This year's best musical winner, Jersey Boys, is, as they call them, a "jukebox musical". From what everyone says, it's amazingly good, and does exactly what it wants to do; listening to the album, I can believe it and am looking forward to seeing it when it comes to SF on tour. However, it still isn't going to thrill me as great musical theatre, only as a good theatrical show with lots of music. What I like about new shows is the new music. I bet it would do far better in a Las Vegas sitdown than Avenue Q or Hairspray did and Spamalot probably will.

The overture to a show really sets the mood for a show, and as The Color Purple begins, I immediately get a sense of pomposity. I'm always leery of adaptations of well known works (I saw the abortive Mambo Kings tryout here in SF which lived up to my low expectations), and I think I have an adversity to the "traditional" musical, which The Color Purple sounds like it's trying to be. Several of the individual numbers are catchy, certainly, but there is a lack of cohesion to them, and they seem a bit over the top, all the time, which blunts the effect.

The Drowsy Chaperone had me leery because I know I'm not a fan of those old-time musicals and that style of music. On the other hand it's supposed to be parodying them. And it does a good job at it. However, thus far none of the songs have really stuck with me. The are humourous to listen to, but the music doesn't seem all that memorable to me (probably because i don't much enjoy that music, and without the music the clever lyrics won't stick).

The Wedding Singer again had me worried - an adaptation of a movie starring a comedian I don't enjoy? No thanks. But of course I got the CD. Again, it wasn't bad, and there are some definite bright spots, and it grows on me more each time I hear it. Some parts though are either trying too hard or not even trying, and end up being a string of 80s references. I am left with a similar impression as I had with David Yazbek's The Full Monty - it's bit too cheesy (compare The Full Monty's "Man" and The Wedding Singers "Single"). However, Yazbek's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels adaptation last year I found to be much better - I am definitely eager to see what Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin can do next.

This season's crop of CDs did give me two shows I very much enjoy: Michael John LaChiusa's See What I Wanna See, especially the second act, "Gloryday", and his Bernarda Alba. One of the problems I have with most of the LaChiusa's work is that he will introduce several melodies that I love that just fly by without development - his pieces don't really leave big standalone songs and at times seem more like elaborated recesitivos. However, I adore First Lady Suite, so I'll keep buying his stuff, and these two shows are worth it. There are several places in "See" where I am reminded of the sounds from his The Wild Party, but this I'm satisfied with all the melodic development (my favorite at the moment: the "Message" melody, to which the priest messages of an upcoming miracle is set, especially in the duet version of "Second Message"). Similarly, there strong melodic paralles between "Bernarda" and his Marie Christine, but again with more satisfying melodic development. His work is definately growing on me (Hello Again, which I have only listened to twice, is totally eluding me at the moment - I feel I'm missing something profound in it because it totally fails to stick with me as either good or bad).]]> http://blog.physiker.us/index.php?id=20 http://blog.physiker.us/index.php?id=19 2006-06-11 18:00:05 Tony awards. However, know that I have not forsaken you.]]> http://blog.physiker.us/index.php?id=19 http://blog.physiker.us/index.php?id=18 2006-04-18 04:10:45 American Prometheus, so I only had 3 books to find. (They managed to correct the headquote citation on Chapter 4 of Prometheus- it now correctly says it was from a letter to Francis Fergusson and not his brother Frank - so I don't have to complain Knopf). My hunt was complicated by the fact that two of the three are out in paperback, so hardcovers are a bitch to find. Polio: An American Story was easy to get at the local Borders. Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya I managed to find at Moe's Books used. The dustjacket is fairly beat up, but the book itself is in great shape. Maybe I'll find a cheap edition in a few years with a good jacket. I still have to find Geraldine Brooks's March (as opposed to The March by E. L. Doctorow, which was also a finalist). I visited Moe's, two Cody's, a Border, two Barnes and Nobles, and Stacey's. If you see a hardcover version of it laying around, let me know.]]> http://blog.physiker.us/index.php?id=18 http://blog.physiker.us/index.php?id=17 2006-04-11 14:31:34 NPR Books Podcast opened with an interview with Beverly Cleary, celebrating her 90th birthday and discussing the significant impact she had on children's reading. I know she's the one to blame for my love of books. The first book I really remember reading was her "The Mouse and the Motorcycle". I remember reading it in a fancy hotel suite with a huge living room and two bedrooms, I believe in the San Francisco Fairmont. I also remember my little brother running around with his bottle dangling out of his mouth like an elephant's trunk in a similar room, so unless I'm conflating memories I must have been 6 or 7 (when do kids start walking, and when do they stop using bottles? It seems the latter should happen before the former, so now I'm confused...). In any case, I remember plowing through that book nonstop and loving it. I went on to read any more of her books that I could find, starting with the Ralph S. Mouse ones, continuing on to the Henry series, and finishing with the Ramona series (the last one I read was hardback, but I don't remember which it was). The 12 that I still have in a box at home are

