16 May, 2005

Weekends Are Too Short

This past weekend was fun. It began Friday night by seeing the Reduced Shakespeare Company at the Overture Center. It was pretty fun as they were doing a send up of The Bible. Every moment was irreverent. God telling Isaac(?) to circumcise himself and kill his son was quite humorous. And so was the ditty on Noah's Ark which involved dragging audience members onstage to do sound effects for a rendition of "Old McDonald's Farm" which had been transformed into "Old Noah's Ark". I even saw Chuck, a guy from work, there. He's dorky too and this was his third or fourth time seeing them.

Late Saturday morning I grabbed my stuff and headed downtown to see Reptile Palace Orchestra. Bur first I stopped down at Cafe Zoma for some go-juice. The lovely Miss Jolene was working and became drawn into the photographic chronicle of my day.



From there, I was off to grab some fruity jalapeno jelly for The Dulcinea.



I then moseyed down State Street to where RPO were playing. I took some snaps as well as a short video. It was really neat. There were several people dancing in the middle of State Street with a constant stream of passers-by. I think it must have been graduation weekend as lots of folks wearing dresses and suits & ties were fluttering by.



Here's the lovely Anna playing trumpet:



Here's some dancers including one clad in Utilikilt:



Biff in action:



I dunno the name of the guy on keys but he was happy to show off for the camera.



The crowd thinned out for the second set but some stragglers remained.



Their set finished just as the rain started to come in. The proceedings moved indoors where Yid Vicious took over. I had to run, however, though I would have liked to have stayed. I had me a date at the sinny with The Dulcinea for Kinsey.

The flick was pretty good and, for $2, I couldn't have complained too much had it been shitty. It obviously put a positive spin on Kinsey but I didn't mind too much. While there is certainly criticism to be laid at his door, his impact was enormous. The vast ignorance of his time is almost unbelievable today. E.g. - that cunnilingus will cause infertility. I like how the film portrayed his early work with gall wasps, his taxonomic approach, carrying over to his studies of human sexuality. Liam Neeson plays Kinsey as almost a robotic figure in search of data. I dunno - maybe the man was really that way. At least there was consistency with the character and I think Neeson did a great job. Hell, all the acting was great. My complaint centers around various extraneous events. Conflict between a couple of the researchers, who had begun wife-swapping, seems to come out of nowhere. It's not that these events were out of place in the world of the film's narrative, it's just that there was little or no lead-up to them. Things come to a head without the conflict having been elaborated. At one point, the film brought tears to my eyes. There was a fabricated scene in which Kinsey quizzes his puritanical father after Kinsey's mother had died. The scene struck close to home as it reminded me of conversations I had with my own father in the wake of my stepmother's death. I never quizzed my old man about his sex habits but he did complain about lack of sex to me. It was more the general atmosphere of the scene, the confrontation having been set aside and the distance between father & son having been bridged. It was $2 well-spent.

For more info, check out this article by James H. Jones, author of Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life and then read a critical review of it. Notice how Jones sounds in his article and then how completely different he comes off as in the review.

Afterwards, The Dulcinea and I retreated to her place to celebrate National Masturbation Month. I shan't go into detail here. Sunday morning was fun too...

Sunday afternoon I headed over to Dogger's where we'd roll up characters so we could start a new Dungeons and Dragons campaign of Pete's. Since he's a bit of a japanophile, it is to be an Oriental Adventure. Unfortunately, he was unavailable so we got some basic character creation done and goofed around for several hours. Miss Regan was grumpy but doing well. She is getting better at walking as is her mother. I was surprised and really happy to see Mel descend and then ascend the stairs leading to the basement. She is getting around better overall and is picking up Regan and holding her. Stroke recovery is slow but it's heartening to see signs of improvement.

Then, all at once, the work week started...

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