I blame Kim and Aggie. August 28, 2007 ~ 10:34 am
Posted by Julie in : Reviews , comments closedSo lately I’ve been TiVoing a show on BBC America called “How Clean Is Your House?”. I greatly enjoy my BBC America and have been sucked into it for hours at a time watching “Cash in the Attic,” “Hex,” “Robin Hood,” and “Changing Rooms,” among other things, but this show is different. Rather than making me want to lounge around on the couch in my jim-jams, “How Clean Is Your House?” makes me feel the need to clean. A lot.
See, the basic premise is that two women, Kim and Aggie, are called into clean houses that people have let go past the point of no return. We are talking years of grime and crap here. And before they clean, Aggie takes swabs of the whole house so you know exactly what kind of bacteria these people have been living with. I have learned more about bacteria since I started watching this, and frankly, it’s horrifying. Your skin just crawls. And then you look around your house and start to wonder what bacteria are living with you. And then you must clean. Or I must, at any rate.
My place is generally pretty clean. Yeah, the cats tear fur out of each other and so I have to vacuum up the fur tumbleweeds every week. But aside from the office, there isn’t a lot of clutter, mostly because I don’t like looking at it (and that explains why the office is cluttered, since it is out of sight.). But, do I dust? Um, not so much. I use my Swiffer wet jet on the kitchen and bathroom floors, but I know that’s not deep cleaning them because the floors are old and dirt gets trapped in the crevices. And so last night, I went on a cleaning tear. I vacuumed. I dusted and polished the coffee table and cleaned out all the things that have been collecting there. I dusted the end tables. I scrubbed the toilet and bathroom sink (Kim has given me nightmares about things that lurk under the rims of toilets and I couldn’t rest until I’d cleaned mine). I cleaned out the toaster oven. And then, the piece de resistance, I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed the kitchen floor. With a brush and some OxiClean. I couldn’t let it soak for as long as the can recommended because Freddie was way too intrigued by the whole process and I was afraid he would play in the water and then lick it off of himself and get good and ill, but it still got a fair amount of grime up. And when I went to sleep, my muscles ached. And I had nightmares about the crusty stuff in the microwave that I hadn’t cleaned. Guess what I’ll be cleaning tonight?
2nd best concert. Ever. August 2, 2007 ~ 9:54 am
Posted by Julie in : Reviews , comments closedAnd the Police were only edged out by Queen + Paul Rodgers because of my love of Queen…and Brian’s guitar playing. Andy Summers is a brilliant guitar player, but not quite the same as Brian May.
Fiction Plane opened up the show, and they are a damned good band - a little more towards the alternative style of rock than the Police, but high energy and really entertaining. I especially liked Joe Sumner’s repeated jumps off the speakers and the fact that he played to those of us sitting behind the stage. He sounded eerily like his dad at a couple of points, but on the whole he’s got his own style of bass playing and singing. He may be Sting’s son, but he’s his own musician.
There was a half hour turnaround between Fiction Plane and the Police, and then the Police took then stage at a little past 9. For the next two hours I was on my feet, dancing and singing. It was a greatest hits concert in the best sense - “Message in a Bottle,” “This Bed’s Too Big Without You,” “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” “So Lonely,” “Roxanne,” “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da,” “King of Pain,” “Next To You”…I think the only song that I was really dying to hear that they didn’t play was “Fallout,” but I was probably the only one who really wanted to hear that (I was surrounded by people who didn’t know the words to half the songs, with the notable exception of a group of four to my left and a drunk guy three rows down. And Mom. She knew the words to most of the songs.).
All told, the Police played for just about two hours, and I literally think I sat down for three minutes. I’ve got every song they ever recorded on CD (and thus on my iPod), but until you hear them live, you don’t realize how much of a groove there is, how based in reggae and ska a lot of their songs are. At one point, when everyone was on their feet and singing (I think it was during “Roxanne”), I could feel the ground moving under my feet. Even Sting stopped doing a call-and-response with the audience to say “This stage moves. There is definitely a seismic reaction going on here.”
Long and short of it: when the three of them are on stage, you can tell one of them has been doing rock concerts and working out for the past twenty years and two of them havent. Sting hardly broke a sweat, he was playing to the entire audience, he looked just as fresh at the end of the concert as he did at the beginning. Andy’s playing is on, but a lot of the time he looked like he was focusing more inward than on the crowd around him. Stewart is on, but he has a vacant stare on his face and his jaw is hanging slack for the majority of the time, like he’s on something. He and Andy looked tired by the end of the show, although he recovered enough as they were leaving after the second encore to shout “Yeah!” at the crowd a couple of times. I think all three of them enjoyed the hell out of it, they just have different ways of playing now that they’ve been following different career paths for twenty years.
