Archive
Review of the Boston Ballet’s Performance of Bella Figura (2011)
While on my staycation, I decided to take in some of the cultural sights/events around my fair city that it’s normally difficult to find the time to do. One of these was the Boston Ballet. I just went with whatever show happened to be playing the weekend of my vacation, and this happened to be Bella Figura–a modern ballet.
Since we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the Boston Opera House at all, we’re just going to hope that my words will suffice in explaining the complete unexpectedness of the ballet.
My friend and I were uncertain as to what, exactly, the ballet was supposed to be about, so naturally we consulted our programs. The most clear line in the entire description was, “Standing in the darkness and staring into a sharp light with eyes closed.” There is so much wrong with that sentence. If you are standing in the darkness, there is no sharp light. If your eyes are closed, you aren’t staring into anything…..
In any case, the first act opened on a blue background with stools in the back. The word “the” on a plaque was on the floor at the front of the stage. This, combined with the dancers’ blue and white traditional attire, conspired to give the appearance of a typical dance studio. The music was electrical and came from the speakers, not the orchestra pit. The dancing was firm, vibrant, and called to mind the gang dance scenes from West Side Story. Simultaneously crazy and choreographed, it elicited pure joy in myself at the playfulness of the whole thing. I honestly wasn’t entirely sure what the message was, but to me, it was that craziness can be fun. It ended with one of the male dancers firmly kicking over the plaque. To me, this symbolized defeating the norm.
The second act consisted of three scenes of pairs of dancers obviously supposed to be emulating romantic relationships. This was the only act that the orchestra made an appearance for. All three dances were clearly about romantic relationships, yet each relationship was unique and exquisite. Of particular note was the second romantic pairing which had a gorgeous moon background, dry ice fog, and the most sensual ballet dancing I personally have ever seen. It brought tears to my eyes and my friend and I commented to each other that the dances beautifully represented the push and pull, good and bad of all romantic relationships. It was touching in the pure universality of such relationships.
The third act, however, was quite simply, baffling. It opened with a set of flashing blue tubes rising from the floor, giving the illusion that the dancers had set up a bomb or something. The dancers then started dancing in time with the music, which was again pre-recorded, but not with each other. The lead female dancer then came out in a tribal red skirt and topless. The men were dancing in, essentially, boxer-briefs, which in and of itself was enjoyable, but evidently the outfit choice was to allow for the men to punctuate their dance moves by slapping themselves on the thigh. The female lead then danced in front of a curtain with someone else behind the curtain who periodically groped her through the curtain, alternately hiding her breasts and showing them to the audience. The toplessness came and went throughout the act with approximately six dancers (three male and three female) periodically appearing topless. The other portions were taken up by dancers who, while clothed, essentially seemed to be doing a more graceful version of the robot. Frequently during this portion there were three dancers on stage. The only message I got from this act was that “threesomes can be really fun.”
Overall, I entirely enjoyed my visit to the ballet. It was not at all the stuffy visit I was expecting. Our usher was truly an awesome lady who just wanted us to enjoy our afternoons. Our section was full of other 20-somethings who were capable of both strong emotions and simultaneously didn’t take anything too seriously. Seeing such disciplined bodies in action was inspiring, and the first act spoke to my preference for alternative music and dance styles. However, it must be said, what touched me the most at my core was the most traditional portion of the show–the second act. Seeing relationships played out exquisitely in dance hearkens back to the origins of dance. It is the second act that would make me go to the Boston Ballet again.
Friday Fun! (MIA Reading Challenge Update)
Hello my lovely readers! Since we have just one week left of April, I thought I’d provide an MIA Reading Challenge update! I’m so pleased with the enthusiasm for the challenge shown by the participants, particularly since this is its first year existing.
By far our most prolific participant so far is Karen. Her reads have covered everything from OCD to Antisocial Personality Disorder. So far she has read and reviewed (links to her reviews): Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood, An Unquiet Mind, Cut, The Bell Jar, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Dearly Devoted Dexter, Dexter in the Dark, Missing, House Rules, and I Don’t Want to Be Crazy. She’s only one book away from completing the highest level of the challenge. Go Karen!
Jules is keeping up a nice, steady pace so far, having read two books (links to her reviews): The Bell Jar (Depression) and Alias Grace (Dissociative Identity Disorder). Keep it up, Jules!
