Enter the Quaniverse

2013 in lists (art, books, entertainment, shows)

Posted on 11 January 2014 by andyq

The year in concerts, shows (musicals/theatre/dance) and books!

CONCERTS

Sing the Truth, State Theatre (January) – Welcome 2013. Angelique Kidjo, Dianne Reeves and Lizz Wright. Quite a triple-bill, but the surprise for me was Lizz Wright. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a voice quite like hers.
David Byrne and St. Vincent, State Theatre (January) – I can’t believe that in my 40s, I’m seeing heroes of mine from my adolescent days. I wasn’t enamoured by St. Vincent, she was only OK, but David Byrne is a GOD. When he sang ‘Home’, ‘Road to Nowhere’ or ‘Burning Down The House’ there was nowhere else I wanted to be in the world.
Kings of Convenience, Opera House (February) – What a surprise. I’ve never seen everyone get up and dance for so long, and the music isn’t that dancey. The singers were charming, and the goofy guy kept everyone laughing the whole time. Really original music and a great crowd. Go Norway. 12 points.
Jens Lekman (February) – Loved.
Tina Arena (February) – Well-loved by her audience.
Rickie Lee Jones (March) – OHMYGOD. Review up on site.
Eric Whitacre (March) – Beautiful choral music.
Shawn Colvin (April) – I last saw Shawn Colvin in a big concert hall in London. Loved her, but definitely not intimate. So, to see her perform solo at the Basement, a handful of feet away, was incredible. Wonderful musician and wonderful songs. Not much banter! Really cool. And to be introduced to her opening act, Melody Cole, was great – very talented young Aussie singer-songwriter. Will be looking out for more from her.
Bonnie Raitt and Mavis Staples (April) – Amazing voice and presence and songs – I’ve always liked Bonnie Raitt. It’s strangely not the kind of music that I normally click with but I’ve always been immediately drawn into her voice and vibe. And Mavis! My god! A female gospel James Brown, I didn’t really know anything about her before this concert, but she was like a primal force, the id, and rocking the stage at 73. (Bonnie at ten years younger was also an amazing sex bomb, not to take away from her amazing musical talents)
Cassandra Wilson (June) – What I’m musing about these days is that every singer that I’ve ever really really loved seems to come through Sydney these days at one time or another. It’s such a privilege and delight to be able to hear artists live that have been a part of my life. Cassandra and her amazing voice, and great band, were marvelous. I’m going to go buy the rest of her CDs now. I’m behind!
Kristen Chenoweth (June) – God, I loved her, really I did. She is a PERFORMER. But the baby photos were a bit much.
Idina Menzel (June) – Between Galinda and Elphaba, I probably like Galinda better and my better half liked Elphaba. Stunning voice, and I found it very touching when she sang songs from Rent.
Cyndi Lauper (September) – An absolutely terrible opening act that I’ve blocked from my memory and then Cyndi singing the entire album of ‘She’s So Unusual’. I forgot how weird the second half of that album is. She is fearsome, I also forgot that, and shows no sign of mellowing with age. I think I expected to be touched more by this concert, since songs like ‘Time after time’ are so important to me, but it was more spectacle. Everyone got up and danced to everything recognisable, which was fun!
Olafur Arnald, The Basement (October) – How is his music so sad and beautiful and emotional? I started crying and wondered: is sadness Icelandic?
Michael Jackson, The Immortal World Tour by Cirque Du Soleil – Allphones Arena (October) – Moments of beauty, joy and inspiration… and deeply weird.
John Legend, Sydney Opera House, December. Man, the level of excited estrogen in the audience was through the roof. Enjoyed it. A bit culturally lost with some of the songs, but supremely talented.

