, making me think of They Might Be Giants' "Don't Let's Start" video. I don't know what they were actually supposed to be.

They still had Fright Fest at Great Adventure this weekend, and we had season passes that we'd only used once, so we went on Saturday.

We ate at Friendly's before getting there, and they had these cool bat-lamps.

They had mazes set up for the occasion, but those cost extra. We largely concentrated on rides we'd only been on once, like the Jersey Devil Coaster, Joker, Kingda Ka, and Green Lantern. I think we'd been on El Toro once before, but I can't remember for sure; it might have been our first time. That's a wooden roller coaster that goes really fast, making it pretty rough. We also rode the Giant Wheel, SkyScreamer, Skull Mountain, and Nitro.

We're planning to go back again for Holiday in the Park.

Current Music: XTC: The Smartest Monkeys

So far this month, we've seen a concert, gone to two amusement parks, and done a few Halloween activities, so I might as well write about them now. We also got stuck in traffic a few times and got COVID and flu shots, and I had bad side effects from medication. Those aren't as enjoyable to reminisce about, however.
On the first Sunday of the month, Beth and I went to Tarrytown to see Neko Case, which ended up being a strange and kind of disturbing experience. The opener was Amaad Wasif, who, during one of his songs, apparently decided it would be a good idea to go into the audience and sit in people's laps. I didn't see any of this from the balcony, but from what we saw online afterwards, one guy objected to it and pushed him away. He then returned to the stage and said someone punched him, which the guy and other people sitting nearby insist he didn't. I don't actually know what happened, but he left after that, and Neko didn't come on until about an hour after she was scheduled to do so. She was angry, and while she still did the show, she never explained what was actually bothering her. I'm sure it had to do with what happened to the opener, but neither she nor the venue provided any details, and the guy who pushed Wasif had already been kicked out. Is the whole audience being punished, like some kind of Full Metal Jacket crap? She still performed well, and seemed to calm down a bit over the course of the set, but it ended up being quite short. They apparently had a fill-in bass player who didn't usually play that instrument, and this was the first time we saw her with a saxophone player, although he mostly played keyboard. Somehow we ended up sitting in the exact same seats as we did when we saw Ben Folds at the same venue. Since it's October, they had a lot of Halloween decorations up in town.

We had some pizza before the show, and the window of the place had this monster slice on the window.

The following weekend, we traveled to Pennsylvania to visit two amusement parks, and a lot of stuff went wrong. Knoebels was doing Hallo-Fun, and we left home later than we'd wanted to. Then there was a long line of cars just to get in, as it didn't seem like the traffic lights were set up to handle that much traffic. We were there for two hours or so. It was pretty fun when we actually got inside, but we didn't have time to do that much.

We rode the Rock-O-Plane, an old sort of ride that was new there this year. It loads sort of like a Ferris Wheel, with only a certain amount of cars low enough at any time for people to get in and out of them. The cars rock around, although you can stop them from doing so with a brake.

I believe it was also the first time we rode their Tea Cups, which were the same sort of ride that Beth knew as a Crazy Daisy.

And the line for the Phoenix had this graveyard for old rides.

We didn't get a chance to go on the Haunted Pioneer Train, which had a really long line.

Dorney Park, which we visited on Sunday, has Halloween Haunt, and I took another picture of Beth with the puking pumpkin.

They have a new ride, the Iron Menace, a roller coaster with a straight vertical drop.

The park has a backstory for this ride involving the fictional McTavish Steel, whose owner died under mysterious circumstances and went on to haunt the old mill. There actually is a McTavish Steelworks in Manitoba. To fit the theme, they also redesigned the nearby glider ride and changed the name to MT Buckets.

We also rode the Cedar Creek Cannonball, which last year we hadn't realized was going to close early for the Halloween events.

And it was the hundredth anniversary of the Thunderhawk. We visited two of the temporary haunted houses, Blackout and Blood on the Bayou. The former was introduced as a candy factory, but was really just a bunch of dark rooms. I guess the introduction was just misdirection, although a candy-themed haunted attraction could have been interesting. The latter was based around a pop culture representation of Louisiana that's probably nothing like the actual place, including alligators and fortune tellers.