Jessica also has finished two books (links to her reviews): The Silver Linings Play Book (recovery from mental break-down) and The Madonnas of Leningrad (Alzheimer’s). Excellent pace for the level you signed up for, Jessica!
I’ve also completed two books that fit into the challenge description (links to my reviews): American Psycho (Antisocial Personality Disorder) and Hunger (Anorexia Nervosa).
Thank you everyone for your participation so far this year and for raising awareness on mental illnesses. We may be a small group so far, but hopefully each year will grow!
If you’ve read books for the challenge and I did not list you, please comment and let us all know! Unfortunately with the way my blog is, you commenting and telling me is the easiest way for me to keep up with what everyone has read.
It’s not too late to sign up for the challenge if you’re interested! Check out the MIA Reading Challenge page to find out more.
Happy weekends all!
Book Review: Soul Hunt by Margaret Ronald (Series, #3)
Summary:
Native Bostonian Evie Scolan is an adept bicycle courier and has her first real relationship in a while. Of course, her life isn’t quite that simple. First, she’s The Hound with an uncannily adept sense of smell that helps her find things. Plus her boyfriend is a werewolf. Then there’s the whole try to keep the magical Undercurrent in Boston under control so her beloved city doesn’t fall apart thing. Not to mention the death sentence given to her by yet another sector of the Undercurrent giving her only until Midwinter to pull everything together. Plus the Sox are sucking this season.
Review:
Yet again, I accidentally picked up a book that is partway through a series. I’ve noticed this is a lot easier to do when it’s an ebook than a print book, because the print book tends to have a giant “3” or something on the binding, whereas the ebook gives you zero clue that this is part of a series. Work on that, publishers. Due to this fact, I spent the solid first half of the book trying to figure out what the heck was going on in Evie’s world. Unlike paranormal romance that tends to offer up a quick recap of the important details, it would appear that urban fantasy isn’t so keen on that. Well, that and Ronald’s world she has created is incredibly complex and hard to understand fully part-way into a series.
That aside, however, how is it for an urban fantasy novel? Well, the fantasy element is strong and intensely connected to elements of urban living from good and bad neighborhoods to trolley tracks to old, abandoned buildings, to secret tunnels and ghosts. This has it all if you’re after some seriously steeped fantasy.
Further, as a Bostonian myself, I can tell you that Ronald gets the local slang and layout of the neighborhoods right. Personally, I think she’s a bit heavy-handed with the Red Sox love demonstrated by Evie. I don’t really think Evie would be thinking about the Sox season sucking when she’s currently facing death, but maybe I’m just not enough of a fanatic myself. Hah.
I think, perhaps, that why I couldn’t get into this partway through the way I could other series I started in the middle is that I don’t like Evie, and the mythos of the Undercurrent is way more confusing than it should be. I can’t think of very much that’s appealing or redeeming about Evie as a character, which is problematic when she’s the heroine. Similarly, she’s not beautifully broken or anything. She reads as just…..average. The fact that this is the case when she also has this weird supernatural nose is saying something. Make Evie evil! Make Evie kick-ass! Just don’t make her so dull that I have zero doubt that I wouldn’t give her a second glance if I happened to see her on the streets of Boston.
Similarly, the mythos of the Undercurrent seems to change to suit the author’s needs. Maybe I was missing plot twists from missing the earlier books, but it all just seems so much more complex than it needs to be. Plus, what exactly makes Evie repeatedly go up against demigods when her only supernatural talent is the nose thing? It just doesn’t make sense to me. That and the whole part dog thing is just….ew.
