It’s that time of year when ALL the new TV shows are coming out. It’s a good year to be a geek when it comes to TV shows.
This time for Entertainment Weekly, I’ll be recapping Selfie on ABC.
It stars Karen Gillan (Amy Pond/Nebula) and John Cho (Harold/Sulu/MILF Guy #2) and is an updated version of My Fair Lady and Pygmalion. I know that the name and premise of the show turns people off but it’s actually not that bad. Though I watched the pilot online and then rewatched it when it aired this past Tuesday. And well…they changed things which I’m not sure why because I thought that they did not help the story. But we’ll see what happens. My first recap is up and if you’re watching it too, follow my Facebook page to get links to all season (or however long this show manages to stay on) as I recap the show. I will say that I DO love John Cho and think he’s fantastic.
I would totally like to watch Gotham but as I have already have Monday nights busy, I can’t watch it live. Hopefully I can catch it on On Demand. I would also really love to watch The Flash on the CW but I haven’t even gotten around to watching Arrow yet so that will probably have to wait.
Last year I started watching Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. but then I got busy on Tuesday nights and missed the second half of the season. Which is a bummer because I know there was that whole tie in with Captain America: The Winter Solider (Hail Hydra!) Therefore sadly I cannot watch new episodes until I catch up from last year. Luckily one of libraries ordered the first season on DVD so I’m on the holds list for it. I’m annoyed this isn’t on Netflix or Amazon Prime. I hope I can catch up because I DO want to watch this show as well as the Peggy Carter spin-off that is coming.
I WAS able to catch the premiere of Gracepoint on Fox last night.
I haven’t seen the original show that it’s a remake of, Broadchurch, so I can’t compare but so far I am planning on watching as much as I can. I will admit, David Tennant’s American accent was the real reason why I tuned in but the show is actually good. I am trying not to look at spoilers of the original series.
I’m still watching Doctor Who. Peter Capaldi is GREAT as the Doctor and the episodes have been pretty good so far. He’s VERY different from Matt Smith but I think that’s a good thing.
The other show I can’t wait to come on again is The Walking Dead. I’m both geeked and terrified at what is going to happen in this season. It also doesn’t help/hurt that with the news about the Ebola virus coming to America that the zombie apocalypse might very well become a real thing one day…..
So yeah. That’s what I’m watching on TV this fall. What about you?
So as we all know (since I talk about it at least every other week), I’ve taken up running.
For a while I had been listening to the Alternative Endurance Training station on Pandora. There is a lot of great music on there that I enjoy. However, I made the mistake several months ago of giving the thumbs up to a few songs that weren’t really in that style of music and now I have a bunch of Beatles and some really great but very slow indie folks songs that come on the station. This is all fine and dandy when you’re on the treadmill and can balance the phone to skip the song but not so much when you’re outside running.
I decided to switch to audio books so that I could focus on the story. I downloaded The Magician’s Nephew from The Chronicles of Narnia from the library onto my phone’s app. Even though I’ve read/listened to the story a bunch of times, it’s one of my favorites and I was due for a reread anyways. Unfortunately I discovered that even though audiobooks work great for me during car rides, I’m not really a big fan of them during running. My running apps will talk over the narration causing me to miss things. Plus I found myself not really listening because I was paying too much attention to my feet, breathing, or watching the road.
I finally decided to just make my own playlist. Someone on Reddit had mentioned that if you don’t want to keep constantly looking at your clock to see how much time you have left, you can still use songs to keep track of time. If you know you’ve reached the halfway mark at 15 minutes, if your playlist consists of songs that are about 4 minutes each, then you know that you have 4 songs (or less) and then you’re done. Much easier to make time go by faster.
So I present to you my current running playlist.
Yes it’s a bit of a mix. I have alternative, punk, EDM, classic rock, and pop on there. Yes there is a One Direction song on there. I like the song ok? And no I will no put any Josh Groban on here. He is too slow. Sacrifices. I know.
There are all these fancy playlists with certain BPMs (beats per music) that you can listen to so you can make yourself go faster. But really though, I’ve created a really great mix for ME. Music is always something I know that I can lose myself in and helps me to do things better. And these are songs that I actually know and like. A lot of the songs are good for me because they may have some slow parts but then the music gets faster and faster. You feel like you suddenly get a burst of energy and realize that you CAN keep going even though your legs feel like death. Since I use the free Spotify app, the playlist HAS to shuffle but that’s actually good because I never know what song is going to come up next. I will say I do like it when “Livin’ On a Prayer” happens to come on especially when I’m halfway through my run for obvious reasons.
