His Dark Materials Part 2

Wow, Part 2 was even better than Part 1! I was even a little choked up at the end (I don't want to say the exact moment because I don't want to spoil the movies for those who haven't read the books - that is, if they ever get made!). Steve had to laugh when I told him that, lol.

Steve says he wasn't offended by the anti-church theme but then, he's good at not taking things too seriously or personally.

I was a little disappointed that they left out Mary Malone completely and the world she winds up in. They had the Amber Spyglass be a possession of the witches instead. But I'm not really surprised. The story is already a long one and I guess this was one major part they had to leave out in order to make it work.

I was also a little disappointed by their portrayal of the Gallivespian Spies. In the books, they are fiercely proud and serious people. Despite their size, you quickly learn to respect them. In the play, their size and pride are portrayed humorously. It was a constant source of comic relief which it wasn't in the books. Also, the puppets used for them were a bit childish and unoriginal, especially in comparison to the daemons. I guess they felt they would not be able to make a puppet of that size play a serious role in a stage production so they just went the opposite way completely.

But those were my only two disappointments for Part 2. My third disappointment was the audience snickering at the gay angels but that wasn't the production's fault. It was otherwise very exciting and well executed. Part 1 was basically just setting the stage for Part 2 - all the important concepts of the story come out in Part 2 and I'd almost forgotten how exciting those concepts are to me and the play definitely reminded me.

Sorry, those of you who didn't read the books may be a little lost but hopefully the movies for The Subtle Knife and Amber Spyglass will be out in the near future and it will make more sense!

In Honor of Nan

Well, we lost this time but at least the sun was out and I got a few good shots.

But it occurred to me while I was watching the game that Nan would have really liked the players tight shorts. I remember she used to love watching Baseball just to see the athlete's "cute butts" lol. And I really had to laugh and think of Nan when this happened:



Sorry, Malcolm! (That's the player). It was too amusing not to take the picture.

But now for some normal photos:





And I'll leave you with a link to one of my photos used on the Official RFL (Rugby Football League) website.

His Dark Materials Part 1

Part 1 was really good! Longer than I realized (though it didn't drag on), it was 3 hours so in total with part 2 on Sunday, it will be 6 hours long! That seemed to keep the very little children away, the kids there were mostly 12+ and we weren't the only adults there without children. Not that I have anything against kids but Steve and I once went to a comedy show and I swear we were the only ones there under 60 (it was a comedy based on an old TV show) and I felt really awkward. Didn't want the same thing to happen with kids.

Anyway, I was curious to see how they dealt with the daemons on stage. They had some uniquely styled puppets and at first I was a little put off by how they made no attempt to hide the puppeteers (not even dressing them all in black and trying to keep the light off them). But you did kind of forget about them after a while. The puppets themselves were pretty cool, though many of them didn't have legs, the way they were designed made for very fluid and animal-like movements. Of course it was difficult for them to show daemons changing shape so they didn't really attempt it. A few times Pan "hid" in Lyra's bag but otherwise, they didn't really address the issue of daemons changing as children.

Most of the actors were pretty good. Steve even thought the girl who played Lyra was better than the girl in the movie but take that with a grain of salt because he also admitted he only remembers 2 scenes from the movie! lol. I really liked the woman who played Coulter but wasn't as keen on the actor who played Lord Asriel. The same actor played Lee Scoresby and he had the worst Texan accent ever. I guess when you're not expecting to have any or many Americans in the audience, you don't worry too much about getting an American accent right. I imagine most of the English people in the audience though the accent was just fine, lol.

So that brings me to the topic of a lot of the actors playing multiple parts. I know that is a common thing in theater productions unless they have a big budget and can hire a bigger cast but it still bugs me. We also saw the limits of their budget with the witches who were holding onto ladders which rolled back and forth across the stage. I figured with a bigger budget, they may have used flying harness.

But that said, I have seen lower budget theater productions so this one was pretty good and was performed in the biggest theater of the Lowry building.

For the most part, it stuck to the storyline pretty well. Some scenes were switched around and some characters played minor roles they didn't in the book but that kind of stuff is expected. Overall, they stayed pretty true to books and weren't afraid to use the word "church" often instead of "the authority".

Click here to see some audience reactions and a couple brief clips of the scenes where you can see how the puppets move.

Can't wait to see Part 2!

Theater Tonight!

