Zion National Park

Since we drove to St. George after visiting the Grand Canyon, we decided to drive through Zion National Park on the way home.  It is one of my very favorite places on earth and Sean had never been there.

Even though it was the Fourth of July, it was not as crowded as I feared (after our fun in the Grand Canyon).  We went pretty early and found lots of parking.  Sean really liked the tunnel (we always honk the horn when we go through a tunnel) and he loved climbing the rock formations.

I have so many memories of taking road trips when I was Sean's age, especially to Zion, and I hope that he has fond memories of this road trip with his crazy aunts!

Grand Canyon National Park

On Sunday we drove from Farmington, New Mexico (where we spent the night) to see the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.  It was about a five hour drive to the South Rim.  We had originally wanted to walk along the Skywalk but we learned that it is a five hour drive from the park entrance and that it cost $80.00 each!  We decided to stay at the South Rim instead.  It was unbelievably crowded (I may or may not have had a small meltdown trying to find a parking spot) but we were able to have lunch and see a viewpoint near the Grand Canyon Village.

It is very impressive (almost worth all of the trouble we had getting a parking spot).  We ended up going on the Desert View Drive on our way out of the park and we were able to stop at every viewpoint.  We should have done this to start with!

It was a little bit stressful at first to visit the Grand Canyon but it ended up being a good day.  Go here for more information.

Note: While we were driving through Arizona I noticed a sign for the city of Winslow.  Marilyn and I got really excited and asked Sean to pose on a corner.

He thought we were crazy until we played him "Take It Easy" by the Eagles.

Four Corners Monument

A couple of weeks ago Sean mentioned, completely out of the blue, that he wanted to visit the Four Corners Monument where Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado meet.  He had learned about it this year while studying U.S. geography and knew all kinds of interesting facts.  He mentioned it several times and, being someone who is always up for an adventure, I said that we should go there on a weekend road trip and Marilyn agreed.  I'm not entirely sure that I meant it when I said it but Sean definitely thought I meant it and told his parents that Marilyn and I were taking him on a road trip!  How could we disappoint him?  Marilyn and I decided that if we were going to go down south we might as well hit up a few other noteworthy attractions and go over the Fourth of July weekend (when Marilyn had some time off).  We left early Saturday morning (because Sean thinks it is more fun to start on a road trip in the dark) and made it to the monument in about six hours.  It is in the middle of nowhere.  In fact, we made several wrong turns!  It costs $5.00 per person (when we read up on the monument we learned that they only take cash so we were prepared).  You are allowed to take pictures but you have to wait in a line.  We got there at just the right time because after we had taken our pictures, the line stretched out to the parking lot!  Sean wanted a picture of him touching all four states so he did a push-up (his leg is barely in New Mexico).  There are all kinds of stands around the monument selling Native American crafts and they only take cash!  Sean was a little bit disappointed that they had sold out of these beautiful bows and arrows (he's really into archery right now) but he did find a key chain.  There is really not a lot to do here except take your pictures and browse the stalls (we were there less than an hour) but Sean was fascinated.  This was his very favorite part of the trip.  Go here for more information.

The Legend of Tarzan

On Friday I had a Skarsgard movie marathon.  I saw Stellan in Our Kind of Traitor that afternoon and in the evening I saw Alexander in The Legend of Tarzan.  I actually liked this new adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs classic more than I thought I would (and not just because Alexander Skarsgard looks pretty, which he does).  The film begins with Tarzan (Skarsgard) back in England as the fifth earl of Greystoke with flashbacks to his life in the jungle being raised by apes.  He is lured back to Africa because an envoy of King Leopold, Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz, the ultimate villain), has promised to deliver him to a tribal chief in return for diamonds which the bankrupt king desperately needs.  Tarzan is joined by his wife Jane (Margot Robbie) and a former American soldier, George Washington Williams (an ever-amusing Samuel L. Jackson), who suspects King Leopold of enslaving the African people.  The action sequences are great and I loved the scenes where Tarzan plays with a group of lions and communes with elephants, although I was a bit disappointed that the animals are very obviously digital (the animals are much more realistic in The Jungle Book). However, it is the message about colonialism and exploitation that I found to be particularly compelling (and completely unexpected).  The character Rom is so menacing that I spent much of the movie wondering how Tarzan was going to get revenge and I almost cheered out loud when it happened (a great scene).  I also really liked the character of Jane because she is so feisty and self-sufficient (having also been raised in the jungle) and doesn't necessarily need Tarzan to swoop in and rescue her.  To be sure, there are flaws but I enjoyed this movie.  I am always pleasantly surprised when a summer blockbuster has a compelling story so I would definitely recommend it.

Our Kind of Traitor

As a huge fan of John Le Carre (I've read all of his books), I have been looking forward to the movie adaptation of Our Kind of Traitor for weeks.  I saw it Friday afternoon and it is pretty good with only a few minor deviations from the book.  Perry Makepeace (Ewan McGregor) and his wife Gail (Naomie Harris) are on vacation in Marrakesh trying to salvage their marriage when they cross paths with Dima (Stellan Skarsgard) who purports to be a money launderer with the Russian mafia.  He has sensitive information about British nationals who have ties to the Russian mafia and asks Perry to give this information to MI6 because he fears for his life.  Perry agrees and eventually meets with an agent named Hector (Damian Lewis) in London.  Hector has bad blood with an MP who is one of the British nationals implicated by Dima's information.  Hoping to get revenge, Hector sends Perry and Gail on an unsanctioned mission to get proof from Dima who will only cooperate if his family is granted asylum in England.  The tension mounts as Perry and Gail race from Paris, to Switzerland, and the French Alps as they try to protect Dima and his family.  I thought it was incredibly suspenseful and much of the suspense comes from the fact that you don't really know who you can trust.  Both Skarsgard and Lewis (I like him in just about everything he does) give great performances as the larger than life mobster and the devious agent, respectively.  When I first saw the previews for this movie, I thought that Ewan McGregor was entirely miscast as an academic who is bullied into a situation for which he is ill-equipped (I always think of him as the cocky, devil-may-care Alex from Shallow Grave).  But he almost seems diminished in his portrayal of a man caught up in events beyond his control (I had to look up how tall he is because I thought he looked so small and vulnerable on screen).  His characterization is spot-on and I found him to be very compelling as Perry.  This movie felt very Hitchcockian (including a very interesting McGuffin) which is always a good thing in my opinion.   I love spy movies (cliches and all) and I recommend this movie to other fans of the genre.

Motown The Musical

Imagine a concert featuring the Temptations, the Four Tops, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Stevie Wonder, and the Jackson 5.  That is essentially what it felt like last Thursday night at the Capitol Theatre when I saw a performance of Motown The Musical.  As you can imagine, it was incredible because the actors looked and sounded so much like the Motown recording artists they portrayed.  The musical tells the story of the rise and fall of Motown Records, particularly highlighting the tempestuous relationship between founder Berry Gordy (Chester Gregory) and his superstar Diana Ross (Allison Semmes).  Interspersed with the telling of the history of Motown is the music from their legendary catalogue.  My favorites included "Where Did Our Love Go," "My Girl," "Stop in the Name of Love," "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," "Baby I Need Your Lovin'," "War," "Ball of Confusion," "I Want You Back," "ABC," "Reach Out (I'll Be There)," "Mercy, Mercy Me," and "Get Ready."  It is such great music and the choreography and period costumes made every number spectacular.  People in the audience were singing, clapping, cheering, and practically dancing in the aisles!  I really loved Semmes' portrayal of Diana Ross, especially during the song "Reach Out and Touch," because she immitated all of her mannerisms perfectly (I laughed out loud when she flipped her hair).  However, J.J. Batteast completely stole the show as the young Michael Jackson.  Where did they find this kid?  He sounded and, more importantly, he danced just like Michael Jackson.  Those scenes were the highlight of the show for me.  If you are a fan of this music, I highly recommend that you see this musical if you have the opportunity.  Unfortunately, the run at the Capitol Theatre ended last night.

Note:  My only complaint is that I wished that every song could have been performed in its entirety.  There were just so many that had to be included!

