Oh, cat, don't fly away again. My head's killing me.

 I head to Castro Valley in my car

I bought a Snickers at the grocery store
(The bastards stock them in the checkout lane);
I wolfed it down, and promptly wanted more --
A year of careful eating down the drain.

And now I bloat, distend, balloon, inflate --
At least within the theater of my mind;
I'll ricochet back to my former weight
And leave my slim and perfect self behind.

And where to blame how much I dream I weigh?
What monster plays the supervillain role?
It can't be gluttonacious holiday
(Or -- god forbid -- my lack of self-control).

Not turkey, pie nor stuffing need atone;
I pin the guilt on Mars, and Mars alone.

Ennui consumes my normal jauntiness
And, desperate for diversionary laugh,
I play my old Nintendo 3DS
Until the little joystick breaks in half.

But I will fix this uninvited fail!
There's cheap replacement parts on Amazon.
The hardware store has screwdrivers for sale;
There's YouTube videos from dusk to dawn.

Remove two screws and pop the battery
Now six more screws and there's the joystick base!
The broke bit out, replacement in, and see
My 3DS is whole, a thing of grace.

In all of that excitement I forgot --
Do I enjoy the games? I'm thinking not.

FIVE GOALS
a Sonnet by Al Badger


When 2020 dawned I mapped my play:
Do DuoLingo daily; grow my mane;
Lose weight; watch one new movie every day;
And write twelve sonnets ere the year would wane.

My Spanish has improved, like, ten percent!
My hair's too long to fit beneath my cap.
I'm down three stone - an English measurement,
I've seen three hundred movies (Most are crap).

But feet iambic I've not writ at all
In February chill nor April fair;
Pentameterless Summer fell to Fall
And now there's barely sonnet-time to spare.

Perhaps I could persuade you to believe
I'm going to write all twelve on New Years Eve?
------------------------------------------------
I actually set myself SIX goals this year, but goal #6 was "attend live performances of each of Beethoven's nine symphonies," so, yeah, that kinda ain't happenin.

Well, heck, one day into my goal of post to Dreamwidth every day and I don't post to Dreamwidth that day. Get it done early today, here we go.

I was going to get up early so I could exercize before it got too blisteringly hot  (same reason my 3-mile walk yesterday was over by 9am), but I was awoken at 4am by rain -- thunderstorms in the Bay Area in August, bit of a surprise and a welcome one. Elliptical done for today, DuoLingo done, still have to watch a movie and I was thinking about this baby: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Lovecraft_and_the_Frozen_Kingdom -- which sounds like, why the hell does it even exist? I'm not sure it counts as a movie (my rule has been, has to have a theatrical release, no TV-movies or direct-to-video releases). But if it doesn't count I can watch another Frankie Darro feature as a palate-cleanser.

Also on the list today, bake banana bread (4 very sad old bananas in the kitchen just waiting) and clean out the AeroGarden. AeroGarden says you can just pop the thing on the top rack of your dishwasher, but that makes me nervous.

Tunisian Crochet, which I love, is neither Tunisian nor actually crochet, though certain techniques require crochet skills, as per this example. Wonky blocking but it's just gonna be a "dishcloth" so that doesn't trouble me too much.

The damned idiots who are riding thrill-rides at Tivoli, only a block north of here. Just checked in; very nice, centrally-located, affordable and tiny-roomed, just the way I like 'em, and ready for one last night of sleep before flying home. I'm sure there's a very long German word for not wanting a trip to end, but DuoLingo hasn't taught it to me yet.

Last night was the last of the 7 operas at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, the Flying Dutchman, in a serviceable but vaguely cheap production (after that Ring cycle I'm not surprised, gotta cut corners somewhere). Nice concept though -- Daland and the Dutchman are captains of industry, instead of captains of ships; Daland runs a factory that makes fans (???), so when we get to Act II (or Scene II, since there were no intermissions), there are cardboard boxes everywhere. The Dutchman is "new capitalism," he does something that makes him rich, but who the hell knows what -- hedge funds? oil? cocaine? It actually made sense of the story, instead of fighting it at every turn, which the Ring production did (mostly to delightful effect, true). All musical values superb, as usual, and so fast -- it took only 2 hours 15 minutes! By my count, I sat through 24 and a half hours of music, which taken at the SF Opera's clip would have lasted 3 hours longer. Didn't feel rushed at all.