If I can get tickets for their Halloween show at the Garden, I am totally there.
Finished July 23, 2007 ~ 10:24 am
Posted by Julie in : Reviews , comments closedI spent 10 hours in the park on Saturday for Samang’s blessing, another five in the park yesterday for the “let’s get rid of some more of this food” party, and Rick came over last night. But I still managed to finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by 11:30 last night.
So, so good. I laughed, I shed copious amounts of tears, and in the end, I was right. On one count, at least (and no, I’m not going to tell you which count, but if you know me, you can guess). I think this is the best book of the seven, and Jo has done an amazing job at tying up all the loose ends in the series. You have to stand in awe of the imagination of this woman.
I can’t wait until Samang is old enough for us to read these books to her!
What the fuck is a Deathly Hallow, anyway? July 17, 2007 ~ 4:18 pm
Posted by Julie in : About a Julz, Reviews , comments closedI am alternately eagerly anticipating and dreading this Friday. If you’ve been living under a rock, Friday at midnight is when the final Harry Potter book comes out. As the Oldest pointed out to me after we saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last week, “We should really appreciate these last few days because they’re the last ones we have where we don’t know what happens.” She’s right, of course. She has grown up with Harry Potter, literally. The first book came out in the US in 1998, when she was six. I’m not sure when she started reading the series (or having it read to her), but Harry has been a massive part of her life.
I found Harry Potter by accident during grad school. I was trying to juggle a heavy course load and a job, and was longing for the days when I had free time to read something other than dramatic criticism and theatre history. One night while I was up procrastinating work on a paper, I saw a book that my roommate had left out on the dining room table: Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone. I picked it up and devoured it during the course of the next three nights before moving onto the next one, which my roomate also had. After that, I pre-ordered the new books on-line and spent the next however many hours it took reading them through to the finish, the last two within 24 hours so that I could hand them off to the Oldest (her summer schedule is always up in the air and we never know where she will be to pre-order them). This series of books makes me happy in a way that no other series ever has, and any children who come into my life will grow up knowing Harry the way I wish I could have as a child.
Saturday will mark the first time that I will not be home when the book is delivered, since I will be in the park for Samang’s blessing/naming ceremony. Bet your ass that when I get home, though, that book will be superglued to my hand until I have read the very last word. I’m predicting that will happen late Sunday afternoon, even if I have to stay up all night to do so. This is my last chance to race unknowingly towards the conclusion of a Harry Potter book, after all. There will be time enough to read slowly the second time through. The first read is always a full-out sprint. See you all at the finish line.
Telenovela junkie January 22, 2007 ~ 11:28 pm
Posted by Julie in : Reviews , comments closedHave I mentioned before that Ugly Betty is one of my favorite shows and that I’ve got it on Season Pass on the TiVo? No? Well, I do. I also have a couple of episodes on the iPod for subway/lunch hour viewing. It makes me happy.
One of the things I love best about the show is that it has definitely stayed true to its telenovela roots. (Yes, I have been known to watch telenovelas on Univision, Galavision, Telemundo, and whatever other channels air them, even though the amount of Spanish I have retained from high school is limited to “Que tal?”, “Hola,” and a wide variety of curses.) Just when you think you’ve got everything figured out, the writers throw in a twist so incredibly bizarre that you sit in front of the TV slack-jawed, thinking “What the fuck just happened?” and you rewind the TiVo at least twice to try to wrap your mind around it.
Tonight I finally got around to watching last Thursday’s episode. If you saw it, you know precisely which five minutes I rewound multiple times. If you didn’t, and don’t normally watch this show, it’s about time you start. It’s just getting GOOD, people.
Still no scarf pictures. October 19, 2006 ~ 10:31 am
Posted by Julie in : Craftiness Is Next To Godliness, Reviews , comments closedBecause I am lame, and spent last night helping a friend pack, then came home and knitted while watching the finale of Project Runway and the premiere of Top Chef. Damn you, Bravo, for producing reality TV I actually care about watching!
Spoiler below.
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If you haven’t seen Project Runway and don’t want to know who wins, don’t read further.
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Seriously, don’t.
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Fine, be what your friends call you.