I came into this wanting to love it, as I do with any book set in my home of Boston. The fact is though, too much turned me off from it. It is a fairly well-written urban fantasy, though, and a nice change from the typical southern setting we see. I’d recommend it to urban fantasy fans looking for a change of scenery who don’t mind a rather ordinary heroine who’s basically part dog.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Amazon
Previous Books in Series:
Spiral Hunt
Wild Hunt
Friday Fun! (What’s Important to Me)
Hello my lovely readers! I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking the last few months about what really matters to me. I guess you’d say what values I hold dear. I didn’t just stick with the ones I was raised with. I’ve done a lot of research and soul-searching to figure out what’s important to me. That’s what makes me stick so strongly to my guns on things I truly believe in. The more time that has passed since I’ve gotten back on my feet from the awfulness that was winter, the more I realize that what it all boils down to, for me, is that I haven’t lost hope in the world. I have hope that we can change the world. I have hope we can make it a better place. I have hope we can fix the trajectories of previous generations’ bad decisions. I have hope that the cycles of violence, grief, and pain can stop. We only have to want it. I firmly believe that Gandhi was right when he said “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” That is at the core of my belief system. I don’t have faith in a god or spirits to fix things. I don’t have faith in government to fix things. But I do have faith in myself. I have faith that I can change for the better. The cycles of violence and pain stop with me. That basic philosophy extends out into everything else I do, from my firm belief in vegetarianism (that is gradually moving toward veganism) to my commitment to someday adopt at least one child. And I just can’t be around negative people anymore. I can’t be close to people who are willing to just give up. Humanity didn’t struggle and evolve so much to just quit evolving. It’s just that maybe the next step of evolution has more to do with our minds and our behaviors than how our bodies work.
Namaste, yo.
Friday Fun! (Netflix)
Hello my lovely readers! Sorry for the slow week on the blog. Normally if I’m caught up in a few longer books at a time, I’d grace your presence with movie reviews, but *shocker* I haven’t really been watching anything lately. In fact, I’m watching tv and movies so infrequently that I’m having this mental debate about whether or not to suspend my Netflix subscription. There once was a time when I only very rarely watched a movie, and generally I would do so in the theater or borrow a dvd from a friend. I think I’m shifting back to that persona. There’s just so much else to do! Even playing a videogame is preferable, because, let’s be honest, with my xbox I can either play an active kinect game or play on live with friends.
I’ve become so much more active now that I’m getting back to who I really am that honestly by the time I get home, I would rather spend a couple of hours making myself an amazing dinner or make something quick then snuggle up in bed with a book and my cat. I know that might sound pathetic, but I don’t even get home until late most nights due to plans with friends or going to the gym or heck, just wanting to be outside. I like it that I get home and am exhausted. I like feeling at the end of the day like I’ve done something with myself. I like that it doesn’t take me hours and hours to fall asleep.
So what’s the point of having Netflix? I like watching instantly, but honestly, most of the time I watch things on hulu or mtv. I’ve had the same disc from Netflix since the beginning of February. The more I think about it, the more it seems like an unnecessary expense. Yet whenever I go to suspend it I think *wait*, but what if there’s a movie or a documentary or a tv show I really want to see and Netflix is my only choice? What then?!
I think I’m at a stand-still of indecision for the moment. :-P
Friday Fun! (The Gym and Body Image)
Hello my lovely readers and a happy April Fool’s Day to you! There’ll be no tricks on my blog, but if you want to have some fun, be sure to check out ThinkGeek‘s home page today. :-)
In any case, today I want to talk to ya’ll about body image and the gym, because I think it’s something that keeps a lot of folks out of the gym when it shouldn’t. When I joined the gym one of the things I was the most nervous about was exercising, changing, showering, sauna-ing (is that a word? It should be) around other people who might be judging me. Yes, I have fairly good body image, but I’m still a person and struggle with it periodically. I mean really, who doesn’t? Beyond not wanting to have men hogging the weights and hitting on me, I also joined a women only gym purely because I wanted to be in the company of other women who hopefully wouldn’t be judgmental pricks like certain girls in highschool tend to be. But I was just like “Fuck it. I won’t let the possibility of some women being bitches to me keep me from being healthy,” so I joined. And you know what? It has been the best body image experience of my life, and no, that is not just because I’m getting more confidence in my body’s abilities.
I have not once heard a single woman say a single derogatory thing about another woman in my gym. Not once. The women are astoundingly kind. The women are universally thoughtful of each other and profusely kind at sharing equipment and amenities. I have never once heard a personal trainer say the f-word (fat). I have never seen a trainer yelling at a woman. I have never seen a class instructor without a smile on her face. I’ve only heard trainers and instructors encouraging women, telling them, “Society tells you you can’t do this because you’re a woman, but I’m telling you that your body is amazing, and you can.”
