flit

I was quite sick this week so I read a lot.

Books
The Last Soul Among Wolves, by Melissa Caruso. Second in this series, and it just came out with promises of a third. I continue to really enjoy the worldbuilding and the character development, which are both quite interesting. Also, I realized after reading this one that another commonality is these are both sort of locked-room mysteries as well, which makes them different from a lot of worldbuilding fantasies. I really need to go back and pick up the rest of the Caruso I've read.
Welcome to Murder Week, by Karen Dukess. Cath's flighty mom died but left her a ticket to a murder mystery week in an English village. While solving the murder mystery, Cath has to figure out why her mother wanted to bring her there and what her connection to the place is. Also there's a romance. A step above cozy mysteries but not litfic. I liked it and thought the buildup and outcome was good. I particularly liked that the romance was not a core focus to the exclusion of making friends.
The Winter Duke, by Claire Eliza Bartlett. This one came highly recommended by Dee, so I read it even though it's YA. Russian-inflected fantasy in which one daughter survives an assassination attempt on her royal family and inherits a magical dukedom. Everybody wants what she's got, so how does she survive? I liked both the characters and the worldbuilding, and the main character's chosen bride was a delight.
Mystic and Rider, by Sharon Shinn. First of the Twelve Houses books, which is a series I never got into. It's got that 80s-90s series vibe and I plowed through 400 pages in about a day. Definitely in for more of it.
Sugar, Spice, and Can't Play Nice, by Annika Sharma. Second in a series of contemporary romances among a group of Indian (subcontinental) friends in New York. This time she's an Indo-British fashion designer and he's a marketing guy. Their parents' companies are merging and want to seal the deal with a marriage. I think I enjoy these romances because a lot of factors that simply wouldn't matter as much to white Americans play a significant role in how the characters act and that changes the course of the stories.
The River Has Roots, by Amal El-Mohtar. Not quite a fairy tale retelling, though there's some of that in it, and not quite a song retelling, for all that it references a favorite of mine, and not quite Wolfe-ian (Gene) in its wordplay. But all of those things are ingredients in this novella and they're all very well executed.

Current Music: Silence is golden.

solarbird

If anyone’s wondering whether US farmers exporting to China just need a little “temporary help” to get over Trump’s trade war, read this thread from farmer Sarah Taber on Mastodon. She’s a farmer from North Carolina and deeply involved in farming issues. Read all of the thread.

If you won’t, though – if know your US Civil War history, you might know about how the Confederacy self-embargoed cotton exports, withholding “King Cotton” from the market.

They thought it would grind textiles production in the UK to a halt and force the UK to come in on their side of the war.

What happened instead was Egyptian cotton.

Trump pulled his bullshit thinking China would bow to him over soybeans; what happened instead was Brazil and Argentina. They haven’t bought a single goddamn US soybean since last spring, as South America ramped production right the fuck up.

Soybeans were the US’s largest agricultural export.

Emphasis on were.

And arguably, it gets worse from there.

So seriously, go read the thread. It’s good, knowledgable shit.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

gentlyepigrams

Your kitchen is full of microplastics. Here's how to eat less of them. Teal deer: don't eat. (There are some ways to minimize but no way to completely avoid them.)
If You Don't Know What To Do. A really useful framing that an e-quaintance of mine from Metafilter wrote about how to get social stuff done (including things like: volunteering).
The Secret Society That Has Driven Baylor Administrators Crazy for Almost a Century. The NoZe Brotherhood sounds like a cool bunch of folks. Also you have to love any group that nailed Paul Pressler so hard.
A drunk driver hit our car, my three friends died, and I began a fight for my life – and my ballet career. Trying to think about something to say about this that doesn't amount to disability inspiration porn.
Original drawing of Night Watch dog found. I have a friend who's super into Rembrandt and this is the kind of thing I send him.
hogmanay. On the meanings and origin of this word, the Scots English word for New Year's Eve.
$900K settlement reached with California man who was pressured to confess murder that never happened. ACAB.
With the Serial Numbers Filed Off: The Problem with Trad Pub Fanfic. Apparently there are three Dramione fics-gone-pro coming out this year and two of them are slave fics. Ew.
The Life and Death of the American Foodie. I read this and of course the author was from Austin. She's not entirely wrong, but she's very Austin (and particularly in the way whiteness permeates both her perspective and the culture she's describing)
American makes history by winning one of France’s top cheese competitions. And we sent two women!
Woman hospitalized with pain and vomiting—diet soda cured her. She had a bezoar, which is actually a mass you get in your stomach, usually from fruit and vegetable mass, and diet soda dissolved it. The acid in four cans of Coke was enough to do the trick.