I haven’t gotten bored with this mix yet. It’s long enough that I haven’t had any repeats yet during my runs but I’m sure whenever the day comes that I can outrun it, I’ll add more music. For now, I think these songs will help me when I run my first 5k this weekend.
So with that in mind, anyone have any suggestions for other songs to add to my list? Or what’s on your playlist? What do you listen to when you run? Music? Audio books? Podcasts? The sound of your own breathing?
I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. I’m still trying to reach my goal of 225 books for 2014 (I’m currently at 144 books) so I have about 3 and a half more months to go to read about 80 books.
One of the book bloggers that I follow (S. Krishna’s Books) tweeted this the other day:
I thought that was interesting because for me the majority of books I read are written by white women. In fact out of those 144 books, only 8 were NOT written by white women. 6 of those authors were white men and the other 2 were POC authors (Asian women to be exact). That’s a rather dismal statistic. In 2013, I read 217 books. Again only 8 of those authors were NOT written by white female authors (2 male, 6 POC).
The reason why my books are geared towards this way? The majority of what I read is Christian fiction.
And that’s is incredibly sad.
I’ve been reading Christian fiction for most of my life since I was 8 years old. I’ve watched the market change throughout the years and there has been a lot of good that’s been done.
However I’ve also accepted the fact that there are some things about Christian fiction that are just not going to change.
The market is targeted at a specific kind of reader (white middle class Middle American woman who is usually a mother). There is nothing wrong with that type of market. That just usually tends to be who the authors are as well. And they write what they know. What is super popular in Christian fiction these days? Amish fiction, historical romances, and contemporary romances. All three of these genres do not really appeal to me, though I will admit sometimes I can find good books among the weeds. I’ve accepted the fact that since I do not fall into the demographics for the market, I will never be completely satisfied with the market itself.
I’m not asking for edgy fiction. I’ll just read books outside the Christian market if I wanted that. I realize that a lot of authors don’t want to write about what they don’t know because it can sound not authentic. Ok, I can understand that. You don’t want to come across as sounding fake. It just gets me that so many of these stories feel like the characters just live in a bubble. Barely any POC characters. Maybe a few people will go through some hardships. Barely anyone questions things. To want to further your education or move to a big city for a job is a bad thing. Romances happen after 2 hours of knowing someone and marriages take place after 2 months.
I know it’s hard because you don’t want to offend people. But it just feels like to me that it only happens like that in the Christian world. I don’t see general market authors having such strict guidelines on how or what to write in fear of offending group of readers. No wonder why Amish books are so popular. It’s so….safe.
Why then do I keep reading the books? I ask myself this question all the time. It’s not that I don’t read outside of this market. I also read a lot of general market young adult fiction as well as general market contemporary women’s fiction. I will also pick up a random book out of my normal reads from time to time and find it liking to my taste. Yet I still find myself going back to the Christian fiction for the majority of what I read.
Another book blogger (Relz Reviewz) asked this question on her blog the other day: “Do you prefer a “comfort” read or something “out of the box” in Christian fiction?” She talked about there were some authors who when writing their books, they know what sells and what their audience wants. Therefore their stories have a same formula to them where the story and the characters are so similar that it’s completely interchangeable almost to the point of predictable. They’re comfort reads because you know what to expect. And in Christian fiction there’s A LOT of these.
I’ve accepted the fact that I’m never going to be fully satisfied with the market. It’s never going to cater to exactly how I want but then again just like many things in the Christian world, there are so many personal preferences that cause dissention among everyone. I know that what I CAN do is continue to seek out writers and books that do understand that there are more readers than the targeted demographic and talk about their books (future post!).
Here’s this week’s edition of what I’ve been excited over:
Yes. I saw Guardians of the Galaxy for the fourth time this week. I had a free birthday pass and none of the current movies playing was of any interest. But this is such an awesome movie that it was just as good the fourth time as the first three times. And in case you’re wondering, I still have seen The Avengers more times.
Just saw The Maze Runner last night at a free advanced screening. Interesting concept, enjoyed about 90% of the execution. If I was a teenage girl, it’d be eye candy heaven. At any rate, I think I want to read the books.