But it goes beyond that. I see women of all shapes, sizes, ethnicities, races in the locker room, and you know what? That has just totally opened my eyes to the fact that the Hollywood ideal, society’s mantra of what a woman *should* look like just simply does not reflect reality. And I find every woman I encounter in the locker room and sauna beautiful in her own unique way. And I got to thinking, if I find them beautiful, if they’re here doing their thing with their body, then why should I ever diss my own body or get down on it or not embrace it? My body is amazing. It can do seriously amazing things. I can bench press weights. I can hold the dancer’s pose. I can run. I can do chin-ups. I can almost touch my forehead to the floor. Plus, my body can nurture life or not, as I see fit. My body can do all these things and is simultaneously uniquely mine, and that is what makes it so awesome.
Friday Fun! (Spring!)
Hello my lovely readers! Spring has finally started to show up in New England! Spring is always a conflicted time for me. I love the warm weather and appearance of new life, don’t get me wrong. I also, however, am seriously allergic to spring. Even with meds, I still have to limit my time outside. So even while I want to go out and run along the Charles River path and be completely ridiculous, I can’t really. Well, unless I want to spend the entire next day in bed wheezing for air. So my days in the spring pretty much consist of, “Yay! It’s 60 out! I could go for a nice long walk……wait. No. No I can’t.” So spring is a bit of a Catch-22 for me.
On the plus side, now I get to plan my container garden! Last year was my first year, and I learned a lot. “Learned a lot” means that I only successfully grew one plant. However! Here’s hoping that this year I will be able to apply what I learned and get at least two successful plants. Maybe even four. Mhm. I’m thinking of trying a pepper, a tomato, a zucchini, and some sort of bean. I want to see climbing things in my kitchen! So pretty! Hopefully the cat will leave the plants alone. She’s periodically good and periodically bad. Just like a person. ;-)
Other than that, life continues on as usual. I have some of the most awesome friends in the world who I see as much as possible. I’m getting in my gym time and ever improving the quality of what I eat. I feel healthier every day and every week is a new adventure. Of course, I’m also consistently reading. My first passion in life. Happy weekends all!
Friday Fun! (I’m Being Boring Lately So Here’s Some Wishlist Highlights)
Hello my lovely readers! I hope your weeks went well. Last weekend I went to a collegiate hockey game with a friend. It was crazy fun and full of adorable 10 year old boys in Bruins jerseys rooting for BC. It also was surprisingly warm for a building housing an ice skating rink. That could be the Vermonter in me talking though. I also hung out with one of my friends and watched trashy horror movies.
Other than that, my week has been quite normal. Well. Aside from having finally done my taxes and seeing I get moneys back for having been in graduate school last year and also being poor. Yay! I suddenly feel totally justified in getting my Xbox Kinect. So. Since I’m being an epically boring vegetarian librarian alternating between reading a shit-ton, weight lifting and doing chin-ups at the gym, and watching mini-marathons of Teen Mom 2 (for the schadenfreude aspect), I think today I’ll give you all a glance at some books on my wishlist. (Ok, some of them have yet to make it onto my LibraryThing wishlist, but they’re on my wishlist in my head, ok?!) I will probably not be able to afford them anytime soon or justify buying them since I currently have a pile of 79 physical books to read in my tiny apartment. *shuffles feet* Anywho. Here we go.
- Meat is for Pussies by John Joseph
This is marketed as a going vegan book for men written by a vegan male martial arts fighter. It’s supposed to blow the myth of being a male vegan equating being weak and/or not masculine out of the water. Since it’s a perpetual problem that veg*nism has a hard time appealing to the men of humanity, I’m very curious to check this out. - Supermarket Vegan: 225 Meat-Free, Egg-Free, Dairy-Free Recipes for Real People in the Real World
by Donna Klein
Fact: I am poor. Further Fact: I don’t have a car. Even Further Fact: The nearest grocery store to me is crazy cheap and mainstream so it’s not always easy for me to find obscure ingredients often listed in vegan recipes. (I do take the time to order vital wheat gluten and nutritional yeast in bulk from Amazon though. That shit is awesome). Anyway, I’m very intrigued by the concept of this book. I hope the recipes are creative and not just like “pasta, veggies, rice, have fun.” We’ll see! - Canning for a New Generation: Bold, Fresh Flavors for the Modern Pantry
by Liana Krissoff
This comes across to me as the Stitch n Bitch for canning. I’m very intrigued by canning but am put-off by how old-fashioned most of the recipes and methods in the cookbooks are. Why am I into canning you ask? Hey. Ya’ll know how into local food and preparing for the zombie apocalypse I am. - Dead in the Family
by Charlaine Harris
Ok, so I could own this already, but I own the previous books in the Sookie Stackhouse series in mass market paperback, and the SERIES MUST MATCH. Also, I can’t suddenly switch to ebooks for the series at this point in the game, but I would if I could. - Handling the Undead
by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Besides having the most difficult to spell name of any author on this list, Lindqvist also wrote Let the Right One In, which I think is a wonderful twist on/addition to vampire lore. I can’t wait to see what he does to zombies. - The Loving Dead
by Amelia Beamer
All you need to know about this book is that the zombie plague is an STD in it. AN STD. MUST READ. - Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?