And we saw part of a show by a group called the Spectral Sisters, who were pretty similar to the Puppini Sisters, doing swing versions of pop songs, including 10,000 Maniacs' "Because the Night," Heart's "Crazy on You," and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising."

Thursday the seventeenth was Nightfall at Green-Wood Cemetery, which includes a mix of things, both displays and performances. It seemed like there wasn't as much as in previous years, although that could have just been our timing or the paths we took. The ways through the graveyard are marked off with lights, but some of them do branch off. There were performers from the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, a one-man band who played "Tequila" and a sword swallower.

Morbid Anatomy did a series of lectures, of which we heard the one about Ra's journey through the underworld in Egyptian mythology, as told in the Amduat; and another on symbols of time and mortality in funerary decoration. And a band was playing songs from the earlier part of the twentieth century, the ones we were there for being from the 1910s and 1930s, with a different lead singer for each.

We visited South Jersey this past weekend, and did a few Halloween-related activities while there.

On Friday, we went to the Creamy Acres Night of Terror, which consists of a hayride and three walkthroughs. From what I remember, it was pretty much the same as last year.

There was a drive-through called Glow in Washington Township, which was a bunch of light displays loosely themed around old Route 66, although some of them didn't seem to relate to much of anything.

It had monsters and other seasonal stuff, but wasn't scary in the sense of people jumping out at you or anything; you just drove through and looked.

And that night, we went to Terror at the Junkyard for the Scullville Fire Department in Egg Harbor, which involved driving along a lot of dark roads, rather scarier than the maze or hayride, but obviously not as theatrical.

One performer seemed particularly into his role, stomping on the wagon and singing a song about waking the dead. And that's about all that's worth writing about for now, but there should be some more later in the month.

Current Music: Rasputina: Rose K.

Last weekend was the Monster-Mania Convention in Cherry Hill, and we went on Saturday. I'm sure I've already written about how there aren't as many question-and-answer panels as there used to be, and I don't know whether this is because the convention organizers don't want to do them or the guests don't. The first two panels this time were with Craig Sheffer and William Fichtner, neither of whom we really knew, although they were both in some movies we've seen. The latter was a guy the Joker killed near the beginning of The Dark Knight.

The third was Heather Langenkamp, who talked among other things about how it was kind of weird to show her son A Nightmare on Elm Street for the first time, although she doesn't have a problem with kids watching horror movies.

For the longer panels, the first had Melissa Barrera, Tony Revolori, and Marley Shelton, who were in some of the later Scream movies.

The final session was a Hellraiser reunion with Doug Bradley, Ashley Laurence, Simon Bamford, Barbie Wilde, and Nicholas Vince.

Clive Barker was at the convention, but couldn't attend the panel for health reasons. There was some discussion of the Hulu remake, and a few of them mentioned that they liked the aesthetic, but not how much it differed from the original story, and downplayed the original BDSM themes. I'd heard something before about how the first movie was really more about Julia, but people liked Pinhead so much that he basically took over the franchise, even though he's usually a supporting character. Bradley also talked a bit about Barker's screenplay for Hellraiser III, which ended up not being made for weird legal reasons. It would have had Pinhead being resurrected in a vat in a church, and the Great Pyramid turning out to be a Lament Configuration housing the first Cenobite. Instead, we got CD-Head.

The air conditioning in my car hasn't been working. Actually, what happens is that it works at first, but soon cuts out after I start driving. I took it to the dealer, and they said it would cost upwards of $3000 to get it fixed, and it didn't seem worth it. It's definitely made for some uncomfortable rides, however. It hasn't just been incredibly hot in this area recently, but the air just feels gross and oppressive even when it isn't that hot. It makes me want to leave the apartment even less than usual. At the convention, it was warm even inside the hotel for the first few panels, then too cold in the bigger room for the last two.

While down in South Jersey, we went to a Spirit Halloween, and I took my usual pictures of costumes with weird generic names. And it isn't even just rip-offs of copyrighted characters that get these names. They're not even particularly funny, just odd.

Just don't say "Undead Guy" three times.

I guess the difference between a classic and a sassy nurse is slightly shorter stockings? Or is it the needle?

And is a bull scarecrow a real thing? There was an Oz book where the Scarecrow was turned into a bear, but not a bull.

Current Music: Pipettes: I Always Planned to Stay

We drove down to Pennsylvania last weekend, and went to Hersheypark on Saturday, as we still had extra tickets that we bought in April. I think it was the next to last possible day we could use them. It was cold, especially for my toes, but still not AS cold as you'd expect for that time of year. We got there quite a bit later than we wanted to, as the valve came off one of my tires when I was trying to put air in it. Fortunately, we were still near my dad's house, and he and Margaret were able to take off the tire and bring it in to get it patched. After that, however, the tire pressure warning light on my dashboard stayed on, even though the air level was fine. I'd just gotten my car serviced, but I waived the suggestion to have the tires replaced, as it was expensive, and would probably take a lot of time as those tires are hard to come by. I brought it in again today to have that done. We probably should get a new car soon, as I've had this one since 2009, but that's a big decision. But anyway, we rode Wildcat's Revenge for the first time, as it was still under construction on our last visit.

It's a refurbished version of the wooden roller coaster Wildcat with steel parts added, like what they did with Twisted Colossus at Magic Mountain.

They still had the Christmas decorations, a little awkward to see after Christmas, but it's technically still Christmastide until Epiphany.

The Dry Gulch Railroad was lined with lights showing the gifts from the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Afterwards, we ate at the Cocoa Diner, which I guess is somewhat of a tradition now, mostly because it's open late and has a very recognizable name. I've never bothered to check whether cocoa is actually on the menu there.

On Sunday, we exchanged gifts with my family. My siblings and my brother's wife and son were over at my dad's in the afternoon, and we had lunch with them; and later we had dinner with my mom. I was pretty late getting some of the presents, as I'm a terrible procrastinator. That said, even if I'd bought them early, I'd probably still feel like I was doing last-minute shopping. I received copies of Lin Carter's Dragonrouge (the sequel to Kesrick), Mark S. Smith's The Early History of God, and of Super Mario Wonder. I suspect Beth would be better at that game than I would, but I'll give it a try. My sister also gave us a stuffed cat that wasn't originally intended as a gift, but her cat inexplicably hated it.

We showed it to Nellie, and she seemed pretty indifferent. We rang in the New Year at Beth's mom's house, which didn't involve that much ringing, but Nellie did have bells on her collar.

Last night, we went to see Spamalot, which was a present for me from Beth, along with the soundtrack album. As you probably know, it's Eric Idle's reworking of Monty Python and the Holy Grail into a just as meta-referential Broadway musical. From the little I've read, some of the other Python members were confused by the whole thing, and I know Neil Innes took issue with not getting royalties for the songs he wrote, "Knights of the Round Table," "Brave Sir Robin" and "Run Away" (the latter was cut from the movie, but is in the show). I'm not sure what the royalty situation was for the Finland song, which I understand Michael Palin wrote. I found it very enjoyable, although it seems like most of the best jokes were the ones everybody already knew from the film, and expanding on some of them didn't make them funnier. Some of the adaptations to a different medium worked, however, like the Holy Hand Grenade exposing the killer rabbit's puppeteer, the expanded cast of French stereotypes, and how the Holy Grail was found (which of course it wasn't in the original). It also worked in a lot of other classic Python references, which is understandable. The story was streamlined a bit, with some of the side characters becoming the knights (as opposed to just being played by the same actors). The main new character was the Lady of the Lake, presumably because there weren't any significant women in the movie, and she was played as a total diva. There were a few more topical references as well, including George Santos appearing in a list of famous Jewish people involved with Broadway.

Current Music: Pinataland: The Ballad of John Banvard

Merry Christmas to anyone who celebrates, and I guess anyone who doesn't as well, although maybe you prefer not to be reminded of it! It's weird to think about how Christmas traditionally had twelve days, but for me it's basically over on the first. I've even seen some people doing Twelve Days activities that END on the twenty-fifth. We do still have to exchange gifts with my family around New Year's, though. Since the last time I wrote a life update, we saw the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, got our own, and attended a holiday concert by the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra.

