Dublin Fringe Festival

One of the things we unfortunately missed out on in our move to Ireland was the Edmonton Fringe Festival -- an event that we've faithfully attended at least a couple of shows every year for the past couple of years. We've had some good memories of watching shows like the One Man Star Wars Trilogy, The Great Pretenors, and Rainer Hersch's Victor Borge. So we were rather enthused to find that Dublin had its very own fringe festival soon after our arrival. On Saturday, we checked out a show called All in the Timing which was playing in the theatre in Bewleys. This restaurant was the first place we ate on our first night in Dublin. We shared that meal with Darse, Xan, Mike and Marja.

All in the Timing was a fun show. They did about five short-ish sketches of varying amusement. The first of which was probably my favourite where they did a sketch similar in style to the improv game "new choice". The scene started with a woman sitting at a table in a restaurant reading a book and is approached by a man who asks if the seat is taken. He makes several missteps and gets several bad responses before finally getting to sit in the seat across from the woman. After each misstep, a bell rings and they go back in time to redo some part of the scene. It was quite humorous throughout the sketch.

The did a couple other neat sketches including one where a woman comes in to be taught a new universal language. The man she sees talks in a weirdly bastardized version of English, using other english or nonsense words in place of other english words. As the scene progressed the woman becomes fluent in this new language and the two spout several joyous sentences of this new language that sounded remarkably like ridiculous lyrics to some well known musicals. It was quite a fun scene.

In another scene, the actors did a very short skit involving people meeting by random chance at a bakery. They then did a several song musical using just the words used in that skit repeated in a musical way. It made a weird sort of sense, and I think was quite a bit more enjoyable in experience but a bit hard to explain.

So that was our first Dublin fringe show. Tonight we saw our second show which was a circus/burlesque show called La Clique. It was a bit on the racy side, but definitely a thoroughly enjoyable show.

Highlights from the show included:

• Two British men in suits who did several feats of strength including holding each other up. One man stood on the other's head, one man used the other's legs like they were gymnastic rings, you know, simple stuff like that.
• A woman gets four hula hoops going around her body at once in various forms.
• A double-jointed rubber man calling himself "Captain Frodo" contorts himself through 2 tennis racquets: a 12 inch one and a 10 inch one.
• A man in a bathtub full of water whirls himself in the air using two long straps suspended from the ceiling. This was probably my favourite -- the guy did the whole thing choreographed to music, and included a jaw dropping manoeuver where he spun the straps around his arms and legs to ascend to near the ceiling, but stopping at intervals to flash a pose timed perfectly with the music. The manoeuver was incredible for strength and flashiness to begin with, but timed with the music it was absolutely amazing.
• Ursula Martinez performed this little magic trick (warning: nudity, NSFW).
• The rubber man returned after the intermission to stack a series of buckets on top of a piano while balancing on top of them. Each bucket was smaller than the previous one until he was down to a small coffee can which he proceeded to sit on and then tuck his feet behind his head. I don't want to know how many times he's attempted this trick in practice and fallen.

In between these, there were several fun bits in between. A guy calling himself the Queen of the show (because he's a big Queen fan) juggled and rode a unicycle to some Queen songs and provided a bunch of entertaining banter. "Captain Frodo" used a saw as a musical instrument in a song that also involved a piano, an accordian and some little bells.

All in all, an enjoyable show! The fringe continues for the next few days, but we might not make it out again since the upcoming weekend looks a bit busy.

One last thing before I head for bed here. I finally caught up with photos from our recent treks. Have a look if you are so inclined!

Morgan

Year Under Review (Diane)

You’ll notice that Morgan’s end-of-’07 post falls neatly on January 1, while my post gets twice the 1’s. Nevertheless, my sweetheart has decreed that there shall be a year-in-review post from our separate perspectives. As a loving companion, I have so far indulged him by ooh-ing and ah-ing over his very fine example, including, but not limited to, utterances of,

“Oh, yeah! Kimberley! That was awesome!”

“Hey, you got a master’s?” (Heh, heh.)

“Aww, the family reunions – they seem so far away.”

“Oh right, I guess we got engaged last year.” (I took some flack over that one, but I’m pleased to be able to report I took it graciously ;-) Seriously though, it was a pretty great birthday, right up there with bowling parties and wiener roasts of old. Good food, good wine, good company…pretty ring :)

Hmm, 2007… I remember spending a little time in hospitals this holiday season and last. I had some dear friends and loved ones in a fair amount of pain. It was pretty sucky for some of my homeys. You people know who you are, and I’m sure you remember how truly “special” those times were. I’m happy you’re on the mend!

I seem to remember changing contracts at work and slowly taking a hand in a few newer projects that are pretty exciting. I have my own way of putting everything, and it’s been a lot of fun puttering about the lab with Mohan, who doesn’t seem to mind my experimentation. It’s great to work with these good folks on the brink of retirement, but I am anxious over the loss of wisdom and expertise and legacy and heritage that must come with the newer, younger culture that we’ll make then. I hope that I can somehow be around to hear the stories and tell them again. This has been a real year of growing to appreciate how important stories are to culture and to individuals – particularly in the department and at home with my family.

Also, getting away to post-man-machine match Vancouver was wonderful – I’m really happy I took those days off. Everybody should get a holiday like that now and again. I believe I should visit again soon. Like, before the games come to town. Not poker, the other games…

Speaking of Vancouver, Shelly and I took that trip to Bamfield, the same trip my mother took more than ten years before me. Everyone should get to ride the ferry ‘Lady Rose’, and the little rainbow harbour ferry too. There was Shelly and Jeff’s trip to South Africa and Eric’s trip to Zambia and all the cool pictures of Victoria Falls. Not to mention the tales of Carolyn’s adventures in London with Eric, plus France, Italy, Greece, and Megan’s trip to Ireland. Dan went to India, and I find it funny that Canada has seen a mere 140 years since confederation, and it’s only been 50 years since India’s independence. India’s so old though!

Hmm, what else? Dan loaned me his guitar while he went home for Christmas – it was very kind of him – my fingers are soft as a baby’s bottom and I forget everything I ever learned, which wasn’t much to begin with. My keyboard sits untouched and my sundress is half cut out on my table. How I thought I was going to make bridesmaids dresses and a few for myself I’ll never know. I have, however, managed to catch every episode of Heroes, some of The Office, Amazing Race, and the odd Oilers game. There really needs to be more cool, creative, person-building stuff in my life. I think I'd like to make it home to my folks' place a little more too.

My “Christmas Loot” post is still waiting in the wings. I totally want to show off my holiday haul, but I need to take pictures of some of the nifty gifties for completeness, so give me another few for that.

There were a few very enjoyable concerts, and lots of very well-enjoyed dinners and get-togethers with Morgan’s charming friends, who have become mine as well. If there had to be one thing I enjoyed spending time doing in '07 it would have to be that.

Diane

Tux Shopping

On Saturday, the bulk of the wedding party gathered at the big mall (read: west ed) to spend some time shopping for wedding apparel. We wandered a bit, and eventually us guys found tip top where we gathered looking at the selection of tuxes that were available. It took me quite awhile to come up with a choice. I'm not too good at this sort of thing -- you might know that I'm not exactly fashion conscious, so many of the options looked the same to me. Maybe they were! Anyways, it took awhile, but we selected our options and showed the girls our selections. It seems they were okay so we've got another things checked off that list. Diane and the girls spent a fair amount of time looking at different dress options. It sounds like Diane's found some fabric to use to make the bridesmaid's dresses, so that's exciting.

The next big thing on the plate is wedding band shopping. I'm not really looking forward to this, although I am kind of excited about getting the bands. The trouble is that I've never been in a jewelry store that has made me feel comfortable. They are very careful about only revealing prices to you when you ask. There's very little window shopping you can do besides "ooh, that looks pretty". Ugh. Anyways, any suggestions on where to go? We're looking for some pretty simple white-gold wedding bands. Diane will probably want one that'll go well with her engagement ring.

Morgan