Happy New Year’s Eve!

Sorry for the delay, but it’s been a long week. Last Saturday night, I met two friends in Manhattan for Sean Altman’s Christmas Eve Jewmongous, a Jewish-themed musical comedy act. It was good fun (won’t even try pretending it was clean), especially since Mr. Altaman and one of my friends know each other – she’s a super-fan of his and has been to many of his shows. Part of the fun was that we managed to get her front-and-center in front of the stage. He recognized her and chose her to be his Token Shiksa of the night – this involved him nicely picking on her, asking her questions, and dedicating one of the songs to her. Sean Altman, of course, was one of the founding members of the group Rockapella (he wrote the famous song Where In the World Is Carmen Sandiego?), who I’ll be going to see with The Shiksa and another friend or few NEXT Saturday in Manhattan. It’s going to be a good time.

At this point, I’d like to take a moment for people I find special who joined the vanguard in Valhalla this year (at least the ones I know about): my friend Joe from undergrad, Badger from Lunacon, Pete Postlethwaite, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Falk, Harry Morgan, Jerry Lieber (half of Lieber and Stoller)

Happy (insert winter holiday of choice)!

Let’s see … Hannukah started at sunset on Tuesday, I’ve been reminded that today is/was Winter Solstice (which I believe cues the Yuletide celebration), and Christmas Eve is Saturday. I’m not that much into holidays (my main reason for liking Christmas is that I can usually find nice and special treats on sale afterwards), but I take these winter ones as a reason to wish merriness and happiness and to throw books in the general direction of people who might enjoy them. I participated in a Secret Santa Gift Swap at work today – I got one of those holiday-themed ceramic jars containing a few packets of name-brand hot chocolate, and a friend in the office got the mug and coffee I brought in.

I also found out that I’ll be getting to sleep in three days in a row for the next two weekends. Booyah for having two Mondays off for holidays! I have to work on New Years’ Day, but I don’t have any big plans for New Years’ Eve at the moment. And I have the evening shift that day, so it won’t be too bad.

Let the partying start

It’s now just over a week to Christmas. I’m still planning to attend Jewmongous in Manhattan with a friend on Christmas Eve, and she’s trying to get others to join us, but I’ll be getting up to some hijinks this weekend as well. My mom’s coming to visit this weekend, and she wants to take me to see something in Manhattan as a holiday present. (Forgive me, Thespis, for I have sinned. It’s been over two years since my last show …) Depending on what time we can get into the city, we may try hitting the ever-awesome TKTS half-price ticket booth to see what they have available. I’m rather leaning towards The Addams Family because I’d be interested in seeing Roger Rees perform live, but I wouldn’t say no to Wicked, Bonnie & Clyde, or Billy Elliot.

Random bit of interesting-ness: The Germanic musical team Michael Kunze and Sylvester Levay did a musical adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s book Rebecca some years back. I was just poking around on Broadway.com, and I found that there’s going to be an English-language adaptation of this musical coming to Broadway. I’m intrigued because I’ve acquired and enjoyed the German soundtrack, and rather leery because of what was done with Tanz Der Vampire/Dance of the Vampires ten years ago. Tanz der Vampire is the Jim Steinman/Michael Kunze musical based on Roman Polanski’s movie The Fearless Vampire Killers. It opened in its original German form in Vienna, Austria in 1997 and it’s had numerous revivals in Europe since then. It was adapted for the American stage and brought to Broadway in the fall of 2001 with Michael Crawford as the big-name star. I saw and enjoyed the production (enough to go back for the evening performance after catching the matinee), despite the fact that it was incredibly cheesy and the audience kept reacting to the fact that many of the songs were adapted from ones that Steinman wrote for Meat Loaf. I bought a copy of the double-disc Austrian cast album, and based on that alone I can safely say that the German-language version has to be better than what I saw in New York. This is why I’m both excited and nervous about this production of Rebecca.

Counting down

So it’s two weeks to Christmas and just over three until New Years’. Is it just me, or did all of this sneak up? Sorry for posting late this week, but it slipped my mind when I got home Thursday night. I was getting excited, because for the first time in years I have plans for Christmas Eve! No, I don’t celebrate Christmas. My plans involve going into Manhattan with a friend so see Sean Altman’s solo comedy show Jewmongous at Joe’s Pub. It should be a fun show. Sean Altman was one of the founding members of Rockapella, who I’ll be seeing two weeks later in Manhattan with the same friend. I’m getting all sorts of good music this winter!

Holiday madness

It’s a week since Thanksgiving, and most people seem to have survived Black Weekend in one piece. I worked most of Black Friday at my office job, and it wasn’t quite that bad during my 3.5-hour shift at the store that evening. I know one person who was up at 5 AM for a new computer, but he’s the only person I know who purposefully went shopping that day. It seems like the holidays keep encroaching on each other more and more despite (or in spite of?) the economy. I was seeing Halloween stuff out in August, Thanksgiving items were rolling out in mid-t0-late September, and I swear I saw a display of fake Christmas trees for sale before Halloween. To be honest, my favorite part of some of these holidays is the discounted tasty things afterwards – I can usually find good hot chocolate, candy canes, and baked-goods mixes for more reasonable prices in the weeks after Christmas. I’ve already got my eye on some special holiday teas I saw at a local gourmet food market. I know Christmas is still a few weeks away, and I don’t celebrate it other than wishing merriness to friends and giving gifts, but I’d like to offer these two videos:

Improv Everwhere’s Mall Santa Musical http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c_mPevNk8E

Trans Siberian Orchestra’s Sarajevo 12/24 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHioIlbnS_A