I've already written about most of the stuff we watched this year on WordPress, although there were a few repeat viewings as well, including Rudolph, Frosty, Garfield, the Grinch, Claymation, and Home Alone. Beth got the complete DVD set of Tales from the Darkside for her birthday, so we watched the Christmas episode of that first.

Called "Seasons of Belief," it's about a dad telling his kids (one of whom is Six from Blossom) a story he makes up on the spot about a monster called the Grither, who lives at the North Pole and goes after anyone who says his name. The kids' mom and uncle join in on scaring the jingle bells out of the children, even improvising lyrics about the monster to the tune of "O Come All Ye Faithful." SPOILER AHEAD! It ends with the Grither showing up and killing the parents, the implication being that belief brought it to life. You only ever see his arms, which are gigantic. END SPOILER. Earlier on, the mom mentions that, if kids don't believe in Santa Claus, then their toys will break, which is much more subtle a punishment than being hit with a switch or stuffed in a bag. Tavie and Sean came by on Thursday, and we watched Whoever Slew Auntie Roo, a rewatch for Beth and me. They gave me a DuckTales T-shirt, which reminds me that we still need to watch the newer series.

On Christmas Eve, we saw the Christmas episode of The Odd Couple, "Scrooge Gets an Oscar," where Felix really wants Oscar to play Scrooge in the play he's directing, but Oscar wants nothing to do with it, as he and his ex-wife were married on Christmas Day. Of course he changes his mind after having a Scrooge-themed dream.

We'd tried two other times to go to the Creamy Acres Night of Lights, but Beth's mom was sick the first time, and the second it was sold out. We finally went on Saturday evening. During the pandemic, they changed it from a wagon ride to a drive-thru, but more recently they've had both. I don't really like driving through, though, as the view isn't as good. The wagon takes the same road as the cars. Most of the lights were the same this time, but they're always fun.

The music played during the ride included a Christmas song adapted from the Flintstones theme, even though they could have chosen from a few actual Flintstones holiday songs instead.

Watch on YouTube

They had a giant inflatable Bumble near the entrance, and a Grinch a little further on.

I also noticed some rather sinister-looking decorations inside.

Beth and I tend to sleep late when we don't have to get up for work, although I sometimes find myself waking up and doing something for a little while before trying to get back to sleep. I played a little bit of Animal Crossing, and delivered presents for Jingle, the reindeer who comes to visit for Toy Day. As with Easter and Bunny Day, it's an equivalent of the Christian holiday that only keeps the more secular elements. Santa Claus is mentioned, but doesn't show up.

Anyway, we didn't open our presents until afternoon. Beth gave me tickets to see Spamalot in January, as well as a CD of the original cast recording.

That's something that's likely up my alley, but I hadn't really thought about seeing. Along the same lines, Uncle John gave me a set of Song of Ice and Fire books. I remember starting to read the first one and not being that invested in it, but I'll definitely give it another chance. Then maybe I'll need to watch the TV show. We'll see about that. I'm late to most popular things. Nellie enjoyed playing with the wrapping paper.

She's staying back in New Jersey for the next week. And tomorrow we have work, because we don't do Boxing Day in this country.

Current Mood: okay
Current Music: Paper Mario The Origami King Soundtrack: The Ruins of Peach's Castle

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.

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: They Might Be Giants: Music Jail

I guess the first thing I should mention is that we sort of have a new cat, and I say "sort of" because she's not living with us yet. Beth's mom got a kitten from her sister's farm, intending to give her to us, but we should kitten-proof our apartment before bringing her to Brooklyn. Anyway, I named her Nellie, and so far she mostly seems interested in running around and playing. She's very active, and hasn't yet shown much interest in just sitting with people. She doesn't seem afraid of anybody, though. I feel bad that she wants to play with the dogs, but they're not interested.
Nellie 1.jpg

Beth and I both had our birthdays last week. On the day after hers, we had a pretty busy day, visiting the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, eating at a cafe, attending a lecture at Green-Wood Cemetery, and seeing a movie.