I also want to shout out that the Alamo Drafthouse is the best theater ever and if you have one in your region, you need to stop going to all those other big chains. Seriously.
Sadly my exact meal from Cracker Barrel but it was pretty freakin close. There are some of you who will disagree but nothing says comfort food like a meal from them.
I think I just discovered my new favorite beer. It tastes nothing like beer but more like juice. “Like communion juice!” as one of my friends put it. Seriously it’s deliciously tasty and refreshing on a hot late summer day. Yes, you may think it’s girly but I don’t care.
I went out and got fitted for new running shoes. These from New Balance have made a big difference and my feet don’t hurt as much. Also pretty $$ but it’s an investment right?
One of my birthday gifts was a giant jar of Nutella and well…it may already be half gone……
Despite the fact that it’s been my birthday week, I’ve been reading a lot more lately. Most of that is because I have library books that are due next week and I cannot renew them anymore. Also, while there will most likely be a blog post about this in the future, I was called out more than once this week for reading Amish YA books. It’s actually not a preferred genre choice despite the fact that I’ve read more than one.
There are four more months left in the year and I have read 131 out of 225 books from my Goodreads reading challenge. I’m 21 books behind schedule. It’s going to a big push.
My blurb: This book came out before the Noah movie so part of me wanted to read it for that reason. The other part was because most of the reviews came from Christian reviewers who were so horribly offended by it. And to be honest, that just makes me want to read it more. I really liked this story. Biblical fiction that is not horribly “Christian fiction slanted” is very awesome. Though my favorite Noah novel of all time still goes to Many Waters by Madeleine L’engle.
My blurb: I’ve been a fan of Mandy Hale after reading her book The Single Woman and following her on Twitter. I got to meet her at a book signing earlier in the year. This book was not what I was expecting but in a good way. I thought it was going to be more of a self help type of book but it’s really more of a memoir. It’s a very personal and hard to read at times but I can relate to so much of it.
My blurb: Despite the fact that this is published by the Christian imprint of Simon and Schuster, this is not a Christian fiction book at all. It’s just a wonderfully written historical fiction. I loved it. It’s exactly what I want when I want to read historical fiction, none of that historical romance. I felt it was extremely well researched, well written narrative, and a section of US history we are aware of but don’t really know too much. There needs to be more books like this.
My blurb: There hasn’t been an Angela Hunt book I haven’t liked and this one can be added to the list. Most of the story takes place on a train. I LOVE stories set trains despite the fact that I’ve only ridden on one twice and that was just to and from Baltimore. It was just a very comforting read AND there a brief mention of Reston, VA which got me super happy. Also. Food.
My blurb: I normally stay away when authors self publish even if I love their work. I’m kind of snobbish in that I will usually only read publishers I know. But I do enjoy Kristin Billerbeck’s books and I read her blog and knew that the whole reason why she self pubbed this one was because none of the Christian publishers would take it due to the subject matter. So again, that was the main reason why I wanted to read this one. It’s a hard read. It shows the weakness and failures of the church and Christians who overabuse their power. MORE BOOKS LIKE THIS.
Landline by Rainbow Rowell (St. Martin’s Press, 2014)
My blurb: I’ve enjoyed all of Rainbow Rowell’s books and again, this one was no exception. I enjoyed it so much I read it in just a few hours. Time travel? Yes please. It’s hard to explain without giving away the plot but it kind of reminded me of that Hallmark Hall of Fame Movie The Love Letter or that Keanu Reeves/Sandra Bullock movie The Lake House. There were a few things I did have faults with (who doesn’t charge their phone or pick up their phone?) but otherwise a very satisfying read.
I’m looking through my Twitter and Facebook feeds and all I’m seeing right now is non stop talk about DragonCon which starts today in Atlanta. I know most of you have heard about the San Diego Comic Con, even if you just have some vague interest in entertainment. DragonCon is not as industry prominent like SDCC( which is like the Holy Grail of all cons and is on my bucket list to attend one day.) but it’s still huge and TONS of fun and I’m super jealous of everyone that is going this year. And it made me nostalgic of my trip two years ago.