Tonight, we're going to a theater production of the book series His Dark Materials (the first of which they made a movie of - The Golden Compass). I'm excited but I'm not sure what to expect, I hope it's not too kiddy and we're not the only adults there without children. But it says suitable for children aged 12+ and they've made it long enough that it's split into two parts, the first part is tonight and the second is Sunday. You'd think a show that long would not really hold the attention of children. I'll post a review tomorrow!

His Dark Materials Part 1

I really am that bad at cooking...

Warning: Dad and any others who can't deal with blood should probably not read this!

Last night, Steve and I were making dinner together (read: Steve cooks and I make feeble attempts to help) - chicken fried in apples and cider (English cider, not American). Well, in process of peeling the apples he managed to slice off a piece of skin on the tip of his finger. While he tended his wound, I suddenly had to take over cooking. His finger wouldn't stop bleeding but knowing how bad of a cook I am, he slapped a band aid on and resumed cooking! Apparently my cooking is so bad that Steve will cook through an injury to avoid my cooking! lol.

I later noticed he had put the band aid on so that part of the cut is covered by the adhesive. So now he can't really take the band aid off without risking opening the cut again. Well, at least it eventually stopped bleeding and no one had to suffer the consequences of my cooking.

Bungee!

This morning when I got up, I looked outside and across the canal was a big crane and a cage attached to it on the ground. My first thought was that they were setting up a bungee jump and I turned out to be right. A few hours later, I heard people screaming and shouting in what I would normally attribute to drunken celebrations had it been late at night. But instead, I peek outside and see people plummeting to the earth! So of course I got out my camera and 300mm lens.

Also, take a moment to note the rare English sunshine and clear blue skies.

I'm now off to the Didsbury Inn for some steak and ale pie! No bungee for me...

Da Vinci Exhibit

It's a bank holiday in England (so we have off work) - Easter Monday. So we took the opportunity to visit the Manchester Art Gallery. I mainly wanted to go because there is currently a Da Vinci exhibit of some of his sketches from the Royal Collection.

It was very interesting and I asked Steve which was his favorite - he picked a map of a river! All those gorgeous sketches and he picks a map, lol. I think my favorite was the horse statue but I'm bias.

After the art gallery we got something to eat and it was such a nice day (imagine that in England!) we decided to walk home. Probably walked a total of 4 miles which is not like me at all. Had I known we'd walk so much I would have worn different shoes though - my heels are sore.

On another note, Salford just beat one of the best teams in the league (Leeds) which is very surprising and Steve is very excited, lol. Apparently Salford haven't beat them in 32 years so it's kind of historic!

All in all, a great day!

It's pouring down but we won!

It was pouring rain today (of course, because it was a game day) so I spent most of my time trying to shield my camera from it. Even worse, the hardest part was trying to swap lenses without getting water IN the camera. I think I managed it because the camera appears to still be operating fine, lol. I got a few good shots despite the rain and even better, while I was attempting to dry my hair with the hand drier in the bathroom and injuring my neck in the process, the Reds won! Bring it on Salford!

So Sad

For Easter, the players of the rugby team I work for went to the children's hospital to hand out chocolate easter eggs and I covered the photos. I shouldn't share the photos here because the hospital dealt with the consent forms and I don't actually know what it said, it might have only consented to be published in the paper.

But it was just really, really sad and depressing to see so many children with so many medical problems. We were told not to ask the children or parents what was wrong with them but one little girl's parents offer up the info. She'd had a stroke. She was no older than two.

Some of the players were great with the kids though - mostly the ones who have children themselves but that's not surprising. Hopefully it brightened the kids day, if not our own.

"I'm with stupid"

How have these people managed to make it this far in life?

20 Ridiculous Complaints made by holidaymakers (that's travellers for the Americans)

My favorites:
"No one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled"
"It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England it only took the Americans three hours to get home." (And we Americans get stereotyped as ignorant in geography!)
"The brochure stated: 'No hairdressers at the accommodation'. We're trainee hairdressers - will we be OK staying here?"

Do you feel intelligent now? Or just frightened for humanity?

Joining the world of blogging

That's right, I finally decided to test run this blogging thing. Maybe it will serve as updates for some of my family and friend back home in US.

Sadly, I could not think of a better title for the blog. I considered "The Birdie Blog" - you know, because of my name. But apparently someone already has both urls thebirdieblog.blogspot.com and birdieblog.blogspot.com. Annoyingly, neither of them are really using the blogs! I could still title it "The Birdie Blog" but the url would still be ukamerican.blogspot.com. Anyone have any other ideas or thoughts?