Happy Christmas Eve, my darlings! For those of you celebrating some form of midwinter shenanigans or just grateful you’ve got some time off work, I wish you merry festivities. For those of you bah humbugging your way through the next few days, or having to deal with things that make this season less than joyful, you have my sympathies.
I’m deep in re-plotting The Novel, so I won’t be around much unless my characters decide we need a very silly midwinter story. But I did get you something! Of course I did. I love you and wouldn’t leave you with nothing. Here is absolutely the best ever version of the Nutcracker, via my friend Merideth, who always finds the neatest things. It’s okay if you don’t like ballet or classical music. That isn’t really the point. The point is, we can create something new and funny and fabulous when we mix up sophisticated old stuff with delightfully talented modern people. I present to you the most excellent results when you combine dancers Cyrus “Glitch” Spencer, JR Tight Eyex, and James Derrick with the California Philharmonic Orchestra and some Tchaikovsky.
If someone gets hold of a time machine and is wondering where I’d like to go, this concert is the answer, thanks!
I’ll have another gift for you tomorrow. Stay tuned!
Thanks for the lovely vid!
And thanks for getting my favorite holiday term right. “Bah” is an exclamation of disgust, “humbug” is a descriptive term. In modern times, we’d say “Ugh! Bullspit.” The “it is all” is understood. (I used a euphemism in honor of the holidays.)
And now my second-favorite holiday term: Have a cool Yule.
I love this piece. I saw it last week, and I love it. It goes into a neat category of category fusion, along with this version of The Swan (seriously, watch that).
I’m just confused as to why it is categorized as ‘funny’. Because it’s not classical dance with classical music? I thought it was very well done, very interesting and different, but rather far from being automatically funny. It’s certainly amusing and fun, and I like seeing people get into a performance enough to laugh, but I felt it was almost disrespectful, as there is nothing in the choreography to suggest that they’re trying to be funny as such, simply matching their movements to the music. Can’t remember the last time someone laughed at the classical version of Swan Lake, though I’m sure someone has and there’s plenty of funny-looking movements. And don’t even get me started on that contemporary/classical version of Anna Karenina I saw a couple of years ago…
I’m sorry, I cannot watch it: The camera is jerking around so much it makes me nauseous.
LOL! Thanks. :-)