SHOWS

Torch Song Trilogy, Gaiety/Darlinghurst Theatre. The greatly talented Stephen Colyer directing, I really enjoyed this production.
Mrs. Warren’s Profession, February, Sydney Theatre Company. We saw a preview performance. Thought the text itself was slightly old-fashioned, but I enjoyed it.
Shen Yun Performing Arts, Capitol Theatre, February – my pal David thought that some Chinese dancing and culture would be fun. Little did we know, it was a Falungong performing troup, protesting against the Chinese government and featuring weird trippy flying people. I was kind of sympathetic to their cause beforehand (and don’t think they should be persecuted and banned) but I wasn’t quite convinced by their weird beliefs.
Justin Vivian Bond, Carriageworks. I loved seeing him years ago as part of Kiki and Herb, and I do think Bond is a charismatic and interesting performer. But this was terrible. Bond needed a musician to back him up – his/her (there was some reference to getting rid of gendered pronouns) piano-playing (and forgetting half of his song) was cringe-inducing.
Driving Miss Daisy, Theatre Royal – yes, Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones were great, but the script (which won a Pulitzer apparently!) seemed sketchy and dated.
This Heaven, Belvoir. Wonderful new Australian talent with a powerful play. Nakkiah Lui is a name to watch out for.
Carmen, Opera Australia – my god, what a beautiful setting and spectacular show.
Dance Better At Parties, April, Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf 2 Theatre. Haven’t we watched this concept before, both in movies and in theatre?
War Horse – Lyric Theatre. Theatrical magic…
One Man, Two Guvnors, May. Hilarious. The lead actor was amazing.
Anh Do – The Happiest Refugee Live! The State Theatre – As much as anything, I think he’s an interesting cultural figure in Australia today, to come from a poor refugee background and make a career in comedy out of it, at an anti-refugee time in Australia, is important. And he’s funny.
They’re Playing My Song! Theatre Royal. God, this musical is out of date.
The Maids, June, Sydney Theatre. Terrifying. Interesting staging and production. I’m not sure how people can share the stage with Cate Blanchett, she’s such a big presence, and Isabelle Huppert, struggling with a wordy script not in her native language was, in an unfair position here. Elizabeth Debicki was amazing though.
Angels in America, Parts I & II, Theatre Royal. One of my favourite plays ever… and what a production. I couldn’t believe all these Aussie actors pulling off perfect American accents. So well done.
Blue Man Group, Sydney Lyric, August. I’ve always been interested in seeing these guys. Craziness.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Sydney Theatre, August. I studied this at 16 in college, so to see it so many years later, live, was good. If only I wasn’t so tired at the time. Amazing script, great performances and staging.
Romeo and Juliet, Sydney Opera House. October. Amazing show, performances, and reimagining. Loved it.
Waiting for Godot, Sydney Theatre Company, November. Hugo Weaving and Richard Roxburgh. Great performances as expected. Since I studied it… and saw it a few years ago… seeing it again, I was thinking: nothing happens in this place. Is it necessary to see it multiple times to find that out (aside from the great performances…)?
Vere (Faith), Sydney Opera House, November. I loved that this was an Australian play with Australian references and of-the-moment jokes, and the lead performance is touching. First half was amazing, but I thought the second half didn’t match, some of the emotional truths blunted by slapstick and the one-dimensional fundamentalist Christian characters. Too easy targets these days, I think.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Theatre Royal. A fun musical with energetic performances. Feels like they had a bit of a hard time pulling in the crowds and I think they deserved a bigger audience.
Atomic, a new musical, NIDA, December. Hmm. Odd subject matter, Leo Szilard, one of physicists whose work contributed to the atomic bomb. In fact, lots of good subject matter, but the play tried to cram in so much, it really lost its punch, in spite of some pretty good music, a great little orchestra and wonderful, energetic performances (the cast in general had amazing voices). Cut about a third of the play, do some rearranging and I think this musical has legs.

BOOKS

Somehow I stopped keeping a list last year… and am now looking through my shelves to see what I read. A mostly complete but possibly incomplete list then…

2013

Jonathan Franzen’s Strong Motion (Fiction) – See review on this website
Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies (Non-Fiction)
Berndt Sellheim’s Beyond the Frame’s Edge (Fiction) – See review on this website
Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam (Fiction)
George Saunders’s Tenth of December (Short Fiction)
Shawn Colvin’s Diamond in the Rough (Autobiography)
Tabish Khair’s The Thing About Thugs (Fiction) – See review on this website
Eduardo Galeano’s Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone (Creative Non-Fiction) – See review on this website
Chandler Burr’s You or Someone Like You (Fiction) – See review on this website
Jennifer Egan’s Emerald City (Fiction)
Benjamin Law’s Gaysia (Non-fiction)
Bill Bryson’s Down Under (Non-fiction/travel)
Kevin Brockmeier’s The Brief History of the Dead (fiction)
Contemporary Asian Australian Poets, eds. Aitken, Boey & Cahill (poetry)
Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? (Autobiography/Comic)
Matthew Inman’s How to Tell If Your Cat if Plotting to Kill You (Humour by the Oatmeal)
Karen Russell’s Swamplandia! (Fiction)

Posted in Book, Book Review, Concert, Film, Music, Review, Theatre/Concert Review, Theatre/Show | Leave a comment

Restaurant Review: Geranium, Copenhagen (Pt 2)

Posted on 9 January 2014 by andyq

Ready for the second half of your Saturday lunch. Let’s dig in, shall we?

“Dillstone”, Horseradish & Granita from Pickled Cucumber

This was meant to be a surprise until you tasted it (fish as I recall). For some reason, I loved this one most of all, the presentation, the surprise, the texture and the flavour.

As you can see below, sometimes, the presentation wasn’t particularly complicated. This gave the meal a nice rhythm and variation, and the flavours sang out in the quietest of dishes.

Milky Cheese and Fermented Carrot

On the other hand, the Razor Clams, which really did look like Razor Clams, but had an edible shell, were spectacular for how complicated they were… Great taste, witty imitation, obviously a feat of engineering to create!

“Razor Clams”

This was pretty fun. Moss is tastier than you’d think!

“Vesterhavet” Sea Buckthorn, Heather & Moss

As with everywhere else we went to in ScandiwegiaFinlandia, one of the courses was amazing homemade bread with homemade butter. Amusing since folks are so anti-gluten, anti-carbohydrate and anti-starch these days. These were JUST amazing (and warm and toasty).

Bread with Emmer & Spelt

Onions, Chamomile & Melted Hay Cheese

Lightly smoked mussels, Radish Flowers and Algies

I like how they would talk about a vegetable, but it might turn out to just be a foam, or a sauce or a condiment or some sort of essence of that vegetable. I think here the fermented cabbage was the sauce. I did notice that when they served fish, there was not much flavour, nor was it smothered in butter or a strong-flavoured sauce. It was always quite subtle, paired with an interesting vegetable that actually became the star of the dish.

Pike Perch and Fermented Cabbage

Also, at a time when we’re being encouraged to eat less meat, less red meat, and when we do eat it, to eat high quality meat, it was a pleasure that there would only be one or two red meat courses. It made the meat perhaps more tasty in contrast!

Venison, Smoked Lard & Beetroot

Any region that considers lard a food group is OK with me. Now, here was a great surprise. Part of the Geranium experience is that EVERY table gets ushered into the kitchen for a dessert course. There’s a special table at the back.

