Broadway presents Cats!

Posted on April 29, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Cats! What fun. Courtesy, again, of my Pops. Thanks Pops.

I got to take one of my oldest, best friends, and we started off with sushi and drinks – thanks Barrett! It was an excellent evening of quality time on top of the theatre.

And, the show was one of the best I’ve seen this year, along with West Side Story. I spoke with some ladies at intermission who were concerned about following the “plot” – but I think this is a show, almost as much as Cirque du Soleil, that asks that we release the plot restrictions. It’s an exhibition of various talents and arts, mostly song and dance, but also acrobatics and displays of flexibility, again in Cirque style. As Barrett put it, Cats is a little bit a series of character studies, of a variety of different cat personalities. The fat, lazy cat; the mischievous, trouble-making cat; the lecherous cat; the old tired warrior cat; the sick and tattered cat; the magician cat. It’s a celebration of cats – what could make more sense? But mostly it’s song and dance and Theatre, people!

And oh man, the costumes! Serious stuff, and many of them spandex and very revealing – you know, this is a very popular musical to take your children to, but I must say, some of the gyrations were pretty… to the point. I’m not real squeamish – and I’m not saying I was bothered by what I saw – but it’s quite a sensual production. Certain things are not much left to the imagination! I wasn’t bothered, but I was surprised. I’m not saying your children aren’t safe, and my hypothetical policy of parenthood (which is vague since I’m not a parent) would certainly allow children to see this play; they might not “get” what I got, anyway. But I could see some parents being a little surprised, too.

I had a fabulous time; this was a dazzling show with lights and acrobatics and feats of movement and action and magic. Everything was professionally produced to perfection. Again, along with West Side Story, the best show I’ve seen this year.

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The Pied Piper by Ridley Pearson (audio)

Posted on April 28, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Another effort to become more universally familiar with the mystery genre. Another lackluster review; but to be fair, two things: 1) the Husband and I listened to the abridged audiobook, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it was very heavily abridged. 2) this was a fair audiobook. Passable. Got us through Tyler and almost up to Texarkana. Which is to say, vastly superior to Shoot Him If He Runs.

It was just a bit too rushed. In only 3 cds, I’m going to assume we lost quite a bit of character and plot development. Even at this rate, the characters were interesting and likable; I’m genuinely concerned about Boldt’s wife who’s dying of leukemia and intrigued by her spirituality. I wanted to get to know these people better and, to give Pearson the benefit of the doubt, I’ll guess that I could have, if I had read the unabridged book. This level of abridgement hurt the flow, style, and interest of the plot, assuming it was a good book to begin with.

Would I give Pearson another try? I’d be willing to if he fell in my lap at the right moment. I’m not against him.

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These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf

Posted on April 27, 2011 by pagesofjulia

This book drew me in (and presumably I was not the only one!) with its blurbs all over the interwebs referencing abundant vagueness: teenaged Allison has just been released from prison; the former perfect princess committed some unspecified, horrendous crime. Brynn, her invisible sister, struggles to move on from her sister’s mistake. And two unrelated women angst over Allison’s presence, while a little boy’s fate is held in the balance. All this vagueness, and promises of suspense, got me excited; but I found myself disappointed in the end.

For one thing, The Big Question of what Allison did is answered very early on, which I found rather anticlimactic; the questions that remained for the rest of the book felt a touch wanting in suspense after the blurbs built me up. Perhaps most frustrating was the continued and continuing obsession with maternity and motherhood that I’ve repeatedly observed in today’s pop fiction. That’s a personal beef; it’s just not my fave; but it’s worth noting that this book seems to follow a trend.

I didn’t find any one character really sympathetic. Each of them was mildly likeable; but none got me really deeply rooting for them. Also, there was almost no male role at all in the whole book. Again, this is a personal gripe, since I like my worlds a little more gender-diverse. In the end the most likeable character I found was the grandmother, but she was pretty minor; I don’t think she even had a name.

It’s not all bad. I did sit up and read this book all the way through in one sitting; I stayed up past my bedtime to finish it (not much, just 1/2 an hour, maybe an hour); I wanted to get to the end. But, it wasn’t the most burning need-to-finish; and I wouldn’t have stayed up much later. It was a fine book that suited me for an evening. It was an easy read: enjoyable, superficial and superficially enjoyable. Not a bad thing for a plane trip or bus ride. But nothing especially sparkled. I give it a “meh” and am disappointed because I had hoped for more.

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Teaser Tuesdays: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Posted on April 26, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

OH this is a fabulous book! I love that there are SO many great reads out there. I know that I can keep saying this my whole life: why did I wait so long??

