Culture Corner – March 2014

If I thought last month was Cultural, this month was an explosion. Seriously I started the day after I posted the February Culture Corner and haven’t stopped. From Oscar movies and video games to live theater and seeing podcasts live, you name it and it feels like I did it! At the very least look at the pictures and if you see something cool read that paragraph, sorry the post is so long! I’m still exhausted from the month.

I’m not sure why I didn’t include my visit to the movies to see August: Osage County in last months’ blog post, perhaps because I was momentarily obsessed with Frozen? Either way it worked out as I saw The Dallas Buyers Club the weekend after that posted. And what do they all have in common? The Oscars! I so rarely see Oscar nominated films, but these three I knew I wanted to see and I’m so glad I did. Both August: Osage County and The Dallas Buyers Club left me emotionally drained, but they are definitely worth seeing. I still can’t get over how much weight Jared Leto and Matthew McConaughey lost for the films! And what was the most interesting part of the film is that it shows a part of the AIDS epidemic that isn’t often highlighted.

In contrast to these two serious movies I also went and saw The Lego Movie with my friend Peter and FINALLY picked up a copy of Lego: Marvel Superheroes.

Both the movie and the game are phenomenal. However, I did have a bit of brain overload seeing the movie. The night before some friends and I played Lords of Water Deep which is a fusion of so many game types and to then go into The Lego Movie which also turned out to be an amalgamation of all sorts of movie tropes it was incredibly taxing on my mental capacity! I’m sure I’ll see it again and wonder how I missed as much as I did even though I probably got a lot more than I would have six months ago. The video game is awesome, the entire franchise is, I just haven’t had a lot of time to dedicate to it recently. If you haven’t played one definitely try to, they’re all great!

The weekend after The Lego Movie I went with another friend to see a stage production of The Company. It was my very first Sondheim musical and although I enjoyed it, I felt it could’ve been a lot better. I did enjoy the small theater space and minimalist set, but I found the live orchestra/band (on the stage visible) to be somewhat distracting, but that probably has more to do with my attention span than the quality of the acting. I will say that the male lead was incredibly cute, but I don’t think his vocal range quite matched the part, but I didn’t mind for the most part until the final song. The rest of the cast I felt did a great job, minus one guy who was putting on an accent of some sort.

And the weekend after that I took my friend Josh to see Welcome to Nightvale live for his birthday. If you’ve never listened to it, you should. I do know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I absolutely love it. Josh, and my friend Courtney, recommended it and I’ve listened to them ALL! They also could not have chosen a better live show for me and for Boston. The title was “The Librarian” and that is one of my favorite story lines within the podcast and I then HAD to buy the poster. The musical artist who opened in Boston was great and what was most fascinating about the live show was Cecil Baldwin (the narrator)’s ability to completely entrance the entire audience. It was him on a stage with a microphone and he got the entire audience to laugh and gasp and to shift uncomfortably. It was eerie how great he was at this, but it fit and I’m glad I saw it live, as now I can imagine him doing that every time I listen to a new episode.

Along those lines, if you remember way back in August I talked about my recent obsession with podcasts and those I liked and those I didn’t, well what I listen to has definitely shuffled, but Throwing Shade has stayed and Who Charted? I mention briefly at the end about not being sure about is BY FAR MY FAVORITE. But what I really like about podcasts is how accessible the hosts are. If you’re active on twitter there’s a great chance podcast hosts will interact with you! I’ve tweeted with the official Who Charted? account, even had Kulap retweet me and they’ve definitely talked about me on Who Charted? but not mentioned my name. And tweet with Ophira Eisenberg from NPR: Ask Me Another all the time (that’s three separate instances). However, the coolest thing so far is that in Episode 126 of Throwing Shade they actually say my name!!! It’s at the end when they read out the Tweets! And even though they say it wrong, who cares, they said my name! So I of course went and got tickets to their live taping (was going to get them anyway) here in Boston for August!!!

And to top it all off I went with Josh and Brendan to see a stage production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, my favorite (read) of Shakespeare’s plays. I’ve not read nearly as many as I should and I don’t pretend to know more than I do, but I love the whimsy and ridiculousness of this one! It doesn’t hurt that the “fan-fiction” creation Were the World Mine exists either. Thankfully, I’m not a theater student so I can blissfully enjoy what I don’t notice. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the production, but the show was definitely stolen by the actors who played Helena, Lysander and Tom Stout. All three of them were hilarious and their physical comedy was perfectly timed in their scenes. I was concerned at first that Puck wasn’t an individual, but instead voiced by three actors and embodied by inanimate objects in the form of a being. By the end of the production I accepted and enjoyed the added whimsy!

Hopefully this coming month won’t be quite as cultural! I need a break, but likely won’t get one as three of the four weeks I’m working long days for phonathon. I guess it was good that I got a lot in last month and I’m already planning other things throughout the rest of the year! I really hope to see a comedian (Paula Poundstone is on the North Shore next month) and I want to visit the tiny Somerville museum at some point too. We’ll see what comes.