by Max Brallier
I was completely obsessed with Choose Your Own Adventure (CYA) stories when I was a kid, even the craptastic fundy Christian ones my parental units made me read. This is a CYA set in the ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE. It’s like a zombie videogame. Only it’s a book. COVET - The Secret Feminist Cabal: A Cultural History of Science Fiction Feminisms
by Helen Merrick
I’m just obsessed with feminist scifi and any study of or collection of feminist scifi I’ve read in the past has been motherfucking awesome. Can’t wait to see what new authors and stories I’ll discover through this book.
There’s your glimpse at my wishlist! Hope you enjoyed! Hopefully I’ll have more real life stories for you next week. Also I’m just noticing that this is an interesting mix of zombies, sex, feminism, and veg*ism. Huh. I’m *coughs* a unique one, eh?
Friday Fun! (Post Grad School)
Hello my lovely readers! I hope your weeks have been lovely with lots of time for reading crammed in. My week has been decidedly uneventful, which I am totally ok with after the insane eventfulness of the last 6 months or so. I’m settled into a post-grad school routine of work, friends, gym, cooking, professional job hunting, etc… It’s great to actually have the time to see my friends more often now than when I was in school. We’re managing to find fun ways to occupy our time in spite of the bitter cold, whether that’s Asian fusion food or hockey games. (Go BC kick UNH’s ASS). In fact, I’m so busy doing fun things that by the time I get home at night, I generally grab a quick snack or dinner then climb into bed to read and fall asleep doing so. I woke up with my glasses still on this morning. Luckily I was reading on my ipod so it turned itself off at some point in the night so no electricity was wasted. This does mean that I’m watching far fewer movies, except for when I have friends over to get drunk and watch trashy old horror movies together. ;-) Of course there are the normal post-grad school money worries and the stress of trying to fit everything in to your work week, not to mention actually making the time to wash your laundry so you have clean clothes to wear, but overall, life is good. *looks around* *knocks on wood*
Oh! I also got an xbox 360 and played a Kinect game for the first time and dudes. It is so fucking cool. The future of gaming if I do say so myself. Playing a game with your body and no controls? It’s like something out of a fucking scifi movie. The only annoying part is having to move my furniture every time I play.
There’s really not too much else to say right now. I’m striving for various goals, but I plan on only updating ya’ll on them once I’ve achieved them. I prefer not to jinx myself. ;-) In the meantime, I hope to keep encouraging everyone’s love of reading and story-telling. Happy weekends!
Friday Fun! (Soup Season)
Hello my lovely readers! It’s alternating between a pleasant 40-something degrees and so fucking damn cold that you just want to curl up under your pile of blankets and stay there forever. This clearly means that it is soup making season.
The great thing about soups is not only do they warm you up, but they also actually taste better when reheated than the first time around. Plus when you make a huge pot, there’s enough for dinner, lunch the next day, and some leftover to freeze for a busy evening later in the month. As such, I’ve been making soups non-stop yo.
I have a plethora of options for actual soup recipes, as opposed to what I did in previous winters which was dump boullion, veggies, and pasta or rice in water and call it good enough. No, no. Now I’m making such things as Thai Butternut Squash and Lime Soup or Kale Potato Soup or Root Veggies Red Lentil Dal. It’s divine. It’s awesome. It’s healthy. It’s one of the pluses to cold weather. I mean, seriously, I can’t imagine downing that dal in 90 degree heat. Just would not work.
Of course, when the soup doesn’t cut it to warm you up, gin always also helps. (Yes, I know technically it thins your blood so you get colder, but you still *feel* warmer, and that’s the point, isn’t it?)
Happy weekends all!
Support my work with a tip or browse my shop for curated book club guides, how to guides, cross-stitch patterns, and more!
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Opinions of a Wolf 