The lecture was about cremation, including its history and how it was done at that location. It's been standard in India for ages, but it took some time to catch elsewhere, including in the Americas. Even though the Pope has said it's okay, it's apparently still not popular in Catholic families. There was a time when there was a theological debate over whether bodily resurrection would be possible with ashes. Now it's probably just a matter of tradition. They also mentioned that it's not very energy efficient, and involves burning fossil fuels. I don't see any reason to preserve my body after I'm dead, but I guess that's more a decision for anyone still alive who might care than for me. I haven't yet made my post about the movie Thanksgiving, but I should have it up soon. I didn't do anything on my birthday except going out to eat at the Olive Garden; I feel we went out to do stuff so often in October that I was a little burned out, and didn't have any ideas anyway.
Birthday Stuff.jpg

Presents I received included two Carl Barks collections, the newest Belle and Sebastian album, and the book Fight, Magic, Items by Aidan Moher, which is about Japanese role-playing video games from a Western perspective.

Beth also bought me the Switch remake of Super Mario RPG while we were at Target. I finished the original back in the early 2000s, and I remember it being frustrating in parts, but I'm sure it'll be fun to revisit when I get around to it. I kind of got stuck in I Am Setsuna, so I've put that aside for the time being. And I started Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, but haven't gotten very far as of yet. It's cute, but I've had a little trouble with the battle system. And I'm still playing Animal Crossing, and I did the Turkey Day thing on Thursday. I realized I hadn't planted any white pumpkins on my island, so that's been taken care of. I also got "K.K. Birthday," which I think is the last of the K.K. Slider songs in the game, but I don't think there's any reward for that.

Super Mario Wonder looks fascinating, but as much as I love Mario, I'm not great at platform games.

Beth's mom made Thanksgiving dinner for us, and we were originally going to go to Creamy Acres for the Christmas hayride on Friday, but she wasn't feeling well. We'll try to do it some other weekend. We did have lunch with my mom, sister, sister-in-law, and nephew today. I've done a little bit of Christmas shopping, but not that much.

Current Music: Tori Amos: Black Swan

Halloween is over now, and I hope you're enjoying all the saints and all the souls. It's gotten cooler after some really warm days for October. I like not having to wear a jacket, but eighty degrees (Fahrenheit, of course) is just too much at this time of year. Anyway, here are a few things Beth and I went to recently.

Farm Pumpkin.jpg

On Friday, we visited the Queens County Farm Museum, which is not just a museum but an operating farm in Queens, dating back to 1697.
Farmhouse Plaque.jpg

They had a few fall events, including a hayride and a corn maze. The former was short, and not haunted or anything, just a ride around the farm. The latter, known as the Amazing Maize Maze, was only the second one we'd been to, the other a smaller one in Delaware.
Amazing Maize Maze.jpg

The way it was set up was that there were nine different mailboxes to find, each of which had a piece of a rough map of the maze. It was frustrating, because I could sometimes see the boxes, but not know how to get to them. Don't kids do these sometimes? We started around 4:30, and it officially closed at 5:30, at which point we'd only found maybe six of the mailboxes. While trying to make it back out again, though, we somehow came across the remaining ones. I suppose the trick is to not look for them. We saw several animals, too.

I also bought two apple cider doughnuts while there, and was hoping to get a small bottle of apple cider, but we didn't have time after the maze. I did already buy some cider at the grocery store a few days earlier, though.

Eerie Happenings.jpg

On Saturday, we saw a Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra performance. We had season tickets to these in the past, but this is the first one we'd attended in a while. It was called Eerie Happenings, and had spooky music, including Mendelssohn's Chorus of Druids and Witches from Die erste Walpurgisnacht (which is actually at the end of April), Dukas' "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," and several Dies Irae pieces. The conductor joked that he couldn't mention Mickey Mouse or Fantasia by name. The Dies Irae is a Gregorian chant about the end of the world quoted in a lot of other stuff, and they played versions by Mozart and Verdi. Beth asked which one I liked better, and I preferred the latter, as it was more exciting. Liszt's Totentanz also uses it, but in a different style. After the show, we went to a place called 8-Bit Bites, of which there are a few locations in the city. It has a fun aesthetic, with lamps shaped like Super Mario question blocks, and a door that makes the sound of Mario growing bigger when it's opened.
8 Bit Bites.jpg

There are a few different machines with multiple games on them, but we didn't play any. I had a chicken sandwich and a berry milkshake with pieces of Crunch Berries in it.