• The Mouse and the Motorcycle
• Ralph S. Mouse
• Ribsy
• Henry and Ribsy
• Henry and the Paper Route
• Henry and the Clubhouse
• Ramona the Pest
• Beezus and Ramona
• Ramona and Her Father
• Ramona and Her Mother
• Emily's Runaway Imagination
• Ramona Forever

In any event, thank you, Ms. Cleary, for a lifetime of adventure.]]> http://blog.physiker.us/index.php?id=17 http://blog.physiker.us/index.php?id=16 2006-04-03 03:48:36 Since this is an arts entry, I'll add that I hit SFMOMA again this weekend. I don't really get much connection with the "Digital Design" and assorted archetectural exhibits they have for some reason. I think I prefer my archetecture to be more physically realizable or something. The Calder and Surrealism exhibits were both interesting, and I plan to go back soon to explore them in more depth, but what really attracted me were two colored pencil works by Jackson Pollock in one of the side rooms of the permanent collection exhibit on the 2nd floor. I went back twice to look at them again. His "big splatter" stuff never seemed great to me, but I need to look into his other stuff. I may like him more than I realize.]]> http://blog.physiker.us/index.php?id=16 http://blog.physiker.us/index.php?id=15 2006-03-28 19:13:53 Gaussian and SI units.

The second is a calculation of the Fourier-Transform of a Chirped Gaussian Laser pulse. I've tried to be completely rigorous, but I didn't rigorously demonstrate the analyticity of one of the functions (i.e. that it satisfies the Cauchy-Riemann contiditions) and I didn't really justify my limit taking. Maybe I'll upgrade it someday, but even without the rigor the answer is clearly correct.]]> http://blog.physiker.us/index.php?id=15 http://blog.physiker.us/index.php?id=14 2006-03-12 22:13:24 I never shared that I found William T. Vollman's "Europe Central" very difficult, and at times annoying, to read. Especially the Shostakovich sections, written (supposedly) in a manner to emulate his speech: halting, repetative, and disjointed. I can appreciate trying to capture realistic speaking styles, but it annoys me when people speak that way, and I can't stand it in writing. The paired stories of captured generals were the best sections and made for the clearest example of the contrapuntive premise of this series of loosely related stories.

I didn't share how much I enjoyed "Lindbergh" by A. Scott Berg, how easy and entertaining it was to read. I didn't share the side note that as I was finishing it, my roommate picked up, based on a story on NPR, a copy of one of his wife's (Anne Morrow Lindbergh's) books, "Gift from the Sea", discussed in great detail in the biography (almost as much about her as about him).

I will now, however, share my thoughts on my current reading, "The Undiscovered Country: Poetry in the Age of Tin" by William Logan. Why am I reading a book of poetry criticism? I don't even read poetry. I don't think I have a single book of poetry in my library. But this book won the National Book Critics Circle award for 2005, so I'm reading it. Will it encourage me to take up poetry? Perhaps. I enjoyed the poem he quoted from Marie Ponsot ("It haunts us, the misappropriated flesh...", p. 41) enough to consider taking a look at her work.

Plus it gave me one of those weird moments where you learn a new word or idea then suddenly see it in four other places within a week. In this case, the "Undiscovered Country" quotes a footnote by Edward Mendelson in his critical work "Later Auden" (in turn referring to a line in a poem where the speaker asks his image in a mirror the flavor of his drink) saying "Auden was evidently aware that because the flavor of liquor is determined by asymmetrical molecules, mirror-liquor presumably tastes different from its real counterparts", and Logan goes on to add "The chemistry of stereoisomerism is knotty, and as far as I can discover its effect on flavor in alcohol not established even now". I read that yesterday, then last night I stopped on C-SPAN2's BookTV, and saw Robert Hazen discussing his book "Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origin", and he was talking about how the importance of chirality, with the specific example of a chemical (lemonine I think he said it was) that in one handed-version smells like lemon, and in the other handed-version smells like oranges. Smell and taste are quite well correlated, so it wouldn't surprise me if chirality affects taste as well as smell. But then, I also think often too much is read into poetry - maybe the line to which Mendelson refers is a much simpler "is the world different in there" than a "does the chirality of the molecules in your drink make it taste funky." Having not read the said poem (or really any poem), I'm not fit to judge such things.

It also has great lines like "...for all [Sharon Olds's] radical pretense..., she's a homely Redbook moralist, believing in motherhood, family, and honey on her nipples".]]> http://blog.physiker.us/index.php?id=14 http://blog.physiker.us/index.php?id=13 2006-03-05 20:01:12 Landmark's Shattuck Cinemas watching all the Oscar nominated Live Action and Animated Short Features (except "One Man Band", which didn't play). If I were voting, I'd have to chose "Ausreisser (The Runaway)" by Ulrike Grote for the Live Action ballot and "9" by Shane Acker for the Animation ballot.

I don't know how they manage to filter all the shorts produced every year down to this short list. They were all fine shorts, but I didn't see anything that made them better than any others I have seen this past year ("Ausreisser" being the exception - it was excellent). The other Live Action nominees all had interesting stories to tell, but felt a bit distant. In "Our Time is Up", a terminally ill psychiatrist finally gets around to curing his patients problems, but there is lacking any empathy with him, it feels like a simple "shrinks don't want to cure you cause they want you money" joke. "The Last Farm" is how an old man deals with the loss of his wife, and does a pretty good job of pulling you in (I think it loses some of the feeling in the translation though). "Cashback" is about the nightshift in a grocery store and how the staff gets the time. "Six Shooter" is the trainride home of a man who just lost his wife. Both were unique stories, but nothing that really stands out compared to the others.

As for animation, "Badgered" was cute, but basic. "The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello" (slated to be in Wholphin #2) had a great shadowgraphic visual style, but the script - trying to have an 18th century feel to it - didn't quite sparkle. "The Moon and the Son", a son's retelling of his father's history, was an interesting story, but there was something patronizing about the son's interjections into the father's story, and the end, the son's sudden return to anger, didn't make sense *or* even sound like the truth. "9" was simple and clear, despite the lack of any dialogue. It told a unique story of vengance (or justice) in an endearing way.

They didn't show the documentary shorts, so I can't comment on them. However, I'm glad Landmark provided us the chance to see these. Shorts can cover such a wide range of subject and stories that couldn't (and shouldn't) support a feature length films, it's a shame they have such limited distribution.]]> http://blog.physiker.us/index.php?id=13 http://blog.physiker.us/index.php?id=12 2006-03-02 23:07:13 "The observation that 4+4<10 is of course robust"
-Andreas Karch and Lisa Randall, "Relaxing to Three Dimensions", Physical Review Letters, v. 95, art. 161601, 2005.]]> http://blog.physiker.us/index.php?id=12 http://blog.physiker.us/index.php?id=11 2006-02-22 20:46:15 The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee , at the Post Street Theatre and quite enjoyed it. I mean, of course I was quite familiar with the music and all, so I knew it would be good. However, all the bits that don't get caught on a cast recording were great too.

The history of this show is a bit different than usual, in that the characters where much more created by the original actors in an improvisational way instead of being created by the author, so I wasn't sure how a whole different group of people would inhabit the same roles. I felt all the performances were quite good, especially in "The I Love You Song" (my favorite, and easily the most Finn-like, piece). I don't know how much improv happens in the Broadway show with the original cast, and if the amount here is less (There were, however, references to the Vice-President's hunting accident, and the apology from Harry Whittington for getting shot in the face). In the performance I saw, one of the audience spellers managed to get a word correct that she wasn't supposed to, and the response was less "improvisational" and more "character-breaking", especially when "Mitch Mahoney" had to tell the audience to stop clapping so he could hurry up and start his big song. Now to be fair, I saw it on the 5th day of the run, and 2 weeks before opening night (March 1), so I bet just more practice dealing with the audience will give it an even more natural feel. I would very much like to see it again before it closes and see how much variation there is from night-to-night.

Beyond the acting, the book was just as good as the critics (and Tony awards) claim, and was indeed very funny. And the staging and choreography was very enjoyable and natural as well. This was also my first time at the Post Street Theatre, on the second floor of a downtown SF hotel. It is an ideal theater for this show because of its intimate size - even the balcony looked like it was close to the action - and I look forward to seeing more shows there.

Standard disclaimer: I'm a physicist. I don't know anything about art (acting, singing, writing, painting, photography, etc.) so I'm just commenting on what I noticed and thought, not making some profound observation about the quality of the work discussed.]]> http://blog.physiker.us/index.php?id=11