Observing the mastery

Everyone was quiet and concentrating and moving with silence and grace. It was very fun to watch.

Kitchen Man

Meanwhile, we had the most amazing dessert with the intriguing description of Woodsorrel & Woodruff, which I think sounds like a new indy band.

Woodsorrel & Woodruff

It really was cool to be in the kitchen.

Amused in the kitchen

Then we had another dessert…

“Fallen Apples”, Elder & Dried Leaves

And finally (hang in there, we’re on the home stretch), prunes in the shape of a tree, a little disk of cold beer and cream…

Prunes, Dark Beer & Cream with Beech Wood

A final perfect morsel to finish the evening: a Green Egg of chocolate…

Green Egg

We didn’t eat the pinecones, were given the fantastic menus as we left as well as a little box with homemade candy (black currant & liquorice) and just before I left, the waitress arranged for me to get this photo:

Andy & Rasmus

I felt a bit starstruck after the amazing meal we’d had. Geranium

I know the internet is awash in photos of food, and that some people find it all a little much but I’ve loved sharing this experience with y’all, and having photos to remember this meal.

Lunch was a great option. Good lighting for photos. And we had a leisurely cycle back to the city instead of falling into a food coma.

I hope you get to experience this restaurant for yourself, offline, sometime in your lifetime.

Don’t miss part 1 of this post if your search engine happened to land you here first…

Posted in Food n' Grog, Travel | Tagged Copenhagen, Fine Dining | 2 Comments

Restaurant Review: Geranium, Copenhagen (Pt 1)

Posted on 9 January 2014 by andyq

Come dine with us at Geranium in Copenhagen. You’ve saved the best for last (well, the last of the Nordic restaurants that we dined at in September and October of 2013). Your lunch companions for today. S. at the start of the meal, looking refreshed… and me, partway through the meal, looking sloshed already.

S. at the start of lunch

While we settle into this gorgeous, light restaurant with a view, oddly located a little outside the centre of the city near a sports stadium, let me tell you a story. One of the reasons for doing our Nordic tour, or so we joked, was to get into Noma, the world’s number one restaurant. I did my research beforehand, and I even tried a trial run of getting a reservation (you have to book, online, at a particular time each month) the month before we were to be there. I clicked with two different laptops… for about 20 or 30 minutes, before I finally got on a waitlist. Same thing a month later when I tried making the reservation for when we WOULD be in Copenhagen. We resigned ourselves to probably not getting in. My friend Sofia said, “You don’t want to eat there anywhere. People got sick.” (Referring to a well-reported food poisoning incident). Geranium was the restaurant she referred us to and I happily booked for a Saturday lunch.

Sloshed already?

A week before due to arrive in Copenhagen, we were in the swimming hall in Helsinki. My phone rings. I search around to find it, first thinking it was S.’s and then seeing a number from Copenhagen come up. Why would my friends call me so early, I thought. They know I don’t arrive until next week. In that two seconds of decision-making, the phone stopped ringing. When we left the swimming pool, it dawned on me that it might be Noma. But what to do? Their reservation office is only open for a few hours each day. And in the meantime, could we really afford to have two very expensive meals two days in a row? Of course, the answer is: YES. But it was too late. I wouldn’t be able to call them back until we actually arrived in Copenhagen, what with our travel schedule. When I arrived, I called right away, on the train from the airport to the centre. Had they called? Yes. To offer us a Friday night dinner reservation? Yes. Was it available now? No.

I leave it to your imagination to think of my reaction.

In any case (and so I tell myself), I think our experience at Geranium would have been much less special the next day, and we were both a bit squeamish at the idea of the current dessert, live ants on blueberries. Here’s our menu for today:

The Menu

Seriously. It was that long. We actually didn’t get presented with the written menu until the end of the meal, which was lovely as the very skilled and expert staff explained it all to us with each course. You could choose between having it served with wine or juice (or neither). We opted for one of each.

Matching wines

…this was great since we got to try each other’s pairings…

The Juice!

So, let me put it out there. I do feel both disloyal and flighty that I’ve said a number of times in my life that I’d just had ‘the best meal of my life’ but hey, times change, and at least I’m on an upwards trajectory. I rated this the best meal and dining experience I’ve ever had for the incredible food, the showmanship, the perfect service, the extra touches and the warmth and hospitality. It was stunning. I don’t need to really describe the food that much, I think I’ll just put the labels as everything tasted as good as it looked and was truly amazing.

Crispy Grains from Kornly

I will say that often, the edible part was only a portion of the dish, i.e. here, the vegetation at the bottom of the dish was not for eating (above), nor the decorative salts and ashes below the glass (below).

Carrot & Seabuckthorn

This would have been one of my favourites for presentation though. The thinnest slices of pears with the herb verbena nestled inside.

Pear and Lemon Verbena

A non-food interlude.

Even the table settings were beautiful

The plates, the décor, everything was beautiful – I’d assume the majority of it all Danish design! The next course was a lovely little puzzle. The Jerusalem Artichoke as a dipping sauce for the Walnut sticks, which looked like the twigs they were resting on, but were not the twigs. I suppose some people might find food like this a bit tricky, but I was enchanted…

Geranium by the way is also in the World’s Best Restaurant list, just a little further down the list from Noma, and its chef, Rasmus Kofoed, has won numerous prestigous chef-type awards.

