"Astair, your glare is killing me. Astair, in skies of blue. The signs you wear are making me so confused. But the mountains and the trees, are they just what you need, or are they less than what you'd expect to see?" ~matt costa

School is canceled tomorrow due to the impending blizzard. I am thrilled. I think I'm going to rush a Broadway show (probably A View From the Bridge, starring Scarlett Johansson and Liev Schreiber). Then we just have to finish out the week, and next week we have off for winter break. Lauren and I leave for Miami on Monday and I cannot wait. I need warmth.

I had a lot to write about but now I can't remember what.

I saw the Broadway production of A Little Night Music on Sunday. Angela Lansbury is fabulous. I also liked Catherine Zeta Jones; her "Send in the Clowns" was beautiful. Stephen Sondheim is such a genius; I'd enjoy any one of his shows just because I'd get to listen to his incomparable compositions.

Tonight Nic and I went to see A Lie of the Mind, which is an off-Broadway play directed by Ethan Hawke. I loved it. The cast was absolutely amazing (Josh Hamilton, Marin Ireland, Laurie Metcalf, Maggie Siff, Keith Carradine, Alessandro Nivola, Karen Young, and Frank Whaley). It's a Sam Shepard play, and it's bizarre and very intense and very powerful. I loved what Hawke did with it. I've seen other shows that he's directed and enjoy his directing work very much (I've also seen him in the audience at his own plays, including tonight). In fact, tonight there was only one person sitting between us, so I was sitting less than 2 feet away from Ethan Hawke while watching a play directed by Ethan Hawke. Quite odd and yet extremely cool. He laughed a lot (often he was the only person laughing, which was kind of adorable). I wanted to approach him and talk to him and tell him that we went to the same high school (we could chat about some crazy teachers that I know we both had), but instead I left him alone. The only words we exchanged were when I squeezed past him to get to my seat and said "Excuse me, I'm sorry" and he replied, "Oh, it's no problem." Deep stuff, huh? He's a cool guy, though. Tonight he participated in a talk-back with the audience after the show. He loved talking about the play; in fact, he wanted to stay after the moderator said we had to leave. But the moderator insisted that we all leave because they had to close the theatre. Anyway, it was a fun experience.

Question: What is wrong with being serious? Or a little down sometimes? Why does it always need to be explained? It bugs me that my mom seems to think I need to be perky and happy all the time. That is not normal. That is not me. And I am totally okay with that.

I suppose that's all for now. I want to leave you with this recording of mine (which I've already posted) from the best concert I attended this summer, The Saturday Night Rebel Rockers Traveling Circus and Medicine Show (Counting Crows, Augustana, and Michael Franti & Spearhead). I keep listening to it over and over. I think my favorite songs are "Caravan" (I cannot get enough of that song), "A Murder of One" (duh), "Just Like a Woman," "Why Should You Come When I Call," "Cecilia," and "Rain King." Those group songs are just so joyful. There were exactly 20 people onstage making music together, and they seemed to be having so much fun together. You could tell how happy Adam was to be in his hometown (he says it quite a bit).


ETA: Okay, the player isn't working, so here's a download link if you're interested.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/lsft24

And a couple of videos that I took: