Scarlet Letter

Well, if I were Hester Prynne, then my scarlet letter would be "P". I'd have these amazing thoughts on how to make it the most epic "P" ever seen in Boston, but then five minutes before the public shaming, I'd have forgotten to make one. Thus, I would totally cut one out of a piece of felt and safety pit it onto my shirt. "I'm ready, Mr. Dimmesdale!"

Aside from the prologue, which I've heard to read last, I finally finished The Scarlet Letter at around 10:30 tonight. For as much moaning as I did about it, I have to admit that it was actually a pretty decent book. Actually, once I got into it, it was rather good. Good in a strange, almost non-English type way, but good anyway.

I believe the only way I survived was LoudLit.org, who have a podcast on iTunes (Podcast=free) that is completely just chapter after chapter of Scarlet Letter. I would listen and read along with it, and it clarified things so much better than trying to just do one or the other. Best of all, I would get a chapter done in 20 minutes clean.

For the longest time, I had to suffer my way through by trying to imagine the libretto for the non-existent Broadway version. By the end, I came to thinking, and have decided that the music would be written by Rogers and Hammerstein, who, aside from Sound of Music, write some of the dullest show music I've ever heard, to go hand-in-hand with the dullness that encompasses much of the book. When it starts getting interesting, they can go to Sound of Music mode.

Patrick Wilson can be Dimmesdale, Philip Quast as Chillingsworth, and Judy Kuhn ought to be Hester. Just because we can, Bernadette Peters will be Mistress Hibbins. As for Pearl...Elle Fanning. I know she's not a singer but I've run out of names.

Fireflies

I've been trying to figure out how to post about Wizard of Oz Strike from Sunday night for about a day now. On a totally unrelated note, I also sign onto iTunes every week and download the free Single of the Week, usually without listening to it. It's free, to why not?

Last week was "Fireflies" by Owl City. I listened to it on the pilates today, and I immediately knew that it would be the perfect basis for a post. Naturally, I've listened to it about twenty times now.



"You would not believe your eyes
if ten million fireflies
lit up the world as I fell asleep.
Cause they fill the open air
and leave teardrops everywhere."

One thing that was true at this Strike as well as the one for Beauty and the Beast was that the Marsee's yard, which is where we have the Strike Party (The Marsees are the presidents of YTHC) is filled with fireflies during the summer. Seriously---there's tons of them, and when it becomes dark and hugging circle starts, people sometimes try and catch them. It'll be completely dark and then, suddenly, a spark of light will briefly appear before fading to black again. Fireflies always remind me of Youth Theatre.

"Cause I'd get a thousand hugs
from ten-thousand lightening bugs
as they try to teach me how to dance."

Hugging circle. With fireflies. And I can't really dance, thanks to my turned-in ankles. Add one and two together and we'll come up with song meaning.

"To ten million fireflies
I'm weird cause I hate goodbyes.
I got misty eyes
as they said farewell."

The end of Strike was, as expected, fairly traumatic, since it does mark the end of that particular season of YTHC. The seniors will move onto college, people will move, and new people come in, but no particular season will be exactly like the one before it or the one afterward. This seems to be the case with most people, though, so I doubt that I'm "weird cause I hate goodbyes." This particular year was hard, having not been in the show and therefore not only not being able to meet some of the new seniors (and non-seniors!) but also not seeing some of my best friends every day like last summer.

It was raining after giving out the Nerd awards, so several people (particularly newbies) went up to the center of the tent we were all sitting under and gave their sort of "Thank the Academy" speeches. I actually went up myself, explaining to the people who didn't know why I had to duck out why I did and thanking everyone for keeping me as part of the YTHC family despite my absence onstage. And yes, I was half-crying at that point.

I'm trying not to look at this as the end of Season 38, but rather the beginning of Season 39 (much as our director would say). It sounds like this will be my last year at Fort Knox and Kentucky, so I'm hoping to make this year the best out of any of what will be the five here. I plan on joining SALUTE!, which is YTHC's touring group during the school year, start taking dance lessons, survive AP, become more social, finish my book, among other things. It's kind of inspired by Chris Crutcher's Deadline, which I haven't read but know the plot of. Look it up---it's a fairly long explanation.