Jerusalem Artichoke & Walnut

We also felt a lovely connection with our main waitress who had just returned from living in Australia! She, and all the staff, were amazing. It’s a real feeling of being taken care of when multiple folks are taking care of you, and really, this was to a level of style and professionalism that I don’t think I’ve experienced before.

Ah, this course was adorable. It was as if the dried flowers and dried apple had been wrapped in a clear tea bag that melted in your mouth.

Dried Flowers & Dried Apple

The soup was packed with flavour in just a small serving.

Cep Soup & Pickled Egg Yolk

The oysterleaf is a plant that tastes a little like an oyster! Bleak is a sad name for a fish.

Oyster Leaves with Bleak Roe & Parsley wittily served on a bed of oyster shells

I don’t know how the potatoes got so black…

"Charred Potatoe" & Sheep Milk Butter

“Charred Potatoe” & Sheep Milk Butter

This was a crispy piece of salmon skin… As I recall, it came with a bit of theatre: the smoke was swirling around inside the bowl until the lid is lifted off in front of you.

“Smoked Salmon” with Mustard from Bornholm

Celeriac Chips with Seaweed

I think we’ll finish this section with a light, refreshing soup… (the ham flavour is resting in the jelly on top of the ‘tomato water).

Jellied Ham & Tomato Water

I split this blog post into two because it was getting so long, but it’s amazing how many people don’t click onto the next post. Go on and click: you won’t regret it. The next courses are just as amazing as the first.

Posted in Food n' Grog, Travel | Tagged Copenhagen, Fine Dining, food, wine | Leave a comment

Restaurant Review: A21 Dining, Helsinki

Posted on 4 January 2014 by andyq

Come dine with us at Helsinki’s A21 Dining! A21 Postcard

A21 is the sister restaurant of one of Helsinki’s hottest bars, apparently, and is described as ‘A story told through flavours’. We were in Helsinki on our first night, headed to find some traditional Finnish food (seriously, Lappish food: reindeer and the like) and we walked by this restaurant. We stopped to look at the menu, and were too intrigued to not go in. Plus we’d just arrived in Helsinki, it was pretty cold and this seemed like an easy option.

What luck for us! A21 was truly original dining, wonderful food with cocktail pairings, and we had the most amazing experience, as we had the manager/owner/barman all to ourselves. Yup, we were the only ones in the restaurant (it was a weekday). There are two sections of the restaurant, tables with funky fireplaces in the middle for cocktail consumption… Cosy by the fire

And a lovely area in white. We decided just to hang out around the fire for the whole meal though. How much more cozy could that be on a cold Nordic night?

The idea of a menu paired with cocktails sounds dangerous, both in terms of the amount of alcohol consumed (and I was feeling tipsy two-thirds of the way through) but also whether the typical sweetness of a cocktail could be matched with a variety of foods. The White Section

The problem is solved here with a light touch and a bent towards the savoury. A sauvignon blanc laced with saffron and a hint of white vermouth had no hint of sugar. The use of dark Chinese tea as a flavour touch for two of the drinks was also an example of giving depth and earthiness to the libations. There was a carefully constructed bridge of flavours between the drinks and food – and on consideration, I realized that mixing an expert cocktail takes more effort, which I appreciated, than pouring a glass of wine, no matter how exquisite that wine is.

Cosy Part 2 But first off, let’s talk about the concept, for I’ve not been in any other restaurant like it. A21 creates different menus according to the season and creates a menu. Literally. Not just a particular combination of courses but the most beautifully designed menu I’ve ever seen with glossy photos describing each course. Check out a preview of their current menu on their website.

As you can read, each course is focused not just on the food, but the feeling. Listen to this course described from their winter menu:

LOIMU

A moment in the Laplander’s hut

A gathering by the fire is a moment for the magical stories of the North

Onion soup and oxtail

In a glass Sencha tea & sherry

Literary and imaginative, I can imagine confusion from less creative types, but we were charmed. The course of a dinner described as a walk in the woods? A trip to the ocean? The leaves in an autumn forest? Niko, afore-mentioned host/waiter/everyperson, even explained one course as getting lost momentarily, before finding one’s way again. Given the choice between 5 courses and 7, we opted for 7. We’re piggy like that. (79 euros if you must know, with the cocktail pairing an additional 72).

of course. If you’re willing to go along on this journey, it’s magical. I wish I’d taken photos of the menu – though as you can see, our photo quality for the food is terrible (except the one above, much better photos on their facebook page). Something about lack of expertise in food photography and this particular lighting. And my blogging and reviewing skills are pretty remiss this time around. I didn’t manage to take many notes at all of the food we had.

But I did manage to ask about the beautiful plates… from Figgjo, an established Norwegian company… And you can see how artfully they combine the food with the dinnerware. Check out the way the beautiful salmon terrine is laid out on this long curvy rectangle.

Another course The emphasis on seasonality was matched with skillful matchings of flavour and texture. As we were discovering about Nordic cuisine, the food was neither light nor heavy, with the use of milk products in a way that’s not as common in the Asian-influenced fine dining in Australia.

Niko gave us expert explanations, wore black gloves for concocting his amazing potions, and was efficient and inobstrusive, that is until we asked him questions to make him hang around for a while and tell us about the restaurant and modern Finnish cuisine. Bread

As with all of the other Nordic restaurants we went to, there was amazing homemade bread (rye) and homemade butter…

I did manage to write down a description of one course, which you can read is quite complicated though it didn’t taste complicated. A mussel with carrot marmalade, cream of mussel, fennel cream, dill, leek, perch and lemon. Wow. Mussel etc. I think this is the one served with the cocktail of sauvignon blanc, saffron and tarragon. This meat dish was pretty awesome too… Meat I think there were pickled onions and garlic and… Sorry, I’m not doing this justice at all.

