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Once Were Buskers
May. 1st, 2015 08:55 amSteve is at home this morning, watching Just For Laughs: Quebcois People Getting Publicly Harassed By Pranksters Who Film The Results, or whatever the fuck it's called. I'm happy to report that Mynoise.net works just as well to screen that relentlessly obnoxious music out as it does on anything else, especially the "White Rain" app set on "Pink" (Light Pink Rain?). Thank God for that site, seriously. In other news, I've finally installed Tumblr Savior on Chrome--yes, I get that I'm one step up from a Luddite--and am enjoying it so much more than I was enjoying the constant urge to vagueblog things like OH MY FUCK I DO FUCKING CARE ABOUT THAT FUCKING THING [WHOEVER] SAID HOLY FUCK SERIOUSLY. Which I actually did do a few times, adding the tag #not a conversation, before at last turning to technology.
Aaaanyhow. The reason Steve's home (though not for much longer) is because one of his oldest friends is getting married today, and also tomorrow. He's having a Hindu ceremony today and a Catholic ceremony tomorrow, up in Mississauga. "I hope it goes well," I said, and he replied: "Oh yeah, Chris assures me the elephant they hired is very well-trained." Pause. "That's a joke, of course. An elephant would have been way beyond their budget." At any rate, fingers crossed; Chris is a great guy, and he deserves some happiness. I'll be there for at least some of tomorrow's festivities, before bringing Cal back downtown and turning him over to Mom, who's going to be leaving for an opera tour of Poland sometime next week.
Because of this last fact, Mom's been going out of her way to see me and Cal as much as possible, which is how I ended up going to a performance of Once with her on Wednesday night. This is the Broadway musical based on the indie film, both of which are built around the relationship and music of Irish rocker Glen Hansard and Czech musician Marketa Irglova, who went on to form the band the Swell Season together. They also had a subsequent liaison which ran from roughly 2007 to 2009, but as the text of show itself admits, this probably wasn't the best idea; Once works gorgeously as that oddest of things, a platonic heterosexual romance between two artists whose intersection jacks their mutual creativity in fascinating ways. The show also benefits from everybody onstage also being a musician/singer, with all the music played and sung live. It's full of the sort of sweetly caustic Irish humour you get in stuff like The Commitments, which only makes sense, since Hansard got his cinematic start playing Outspan Foster in that very same film. I particularly love the moment when the "band" arrives to record "When Your Mind's Made Up" at a tiny Dublin studio, each member so completely caught up in their own personal obsessions that they make so little sense the studio manager decides they must be collectively on drugs.
Manager: All right, yez've got twenty-four hours...
Her: Ah, grand.
Him: That'll be great, yeah.
Secondary Guitarist: I spent last night with a woman of great grace and tenderness! She lay upon me like a sensuous ninja! A bit out of my league, I'd say.
Drummer: Excuse me, was that coffee in the break-room for drinking? Because I drank it all.
Secondary Guitarist: Ah, and her breasts...her breasts were somethin'.
Cellist: I'm not so much for breasts, myself.
Secondary Guitarist: No? More of an arse man, are ya?
Cellist: More of a...penis man, to be honest.
Secondary Guitarist: That's hard to find, on a woman. (Beat) Oh, now I get you.
INcredibly Depressed Czech Bass Player: Do you know that everything you love will inevitably be taken away and broken in front of you? Because it will.
Manager: ...I'll just leave yez to yerselves, then.
So: great show, wonderful night out, nice bonding time with Mom. It also got me away from Cal, who was ass-crazy in a very It's Finally Spring!-type way, so that's good. Check out a few of the tracks on Youtube, they're worth it.
Okay, back to it.
Aaaanyhow. The reason Steve's home (though not for much longer) is because one of his oldest friends is getting married today, and also tomorrow. He's having a Hindu ceremony today and a Catholic ceremony tomorrow, up in Mississauga. "I hope it goes well," I said, and he replied: "Oh yeah, Chris assures me the elephant they hired is very well-trained." Pause. "That's a joke, of course. An elephant would have been way beyond their budget." At any rate, fingers crossed; Chris is a great guy, and he deserves some happiness. I'll be there for at least some of tomorrow's festivities, before bringing Cal back downtown and turning him over to Mom, who's going to be leaving for an opera tour of Poland sometime next week.
Because of this last fact, Mom's been going out of her way to see me and Cal as much as possible, which is how I ended up going to a performance of Once with her on Wednesday night. This is the Broadway musical based on the indie film, both of which are built around the relationship and music of Irish rocker Glen Hansard and Czech musician Marketa Irglova, who went on to form the band the Swell Season together. They also had a subsequent liaison which ran from roughly 2007 to 2009, but as the text of show itself admits, this probably wasn't the best idea; Once works gorgeously as that oddest of things, a platonic heterosexual romance between two artists whose intersection jacks their mutual creativity in fascinating ways. The show also benefits from everybody onstage also being a musician/singer, with all the music played and sung live. It's full of the sort of sweetly caustic Irish humour you get in stuff like The Commitments, which only makes sense, since Hansard got his cinematic start playing Outspan Foster in that very same film. I particularly love the moment when the "band" arrives to record "When Your Mind's Made Up" at a tiny Dublin studio, each member so completely caught up in their own personal obsessions that they make so little sense the studio manager decides they must be collectively on drugs.
Manager: All right, yez've got twenty-four hours...
Her: Ah, grand.
Him: That'll be great, yeah.
Secondary Guitarist: I spent last night with a woman of great grace and tenderness! She lay upon me like a sensuous ninja! A bit out of my league, I'd say.
Drummer: Excuse me, was that coffee in the break-room for drinking? Because I drank it all.
Secondary Guitarist: Ah, and her breasts...her breasts were somethin'.
Cellist: I'm not so much for breasts, myself.
Secondary Guitarist: No? More of an arse man, are ya?
Cellist: More of a...penis man, to be honest.
Secondary Guitarist: That's hard to find, on a woman. (Beat) Oh, now I get you.
INcredibly Depressed Czech Bass Player: Do you know that everything you love will inevitably be taken away and broken in front of you? Because it will.
Manager: ...I'll just leave yez to yerselves, then.
So: great show, wonderful night out, nice bonding time with Mom. It also got me away from Cal, who was ass-crazy in a very It's Finally Spring!-type way, so that's good. Check out a few of the tracks on Youtube, they're worth it.
Okay, back to it.