In August 2012, after much persuasion from a close friend, I made the decision to travel down to Atlanta and go to Dragon Con. This was a big thing for me. Prior to 2011, I had never heard of Dragon Con before. I learned about it that year from a coworker who went down there and after hearing about her excitement over it, I researched it myself. At the time I thought, well that sounds like fun, but I’ll never get to do that myself. And then I met someone who became one of my best friends and who also had gone to Dragon Con and had such a blast and somehow persuaded me to go. Best decision I made. It was also my birthday weekend.
A lot of planning went into making the trip. First off, Atlanta is about a ten hour drive from the DC area. And that’s what we did. Let me tell you, it’s a good thing we’re close and get along extremely well because that is a VERY LONG ROAD TRIP. There’s also a lot of planning of trying to figure out what hotels to get and where. We ended up staying outside of Atlanta in Decatur because we figured we’d just use the hotel for sleep and it was SO much more cheaper than staying IN the city. Yes, it was a bit of a drive but we spent about $70 a night split between 3 people vs at least $400+ per night.
As I’ve talked about before, I decided to cosplay as Katniss. This was before The Hunger Games movie had come out and while there were pictures of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss from the trailer, it was really more based on what I thought she was in my imagination. I had been nervous about whether people would recognize me and was thrilled that a lot of people did! I met an Effie (who was a guy) that was extremely well done and talked to me in character. And lots of girls wanted their pics with me. Someone even recognized me from the back, based on my braid and quiver. It was fabulous! I ended up wearing my costume two days because it was so much fun. Plus while it’s recognizable, it’s totally wearable and comfortable and doesn’t feel like it’s an actual costume, aside from the box and arrows, which loved carrying around.
I went down there not just to hang out with my friend or even to see celebrities. I wanted to go to as many panels as possible to make the most of my trip. There’s so many different tracks you can go to. Pretty much anything sci fi, fantasy, comics, movies, books, etc. I knew I wanted to go to things that were Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, young adult fiction, British, etc. even though it would mean going on my own and not with my friends. Which was fine because I think it showed that I actually wanted to be there and wasn’t just tagging along. I made up a spreadsheet before I left though I didn’t end up using it because there was SO much to see and do.
Highlights of my trip:
Went to panel to hear John Rhys Davies, Billy Boyd and Craig Parker talk about Lord of the Rings.
Got to meet and get autograph of Billy Boyd as my birthday present.
Went to panel to hear Dean Cain speak
Went to panel to hear Adam West and Burt Ward speak
Met Adam West and Burt Ward
Met Steven Yuen from The Walking Dead (best conversation ever!). We talked about him being Asian but not having been cast in a stereotypical Asian role. Nicest guy ever!
Went to panel on young adult fiction covers.
Went to panel on the first Hobbit movie
Went to panel to hear LeVar Burton speak (BARELY got into that one)
Saw a burlesque show
Went to a panel on American Ninja Warrior
Went to a panel to hear Joss Whedon fans discuss The Avengers
Watched the parade and saw Stan Lee ride by
Standing in line for Billy Boyd and saw John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness from Doctor Who and Torchwood, though we didn’t know who he was at the time) stand up on a table and drop his pants.
I know there’s a ton of stuff I’m missing because I can’t remember it all. Just people watching was also a ton of fun. So many awesome costumes that you can tell people put in lots of time (and money) to create. Basically anything you could ever imagine was there.
I’m really sad that I lost a lot of my pictures when I transferred phones. I don’t even remember everything I had on there because there was so much stuff I had taken pics and I was like, oh I’ll just transfer them later! Nope, never making that mistake again.
(Our costumes, Katniss vs Sub-Zero. Fire vs Ice)
I can’t believe this is seriously all the pictures I personally have from our trip. Though now that I think about it, my friend took a lot of pics that he still has on his camera. Hmm. All I have is my memories, many of them really good ones.
Anyways if you’ve been wanting to go to a con and you can’t make it out to SDCC quite yet, I HIGHLY recommend going to DragonCon. I hope to make it there again one day. Now that I know even more geek stuff since then, it’ll be even better.
Two months ago I posted about how I was going to be covering The Musketeers for Entertainment Weekly. I was a bit excited yet apprehensive about covering the show. The first show I had done was kinda meh and did not have a large audience at all. This new show I thought would be more enjoyable and with a slightly bigger audience but was it really people’s cup of tea? Would anyone really be interested in it? Would I really enjoy it?