Current Music: Silence is golden.

solarbird

Fascist Trump’s allies are out today repeating the “cities are war zones” lie, so anybody in Chicago needs to get out there and starting posting pictures of their “war zone” just like Portland.

“Chicago’s a nightmare, it is literally a war zone” — Rand Paul

People you expect to know better will not, in fact know better. I’ve run into this too damn many times. People who you’d think wouldn’t bite on this bullshit absolutely will bite on this bullshit. So you need to reveal the lie through a massive flood of photographic evidence you vouch for personally, yourself.

Post your reality, Chicago. Everywhere. Starting right now.

(video with relevant quote via Aaron Rupar)

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

jesse_the_k posting in

access_fandom

The 20 Thousand Hertz podcast dives deep into Why is movie dialogue so hard to understand?, providing six possible reasons why more and more people are turning on subtitles/captions for movies, TV, and the streaming services we use to watch them. Reason six comes with a solution!

Dallas Taylor, 20k.org’s founder, points out video games have solved this problem: most permit users to individually adjust the loudness settings for

music
sound effects
dialogue

Movie sound, on the other hand, is designed to be impressive in a great big theater. But of course most of us watch the screen sector’s output at home.

https://www.20k.org/episodes/subtitleson has both the 30-minute audio and a transcript

I’m a big fan of this podcast, which is often disability-adjacent. In its nine years, it's covered how artists shape sound to convey meaning, how manufacturers tune their devices to be friendly, and how Beethoven created great music when he couldn’t hear at all.

Not surprisingly, many fans work with sound. Taylor solicited listener-produced contributions; I enjoyed the sixteen he chose. The overall winner celebrates the sonic scrapbook a Canadian sound designer keeps of his blind son’s upbringing, and introduces generational delight to the stop announcements on the Montreal transit system.

Accessibility Issue: I couldn’t open the SquareSpace transcript window using my tab key (crucial for those of us who don’t use mice) so I hope this highlight link to the control opens the transcript—let know about trouble/solutions in the comments.

gentlyepigrams

Brief notes on the Carnivale session of Amber Rising (2025 09 01 - Labor Day hybrid session)

( Very brief summary mostly to provide context for the follow-up conversation. )

Brief notes on the follow-up session with GM Mel for Rhiannon about the contests. (2025 09 24)

( Mostly about her conversation with Angel. )

Follow up actions (may add more later):

Note to Ordille about the poisoning - sent by the GMs
Follow up with Abuchi - who is close to him and will be able to provide a Trump?
Follow up with older siblings who remember the Lorris affair
Research the Lorris affair with books/NPCs

Current Music: Silence is golden.

solarbird

A couple of days ago, I wrote about writing Disney a letter – a physical, paper letter, with an ENVELOPE and a STAMP – and went into why those are so. damned. scary. to companies, particularly these days.

Tonight, I’m writing a letter – a physical, paper letter, with an envelope and a stamp – to the local Sinclair propaganda outlet, KOMO-4, over their continued blockade against Kimmel.

I’m not telling them I’m going to boycott them, no. They’re a free/over-the-air station. I don’t pay them. I don’t pay them a dime, why would they care if I boycott them?