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Did anyone else think this finale was a little…blah? No real drama (Jeffrey and the missing receipts don’t count), no twists, no last minute projects to be made, just a really easy time for the designers. Bor-ing. I wasn’t surprised that Jeffrey won, really, since Michael’s collection would have looked at home on a whore and Laura’s was all evening and cocktail gowns (Laura! Wake up, girl! The judges all told you not to make a line of just fancy dresses, why did you think you would win if you ignored them???). Uli’s dresses were nice, but you can’t wear that shit most places in the world. If I wore those stripey patterney muu-muus in New York? I’d be laughed at. I don’t have the cash or family to pull off that kind of eccentricity. Jeffrey’s line was good, but you could pretty much see his win coming for the past five episodes as the producers put in more “Jeffrey as a human being” features and less “Jeffrey is a dick with no chin” features. Could there have been any more moments of Jeffrey and his son? I think not. “Awww, look, he’s a caring father! Who cares that he’s a complete asshole to everyone else?” Riiiiight.
In non-Runway news, I started my second Jaywalker sock last Wednesday and am now done with the gusset decreases. If I keep going at this rate, I just might be able to wear the socks to Rhinebeck on Saturday. Of course, there is the distinct possibility that I will be finishing the damn thing on the drive upstate, but I can live with that as long as I get them done and can wear them around as I shop for more yarn and fiber!
I am never going into a cave again. August 10, 2006 ~ 11:12 am
Posted by Julie in : Drama Queen, Reviews , comments closedLast night my friend Eugene (known to some as “Shady Gene,” but that’s another story) talked Lori and I into seeing The Descent with him. It got a good review in The Times, and Gene likes a good horror movie apparently.
So armed with a shitload of food and candy from the outside world and a very larce Icee, we sat down to watch a movie about a caving expedition gone horribly, horribly wrong. I have to say that I liked the fact that this was an all chick movie. There was one guy in it, briefly, but the main characters were all women. Ass-kicking, flexible women who go completely nuts on the albino creepy things living in the cave they go into.
It was a decent movie. Not great, but not horrible. I didn’t feel like I’d wasted the $9.50 I spent on the ticket (side note, Loews on 34th has the cheapest movie tickets in the city - on the Upper West Side, tickets cost $10.50), and I did jump and scream more than a few times. More importantly, I was able to sit there and make fun of the horror genre with Gene and Lori. But next time, Lori and I get to pick the movie. Something nice and safe like…Prairie Home Companion. Actually, any movie except World Trade Center. None of us have any desire to see that - we’re still too close to the actual event.
Tomorrow I head off to the Berkshires for a weekend playwright’s retreat. We’re staying at the summer house of the co-artistic director of the theater I work at. The place has a pool and some woods and a crazy dog. And is only half an hour from where Rick is. So in addition to stretching out my dramaturgical muscles by commenting on new plays, I get some R&R and a chance to see my boy. It will be good.
In which I say “snatch” a lot. August 9, 2006 ~ 11:52 am
Posted by Julie in : Reviews , comments closedMy Con Ed bill hit this morning. $155.51. I know that isn’t as bad as what some of you are getting hit with, but remember that I am one person living in a two room apartment. I do not have a whole house to cool down, I have two cats. However, I think my whole “set the a/c to 80* and put it on energy saver” theory worked - I’m pretty sure the bill would have been above $200 had I not done that.
But now, onto happier subjects, like snatches. Jordana and I went to a kickass show last night, Absinthe: Les Artistes de la Clique. It has been making the rounds of the festivals (including Edinburgh) and has been a tremendous hit wherever it plays. I can totally see why. It’s a cabaret/vaudeville/burleque performance involving a fair amount of acrobatics, a couple of arial acts, some cross-dressing, a lot of stripping, the occasional bubble blower, and of course, naked magic featuring snatches. Because no show would be complete without that.
The whole thing takes place in the Spiegeltent at South Street Seaport where the alcohol is flowing (courtesy of Heartland Brewery) and the atmosphere is rowdy. I could have done without the ballad singer (her second song was funny, but the first and last songs didn’t seem to go with the rest of the evening). The rest was brilliant. My favorites of the night were the drag queen who first tap danced in roller skates, then pogo’d in 7″ platform heels while juggling knives, the emcee who was also a sword swallower (well, table leg swallower), and the magic act.
The magic trick being performed wasn’t exceptional - it was the old “stuff a handkerchief into my hand and make it disappear” - but the execution…the magician (a woman) came out dressed in a somewhat severe suit. She did the handkerchief trick once, then removed her jacket to show she wasn’t hiding the handkerchief up her sleeves. She then pulled it out of her skirt, so the next time she did the trick, she removed that. And found the handkerchief in her bra. So she removed that. And then found it in her panties. So she removed them and did the trick completely naked. And then pulled the handkerchief from her snatch. Possibly the most entertaining magic trick I have ever seen, because how often do you witness magical snatches, live on stage in front of you, complete with bumps and grinds? Okay, let me rephrase that…how often does a non-perv who doesn’t hang out at the private booths witness a magical snatch, live on stage in front of you?