An unexpected bonus was learning about A21 and their challenges. From what we understood, there was a change in legislation and policies, and Finnish companies had to stop allowing their employees to write off meals. While A21 mainly had business customers before, they are now trying to increase the 20% of their business that were private customers up to 100%.

Niko lamented however that Finnish people would rather eat at a Mexican or a Chinese restaurant, and it’s what they are used to in terms of going out. They’re not willing yet to support the idea of Finnish cuisine.

He and his colleagues are trying to change that attitude, just as they’ve changed drinking mores with the A21 cocktail lounge. Rather than the Finnish attitude of drinking as much as you can one night of the week to get drunk, the cocktail bar has the mission to change the way Finns drink, to enjoy a drink in moderation but on more than one night of the week! This also applies to eating out: not just on birthdays or special occasions.

It might be a little bit of a hard sell though, because this was a very special meal! Case in point, two desserts… One of them was their version of apple pie with cardamon and milk chocolate foam and dried apple served with cognac with bergamot and cinnamon foam.

What more could one ask for in an international dining experience? Complex, interesting, engaging and tasty food; a new concept and cuisine; nicely tipsy from delicious not-too-sweet-cocktails and a little insight into Finnish dining and eating.

dessert

Between our meal here and at Chef & Sommelier, we think Helsinki is destination dining. It may not be known yet for it, but savvy gourmands really should fly in for the food (as Spoon well as the cool design, buildings and people). Thanks Niko (and the shy chef) for a memorable evening. We wish you great success.

A21 Dining

Kalevankatu 17

00100 Helsinki

+358 40 17 111 17

Dining@a21.fi

www.a21.fi

Posted in Food n' Grog, Review, Travel | Tagged Fine Dining, Helsinki | 2 Comments

Movie Review: 20 Feet From Stardom

Posted on 4 January 2014 by andyq

I was really lucky to catch a new documentary on a flight from Perth to Sydney last week: 20 Feet From Stardom directed by Morgan Neville. It tells the stories of backup singers.

One of the things I loved the most about the film was placing a concept I thought I knew (backup singers) into a clear and specific cultural and historical context. Backup singers as we know them came out a period of rock and pop singers (and producers) wanting to inject African-American music into their own music – amazing voices, the ability to improvise and harmonise and a soulfulness coming out of gospel traditions. In fact, all up it doesn’t seem like there’s not a lot of them around: there’s a limit to the number of singers and bands that hire them and it seems that in this modern age of auto-tuning and the different sounds of today’s bands that gigs for back-up singers are even less.

This movie takes a close look at the lives and careers of a number of different and engaging back-up singers, from Darlene Love who struggled and was uncredited for decades before finally being recognised in recent years to the gorgeous Judith Hill, a young woman trying to make the transition from back-up singer to solo artist. Two other main storylines belong to the funky Tata Vega, who never managed to get the solo success she wanted, and Lisa Fischer, respected by her peers as having a voice with absolute star quality but who was never truly interested in solo success and is happy to help other people make beautiful music.

It really does go into interesting questions of life: the capriciousness of fame and fortune, luck – good and bad (which at times was not luck at all but institutional racism and prejudice that robbed black women of social power), the meaning of success and the spotlight, and the idea of a ‘calling’. Because Lisa Fischer was so engaging and seems happy with her life and choices, I thought the film was going to lean towards that narrative, of a backup singer satisfied to not be in the spotlight, but other less happy narratives came into play after that.

Throughout the film, there are fun interviews with famous singers (Mick Jagger, Stevie Wonder, Sting, Bruce Springsteen), some smart and informative cultural analysis – and lots of singing… really beautiful singing.

(As an aside, the Virgin flight entertainment guide managed to use as a still for the movie a photo of a white back-up singer who is barely in the film. Fail.)

Posted in Film, Music, Review | Leave a comment

First Class

Posted on 23 December 2013 by andyq

With the advice of friends (thanks Randall), the determination of a born bargain-hunter (thanks Mom and Dad) and long experience of travel (that, I came into on my own), I discovered the crazy deal of a particular US airline that allows you to buy frequent flyer points and then trade them in on Star Alliance.

Not hard to google, but since we were all cursing the woman who wrote a story about it in one of Australia’s dailies (feeling that if everyone knows, maybe they’ll stop the deal).

This allowed us to buy first class return ticket to Europe for a little more than AUD 3000. As business class tickets are usually AUD 5000 or so, and I’ve heard first class tickets range from 10K to 15K (What?! Who can afford that?), we figured this was a deal.

In fact, as we organised this far in advance in order to get the dates we wanted, part of its pleasure, at least for me, was telling friends for nearly six months that I’d secured first class return tickets to Europe for AUD 3000!

Because of the routes chosen, Thai Airways was the one airline we flew on (co-shared with SAS for a handful of short flights). We were curious to try other airlines, having heard great things about Emirates, and even Turkish Airlines, but to fly ALL the way between Sydney and Stockholm first class we needed to choose Thai (well, nearly all the way, the Zurich-Stockholm leg on the way over, and the Stockholm-London leg on the way back were business class – note, business class seats on these short flights don’t seem much different than the economy seats except you get free coffee).

What would the First Class Experience be like? I really had no idea. Which was perhaps some of the fun. Now, having flown four different major legs in First Class has allowed me a few reflections.