Obviously, they wouldn’t.

So instead, I’m telling them I’m going to boycott their local sponsors, and I’m going to write those local sponsors a physical, paper letter, one with an ENVELOPE and a STAMP, and make sure those local sponsors know why.

For every obvious reason, I (and 50501 Seattle) encourage you to do the same. If you’re not in KOMO’s range, that’s fine, find your local Sinclair station and write them, instead.

Business-format letter to Sinclair and KOMO telling them this isn't how this goes, with a ruler covering my signature and an envelope covering my address. I'd paste the letter's text in, but there's not enough room in this alt-text box. Hopefully OCR can read it for you.

(But write your own letter, don’t copy mine. They check for that.)

KOMO received enough protest calls today – Tuesday, September 23rd, as I write this – that they shut down their phone system. They went dark.

They can turn off their phones. They can delete their voicemail. And they have, and they did.

So write ’em a gods. damned. letter.

CONTACT KOMOADDRESS:KOMO News/KUNS Suite 370 (Monday - Friday)140 4th Ave. N.Seattle, WA 98109BUSINESS HOURS: 8:00 AM - 5:00 PMMAIN PHONE: 206.404.4000 MAIN FAX:206.706.2603NEWS TIPLINE: 877.397.5666NEWS DIRECTOR:206.404.4000GENERAL SALES:206.404.4353GENERAL MANAGER:206.404.4000KOMO TV NEWSROOM:206.404.4145PROBLEM SOLVERS TIP LINE:888.774.8477KOMO 4 INVESTIGATORS:206.404.4444

Let’s see ’em shut off USPS delivery.

(Spoiler: they can’t. 😀 )

(eta: Here’s a very good resource thread on Reddit – advertisers, responses, more)

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

mizkit

When last we saw our heroes, they were returning from a side trip to Memphis. In our absence, Teddy, Freddy, Evelyn and Calliope had a side adventure and then went out and got properly smashed at a drag king club, the name of which is escaping me, somewhere in Cairo. This all went as well as you could possibly imagine, and they returned incredibly hung over.

Teddy and Dr Willie Preston met for the first time. It was most excellent. Tragically, they then parted ways, Teddy to nurse a headache and Willie to lead us into very questionable choices at the Great Pyramids.

DM: Okay, you're at the pyramids! What do you want to do?

The party: ...ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..............

Alice: I'm going to go look at the dig where Willie's sarcophagus disappeared.

Evelyn: I'm going to go look at those very handsome young men digging things up.

Calliope: ...I feel like someone should keep an eye on Alice, so I guess I'll do that...

DM: Can any of you ride camels?

Alice: I have two in ride!

Evelyn: I've got 6 in ride.

DM, mumbling: of course Evelyn is a horse girl

Evelyn's player: -attempts protest- -falters into inevitable agreement-

Calliope: I grew up in central London, I can't ride at all.

DM: Okay, so Alice goes to the dig where Willie's sarcophagus disappeared, Evelyn goes to look at the men working, and Calliope...goes where the camel wants to go. Fey, what are you doing?

Fey: I want to see if there are any mysterious and cryptic messages at the Sphinx.

Alice finds the dig, which is covered over, and immediately starts looking for something to dig it up again with. "I wonder if I can convince the camel to dig..."

DM: ah yes, those notorious digging animals, camels

Calliope's camel: GRRROOOOOOONK

DM: is anybody trying to do anything formal? Get permission for anything?

Alice: Do you think I could steal a shovel from somebody?

Evelyn: Hellooooo, handsome young men! My, what fine muscles you have as you do your hard work! Isn't Egypt lovely! So full of mysterious mysteries! Perhaps you could tell me about what you're working on!

Young men: -are crude-

Calliope's camel: GRRROOOOOOONK

DM: Fey, you find a mysterious and cryptic message at the Sphinx! In the meantime, is anybody trying to do anything formal? Get permission for anything?