Just to wrap things up, I'd like to say a final thank you to YTHC and everyone involved in it. I love you all so much!

Back to Oz

Though Mom and I had already seen Wizard of Oz last week, we decided to go again with my friend Janelle tonight. It was just as wonderful as last time, and our seats were really good---middle, few rows behind the crossover aisle. I ran into numerous YTHC alumni (and other people I hadn't seen in a year) that I was friends with, and they were more than happy to sign my "Shirt of Love". The shirt is the T-shirt I got for going to the Wizard of Oz workshops. It's largely white, and since I didn't have a signed poster like last time, I decided to get all my friends, YTHC or not (anyone at the show, really) to sign it. After tomorrow night, which is closing night (I'm going again) the shirt will be my new pajama top.

Into the Woods

I auditioned for it last night.

Seems I'm coming out of the woods before even going into them, if you get my drift.

Yeah. I didn't get in.

Over the Rainbow

I'm seeing Wizard of Oz with my friend Janelle on the 17th. However, we weren't doing anything tonight, so I appealed to my mom to take me to see it tonight as well.

It was absolutely incredible. Toto was an actual dog, and he was completely adorable and terribly well trained. I tried to imagine Ginger doing that and couldn't (Sorry, Ginger). In the scene where Toto escapes and Dorothy cries, "Run Toto, run!" Toto ran off Stage Right. If Ginger did that, I suppose she'd also have a nice dose of FRAP and run around the entire stage.

I didn't FaceBook that I was coming, so at the Meet-n-Greet I took my friends by surprise. I hadn't seen most of them in two months, some six, some a year. Mom took pictures, though they're still on her camera. I'll post them tomorrow.

My friend James pulled his typical Poor Young Lad to ask my mom if I could join the cast at Shoneys for their tradition post-show dinner. On the condition that I vacuum the entire house tomorrow, I was allowed. I accepted.

Words can not describe how I felt tonight. I haven't felt that loved and immersed in people like that in so long. Granted, I haven't been miserable at all, but to be part of the YTHC family again and go out at the late hours of night, all the bright lights of the street and theatre against the black sky was just great. Best of all was seeing all my friends again, some of the greatest people I've ever met.

I'll end my poetic and sappy interlude there. I'm really tired (contacts are killing me) and I got four hours of sleep last night. If I'm to vacuum the house, I'm going to bed.

Home again, home again

One French movie (I've Loved You So Long), a disk of Two Towers appendices, most of Life of Pi, 16 hours, and two days of driving later, we're home from Florida. Time there seemed to rush past, and now I notice that there isn't much summer left. How that that have happened? I still remember the last day of 8th grade, walking out of the building and having two months ahead of me. Now we're down to less than one.

Hopefully the school year will go that fast? I still have a nice chunk of summer work (Scarlet Letter, moments sheet, and four chapters of German) but I have officially decided to make room enough to read the last two Lord of the Rings books before summer ends. It's too late to learn to play guitar before school starts, but I want to accomplish something.

Inspire me

It's obvious that I've given up on the 2009 Blog365. Ever since Jamaica, I've been behind in a lot of my Internet-type accounts, especially MySpace, DeviantArt, and Blogger. I've actually been on FaceBook quite a lot, just not for status updates.

As proven before, it's hard to stop blogging and then start again. I've been finding significantly more and more things that I would normally blog, though less and less desire to do so. Therefore, I ask your opinion: should I keep blogging?

You don't even have to post a comment. I have my SiteMeter put up, so by just seeing that you were here (and what your operating system, browser, and resolution were) for say, a minute to read this post, that'll be adequate. If you're still reading me ramble on, you're helping the cause! (If you hate this blog, then close out of it so as to cast your vote too).

Thanks!