Sydney-Bangkok: Our first leg introduced us to the ridiculously big seats in first class. The plane (an older 747-400) only had ONE pair of seats together, and we hadn’t managed to nab them so we sat one in front of the other. The first class experience started with Dom Perignon 2003. Delicious. The space really is striking. This huge chair that reclines and moves about in a dozen directions (I spent a lot of time playing with the controls); the footrest way in front of the seat where I could put all my stuff and spread out; I also spread out along the side on the ample side bench. The meal experience started right away. Truth be told, I found it a bit disappointing in terms of flavours, but they pull out the stops in terms of service and courses.

Caviar and… stuff.

Each main meal includes a course of caviar with side stuff (Egg whites. Cucumber. Egg Yolks. A creamy sauce) and some other fancy starter, liver pate on one leg, lobster on another, smoked salmon on the last. Tons of bread. Seriously, who can eat a whole bread basket on ones own? A main course. A dessert. Fruit and cheese. Alcohol offered with each course (the descriptions of the French wine sounded great, but for some reason none of them struck me as particularly special). Breakfast had a similar number of courses. The service was attentive, but surprisingly, a bit awkward. One of the attendants looked terrified and was confused whenever we declined something.

The most amazing thing, I found on this leg, was the bed. The seat completely reclines into a flat bed. They make it up for you with a padded bottom sheet, and a comfortable doona. In my First Class pyjamas, I then fell asleep for a solid six hours. I found it interesting to wonder about each of the other passengers and how they managed to get into First Class.

Bangkok-Zurich: We had about 90 minutes I think before this next leg of the journey, and what’s amazing about the First Class experience with Thai is the attention BETWEEN the flights. We were escorted off the plane, got on a special trolley and were driven all the way to the First Class lounge (where we were offered more drinks and food). They booked us in for a complimentary Thai massage (no Thai money, we had to tip them in Australian dollars!). I was so relaxed after my 20 minute shoulder massage that I tripped on a step and… did a full side-plant on the floor, not even a partial recovery, completely sprawled on the floor. Ahem. A brief relaxation in the lounge and we did the reverse trip, accompanied all the way to our gate and ushered through control and onto the plane. It’s rock star service. Accordingly, some people look on with amusement, and the occasional person looks over with absolute contempt and jealousy.

During this leg, we were able to sit side by side, which was nice in this Airbus A340. The in-flight entertainment selection is pretty good these days, with big headphones and a decent screen. These days, I prefer to read and write on my laptop anyways. It’s during this leg that I question: how much can you eat, really? Since we’d had two large meals on the previous flight, you really need extra stomachs to try to digest another two big meals, which, being similar to the last two are not quite as exciting. Still, there are delights. The complimentary travel bag is a cool mini version of a suitcase by the company, Rimowa, and is filled with good stuff: Occitane body lotion, mouthwash, Neutrogena lip balm (how does one ever use up this much lip balm?). I declined to take the travel bag on the previous leg, thinking it would be same, and it’s not. Mental note, hoping that I can get it on the return flight (I do, it’s a slick black Tumi case).

On this flight, the service is top-notch, no awkwardness. In fact, by the end of the travel, retrospection shows it was only awkward on the first leg: which meant the constant improvement was a pleasure. The time flies by, and in Zurich airport we get the same rock star treatment to go the lounge. It really does make the travel fly by easily.

So, this shows the awesome TV screens and nice wooden screens, doesn’t really capture the seats. S. and I were able to lower the barrier between our two seats, which was nice.

Zurich-Bangkok: Ah, we finally got a newer plane. The first class seats on this new 747-400 were really amazing. More built up and felt more closed in with a screen between us that we were able to lower. A nifty narrow pull-out hanger for clothes next to the footrest. Most of all, crazy excellent screens for the entertainment, not pulled out and extracted from the side but built into the wall above the footrest. A good size. Again, I had an excellent sleep.

Bangkok-Sydney: With a two night stopover in Bangkok, the most fun of this part was checking in. First class flyers have their own separate area in the Suvarnabhumi airport, and there are NO check-in desks. The attendants simply take away your passport, and go away and come back with the boarding pass, while you get a cold towel to refresh yourself. Whisked through customs, you then get to travel on the special car where you are driven all the way through the business class lounge and finally delivered to the first class lounge, where they come and present you with an iPad with a breakfast menu (if it’s time for breakfast). Ridiculous luxury and perfect service. If we’d had more time, we would have gotten another massage. The flight itself was the same as the first leg, in reverse, back to the older 747-400 but better service that made me realise that it was only the first leg that was a bit off.

The first class check-in at Bangkok airport

So, my conclusions from my first experience of first class travel: I imagine it depends on the airlines. The airplanes with Thai Airways are a little old, but comfortable and the service is generally excellent. The food had the trappings of luxury – caviar, multiple courses, wine on tap, tablecloths – but I had higher expectations for the taste. The wine was OK but the Dom Perignon 2003 was fantastic. Also, a flight all the way from Australia to Europe means that by the second leg, you really can’t fit in any more significant amounts of food and drink.I didn’t take as much advantage of the in-flight entertainment, preferring to sleep and read, but the selections seemed good. I loved the free pyjamas and now have two different varieties (although one is x-large, all they had). I loved the toiletries bags. Perhaps I am easy to please. However, all in all, it seemed great value… and we’ll do it again if that particular airline keeps offering the same frequent flyer points plan!