After the show is over, the Spiegeltent becomes a bar (there’s a bar in it throughout the performance, which is how Julie walked away with two pint glasses last night - ask Aimee, I have maybe one glass which I have not stolen from a bar) and they party into the night. Jordana and I were out of cash (despite the fact that we got in for free because she’s a producer), so we didn’t stay. I have to say, though, it was one of the most entertaining evenings I’ve had in a long time. And it made Jordana change her mind about going with me to see the freakshow at Coney Island, so it was doubly worth it. I loved this show.
Arrrrrr, matey. July 13, 2006 ~ 4:34 pm
Posted by Julie in : Reviews , comments closedOne mission accomplished. We saw Pirates of the Caribbean 2 yesterday, trekking for 12 blocks in the pouring rain. I think we can safely say that monsoon season has arrived in Manhattan, because when we got to the movie theater I was actually able to wring water out of my capris. It was kind of fitting to watch pirates slogging through the water as the Youngest and I sat in our seats with wet feet and sandals, dripping right along with them.  (Rick, in a heretofore unseen super-power, seems to repel rain. Lucky bastard.)
I liked the movie, although I did think it went on a bit too long and had a bit too much going on plot-wise in the middle. (I am being purposely vague for those who may not have seen it.) Rick concurred. And since it was the Youngest’s second time seeing it inside of 24 hours (her uncle took her the night before and she was chomping at the bit to see it again), I think it’s safe to say she liked it, too. Great fight chroeography, nice CGI, and I still have my small lesbian crush on Keira Knightley. Conversely, Orlando Bloom does nothing for me. Oh, and I loved the ending.
But now I have to get back to the cleaning, because Aimee’s going to be here in about 6 and a half hours!!!Â
Hell…raiser June 25, 2006 ~ 12:56 pm
Posted by Julie in : Reviews , comments closedLast night Jordana and I went out for the third major event of Kickass Summer Weekend. (Lori’s party Friday night was the second, and ended up being very laid back…with a camera.) Through pouring rain and a lightning storm we drove out to Jones Beach on the Island. We had originally planned to spend the whole day at the beach, but the rain pissing down put the kibosh on that one. It also put an end to our “get to the beach in an hour” plan, so we finally crawled into the parking lot at 6:30. Plenty of time to have our beach picnic and some beers in the car. Next time we’re bringing a tent like all the other Leppard fans seemed to have - the parking lot was a massive tailgate party. Headed into the Ampitheater and got to our seats in time for Journey to start playing.
Now, let me tell you what hell is. Hell is sitting through a Journey concert with no beer. That’s right, there was no beer or any other type of alcohol sold in the venue. We asked and were informed that to get beer we would have to be in the VIP section, and alas there were no upgrades to be had at this concert. I don’t know if this is going to be true at all concerts, or if it was just specific to this venue, but now we know what one of the perks to the VIP tickets was. Journey wasn’t really bad, it was just that they didn’t seem to have a stage presence. They weren’t working the crowd, they weren’t really moving around the stage, they were just there. Back in college when someone was playing a Journey CD it meant that they were going through a bad break up, and everyone on the hall would just shake their heads and say “Oh, Journey.” Last night I found myself shaking my head and saying “Oh, Journey” a lot. It was all that really could be said.
The Def Leppard half of the show, on the other hand, kicked ass. I’m guessing that they’re alternating who opens like last year’s tour with Bryan Adams, but last night they closed and took full advantage of it. Their graphics on the screen were great and included lots of pictures of the band in the early days, interviews from MTV, and of course, lots of Steve. It seemed like they took a page from Queen’s book and were able to have a little tribute to him while still making the “this is who we are now” statement. All of the guys really owned the stage, playing up to all the fans everywhere, moving around and playing off of each other. I know, they do this at every concert, but it was such a contrast to Journey that I have to mention it again. And I loved, loved, loved that they played four songs from “Yeah!” (including two of my favorites, “Hellraiser” and “Hangin’ on the Telephone”). It was nice to get some of the new songs in with some of the older ones, and I think it really helped tighten up the set. Phil has said that they’re taking this tour up a notch and he’s right. I screamed so much that if it had been a full headlining show, I would have lost my voice last night. As is, I’m incredibly hoarse today.
But not too hoarse to cheer for England’s win in the World Cup just now. 
