Thursday, July 27, 2006

I really need to update this more often

But I don't really have time. Essays have finally become a priority (almost) so time is being spent researching those and doing all the other stuff that's become a norm, like meeting Rob for lunch (which takes 2 hours by the time I've got there and back) etc etc etc.

Went to see Cirque du Soleil's "Corteo" show on Saturday. It was amazing! Those people are crazy bendy, and strong, and just generally frightening. The premise of the show is that it's a clown's funeral which his ghost (I suppose) is presiding over, and the Cirque comes out to pay their respects in the ways they know best. So we had "kids" on trampoline beds, including one guy who kept bouncing on his back and then running up the headboard and coming to a dead stop balanced on the top of it (how is that even possible?). There were people behaving like cartwheels, in the middle of big metal rings - they looked like pennies spinning, but under more control. There were acrobats on chandeliers, acrobats on podium-type things throwing smaller acrobats to each other, acrobats on tightropes at 45 degree angles, acrobats on tethers that he kept holding in his mouth while she (not as small as the ones that were being thrown around) clung to him in improbable ways... a human marionette, a tiny (Russian) woman who was suspended beneath balloons (like a cartoon, but true), a crystal glass orchestra with the ringmaster whistling (better than it sounds), a man that ran up and down a ladder (not fixed to anything of course) and then did a handstand at the top of it, a scene with two people having an acrobatics fight over a see-saw (reminded me of "West Side Story" but more aerial)... All kinds of stuff. It was spectacular, which I think is the point, and made me feel entirely inadequate, but never mind.

There's a lot of shows in Chicago in the summer! I hadn't realised before because we've been based out in Naperville (which is a pain to get to) or have been up in Canada for the majority of the time I've been around. This Thursday we're going to see Muse, then on Friday Camera Obscura. Talvin Singh is playing at some point, Blackalicious (who I only know from the ridiculous song "Alphabet Aerobics", in which he uses as many words beginning with one letter as he can in two or three lines before moving on to the next), Tricky, a Foo Fighters acoustic gig... I'm sure there were some others but I don't think we have tickets for them yet. Oh and Lollapalooza adds about another hundred bands to that (obviously we won't see them all, but still). All in all, a fun summer!


That's about it for now, I'm sure I was going to write more but I just don't remember what. Ooh apart from the fact that my hair glows under UV light, which is very cool. I'll post a pic as soon as I find my camera cable, which I've mislaid – very upsetting. It'll turn up though.

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