Posted in Travel | Leave a comment

Concerts I’ve been too: pre-2010 archive

Posted on 18 December 2013 by andyq

I made a list, mostly for myself of concerts that I’ve been to. The full list was getting unwieldy so let me put the pre-2010 ones in this post as an archive. Concerts that I found memorable enough to record were:

Australia

Eros Ramazotti
Sufjan Stevens
Dixie Chicks
Pink Martini
James Keelaghan
Kylie Minogue (Fever Tour – Aug 2002)
Scissor Sisters
Polyphonic Spree (I think this was my favourite show ever)
Iron and Wine
Aengus Finnan
The Idan Raichel Project
Josh Groban
Robynne Dunn
kd lang (twice)
Rufus Wainwright/Beth Orton (tribute to Leonard Cohen concert)

Europe (+ more)

James Taylor (London)
Nanci Griffith (London)
Ani Difranco (London)
Orchestra de la Luz (Expo 92)
Celia Cruz (Expo 92)
Sarah McLachlan (Expo 92)
Lucie-Blue Tremblay (Expo 92)
Celine Dion (Expo 92)
Ryuichi Sakamoto (London)
Shawn Colvin (London)
Zizi Possi (Rio)

Canada

Men at Work (Vancouver – my first concert ever, I was teased at school because of it, but hey, I loved them)
General Public (Vancouver)
Suzanne Vega (Vancouver)
Bob Dylan (Vancouver)
John Gorka (Peterborough)
James Keelaghan (Peterborough)
Ani Difranco (Peterborough, at least twice, and Toronto, once)
Spirit of the West (Peterborough)
Holly Cole (Ptbo)
Molly Johnson (Ptbo)
Stephen Fearing (Ptbo)
Angelique Kidjo (Vancouver)
kd lang (expo 86)
Michel Lemieux (expo 86)
David Bowie (Vancouver, Let’s Dance tour)
Shonen Knife (Toronto)
Bruce Cockburn
Jane Siberry (Vancouver)
The Flirtations (Vancouver)
Lynn Miles (Vancouver)
Leah Delaria (Toronto)

Posted in Concert | Leave a comment

Movie review: Frances Ha

Posted on 16 December 2013 by andyq

Sometimes if I’m editing a piece of writing, my own or someone else’s, I’ll try to drill down to the main idea of it and discover it’s not there, and it slowly unravels. I’m not sure if this analogy works entirely but often when I watch a film on a plane, even with not a bad-sized screen, it seems like without the fullness of the soundtrack and the intended clarity and quality of the imagery, the film sort of falls apart.

Ha.

Is this what happened for me watching ‘Frances Ha’? I’d heard SUCH good things. In fact, it has top reviews and the lead actress has just been nominated for a Golden Globe. I love New York City. I love coming-of-age stories. The film perhaps perfectly conveys the character and ideas that the makers wanted it to.

But that was the problem for me. You can see that Frances is supposed to be a loveable loser and to feel sympathetic to her faults. She’s unfocused and hangs out with and meets people who are wealthier and more successful than her. There’s a ‘Death of a Salesman’ sort of delusionary quality about her, particularly in her decision to fly off to Paris for a weekend to… what? Prove she is of the same social class? Follow through on the lie?

Frances and her friends, chatty, ironic, self-absorbed individuals speaking in stilted language, annoyed me. The main character is desperate, clingy and dishonest. She doesn’t seem, in all of these vignettes, to really feel much, to know herself. Her weird, sad ennui seeped out of the screen and made me feel it too. I disliked her best friend too, so not much interest for me whether their friendship would survive the film.

In the end, she gets to choreograph her own work… and gets her own apartment. How does an underemployed 27 year old afford her own apartment in New York City? This film made me feel like a cranky old man. And you know, I am!

Posted in Film, Review | Leave a comment

Archives: Shows I’ve Seen, pre-1999

Posted on 15 December 2013 by andyq

I keep a record (too many records) of shows and books and other stuff. Mostly for myself, but I don’t mind having it in a public space. My list of show’s I’ve seen is so long as to be unwieldy and uninteresting, so I think I’ll divide them up into a more manageable form. These were shows I saw before arriving in Australia in 1999 that somehow stayed with me and I wanted to keep them on this list:

Europe – I lived in Europe from 1994 to 1998, first in Brussels and then in London. London was when I really started to see shows!

After a time in London, I was encouraged as a gay man to get to know Sondheim. At the Edinburgh Festival, I saw an amazing version of “Into the Woods”, a mediocre “Company” and a god-awful “Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”.
And then in the following two years saw at least 3 productions of “Side by Side by Sondheim”, 2 of “Merrily We Roll Along” (both great), and “Assassins”. Also, a concert version of “Sweeney Todd” and the amazing “Sondheim Tonight” tribute show at the Barbican Centre, London from September 1999
Tony Kushner’s Slav’s (Edinburgh)
Rent (London production)
Fame
Miss Saigon
The Iceman Cometh (with Kevin Spacey)
Naked (with Juliette Binoche)
Pippin
Godspell (a children’s version – didn’t know until we got there…)
Richard II with Ralph Fiennes at the Gainsborough Film Studios, London, 1998

Canada/U.S.A.

