How do you solve a problem like Maria?

I missed the first 10 minutes, but let the live blog begin...

8:13 - I already hate Carrie Underwood with the fire of one thousand suns...

8:16 - wow - the poor thing is so outclassed by La McDonald... And my standards were set so high by Petie Duraine...

8:22 during the commercial break, are we going to call him Captain Bill or Vampire Von Trapp? 

8:24 clearly Vampire Von Trapp: VVT for short 

8:25 - my god, he's worse than she is!

8:26 - wow - I miss Brandi Stevens, who played the maid in the Lamoille County Players for just about ever. 

8:28 - other than Audra, this is totally a community theatre production. Which is charming, but I think someone overpaid...

8:32 - I can't tell if the kids belong in theater, rather than on screen, or if the source material is just unfilmable in a tone other than abject earnestness... 

8:32 1/2: fuck - this song [doe a deer]! She's going to make my ears bleed. :( 

8:34 - in their defense - this may be my least favorite song on the planet...

8:36 - I think that if this were on stage, I might love it.  

8:38 - also, so nice to hear voices that are not auto tuned. 

8:43. - oh god this scene [Liesl and Rolf]. Can we fast forward through live tv? 

8:46 Once I read:  "I think it would have been particularly helpful for the eldest daughter, who seems intent on losing her virginity to the mailman." In this McSweeny's piece, I could never hear this wretched song again...

9:49. - wow that poor thing had to do a lot more choreography (and rolling) than the chick in the movie 

8:51 - Mme. Underwood is such a terrible, terrible actress. Such a sweet voice, and yet...

8:54 - boys are brave, my ass

8:56 - They should have made a concert album, and not made that poor child act...

9:00 - while I know the stage show better than the move, I acknowledge that song needed goat puppets

 9:03 - oh, baroness, you are just the best!

9:04: VVT is just dire

9:05 - "and I smoke a big cigar..."

9:07 - "just something lavish..."

9:08 - Okay - this [How Can Love Survive] is one of my favorite songs in musical theatre. Bring it! 

9:10 - The Baroness is just not selling it. More than Carrie Underwood's Carrie Underwoodness, that makes me sad... 

9:15 ah ah ah ah 

9:16 - Does it look to anyone else that VVT is "singing" in front of a green screen? 

9:22 - I have totally recast this show on FB. Kelli O'Hara as Maria, Idina Menzel as the Baroness, Norbert Leo Butz as the baron, Matthew Broderick as Max...it could have been great

9:25 - "that one lady, I think she was here all the time" line always strikes me as false

9:26 - Sarah Leas taught me this dance (the Ländler) one night during a performance. I think of her every time I gear this music 

9:28 - also, Maria's dress is absurd 

9:33- precious children. Adieu to yieu and yieu and whatever 

9:34 - I realize that I am I the minority of fans of the Sound Music, hating both Maria and the children...

9:35 - goodbye

9:35 1/2 "and it wouldn't do me any harm..."

9:39 - I have a great story about this part of the stage play - what happens when Gretel throws up, and Maria comes up in the wrong dress and the maid and one kid are stuck on stage while all this shit is going on around them. Ask me about it sometime. 

9:37 - did they not do this at the beginning? The nuns are the best music in the show!!!

9:43 - I am quivering in anticipation of Audra McDonald singing Climb Every Mountain 

9:48 Who knew that the part that Audra McDonald was born to play was an Austrian nun? #crying

9:54 - I feel these kids don't understand that they're miked...

9:55. - oh my god, Vampire Von Trapp,  stfu!!!

9:57  - I'm missing Scandal for this? 

10:05 - another of my favorite songs coming up! 

10:06 - I'm hoping that everyone who didn't understand why the only role I'd go back for is the Baroness is listening to the lyrics to this song...

10:09 - wow vampire bill is even worse than I could have anticipated 

10:11 - I want frau's red pants 

10:14 - live tv is breathy 

10:15 - this song [Something Good] isn't in the original script. We certainly used it, but with pasted in sides...

10:16 - Jesus. He's sooooo bad. What made anyone think he could do live theater? 

10:20 - sad that it skipped the best part of that number :( 

10:25 - a bit behind, as I really wanted a nice video of the Confitemini Domino - which wasn't in the wedding program this time...

10:30 - what? 

10:31 - I mean that hair? That's something that we're all just going with?

10:35 ?

10:36 - was that a line flub? 

10:37: another incongruous dress

10:48 - god, he is just *so* bad! Did Sookie Stackhouse steal all his mojo? 

10:44  - Jesus, just, what? VVT is so, so bad, so bad. 

10:48 - god. I don't even care anymore. 

10:50 - are we really 10 minutes from the end? Spark plugs and cemeteries and the climb every mountain reprise? 

10:55 - that "we didn't know we'd put the abbey in such danger" is another one of those disingenuous lines...

10:56 - also - what's on the other side of the alps? Germany...

10:59 - and that's what was that was...

11:00 - nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could...(and then I changed channels and Jon Stewart wasn't singing.  Peace out.) 

The Travel Pack

Honkfest 2013!

Ah, Cambridge...

 

  

Meh

Not sure about your RSS feed, but mine didn't replace the hasty first post (which included a typo in the title) with the better reviewed one (which occurred once I'd uploaded the photo to the feminist tumblr and actually looked at it).

Apologies. 

Haste makes title typos not caught by spellcheck... 

Out of Character

 
okay - I've had this thing for several years now (at this moment, I'm trying not to think about for how many).  and for the most part, I've wanted to stay anonymous (the elf will tell you that even LinkedIn scares privacy-conscious me). However this is absurd, and i want to be a part. and Luddite me, can't figure out how to upload a picture to this without posting it online first.  So here it is - my internet debut, after however many years:

In which I go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame so you don't have to...

Things that Perplex Me

things that gmail thinks I meant to write when I typed "Caroline's"

Arty vacation pictures

A few more pictures from paradise

 sheep, for some reason

 a bird friend

 another bird friend

this was my first time in the Caribbean -  I have never seen ocean that color before

 lizard friend

 we made good use of these hammocks

 my feet with elf feet

yet another bird friend

Sharknado - the live blog

(obviously I did not take this picture)

8:00 pm - So tonight is the night, kids.  Tonight is the premier of Sharknado.  Note - that is not the same as SharkNATO, which is what we first thought when we heard about it, which would be possibly the only thing better than a tornado full of sharks.  I would also want Tara Reid to star in SharkNATO, by the by.

Anyway - tonight, for your reading pleasure, the elf, the loon and I will be liveblogging this masterpiece. Some of us are drinking wine. Some of us are on Sudafed.  Some are throwing caution to the wind and mixing our metaphors. Or something.

It starts at 9.  Tune in!

8:14 the elf explains to the loon what the pup is saying - "I will leave you alone as soon as you let me put my tongue in your mouth!"

8:15 - the pup has settled down for the moment.  We'll see how long that lasts. 

8:48 - last 15 minutes of SuperShark.  May have to go back for this one.

The elf points out the only SyFy movie that we've been disappointed in was something like Ice Spiders.  blech.

8:55 - I did kermit arms at the Sharknado commercial.  The pup enjoyed that. 

8:56 - B-man is joining us! Hooray!

9:01 - apparently Beau from The Dukes of Hazard was in the SuperShark movie.  Minds = blown.

9:02 - Here we go!

well, they're starting right in with it.  I appreciate that. 

Loon - puts a whole new spin on the wizard of Oz.

9:04 - elf - we're so close to the ocean, could that happen to us?

b-man - anything on the syfy network could happen to us.

9:06 - the shocking moment when we realized that we hadn't set up rules to this drinking game.  the group has decided if we drank when there was bad cgi, we'd all die of alcohol poisoning. 

9:07 - three minutes in, four deaths already. 

and now we're in Venice Beach Santa Monica. 

9:08 - loon - can we buy the soundtrack?

9:09 - the dad from home alone! who isn't in this movie?

9:10 - so obviously the girl with the mysterious scar has no checkered past involving sharks, right?

9:12 - they're calling 90210 dude grandpa.  not sure if I should be offended. 

farewell, pretty Asian actress.  should have guessed we wouldn't learn your name as no minority actor has ever made it to act III of a SyFy movie. 

9:14 - so the sharks get the whole beach, half of the guy on the jet ski, but 90210 makes it, floating on a surfboard. 

9:16 - b-man and the elf are tweeting our local weatherman to see about the chance of a sharknado in Southie. 

9:19 - b-man - "Global Warming brings Sharknados?"

me - "also Birdemics."

Commercial break! Time for b-man to work on his outline!

9:24 - first Tara Reid sighting!

9:25 - It's not safe out there.  The storm's coming. So I'm going to send all you drunks out into it to fend for yourselves.

Stake through the shark's heart.  Sharkula cannot be far behind. [Sharkula versus Zombie-pus?]

9:27 - home alone dad with bar stool > macrame shirt chick with the gun

9:30 dear movie watching friends. you're debating the physics of the ferris wheel through the building in a movie about a tornado of sharks. 

9:31 - our favorite newswoman just tweeted the elf back after we sent her the trailer.  evening = a success. 

9:33 - and now the weatherman responded: "Nope, it's okay to swim with the fishes here." evening = epic success. 