Summer Reading: The Sense of an Ending

I think The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes is one of those books that people are either going to love or hate. I loved it! On the surface it seems like an ordinary story about an ordinary middle-aged man looking back on a rather mundane life, particularly his memories of his three best friends from school and his first girlfriend.  But it is anything but ordinary when our hero, Tony Webster, is forced to make contact with his old girlfriend after the death of one of his friends, causing everything he believes about his past to be challenged. The events are first presented in a linear way and then, at the midway point, they are presented again, backwards with hindsight. It is, in my opinion, a brilliant device because there are quite a few "a-ha" moments as you read the second half.  What I liked best is that we are left still guessing about what really happened with only the sense of an ending.  It is a study in character development and not a lot actually happens but I found it to be is so interesting because I think we all rewrite our personal history to suit our opinions of ourselves. The writing is absolutely exquisite.  Barnes has a way of conveying so much meaning with only a few words.  I found myself reading a particular phrase and then stopping to think about it for a while. This book is just the kind of perfect little gem that I love and I think I could read it again and again and derive just as much enjoyment as the first time. I highly recommend it knowing full-well that a lot of people might hate it.

Genius

Yesterday I saw the movie Genius and it seems as if I am the only person who liked it (aside from a few employees at the Broadway who gushed about it with me afterwards).  I guess you have to be an English teacher to enjoy this movie and, since I am one, I loved it.  It begins in 1929 when Max Perkins (Colin Firth), a long-time editor at Charles Scribner's Sons responsible for editing the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Guy Pearce) and Ernest Hemingway (Dominic West), receives a giant manuscript and begins reading what will become Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe (Jude Law).  Thus begins a tumultuous relationship between the taciturn Perkins and the effervescent Wolfe, to the detriment of their other relationships, namely with Perkins' wife (Laura Linney) and children and Wolfe's patron and lover (Nicole Kidman).  The narrative focuses on their attempt to edit what would become Of Time and the River from an unwieldy 1,000 page manuscript in crates to an eventual best-seller.  This movie is probably a hard sell to most people but I thoroughly enjoyed the scenes where they walked through the city editing the book line by line.  I always tell my students that word choice is so important!  One of my favorite scenes is when Perkins takes a red pencil to the manuscript of A Farewell to Arms!  Can you imagine!  Hemingway uses so few adjectives that it is remarkable that someone could find something to remove!  Yes, I know that I am a nerd.  No one else in the theater drew in a breath at that moment.  Firth, Law, and Kidman give marvelous performances, especially Kidman as Wolfe's over the top and jealous lover.  (For some reason Linney just doesn't do it for me and she seemed rather bland).  I loved this movie, but at the end of the day, it is a movie about editing so take my recommendation with that in mind; however, if you enjoy movies about complicated relationships between interesting people you might like it.

Note:  My only criticism of this movie is that these bastions of American literature are all played by British and Australian actors.

Dark Horse

Dark Horse is another little gem that I missed at Sundance this year.  Luckily the Broadway, my favorite art house theater in downtown SLC, screens most of the Sundance selections so I can eventually see all of the movies that I missed.  I saw Dark Horse last night and I loved this inspirational documentary of how a group of working-class people from a poor mining community in Wales bred a champion racehorse.  Jan Vokes, a barmaid at a local pub, decided that she wanted to breed a racehorse and enlisted the help of the pub's patrons to create a syndicate.  Every member contributed £10 a week and eventually 23 people owned a share in the horse.  Jan bought a mare that came in last in every race she ran and had a bad temperament then found a stallion with a stud fee of £3000.  She took a second job as a cleaner at a grocery store to pay the stud fee.  They raised the foal, which they named Dream Alliance, on an allotment in their village and then, when he was old enough, found the best trainer that they could afford.   Philip Hobbs agreed to train Dream Alliance because he was "street smart and scrappy" but ultimately didn't think he could win.  At Dream Alliance's first race, the syndicate only hoped that he would finish the race but were elated when he came in fourth place.  As he began winning, he started to garner national attention and became a symbol of hope for the entire village.  The members of the syndicate are absolutely endearing and often reduced me to tears in their interviews.  My favorite scene in the documentary is when the whole syndicate, including members with tattoos, piercings, missing teeth, and sandwiches wrapped in tin foil, went to the racetrack to see Dream Alliance in his first race and, wearing badges signifying that they were owners of a horse, mingled with the aristocracy.  This is a stand-up-and-cheer movie about achieving a goal that everyone says can't be accomplished and I highly recommend it.

Note:  Dark Horse won the 2016 Documentary Audience Award at Sundance.  Good stuff!

Patriotic Celebration at Sundance

I began and ended the week with Utah Symphony performances!  Not too shabby!  Last night I saw them perform at the Sundance Mountain Resort and it was absolutely wonderful.  It has been so hot in the valley this past week so it felt really good to be up in the mountains with a cool breeze and the smell of the pine trees.  I just love listening to music under the stars!  The orchestra performed several well known patriotic pieces by John Philip Sousa (which was a great way to start the Independence Day celebrations), including "The Liberty Bell Waltz" and "The Stars and Stripes Forever."  They also played the "Armed Forces Salute" and had members of each branch of the armed forces, past and present, stand when their theme was played.  This year the cutest little old lady stood for the Coast Guard.  I would love to know her story!  The orchestra also played a lovely rendition of "The Blue Danube Waltz" by Johann Strauss II which caused the cute couple sitting next to me to sigh!  Just for fun they played several songs from the movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens, including "March of the Resistance" and "Scherzo for X-Wings."  I love the music from that movie.  My favorite piece of the evening was the first movement from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (which they played at the Gallivan Plaza last Monday).  I certainly enjoyed listening to it again.  Have you been to a Utah Symphony performance lately?  It is the perfect way to spend a summer evening!  Go here for more information about upcoming performances.

Free State of Jones

Last night I went with my parents to see Free State of Jones which is an incredibly powerful movie about a rebellion against the Confederacy during the Civil War.  Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughey) is a medic in the Confederate army who becomes disillusioned after witnessing his nephew's death in battle.  He deserts in order to take his nephew's body home to Jones County, Mississippi and discovers that the Confederate army has been confiscating grain and livestock from the poor farmers in the area.  In one of my favorite scenes in the movie, he helps a widow and her daughters stand up to the soldiers, thereby placing a price on his head.  He is helped by a group of runaway slaves to escape into a swamp and is soon joined by other deserters.  Knight leads this ragtag group against the Confederate army, eventually taking control of a large area of Mississippi.  After the war, he tries to hold this coalition together to fight for the rights of the freed slaves during Reconstruction but the alliance is fragile.  Some of these scenes are very upsetting, such as when one of the freed slaves (Mahershala Ali) is lynched for registering voters and when the Ku Klux Klan burns down their church.  There is also a subplot involving the relationship between Knight and one of the freed slaves (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and a trial in the 1950s involving one of their descendants who was arrested for a racially impure marriage.  As I previously mentioned, this is a very difficult movie to watch at times but I found it to be incredibly compelling, especially since it is based on actual events.  McConaughey is outstanding as the charismatic leader, especially in the scenes where he rallies his group to action (I think McConaughey was a fire-and-brimstone preacher in another life).  I really enjoyed the use of Mathew Brady's iconic Civil War photographs interspersed throughout the movie to give historical context (something director Gary Ross also did very effectively in Seabiscuit).  The movie is quite long with a running time of 2:19 (the omission of the trial of Newton's great-grandson might have made it tighter) but I found Knight's story to be riveting.  I haven't been able to stop thinking about it and I highly recommend it.

Summer Reading: Little Bee

Little Bee by Chris Cleave is a book that I desperately wanted to love (there is so much hype surrounding it and the topic is particularly salient at the moment) but, while I did love many parts, the story left me feeling flat at the end. Little Bee is a 16-year-old Nigerian refugee who has seen her entire village, including her family, brutally murdered and is seeking asylum in the UK. Sarah is a 30-something suburbanite mother who runs her own fashion magazine but feels like she is losing her journalistic integrity and that her marriage is in shambles. The lives of these protagonists converge for a brief moment under horrific circumstances on a beach in Nigeria and the story begins two years later when Little Bee seeks Sarah out to help her (with flashbacks that reference the events many, many times before revealing them). The narrative alternates between the two women but I enjoyed Little Bee's perspective much more than Sarah's. I found Little Bee to be incredibly sympathetic and her voice made me think differently about the refugees around the world. I had tears in my eyes every time she would search for a way to kill herself in a new environment just in case the bad men found her and I laughed as she thought of ways to describe first world problems to the imaginary girls back in her village. I found Sarah to be less likable because her behavior seems so random.  I could never figure out her motivation for anything (I think her affair with Lawrence would have made more sense if it had begun after the events on the beach), including her reason for helping Little Bee, and she wasn't entirely believable to me, especially in her interactions with her son Charlie (who refuses to wear anything other than his Batman costume). I am not sure how I feel about the ending because it seems rather ambiguous, as if Cleave's message is that there is nothing anyone can do to help refugees. I don't want to believe that! I liked this book (I would have liked it better had it been from Little Bee's perspective only) but I didn't love it and I certainly don't think it lives up to the blurb on the cover (a cryptic message that the book is so good that the publishers can't give away any of the details).

Note:  I do, however, still want to read Cleave's latest book Everyone Brave Is Forgiven.

Waitress on Broadway

The one musical that Esther really wanted to see, besides Hamilton of course, was Waitress.  I am so glad that she suggested it because I don't think I would have picked it if left to my own devices and I ended up loving it so much.  It is absolutely amazing with incredible music by Sara Bareilles and a powerful performance by Jessie Mueller, both of whom were nominated for a Tony.  The musical is based on the 2007 independent film of the same name and tells the story of how Jenna (Mueller) uses baking to cope with her dead-end job as a waitress and her unhappy marriage to Earl (Nick Cordero).  When she unexpectedly becomes pregnant and then begins an affair with her gynecologist (Drew Gehling), she feels as if her life is spiraling out of control and decides that her only hope is to enter a pie baking contest to use the prize money to begin a new life.  Whenever life gets to be too much for Jenna, everything around her freezes and she gives the audience the recipe for a pie that would help her situation, always beginning with, "Sugar. Butter. Flour."  In the end she realizes that the one ingredient missing from her pies is courage!  There are parts of the story that are so funny and parts that brought tears to my eyes.  The music is brilliant and I loved every single song.  My very favorite was "She Used to Be Mine" because Mueller performed it with so much passion (Did you see her perform it at the Tonys?) that I literally cried through the whole thing.  I loved the fact that the cast actually makes pies throughout the show and that they place them in large pie coolers (like you see at Village Inn) on both sides of the proscenium.  It is an amazing show and I am so glad that I got to see the original Broadway cast!

Note:  At intermission you could buy individual servings of pie in tiny Mason jars!  I got cookies and cream pie and Esther got Key lime pie.  So much fun!

She Loves Me on Broadway

One of the shows that Esther and I were able to see while in NYC was the Broadway revival of She Loves Me.  Quite a few people from my HCT group saw it and loved it so I was really looking forward to it.  The setting is 1934 in Budapest at Maraczek's Parfumerie, a little shop with a group of eccentric clerks.  Two of the clerks, Georg Nowack (Zachary Levi) and Amalia Balish (Laura Benanti), bicker constantly in the shop but, of course, they are secretly corresponding with each other (this musical was the basis for the movies The Shop Around the Corner and You've Got Mail).  Chaos ensues when they arrange to meet and Georg discovers that his "dear friend" is really his enemy at the shop.  This show is a lot of fun and I really enjoyed the songs "Tonight at Eight" and "Will He Like Me?" because they show both the male and female perspectives on getting ready for a date and I also really loved Levi's enthusiastic rendition of "She Loves Me."  I was actually quite star-struck by both Levi (from the TV show Chuck and the movie Tangled) and Jane Krakowski (from the TV show 30 Rock) who gives a marvelous performance as Ilona, one of the clerks. Laura Benanti has gotten quite a bit of buzz for her portrayal of Amalia but, in my opinion, Jane Krakowski steals the show as Ilona, especially in the big production number "Ilona" where she is pulled across the stage in the splits!  In addition to the great performances and fun musical numbers, the stage is absolutely spectacular and I was particularly struck by all of the different views and levels of the perfume shop. I loved how they changed the shop for the different seasons, especially for winter which Esther and I got to experience first-hand sitting on the second row! I really enjoyed this show.

Note: Esther and I decided to wait at the stage door after the show (a first for me) and we got to meet both Zachary Levi and Jane Krakowski.  Both of them signed my Playbill!  Jane Krakowski didn't stay out very long but Zachary Levi signed everyone's Playbill and posed for pictures with anyone who wanted one.  He was really cool!  He talked to me for a few minutes and some people around me asked me if I knew him because he seemed so friendly towards me! While we were waiting for autographs, Lin-Manuel Miranda drove by and shouted to us.  No big deal!