My brother’s high school put on “My Fair Lady”, “Godspell”, “the Wiz” and “South Pacific” (in which he played the Chinese manservant)
And then when I got to high school, there was “Oklahoma” and “Godspell”.
I also remember a high school production in Hawaii of “West Side Story”
And a touring version of Annie
Chorus Line (Touring Cast) – probably my first really memorable professional production. I basically think that this, combined with the shows listed above it, made me gay. Or at least a show queen.
The Good Woman of Szechuan (Peterborough)
Marat/Sade (I was in it!) (Peterborough)
Happy Days (Peterborough)
The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Peterborough)
Cabaret (Touring Cast)
Rent (Vancouver, Touring Cast)
Angels in America, parts 1 and 2, new york, summer of 1994 (In Jan 2011, I found the ticket stubs I’d saved. My tickets in the balcony cost $25 each…)
Thoroughly Modern Millie, Broadway
Avenue Q, Broadway
Forbidden Broadway – 20th anniversary celebration – Sept 2003, New York
Gypsy (with Bernadette Peters), Broadway. Sept 2003 (Sigh, I passed up Into the Woods with Vanessa Williams and saw this instead.)

Posted in Theatre/Concert Review, Theatre/Show, Travel | Leave a comment

Book Review: Chandler Burr’s “You or Someone Like You”

Posted on 15 December 2013 by andyq

You or Someone Like You by Chandler Burr
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I do like the process of reviewing, as it helps me organise thoughts, pay more attention, and try to delve into material in an intelligent way. Yet sometimes I worry these days that when I read a book, and am thinking about how I’d review it, and how I’d talk about it, that I lose the pure pleasure of reading.

This is relevant for Chandler Burr’s novel ‘Someone, or someone like you’ because one of the main themes of the book is how literature relates to our lives, and also because, I realise, one of the reasons I feel an impetus to review this book is not what I like about it, but what I’m not crazy about.

In fact, halfway through the book, I was thinking about giving up, but the notes I started for a review were beckoning me to be turned into a final piece of writing.

The description of the novel falls into a few familiar genres. A half-English, half-American New Yorker who ends up in Hollywood gave me the ‘fish out of water’ feel of Sara Gruen’s disappointing second novel, Ape House, with a female heroine arriving in the glitzy world of entertainment. But the heroine running a book club felt similar to the books I haven’t read but seem popular, the ‘book club’ genre where reading books together changes people’s lives.

But the novel isn’t either of these really. In terms of literature, what is on display with a sense of a prodigious understanding of modern English literature, and yes, the power of it. I myself did some literature courses in university, but the world of books is vast. Having focused on Canadian and Commonwealth novels, I missed a lot of the classics that people talk about. The classics here are referred to in numbers but somewhat fleetingly. I catch glimpses of great analysis and intelligence in terms of understanding their importance, but it never really sinks in for me, as it’s not the major part of the plot, I can’t springboard into any real grasp of importance or meaning.

Meanwhile, I found it hard to engage with the characters. The narrator seems pleasant enough, and intelligent, with a powerful, witty husband who is both an insider in the world of Hollywood, but an observer also. The son appears in the narrative, smart and sensitive, and well-loved. The narrator’s book clubs grow and grow in popularity. But nearly halfway through the book, little seems to have happened.

Most discomfiting for me is the social milieu. These people are rich, and hang out in the world of the rich and famous. Occasional observations on the mechanisms of the movie industry are somewhat critical but not unexpectedly so. These people have maids and personal assistants, go to lavish galas, and have expensive houses. Her maid prepares food for the book club, or people take turns bringing really expensive desserts. The narrator comes across as benevolent, but patronisingly so. She extols the virtue of black Americans being able to speak well, as a route to social power (this idea comes up twice). She saves the day after a car accident, cradling and caring for a Latino gardener, reciting poetry as he’s being driven to emergency. Later, he asks for a job and she gives it to him. She sends her cook for an expensive two-week cooking course, which improves her cooking for them.

Yipes. Was anyone else uncomfortable with this? While she herself suffers prejudice from her husband Howard’s Jewish family, the relations between rich white lady and poor, sometimes ethnic servants and personal assistants felt old-fashioned and weird.

The book then turns to what ends up as being the main theme of the book, the husband’s embrace of Orthodox Judaism and his rejection of his wife and son because of it. Most reviews and discussions seem to relate to this, and in fact, it seems to be the drawing card of the book, readers who are interested in this. For me, I somehow just couldn’t grab ahold of the storyline. I wasn’t engaged enough or like the husband enough to really care. The narrator’s reaction is then to really start to use literature to express herself and while this was exactly (as I said above) what I was looking for, not references of great books, but why the books have meaning… sadly, by this time, I’d lost interest in her and the book as well.

Not for me, then, this book, even though I loved Burr’s non-fiction book ‘The Emperor of the Senses’.

View all my reviews

Posted in Book | Leave a comment

Enter the Quaniverse

2013 in lists (art, books, entertainment, shows)

Somehow I stopped keeping a list last year… and am now looking through my shelves to see what I read. A mostly complete but possibly incomplete list then…

2013

Restaurant Review: Geranium, Copenhagen (Pt 2)

Restaurant Review: Geranium, Copenhagen (Pt 1)

Restaurant Review: A21 Dining, Helsinki

Movie Review: 20 Feet From Stardom

First Class

Concerts I’ve been too: pre-2010 archive

Movie review: Frances Ha

Archives: Shows I’ve Seen, pre-1999

Book Review: Chandler Burr’s “You or Someone Like You”

Reiki Surry Hills

Boldface

Pages

Recent Posts

Archives

Somehow I stopped keeping a list last year… and am now looking through my shelves to see what I read. A mostly complete but possibly incomplete list then…

2013

Reiki Surry Hills

Boldface

Pages

Recent Posts

Categories

Archives