Went to hear the first night of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Series where the Emerson String Quartet played three of Beethoven's string quartets. It was sublime. The festival goes on for two weeks and takes places in venues all over metro Detroit, many of them astoundingly gorgeous churches and synagogues. A few are in Windsor, Ontario and in Ann Arbor so it is truly a regional delight. I last heard the Emerson String Quartet perhaps thirty years ago and they have only gotten more sublime.
Watched FLEABAG again and I have to say the second season may be the best 180 minutes I have spent this year watching a performance. Heartbreaking, amusing, true.
Started a series called THE SOCIETY and it looks like the Christian right may have infiltrated Netflix. Not sure after only twenty minutes but the signs were there.
Reading Kate Mulgrew's memoir. She is one smart cookie. For those who are unfamiliar with the name she was the sole female commander on a STAR TREK series, plays RED on OITNB and was Mary Ryan on Ryan's Hope in the seventies. Her writing is superb if a bit straining to be superb.
Hope you all had a happy father's day, fathers or not.
15 comments:
I'm glad you've been enjoying Kate Mulgrew's book, Patti. I always liked her very much. And that music sounds fabulous - so glad you had a chance to enjoy it.
Beethoven with the Emerson Quartet sounds pretty sublime to me, Patti! So glad you had the opportunity. Looks like they're still going strong, with appearances at all the major festivals this summer. It's pretty rare that a chamber group stays together for over forty years (with one cellist change).
Sounds very good, Patti. I read about the Mulgrew book, which does interest me. We tried FLEABAG again but Jackie disliked it. We're watching LINE OF DUTY (finished series two), GOOD OMENS (amusingly done, especially David Tennant), and THE BROKENWOOD MYSTERIES (New Zealand) on Amazon Prime/Acorn. BROKENWOOD reminds us somewhat of MIDSOMER MURDERS, but with somewhat better police work. On Netflix, we're enjoying season one of the German DARK (series two is coming this week), among the others. I like PERPETUAL GRACE LTD (on Epix), especially for the great Ben Kingsley, but man, the three young guys are total morons. Almost done with series two of DEEP STATE (also Epix, with the hardest working man in show business, Walton Goggins), and it is 1) not a patch on series one, 2) basically uninteresting to me at all. I am only forcing myself to sit through it because Jackie wants to see it.
The Happy Together Tour was no symphony, but for what it was, it was well done. But I don't think we'll be seeing it again for at least a couple of years. This year was at the historic St. George theater in Staten Island, so we took the ferry from Whitehall and walked up the hill.
Thanks for some new ideas, Jeff. Am trying PATRIOT on Prime. Not sure yet.
And the cellist was very lively, Bonnie. I never realized he is actually the only one that can do much with his head and so it is up to him to be the personality of the group.
Western NY endured another week of rain. More rain is in the forecast for this week, too. This has been the rainiest Spring in recent memory. On the plus side, our lawn is a lush green and our flowers and shrubs are growing wildly!
I'm enjoying listening to Bruce Springsteen's new music CD, WESTERN STARS.
MEN IN BLACK INTERNATIONAL is silly, but we enjoyed it (but we set the bar very low!). The cast was better than the script.
We also enjoyed LATE NIGHT. Emma Thompson's performance dazzled us!
The entire tribe went to Atlanta last weekend to catch THE LIGHTNING Thief, a musical based on Rick Riodan's first Percy Jackson novel. The drive to Atlanta was extra-long because of a violent storm that followed us most of the way -- blinding, torrential rain with 35-40 mile an hour winds with gusts up to 60 miles an hour. The show was frenetic (in a good way) with hard-rocking music aimed at the Percy Jackson core audience. The seven cast members did a fantastic job portraying a wide variety of characters. All in all an enjoyable performance and recommended. For the trip, the tribe increased by two, adding Mark's girlfriend Npami and Erin's boyfriend Trey. A good time was had by all.
Surprisingly there were no ocean ocean beaches in Atlanta, so our Sunday beach time took place at the Atlanta Aquarium. A fantastic place! I could have spent the entire day in front of its large ocean tank, which was mesmerizing, relaxing, and totally zen-like. Jack was one of the kids called on to play "Aquarium Jeopardy" during the sea-lion show and handled himself like a pro.
Jessie is now not only treatment-free but also cancer-free! She will be monitored over the next five years to be sure the cancer does not come back, but we are all doing a happy dance.
Flag Day was my father-in-law's birthday. We celebrated on Saturday with gigunda-sized ice cream sundaes -- a yearly tradition.
Father's Day saw us at the dog beach. Excellent weather, beautiful blue skies, and the clear green water that gives this area the name Emerald Coast. A perfect way to ground one;s self for the coming week. One dog got away from her owner and came over to us and laid down, refusing to get up for her owner. Coaxing did no good and the owner eventually lifted the dog into his arms and went away. The whole affair was amusing and we missing the dog after they left.
I hope your week brings you peace and happiness, Patti, and may it be ever-interesting in all the good ways.
So happy to hear about Jessie. Such a joyous family has to help cure her.
George-We have three days of rain to every nice day. My house is beginning to smell funky even with the dehumidifier running.
Ah, The Emerson Quartet. Excellent, I'm glad you got to attend that performance, Patti. Nothing much to report here, except Barbara is having arthroscopic surgery on her left knee on Friday, as it's not healing from her torn meniscus which she suffered in February. So under the knife (or laser?) she goes. I'll be doing taxi service, of course, and then Mr. Nurse once she's home.
We ran out of jigsaw puzzles to work, even went through the few we saved to re-do, so a large order of them is arriving late this week. We almost always have a puzzle underway, often working on it together, which we enjoy, so it's important to have a few in the house. Then we donate them to the library store, which is always glad to receive them.
The weather has been beautiful here, mid-70s to mid 80s, with the exception of two record-setting days in the low 90s. Thank goodness for fans and air conditioning!
My son gets all his puzzles from his library.
And it was an excellent performance.
Went to see The Who backed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra a couple weeks ago. But not much else going on. Haven't seen a movie in weeks. And not reading as much as usual.
Glad you liked the Emerson Quartet. Personally Chamber Music bores me to death.
Been watching NOS4A2, City On A Hill, Sneaky Pete and Good Omens. Just realized there is a new season of Luther on BBC America.
Looks like the rain is going away for awhile. Starting to think I was in Seattle.
The weather has been abysmal. Saw LATE SHOW yesterday. It was a nice enough movie but the clear correct ending was overlooked.
I went with Scouts on a mini-backpacking trip over the weekend. Fine weather on Saturday with some overnight rain. All the boys got along fine and mostly stayed organized. Some of us got a little wet in the rain but nobody go soaked and the overnight temps did not get too low. I had a good time.
I got back home at about 11AM on Father's Day and both sons came to say happy Father's Day. A new bottle of expensive bourbon and some socks. (Yeah, socks.) Three naps and some reading.
I downloaded some ebooks to my phone for the backpack trip and got Christa Faust's 3rd of 3 tie-in novels for the TV show FRINGE. So, I started re-watching that show on Amazon.
Summer has arrived here and now that my sprained foot is healing I need to get outside more often and enjoy the weather. I hope the mosquitoes are not crazy this year.
Always meant to try FRINGE. The mosquitoes are crazy here.
I might be more happy than I am with the almost 3K hits I've gotten from the Czech Republic this afternoon, if I wasn't relatively certain they were going t provide text for spam messages or somesuch.
But perhaps some actual information will reach actual eyes...
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