On actual Halloween, we saw a comedy show at the Bell House hosted by Joe Pera and Dan Licata. I didn't know what to expect from it, as all I really knew was that Pera was a comedian known for his slow, sincere delivery. Dan's style was rather more abrasive, and they did several bits together. I think interesting delivery was kind of a theme with some of the other comedians as well, although I'm not sure if that's part of the act or just how they talk. Joe dressed as Black Adam, and Dan wore a witch's hat. A few people in the audience for both this and the concert wore costumes, but neither of us did. Joe had a fairly lengthy discussion about lamb meatballs with a guy dressed as David S. Pumpkins. Before the show, there were kids going trick-or-treating at various businesses, which I knew was a thing, but it just wasn't what my neighborhood was like growing up.

Current Music: Erin McKeown: La Petite Mort

Last weekend was our trip to Pennsylvania. The original plan was to drive to Pittsburgh on Friday, go to Kennywood on Saturday, and then to Knoebels on Sunday. The thing is, Knoebels was only open for four hours on Sunday. We'd checked it before, but got confused. So instead, we went to Knoebels on Friday, when it was also only open four hours, but late hours rather than early ones. It was also raining on and off all evening. Still, we managed to ride most of what we'd wanted to. It was the first time either of us had ridden a Roll-O-Plane, which they called the Satellite.

They've also installed a Rock-O-Plane, but they haven't trained the employees to operate it as of yet. This is something Beth has been looking into recently, and she told me that these and the Loop-O-Plane are three different kinds of old rides, but the Roll-O-Plane is sometimes called the Salt and Pepper Shakers. I'm not sure how that name makes sense, but I guess the "shake" part is accurate enough. We also rode the Flying Turns, which is sort of a combination wooden roller coaster and bobsled track. On the sled parts, it rides up pretty high on the sides. They had scales set up to make sure the cars balanced out properly. I forget which ride it was that made me feel a little queasy. Beth said the Impulse bothered her, but I was fine with that one. The Antique Cars had a special setup for Halloween, as did the Pioneer Train.

They call this time of year "Hallofun," and while I probably would have included the W, nobody asked me.

Kennywood is 125 years old this year, and has a few attractions that are billed as the last of their kind. The Turtle was closed, but we did ride the Kangaroo for the first time. The gimmick to it is that part of its cycle goes over a ramp to produce a hopping effect. It also makes springing noises.

Noah's Ark is a walkthrough that's also the last of its kind in operation, and we did the Halloween version that was entirely in the dark with people jumping out at you.

I felt they let us in too close to the people in front of us, so most of the scares were spoiled. On the other hand, we could follow their voices, so it was a mixed blessing. Ghostwood Estate is a haunted ride that doesn't only run during Phantom Fall Fest (their name for the Halloween season), where you're supposed to shoot at targets to scare off ghosts. I wasn't very good at it. There's a guy who guides you through it named Lord Kenneth Ghostwood, but did he have that name when he was still alive? There's a new ride called Spinvasion, which has an alien theme and cars that swing while the whole thing spins around.

We walked through two of the haunted attractions, the zombie-filled Kennyville Cemetery and Malice in Wonderland Unleashed. What we didn't get to do was ride the Auto Race, which broke down while we were in line.

They had a lot of Halloween decorations, and these prizes at one of the games kind of reminded me of Dragon Quest.

I guess there's nothing particularly DQ-related about spherical creatures, but that's where my mind went.

I had originally wanted to drive maybe halfway home after this, but since it was an exhausting day, we instead stayed in Altoona and went most of the way on Sunday. We did stop on Saturday night at a place called Dean's Diner, after ruling out an understaffed Denny's and a closed Applebee's. I overheard a kid at the diner mention that there was a shooting in Indiana, which is where I went to college. We ate on Saturday afternoon at a cute restaurant called Fox's Diner, which served only breakfast on weekends.

And on Sunday, we had a meal at a surprisingly crowded Perkins. And I guess that's just about it for amusement parks this year, although we do still have tickets to Hersheypark.

Current Music: Decemberists: The Engine Driver

On Saturday, 16 September, Beth and I made our third annual trip to Dorney Park, where they had just started their Halloween thing. None of the waits were bad, but they did close some of the rides early, and we hadn't been aware of that ahead of time. They also closed off some of the paths through the park after dark, and there were a lot of kids running around recklessly. I don't think we rode anything new this time, except for the Cedar Creek Cannonball, which wasn't running on our previous two trips.

I might have ridden it as a kid, but I can't remember for sure. The park has two train rides, but I've never been there when both were operational. I did get a little sick, not seriously so, but my stomach felt uncomfortable. I think one of the worst rides for my general health is the Revolution. They had a lot of advertising for the Iron Menace, which is scheduled to open next year.

Last Saturday, we visited the Creamy Acres Night of Terror again.

The Moon was pretty cooperative. I understand we missed the Harvest Moon by one day.
It was mostly the same as last time, with a hayride and three walkthroughs, including one with 3-D glasses. The ground was muddy, but that wasn't anyone's fault. They had a flood warning in New York the day before, but fortunately Beth and I were both working from home. We posed for some pictures with a skeleton, who was pretty big, but not quite in Gashadokuro territory.

We also went to a Spirit Halloween, where the main things I wanted to photograph were costumes with off-brand names.

I don't even really understand the Serpent Queen, since I'm pretty sure "Medusa" and "Gorgon" aren't trademarked. We bought some T-shirts there, but haven't worn them yet.

Monday was Kevin Geeks Out at the Nitehawk in Prospect Park, which is a lot easier to get to than the one in Williamsburg. It was on fast food, and included a good mix of stuff. Emily Menez talked about vegetarian options at fast food places (there aren't many) and compared them to ones in fiction. Michael Williams did a pre-recorded bit on Australian fast food, and how it's common to have beetroot on burgers there. Sounds gross to me, but I usually get fast food sandwiches without any of the vegetables anyway. KFC in Australia tried having cartoon mascots for a brief time, a fox and a chicken hawk with Southern (American) accents.

And I really don't know why Burger King is called Hungry Jack's there. Audrey Lazaro discussed Jollibee's and its mascots. Mr. Yum struck me as being similar to Wimpy, with his suit and tie and association with hamburgers.

They kept the character, but made him younger and less formal.

Wimpy does have his own restaurant, although I've never been to one. Popeyes, the chicken place, was apparently not named after the sailor, but did use him in advertising up until 2012.

Watch on YouTube

Co-host Camila Jones did a match-up between pizza chain founders. Burlesque dancer Perse Fanny did a McDonald's themed striptease. And Max Bank did a bit as advertising executive Donny Deutsch, whom I'd heard of because he used to have a talk show on CNBC for some reason, which included a part about coming up with Uncle O'Grimacey. The Kindest Cut this time was the 1978 movie Starhops, which not only has a title presumably inspired by Star Wars, but even opens with a parody of its crawl. There was a bit about how Clara Peller from the Wendy's "Where's the Beef?" commercials did a rap with Coyote McCloud that seemed very similar to an earlier song using Rodney Dangerfield clips, and Adam Bernstein recorded his own parody for this show. And Kevin made a non-canonical but valid point about how Ronald McDonald is Grimace's best friend, but Grimace isn't Ronald's. The Grimazuzu picture is from a bit that was never fully developed, but I have written about both Grimace and Pazuzu pretty recently. We didn't actually eat fast food that day. The grilled cheese sandwich I had at a nearby café was made pretty quickly, but I don't think it counts. But then, Pizza Hut qualifying must be a pretty recent thing, as I remember having pretty long waits there when I was a kid. Or maybe they just felt long because I was impatient.

Current Music: They Might Be Giants: Hell Hotel

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