Concept Dump:

[fancycwabs]

The made-up word "barista" (ca. 1982) has bothered me, as it assumes that there's some quantifiable skill in making a decent cup of coffee--a skill that's akin to the skill of making a decent martini or a proper whiskey sour. Then, your average baristi at, say, Applebee's, has no idea how to make a decent martini or proper whiskey sour, either, so I guess giving the position a meaningless title is probably fine, but I'm gonna start calling the guy at Moe's Southwest Grill a Burrista and guy at McDonald's a Hamburgista¹. Also: the Italian root of "venti" is either twenty or wind, which implies either 20oz sizes or flatulence.
° ° °Speaking of burritos, perhaps we should take to calling a burrito larger than your head a burritisimo.
° ° °Night time in Paris
Winter's chill against the lights
Frosted minuits
° ° °Mrs. Cwabs and the little cwab have tickets to the touring production of Rent Saturday night, with "meet the cast" passes for afterward. I have mixed emotions about Rent--musically, it has some moments that are absolutely chilling, which nobody but me seems to like (and were cut from the film, incidentally), and some dramatic ones that are touching without being exceptionally heavy-handed (which were changed for the film so that they have all the subtlety of Home Alone). On the other hand, every "theatre person" on the planet seems to identify with these characters (at least the artistic ones), written with their grand dreams of artistic success and complete and utter lack of talent in their chosen professions. Angel's percussive busking is so good that it drives a dog to suicide, Roger takes a year to write one (crappy) song, Maureen's performance piece consists mainly of metaphorically bitching about her life and mooing. Still, the struggles of these poor, talentless "bohemians" and their never-realized dreams of greatness is compelling, and the musical numbers in which the characters aren't performing for other characters are occasionally quite good. And the little cwab will have a good time.


¹ Assuming I'd eaten a hamburger at McDonald's in under, like, three years. Maybe I should call him a Sausage McMuffista. It's also been years since I've been to a Moe's.

Comments

[loree-borealis.livejournal.com]

And a tiny burrito a burritito!

[hemlock-martini.livejournal.com]

There's a gyro place nearby that advertises a "Football-Sized Steak Burrito."

I wanted to ask them if they meant football length or football width. I have a hard time believing it would be both.

[lumberbaron.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it is simply the same volume. They immersed both in salsa and measured the liquid displaced.

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the tortilla is the same size as a deflated and unstitched football. It's just the volume of air and/or burrito stuffing that makes the difference.

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

You don't have to endure scores of theatre queens using it to justify their Dramatic Flourishes and off-key singing.

[violentvixen.livejournal.com]

I never saw the film of Rent, and I think I'm happier for it.

Personally, I connect with the musical because it hit right when my friends and I were figuring out who we were, and oddly enough it seemed like each of us could identify with a character (Everyone, myself included, decided I was Mark). To a group of high school girls, it's awesome to have something to connect with like that.

There are also lots of memories associated with it as well, and not just singing along to it. For example, one of my friends was incredibly bored during Spanish class one day and translated the first voice mail message from Mark's mom. After school, she called my answering machine and left said message. My parents were SO confused.

[samethreechords.livejournal.com]

I only saw it the one time back in 2004 on Broadway and I'm a little torn. On the one hand, it was great. Awesome music (except for the one song), good story, talented actors, quick and witty musical dialogue, but you already knew that.

On the other, having prepared myself for an emotional asskicking, I was ultimately a little underwhelmed by the effect it had on me. Part of the reason for that is that Roger's song does, indeed, really kinda suck. Beyond that, though, one of the more interesting explanations I've read is that--and please forgive my breaking into a Giulianiesque "Nine Eleven Changed Everything" harangue--Rent came to define a certain cultural era in New York that, if not ended altogether, was drastically altered by the terrorist attacks. Maybe it's not fair to say that 9/11 reduced the conflicts in Rent, but I think it did change our perspectives on them. The end result is that the play seems more foreign and more distant than perhaps it was supposed to, not originally having been intended as a historical piece.

It also could be that I never experienced pre-9/11, pre-Giuliani New York for myself. Maybe I just didn't get it.

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem I have with Rent today that I didn't have when I first saw it in 1997 (or heard the soundtrack years earlier) is that the show is an indictment of the new technology that I hold dear and has allowed me to meet similar like-minded creative individuals, which is ultimately the villian. Nothing's quite as ironic as a MySpace page that plays "Over the Moon" when you open it.

Of course, Larson didn't see this future back in 1990 whatever, so you can't really fault him for making all hus characters a little short-sighted.

[redtheblue.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't a male coffee server be a baristo?