Fey: -returns to Evelyn, triumphant-

Young men: -are very crude-

Evelyn: I can tell you're being crude, you naughty young things, although I don't know what you're saying because I'm American and only speak English! Take that!

Calliope's camel: GRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOONK -and also carries Calliope over to an abandoned well/garbage chute that the DM wants us to notice- GRRROOOOOOONK

The poor beleaguered DM: is anybody trying to do anything formal? Get permission for anything?

Calliope & Evelyn: Oh look, we've found a deep empty hole in the ground! Everybody come look!

(Everybody comes to look.)

DM, desperate now: is anybody trying to do anything formal? Get permission for anything?

Me: We've never done anything like that before in this entire adventure, so I'd say we're constitutionally unlikely to start now.

DM, relieved that somebody has made a decision: Okay, great. It's getting very hot out now and other archaeology parties and tourists are going off to rest in the heat of the day.

Evelyn: is there anything nearby I can steal to help us get into that hole without killing ourselves?

DM: Like this truck full of supplies?

Evelyn: AMAZING. I get rope, pitons, lanterns (a long list of other things I can't remember) and...whiskey?

DM: there is no whiskey

Evelyn: DAMN.

After a brief discussion of our general athletic skills, Fey goes down the hole first, to try to put pitons in to make it easier for everybody else. Instead, he falls. Whoops. At least he manages a good roll on his health save and isn't horribly damaged.

Alice, who is equally athletic, follows and successfully puts pitons in to help the others. We leave Dr Willie Preston above-ground in case we need someone to notify the authorities of an emergency.

My father, later, horrified, as we relate the adventure to him: You left BILL in charge of EMERGENCIES?

Us: we are not the best at making good decisions

Back in the game, we all get fifty feet down into the ground, which is somewhat slimy and stinky because of the garbage archaeologists have been throwing down here.

GM: Okay, who's going first?

Alice: I'm going first. Fey fell down the hole. Also my driving trait is curiosity.

Evelyn & Calliope: be our guest

Fey: hnf

GM: By the way, Alice, you are extremely comfortable down here in these tunnels. Absolutely comfortable.

Alice: Of course I am.

Everybody else: WE'RE NOT!

GM: nor should you be

(ok he didn't actually say that but COME ON)

As it turns out, it's almost as bad an idea to let Alice lead the party through catacombs and tunnels of doom while driven by curiosity and no discomfort at all as it would be to let, say, Teddy take the lead. She barges ahead with an alarming single-mindedness while everybody else is like "Um. Um. Perhaps...well, shit, Alice has the light, better catch up!"

...up until the point when there's a Terrible Stench that only Alice can smell, and it belatedly occurs to her that maybe she should try to sense trouble.

DM: -rolls for my perception check- You in danger, girl

DM: You are suddenly very very afraid and feel strongly you should get out of there.

Alice: LET'S GO THE OTHER DIRECTION, GUYS

Unfortunately, while Alice was barging off That Way down a path of horrible black roses, Calliope got another light working and she and Evelyn took a quick look The Other Way, where they saw terrifying Anubis-headed things standing motionless in the darkness. They scurry back with Evelyn hissing, "Whatever you do, don't tell Alice what we just saw" at Calliope.

Calliope: No shit, Sherlock.

Evelyn & Calliope: NOPE WE WERE WRONG LET'S GO THE WAY YOU CHOSE IN THE FIRST PLACE ALICE

Alice: NOPE I'M WRONG LET'S GO THE WAY YOU JUST CAME FROM ALSO CAN'T YOU HEAR THAT CRYING CHILD WE HAVE TO GET TO THE CRYING CHILD NOW THERE ARE MEN CALLING FOR HELP WE MUST HELP THEM!

Fey: you people are all idiots, aren't you

Calliope, who really does think fast: these tunnels all twist around down here, Alice. The sound is probably coming from somewhere else entirely and if we go down the path of black roses we'll find them.

