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Makes it official, then
1. I am very pleased that Colin Firth won an Oscar for The King's Speech. I would like it to have been a back-to-back win with last year's A Single Man, but I don't think this one was an apology; I don't mind that David Seidler won for Best Original Screenplay, either. I really was expecting David Fincher and The Social Network to walk off with the other two. How awesome is it that Shaun Tan and Trent Reznor have Oscars now?
2. I spent most of yesterday at the MIT Ivy+ Fine Spirits Showcase; I got in at a discount, thanks to Yale. Most of the spirits being showcased were whisky, meaning I now have some ability to distinguish between the numerous different varieties—I would previously have been able to tell you that I thought my tastes ran to peatsmoke and expensive, and now I know I haven't a chance of affording what I really like. That includes the Napoleon Armagnac, which I am told next time I should try with prunes. Absinthe actually tastes subtler and more complex when louched with sugar; it's a colder, thinner, more singleminded drink without. I would have bought a bottle of the Glenfarclas 1974 if it hadn't cost three hundred dollars. (I insist, however, on someday obtaining some Octamore Orpheus. I couldn't get the man at the table to tell me the rationale for the name—whether it's supposed to take you to hell or tear your head off, or whether it merely causes you to invent hexameters and pederasty—but it was my second or third favorite whisky there.) I hadn't even known about cachaça. And at no point do I seem to have lost the ability to converse in complete sentences on coherent topics, which is important, because quite a lot of what was nice about the day was the conversation. Also the singing, which started on the way from the showcase to dinner and kept intermittently on until we left the restaurant; trading songs, or merely being reminded to them. We got applause from the bar a couple of times. I've been invited to a seder. I can't remember the last time I spent an entire day simply hanging around and talking with people who knew their way equally around Welsh verbs and nigunim. And I've got an absinthe spoon.
3. The third thing is still supposed to be Cardillac, but I'm going to sleep. With the exception of a very puzzling epilogue, basically, I liked it. It's worth catching the last performance on Tuesday if you have any interest in gold masks, rough sex, or ritual murder. I'm not sure why the Inquisition keeps happening to operas I see with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sharhaun and fleurdelis28, though.
2. I spent most of yesterday at the MIT Ivy+ Fine Spirits Showcase; I got in at a discount, thanks to Yale. Most of the spirits being showcased were whisky, meaning I now have some ability to distinguish between the numerous different varieties—I would previously have been able to tell you that I thought my tastes ran to peatsmoke and expensive, and now I know I haven't a chance of affording what I really like. That includes the Napoleon Armagnac, which I am told next time I should try with prunes. Absinthe actually tastes subtler and more complex when louched with sugar; it's a colder, thinner, more singleminded drink without. I would have bought a bottle of the Glenfarclas 1974 if it hadn't cost three hundred dollars. (I insist, however, on someday obtaining some Octamore Orpheus. I couldn't get the man at the table to tell me the rationale for the name—whether it's supposed to take you to hell or tear your head off, or whether it merely causes you to invent hexameters and pederasty—but it was my second or third favorite whisky there.) I hadn't even known about cachaça. And at no point do I seem to have lost the ability to converse in complete sentences on coherent topics, which is important, because quite a lot of what was nice about the day was the conversation. Also the singing, which started on the way from the showcase to dinner and kept intermittently on until we left the restaurant; trading songs, or merely being reminded to them. We got applause from the bar a couple of times. I've been invited to a seder. I can't remember the last time I spent an entire day simply hanging around and talking with people who knew their way equally around Welsh verbs and nigunim. And I've got an absinthe spoon.
3. The third thing is still supposed to be Cardillac, but I'm going to sleep. With the exception of a very puzzling epilogue, basically, I liked it. It's worth catching the last performance on Tuesday if you have any interest in gold masks, rough sex, or ritual murder. I'm not sure why the Inquisition keeps happening to operas I see with
sharhaun and fleurdelis28, though.
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if you have any interest in gold masks, rough sex, or ritual murder. --Is there anyone on your friends list who isn't interested in at least one of those things? It's a rhetorical question.
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Entirely awesome. And how awesome is it that I have you to tell me these things, when the blanket coverage on my radio doesn't think it worth mentioning?
Also, *googles Octamore Orpheus* wow. Hyper-peated Bruichladdich. Did you have the one that's aged in Château Pŕtrus casks?
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MIsc
Cachaça is a stealth bomber. Caipirinha, made of cachaça, sugar and crushed whole limes, goes down smooth as silk -- until you try to stand up.
Colin Firth deserved an Oscar, but The King's Speech is problematic. I enjoyed it as a period piece with solid acting that showed personal overcoming of adversity. However, it whitewashes many shabby actions and people. For one, it condemns Edward not for the right reasons (he was a Nazi panderer) but for the wrong ones (he wanted to marry a commoner who might like sex instead of keeping her as his mistress). The film's Oscar sweeps are not surprising, given the perennial fascination of Americans with British royalty and upper class (Masterpiece Theater is nothing but).
By the way, I've sent you a private message.
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Hee!
Nine
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2. sounds altogether brilliant. I'm glad you had a good time. Enjoy your absinthe spoon!*
I'm not sure why the Inquisition keeps happening to operas I see with [info]sharhaun and [info]fleurdelis28, though.
Perhaps someone should warn the Inquisition that they're becoming expected?
*I don't know why I'm imagining the Tick shouting "Absinthe spoon!", but I expect it's a sign I need to sleep.