More Odds and Ends

Went to the post office again to mail some more letters and post cards for sendsomething and postcrossing. I found out from Richard, the postal clerk, that post cards cost $1.05 to all countries outside the USA except Mexico and Canada. They are only 85 cents. So I sent one post card to Belarus and the rest within the USA. I have received one post card from a sendsomething member. Here are some that I sent.

Letter front

Letter back

Three hand made post cards:

Last Saturday, my wife, Chris, and I went to see The Artist. What a brilliant piece of film work. Chris liked it, but not as much as I did. The music score is lovely, mostly original, but there is a large section of music from Vertigo by Bernard Herrmann. I have not figured out the connection, assuming there is one, since everything else in the film seems to be tightly constructed with few superfluous throw aways. Maybe I will discover the connection as I think about it a while longer.

On Presidents Day, we attended the Hale Center Theatre's U.S. premier of Zorro, the Musical. We enjoyed it, but I felt like it was a bit too long and could use some cutting, or some tightening up at the very least. The music was all familiar to me since it is made up of the more popular songs from the Gypsy Kings, at least popular among those who like the Gypsy Kings. I have two of their CDs and am known to play them very loud from time to time when I am in that certain flamenco mood.

The Friday before, my daughter, Rebekah, Chris and I went to the Ballet West production of Don Quixote with music by Ludvig Minkus. That was a very enjoyable evening with lots of traditional ballet sets and magnificent solos and duets with the principal characters, and it wasn't very long. Only a couple of hours as compared to the Saturday previous when I attended the Metropolitan Opera's HD broadcast of Gotterdammerung: six hours of stupendous music and wonderful singing.

Ballet West is doing  Petite Mort (which is bad French but great dancing) in April. I wait with anxious anticipation for this production. I have seen the Jiri Kylian Nederlands Dance Theatre on YouTube at least 50 times.