Two months later as we approach the season finale on Sunday night, I’m going to miss this most awesome show until next year.
If you’ve been watching the show (or even if you haven’t), feel free to catch up on my recaps on Entertainment Weekly. I also really enjoy comments (hint hint) so if you’re catching up, even ones on older episodes would be great!
A lot of people don’t have BBC America (which is going to be a pain when Doctor Who starts up again on Saturday) so I know that it’s not as accessible as shows on network stations or basic cable. Which makes me quite sad because IT’S SO GOOD that I feel a broader audience would be great for it.
However after talking with folks on Twitter and Facebook, I have yet to come across a person who started watching this show and disliked it. Everyone I know who has had the chance to raves about The Musketeers.
Why have I enjoyed this show?
It’s a historical action-adventure drama. Period pieces are my favorite genre to watch.
There’s humor. When the writing is on point, there is some incredibly witty and hilarious dialogue.
There’s sword fighting. Which is the best kind of fighting.
There’s hot guys. And all so very different so you can and choose!
It’s a lot of fun. It’s really one of the best shows out there that you can sit back and just enjoy yourself.
You don’t have to think TOO hard while watching but you don’t have to sit there and feel like you lost brain cells after it’s over.
Because I enjoy the show so much, it’s been actually a bit hard to recap it properly. I fangirl so much while doing it that I have to leave things out and not do so much OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sometimes my recaps are too long but it’s because there’s so much that’s happening and it seems hard to leave things out. My notes are mostly illegible even to me because I’m constantly having to write down everything and then going back to see how something isn’t really that important.
Peter Capaldi is leaving the show because he’ll be starring on Doctor Who which makes me a bit sad because I’ve really enjoyed his character. He plays him to perfection and I’m going to be wondering what they’ll do to him on Sunday night to replace him. This is a video of him, not acting, but I laughed a lot when I watched it.
If you’re a fan of the men, then you’ll definitely enjoy this video.
It’s been a bit hard to interact with the show and actors on Twitter even though I’m recapping it. The show originally aired in the UK earlier in the year, and while BBC America is promoting it heavily, since you CAN look up to see what happened most of the anticipation is gone. Plus three of the 4 Musketeers (plus Capaldi) don’t have Twitter so that’s been a bummer. I have been retweeted and favorited by several of the actors so that’s been encouraging. Though to be honest, I’m not sure they actually read my recaps. Still I’ll take what I can get.
There are some issues in the show that I find a bit troublesome. I’m not a fan of some of the historical anachronisms such as Milady walking around in public or that some of the female costumes seem a bit too modern. Also, while I know that having affairs was commonplace during that time period, I really am not a fan of how Constance handles her relationship with D’Artagnan and also with her husband. I think (as I said in my recaps) it’s more to do with how they’ve portrayed (or rather NOT portrayed) their relationship and I feel like there’s a lack of a story. It’s also really funny that there are other relationships that I (while again I don’t condone adultery) the chemistry of the characters makes that relationship so much better.
Blips aside, I know that I can’t wait til next year when the second season comes out. I hope I’ll still be covering the show but at the very least I’ll be watching as well. If you’re going to be watching the season finale on Sunday night and are on Twitter, come find me (@beatccr). Hopefully I’ll be livetweeting while watching or at the very least tell me what you thought!
Also…if you’ve read down this far, you’ll be the first to know that the next show I’ll be covering for EW will have another Doctor Who connection. I’ll be recapping Selfie starring Karen Gillan and John Cho. More coming on that soon!
Just want to start this out first by saying I’m proud to be an American.
Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I am an Anglophile. I love all things British. If you’ve known me for at least six months, then you know that I have a soft spot for anything from the other side. .
Even though my focus for my history degrees were in American history, my absolute favorite history class was the one I took in British history. Actually I probably would have focused more on British history had my colleges offered more classes. Now I’m not a big fan of the rest of European history. I can’t remember most of the French, Spanish, German, etc. history that I studied. But British history, with all of its kings, battles, and culture? This is how I feel about that:
I’ve talked about some of my favorite British interests on my blog:
But there are SO MANY MORE. Harry Potter, James Bond, Sherlock, Downton Abbey, Jane Austen, Lewis & Tolkien, Shakespeare, etc. My favorite actors are all British: Kate Winslet, Emily Blunt, Colin Firth, Alan Rickman, etc. Basically if it’s on Masterpiece Theater or was shown on BBC, I’ll probably enjoy it. The best done Marvel Cinematic Universe movie? Captain America: The First Avenger. Why? History and British people + comic book superheroes = BEST IDEA EVER.
