HK FOTA updates
Jona and I caught three shows last week, and I’m beginning to think I’m cultured out. Last Thursday, we saw the Artemis Quartet. I wish I had the vocabulary to describe classical music, or expound on its nuances, but let’s just say I’m an idiot in that department. Jona enjoyed the subtleties of the quieter pieces. I found that I liked the wilder, bombastic ones more. I guess it’s sort of the way I need to get knocked on the head before getting a point sometimes. In either case, we did find our attention beginning to wander right about the time of the second intermission and we took off early to grab a bite to eat. It was 9:30 in the evening, after all, and the program showed no signs of ending before midnight.
Yesterday we took in a double bill. In the afternoon we saw the Amadinda Percussion Group, four guys and all sorts of percussion instruments, from Hungary and all over the world, respectively. The Amadinda, a giant wooden xylophone from Uganda, might have been the most interesting instrument of all, although the Basque Txalaparta, wooden planks laid out horizontally, played vertically, comes in a close second. Jona found the synchronization of the percussionists’ movements and timing completely fascinating - I’m thinking that perfect rhythm comes from practice. What I found most interesting was that there was a golden age of the xylophone - the ragtime era, 1920s and the 30s, and that “world’s greatest xylophonist” was actually a working accolade. Once again though, the bombast-lover in me found its rest in the final piece that the group played: a traditional Polynesian piece, complete with a pig dance, yells and growls. If I was to ever take up a percussion instrument, it would be a hollowed-out tree trunk that I could bash hard, and repeatedly, with no need for finesse or delicacy.
Last night, we caught the self-styled “opera singer who loves slumming it in pop, jazz and blues.” I have to say that I hated this show. As Mr Sokolov, speaking of burgers, said:
I do not love these “gourmet” burgers made by men who wear toques blanches instead of T-shirts. Their fancyburgers are as awkward and condescending as pop songs recorded by opera stars.
The “slumming it” phrase should have sounded the alarm bells but I wasn’t really paying attention since we had uber-fantastic seats, the drummer was cute, and we just had a completely satisfying meal of roast pork and goose. By the time the lady went through an over-wrought version of Alanis Morisette’s “Uninvited,” Jona was scratching her head. Then Ms. Migenes brought out a muscled Cuban boy-toy type and performed some weird supposedly erotic dance with him, and for a change my brain headed in the other direction and started begging for subtlely. “Let’s stay till the end though,” I said, since the last song on the bill was Bill Withers’ “Use Me,” which I thought was immune from butchering. Boy, was I wrong. She jumped into that song with a sledgehammer and pounded it until there was no life left.
“That really sucked,” I said as we headed out. “Yep,” Jona agreed sadly.