The All-New Bunrab

I crocheted this sweater in less than 2 weeks. In the picture, I haven't done the row of shells along the bottom hem yet, but I did that this evening, after the symphony, while we were watching CSI, so it is truly finished! I might add some small flowers at the neckline in other colors, since spring green isn't actually my best color - figuring to add some orangey-coral and/or aquamarine flowers, should look better at the edge next to my skin.

And it was so easy to make, that while we were at the symphony this evening, I started on the back of another one, and am more than half finished with the back - that's in the dark, in between applauding, reading the program, and whatnot.

The program included Christopher O'Riley, you know, the guy from From the Top. He did two encores, including one of his adaptations of Radiohead, and hey, it sounds at least as "classical" as Philip Glass channeling Brian Eno. Then in the second half, the last piece was Prokofiev's "Romeo & Juliet" and some of the audience started applauding at the pause that comes at the end of the section of the duel, where Tybalt is killed. So the guest conductor turns around and motions with his hand to quiet down, and says "Only one person is dead so far; we've got a couple more to kill yet." And they go on with the piece.

And we had supper afterward at Sabatino's. Life is good.

Evelyn Glennie performs barefoot.

Friday evening's Baltimore Symphony Orchestra concert opened with Wagner - "Brunhilde's Immolation" - yeah, it's Wagner. All the percussion toys for Glennie were already out on the stage at the beginning, so it looked odd. Then after the Wagner, the lights dimmed and we started hearing eerie noises and then Glennie comes creeping up the aisle, hunched over and playing what looks like a bird cage with a drum head on the bottom, using a violin bow on the bird cage bars. Very creepy. And, as mentioned, she's barefoot. The piece was Michael Daugherty's "UFO" consisting of five movements: Traveling Music; Unidentified; Flying; ??? [yes, that's its name, no, I don't know how it's pronounced]; and Objects. The ??? movement consists solely of Glennie and the contrabassoon. A lot of the piece was jazzy - could definitely hear hints of "Mission: Impossible" and Pink-Panther-theme type jazz in it - but a lot of it was just spacey - new agey and gimmicky, the sort of thing that reminds me that one person's "playful and joyous" is another person's "that's not music, it's sound effects!" I wouldn't want to buy the piece on CD, because a great deal of what made it interesting was watching Glennie in action - even though she was looking sort of spacey and new-agey herself - barefoot, long hair, sort of hippie-style loose calf-length dress. Anyway, over all, a success.

The second half was Holst's Planets, a piece I love love love. Mostly it went spectacularly well, although there was one teeny burble in the trumpets at one point. No matter, it is always a gorgeous piece. It also includes a contrabassoon, so the evening was definitely contra-intensive!

Continuing the outer space theme, next week is Mahler's "Titan" - well, Mahler wasn't thinking of Saturn's moon but after hearing The Planets, how could I help but make that connection?

My own apparel was mixed - I wanted to dress up for the opening weekend of the season, and bought* a turquoise sweater and brown-and-turquoise plaid skirt - and then discovered that since we haven't finished unpacking after moving in June, I had no idea where my brown shoes were. I wound up wearing brown ankle boots that looked rather silly with panty hose, but it was that or sneakers, my black and silver band concert uniform shoes, or my motorcycle boots! If I had gotten the turquoise tights to go with the sweater, I think the boots would have looked better, but I didn't. Note to self: for next weekend's concert, either find more of your clothes or more of your shoes, so that stuff matches! And definitely before niece's wedding in November, which is another occasion I intend to wear some of today's clothing purchases.

*Cindy-the-librarian and I went clothes shopping Friday afternoon, to collect some autumn clothing. We resisted more than we purchased, but some purchases were made. I do have several occasions coming up this fall to dress up. I also bought some knee socks just for fun; fadethecat, I think you would be envious of some of them, like the over-the-knee ones that would look terrific with your boots.