Your teaser today comes from page 36:

I wanted to go back again, to recapture the moment that had gone, and then it came to me that if we did it would not be the same, even the sun would be changed in the sky, casting another shadow, and the peasant girl would trudge past us along the road in a different way, not waving this time, perhaps not even seeing us. There was something chilling in the thought, something a little melancholy, and looking at the clock I saw that five more minutes had gone by. Soon we would have reached our time limit, and must return to the hotel.

I’m adoring this book; it’s delicious. The beginning is mostly in pursuit of romance, and I’m excited for the engagement that is clearly coming (this is not a spoiler; the whole book is about the narrator’s role as Wife). But even in the midst of a budding marriage, the tone is spooky. The story is written from a distance of years, and with the narrator’s knowledge of what unpleasantness is to come – but I, the reader, don’t share this knowledge. I know something unpleasant is coming, but don’t know what. It feels like a ghost story but actually I really don’t know what’s wrong at Manderley! How exciting! I know, I’m very late to discover this enjoyable book, but I am enjoying it now!

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hemingWay of the Day: on uniforms

Posted on April 26, 2011 by pagesofjulia

The first time we [Hem with French guerrillas] had entered the town all but two were naked from the waist up, and the populace did not greet us with any degree of fervor. The second time I went in with them, everyone was uniformed and we were cheered considerably. The third time we went through the town the men were all helmeted and we were cheered wildly, kissed extensively and heavily champagned, and we made our headquarters in the Hotel du Grand Veneur, which had an excellent wine cellar.

from Battle for Paris, printed in Collier’s on September 30, 1944

I like this not only because of the evident power of uniform, but also because of that final aside that the Hotel had an excellent wine cellar. So much is implied by this brief phrase.

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NOLA: thankfully, a phoenix

Posted on April 25, 2011 by pagesofjulia

I spent last weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana with my parents, celebrating my father’s birthday. It was a milestone one, but I’ll leave the numbers out in case he’d prefer it that way. 🙂 The Husband didn’t get to join us because he had a different celebration going on: his parents were celebrating a milestone anniversary. What a weekend! Congrats and happy birthdays all around.

I’ve never had such a lovely time in New Orleans. It was one high point after another. I left work early on Friday to get there in the early evening, and walked Bourbon Street with the folks and had a delicious dinner at NOLA, one of Emeril’s restaurants. Saturday morning was my father’s big birthday event, the Crescent City Classic 10k race, a very big and very big-deal race through the French Quarter and out to City Park. I ran with Pops to the start and ran around a bit til the race came by where I was stationed on Rampart, and even jumped in to run a few blocks with him – I’m not a runner, really, but had a nice run myself while he had a very HOT but ultimately successful race. Next was breakfast with my mother, walking the French market, and then lunch with all three of us together again.

Then we went to the Louisiana State Museum to see their Katrina exhibit. This is difficult to describe. According to the National Hurricane Center, Hurricane Katrina caused close to 2000 deaths when it hit Louisiana in August of 2005, and in the weeks of aftermath, including flooding and major loss of services. As a Houstonian, I was only indirectly affected; I had friends who evacuated, and I made new friends, as some New Orleanian evacuees stayed in Houston. Searching various sources tells me that my city absorbed the largest number; NPR claimed in 2007 that over 90,000 New Orleanians were still living in Houston. I’ve visited NO all my life, and certainly was aware of appallingly great suffering and the recovery that has been taking place ever since. I’ve traveled back to NO a number of times since 2005 – including for my honeymoon in 2008 – and I’ve seen how well the city is doing; but I’ve also seen that things are not the same as they were, and they never can be. I’ve seen the high water marks on the freeway walls – several stories up.


But I hadn’t taken any of the “Katrina tours” offered, and this was my first museum exhibit. It was beyond powerful. There were photographs, interviews, objects & artifacts, text, interactive educational displays (mostly relating to the “forensics” of how the destruction of wetlands contributes to flooding, the myriad ways in which levees can fail, hurricane formation, etc.), and multimedia displays, audio and video recordings of folks telling their stories. I cried. I promise you would cry too.

I think this exhibit should be required for visitors to New Orleans. This event will never cease to be deeply relevant to everyone’s experience of the city; the horror that took place, and the efforts necessary to rebuild and recover, are an important part of the city’s culture and what it has to offer today. I love this city and its people, the great food, the friendly attitudes, the art, the extraordinary live music, the irreverence and the unapologetic, frank approach to the party lifestyle. It’s a very unique culture, and I’m glad it’s back, although in a slightly different incarnation.

When we left the museum after this intense and emotional experience, it was time for a change of pace. We took a streetcar out of the Quarter to a pub my father had found. It was just our kind of place: long beer list of obscure and diverse beers with quirky, knowledgeable, friendly staff. We camped out there for most of the rest of the day, and I got to drink a bottle of De Drie Fonteinen Schaerbeekse Kriek!! My father and I visited this brewery years ago, and I wrote about it for the newsletter of the liquor store I worked for at the time, and golly, there’s a picture floating around here somewhere of me with the brewer… it’s a very, very rare bottle to find, and it was very exciting to me to find it in NO – and very yummy to drink! (This was only one of many exciting and delicious finds.)

