Ticket Season – Part One, Seattle Opera

“I love tickets!” squeals Cameron Diaz’s character in the first Charlie’s Angels movie. (And why has no one ever made a gif of that?) It’s supposed to illustrate what an eccentric character she is, but I understand completely. I love tickets. And spring is ticket season. Season-ticket season, to be precise. All of the arts organizations announce their upcoming seasons, tickets go on sale, and I spend hours each spring planning what I will be doing on Saturday nights all next winter. Case in point: Seattle Opera.

Doe Bay Guardian

This statue stands guard over the bay at Doe Bay Resort on Orcas Island. It is irresistible to children, who are compelled to climb it. And it terrifies me, because I constantly imagine them tumbling off the statue and all the way down into the bay below. No one else seems worried, though, so maybe I just need to have more faith in the guardian.

Omakase at Pacific Northwest Ballet

Photo © Angela Sterling c/o PNB

Omakase, written with the character for trust, is the word you use when you order chef’s choice at a sushi restaurant. It shows that you trust the skill of the chef to know better than you what is in season and what will taste best together. When you say omakase, instead of giving an order, you are trusting the chef to create the best experience for you, like a DJ controlling the atmosphere of a party by selecting the right beats. You are likely to be served dishes outside of your comfort zone, and while you might not like all of them, a good chef will create a more delicious and memorable meal than you could have selected for yourself.

Each spring, Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Director’s Choice program is ballet omakase. The mixed rep program is Director Peter Boal’s opportunity to express his own taste and to stretch the audience and the dancers with dances that are more challenging or unusual than the regular season fare.

Martial Artists Use The Back Door

It reminds me of this sign from Fists of Fury.

It’s not the same thing, of course. It’s actually stage direction for a local Aki Matsuri (Autumn Festival). Even fake discrimination is not really funny, but I got a kick out of the idea of martial artists as the socially unacceptable group that has to use the back door.

Susan Orlean’s Writerly Autopsy at Hugo House

 

“Your first impulse shouldn’t be ‘I’m going to tape it,’ your first impulse should be to listen.” – @susanorlean pic.twitter.com/XL0NoHV9RM

— Hugo House (@HugoHouse) March 11, 2016

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Leaving the house always takes a bit of courage. It’s so much easier to stay home and read a book. But on this night I didn’t hesitate, because I had a ticket to Susan Orlean’s Writerly Autopsy at Hugo House.

Rearview Mirror: Recent Writing

Gratisography http://gratisography.com/

It’s been a busy couple of months on the Crooked Road. As it often does, change came suddenly, and I went from barely working half time to working a little more than full time in a matter of days. The gig that made the difference won’t result in much publicly viewable work, but it is oiling some mental hinges that were starting to get rusty, and it pays well – or it will, when I start getting paid. I’m going to do my best to keep up the production of regular work. Here is a summary of what I’ve been up to lately.

Doe Baby

Doe Bay has a slogan that says their music festival is for kids and adults can come, too. I’ve been to many music festivals around the Northwest and abroad, and the tiny Doe Bay, in addition to being a great place to hear next year’s hottest new bands, is the most kid-friendly.

The festival is tiny in part to maintain that wholesome family feeling, and partly due to the limitations of island septic systems. Tickets are almost impossible to get unless you stay at Doe Bay Resort in the off-season and buy tickets while you’re there. The folks who put it together also throw the Timber and Timbrrr festivals, which share a lot of the same great music and laid back atmosphere, but without the ticket scarcity.

(I know you’re not supposed to post pictures of other people’s kids on the internet, but I love this picture from Doe Bay Fest several years ago. Whoever this kid is, they’re not a baby anymore, and there’s no way they could be identified from this picture so I hope it’s okay just this once.)

Crocodile Rock

Thanks to Rain City Rock Camp, my 11-year-old daughter has already been in multiple bands and played The Crocodile Cafe twice. My husband’s college band never did get to play that club.

What you are left with

 

Photo by Chris Bennion

To quote Nick Cave, “I don’t believe in the myth of a personal God,” but sometimes it really does seem as if a higher power is pushing you to do something. First, my editor asked me if I wanted to cover Brooklyn Bridge at Seattle Children’s Theatre at the last minute. I was too swamped with work and personal commitments to take the assignment. Then a neighbor had spare tickets, but we were already cocooned for the evening with a video and snacks. When a good friend I see too seldom told me she had an extra ticket for a Tuesday noon performance, I finally took the cosmic hint and agreed to go – if I could get away from work. After all, Brooklyn Bridge is more than a play about a famous bridge, it’s about writing. Well, it’s also about communities and found family, but let’s focus on writing, since that makes my attendance less like skipping work and more like research.

Maria Stuarda and other Powerful Women

Joyce El-Khoury (Mary Stuart), Michael Todd Simpson (Cecil) and Keri Alkema (Elizabeth I). Jacob Lucas photo c/o Seattle Opera

I always feel a little sorry for Donizetti. He’s like a low-ranking player in the NBA – easily better at his game than anyone you’ve ever met, but forever overshadowed by his more talented peers. Donizetti worked in the first half of the 19^th century and a handful of his operas are still performed today. That’s pretty good. But he’s still not as famous as the other big bel canto composers, Verdi, Rossini, and Puccini, and with good reason. His canto is bel, but to my ear, feels a little … predictable? Formulaic? But Donizetti has one advantage over his peers – an interest in powerful women.