But that's done, as is the 12-hour train ride back to Denmark (I forgot to bring a 4-year-old with me, but, fortunately, nobody else forgot), and the trip's over. And I'm sad. It was a truly great 2 weeks, both the time here in Denmark and the Festival, and made much greater by friends old (hi Erling and Johan!) and new (hi Stephen!). Problem is, sure, I accomplished all but one goal of this trip (I didn't get a magnet at Bakken), everything went great, but I just WANT TO BE HERE, not the USA. If I had a billion dollars, I'd just live here, I would. But I don't, so back home... I know, it's SO SAD, you're CRYING. NOTHING SADDER EVER. Except when Leonardo DiCaprio died in Titanic. That was the saddest thing ever.

Well, off to bed, then plane, then home, and I swear I will take up my knitting again! Also, I will tell you the horrible story of why I stopped knitting. Scariest thing ever.

This is it -- this is why I'm doing this trip! And, yes, I'm good. It's worth it.

Bayreuth is a charming smallish town, good bus system but no trolley or subway, so mid-size for this area. My hotel is a ways from the Theater, but right next to the cobblestone pedestrian-only streets that make the downtown shopping area, and I've got a bus pass now, so I'm getting the feel.

But it's the Wagner Festival that got me here, and I've now seen 2 of the 7 shows I have tickets for, and I'm kinda in heaven. I think this isn't that different from what roller coaster aficionados feel. Or heroin addicts. Just guessing of course.

For the Ring, I got the cheapest seat I could, and it's not even a seat, really, just a bench tucked into a little cubbyhole on the balcony, but it's got a fine view of the stage, and so steeply raked that heads in front of me aren't a problem. Also, my right shoulder is against the wall of the cubbyhole, so that makes my reptilian hindbrain happy.

Musical considerations first, and this is glorious. The orchestra pit is REALLY a pit, with barely a slit for the sound to come out of, which tips the scales to the stage, and lets the singers ring out beautifully (also gives the orchestra an interesting shimmer). Even the weakest of the singers is a joy to hear.

Visually, more of a mixed bag. I love the sets so far -- both are giant 3-story structures on turntables, amazing engineering feats. Das Rheingold is in a sleazy motel/gas-station apparently near Amarillo, Texas; die Walkuere on a massive oil-extraction structure apparently in Azerbaijan. The theme appears to be Greed is Bad. I like a wacky Ring but I'd like wackiness with a more complex intention. This just seems cluttered, especially in Rheingold, when nearly the entire cast of 20 (14 singing roles, 5 homeless drug addicts in swimwear, and the gas-station attendant played by a young David Cross) is jammed into the tiny upstairs motel room; I was hoping the girl with the hat would show up and ask "Is my Aunt Minnie in there?" (That's a reference to "a Night at the Opera," which if you haven't seen, do). Also off-putting was the constant and usually pointless use of video projected on large screens.

All the "magic" moments have been effectively botched (Alberich turning into things with the Tarnhelm, the Magic Fire, etc.), but I'm thinking this is intentional. The text in the program (7 Euro) talks a lot about irony; this is less irony than adolescent mockery, like when I was 19 and a friend and I re-imagined the Ring in pedestrian terms; instead of a sword in a tree, a switchblade in a Formica breakfast table, that sort of shit. Fortunately, nobody gave us a pile of money and a famous theater to wank around in.

Still, I feel kind of small complaining about how poor the visual production is when the audio is so fine. After Walkuere, the conductor got the biggest ovation of all, and it went on for 10 minutes. And such a fast reading! On the stairs out, a little French gentleman engaged me in conversation, and compared the conductor to Usain Bolt. "Un heure cinq minutes! Olympic sprinter!" he said. "Ja, mach schnell!" I replied, completely oblivious to any language issue.

Here's some good reviews from Parterre Box:

http://parterre.com/2013/08/23/first-impressions/

http://parterre.com/2013/08/24/flame-off/