Tuesday, D. and I went to go see SIFF's showing of Norwegian Wood. Visually it was just stunning and it followed Murakami's book pretty closely. D. had been a bit hesitant to watch it enjoyed it as well. I thought the acting was very well done and was happy that the dialogue was minimal as I could follow along a little with out having to read subtitles. (Or I should say I was happy I could follow anything at all, my Japanese is pretty shabby). Anyway also bad at reviewing movies! If you liked the book by Murakami or just like visually lush movies I highly recommend it! Oh and I wore my new Jeffrey Campbell wedges which I am very happy with. The only downside to the experience was the movie theater was FREEZING! We were both shivering by the end of it, despite wearing our coats and in my case gloves.
Tobi in front of her art
dancer
Today, I went to see my friend Tobi's visual art and performance night, Ludus Sactus, at Capital Hill Art Walk. Tobi shared the walls with another artist Rae Diamond. I wish I would have gotten a close up of some of Tobi's pieces as you can't see them to well in the photo. There was also a performance of harmonic singing and gamelan with traditional classical Indian dance. There were several little kids in attendance, as it was held in a funky kids clothing store, I was really impressed at how generally well behaved they were. They did seem to like the part of the dance where he was the Monkey King! The dancer (who's name I did not catch) was quite expressive and it was interesting seeing the story danced out. At one point he was an old man and his whole face and body transformed, I was too busy watching to take a photo. He gave us a quick walk through of what the different gestures meant and a brief translation of the song, which helped. The singer and musicians were also quite talented, I just tend to focus on dance as I understand that more!
Friday I had the chance to go to opening night of Don Quixote at Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) with my friend Jamie (She had an extra ticket, yay!). The costuming and sets were amazing and I loved both Tom Skerritt, as Don Quixote, and Allen Galli, as Sancho Panza. The dancing was quite good, though I must admit I am not a big fan of "gratuitous dancing" which tends to be predominate in a lot of classical story ballets. Basically, those parts where everyone stands around and watches the principle dancers show of how many fouette turns they can do or high they can jump, etc. (Granted these tend to be big crowd pleasers and bring in the money for the ballet company so they can put on the more modern ballets that I prefer.) The biggest weakness was Carla Korbes as Kitri, admittedly a hard dancing role and this was her first time dancing it. My favorite part was Act 2, probably because I liked the dream sequences with cupid and also Don Quixote's battle with the very Hieronymus Bosch inspired demons. I wish they had been on for longer! Oh and the strange cactus people! (note the trailer for the ballet is not of the PNB dancers, though the choreography and sets are the same, I think the clip is from the Dutch National Ballet)
love conquers all
Another fun part of going to the ballet is the excuse to dress up. The dress is a 1950's wiggle dress and I've been waiting for a good excuse to wear it. I only had 1/2 an hour to get ready after work (including quick shower) so my make-up consisted of red lips and I didn't have time to iron (linen is very wrinkle prone!) I don't think the shoes really went with the outfit, and the fact that the back strap would not stay up with the tights on made walking more of a challenge than I cared for. Need some sky-high silver heels. We tried to take some photos with Jamie's iphone at the ballet, but they turned out rather bad so not posting them! Oh yeah and Godzilla stayed home, my strange cat thinks he's her friend so he tends to hang by the heater.
Below is Natalia Osipova dancing as Kitri, she's absolutely amazing! (maybe unfair to compare Carla to her)
It is week 2 of my sugar free diet experiment (or close enough), and despite my initial misgivings today I'm a believer! The best part is the unexpected benefit of having lost several pounds and even better I appear to have gone down a clothing size. Considering I have not been dieting, at least not in the sense of reducing calories, I'm amazed. As for my skin it is harder to tell. It doesn't look bad right now, but it tends to fluctuate so I can't say it is the lack of sugar in my diet. There is also the fact that I have been concurrently testing out the free sample I received of Blue Copper Firming Elastic Repair by Osmotic (gah what a mouthful). The lady at Nordstroms told me it was a miracle skin cream, one can only hope! I have however stopped using my retin-A (mainly because I ran out). I took a photo of my skin yesterday and will compare it to a photo in 2 weeks and see if there are improvements. I still won't really know whether it was the cream or the lack of sugar (or maybe a combo) but if it keeps getting better from here then I know something is working!
Oh and sugar seems to be making news, especially after an article in Nature. Here a article from the SF Chronicle: UCSF scientists declare war on sugar in food. Well I am not 100% sure that sugar is the root of all evil, moderation I think is usually the key. Still I am now more aware of how much hidden sugar is in foods and I think most people end up eating way more than they realize.
