Every once in a while, I'll watch a live performance on YouTube of a song I dig, and very often, I hate it, because the audience screams the whole time and ruins the ambiance or mood. But sometimes, the audience reaction actually enhances the song, and their emotion somehow elevates the performance, you know? I saw one today where the crowd is filled with teenaged girls, and instead of the usual screeching (like at a One Direction or BTS show), there were several of them shaking and crying in silence. And that really affected me.
I guess I've been there, once or twice, where I've been in a room witnessing something and I was just floored by the fact that I was there, seeing it.* A recent example was when we were in Oceanside, California last summer for a few days. My family was there, and we drove past the old theater on the main drag through town, and I did a double-take. "Sweeney Todd" was playing there that week. Well, I stopped the car and went to the box office to find out when the performances were, but it was closed, and I started to trudge back to the car. But a lady came out of the theater and asked me what I wanted.
She told me the performances were that Friday and Saturday, and I was disappointed, because my family was heading back on Friday morning. And the lady told me, "Well, there's an Industry Night performance on Thursday, if you want to go to that." I didn't know what that meant, and I'll pretend you don't either and explain that an industry night show is just for other performers or family members who can't get out to the regular show, or for press to see so they'll have a review ready before the actual shows start, and it works as a sort of dressed rehearsal for the cast and crew before the paid shows start.
Anyway, she invited me to the Thursday show, and I immediately called my niece and asked if she wanted to go to it. She was enthusiastic, though not as much as I was. We've gone to our fair share of plays together since she was twelve or so, but "Sweeney Todd" is our Grail, and this would be the third time. The first time we went, it was a Halloween performance where the cast stood in front of microphones and sang and delivered their lines with the book open in front of them (it was still totally cool). The second time we went, it was a high school performance, and not as well-memorized as it could've been (plus, they censored some of the dialogue and songs so it would be more churchgoer-friendly, which I suppose I can understand, if not appreciate).
I expected this one to be roughly on par with those, which was fine, since we're pretty easy to please (I'm that way with pizza and underage prostitutes too). But when we went, on Thursday, and found out there was almost nobody there (like, say, twenty people, including us), I thought, "Uh oh." And I couldn't have been more surprised. The performance was flawless, with high production values, good sound, and great English accents. About ten minutes into it, I began to get this surreal feeling of, "I cannot believe I am witnessing this." We were right there on the center of the second row, surrounded by mostly empty seats. Because it was a preview, they didn't charge us to go in, but said they'd take donations.
But the show was amazing, and I was in awe, delighted and moved. I felt supremely-lucky: there were so few people there, yet the actors were giving it their all. During the intermission, Cathexis and I both had the same idea: "We should donate MORE." It was everything the theater should be, except that we weren't wearing tuxedos and ballgowns. And afterward, I was truly grateful that I had gotten to see it, in person, and under those circumstances. Maybe that's the purpose of life, to rack up as many of those experiences as possible.
Heck, I've no idea what the purpose of life is.
All I know is, as of today, I've crossed 100,000 words written since February 1st. That's an accomplishment, even if Brandon Sanderson writes that much in between bowel movements.
It's supposed to be cold tomorrow, so I'm going to put this down and go up the canyon. I didn't do it last week (but the last three weeks I did), so, why not?
Well, I didn't make it. I went to the storage unit (sold a dinosaur and couldn't find it anywhere else) and then had to figure out what song to sing, and while deciding (an Oldie this time, 1966), Big Anklevich called, and I sat and talked to him there for an hour, and by the time we hung up, it had started to rain . . . so he'd done me a favor, really, since I might have been up on a hiking trail by myself when the rain began to come down, with no coat, and very little body hair.
So instead, I'm here in the car again at the park, and when the rain lets up, I'll do the stairs. I see a jogger right now, and he isn't plussed at all by the rain. In fact, his legs look like something drawn in a comic book with superhero proportions. He did stop running at the stairs, though, and slowly walk up them, making me wonder why he wouldn't launch himself up them like I would if I had zero body fat and blond hair. Hmm.
I too went out there and did the stairs and ran around in the rain. Then I sat in the car, edited a chapter of YIGH, and wrote a bit on my Christmas story (it used to be the Christmas ornament story, but the darn thing has been forgotten once its effect has been felt. I'll try to come back to it in the end in some way, though probably not in the horrible Anklevichian way I originally considered). Tonally, this is going to be a hard one, because it's, at its core, a pretty nasty story, like the one I wrote about the Jewish guy in the mall who was assaulted by elves for not being a celebrator. But at the same time, it's a holiday story, and supposed to be about the true meaning of Christmas . . . and that's hard.
You see, that means something different to everyone. To a super-devout Catholic, it's one thing, to the program director of Hallmark Channel it's something else, to the parent of a bunch of young children it's one thing, to an older woman whose kids have all moved away and gotten their own life, it's something different. And to a lonely, middle-aged dreamer and Horror writer?
Well, I guess that's all that matters.
Words Today: 1297
Words In April: 12,943
Words Total: 100,522
P.S. Every day I'm posting one of these:
*I guess it's happened a time or two with a girl, where I was happy to just be in the same room as the person I liked most in the world, but this isn't quite that same thing.
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