perldiver

I didn't post about this at the time, so I need to catch up:


Fourth of July party was good. About a dozen people showed up for potluck with a nice variety of food. Two people even brought drinks! (Usually no one thinks of that.)

My plan was to have it up on the roof on a camp stove and folding tables. There was a sign up in the lobby saying that the roof was open for July 4, huzzah! So, up we went. I should have told people to stay out of LOS of the cameras though, because we hadn't been up there 5 minutes when Freddy (the super) comes up and tells me I have to get everyone off the roof, that more than 6 people "is a party", and that you can't have a party without prior approval...which involves paying a $500 bribe fee to the Board of the building.

Grrrr....

Anyway, we had a good time in my apartment (too many people for the space, but it was still fun).

On July 5th, avivasedai and I went to "Danny and Sylvia: The Danny Kaye Musical" at the St. Luke's theatre. It was a two-person show about the career of Danny Kaye and his wife, Sylvia Fine. Here's the story is broad strokes:

• Danny was a brilliant performer but had no support skills (business, etc);
• Sylvia was a brilliant composer, manager, and networker;
• Danny had no career before meeting Sylvia. Sylvia was just starting out when she met Sylvia;
• The two of them met, fell in love, got married, and both of their careers took off like rockets;
• After a few years, Danny started to chafe at having someone else managing everything--he wanted to feel like he was more than a trained monkey who went where his wife told him; and,
• They eventually divorced, although they continued to work together.

As to the theatre and audience: it's in the converted basement of an old church. It seats maybe 120; of those, about 100 were senior citizens. Avivasedai and I had front-row-center seats. We chatted with some of the other audience; none of them could believe that we'd heard of Danny Kaye. I mean, come on—I grew up on The Court Jester, what's not to love?

As to the show:  it's a series of vignettes covering how the characters meet, various performances in Danny's career, and how they split up.  The fourth wall pretty much doesn't exist—"Danny" monologues to the audience regularly, and once he comes out into the audience and performed right to avivasedai (it was funny).

As to the performers:

Kimberly Faye Greenberg, the woman playing Sylvia, did a great job; this was made easier by the fact that I knew nothing about Sylvia Fein when I walked in, so there was nothing to compare against, but I totally believed that she could be what her character was:  phenomenally organized, a brilliant businesswoman, and a gifted composer and musician.

Brian Childers, the guy playing Danny, did a fine job as an actor—I always believed his performances when he was talking to Sylvia—but didn't quite nail it for me when it came to being Danny (e.g., talking to the audience, or singing). I don't know what it was, but it felt too forced. I could see his eyes too clearly, and they always looked a little bit panicked. I enjoyed the show, but I couldn't really sink into it.


Overall, I give this show about 3.5 stars.  It's definitely worth seeing if you live in NYC and have ever seen / enjoyed a Danny Kaye movie.

(Yet another overdue post.  Really must keep up better.)

On July 12, avivasedai, luun (and a friend of his), and I went to the "Rock Royalty" concert on Long Island--avivasedai had gotten free tickets from a friend.  (Coincidentally, the concert site about 15 mins west of my grandmother's house, where avivasedai and I were scheduled to be the following day.)  The concert featured The YardBirds, The Zombies (both 1960s British-Invasion rock groups), and The Spencer Davis Group.  The YB and the Z each consisted of a couple of original members and then 4-6 new guys, so I'm not really sure this constitutes seeing the original groups.  (Unless, of course, one adopts the "3-dimensional slices of a 4D object" solution to the Ship of Theseus question....)

The concert was fun, the travel was easy, and (as expected) not a single one of the songs was familiar.  The audience was mostly in their 60s...it was a little weird being visibly one of the youngest people there.

So I just got back from the Long Range 1 riflery class offered by Barrett Rifles. These are 0.50 rifles (for the non-gun-types [meaning me until a few days ago] this means fifty caliber, or 1/2 inch diameter), and you can see what they look like on YouTube. I brought my father along with me; he was in the Army (stationed in Korea at the end of the war), and has long enjoyed shotgun shooting, so I figured he'd get a kick out of it.

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