It is on my bucket list to go to England one day. I do want to visit the rest of the United Kingdom, but I definitely need/want/must go to England before I die. I don’t think I could see everything in just a few days. Maybe I could move there for a year or so.
British accents are awesome. I love listening to audio books read by a British speaker all day.
And while I know how some people feel about the idea of a constitutional monarchy and I’m fully glad that the US won its independence from Great Britain, I do absolutely love learning about the British Royal Family. And Prince Harry is still available. One can dream. And perhaps write a future fangirling post.
I’m not even really going into everything that I enjoy about Britain right now because it would be too much for you. I just know that it’s a fascinating country, with a rich history, heritage, and culture that I really enjoy.
I know I’m not the only one here. What are some of you favorite British things?
We already know I’m a late bloomer for everything. One of those things is that I get into late after the game is fandoms where everyone there has been fans for years.
It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s geek stuff, music, or sports. When it comes to those categories, I never seemed to be around right from the beginning. The one exception is maybe books but even then sometimes I’m late to the game too.
I came across this article on Cracked the other day: 3 Fan Communities That Hate Their Own Members. And it’s something that I’ve noticed whenever I (or anyone new) starts liking things well after the fact of it being established: how much people hate on other fans who all like the same thing.
I just started watching Community this past week. When it first premiered, I was at a stage in life when it didn’t appeal to me. As the years have gone by, I’ve been recommended by several people insisting I would like it. I’ve been meaning to watch it for a while but I never had access to the DVDs and it’s not streaming online. I don’t do the whole torrent thing so basically I was at a disadvantage to watching.
But once I started watching it, I loved it. I was mad at myself for not discovering it earlier. Sure I was late to the game but I could share my love about it others who did because then we’d all be fans together, right? WRONG. While I did get some positive reaction and happiness that I too now was a fan, a lot of reaction was “Late to game!” “Duh, we told you about this for years.” “Fair weather fan”. And I’m like seriously? You’re not happy for new fans?
It wasn’t as if I watched one episode, or read one comic, halfheartedly watched a game, listened to the ONE hit song a band had. When I start liking a fandom, I do my research and I go full force into it. I want to prove to myself that I can be there and so I study up. So to be told that I wasn’t really a fan because I started super late ticked me off. It also made me feel like I had to hide the fact of my excitement of discovering new things that I really enjoyed.
I remember when I went to go see New Found Glory in 2002. I had been a fan of them for about a year and a half at that point. There had been fans who liked them before I did. I’m not sure how they found out about them (find the one CD in their local record store? saw them on stage when they first started) but I know that I got into them because of other people’s enthusiasm. At that last concert, there were several young teens that only new their latest album. They didn’t know any of the old songs at all. Did it peeve me a little? Yes. Especially since they didn’t know “Hit or Miss”. But was I going to get all angry at them and tell they to get out because only true fans deserved to be there? No. Because I wouldn’t have fit that definition anyways.
I guess I’m just trying to figure out this kind of behavior. Whenever someone starts liking something that I’ve liked for years and they genuinely like it (not liking for dubious reasons), I’m excited for them. If anything I want them to like it as much as I do, though I know that overloading them too early can be fatal. I would never mock someone for being a new fan nor would I try to discourage them. Even if they ended up changing their minds and not liking it, I know they that gave it a try and I could respect that.
What makes you better than someone because you discovered it first? Does it mean you’re a better fan? Does it mean you’re a better person? Are you annoyed that you’re not the only one anymore? Is it an identity issue? Do you just hate new fans jumping on the bandwagon? What makes a true fan and why are you one and not someone else?
It is time for us all
To decide who we are
Do we fight for the right
To a night at the opera now?
I’ve been very #blessed (yep, I just did that) this summer when it comes to having opportunities happen to me. This is not a summer where I can go to places on vacation or spend a lot of money. I’ve been doing a lot of armchair travel either via books, radio dramas, or TV shows. But one really cool thing I’ve been able to do this summer is attend a lot of concerts at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts…..almost all of them for free. Some of the tickets I’ve won (ie The National Symphony Orchestra performing the score to a screening of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey AND Josh Groban!) and one set I actually bought (Josh Groban again!)
But the more awesome way was how I got to attend the opera this summer!
I’d never been to the opera before. I’d seen movies that featured the opera in it but it wasn’t something I’d ever experienced myself. It was too expensive. I thought it might be boring. I thought it’d be confusing with the foreign language. And it seemed like something you’d do if you older and more well off. Opera goers have the stereotype of being stuffy and over cultured. At least to me. It was just something I never thought I’d see myself attending. I mean this is what I thought of when I saw the opera:
However one day I just happened to see this tweet that had been retweeted by the main Wolf Trap twitter feed:
WTO seeks “opera newbies” for study. Participants receive FREE tix! Email opera@wolftrap.org. (Retweet to your opera virgin friends!)
And I thought, well I love Wolf Trap, I’ve never been to the opera before, and free tickets? Sure why not? This was just luck that I happen to catch this tweet because I had only JUST started following the main Wolf Trap account and so I didn’t normally go to look at their tweets. It was just excellent timing.
After attending the information session with Wolf Trap Opera (lots of information on their website!), we were told that the reason why they were doing this was that they wanted to reach out to people who had never been to the opera and learn why. Basically a lot of people had the same preconceptions I had and they wanted to change that. All we had to was answer a few surveys and we were going to be given free tickets to two operas of our choice. I was stoked! This was an opportunity I never thought I was going to have and now I’d get to do it for free? Awesome!
The first opera I saw was Handel’s Giulio Cesare. It is the story of Julius Cesar and Cleopatra. It’s sung in Italian. You can read a synopsis of the opera here.
This one was done at The Barns at Wolf Trap which is a more intimate location seating less than 400 people. The buildings are actual barns from the 18th century and have excellent acoustics.
We didn’t know what to expect and was very glad we went to the pre talk beforehand. This was great because we were told how the story differed from what one normally would have expected from a historical story (ie. everyone wore modern costumes) and we were given samples of what the singers would sound like. This was good because the male lead was a countertenor and if you’ve never heard one before it is quite a shock.
The opera itself was fabulous. Sets were well done, costumes were great, the singing excellent. I never once felt bored or lost. The only thing that was a bit of an issue was our seats were in the very back and therefore seeing the subtitles was a bit difficult but it’s really a minor quibble. We walked out that night feeling extremely cultured. I felt like this is what it was like for all those people back in history when they went to the opera house. I feel like I just experienced something totally new and it was excellent.
Since we were sitting in the back, this is the best pic we could get.
I don’t have actual footage of the opera but here’s a video about what the opera was about made the company
The second opera I attended was Bizet’s Carmen, held at the main Filene Center at Wolf Trap.
You can read a synopsis of the opera here. It was sung in French.
There was a huge difference for us in seeing this opera over our first one. While Giulio Cesare felt very intimate, this one being in the larger venue felt more open. Our seats this time was in the balcony on the very far left side. And they were excellent. We could see everything (aside from the chorus in the back but that was ok).
With the dancing, costumes, and video screens (one of my favorite parts), it felt more like watching a Broadway show vs the “Shakespeare theater” feeling. I absolutely loved it. The video screens changed throughout the course of the show, sometimes very subtle which made up for the fact that there were no walls/sets. Also the music was done by the National Symphony Orchestra. The performances were all so very excellent.
You may recognize the music even though you haven’t seen the opera before. It’s become part of pop culture.
A really cool thing Wolf Trap Opera did during the Carmen performance was heavily integrate the use of technology. There was seating on part of the lawn where you could use your electronic device to read the supertitles. Also a cast member used Google glasses on stage to get a different glimpse of what was going on during the performance. I can’t watch this video without getting motion sickness but it’s a really cool perspective of what’s going on during the show.
So yeah! Going to opera is awesome. I highly recommend it if you get the chance to go where you live. And if you happen to be in the DC area, you totally should come out to Wolf Trap to see the opera there. It’s not as expensive as seeing it at like Kennedy Center but the performance is just as great. You don’t have to get all fancy and dress up (unless you want to of course). Also it’s at Wolf Trap which is always excellent whether at the Barns or the Filene Center (picnic on the lawn!). If you ever see an opportunity like this, I highly recommend jumping on it.
A Girl Who Is a Geek 