We left the Avenue Pub (highly recommended) late in the evening, and caught the streetcar back into the Quarter for some live music. We watched a sidewalk act for a while and then settled at Cafe Beignet to watch Steamboat Willie’s band play. Both were outstanding! I settled in feeling very content with my weekend.

On Sunday morning, on our way out of town, Pops took us by a statue he’d seen after Saturday morning’s race. It’s a memorial, in the spirit of New Orleans: using color and whimsy to commemorate a tragedy. Like singing at a funeral. It’s called the Scrap House, by Sally Heller, and is part of a commission by the Art Council of New Orleans of public art. Made of recycled materials, it depicts a little bayou shack stuck in the top of a tree.

We stopped on the way home at the Cafe des Amis in Breaux Bridge. This was another outstanding meal – I recommend the Crawfish Cornbread!

And finally, the bookish news: I finished Jacqueline Winspear’s A Lesson in Secrets, started Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (review to come), and listened to the audio of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five in the car with the parents on the way home (review also to come, but for now I’ll say WOW! like I do for all of Vonnegut’s work).

I’ve never had such a lovely time in the beautiful Crescent City. It has so much to offer. If you’ve never seen New Orleans, now’s the time. Be sure you go to the Louisiana State Museum (right on Jackson Square), and be sure you bring a handkerchief. Thanks Mom & Pops for a beautiful weekend.

Edit: Pops found the picture of me with Armand. Thanks Pops!

Julia at Drie Fonteinen w/ brewer Armand Debelder, Jan. 2006

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A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear

Posted on April 25, 2011 by pagesofjulia

It’s time for the next Maisie book… and the last, for the time being. This one just came out in late March, giving us readers-along just long enough to obtain, read, and blog about it. Again, this is part of the Maisie Dobbs Read-Along hosted by Book Club Girl.

While enjoyable in the same Maisie Dobbs way – and not least because I’m familiar with her and her world, and familiarity often breeds comfort and contentment – this book failed to really grasp my interest. In fact, I wanted to put it down in favor of other things (not permanently, just… for a bit), but had to finish it for this read-along date today. To have to make myself read a book is not a strong endorsement! What was wrong? Well, I missed James Compton, for one thing. Or, I missed Maisie having any romantic action. I know James was in her life, in theory, but he wasn’t an active player for much of the book. And her discomfort with the postmark issue and the suspicions it caused her just made me impatient. We’ve spent too much time watching Maisie be hesitant and unsure. I am bored. She needs to do something different to keep me entertained in this arena. She needs to become engaged or become a lesbian or swear off men or be promiscuous or something. I am bored.

Billy’s reduced role hurt me, too. I like Billy and his family and the change of tone they impart. I guess this book saw Maisie alone onstage a lot more, and that might have been a little bit too one-note for me. We got Sandra, a little bit, but I don’t find her to be a well-developed character. It’s all well and good for Winspear to take Maisie off into a new environment with new players; but I don’t think she exploited its possibilities to the fullest. For example, I would have been interested to read about students and philosophy and Maisie’s experience as a teacher. As the daughter of a teacher (and a sometimes-teacher myself), it definitely did not ring true for me that she just waltzed into the classroom and casually picked up teaching (at the university level, no less) without missing a beat; we didn’t see her struggle with the new responsibilities at all. It would have been more realistic if she had.

I didn’t hate this book, and I’m sure some of the fellow read-along participants loved it (will be by to check it out in a bit), so, sorry… but A Lesson in Secrets failed to draw me in. This series is ending for me in a sort of vague trailing off, rather than with a bang or an anxiousness for the next installment. That said, I will almost certainly pick it up if and when it comes out, because I’m not THAT upset. But this is a weak finish-for-now, in my book.

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The Apothecary’s Demise by Anne Sloan

Posted on April 24, 2011 by pagesofjulia

I had some free time while home sick and picked this up as a light and enjoyable sort of read. You might recall the first of these two books, Murder on the Boulevard, which I read a few months ago. I ended up with a slightly mixed review: the mystery was not stellar as genre fiction, but it was satisfactory; the writing and production (self-published) were not extremely professional; but the story itself, and the characters, and overwhelmingly, the setting, were so likable and comfortable that I enjoyed it overall.

The same rings true for the second book; except if anything, I enjoyed it even more. I think I had come to terms with the fact that the writing was not perfectly polished; I expected less in that regard (sounds nasty, doesn’t it. not trying to be). And I really adore the historic Houston Heights setting and all the local, historical detail. As I said before, there’s nothing like reading about your own backyard, as it were. And the names dropped (like Teas the nursery man) are great fun when you’re in on the jokes. So, perhaps someone not from Houston wouldn’t find these books quite so charming, but I most certainly did.

In this sequel to Murder on the Boulevard, Flora and Max are attached but not yet engaged, which surprised me; I thought it was a foregone conclusion at the end of Murder. Max leaves town (to see Wilson inaugurated in DC with Jesse Jones), and Flora finds herself caught up – reluctantly – in another murder mystery: in fact, another apparent suicide. In trying to help some friends of friends out of trouble, solve a double murder, and unravel the mysterious illness of her best friend since childhood, Flora finds herself aggressively courted by a newcomer to town. I found this book easy to read, entertaining, and extremely comfortable in its hometown flavor – I loved picturing the streets and settings as they were described. I’m pleased to give Anne Sloan a positive review in the end.

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Houston Grand Opera presents The Marriage of Figaro

Posted on April 23, 2011 by pagesofjulia

The Marriage of Figaro is being produced by the Houston Grand Opera, and thanks to the Husband I got to attend a dress rehearsal with our neighbors on Tuesday, April 12. (The Husband begged off: he got us tickets and bowed out. Fair enough.) Now, I had not attended an opera since, what was it, high school? or middle school? And I remember not liking it much. I’m not sure what it was, in fact; I want to say it was Shakespeare but I could be crazy. Do they make opera out of Shakespeare? This is very much not my area of expertise, but it being a) free and b) a dress rehearsal, this sounded like a fine time to give it another go.

Well, it turned out to be a snafu in various ways, and I got in late and left early, both due to circumstances beyond my control. So, call it an incomplete experiment. But I have some observations to share all the same.

Please be patient with me, opera aficionados, for I am entirely new to this. So first, the music is very beautiful – the orchestral music, I mean – I’m not a symphony-goer, either, but it would have been lovely on its own. The operatic singing is unlike anything else, so being so new to it, it’s a bit hard to fit into my world, if you will; it might be a bit of an acquired taste, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t like it. I think I did; it’s just different. And very impressive. It is of course in Italian, but even in English I’m not sure I could entirely understand them. There’s a little screen way up above the stage rolling subtitles; it’s a little rough looking down at the actors and up at the screen, but it allows me to follow the action. There’s something a bit disjointed about the fact that every 10 words on the screen take 90 syllables onstage (they repeat almost every line, for one line) but I was able to adjust to the rhythm. So I guess my theme here is, this is a unique art form and one that must be gotten accustomed to.

The plot of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro (which I read online before attending – did my homework – I find that I enjoy theatre better when I’m a bit familiar ahead of time) was surprisingly Shakespearean. Lots of mistaken identity, disguises, romantic quadrangles, lovers or suspected lovers hiding under couches when the next one enters the room. A bit slapstick. Very fun! I’m not sure I realized opera could be so fun. (Please forgive my prejudice.) And I’m not sure I’d realized that really, it’s just musical theatre – except that they sing in a distinctive style, in a foreign language, and constantly – all the words are sung – unlike standard musicals which are plays in which the actors spontaneously burst into choreographed song and dance. (Very realistic. :)) Oh, and that reminds me, there was almost no dancing – at least during the parts of this production that I got to see. That’s a bit disappointing; but perhaps with such, erm, athletic (?) singing, it would be too much to dance, too.

My overall review is incomplete because I saw only part of the show, but: I like this. It deserves more of my time and attention to become better acquainted with this format, and I’m ready to give it. Luckily I get another chance: I have tickets to another dress rehearsal in a few weeks, of Ariadne auf Naxos, and I’m taking my mother, and I’m looking forward to it!

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book beginnings on Friday: The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne

Posted on April 22, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments. Include the title and the author so we know what you’re reading. Then, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line, and let us know if you liked or did not like the sentence. (You might also consider visiting the original post where you can link to your own book beginning.)

The Red House Mystery is the only mystery novel (so says the back of my book) by A.A. Milne, who is famous for his Winnie the Pooh series – which of course I love (doesn’t everyone? I like to quote Eeyore), but apparently Milne was forever offended that the world recognized him for his children’s books and not for his adult writings. Well, I’m going to give you a shot, Milne, as Pooh was obviously genius, and I like mystery novels.

Here is the book beginning:

In the drowsy heat of the summer afternoon the Red House was taking its siesta. There was a lazy murmur of bees in the flower-borders, a gentle cooing of pigeons in the tops of the elms. From distant lawns came the whir of a mowing-machine, that most restful of all country sounds; making ease the sweeter in that it is taken while others are working.

How lovely is that? I think I shall enjoy this book. It has the same whimsical, leisurely, pleasant tone as Pooh (oh forgive me Milne, it’s a compliment).

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