Alice, somewhat dubious: ...okay...

We do not find any crying children or men calling for help. We DO find tunnels dripping blood (LET'S NOT GO THAT WAY), more Anubis-headed monsters, and finally...

...finally a deep glowing red light begins to draw us toward it, and for the first time we begin to go up instead of down, up, up, up...into a chamber filled with the red light, and a hard (yellow?) light that's difficult to even look at, and a general sacrificial vibe, and...

...what quite frankly appears to be a Hellmouth at the far end of the chamber.

DM, cheerfully: Well! You have two or three sessions left in Egypt, I reckon. (pause) Or one, if you mess up!

And on that note, we close tonight's adventure. O_O

gentlyepigrams

Apparently what I really needed to do this week was listen to a bunch of music.

Books
The Last Hour Between Worlds, by Melissa Caruso. First in a fantasy duology set in a really fascinating world where god-level beings are contesting to set the theme of reality for the next period of time through their mortal pawns at a new year's party. Loved the POV character because in addition to being a badass, she's a new mom and it plays into everything. Really looking forward to the next in this series.

Music
Isabelle Faust, Kristin von der Goltz & Kristian Bezuidenhout, J. S. Bach: Sonatas for Violin and Continuo. Very nice recent release of Bach's chamber music.
Isabelle Faust, Solo: Matteis - Pisendel - Biber - Guillemain - Vilsmayr. More baroque music, but solo violin this time.
Isabelle Faust, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck & Xenia Loeffler, J.S. Bach: Violin Concertos. More Bach but with a larger ensemble.
I'm With Her, Wild and Clear and Blue. Folk trio made up of Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, and Sara Watkins, which I hadn't listened to although I knew all the members and have seen Watkins live repeatedly. I love their harmonies on this, their second LP, and am really looking forward to seeing them live on Friday.
Hiromi, Sonicwonderland (feat. Sonicwonder). She's a jazz pianist who fronts an ensemble and this is their debut album. I was listening to it while writing House of Cards and it was fine for that purpose but I think I'd have to give it another more serious listen to decide whether I really liked it.

Current Music: Silence is golden.

gentlyepigrams

Apparently I'm cleaning out my tabs.

