Weekly New's, Week 3
The Crucible, located in West Oakland, is by all accounts the Bay Area's premiere location for learning how to make things by getting them really, really hot. It's a nonprofit outfit that specializes in welding, glass blowing, blacksmithing, ceramics, fire dancing, etc. Every year it hosts a Fire Arts Festival (which I've been to before) and either a Fire Ballet or a Fire Opera (which I've desperately wanted to go to for years). I have heard amazing things about these fire performances, and I've always been intensely jealous of my friends when they smugly recount the night the Crucible rolled out a full-sized metal fire-breathing dragon, or drove some fantastical metallic sculptured car onstage, or whatever. So this year I finally bit the bullet, paid the moderately painful ticket price, and made plans with a couple of friends to go watch "Machine: A World Premiere Fire Opera."
I met my friends last Wednesday night for dinner before the show. We'd agreed to go to Boot and Shoe Service on Grand Ave., mostly because it was supposed to be amazing but impossible to get into on weekends. They didn't have many vegetarian entree options other than pizza (which seemed like a bit of a waste - I mean, I know that pizza quality can vary immensely, but when I go out to a well-regarded restaurant I usually like to get something that I would be disinclined to make for myself at home) but what they did have sounded fine: polenta and vegetables with herbs. And when it arrived, it was delicious... but there wasn't very much of it at all. I would have labeled it more of an appetizer serving than a full meal. Except that it had cost $16. Now, I live in the Bay Area (expensive by nature) and have gone to a great many "good" restaurants in my life, so I usually don't bat an eye over high prices for small servings. But this serving was very small - smaller than everyone else's - and I had somehow managed to pay as much or more than everyone else. And their dinners involved high-end meats and cheeses, whereas mine involved cornmeal and some vegetables (and not very many of them, either). So I ended up hungry and slightly miffed.
We then dashed off to West Oakland, where we miraculously managed to get fabulous seats despite our late arrival (apparently someone had just come by and taken the "reserved" signs off before we showed up). To say I was excited would be an understatement. There I was, on blanket-coated bleachers in a warehouse in Oakland surrounded by all sorts of diverse characters from every corner of the Bay, about to watch some dazzling display of artistry and conflagration set to music. Except again, it was only OK. I mean, the set was a fabulous showcase of the diverse talents and specialties of the Crucible, but it was simultaneously too busy and too static to really be a lot of fun. There was a lot going on, but it was the same things going on for the whole opera. No dragons, cars, or other larger-than-life metal objects appeared mid-show. The plot, based on the short story 'Dea ex Machina' by Derek Goodman, seemed like it might actually be interesting if it weren't so difficult to follow and fraught with plot holes. The music itself was pretty decent (not that I'm any judge), but in all honesty I hadn't come there for the music. Everything else, while definitely "fine," fell slightly short of my (admittedly inflated) expectations.
Another item to check off the list, I guess. At least now I don't have to wonder what I'm missing.
Far more fun/interesting were attending the opening of my mom's solo gallery show on Thursday (a first for her, if not for me) and going to a screening of the documentary 'Miss Representation,' on the treatment of women by and through the media, on Friday. I don't think they're different/unique enough to count as "firsts," but they were emotionally far more relevant.
This upcoming week is bound to be busy and will involve several minor "firsts," but I don't really have any singular endeavor on the radar. I'll outline the events of this week in my next update (at which point I'll know how successful I was), but in the meantime I'm also going to endeavor to not go on Facebook for all of this week. Facebook is creepy and steals all of my personal information and is a major time drain, and I won't really have any spare time this week (but I'm sure I would love to use it as a procrastination tool if given the chance), so off it goes. Also, I genuinely think that I haven't voluntarily gone a week without Facebook since I got an account back in 2004 (weeks of travel sans Internet excluded, of course), so this will actually count as a first. It might also count as a "trial period" to see if I can live without Facebook in my life, since it would be really awesome to not have it around anymore.