9:38 - even in a science fiction sharknado world, you can't drive anywhere in L.A. 

me - "in what way is that like Old Faithful."

elf - "well, there's water."

9:41 - home alone dad has his bar stool again to save the dog! 

r.i.p. home alone dad.  i lost the over under on you. 

elf thinks that the voice synchronization on this show is almost as good as early iron chef.

outside input - miss j (coworker of the elf) "if this really happened, our company would still be open."

9:51 - new over under on douchebag boyfriend? 

9:51:30.  apparently the under. 

9:56 - getting a lot of milage out of that storm drain footage...

9:58 - more traffic navigation. 

City Council candidates are tweeting about their Sharknado contingency plans. 

9:58:30 - the moment we realize that 90210's name is Fin.

10:02 - b-man has officially surrendered his outline. 

10:03 - OMG - children in peril! wonder how this will turn out...

of course 90210 is repelling down. if they do this one kid at a time, i'm going to need another drink.

elf - one kid in 12 can climb a rope in gym class. 

b-man - i hate the rope climb.

elf - there's no craft in that. 

10:06 - we've gone from televised Los Angeles driving, to televised phys ed.

bus chaperone gets it in 3..2..

ooh - lost that one too. i've lost my syfy formula touch. 

10:08 - the shark being cut loose from the rope and falling into the water may be a new high or low in the cgi effects in this program. 

10:09 - movie "it's clearing up." elf "you still have another hour to go."

10:10 - bye, bus chaperone.  you lived five minutes longer than i assumed you would. 

why has there been no "it's raining men"/sharknado mash-up? b-man points out they're saving that for the Broadway adaptation. 

b-man - if i get a doctorate, I owe it all to Sharknado. and Absolut. 

10:17 elf - "that's what happen when chicks drive."

loon - "i hate it when the shark blows up with my car."

10:18 the least realistic thing about this movie so far is that this is the first trip to the liquor store. 

the liquor store guy is the guy you cast when Zach Galifianikas' people don't return your phone calls. 

10:21 - elf - "what's real in this movie? not Tara Reid's boobs. Not the wheels on the cars..."

10:22 - the time we realize that we have no idea how the intro with the guys on the ship relates to anything that has happened since.

10:23 - Holy shark filled water spout, batman!

10:24 - and they catch up with the loon's 9:02 Wizard of Oz joke.

10:31 - you were all huddling in the closet and you didn't even know about the sharks? lame.

10:31:30 - didn't expect the sucking out of the ceiling.

elf - "this shit is bananas!"

10:34 - is one of these people the droid they're looking for?

got to love throwing bombs into the tornados! this climate change plan brought to you by the Bush administration!

10:35 - ooh! generically handsome flyboy is 90210's son. it's all so clear now!

"I came for you first. remember that." - sharknado country song waiting to happen!

10:37 - mysterious scar story revealed! 

"they took my grandfather. that's why i really hate sharks."  emmy winning acting and writing right there.

10:46 our thoughts on who Tasmania is trying to be: loon - David Boreanaz; elf - Gerard Butler; me - Hugh Jackman

"we're going to need a bigger chopper!" Everybody drink.

I'm going to assume that macrame girl's black nail polish is an homage to Deborah Gibson's hand double in Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus.

"that worked" I'm sure it did. 

elf - oh my god, they're not going to chainsaw sharks coming down!

10:49.  bye bye borebutlerman and your weird bang.

loon - sharks love product. 

bye bye Joni with an i.

10:50 - elf - fish and chips!

10:50:30 - and that's why you always leave a note.

10:51 - of course there was a gasoline can next to the pool. 

10:52: elf -ooh connect four! i love connect four!

10:52:30 - elf - I want to discuss how his kids can drive a helicopter. 

10:53 - our weather guy and newscaster are now apparently watching this and tweeting about it.  i consider that a win.

10:55 - the shark just left his imprint in front of the Chinese theater...the loon wants to know whose star he landed on...

10:56 - the pup is so over this!

10:57 - loon "I'm still not clear how a bomb will stop the tornado."

elf - "there are sharks in the tornado.  if you're asking questions at this point."

10:58: elf "fuck off steve!"

loon - "that's like a shel silverstein poem on crack!"

b-man - "how big is this shark?"

11:00 - massive screaming! 

elf - "out of all the sharks in all the world, you had to end up in here."

11:01 - "hell of a day"

elf - "this is the best thing I've ever done.  The wine helps..."

and scene.

Things That Please Me

The elf and I just arrived home from a marvelous holiday in the Dominican Republic.  I cannot say enough about the lovely time that we had (even the bad things are great stories, which she will tell you if you give her enough caipirinhas).

I may post other pictures later, but this morning, the overwhelming orangeness of the scene inspired me.