Celebrating a Buffalo-Born Titan of the French Baroque Revival. I was familiar with the music of Les Arts Florissants from listening to them, but I knew nothing about the ensemble or its founder, William Christie, until I read this article. I wish I could see his ensemble perform in person or attend the festival.
The Friendly Nazis Next Door. As a white woman who grew up in a former Confederate state, I am absolutely familiar with the kind of article she's parodying hilariously.
iOS 26: Liquid Glass Is Here and Your iPhone Will Never Be the Same. Actually useful tips from the Wall Street Journal. Also a 9 minute video with 26 tips.
Dying to Be Men: American Masculinity as Death Cult. From Ms. Magazine.
Letter from an ICE Detention Facility. "The only known journalist detained by ICE on U.S. soil sends a letter to The Bitter Southerner. This is Mario Guevara’s harrowing account of what’s happened to him, in detainment, since his arrest on June 14."
The chilling reason the military is silent now. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth likes war crimes and hates the JAGs (my father-in-law was a JAG).
Obesity Is Killing American Men. We can put the same medical pressure on men to conform as we do to women, and here we are doing it!
‘If you don’t make a stand now, when would you?’: inside the Together for Palestine concert. Wish I could have been there, and not just for the music.
Riveting Hidden History of 20th Century’s Most Influential Fashion Designer. Review of a book about Claire McCardell that I really want to read.
The Key Missing Piece to the Megahit "Adolescence". I haven't seen this show but what it has to say about online radicalization is fascinating.
The AI-Scraping Free-for-All Is Coming to an End. Good.
The Jimmy Kimmel and Disney Drama Has Some Superfans Dumping the Mouse. Good for the Disney adults. (We also dumped Disney+, which we had been considering for a while.)
A lot of powerful people just don’t realize how unpopular Trump is. I have no idea how good this guy's analysis is, but it sure explains a lot about how the Jimmy Kimmel thing is falling out.
In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Is Biology Destiny? I want to watch some of the new new Trek but I worry about the kinds of things the author talks about in this review/complaint. Not just the bioessentialism and the failure to live up to the original series, but also the leaning into the prequelism.
How the Great Storm of 1900 ruined Galveston – and how the city's resilience redefined it. From the Houston Chronicle. Related: a fascinating Bluesky thread that covers a piece of unique contemporary journalism that I wasn't familiar with despite having grown up in Houston, and visited Galveston (an hour and change down the road) many times.
What is jury nullification? In case you need to know.
Butlerian Jihad Now. Following on from a recent teen suicide assisted by ChatGPT.
Lost California photos from Ansel Adams raise compelling questions. I recently saw an exhibition on Adams, about whom I knew very little. The exhibit taught me a lot about him but didn't cover this later part of his life. I'd love to see more of these photos and have them contextualized properly.
In El Paso, an Unlikely Cheese Reigns Supreme. It's Muenster and they use it in their Tex-Mex.
Unfortunately, the ICEBlock app is activism theater. A security expert on why the app isn't actually useful or safe.
"Abundance" As a Missed Opportunity. On the Abundance agenda and what it doesn't try to do. Probably not interested if you're not super-into politics (US) as a hobby.
Smartphones can be a pain in the butt when used in the bathroom. Basically if you sit too long you get hemorrhoids, which applies whether you're doomscrolling or reading a book. But still, don't be a Twitter shitter, as we used to say back in the old days of ... 2010 or so.

Current Music: Wind chimes.

gentlyepigrams

Dozo Sushi to Go is the best to-go sushi in our part of town. They have a bunch of boxes with good samplers of several different types of fish (salmon, which we had this time, yellowtail, tuna), some nigiri, and some rolls. Most of it is nice, but basic. They don't deliver so you have to pick it up and speed home.

The presentation of the boxes is very nice; not as fancy as eat-in, obviously, but they do put a little thought into how it looks. The rolls and nigiri come in the standard black & clear plastic boxes that your gro sto sushi comes in. The portions are generous--no skimping--and the fish is decent quality. It's not what you'd get from a really nice sushi place but it's definitely on the far upper end of gro sto sushi, like Eatzi's or HEB, but with a nicer set of options.

This is, I think, our third time ordering from them and each time we've enjoyed it. There are hard limits on what you can do with sushi to be eaten outside an actual sushi restaurant and Dozo approaches them.

Current Music: Silence is golden.

gentlyepigrams

Peeling Back the Tech Broligarchy's Glass Onion. I haven't seen Glass Onion (no Netflix) but I found this fascinating anyway.
Man Ray’s Mysteries, in Glorious Bloom at the Met. If I could figure out how to fly up to NY to see this, I would.
A Message From Your Doctor About the Prior Authorization Process. As a chronically ill patient in several specialties, I'm more than familiar with prior authorization, but a lot of people don't have to deal with it as often as I do.
What ‘They’ Have Done. A neat summary of the Republican talking points about Them, whoever They are, and all the things They did to make America worse.
What Makes TPM TPM? Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo explains the three pillars of his reporting & analysis.
Michelangelo to Banksy: The controversial artworks that fell foul of the law - and were erased. Love a little scandalous art history.
The Official Charity of the Savannah Bananas Has a Hard Time Explaining How Its Money Is Spent.
Charlie Kirk, Redeemed: A Political Class Finds Its Lost Cause. Ta-Nehisi Coates on the recent awfulness.
The day I met Charlie Kirk. From Lyz Lenz's newsletter.
unicorn. On the origin of the word and its use in medieval times.
The real enemy of democracy sneaked up on me. It's social media. I'm not as pessimistic as this guy, but the idea that people on the internet were ever going to be civilized in the way he thought was pretty precious, in retrospect.
Am I So Out Of Touch? A real life friend who does film criticism for a local alt-weekly (in my hometown) talks about the critic life.
What the British are really laughing about. Blast from the past on the fifth anniversary of the (British PM) David Cameron pig fucking scandal. Horrible but still funny in a very mean way.

Current Music: Silence is golden.

gentlyepigrams

Peter Pan at the Texas Ballet Theater. Winspear Opera House. September 19, 2025.

I didn't know there was a ballet of Peter Pan, and afterwards when researching the ballet, I found out that while the music is Elgar, it apparently wasn't written specifically for this purpose. The plot is also different to other versions of the story, including a made-up son for Captain Hook and whole sections of the book plot that don't appear in the ballet. The overall arc is similar but focuses on the pirates and Captain Hook in the Neverland section.

The stagecraft was well done for the most part, though something happened with the mechanicals behind the scenes that set off the smoke alarm in the first scene of the second act. We evacuated but were back in the theater inside of a quarter hour. A lot of the stage movement was handled by the "shadows" but for the flight scenes they did more wirework than I would have expected. One of the tricks for the passing of time was showing portraits with a frame behind which the depicted Darling family members stood, out of which Wendy would step and dance.

The costumes were interesting. The fairies, led by Tinkerbell, were in pink and green costumes with pink and green wigs. Peter was in a green wig and a wild-creature type costume instead of the usual Robin Hood sort of costume. Captain Hook, in contrast to his usual pirate tricorn and coat, was in a purple get-up with makeup that resembled the Joker more than anything else. The Darling parents looked and danced refugees from a Tim Burton movie.

The best dancers were definitely Peter, who was also great with the wirework and did the most flying, and Hook. Hook managed a lot of menace in his characterization that could have been undercut by his costume and the kind of silly-looking hook. Peter, whose dancer is short but is clearly a grown-up man with the strength and grace of an adult, did a fantastic job of being childlike in his dancing and emotive work. The dancers playing Michael and John were also very good at that.

I didn't realize until afterwards that we had opening night tickets. It's not a great sign for the company that a lot of seats were empty. I don't think that's the performance, though, just the economy. I hope this production does well because it was a lot of fun, the fire alarm notwithstanding.

Current Music: Silence is golden.

gentlyepigrams

I went to dinner and the ballet with a friend last night. She has the season tickets and I took us to dinner at Musume, which we'd both eaten at for Tasting Collective (I really need to go back and write all the ones we've done in the last few months) and enjoyed.

We had some sushi and two small plates. The nigiri was all top-notch and the Good Times roll was the right combination of textures and spicy. The Black Cod Misosuke, which we'd had at the Tasting Collective dinner, was just as good the second time round. And the Five-Spice Duck Leg Confit, which they shredded for us so we could eat it with chopsticks, was also superb. They got us out in time to walk down the street to the Winspear for our 7:30 tickets. Definitely not cheap, but Musume is staying on the list.

Current Music: Silence is golden.

Profile

flit

August 2011

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

Reading

Weekly media report - for the week ending 2025 10 01

confederates never learn a goddamn thing

Interesting things - 2025 09 28

Chicagoans, post pics and video!

Finally! Why It’s Harder to Hear Dialogue These Days

Amber Rising session notes around Carnivale - 2025 09 01 & 2025 09 24

I wrote another letter today, this one to Sinclair Broadcasting. You should too.

Call of Cthulhu: Down in the Underground

Weekly media report - for the week ending 2025 09 24

Interesting things - 2025 09 22

We ate from: Dozo Sushi to Go

Interesting things - 2025 09 21

Peter Pan at Texas Ballet Theater

We ate at: Musume

Profile

August 2011

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags