Batter Up!

Last week I was able to see one of my nephew Sean's baseball games.  His team is the Toronto Blue Jays, which just happens to be my favorite professional baseball team!  He was so excited to tell me!

If you have not been to a Little League baseball game recently, you are definitely missing out!  It was an absolute riot to watch (even though it was incredibly cold and windy).  The coach of the opposing team, the Cincinnati Reds, was obnoxiously intense!  He acted like he was coaching in the Major League and shouted instructions to every player throughout the whole game and called for multiple time outs to talk to his pitcher.  Some of his players were in tears after his instructions!  I found it incredibly amusing!

The Blue Jays, however, were not quite as intense!  Their coach kept encouraging them by calling out, "Be ready, Blue!  Be ready!"  This was a necessary instruction as I noticed Sean picking dandelions when he was playing right field!  Another Blue Jays player was turning somersaults throughout the game!  When Sean came up to bat, he immediately struck out but, man, is he powerful!  When he does actually connect with the ball, he will score a home run!  Needless to say, Sean's team did not win but I sure did love watching him!

Note:  Normally I really enjoy watching a red team beat a blue team!

Ballet West's The Rite of Spring

Last week I went to see a performance by Ballet West and it was absolutely wonderful!  The first ballet was called Forgotten Land and it was based on a painting by Edvard Munch, who is one of my favorites.  It featured music by Benjamin Britten which, to me, was almost reminiscent of howling wind.  There were several couples dressed monochromatically in red, white, gray, and black.  They danced in front of a large backdrop showing a stark landscape of ice, which I thought was very effective in evoking a mood of desolation.  The choreography was very innovative and this was definitely my favorite piece of the night.  The second ballet was called Divertimento No. 15 and it featured the music of Mozart.  It was a more traditional ballet with the dancers wearing tutus.  The choreography was very elegant.  The final ballet was a world premiere called The Rite of Spring featuring the music of Igor Stravinsky.  This piece was amazing!  The choreography was almost primitive and every movement embodied the music completely.  A large vessel above the stage slowly rotated to splash water on the dancers at the end of the piece.  It was very dramatic!  I really enjoyed the entire performance.

2013-2014 Student Body Officers

One of the perks of working at a comprehensive high school is being able to sponsor a group, club, or organization.  Granted, this is often a great deal of work; however, it is also a lot of fun!  This year I have been the student government advisor and I have had the pleasure of working with these amazing students!

They have had a very successful year at Hunter High School and I am so proud of them!  We recently had the election for next year's student body officers and the feeling is very bittersweet.  I am excited to work with a new group of students and I am looking forward to new opportunities and experiences.  Yet at the same time I am sad at the thought of saying goodbye to this wonderful group.  I will definitely miss them!

I wish them the best of luck as they go off to college in the fall!  I know they will do great things!

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Last week I went to see The Grand Budapest Hotel (again).  If you don't already know this, let me tell you now that Wes Anderson is a genius.  The movie is set in Zubrowka, a fictional Alpine European republic, between the wars and includes a panoply of eccentric characters centered around Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), the concierge of the Grand Budapest Hotel, and his loyal lobby boy, Zero (Tony Revolori).  When Madame Desgoffe-und-Taxis (Tilda Swinton), one of Gustave's many wealthy clients who rely on his "exceptional service," dies and leaves Gustave the painting Boy With Apple, her son Dmitri (Adrien Brody) accuses him of her murder.  Gustave enlists the help of Zero and his beloved, Agatha (Saoirse Ronan), to help prove his innocence and thus ensues a fantastical adventure, including a prison break, an appeal to The Society of the Crossed Keys, a high speed chase on skis, a gunfight in the lobby of the hotel, and a mysterious second copy of the second will written by Madame D.  The cast is phenomenal and I was especially blown away by Ralph Fiennes!  I always think of him as a dramatic actor but his comedic timing is superb.  Adrien Brody (I love him in every movie he is in) is hilariously overwrought.   The scene where Dmitri walks down a corridor of the hotel with organ music playing in the background just about killed me!  There is also an impressive list of cameos in this movie (fans of Wes Anderson will recognize many faces);  my favorite is Bill Murray as Monsieur Ivan, a member of The Society of the Crossed Keys.  As with every Wes Anderson movie, the production design is incredibly stylized.  The hotel itself is a piece of pink confectionery and the banners on the hotel at the outbreak of war are almost a spoof of the Nazi swastika.  In my opinion, this movie is brilliant and I highly recommend it!

Mozart, Bernstein & Nielsen

I won some free tickets to a Utah Symphony concert of my choice for promoting the organization on social media.  Recently Marilyn and I used the tickets to see a lovely performance featuring the music of Mozart, my favorite composer, along with Leonard Bernstein and Carl Nielsen.  The orchestra began with Eine Kleine Nachtmusik which is one of Mozart's most popular works, certainly one of the most recognizable.  It was performed by a small chamber group and I thoroughly enjoyed it because this is one of the first pieces of classical music that I fell in love with.  I think it is light, airy, and elegant.  After this piece, the full orchestra, including a large contingent of percussion instruments, joined the group for Leonard Bernstein's Serenade, after Plato's Symposium.  This featured Kathryn Eberle, the Associate Concert Master for the Utah Symphony, on solo violin and she was amazing.  It is a series of related movements with various speakers praising the platonic idea of love.  I really enjoyed the first movement because it featured a lot of percussion.   I especially liked the chimes.  The orchestra concluded the concert with Carl Nielsen's Symphony No. 5.  I was not very familiar with Carl Nielsen but, as the orchestra has been performing his Symphony Cycle this season, I have grown to appreciate his work and I was especially affected by this piece.  Many believe it was heavily influenced by the brutality of World War I.  It was very somber but I thought it ended triumphantly!  Marilyn and I had a wonderful evening.  Thanks to the Utah Symphony for the tickets!